To the guest who asked if this should be a Gen Rex X-over: Looks like someone didn't read the chp.1 author's note. Shame on you.
Vale, Beacon Academy: 21/06/137M, 09:25am
"S-sorry again about that whole 'falling on you' thing," Realien apologized to the blonde boy, Jaune. She and Ruby just met him, and he already had offered to help them tote Rea's things to the armoury before currently walking about Beacon's grounds. "My family a-always tell me that I have battle legs; Great at fighting, two left feet at anything else!" She chuckled at her joke.
"Hey, it's cool." Jaune dismissed, "No harm no foul. Just wish she would stop giggling at… that."
"Heheheh… Vomit boy…" Ruby quietly giggled to herself. She had a dopy look on her face as she stared out into the distance and amused herself with the nickname.
"Airsickness is a very common condition!" Juan defended, embarrassed at the nickname Ruby had donned him. "And the name's Jaune Arc! Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue - ladies love it!"
"Do they?" Ruby and Rea asked at the same time, albeit with different tones.
"Th-they will!" Jaune weakly reassured. "Well, I-I hope they will. My mom always says that... Oh, never mind."
Ruby and Rea giggled at Jaune's floundering.
"So, Ladies' Man, what're you packing?" Ruby asked.
"Excuse me?"
"Your weapon." Ruby clarified. "Unless you use hand-to-hand."
"Oh," Jaune nodded, now understanding, "Uh, yeah, I've just got this sword." Unsheathing a sword from a scabbard on his left hip.
"Cool, Cool," Ruby nodded, Rea doing similar.
"And also, this shield too." Jaune raised his scabbard to show that the sides of it extended to form a defence.
"Do they do anything?" Rea asked. "Mecha-shift has been the biggest trend since the Marintine war, but I can't see any visible mechanisms."
"Uh, no, not really. Funny enough, my great-great-grandfather used this to fight in the war." Jaune said, sheathing the sword and retracting the shield. "Kind of a... family heirloom I guess." Jaune rubbed the back of his head. "What bout you girls? What do you have?"
"We dropped all my gear off back at the armoury." Rea reminded.
"Wait, all of that stuff was your weapon?!" Jaune asked, surprised.
Rea chuckled, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment. "Yeah… I use a modular weapon system. It lets me use a weapon for every occasion. Ruby's designs were actually what inspired me to make them."
Now it was Ruby's turn to blush embarrassedly. "T-They weren't that good," Ruby mumbled, trying to play down her own accomplishment.
Rea giggled. "If they weren't that good, then you wouldn't have won the competition. Which you did." She smiled at her red friend.
Jaune watched the two girls' exchange, blinking in confusion. "I feel as though I'm missing something here…"
"O-oh, r-r-right!" Rea stammered. "Ruby here entered a competition held by my family's company and won, and so we're releasing a weapon line based on her designs."
"Your family owns a company?" Jaune questioned.
"U-uh, yes?" Rea replied, not meeting Jaune's eyes and hoping that he wouldn't recognise her. Her fear stemmed less from Jaune in this instance and more from herself, silently freaking out from the superficial pressure of representing the Greyhawk name.
"Huh. Cool." Jaune shrugged, not pushing the subject further. This allowed Rea to sigh in relief.
"So," Rea turned to Ruby, "What weapon do you have, Ruby?"
"Oh, I don't have a weapon." Ruby smiled slyly, her pace becoming a little jauntier.
"I… bwuh?" Rea gaped like a fish out of water. "B-but your designs! Y-your theories! How could you not have one of the greatest weapons of our hunter generation?!" Rea ranted.
"Heh," Ruby smugly chuckled. "I don't have a weapon, because I can do… THIS!"
And with a clanging of gears, Ruby extended two Beatdown Gauntlets out of her arms and held them above both herself and her two new friends.
"What the heck are those?!" Jaune exclaimed fearfully, jumping away from Ruby's newly replaced appendages.
"I call them Beatdown Gauntlets, and they're not all I can do!" Ruby said as she retracted the gauntlets only to make a giant sword from her right arm. "I have a semblance! I-it's a maker-type augmentation one and it lets me make anything mechanical, right out of my body! I mainly use it for weapons, though, and they don't work if they aren't connected to me…" Ruby trailed off, seeing how Jaune and Rea were looking at her.
