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Chapter Three:
The Fighter

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Designation: [Remnant-6971]

Status: Temporal polarity unnaturally shifted in early developmental stages.
Changes are major in scale, but minor in impact.

Condition: Yellow

Recommendation: Extract samples of life forms for closer examination of
effects of temporal polarity shift.

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I

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It was nearly 1:00 in the morning.

A single bulb burned dimly, shedding only a little light into the middle of the small room and leaving vast shadows in the corners. Those were places that didn't need to be seen, anyway. A table sat in the center of the area, old and worn down with age. On either side of it were two chairs. Nothing else in the room was visible, not even the door.

In one chair sat a young boy, mid-teens, with dark red hair and bright silver eyes. His red jacket cast a crimson glare into the shadows, coloring the space with a light blush. His hands twitched and fidgeted, as though not used to sitting so still. One of his knees began to bounce, but this only lasted a few moments before he stilled it. Every so often he had to stifle a yawn. It was too friggin' early for this.

He was focused on the only other figure in the room. The Huntsman.

Dusty blonde hair kept short and neat, wire-rim glasses, and pressed white shirt and black slacks – that was the standard appearance of Glen Goodwitch. Also normal was his current expression: annoyed. The man was currently pacing back and forth in front of the boy in red, just on the other side of the table. In his hand was his scroll, and he was currently reviewing the evening's events… and boy were there quite a few to look at. The blunderbuss at his side reflected the dim light of the bulb with every few steps.

"Young man, I hope you understand how serious your situation is right now," he said, not looking over.

The boy remained quiet and still, face just slightly downcast, eyes watching the older man.

"Your actions tonight could have potentially injured both you and any civilians who might have been nearby. It was reckless and dangerous."

Would you believe me if I told you I don't remember a damn thing? The boy was careful to avoid betraying his thoughts, keeping an impressive poker face. Nothing about the actual fight, anyway.

"If it were up to me, you'd be sent home with a pat on the back…" the taller man paused, finally making eye contact with the shorter boy, "…and a well-earned smack upside the head."

The boy met his eyes, not flinching in the slightest. He could handle a punishment like that any day of the week.

"However, …there's someone else who would like to speak with you." Glen stepped away, revealing the door to the room they were in – and a new figure approaching from it. Long steel-gray hair, wide hips and an ample chest.

It was a woman.

Now the boy began to sweat.

The newcomer sat down in the open chair, setting down one of her parcels on the table – a plate of cookies. She settled in, crossing her legs and giving the boy a full examination from behind a small pair of shades. Her hazel eyes seemed to notice everything.

The boy ate one cookie. To calm himself down.

"So tell me something young man…" she said with a deceptively deep voice, "Where did you learn to do… that?" and nodded to her left. Glen was standing right next to her with his scroll playing the footage from the dust shop robbery just a few hours ago.

Specifically, it was showing the boy in the red jacket fighting with the burglars. And he was winning easily.

The boy swallowed hard, trying to get some spit back into his dry mouth before saying, "…My m-m-mother has been t-t-training me in the m-m-martial arts… for a long time, now…" He clenched his hands in his lap to keep them from shaking.

"A long time? Did she start while you were in the crib?" The newcomer had a warm smile as she tried a joke. "You barely look old enough to ride a roller coaster at a theme park…"

"I'm already done with my first year at Signal Academy, okay? I'm plenty old enough!" He snapped a bit, then recoiled like he'd just fired a gun at a funeral. "I-I mean… I…"

The smile faded slightly. "My apologies," she replied. A large drink canister was pulled out of nowhere (from his perspective, anyway) and the woman removed the cap and took a drink of whatever was inside of it. He assumed it was coffee… but then, such assumptions always had a way of biting him in the ass at the worst possible times. "So what's a cute boy like yourself doing at a school designed to train warriors?"

A beat passed in silence. Silver eyes looked into hazel ones. A pair of blue eyes watched over the whole thing from off to one side.

He took a breath, forcing himself to speak slowly and clearly, "I want to become a Huntsman."

"You want to slay monsters," she replied instantly. It wasn't a question.

