"Get up!" A loud voice woke me up from my peaceful slumber.

I suddenly felt my sheets being pulled off me. Yeah, right. I grabbed onto my bedsheets and pulled them back onto my body. "Five more minutes," I muttered.

"You can't!" I recognized the voice this time. Ruby. Of course, it was. "Remember? We have that today."

"If that is a sleeping competition, then count me in," I retorted, trying to find my previous comfortable position on my bed.

"No, it's not a slee- ugh, today is our first day of signal, so get your lazy butt off the bed."

That was today

Right, it was.

"Okay, okay, I'm up." I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Turning to the clock in the corner of my room, I checked the time. 4.44 a.m. I narrowed my eyes at Ruby. "Ruby, it's 4:44 a.m."

"I know!"

"School starts at nine, you know?"

So why was she waking me up so early?

I had my exhaustion resistance and all, but I still liked my sleep. Getting only around five hours of sleep compared to my normal eight was kind of unnerving.

She walked towards the closet and reached into it. After a few seconds of clanking and shuffling sounds, I saw her come out with a scythe, two daggers, and a few guns in her hands.

"Let's go train!"

"Ask Yang," I said, closing my eyes, trying to go back to sleep.

"No, wait!" Ruby grabbed my shoulders before I could plop back onto bed. "Yang won't listen if I ask. Pleeeeease."

I let out a tired groan. It was way too early for this.

"All right, let's go."

"Yay! Thanks Rory."

"No problem." I yawned. "Head out of the room. I'm gonna change."

"All right. I'll take the weapons with me."

I nodded and got off the bed, waiting for Ruby to leave. I walked to my closet and rummaged through, trying to find something proper to wear. I settled for a pair of training shorts and a t-shirt.

I slipped into my shoes and walked out of my room. Ruby was waiting outside, twirling one of my daggers.

"All right, let's go. Leave the guns behind, though. Let's not use them today."

"Okay." She tossed me my daggers and grabbed her scythe. "Let's go."

We walked through our house and made our way to the backyard. Compared to the rest of our house, the backyard was huge. So huge that we could use it as a training area without having our house get caught in the crossfire.

"All right, you ready?" I asked Ruby as I gripped my daggers.

"I'm ready," Ruby said from across the field.

I took a coin and flipped it up into the air to dictate when we would start our spar. Once the coin hit the ground, Ruby immediately started to charge at me.

She swung at my torso, but before she could hit, I ducked under the attack and kicked at her legs. She moved back before my attack could make contact and entered a fighting stance.

She narrowed her eyes slightly and moved back a bit.

What was she trying to do? Making distance between us would no-

A realization hit me. Her semblance.

I immediately activated 'Thought Acceleration', and the world around me slowed.

I'd gotten this skill when I was fighting with Yang and Ruby. They were both attacking at the same time and I had to process everything extremely fast in order to block both of their attacks, which gave me Thought Acceleration.

It was pretty self-explanatory. It slowed down my surroundings so I had more time to make decisions and assess the situation. My body wouldn't move faster though, so if my body couldn't keep up with an attack, I was screwed.

I saw Ruby's body de-materialize and zoom towards me. It was fast. Even with my thought acceleration, it was way too fast.

Before I knew it, she was behind me. Out of pure instinct alone, I used the dagger in my right and blocked her attack.

While I was blocking her attack, I kicked her in the stomach and she was sent flying back.

Now.

I dashed towards her and used the butt of my dagger to hit the bottom of her chin with it. Right after, I kicked her in the stomach, causing her aura to deplete.

"Ah, you won again," Ruby said, rubbing her chin.

《Skill [Knifemanship LV 9] has become [Knifemanship LV 10]》

《Condition satisfied. Skill [Knifemanship LV 10] has evolved into skill [Advanced Knifemanship LV 1]》

Yes.

Finally!

I finally got Knifemanship to level ten. How long was it since it last leveled up? Six months, maybe?

And there was an evolved form, huh. I was this good with the normal Knifeman skill, so I wonder how good I would be if I maxed out the advanced one.

Hehe.