Jaune looked confused at just how Ruby could do… that. Eyeing her up and down multiple times.
And Rea… Rea was staring at her in awe and seemed just about ready to pass out.
"Y-y-y-you c-can ma-ma-make machines... o-out of your body...?" Rea asked, barely able to formulate words.
"Yes?" Ruby shrugged weakly, suddenly feeling very small despite the very large sword still attached to her hand.
"Ohmyanithatisthecoolesthingever." Rea breathed out as a single word, her voice soft and full of awe. "I-it completely eliminates the entire need of time, resources and carrying bulk that presents such a stopgap to so many hunters, even my semblance has a limit! And all you have to do is... use a semblance?" Rea ranted.
"Weeeeeelll... it's not as simple as that." Ruby answered. "My semblance only allows me to make the machines themselves, I have to think up what they would be and how they would work myself. Some are pretty simple like Hacksaw here,"
Ruby used her regular hand to gesture to the sword on her other. "It's pretty much just a big sword. Although I did modify it so that the cerated edge can spin at high speeds... like a chainsaw… but that's beside the point!" Ruby returned her hand to normal and waved both of them in front of herself. "I make blueprints on how they would work, and then have to visualize how to make them function."
"But how do they function?" Rea inquired. "Do they use aura to function? If they're an augmentation semblance, do they need constant upkeep like dark vision? Or are they semi-burst like teleporting?"
"Oh! That's a really cool thing! Most of my static creations just need to be built to work, but I've also made a self-contained generator that runs off of gravity with the only byproduct being atoms of selenium!"
"B-but how?! Something like that would be impossible to practically deploy or use!"
"Ah, but you see! Since it's a maker-type semblance that lets me..."
To the side, Jaune continued to watch the two red and grey girls discuss topics that he would admit to not even knowing what they were about, let alone what the words they were saying meant. He just made sure to keep pace with the girls', and hoped they were still heading to the main hall.
ARwIT
Vale, Beacon Academy: 21/06/137M, 09:29am
"Hey! Ruby!" Yang waved as soon as she saw her sister enter the main hall, which was filled with other noisy first years. "Over here!"
"Oh, hi Yang!" Ruby waved back, then turned to her new friends. "Hey, do you guys want to come and meet my sister?"
"Sure." Jaune gave a small shrug.
"Um, o-okay..." Rea stammered.
Ruby grinned and began dragging them through the crowds until they reached, to Ruby's surprise, two, tall blonde girls.
"Heya Red!" Yang greeted. She jutted a thumb over her shoulder at the second blonde. "This is Mars. We met earlier, she's pretty cool."
"Hey." Mars greeted with a small upwards nod.
"Hi!" Ruby greeted Mars, performing a little wave before returning her attention to Yang. "Yang! I'd like to also introduce you to my two new friends! This is Rea and Jaune!" Ruby exaggeratedly gestured to the blonde and greynette.
"Whaaaa? Ruby! That's awesome! Not even a day and you've got two new friends! Well, I guess I should say you got your first two friends" Yang cheered, hugging her sister. "Hi! I'm Yang! Ruby's big sister!" Yang greeted Ruby's new friends whilst returning Ruby to a casual headlock.
"Realien Greyhawk." Realien greeted back.
"Jaune Arc," Jaune replied as suavely as he could. He even added a little eyebrow wiggle.
"Greyhawk, ey?" Yang scratched her chin in thought, completely ignoring Jaune. "You're part of the Greyhawk industries, I'm guessing. Ruby here never shuts up about it."
"Yaaaaang!" Ruby groaned embarrassedly, burying her rapidly blushing face with her hands. Yang only laughed, quickly joined by Mars who found similar hilarity in it as Yang.
"I'm only kidding around!" Yang grinned, smacking Ruby on the back. "But seriously, it is nice to see you getting some friends at last."
"Well..." Ruby adopted a playfully ashamed look, "There was one other person I met..."
"Oh Yeah?" Yang raised an eyebrow. "Another friend? Man, Ruby I honestly don't give you enough credit. Honestly."
"Weeeeeel not exactly..." Ruby cringed. "She was kinda being a jerk, so..."
"YOU!"
