Fire. Wind. Screams. Terrible roars and a searing pain. These are the first few things that Ruby noticed. She wanted to react, but the only thing she seemed to be able to do is just….be there. Her body, if she had one still, wasn't responding to her commands, and she realized that as the fires and winds raged around her she was unable to clearly see anything. Almost like her eyes were underwater or…crying…? Was she crying…? Why was she crying? What's going on exactly…? Where is she?

As the searing pain seemed to become more prevalent, Ruby saw the faint outline of someone. Moving closer to her, the figure seemed to be in a panic. It held out a hand towards her as it got closer, but Ruby's body seemed to not even attempt to reach back. The searing pain emanating from the middle of her back seemed to be growing as the figure approached. Until finally the figure was maybe 10 feet away, the sounds of a voice that was terribly muffled came to her as the figure was seemingly snatched away into the darkness that accentuated the flames around her. The only things Ruby could notice before the figure was gone were that it had been not much bigger than she was, and that it seemed to have shorter golden hair. As the confused rose sat…stood…floated? In that space, nothing seemed to happen aside from the occasional echoes of what seemed like Grimm roars or whistles of the wind and crackle of the flames. Until finally something did happen. The shrill and echoing cries of a younger girl screaming out to her filled her ears. Almost making her wish she could cover them. The cries were so garbled she couldn't make out what they were saying. Repeating over and over again, the flames and winds picking up around her. Everything seemed to be shaking apart as the voice came to her one final time, this time the word screamed was very clear to her, as everything seemed to fall away. "Ruby-!"

"Ruby? Hey, Ruby. Come on, wake up or we're gonna be late for breakfast!"

A familiar voice snapped Ruby out of her nightmare. Looking around frantically, the little rose couldn't seem to get her bearings until she caught sight of the person waking her up. Jaune was knelt down beside her, having jostled her to get her attention. Having calmed down and sat upright, Ruby rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she composed herself a bit.

"Yeah, yeah I'm up I'm up. Sorry about that Jaune, I uh…guess I was just sleeping a bit too hard."

"I'll say, but you didn't seem to be having too much fun. Before I woke you up you were tossing and turning all over the place. I was almost worried you might have kicked me if I tried to get you up. You alright?"

Hearing Jaune's description of her sleeping state, Ruby felt a bit embarrassed, but just brushed it off with a lighthearted laugh as she sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "No, no I think I'm good. Just had one heck of a dream is all. Either way it was about time to get up anyways, so i'm not gonna worry about it."

"Huh…well, you might wanna hurry up a bit. Everyones already getting up and heading to get ready for today. Don't wanna fall behind right?"

With that, the awkward blonde stood up and waved to Ruby. Heading off to presumably start his daily routine. Ruby simply sat there for a minute, thinking over what she just dreamt of. 'Why did that dream even happen? I haven't had a dream like that since visiting that old house for the first time. Who was that person I saw..? Why did the voice sound so…familiar?' Was all that she managed to think before noticing how empty the room was becoming. Figuring it was time to get a move on, Ruby hopped up and grabbed what she needed to get dressed and ready for the day.

After having taken care of all of her hygiene needs and getting dressed, Ruby took the opportunity to get used to the campus and wait out the line that was probably long in the cafeteria by taking a quick walk through various parts, admiring the architecture and beautiful plants that decorated the courtyards. She made acquaintance with a few random students she had accidentally bumped into while walking backwards to admire an archway as she passed through it. Not long after, she headed to where the scent of food was emanating,

Arriving into the cafeteria, Ruby was met by the hustle and bustle of dozens, if not hundreds, of students collecting plates of breakfast foods and finding seats to enjoy the meal with friends or just any other students they seemed comfortable talking to. Ruby immediately hurried to the nearest line and started collecting a swathe of various foods. Strawberry pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage, and a nice big glass of milk to wash it all down. Balancing what she had on her tray, the little reaper made her way towards the seating area. Looking around, she saw almost no empty seats, and the few she DID see open were around some rather unsavory-looking students. One in particular was a bigger redheaded boy that was currently teasing a rabbit faunus by tugging on one of her cute fluffy ears. That really got under Ruby's skin, but she saw a few people coming into the lunch room and heading in a bee line straight for the group. An older girl wearing a beret with sunglasses on motioned for her two companions to head off to the breakfast line, and they seemed to do so reluctantly. The huge, almost bodybuilder-like guy being followed by a darker skinned boy who had pure white eyes…possibly blind? Either way, as the beret girl approached the bullies, things got settled fairly quickly as the burly redheaded boy promptly got backhanded directly into his plate of food. The bunny girl and beret girl walking off looking none the worse for wear.

As Ruby was caught up in watching the scene unfold, she heard a voice call out to her. "Hey, Ruby! Over here! Saved you a spot!" The voice of Jaune barely breaking through the loud banter of all the students. Ruby perked up a bit and made her way towards Jaune's voice, and seeing a few others joining him as she approached with a shy smile. She saw Yvette, who immediately gave her a warm greeting, Weiss, who seemed rather annoyed to be there, Jaune, who was smiling happily and motioning for her to sit beside him, A ginger girl that was absolutely destroying her plate of pancakes, a darker-haired boy who was calmly eating beside the ginger, and to Jaune's other side was a redheaded girl with her hair tied back into a ponytail that looked fairly happy to be sat where she was, even offering Ruby a somewhat melodic "Hellooo~!" as she waved to Ruby.