With my Memory skill at level seven, I didn't have to write down any of my skills. I could recall all of them and their level at any given time. It was handy, really. Writing it down to keep track would be extremely dangerous, after all.

"You okay?" Ruby asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. You?"

"I'm okay too. More importantly, why were you zoning out? Something on your mind?" she asked. There she was, thinking about others before herself. Even with all the differences she had with the canon Ruby, this was one trait that stayed the same.

"Nope, just thinking I did good in practice today," I said.

"Yeah. For all the complaining you were doing this morning, you did surprisingly good in practice."

"I would have still preferred sleeping," I said with a slight glare. No malice behind it, though.

"Yeah, I know," she said with a smile as she turned away towards the house.

I sighed and followed behind her.

Ruby

"My name is Taiyang Xiao Long, and I will be your teacher for the rest of your time at Signal Academy."

I forgot that Dad was going to start teaching here at Signal, Ruby thought, as her eyes drifted away from her dad, and wandered around the classroom.

"Since a lot of you don't know each other, how about we do some introductions."

Ruby looked over to Rory. While it was hard to see, she could see his face twitch slightly in disappointment. Made sense, he never liked introductions.

Or anything that involved interacting with new people.

It wasn't that he couldn't do it, he just didn't enjoy it. At least that was her understanding of it.

It was a complete contrast with Yang, who didn't mind, or maybe even liked, doing that sort of thing. Maybe it was why they got along so well. Opposites attract, after all.

Then there was her. She didn't know where she stood on that spectrum. She wasn't nearly as outgoing as Yang, but she also wasn't as reserved as Rory.

It wasn't like it had an impact on her relationship with her siblings or anything. In fact, she could even argue that she had a better relationship with Rory than Yang. It was just that she felt like she was doing something wrong. Like she could be doing something better.

Her dad's voice broke her out of her thoughts. "It's your turn, Ruby."

It was already her turn. People already introduced themselves?

Looks like she got lost in her thoughts for a bit too long.

Ruby stood and put on a big smile. "My name is Ruby Rose. I like my family, cookies, and weapons. I dislike criminals and Grimm. My goal is to become a great huntress in the future!"

"Thank you, Ruby. You may sit down," her dad said.

She sat down, satisfied with her introduction, and listened to the rest of the introductions. They were just normal introductions for the most part, nothing special. She still paid attention to them, though. It would be rude not to. And besides, if a future friend came to talk to her and she didn't know their name, it would be so embarrassing.

After a few more introductions, the person she was waiting for stood up to introduce himself.

"My name is Rory Rose. I like my family and books. I don't dislike anything in particular. My goal is to become a huntsman."

Generic, but that was probably Rory was going for.

Ruby looked around the room and saw a few girls whispering to each other, giggling. She groaned. She knew this would happen. Objectively speaking, her brother was very attractive, so it made sense that girls would be interested in him.

Not that they would be able to make any progress, though. Herself aside, Yang was extremely protective of both her and Rory. Unless she properly deemed their partner 'worthy', so to speak; for Rory more than Ruby.

But that was probably because of that incident that happened when she was five.

The rest of the day went by normally. Her dad explained things about the curriculum, schedule, rules, etc. Just the normal stuff.

The end of school arrived, and Ruby packed up her things to go home. She looked over to Rory, and saw that she was being approached by three girls.

"Hey, Rory, wanna hang out? We're going to get ice cream on the way back home," one of the girls asked.

"I would love to, but I have to get back home before a certain time. Mom'll get mad, otherwise. Next time?"

"Oh, okay." The girls looked disappointed. "Well, if you want to come with us in the future, just say so, all right?"

"I will," Rory said, a slight smile. He walked over to her and spoke, "Let's go, Ruby. Dad is probably waiting."

"Yeah, I'm coming."

She walked towards the car beside Rory, talking about her day. Once they reached the car, Rory opened the door, and stepped inside, Ruby following him shortly after.

"Ahh, school really sucks," Rory complained, slouching back on the seat.

"You should really pick yourself up, you know?" her dad said. "How are you going to attend Beacon with that attitude?"