"Y-y-yes… and no. I want to help people. M-m-my dad, he was a Huntsman too… and I always thought of how cool he was… and I knew I could do that too… so why not m-m-make a career out of it, you know? I've only got two years left at Signal, and then I can apply for Beacon after that. Yang… he's my older brother… he's actually starting there this year… so I'm really looking forward to going there."

As he finished his little rant, the boy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was the first time he'd ever spoken with a girl for so long… other than his mother, of course.

The woman sitting before him leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. She looked over steepled fingers and said, in an amused tone, "Do you know who I am?"

"I do, …but I'm t-t-terrible with names. You're the headmaster of Beacon… right? Oz-something?"

"Professor Ozpin, at your service," she smiled, nodding slowly.

Glen spoke up here, saying, "Of all the names to remember, I'd recommend learning hers first. It's probably the most important one you'll ever learn."

"Oh hush…" The woman called Ozpin took another drink from her container, which looked far too large for a casual drink of coffee, then sighed and said, "So you want to come to my school, eh?"

Again, slow and clear, "…More than anything."

"Then I have only one question for you…" she trailed off, waiting to see that she had the boy's full, undivided attention. "Under what name shall I enter you?"

The boy's eyes went wide. Glen merely raised an inquisitive eyebrow at his boss.

Almost everyone in Vale (and the other kingdoms, most likely) knew a bit about Professor Ozpin of Beacon. She was known as a woman who knew everything there was to know. It seemed like there was no secret that was out of her reach, no whisper she didn't hear, and no juicy gossip she wasn't privy to. Therefore it was no real surprise to find that she even knew the truth about the boy's name, and how much he loathed it.

So this was a test.

The story of his name centered around his mother, Taiyan, and her old drinking buddy Aunt Qrow, getting totally hammered one night before he was even conceived. Qrow knew that her brother would be getting rather… intimate with Taiyan (and soon), so she made a friendly suggestion for a couple of names. If the child was a girl, she should be named Ruby.

Taiyan didn't remember the boy name she was given. The child was named Ruby anyway, and in a panic.

The child was a boy.

The same boy now sat across from Professor Ozpin, who sat next to Glen Goodwitch. He now had the chance to re-brand himself once he got to Beacon; to abandon his old, hated name and take on a new one of his own choosing. This was the very definition of a once-in-a-lifetime event.

But what name would he use?

With Ozpin's eyes still on him, the boy racked his brain – but only came up with broken memories of the ginger-haired woman he had fought earlier tonight.

"Well Red, I think we can all agree that it's been an eventful evening…"

"End of the line, Red!"

He nodded, then looked Ozpin right in the eyes and gave his answer.

"Red."

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II

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Now it was probably closer to 10:00 in the morning. Maybe 11.

He was too busy staying alive to bother checking the time.

The soul-piercing screech of the gigantic Nevermore once again filled the air, forcing the eight young teenagers to wince from their makeshift cover behind some boulders. Ahead of them was a long stone bridge leading through some ruins, which then led to their exit at the top of the cliff. Behind them was the path they had just cleared, and within minutes they would spot a familiar Deathstalker heading their way – but for now, all was relatively quiet.

In every other direction was the trees of the Emerald Forest. Within them awaited only death.

The boy, now called Red by everyone who knew him, quickly surveyed his group. He knew they would all have to make a run for it, and it was important to know if anyone was too injured to keep up with the rest. He was fine and his gauntlets, called Amber Celica, were fully loaded. Well, that was one down.

Next to him was another boy called Weiss Schnee… or something like that. It wasn't a family name Red was familiar with. Weiss had rather unique white hair, which was pulled into a tight ponytail down low by his neck. His travels through the woods had left his white outfit a bit dirty, but he seemed okay to run. He kept his sword by his right hip, a mostly white blade with a long-ish ribbon attached to the pommel. Red could not recall what Weiss had called it earlier in the day. Something shroud...?

Across the path from them was the rest of the group, ducking behind a larger boulder: Blake Bell had his knit cap pulled tight over his head and his scythe tucked behind him, Yang Xiao Long (Red's older brother, no less) nudged his sword out of the way to adjust his boots, Norman Valkyrie peeked out from behind his taller childhood friend with gleaming eyes, Lie Ren calmly watched the passing Grimm while keeping Norman from running away, Joan Arc tightened her grip on her large warhammer while sweating profusely, and Peter Nikos, of course, was fully prepared to dive into battle with sword and shield flashing.

