AN: Hello there! This is actually my first fic up on this site, so I'm open to any advice/criticisms that anyone may have for me.
Disclaimer: The world of RWBY and it's characters are property of Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth™. The only things that I own are the characters that I make up.
For Ruby Rose, today was a good day.
Sure, a quarter of Vale was destroyed a week ago in a massive Grimm attack that she and her team almost died trying to contain. And Professor Ozpin was calling some big assembly about how more students from other schools were coming to Vale to help out with security before the Vytal Festival. And that Weiss was now trying to kick everyone's butts into high gear while going on and on about how they all had to "show school pride" and "how she wouldn't let her team embarrass her in front of him" whoever he was. And that because of Weiss's actions, Ruby no longer spent as much time eating cookies and tinkering with her precious scythe Crescent Rose, which really, really sucked. But Ruby wasn't going to let any of that get her down right now.
Why? Because right now, Ruby was skipping through the commercial district of Vale on her way to the airfield to catch a ride back to Beacon. In her arms was a brown paper bag filled to the brim with chocolate chip cookies from one of her top ten bakeries in the city, Granny's Bakery, and they were all for her.
The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the cookies were tasting delicious as she devoured them one by one. Yes, today truly was a good day.
Unfortunately, Ruby, blinded by her chocolate chip induced ecstasy, was unable to notice the taller individual who was also unaware of their current surroundings due to him walking with his eyes closed whilst listening to the music coming from his headphones. Alas, Ruby's happiness was never meant to last. The collision between the two was inevitable. By the time they realized what had happened, Ruby was sprawled on top of the young man with her bag of cookies lying in the street, crushed by one of the oncoming vehicles.
"Nooooo!" Ruby cried with one hand outstretched towards the miserable lump that was her bag of now-destroyed cookies. Today was officially not a good day; it was a bad day, a very bad day, today was the worst day ever!
Finally registering the young-man-who-she-was-currently-on-top-of's existence, Ruby realized the position she was in and quickly stood up, all the while glaring at him with eyes of rage that were second only to her sister Yang's whenever anyone damaged her hair.
This boy- no, this monster, was a being of pure evil. What kind of person do you have to be to just take that which is more sacred than all else in life and throw it in the street to be destroyed!? A cookie-hating baby eater, that's who, Ruby thought to herself as the young man in question stood up and dusted himself off.
He looked to be the same age as her friends. He was about a head taller than her with a dark olive complexion. He was wearing a black hooded vest with crimson accents around the zipper and pockets, leaving him sleeveless save for two black fingerless gloves. He wore black cargo pants whose ends were stuffed into his black boots that had more crimson accents, this time around the loopholes for the laces as well as the laces themselves. Black messy hair sat atop his head with a couple stray locks falling in front of his face. The one thing that caught Ruby's attention the most were his eyes. They were a vibrant shade of orange, almost golden if looked at in the right light, and they were staring right at her with a look of confusion.
"Uh, are you okay there?" he asked, confused as to why this younger girl was glaring at him as if he just kicked a puppy that was in his way. Ruby continued to stare at the boy in silent rage, still mentally condemning him for his crimes against humanity. "Riiiight," he said, drawing the syllable out as he looked around to see if there was any form of clue as to why this girl was giving him the death eye. It was when he saw the run over bag in the street that he had realized what he had done. "Oh man," he said in a whisper as he looked back to Ruby with face etched with regret, "I am so sorry, I really didn't see you there! It was an accident I swear! I mean, what kind of cookie-hating baby eater would I have to be to just knock a girl's bag of cookies into the street?"
Hearing him voice her thoughts, Ruby (reluctantly) allowed her anger to ebb away. Still, Yang always told her that 'when dealing with boys, you gotta be strong, go get what you want, don't wait for it!' and Ruby definitely wanted something. She wanted retribution for her lost babies. She had the moral high ground, even though she was also partially at fault for not paying attention to where she was going; he felt guilty, she could take advantage! At least, she thought she could until he spoke again.
"Hey, I know!" he says with his expression brightening, "Why don't I make it up to you? Those cookies are from Granny's Bakery, right? I was just headed there now to pick up something for my sister. If you want, you could come with me and I'll see what I can do about getting you some replacements?" Ruby's eyes practically glowed with excitement. This guy was no monster, he was a saint! A saint sent by Oum to help guide cookies into the promised land of Ruby's stomach!
Grinning with glee, Ruby temporarily forgot how to use words to agree with his proposition, instead opting to nod her head so quickly, it became a blur of black and red hair. The boy, seeing that Ruby was no longer glaring at him, released an audible sigh of relief as he allowed his shoulders to slump to their neutral position. "Good. That's good." he breathed, "For a second there I thought you were gonna try and kill me." Chuckling to himself, the boy put out his hand for Ruby to shake, "My name's Irven, by the way. What's yours?"
"My name's Ruby," she said in her usual lighthearted tone, putting her hand in his and shaking it, "it's good to know that I won't have to kill you, Irven."
"So you're new to Vale?" Ruby asked Irven with a mouthful of cookie, her two new bags of fresh chocolate chip cookies in her arms as the duo made their way to through the streets of the commercial district.
Irven looked down at the younger girl as he replied. "Technically, no. I've been to Vale before, but that was a long time ago, and I can't really remember it all that well. I was actually going to Granny's Bakery because I heard it was one of the best places in town and I thought I oughta get my little sister a treat. Sweet girl, if not a little overly curious. She's been here a lot recently with our father on business." The edges of his lips seemed to turn downward slightly at the mention of his father. Ruby, not being one to enjoy awkward silences, continued on with the conversation.
"So, are you here on a trip? Or are you here to stay? Because Oum knows that Beacon could use more sweet lovers, especially the kind that buy me an extra bag of cookies when they're feeling guilty."