"Beacon is in another three years. Cut me some slack."

"Still, the earlier you start, the better."

"I'll make do. You know I do well in school, so I don't know what you're worried about."

"Yeah, I know. I was surprised when I saw you in class today. I didn't think you were telling the truth when you said you were a well-behaved student."

A lie. Her dad had definitely seen Rory outside of the home, and he knew about Rory's grades before this too. In fact, Rory had a chance to skip grades, which her mom didn't let him do. Saying stuff about how he needed friends his age.

"Nice that I proved you wrong," Rory said with a smile.

The rest of the car ride went by with her dad and Rory bickering with each other. The car reached home, and Ruby saw Yang walking home with a few of her friends.

"Hey Yang!" she called out, waving her hands frantically.

Yang noticed her and waved back, running towards the car.

"What's up, Ruby. How was your first day of school?"

Eh, it was okay. I still think you should have come with us in the car."

"Haha, unlike you, Ruby, I have a lot of friends," she said with her arms on her waist, laughing mockingly.

"I just get friends, just you watch!" Ruby said with a slight pout.

"Yeah, sure you can. Isn't that what you said last year?"

"Y-Yeah, but that was different."

"In what way?"

"I-It just was!" She had to divert the conversation. "Anyway, there weren't any combat lessons today. I thought there would be."

"Wait really? Well, I guess I should have told you. Combat lessons start a week or so after the first day."

"R-Really?"

I woke up Rory for no reason then.

"Well, yeah. Not that it matters, really. Normal classes aren't that bad anyway, just use your scroll during class or something."

"Yang! That's not allowed!"

"Meh, who cares about the rules? Rules are made to be broken, you know!"

"You know, Yang, just because people say that, doesn't mean it's right. Or true," Ruby deadpanned.

"Hmph, whatever." Yang paused for a bit. "Where's Rory at, by the way?"

"He should be-" she looked back and saw Rory sitting there, zoned out, thinking about something.

"Is he zoning out again?" Yang asked.

"Yeah." Rory tapped him on the shoulder. "Rory, you there?"

This seemed to have broken him out of his trance. "Yeah? What?"

"Nothing, you were just zoned out."

"Oh, my bad."

She knew better than to ask him about what he was thinking about. She'd tried many, many, times in the past to get something out of him, but all she got was him trying to change the topic and vague answers. She'd still ask from time to time, but she stopped expecting much a while back.

"Hey, Yang, what's up?" Rory asked.

"Walking home. I came to talk to Ruby since she was nearby."

"That so?"

"Yep. How was school?"

"Same old, same old." He paused as if deciding whether or not to say something before he shook his head. "Can't wait for us to start building our weapons, though. We do that sometime in the middle of the year, right?

"Yeah-"

"Wait, that's early!? I thought it wouldn't be till the end of the year!" Ruby interjected.

"Nope, it's earlier than that," Yang confirmed.

"Yes!" Ruby pumped her fist. This is so awesome!

"Hey, Yang, you comin'?"

"Yeah, I'm coming!" Yang turned back to the car. "Well, I gotta go now. See ya."

"Bye Yang." Ruby and Rory said at the same time.

Rory grabbed his bag and opened the car door. "Well, let's get going."

Rory

"Hey, Rory?" My mother's voice called out, and I turned my attention away from my book.

"Yeah?"

"Can you go get the groceries? We're out."

I bookmarked my book and placed it down. "Sure. What do we need?"

"I'll text you the list on your scroll." She took out her scroll and started typing. A minute later, she looked up and spoke, "I sent it."

I looked at the list and nodded. "Okay, I'll go and get them."

"Thanks, Rory," she said with a smile.

"No problem."

I stretched my body a bit and started walking to the main door. Right as I was about to open it, I heard a voice. "Where are you going?"

"Mom asked me to get groceries."

"Want company?" Ruby asked. She turned off the TV and turned to me. "I can come if you want."

"Sure, I could use some company," I responded.

"All right. Let me go wear my shoes." She ran down the hallway and came a minute later with her shoes on. "Let's go."