Yeah, they were all fine. Good thing, too… since their old friend the Deathstalker chose that moment to burst out of the woods behind them and say hello.

"Time to go, ladies!" Yang yelled as they broke cover and ran.

The group naturally separated once they reached the stone bridge – faster ones heading further in front, slower ones falling back – and the Nevermore seemed to take great delight in smashing the ancient bridge headlong, sending stones flying for quite a distance and dividing the teenagers. Red, Yang and Blake stayed cliff side, leaving Weiss and the others to fend off the giant scorpion monster from the forest side.

For their part, none of the shots seemed to have any affect on the clawed beast, but they kept shooting anyway. Norman tried to jump into closer range, hoping to get around the annoying pincers that were being used as shields, but the creature batted him away with ease – and he flew right into the Schnee boy, knocking him backwards and over the edge of the cliff with a startled grunt.

Red watched with horror mingled with fascination as the white-haired boy formed a circle in mid-air right under his feet, propelling him straight back upwards. He made three more before landing on a walkway some distance up into the ruins, right next to the other three boys. They stood together, ready to face off against the bird monster that was, even now, veering around and heading right for them.

They were four teenagers that would very soon become a team.

"Light 'em up!" Red shouted over the gusting wind.

The Nevermore charged. Red fired round after round from his gauntlets, Yang made several shots with his sword in it's repeating-rifle mode, Blake used his weapon's sniper-rifle mode for pinpoint shooting, and Weiss …somehow… fired large bolts of ice. Half the shots hit home, the rest did not.

It crashed, toppling the rusty structure they were standing on and forcing the teens to jump to a new vantage point before falling to their deaths.

Once standing on a firm floor again, Weiss grumbled, "None of this is working. What does it take to kill this thing?"

Time seemed to slow down around him, rendering everything in fine detail. His mind worked much faster than before, giving Red a full and complete picture of his surroundings. In short, he used his semblance.

The ribbon on Weiss' sword could stretch. A lot. The blade of Blake's scythe was quite long, able to cut really wide things in one swipe. Weiss could cast some kind of dust-magic that would allow him to alter gravity somehow… Red had seen it just moments ago, in fact. Red and Yang still had plenty of strength, and their semblances still had not come into play. Weiss could create ice. Red had plenty of shots in Amber Celica.

The plan was formed.

…

Meanwhile, back on the ground, the other four were not faring much better.

The Deathstalker seemed to shrug off nearly every shot that hit it. The thing's armor was ridiculous. Peter and Ren tried a dual attack at close range – Peter with his shield and Ren using her spear with a considerable level of skill – but even then, they only managed to piss it off before getting knocked back.

Norman jumped in next, using his twin machine guns to fire at the small opening he had spotted. His smaller frame and tightly muscled body allowed him to dodge and weave with ease. Once in place, the smaller boy grabbed onto the tail and fired numerous rounds into the base of the stinger.

The monster seemed to scream, tossing the offender against a nearby rock with indignant fury. The boy slumped to the ground.

"Norm!" Ren called. It was one of the first times she had ever raised her voice.

Red didn't see everything these four did that day, but they would all discuss the events later on and fill in the blanks. He did, however, see the moment that Joan spotted the dangling piece of Grimm, barked an order at Peter, and the tall redhead gave his round shield a frisbee throw… slicing the sharpened piece clean off the tail where it drove itself into the thing's head. It screamed again, a sound of pure rage and fury.

Joan's earlier fear and hesitation were now gone. "I need a lift!" she cried as she readied her hammer. Ren nodded, moving her spear into a horizontal position. Joan jumped onto the shaft, Ren spun, and the momentum served to fling the short blonde girl high into the air.

As she simply hung there for what seemed like minutes, she whimpered 'What am I doing?' to nobody.

She quickly aimed the barrel of the hammer's hidden grenade launcher straight up, firing a shot that sent her straight down onto her target at high velocity. The hammer struck home, driving the stinger almost entirely through the body of the monster and into the dirt below it – while also breaking off the edge of the cliff itself. The Deathstalker, still screaming it's ungodly cries, fell off and into the abyss.

The future team JNPR regained their senses shortly after. It had been quite a day.