Making it to her seat without dropping any of the precariously balanced foods, Ruby greeted everyone a bit awkwardly. She knew a handful of them, but wasn't sure how to address the others. Noticing this, Jaune spoke up.

"Oh! Right! New people, time for introductions I guess. This is Pyrrah-"

"Hello again!"

"And that's Ren, he's a pretty quiet guy so don't mind him." At that, Ren offered Ruby a quiet, seemingly warm nod. Returning to his meal and nudging the girl beside him with his elbow, seeming to break her out of her pancake-induced food coma.

"And that's-"

"Nora! Nice to meet you stranger!"

"Ruby-"

"Nice to meet ya Ruby!" Nora energetically exclaimed, giving Ruby a very big smile as she tried to sneak one of Ren's pancakes off of his plate. She was promptly smacked on the hand with a spoon, which Ruby was confused as to why he even had a spoon until she saw him lift a small cup of coffee to his lips. Afterwards, Ruby nodded slightly at making sure she had all of their names down before she spoke, starting to quickly eat the food she had been looking forward to this entire time.

"Well, that's about everyone you didn't know introduced. Other than that, we were all just talking about what they're gonna make us do for the entrance exam. Yvette thinks it's gonna be some kind of big team fighting thing, but I think they might have us hunt some kind of Grimm or something." Jaune said while chomping on a piece of bacon. As soon as he finished his statement, Nora broke through the train of thought with her own idea.

"Maybe they'll have us fighting each other WHILE hunting Grimm! That sounds like the greatest idea EVER! We could find that guy that was bullying the bunny girl and we could break his legs!" She seemed a bit too into the idea, but Jaune just nervously laughed it off. He turned to Ruby, who was absentmindedly listening to them banter, and seemed a bit concerned. Before he could say anything, Yvette spoke up and caught Ruby's attention.

"You alright over there, Ruby? You seem a little spaced out."

Immediately breaking from her train of thought, or lack thereof- Ruby perked up and nodded to Yvette. Offering the older girl a smile, Ruby started eating the remnants of her breakfast earnestly to try and seem normal...or however normal a girl like her could seem. "Mhm, shorry, I dim't schleep too well lasht night-" Ruby tried to speak while eating, her words sounding a bit off as she tored through the last bites of her pancakes and downed the last of her milk, letting out a contented sigh.

"Sheesh, didn't your parents ever teach not to talk with your mouth full?" Weiss chimed in, a slightly annoyed tone and a look of disapproval on her face as she set her now empty glass down on the table. At hearing the question, Ruby shrank in her seat a little as she averted her eyes from the others. The question had hit her unexpectedly hard considering she thought she was already past that fact in her life by now. She quietly mumbled out an answer as she gripped the hem of her combat skirt lightly. "I don't have any parents…" Was all she managed to get out. With that, the table went dead silent, Weiss looking absolutely taken aback as she stumbled over her words for a moment.

"O-oh, I didn't- I mean you- I was-" The heiress seemed so lost for words that she just lowered her head a bit and muttered out a quiet "I'm sorry.." as Yvette seemed to nudge her to make Weiss get the words out already. With that, Yvette immediately spoke up and tried to break the tension.

"Well, that was a bit awkward- but dwelling on the sad stuff isn't good for anyone! Let's changed the subject-!"

As Yvette was about to try and steer the conversation into a better direction, the cafeteria quickly grew quiet as a speaker chimed out "All first-year students please report to the testing area. All first-year students, please report to the testing area." Before cutting off with a soft chime. With that, the table rather quickly dispersed and Ruby went out on her own, disappearing into a cloud of rose petals before Jaune or anyone else could try to speak to her. Much to most of their surprise, she had seemingly just…vanished? But not far down the hall, a lone rose was walking towards the designated testing area. What seemed like no weapon on hand, and wiping away a few tears that began to try and escape from her eyes.

Author's Note:

And we made it through another chapter! Sorry this one took me a tiny bit longer to send out. I'm getting my wisdom teeth taken out today and have been fretting over it for the past day or two. Here we are though! Starting to actually get into some content I think! The little rose seems to have some thorns still stuck in her heart it seems, and the idea of socializing has suddenly taken a slight turn for the worse. Still, the people she's meeting seem to be really nice so far, except for Weiss' insensitive commet- to be fair though she DIDN'T know about anything involving Ruby, so I kinda feel bad for her as well.

You might also notice that Jaune seems to get along a good bit better with people than he originally did in the show, and that things are progressing a bit differently than they did in the show as well! While Ruby was out being a loner and admiring the scenery of Beacon to wait on the breakfast line, he was getting introduced to Pyrrah, whom seemed to take to his company rather well. Weiss was introducing the redheaded arena champion to him, which then lead Yvette to join in as they are friends. Nora and Ren popped up only because, as stated in the story, there were almost NO areas available to sit in, let alone space for two.

Why does Ruby have no weapon you may be wondering? Well, I guess we'll just have to see in the next installment won't we? 'Till next time folks! Stay safe out there!