We walked to the grocery store, which was not too far away, making small talk along the way. It was starting to get dark, and the streets were mostly empty.

"Yang's going to Beacon in two months," Ruby suddenly said. It was out of nowhere.

"Yeah, she is, isn't she?"

"I'm going to miss her." Her tone was dejected.

"Yeah, me too, but there's nothing we can do about that. It's not like we can ask her not to go. That would be selfish."

"Mhm." She nodded.

"And besides, Beacon is four years long. We'll be starting in two, so we'll still go to school with her."

I tried to do something about that. Tried to get into Beacon early, looking for any ways for that to be possible without Ozpin's direct interference like what happened in canon. Of course, I couldn't.

A lot of things would happen in Beacon; a lot of it due to Cinder's influence. I'd planned to get into Beacon early to stop it, but I was seriously doubting that there was going to be a chance encounter like last time. I also doubted that anything I'd done so far – which was basically nothing at all – was enough to create a butterfly effect that would stop, or at least hinder Cinder's plans.

I'd been slacking off so far; not taking advantage of the fact that I had future knowledge of this world and stopping the incidents from happening. I had to do something. Take a more direct approach. The chances of an incident like canon happening were extremel-

A gunshot to our left.

I looked that way and saw a bunch of people and identical masks rushing into a dust store.

The White Fang.

"Fuck. Ruby-" I turned to her direction, but saw that she wasn't there. She was already running towards the conflict.

What was she doing? There were too many of them. We needed a plan.

I ran behind her and grabbed her shoulder before she could reach the store.

"What are you doing? We have to save them!" Ruby yelled.

"I know, and we will. But it's dangerous to go in there without a plan. There are way too many of them."

Ruby's face scrunched up, and then fell. "Okay, fine."

"Thank you."

I closed my eyes and activated my semblance. Suddenly, an influx of information rushed into my brain. I was aware of everything important in the surroundings. The weapons, entrances, hostages, the positions of the White Fang members.

I took note of everything I needed to, deactivated my semblance, and immediately activated thought acceleration. My head hurt after, as it always did after I used it for too long, but I ignored it. I took around thirty seconds of real time to come up with a plan. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it was still better than nothing.

"Okay, I have a plan. Did you bring your weapon?"

"Of course. I always have my weapon on me."

"Okay, good. Sadly, I don't have mine, but unlike you, I can fight without a weapon, so it's fine." She pouted at the remark, but I ignored it. I grabbed onto her shoulder and started explaining, "There's an entrance at the back store that leads to the main supply of dust. The seven of the ten White Fang are there collecting it. Use your semblance to take us to the back and we'll ambush them, and hopefully take most of them out."

Ruby nodded silently. Not wasting any time, she activated her semblance and took both of us to the back exit.

It was a funny feeling. Being the target of Ruby's semblance, that is. Like my body was getting ripped to atoms, but it didn't hurt. It felt funny. That was the only way I could describe it.

"This door," I said, placing my hand on the door. I activated my semblance to update my information on their positions. "When I break the door down, go left; I'll take right. Got it?"

"Got it."

I kicked the door open – which was surprisingly easy to break down, considering it was a store that contained dust – and immediately dashed right. The guy who I went for first was focusing on stealing the dust, so it was easy. I charged my fist with aura and punched him square in the face.

"Fuck! The huntsmen are here!" one of the partners yelled.

I quickly grabbed the weapon of the guy I just punched.

A baton? Good enough.

I kicked the guy on the floor in the head, just in case he wasn't actually knocked out. Then I turned around, and saw one of his allies trying to attack me with some kind of blade. I ducked under it, and hit him in the stomach with my baton.

He was flying back a few feet. He probably wasn't unconscious, but there were still two others to worry about.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck," one of the two I hadn't attacked yet, yelled. "Fuck you. You damn humans. I swear you'll fucking pay for this."

I didn't say anything. 'Don't speak during a fight'; it was one of the most important rules while fighting. Or at least to me. The people in this world didn't really follow that rule, main characters included.

His friend was saying something under his breath… to some kind of communication device? Okay, I had to take care of him first.