Joan helped Norman back to his feet, then turned to check on the other two – only to spot the boys from earlier setting up some kind of elaborate attack against the Nevermore. Although to her it looked more like a drunken middle-school-level dare.

The boy named Blake had just launched himself from a giant freaking slingshot (with help from Yang and Red), heading right for the giant Nevermore which was, for some bizarre reason, frozen to the cliff by it's tail feathers. He hit the side with his gigantic scythe out, pinned the thing by the neck, then began to run up the side of the vertical cliff, firing a shot or two and increasing his speed as he ran.

Once at the top, one final shot jerked the weapon clean through it's neck. The massive head landed right beside the teen atop the cliff, with the rest of it's body falling into oblivion.

Joan, Peter, Norman and Ren all stared in disbelief. True they had been a bit busy killing their own Grimm, but their achievement was a bit… subpar by comparison.

The silence following the final, dramatic blow lasted only a minute. Yang spoke out over the assemblage next, giving voice to the words that everyone was likely thinking anyway.

"Well… that was a thing."

…

Evening now.

Blake should have been made the team leader. He was the one who killed the Nevermore, right? If not him, then Weiss – the Schnee boy seemed more than capable of being in charge of a team, and he seemed to know his way around dust better than any of the others. Even Yang was a better choice, since he'd at least be able to give the moral support needed to get them through the toughest of missions.

So why was Red chosen? Just what in the nine hells was Ozpin thinking?

The boy in red pajamas sat cross-legged in his bunk (since the room only had single beds at first, he requested bunks so everyone would have their own space) and thought about these things. No matter how many ways he looked at it, choosing him as the team leader just didn't make any sense. He was too young, first of all – Ozpin had enrolled him less than a day after their little meeting, a full two years early.

He absent-mindedly picked a stray seed from his teeth and flicked it away. That last strawberry at dinner was rather loaded with them, but he still ate it. A strawberry is a terrible thing to waste, after all (and no one else seemed to want it, so what the hell).

"I hope you're not going to be tossing and turning all night, Oh Fearless Leader…" came an annoyed voice from below. Weiss stood at ground level and was halfway through changing into his night clothes. The lower half, that is. The teen's bare chest was about one ham sandwich away from his ribs showing, but otherwise he looked quite healthy. "Some of us actually need our rest."

Red looked up at him but ignored his implied insult, "Don't worry… I'll keep still."

Weiss only sighed in response. Yang came up behind the boy, his own blonde locks allowed to hang loose over his tank top, and grabbed the shorter boy in a headlock. "Aw, wassa' matter Weiss? Lonely already?" The blonde leaned close and loudly whispered, "…Should I keep you company tonight?"

This was met with an elbow to the face, sending Yang backwards and onto the floor. "Don't you touch me you.. you…"

"Keep it down, lovebirds," Blake intoned from his own bunk, trying to read. For some odd reason he still had his knit cap on. Probably one of those people that gets cold easily. Red made a mental note to ask him about it later.

Both teens stared at the brunette – one in horrified shock, the other grinning. Weiss gave a wordless scream of rage (but tried to muffle it, with comical results) before storming into the dorm's bathroom and locking the door.

Yang was up and dusting his backside off, musing, "Well he's a shy one. The guy acts like he's got something I haven't already seen before."

Red noticed one of Blake's hands twitch at that comment.

An hour later, the lights were off and three sets of snores lightly buzzed into the air. Red remained in his seated position, not sleeping nor even the least bit tired. His mind had been racing for most of the evening.

He thought back to his arrival at Beacon earlier that day. It was exciting, obviously, but for many different reasons. He had already met the girl called Joan Arc (who had gotten airsick on the transport), but walking and talking with her later on only aggravated his little 'condition.' It was the same as when he had spoken with Ozpin several hours before.

Gynophobia. He was physically afraid of girls.

He had honestly tried to both keep it a secret and make strides to overcome it – and only one of those seemed to be working. Even now he would start to shake and sweat if a girl got too close to him, even lapsing into a stutter. It was annoying at best, and downright debilitating at worst.

He was barely able to make it inside the building with Joan walking next to him, but luckily she seemed to miss his change of attitude. She was busy talking about her family full of brothers, after all.

