Chapter 1. Overture

The airship lot was crowded today, full of young people. Today many of them would start their education at Beacon Academy, a special type of school designed to train Huntsmen and Huntresses to protect humanity from Grimm, creatures of darkness which sought to to reduce the world to nothing.

Rouge was getting impatient with the wait and decided to entertain herself with some people, although not in a way they'd appreciate. She started off with Garlik Allium, her cousin, by soaking him wet with the help of her water spirit.

"You're getting really boring," he remarked.
"I'm just killing some time before the departure," she slyly said.

She then decided to toy with another person, this time choosing a boy with long, blue hair neatly tied in a ponytail. She used her earth spirit to conjure some mud above him and drop it. He gasped in shock when he was hit with it and looked around what could be the cause of it. A dark pink-haired girl suddenly appeared behind him, gently tapping his shoulder.

"That was terrible, wasn't it?" she asked with clearly fake concern in her voice.
"Who are you!?" he exclaimed, startled by an unexpected person.
"I could ask you the same, bluebird."
"Not gonna happen," he grunted.
"Such a bore, and ungentlemanly as well," she sighed and left his side.
"Hey, I take pride in that!" he remarked but she couldn't hear him.

Rouge was choosing yet another target, but she was slightly unmotivated due to her attempt from few moments ago. After few quick glances she noticed an orange-haired girl intensively conversing with a black-haired boy who strangely had a pink streak in his hair. The girl would make a perfect target.

The joker decided to go with something drastic: she set one of the girl's belongings, a small chest, on fire. Strangely she continued on her rambling even though several people noticed the smoke and its source after a minute or so.

Then her partner in conversation suddenly spoke, "Something is burning."
The girl sniffed and with a big grin on her face replied, "Smells like sausages."
"Isn't this yours, Nora?" the boy asked her, pointing at the burning chest.
"Oh my gosh, you're right, Ren!" she exclaimed surprised. "But how it is on fire?" Her voice was awfully calm for saying something that should sound more... drastic.

Rouge approached them and using her water spirit put the fire off. The boy named Ren looked at her somehow surprised, while the girl named Nora immediately dived into the chest to see if there was anything left there.

"Thank you," the boy said.
"That's nothing," Rouge replied with a fake smile. She thought that the little fire would cause some scene, but that was unlikely.
"Oh, nothing's left," the orange-haired girl muttered sadly from the chest. "I hoped to share some of the sausages with our future team."
"I think your enthusiasm will suffice, Nora," the boy said.
"I'm Rouge," the dark pink-haired girl introduced herself.
"As you heard just now my friend there is Nora," the boy introduced his friend. "My name is Ren. Nice to meet you."

The boy extended his hand and the pink-haired girl hesitantly shook it. Suddenly Nora appeared and with a swift downward stroke of her hand she broke the handshake.

"Promise made!" she exclaimed in chirpy voice.
"We were just introducing ourselves," Ren calmly said.
"Oh," was the only remark they got from Nora.
"Rouge," suddenly a man appeared behind the dark pink-haired girl, "the airship has arrived and I'm not planning on carrying your luggage."
"Aren't men supposed to be kind and chivalrous towards women?" she teased Garlik.
"Wrong times," he replied plainly and the two left after Rouge said her goodbyes to Ren and Nora.

"The view is amaaazing!" Bruin remarked, looking at the city of Vale through the windows of the airship. "It has nothing to do with Haven!"
"Hardly," he suddenly heard a female voice behind him.

He turned around and saw a girl with short bright blue hair wearing a dark blue business suit with several red accents. She was giving him a stern look.

"Your excitement is nothing more than inexperience, I presume," she said.
"Aren't you too inexperienced? We're both on the same boat."
"Technically, we're on airship."
"That's not what I meant and you know it!"
"A little composure would do you good. If you're lucky, you might mature even a little."

The man sighed and left her. The girl certainly knew how to kill a mood and she was acting sooo grown-up that made him feel sick a little.

He then glanced at a screen: there was a news report about Roman Torchwick, a dangerous criminal who was currently stealing Dust all over the kingdom of Vale. Dust was a source of elemental power, something which nor human or Faunus had access to, aside of those who had elemental powers as part of their Semblance which still was quite limiting. Bruin mused a bit of what Torchwick would use so much Dust, the only thing he was certain that something big was brewing.

After the report on Torchwick, the news then switched to Faunus. For as long as one can remember humans and Faunus were always fighting each other and even their common enemy, the creatures of Grimm, did little to unite the two torn races. The Faunus wanted to treated as normal people, despite their outward appearance which was having some animal features being sported here and there on their bodies. Bruin cared little for the interracial squabbles, although it annoyed him a bit: why can't humans and Faunus just get along?

The news report on the recent activity of Faunus and the terrorist group that spawned from them, the White Fang, was cut short with the appearance of a blonde woman's hologram.