The foul-mouthed one dashed to me, weapon ready, but I slid under him. He wasn't the one I was going for. The dude who was talking under his breath widened his eyes, obviously not thinking I would come for him. I heard the other guy curse something, but I ignored it. He tried to activate his aura, but it was too much. My baton had already hit the side of his head, and his eyes rolled back.

The other one? I looked back and saw he had a gun barrel aimed at me. I activated my aura before he could shoot, and the bullet reflected off. Before I could attack him though, Ruby came and attacked him with her scythe.

"Hey, need some help?"

"I didn't, but I appreciate it," I said. I reached down and grabbed the guy's gun. "Okay, let's get the rest of them."

Ruby nodded.

I activated my semblance one more time and saw two of them rushing to this room.

《Skill [Semblance LV 4] has leveled up to [Semblance LV 5]》

I deactivated it shortly after, clutching my head. I used my semblance way too much. Well, at least it leveled up.

"Are you okay? You shouldn't use it too much," Ruby asked, concerned.

"I'm fine. More importantly, there are two more guys coming this way. They should be here any time-"

The wall broke, and the two criminals came through, weapons in hand. Ruby dashed behind one of them with her semblance and hit him with her scythe.

The other one tried to shoot his gun at me, but I grabbed the gun's handguard and directed it away. Then I took my gun and shot his stomach – though it was a bit too close to his chest than I wanted it to be. He groaned and fell to his knees, and I kneed him in the face.

"Rory!" Ruby yelled. Though it was weird. She sounded mad? "What did you do!?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You shot him in the chest! He's going to die!"

"Don't worry, it's not fatal," I said.

"But he's bleeding! W-We have to get an ambulance!"

"Ruby. He's a criminal. And there's another criminal out there, so instead of worrying about this criminal, why don't we go get him?" I hoped that was enough for her to understand. Now, I didn't want to become a murderer or anything, it was something I wanted to avoid, but we had more important matters at hand. We could come back and make sure this guy was okay after.

"It doesn't matter! We're supposed to kill Grimm, not p-"

A scream echoed through the store.

"Ruby," I stressed. "We can talk about this later, okay? But right now, there are more important matters to take care of."

"O-Okay. Fine. But we're talking about this later."

Ruby went through the door first, and I kicked the guy on the floor in the head to make sure he was unconscious. It was unlikely, but if his aura healed him fast enough to where he could ambush us later, it would be bad.

I went out the door and followed Ruby. We ran to the front of the store, and there was a guy there, his gun pointed at a middle aged woman's head.

"So you're the kids who ambushed us, huh? Al- I mean, my friend told me you were coming." He hugged the woman's head closer to the barrel of his gun. She let out a silent sob. "Let's make a deal, okay? I know how you huntsmen are; all righteous and protective of humans. You let us go now, and I won't kill this woman right now."

'Us'. Not 'me'.

I looked around. There were seven more hostages: two children and five adults. They were on their knees, heads down, hands covering their heads. Fuck. The woman aside, he had way too many hostages. Too many people he could hurt.

"And what makes you think we care about the hostages?" I said. It was a horrible idea, but worth a shot. I saw the man's previous confidence on his face falter. The woman's face turned horrified, and she looked like she was desperately trying not to cry out loud, because that might cause the guy to attack her.

I tried to ignore the shitty feeling in my gut, and continued, "You should know how-"

"Rory!" I turned. Ruby looked absolutely mortified. "What are you talking about!?"

Fuck, what was she doing? Okay, maybe I should have explained it was a bluff first. I glared, and mouthed, 'It's a bluff' to her.

But the criminal saw.

"Okay. Look. I don't know what games you're playing, but I will kill this woman if you don't let me go, so make a decision. Now."

Fuck, fuck, FUCK! I grit my teeth as I glared at the faunus. He saw this and just smirked; it only served to infuriate me further.

Okay, calm. I had to calm down. The priority here was getting the hostages safe. A few no-name White Fang members would get away. So what?

"Okay. Okay, fine." I took a deep breath and put my hands in the air, waving them a bit. "We'll let you out, but only you. Your friends in the back are still going to be behind bars. Deal?"