What was most confusing for the boy was the simple fact that, in spite of this fear, he didn't hate girls at all. He was attracted to them (in pictures anyway) just like nearly every other boy his age (although he occasionally wondered about Yang). In fact, he'd already met one in particular that checked off every item on his personal wish list…

Across the room, Yang mumbled something in his sleep. No further noise followed.

Tall and well-built, long black hair, a calm demeanor, and pale pink eyes. A long spear that Red personally witnessed impaling several Grimm with relative ease. The childhood friend of the boy called Norman. This was Lie Ren. One of the only girls he'd ever met that didn't send shivers of fear down his spine.

He sent up a silent prayer that he'd eventually work up the courage to ask her out… preferably before they all graduated in four years.

Another noise now, this time it was Blake turning to face the wall. He slept shirtless, and his pale back almost glowed in the moonlight shining in from the window. That knit cap remained on his head.

Red sighed, letting it come out through his nostrils in a single, exasperated breath. He finally settled down (very gently so as not to disturb the young 'prince' beneath him) and went to sleep.

The night passed by with no dreams.

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III

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Over the next several months, team RWBY (Red, Weiss, Blake and Yang) went through quite a number of little adventures, several of which included team JNPR (Joan, Norman, Peter and Ren), but for the sake of time, we'll be skipping over most of them and picking up the story somewhere deep underground… in a place called Mountain Glenn.

"Get to your places, we are leaving NOW!"

The voice of the ginger-haired thief woman echoed into the vast caverns, followed by the clanks and groans of old machinery caked with rust. The old hydraulics hissed loudly as the brakes were released and the train, filled to the brim with weapons and White Fang soldiers, came to life.

Much of the discussion between Red, Weiss, Blake, Yang, and their mission leader Doctor Oobleck was completely drowned out by the racket. The redhead tried to contact Joan, the leader of team JNPR, for a bit of backup – but their current depth put them well out of range for that.

They were on their own. And they had a train to catch.

Despite all appearances to the contrary, Oobleck was an actual Huntress – and she was finally starting to show it. Her semblance, used in tandem with her riding crop, was an explosive show of pyrokinetic action. The numerous White Fang soldiers that came at them on the roof of the train cars had little chance.

Not that they needed to. Each car the group jumped onto was loaded with a bomb, and then decoupled just moments after they had cleared it… and the trailing bomb was more than sufficient to open a hole in the roof of the tunnel.

A hole to the wild, Grimm-filled wilderness. The things took no time pouring in behind them.

Once they finally reached the main cars, Oobleck had the team split up to find Torchwick. She and Red pressed on ahead to the lead car. The green-haired woman suddenly had to double back (taking Zwei the Dog along with her) to fight off some extra bad guys that were approaching from behind, sending Red on ahead.

Before she left, however, she kissed him on the forehead for luck. She was fast as always, giving the boy no time to dodge or slip away.

His heart felt like it would either stop cold or explode out of his chest. It was hard to tell which would be worse.

Slowly, in a manner similar to falling asleep… Red's consciousness… faded.

He was now in his 'Battle Mode.'

The first time he had left his own body like that was during a training session with Taiyan (one of his last ones, actually). He had no memory of what he did during that time – for all he knew, the boy had only blacked out. Yet when he woke up, his mother had been pretty bruised up. He wasn't in much better shape himself, but still…

It only seemed to happen when his fear reached it's upper limit. His mother had hugged him that day, congratulating him on coming so far. The robbery at the dust shop, too – he had been confronted by a woman in a pinstripe pantsuit with an axe. Doctor Oobleck just kissed him on the forehead. He never remembered what he did for the five-ish minutes that followed such events, but there was always a decent level of destruction awaiting him.

When he finally regained his senses this time, he was still on the roof of the train. Weiss, Blake and Yang were now standing next to him, and all four of them were watching the end of the tunnel rapidly approach. They had no more than two minutes at best.

A glance behind him confirmed what he expected to find – dozens of White Fang bodies and a few stolen Paladin mechs, all broken and still. Oobleck was nowhere to be seen.

Did he really do all that?

His teammates were in rough shape. Weiss had a single bad cut across one shoulder, his jacket torn in a ragged gash, but the bleeding had mostly stopped by this point. Blake was mostly fine, but his hair seemed a bit singed – his cap was still there, of course. The rest of his team knew he was a faunus by now, but he still chose to keep his cat ears hidden away. Yang was a bit bruised up, one eye swollen and purple.