"Ah!"/"Meep!" Ruby and Rea exclaimed respectively, Rea immediately diving behind Jaune to hide as the haughty heiress appeared.
"I still can't believe how you mocked me like that earlier!" Wiess shouted at the red mechanic irately. "Since you made your complete incompetency very- clear earlier, I'll offer you a chance to redeem my very little respect for you if you promise to read this, and never talk to me again." Weiss shoved a pamphlet in Ruby's face.
Ruby stared at the pamphlet for a moment before swatting Weiss' hand to the side and furrowing her brow.
"Now hold on a second here Ice Princess," Ruby began, quickly cutting off a 'How dare you-!' from Weiss, "I don't have to do squat of what you tell me. I'm not sure how things worked for you before in fancyland, but we're becoming hunters now, and there's a thing called respect that we need to treat one other with."
"Oh, believe me," Weiss scoffed, "I'm treating you with just the right amount of respect for a child." She paused to scan ruby up and down. "And how old are you anyway?"
"Don't answer her, Ruby," Yang said through clenched teeth, slowly increasing the temperature around her and beginning to loom. Ruby simply put a hand on Yang to hold her back, not breaking eye contact with Weiss.
"Fifteen," Ruby replied confidently.
"Fifteen?" Weiss smirked and scoffed again (she seemed to be doing a lot of that). "What's a kid like you doing in a Hunter school? This place is for people a little more mature than you."
"Oh, like you're one to talk?" Ruby shot back.
Weiss, proving smarter than Ruby thought she looked, slowly developed a slight scowl as she grew further and further impatient with this red girl. To save herself from further embarrassment, Weiss finally turned on her heel and stomped as far away as she could from the group.
"Wow," Mars said, who had been lurking in the background next to Jaune. "That girl is a whole 'nother thing."
"Kinda cute though," Jaune commented. Mars gave Jaune a 'really?' look before shrugging and looking back at the disappearing Weiss.
"Eh, I'll give her that."
"Hey guys," Ruby asked as she looked around, "Where's Rea?"
"Over here." A small voice replied from behind Jaune. Jaune moved out of the way as the whole group inspect what looked like a hole with a rim of shattered glass suspended in the air, Rea's face poking out from it.
"Uhhhh… what's that?" Jaune asked, tilting his head in confusion.
"O-oh, um. I-it's my semblance. A manifest-type augmentation" Rea explained as she climbed through the hole, which expanded to let her through. "I can make 'rifts' between places, it's how I can use my modular weapon system."
"Oh neat!" Ruby chirped happily; all thoughts of Weiss now forgotten. "That's really neat!"
Rea blushed at the praise before the crackling of a microphone drew the auditorium's occupants' attention to the stage, where Professor Ozpin stood, Six and Glynda Goodwitch beside him.
"Greetings, everyone, and welcome to Beacon academy." Ozpin addressed the room. "All of you have come here from across the Plains of Remnant to attend this prestigious academy for one goal and one goal alone; to train as Hunters and achieve the rank of Huntsman or Huntress. This is not a task to be taken lightly, as the life of a Hunter is fraught with perilous tasks and challenges at every turn. And I will be blunt with you all, only the best of you will come out of this school and the rest will leave. Either for their own safety or dead…"
Gasps sprouted around the auditorium, but Ozpin continued.
"Now, one thing I must make clear to you at this very moment is this. None of you, are currently students of Beacon. You have simply been invited to take our entrance exam, one that will determine if you are truly fit to become Hunters. One where you will be fighting real Grimm and do have the potential to be maimed or killed from.
"None of you will be forced to take or even complete the test and are allowed to leave at any time that you want. But should you do, you will not be admitted to this academy. Some of you, I know, are returning after leaving last year to take the exam again. Hopefully, you have honed your skills, and are confident you can do better this year. I wish you all luck"
Ruby took a look around, and sure enough, she noticed a number of people older than seventeen, some even looking in their young twenties.
"With all that dreary news out of the way, I'd like to introduce you to Miss Glynda Goodwitch, deputy headmistress and professor of your aura classes. And Six, who is acting disciplinary and combat instructor. Please familiarize yourselves with them, should you need anything.