"Oh, you're from Beacon?" Irven asked, letting himself move on to another topic. Ruby nodded, deciding to answer the two questions that she always knows comes after. "Don't you seem a little young, though? You're like what, fifteen?" Irven questioned as he turned toward her and leaned forward to get a better look at her. Ruby nodded again, feeling slightly annoyed by his joking tone, yet at the same time pleasantly surprised that he was able to guess her age on the first try. Irven stood up straight and crossed his arms over his chest when she answered him, a look of contentment etched across his features. "Well color me impressed, good for you, Ruby. You must be quite the prodigy to be at Beacon at so early an age."
Ruby scratched the back of her head and laughed weakly in embarrassment, "Well, you know, I was just in the right place at the right time I guess. I'm nothing special." She never was very good with compliments from people, she was shy. Sure she would get one from Jaune and Yang and the rest of her team every once in a while, but she was used to them, they were her friends. Irven was a total stranger- a stranger that bought her two baker's dozens of cookies, but still a stranger. Before she could say anything else though, Ruby's scroll got a message from Weiss: 'Ruby, where are you!? You're going to miss Professor Ozpin's assembly about the students from the other schools! I am not about to have you besmirch our team's reputation! If you don't get back here before the assembly, I'll give all of your "hidden" cookies to Nora!'
Subconsciously gripping her bags of cookies closer to her, Ruby, eyes filled with fear, dashed off to the airfield after saying goodbye to Irven. "I'll see you around," he called after her before lowering his voice, "Ruby Rose."
After filing into the amphitheater with the main crowd of students, Ruby scanned the room, taking note of the newly placed seats lined up in rows in front of the main stage. After seeing the trademark white, sideways ponytail that she had come to love/hate towards the front of the new rows, she quickly made her way over to where the rest of her team was sitting. Weiss, who admittedly had told Ruby earlier in the morning that they needed to be together for the assembly, was fuming by the time Ruby finally walked up to them. "Where were you!?" She ground out, barely able to keep herself from yelling at her young leader, "I told you to get here early so that we could all get good seats. You're lucky that I-" Blake cleared her throat to cut off Weiss.
"Aww, don't worry about it, Weiss! You said you wanted us here before the assembly started, and here we are, at the assembly, before it started." Yang interjected, smiling up at her little sister from her seat next to Blake. "Now come on," she said as she patted the empty spot between her and Weiss, "let's get this show on the road." Ruby smiled thankfully at her sister and took her seat as the lights in the amphitheater dimmed save for those directed at the stage, where Professor Ozpin stood with his trademark cane in one hand and his almost equally trademark cup of coffee in the other.
"Students of Vale, Atlas, Vacuo, and Mistral;" Ozpin began, "I stand before you all a week after a disaster has struck our city. One week ago today the city of Vale was invaded by an army of grimm after a major explosion opened up an underground cave for them to swarm through." He paused, looking around the room to see the range of emotions displayed by the various hunters in training. Anger, frustration, sadness, depression; all just small parts of the mural of emotions that he saw on their young faces. "I know, that all we feel as if there was more we could've done, more people we could've saved." He was right, at least, to the members of team RWBY. They all felt that way. They all felt that they had in some way failed their city, though they would never outwardly show it. "But the fact of the matter is, that we did what we could, when we could. We won and we repelled our would-be invaders. But that's not why I've called you all here today. I called you all here to inform you that the majority of students that did not arrive in the first wave of arrivals for the Vytal Festival are being brought in ahead of schedule to prevent this kind of disaster from happening again. We will all be working together from here on out to make sure that this year's festival will run without any further interruptions. While General Ironwood isn't here at the moment to help me transition our schools into this joint operation, I do have a representative here with me who can speak for him all the same."
With that, Ozpin stepped off the stage as four individuals wearing Atlesian Hunter Academy uniforms walked forth to take the stage. As they did so, parts of the crowd erupted into raucous cheering as people started to recognize the four onstage. One of the four walked out to stand in front of their team, causing the cheering to increase exponentially. Ruby, who had only been paying half attention to the Ozpin's speech, was startled when Weiss grabbed her arm, causing her to look at her partner who was watching the person at the front of the stage with the most wide-eyed, excited look she had ever seen come from the snow-headed heiress. Baffled that anything could ever cause Weiss to look like that, Ruby looked towards the stage.
And that was when she saw him.
The young man on stage raised a hand to quiet the crowd, silencing them almost instantly as he did so.
He looked different from before, it was a wonder Ruby even recognized him at all. His skin was still the same dark olive color and he still stood at around Jaune's height. But his hair was no longer a messy mop of black, instead it had been slicked back with gel to look more professional. He no longer had the warm, expressive look on his face that he did before, instead it had been replaced with a cold, serious scowl that showed he wasn't intending to mess around. He wasn't wearing the same clothes as he did before, obviously, as they were now switched out with the same white uniform that all the Atlesian students wore. Again, the thing that caught Ruby's attention the most were his eyes. His eyes were ever the same vibrant golden orange as they were before, yet now they burned with a deadly seriousness that Ruby herself reserved only for her enemies. He was so different, yet he was definetly the same person.
"Thank you all for your attention," he began, "judging by some of your more… overzealous reactions, you already know who I am. For those of you that don't, my name is Irven Ironwood, and I have been put in charge of helping my fellow first years of Atlas to adjust to this joint operation."
For Ruby Rose, today was full of surprises.
So this was a bit of a test run for me. Hopefully, the next chapter will be longer and we'll actually get to understand more of what's going on. Please, leave a review for me so I can get an idea of what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong. Again, criticism and advice are both equally welcome. Thank you!