"What do we do now?" the blonde asked. His worried tone only served to rob the group of any sort of hope. It seemed obvious that there was nothing they could do.

…

This was it, then. They hadn't even made it through their first year at Beacon, and they were already dead.

Red closed his eyes, fighting back his tears. What was the point of it all?

…

If the train had stopped according to the laws of physics, Red would have been thrown into the oncoming wall and died instantly – yet the sensation of movement had somehow… disappeared.

The roar of the engine and the wind… was gone. All was quiet.

Thinking he had died painlessly, Red pried his eyes open to find that no, he was still alive. But everything around him had frozen in place. Like he'd been watching a movie on his scroll and paused it to go to the toilet.

The boy's panic quickly dissolved into shocked wonder as he looked around at his new, unmoving surroundings. He could now see that Weiss had more cuts than he first thought, and that Blake had lost one shoe. Somehow.

Up until that moment, the only sound he could hear was his own breathing – but suddenly he heard footsteps, and they weren't his.

A young girl was walking along the roof of the train car, weaving through the bodies and various pieces of wreckage left behind in the wake of Red's Battle Mode. She occasionally bent down, placed a small device on the neck of one or two bodies, hit a button, waited a few seconds, then moved to another.

What struck Red was how similar the girl was to himself. She could easily have been his twin sister.

However, when she finally reached the place he was standing, she spoke – and Red realized that such a comparison was giving the girl far too little credit.

"So what now, Oh Fearless Leader? Did you plan to just stand there and let it all end?"

Red's mind flashed with an image of Ozpin speaking… but then a voice behind and above Ozpin, serving as an authority even the headmaster could not deny… that was the kind of voice this girl spoke with. You simply did not argue with it.

"If you've got another idea, I'm all ears," he replied.

Deep down, he had a hard time hiding his shock. She was a girl… yet he was not nervous around her in the least! No shaking, no stuttering… he could hardly believe it.

"I might have one…" she said. A pause, then she stepped closer. Her eyes flashed with an eerie light.

Red couldn't stop himself from mumbling, "…Who are you?"

"The question is: who are you? Warrior or pretender? Hero or coward?"

The boy started to answer back, but found the words catching in his throat. She had hit so close to home that it almost physically hurt.

She continued, "You lack the courage to do what is necessary. To overcome your obstacles. To face your greatest fear. Without that courage, the four of you will not survive the coming battle."

Red glanced to the side, regarding the oncoming wall, "…From here, it doesn't look like there'll be another battle."

When he looked back, the mystery girl was staring at Weiss and mumbled, "Oh there will be… he'll see to that." She turned back to Red and added, "but if you don't improve yourself, it won't matter. The Breach will claim you all."

A chill swept over him at those words. This breach thing sounded bad…

There were a million questions to ask, but he knew that this was not the place to ask them. He tried using his semblance to find a way around the problem… but the girl's words were the only truth he could see. And since she didn't scare him nearly enough, using his Battle Mode to sort things out was not an option.

Steeling himself and looking her dead in the eyes, he simply said, "What do I do?"

A moment later and the girl had a device in her hand (probably a different one). She hit a few buttons and… Red could only describe it as space itself being torn apart… a doorway of light appeared. It glowed fiercely with a blue-green tinge.

She looked at him again and said, "Carmine will be waiting for you on the other side. Your path, and your destiny, lay beyond."

Red looked at the doorway, then back at the girl, then the doorway again. He swallowed hard.

One final look at his frozen teammates was enough to solidify his resolve. The boy named Ruby Rose, called Red by his friends, stepped through… and vanished from his world.

The girl with the tattered red cloak stood watching for a minute, the raised her device to her mouth and quietly said, "Six-nine-seven-one, transfer confirmed." As she made her way to the portal, she quietly added, "They're gonna have fun with this one, I'd bet."

… … … … …

… … …

…

Author's Note: Red started out as a simple gender-swapped Ruby, but I soon added the quirks and small changes that made him unique. Rotating the team's weapons was really just meant to make it more interesting, but I honestly didn't think it through all the way – it'll probably be ignored by and large as his story develops.

=^w^=