He muttered something under his breath. Most of it was so soft I couldn't hear, even with my enhanced hearing, but I heard the words 'human' and 'stupid' mixed in there. "Okay. Deal."

"Good. If you hurt the woman, or any of the hostages in any way, I'll kill you on the spot." I pointed my gun at him to show it.

It was another bluff, of course. I wouldn't kill him; I didn't think I had it in me either. This was just to discourage him from hurting the hostages.

He flinched and the finger that was on the trigger of his gun twitched a bit. My heart almost stopped. I thought I had messed up, that I had gone too far with my threats, but worries went away when he nodded and said, "Okay, I agree."

I didn't look at Ruby. I didn't have to in order to know the expression she was wearing on her face. She didn't say anything, though. Probably deciding it would be best for me to handle the dangerous situation with hostages.

"Walk to the exit with the hostage, then push the hostage over to us. After that, we'll let you escape. Don't worry, If you follow my directions, you will get out of here."

The criminal just nodded and started to follow my directions, only one thing on his mind: escape. He was in a bad situation, and then he was given a chance to escape. Of course, he would take it. Not checking for any ulterior motives, he just followed my directions. For a criminal, I thought it was naive.

I kept my gun pointed at his head and walked towards the exit. "Okay. Now, give me the hostage and you're free."

"Okay! Just take her!" He pushed the woman towards me, and I caught her.

The faunus turned around to run away, but I changed the direction of my gun, and shot his leg. He let out a scream and fell to the floor.

"You… you said you would release me," he said, gritting his teeth.

"You're a criminal, and sadly for you, that means you don't get much mercy."

"Fuck. Fuck this! Fuck you! It's 'cause I'm a faunus, isn't it!? If I were a human, you would have let me go, wouldn't you!? All you humans all the fucking same-"

I took my baton and hit him on the side of his head. His eyes rolled back, and he fell unconscious.

I took a deep breath. I did it. My first encounter with criminals, which involved hostages, and I did it without any casualties. Every criminal was going to be behind bars; not a single one escaped. Pride welled up inside me at the thought. Now I just had to wait for some huntsman to come and take care of the aftermath.

Almost as if they were reading my mind, a group of three huntsmen came. I noticed the one in the middle of them.

"Rory, Ruby?"

"Uncle Qrow."

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" Uncle Qrow asked.

"Oh, you know. Taking down criminals, getting groceries. The usual." I joked, hoping to lighten the mood, especially for Ruby, who I could sense was standing a few feet behind me. She wasn't talking, which was unlike her, but I guess it made sense.

He glared at me, and I elaborated, "Okay, fine. Mom asked Ruby and I to go get groceries, and on the way, we saw some criminals entering a dust shop, so we stopped them."

"And you two thought that was a good idea? What would your mother say?" I flinched. Mom would be pretty mad. His expression mellowed, and he smiled. "Nonetheless, I'm proud of you both."

"Thanks-"

"Wait, I'm getting an important call." Uncle Qrow took out his scroll and took the call. "Okay… all right… Wait, are you serious!? They were trying to help! Okay… okay, so they're not in trouble… All right-"

I turned my attention away from him and towards Ruby for the first time in a while. She was glaring at me, tears in her eyes. She didn't seem angry. Not in the slightest. She looked more disappointed.

'We'll talk about this later. I promise,' I mouthed to her, but she didn't say anything back.

"Okay, guys. I have good news and bad news," Qrow said. "Good news: you're not in trouble from the property damage. Bad news, or at least kinda bad: you'll have to be put in custody for a while and answer some questions. Don't worry, you're not in trouble or anything-"

I stopped listening; I already knew enough. So much for things not going like Canon.

AN: Sorry for the late chapter. I was on vacation and I didn't have time to update this story. So, what did you think about the chapter? Them stopping a robbery (Like canon, I know. Sue me), and Ruby not approving of Rory's rather… ruthless ways of fighting. Before this, they never got into any fights with humans, besides each other, so Ruby didn't know about it.

Anyway, that's it. I hope you enjoyed the chapter.