The shattered moon glistened down onto a puddle that was soon stepped on by a group of men that all snuck around through an alleyway. Their destination a dust shop by the name of "From Dust Till Dawn." One man, wearing a stylish bowler hat decided to approach via the front door, cane in hand, twirling it around as he came to a stop in front of the cash register.
"This can go one of two ways." he started in a suave tone as the old man looked up at him and two other men whom had entered through the back door were now approaching him from behind, pointing their weapons at him.
He raised his arms up in surrender, but not before opening the cash register in fear.
"We're not here for your money." the suave man assured before looking to his goons, his goons all wore black suits with bright red ties and shades. "Grab the dust."
As the men started taking the dust, draining entire containers of the energy propellant, one of them spotted a girl in one of the aisles. She wore a red hood and had headphones over her ears, meaning she wasn't at all aware of what was going on around her. She was glancing down at a magazine but then back to the shelf. "Ugh, where is it?!"
The man approached her and aimed a weapon at her. "Freeze!" he yelled out, but she wasn't responding.
"Hey kid, I said freeze!" he grabbed her shoulder, which made her turn around.
"Um yes?" she looked at him as he pointed to her ears and she lowered her headphones.
"This is a stick up kid!" he stated.
"Oh so you're robbing me then." this girl's silver hues glistened as a smirk formed on her face.
"Yes-" before the man could continue more, suddenly right from her back came a folded up weapon that smacked him across the face, sending him flying backwards as another man tried flanking her side, she pressed a button on the weapon and the stock of a sniper rifle extended outward and smacked the other man as a man that stood in front of the shop's front window aimed his gun at her. Before he could shoot, the sniper fired and blasted the man through the window.
The girl started to transform her weapon as she ran at the leader of the men with her weapon transforming more before taking a swipe with a scythe now.
The man however ducked under her attack, though in a rather cartoonish manner, the feather on his hat was cut by the top while the girl leaped over the broken window after overshooting her attack and stopped herself, now posing in front of the shop with her scythe out and turning the music on her headphones off.
The leader of the robbers grunted before pointing to her. "Get her!"
The scythe wielding girl dodged to the side of a bullet fired from a man and hit him with the back end of her scythe before raising it to block a swipe from an axe one of the men were carrying. She then swiftly slid her weapon out from the gridlock they were in with their clashing weapons and smacked him with the lower pointy end of her scythe before firing off a shot at another man and then spinning around and with the propulsion of a gun shot, smacking the last man with the back end of her scythe, sending him flying into the air, spinning a couple of times before he landed right at his leader's feet.
"You were worth every cent, truly you were." he muttered under his breath as the girl stood in front of him, ready for a fight.
"The game's were fun red, but unfortunately, I have to go." he aimed his cane at her, and the bottom portion of it unfolded slightly revealing it to be a scope as he took a shot at the girl, firing out a bright red projectile that she dodged to the side of.
Disoriented, she looked to the shopkeep whom had just called the authorities. "You fine if I go after him?" she asked, spotting the thief climbing up a nearby fire escape.
The man nodded before she ran forward and aimed her weapon at the ground, firing a single shot and using it to propel her upwards to the roof.
The thief glared at her in annoyance. "You're just determined to be a nuisance to me, aren't ya, red?!" he scoffed and fired another shot off at her that she shot out of the air, creating a smoke.
However before she could advance, the man advanced instead, smacking her with the side of his cane, knocking her off balance. But she quickly regained herself and swung at him. He dodged with a slight leap back and countered with a jab to her gut with the cane's handle.
He then followed up with a few more swings, one of which impacted with the side of her face, another hit her shoulder and the other was blocked before she shoved forward, making him stagger back a little while she then swung upwards with her scythe, knocking his cane up into the air while she smirked triumphantly.
She then fired a shot from her weapon when swinging at him again, giving him barely enough time to dodge it as he threw himself onto the ground, his weapon clattering right next to him.
"Just give up!" she stated as he glared at her, picking his weapon up and fired a shot off at her, this time, he hit the shot with his weapon, , redirecting it to the ground right in front of her, which made her stagger back.
before he her with an upward swing, and then a downward one, knocking her onto the ground and disarming her.
"Gotta say, Red you almost had me for a moment there." he spun his cane around. "But end of the road!" he tossed a red dust crystal at Ruby's feet and aimed his cane at her, firing a shot.
He laughed as he saw the girl explode while then getting into a bullhead that pulled up, notably in the pilot seat of it was a small girl with pink, white and brown hair. He boarded the bullhead, but right as he turned around to see the wreckage, a strange purple glyph glowed through the smoke till it cleared and revealed the girl was fine and in front of him was a blonde haired woman, wearing a white blouse and black skirt, a black cape with a purple interior and holding a riding crop in her hand.
"Whoa... You're... A huntress!" the red clad girl exclaimed as the woman adjusted her glasses and her green hues glared at the bullhead. She summoned forth a cloud out of her riding crop and rained down ice crystals from the sky at the bullhead.
"We got a huntress!" the thief called out as the pilot switched out with him and held her hand up to the floor of the bullhead.
The huntress glared and sent down a bolt of lightning at the bullhead, but it shattered like glass and was flying out of range now.
She lightly swore under her breath before turning towards the girl that had given chase. "C-Can I have your autograph!?" she asked.