"Now, for tonight you'll be using our Main Hall to sleep in, bedding will be provided. Tomorrow, after the examination and subsequent assigning of teams, you will be given a dorm for you and your team that will be yours for the rest of the time you are at Beacon. Dinner will be in the cafeteria, and to show you where both are, one of our second-year teams have volunteered to show you where both where that and the main are."
Ozpin gestured to the back of the room where everyone turned their heads to see four people standing to attention, two boys and two girls.
"Once they have shown you those locations, you are all free to do what you want until six o'clock dinner. Stay safe, listen to your upperclassmen, and get some good rest, because you are all going to need it tomorrow." Ozpin finished at last, dismissing the assembly and leaving the prospective students to begin chattering amongst themselves.
"Well, that was… intense," Yang commented to her group, receiving solemn nods from everyone else.
ARwIT
Vale, Beacon Academy: 21/06/137M, 09:40am
"May I have your attention please?" A girl with straight black hair and a blue dress with a white apron called to the gathering of first years in the corridor. "My name is Alice Whittervane, and I am the leader of team Wonderland, we are going to be your guides today. Before we start, can I have a show of hands of who here has been here before?"
A number of hands went up.
"Okay, brilliant. Could you all just move to the back then so we can give the first-timers a better look at things?"
After a brief scuffling of boots, shoes and the occasional heel, the majority of older examinees were standing at the back. Ruby's friends and sister stood as a group right at the front.
"Great," Alice said after they had all arranged properly. "Let's get going then. Please don't feel afraid to ask any questions that you may have, we may only be showing you the cafeteria and main hall, but we'd still be happy to answer any questions you may have." She paused for a moment. "Just, err, don't ask Mat over there" Alice warned as she glanced at a boy in a purple top hat and forest green trenchcoat who had a distant expression on his face. "It'll leave you with more questions than when you started.
With that they took off, Alice providing a short bit of exposition on things that they passed and trying to answer a barrage of questions from the students. Most of them came from a white-haired heiress.
After finally being shown the two places they set out to see, the second years disappeared and left the prospective first years to their own devices.
"Sooo..." Ruby rocked on the balls of her feet, swinging her arms. "Wanna go to the armoury?" She quickly asked Rea.
"Yes!" Rea responded instantaneously. The two then dashed off so fast that one could swear they had speed semblances.
"Well, I guess we aren't seeing them for the rest of the day," Yang commented, knowing well enough what the outcome was when Ruby began absolving herself in weapon smith-ing. She only hoped that Rea was good enough to keep up with her little sister.
"If they're going to look at the armoury, want to check out the gym then?" Mars suggested to her fellow blonde.
"Yeah sure," Yang grinned, disappearing with Mars down a different corridor and leaving Jaune all by himself, his brain still lagging at how he had just been ditched.
"Aw great," Jaune complained. "Now where am I supposed to find a new quirky girl to talk to?"
ARwIT
Vale, Beacon Academy: 22/06/137M, 06:04am
Yang was always an early riser. It was one of the plethoras of reasons her father had donned her the nickname 'Sun Dragon'. And as such an early riser, she had already been up for half an hour now, waiting for the remainder of her fellow examinees to wake.
Her problem was that she was trying desperately not to start teasing Ruby as soon as she got up. Got up and off from Rea, that was.
When the two girls had finally come back from the armoury, they were practically dead on their feet, unable to do much more than pull up two sleeping bags and collapse onto them as well as on each other in a tangle of limbs.
Yang knew that, practically, Ruby didn't like Rea in that sense - she was more likely to falling love with a robot or something anyway. However, as the classic big sister that she was, Yang wasn't about to let Ruby walk away from this without a face as red as her jacket and the inability to look Yang in the eyes for at least ten minutes.
A soft groan from Ruby alert Yang that it was showtime. As her eyes fluttered open, Ruby shifted around as if to get a little bit more comfortable atop her new friend. And then suddenly, her eyes snapped open in realization to where she was, what time it was, and what she was doing today. Spring up into a sitting position, Ruby inadvertently awakened Rea who also began groaning in sleepy protest. Ruby was about to turn around and shake her grey friend awake fully when she was stopped as she caught a look at the look on Yang's face.
"Hi, Ruby." Yang smiled devilishly.
Ruby gulped.
If you see any mistakes I've made, please tell me so that I can fix them.
Till next time!