"Hello, and welcome to Beacon!" her first words startled a few students and caused them to fall. "My name is Glynda Goodwitch. You are among a privileged few who have received the honor of being selected to attend this prestigious academy!" Her voice started to sound very formal, nearly commanding, annoying Bruin. "Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace, and as future Huntsmen and Huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it." The blue-haired girl appeared once again and shot a glare at Bruin, clearly angry with him. What's the deal with her? "You have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task, and now it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge and the training to protect our world."

The hologram disappeared and the news report resumed.

"Glad that's over," he sighed.
"That was an important speech, you know," the same girl from before said. "You shouldn't just jump straight into fight without having even decent information."
"Stop lecturing me!" Bruin growled. "This is not a kindergarten, blueberry."
"You... you... you..." the girl tried to come up with a counter insult with similar strength to what the boy said, "you trunk!"
"Your gift for insults is truly magnificent," he laughed.
"I'll let you know that I won a literature writing contest last year!" she replied with a growl.
"Can't see that," he waved and left her.
"I will teach him some manners."

"Watch where you're throwing!"

Blergh. The blond boy threw again into a bin. He certainly wasn't enjoying the flight.

"S-sorry!" the boy muttered.
"Not throwing up on me will be apology enough, for now."

Then another blonde boy appeared with a bag in his hand. He handed it over to the other blond.

"Try breathing into it," he instructed.

The airsick blond did as he was told. It was actually relieving for him. He felt a bit better since the airship took off.

"J-Jaune," the blond introduced himself extending his arm to his lifesaver.
"Maize," the other boy said. His hair were more intense blond than Jaune's and were all over his head giving an impression of him being a hedgehog, yet it was more of a 'storm-came-through-and-I-didn't-bother-fixing-my-hair'. "Nice to meet you."
"I'm Zelony," the green-haired man said.
"Weird name," Jaune replied.
"Like Maize's here is any different," Zelony retaliated at the other boy.
"Hey, I didn't insult you!"
"But that doesn't change the fact that your name's weird," Zelony shrugged.
"Say a word and you won't see another day," Maize said through his gritting teeth.
"Guys, don't—" Jaune wanted to stop their fight before it would evolve into something dangerous, but he threw again.

Irritated, Zelony left the two blonds. He soon spotted two girls: one was short with black hair and red tips, the other was taller and had long blonde hair. Jaune suddenly started to run across the airship to look for another empty bin and some of his puking ended near their feet.

"Watch it, Vomit Boy!" the taller girl yelled as Jaune passed by them, her eyes turning red for a brief moment.
"Here," Zelony threw a tissue at the blonde girl who caught it. "Use it to remove that stain off from your shoe."
"Thanks, but aren't you worried it getting dirty with that?" she asked mildly concerned.
"Nah, I got plenty of them," he waved it off.
"Yang," she said. "This chatterbox is my sister Ruby."
"Hey!" the shorter girl named Ruby yelled.
"Zelony," the boy said. "But you" he turned to Yang, "can call me 'Zel'."
"Alright, Zel," she replied.
"Um, what with the getup?" Ruby asked Zelony. "You look kinda like Yang actually. With those super high trainers and super short pants."
"Hey!" now it was Yang yelling.
"Please, I don't wear uneven socks," Zelony said irritated. "And don't get me started on your chest."
"You have problem with that?" she looked at him, fire in her eyes.
"Should this yellow shirt be any lower and they'll just escape from your bra. I can only imagine how hard it must be to fight when they jingle."

That was too much for Yang. Before Ruby could stop her, she delivered a punch straight into Zelony's face and sent him flying across the airship. He landed on someone. When he looked up to see who was the unlucky fellow he noticed it was Maize.

"You again!?" the blond yelled in shock.
"And who did you expect? That fire girl?" Zelony replied.
"Who?"

Zelony pointed at Yang who was being stopped by Ruby from bursting into rage and wrecking destruction on the fragile construction which is an airship. Maize looked at her horrified.

"Maize, you okay?" Zelony asked the blond seeing the fear on his face.
"P-Perfectly fine," he muttered.

Author's Notes

This is the first chapter which encompasses Episode 1×01 titled "Ruby Rose". I had to chose a different name for it since I decided to not use the robbery on "From Dust Til Dawn" as the starting point since I noticed it is quite a common thing among Original Character fiction for RWBY. I also start to introduce the "secondary" team for team BRNZ, both are based on Tales of series characters and like all team members of that team share their last names with characters on which they are based (with exception of one character who uses more literal translation of their name since the localized is... wonky).

The second chapter will encompass both parts of "The Shining Beacon".

Replies

Johanne Smithe: I hope you enjoyed the interactions. For now, my OCs are quite one-dimensional, but give them time and their personalities will evolve (like with every person I suppose). I think Bruin is a bit more interesting than the rest of his team, because he's not as dorky as I originally envisioned him to be.