The interrogation room was dimly lit and the girl sat alone at the table, looking down sadly.
"It was incredibly dangerous for you to rush in there."
"They started it!" the girl argued.
"You could have gotten hurt!" the huntress chastised her more before stopping. "If it were up to me, you'd go home with a pat on the back..."
The girl in red smiled.
"And a Slap on the wrist!" the huntress smacked her hand with the riding crop. "But someone here would like to speak with you." she stepped back as a white haired man wearing a suit approached her with a plate of cookies.
"Ruby Rose." he paused, looking her in the eyes for a moment. "You have... Silver eyes." he noted as he placed the plate of cookies down in front of her.
"Um..." she then turned her attention to the cookies and practically inhaled the whole plate.
"Now where did you learnt o do this?" he played back the replay of the fight on what seemed like a tablet. "I haven't seen many scythe wielders. The only two I'm really aware of are a Dusty old Crow... and the Grimm reaper." he stopped at that last mention as Ruby swallowed her cookies, not after trying to speak first.
"Oh yeah- That's my Uncle Qrow! He's a teacher at Signal. Taught me everything I know. I used to be complete garbage before he took me under his wing, now I'm all cool like Hiya! Ki-chaw!" she posed around like she was a kung fu fighter a bit before stopping herself. "I'm almost done training at Signal, when I graduate I'm gonna apply to be a huntress there. My sister Yang is starting this year and she wants to be a huntress too."
"You want to fight monsters?"
"i want to help people and I mean Yang and I were taught to help people, and like sure I could become a regular police officer or something, but Huntresses are like so cool and awesome and romantic and-and YA know?!" she smiled up to him.
"Do you know who I am?" the man asked.
"You're Professor Ozpin, the headmaster at Beacon."
"Do you want to go to my School?" he asked.
"More than anything." Ruby nodded.
"Well okay." Ozpin sipped his coffee.
Ruby's eyes went wide and she smiled eagerly before that expression would drop when Yang would hug her the next day.
"Oh I'm so proud of my baby sister making it to Beacon early!" Yang smiled to her as they were standing at the airship docks.
"Sis... Stop..." Ruby whined as Yang let go of her, finally giving her time to breathe.
"Ruby, smile for the Camera!" a blonde haired man stated, holding up his scroll as Yang chuckled and tried to smile in a cool way for the camera.
"Dad please, this is embarrassing..." Ruby lamented as she was being coddled by her sister and father.
"Oh come on, Ruby everyone's gonna think you're the bee's knees!" Yang smiled to her sister.
"C-Could you please stop! I don't wanna be looked at like I'm special! I'm just a normal girl, with normal knees!"
"But kiddo, you are special." the man put his hand on her shoulder.
"I got ahead two years early, I don't want to be treated any differently than anyone else-"
"Now boarding airships to Beacon." a voice over the intercom stated.
"Oh we gotta go!" Ruby noted, almost wanting to rush to leave this embarrassing situation behind.
"Hey girls wait!" their father stopped them both, making them think they forgot something. But he then hugged them.
"You'll both do great out there." he smiled to them before they left. A black bird perched on a lamp post watched as the ship flew out as well before flying off.
On a nearby screen a news report was playing. "Notorious criminal Roman Torchwick evades authorities yet again, even after huntress Glynda Goodwitch stepped into the scene to stop him, him and his currently unknown accomplice have evaded authorities several times following a string of robberies. If you know any information that could help lead to an arrest, please contact the number below. Now Lisa back to you." Cyril Ian finished.
"Thank you, Cyril. Chaos during protest. Today's Peaceful Faunus protest was disrupted by the White Fang, the once peaceful organization has committed countless acts of terror, when asked for a comment, none was given-" the TV shut off.
Commentary: This chapter was the first one I wrote. So you may see a difference in quality compared to the trailers/more recent stuff I've written. I do apologize for that if it is a little jarring, I was just figuring things out back then as I started writing this out, uncertain if I wanted to go forward on it. This was around the time before I started drafting the Volumes out, which Volumes 4-6 were all drafted, while Volumes 1-3 I simply just knew what I wanted to do for them. Which I will add here that some ideas I use here are ideas inspired by other people, whether it be suggestions from a friend, input from a critic on the other page I put this story on or some Youtubers I watch(Namely Celtic Phoenix and Unicorn of War to give specific examples). But even then, I do my best to try and make those ideas different, or put a twist on them in some way.
Without posting the exact other description I have, I will go over some of the changes I gave this chapter
No opening monologue- I didn't feel the need for it, and well in hindsight it did spoil/tease(?) a future character that we wouldn't see for 3 whole Volumes.
Ruby vs Roman- It just shows the scaling a bit better, Ruby's very much a newbie, so of course she can't handle a criminal like Roman Torchwick.
Where's Cinder?- Simply put, not here. I decided to save her first appearance for something unexpected...
Airship docks- Well, this is a new scene and Taiyang is here now to further embarrass Ruby like any good father should.
Anyways, let me know what kind of format you'd like for these commentary sections, I'm open to suggestions because having to do all these over again seems like a bit of a drag.
Also my planned release schedule is 1-2 chapters a day, every day. So do keep your eyes peeled on that. Volume 1 has a total of 12 Chapters. So we'll be through this one within a week. Which if I do miss a day or anything, it's likely because I'm focusing on Volume 6...
