Chapter 1: Hurry up, Dreams!

Professor Ozpin was unlike any other man.

Countless lives lived and lost… it never got any easier to die after all these years. Nevertheless, he had to continue moving on for the sake of humanity. No matter what.

It was for the sake of this endeavor that he currently found himself gazing upon a great giant, a metal titan that stood for the fortitude of humanity. Or rather, the unpainted machines that combine into one. The man at his side was the mastermind behind such a machine, a pioneer in next generation robotics.

And the man who discovered the best bet for humanity's survival.

"Tell me Doctor, were you in a nostalgic mood when you designed this one?" The professor asked, a slight upturn of his lips signifying his amusement, "Very similar design, only updated with current technology."

The scientist gave a somber smile, continuing to look at his creation.

"You're looking for her daughter, correct? I felt it was fitting," Was the response, eliciting a somewhat surprised reaction from Ozpin, "This machine is at maximum power with silver eyes behind the controls, after all, and who else do we know is a likely owner of those eyes?"

Ozpin remained silent at that, tapping a finger on his cane. There was one thing he did notice in the specs that made him curious, though.

"I see that you took the liberty of giving it the ability to act on its own."

"Only in an emergency situation where the pilots are out of commission," The scientist replied, shrugging, "and it's a very limited artificial intelligence, not much smarter than autopilot. We're already off the deep end if it activates, but it's good to have a backup plan."

"On that, we agree…"

The Island of Patch

Ruby Rose was just like any other kid.

Well, any other kid who could move at supersonic speeds and wield a massive sniper-scythe, but that's besides the point. Naturally, like most kids, if she saw someone something cool then she would also like to do it as well.

Which is why she found it odd that no one else was quite as fanatic about Super Robots as her. I mean, who wouldn't be? Regular Huntsmen and Huntresses were cool and all, but the ones who got to pilot those massive machines that could touch the sky and blow up giant monsters? That's where it's at! Well, she could understand somewhat, the chance to see one, let alone pilot one, was very slim due to the decrease of massive Grimm ever since she was a kid. They were becoming less and less needed as time went on, and becoming a pilot required an extensive career as a Huntsman (or military pilot in the case of Atlas).

But that's beside the point! She had a completely new problem to deal with, something that she never expected, something outrageous!

"What do you mean you're leaving?!" She cried out, throwing out her arms as if she were struck.

"I told you, Rubes, Beacon has all their students stay in the dorms, and it'd be kinda hard to get there on time from an island every day," Her older sister, Yang, said as if she's been repeating the same thing over and over again, "and you'll have to get used to me not being around someday anyway, I can't be around to hold your hand forever."

"But I want you to beeeeeeee!" Was Ruby's totally tactful and not childlike response as she seemed to sag a bit.

"Ruby, let me pack and stop bothering me!" Yang said with some annoyance, letting her younger sister know how irritating she was being, "Go check out that shop you always go to or something."

The redhead pouted a bit, sulking as she pulled her hood over her head and went to her room, "Ugh, fine…" She muttered as she grabbed her darling, Crescent Rose, and left. Never know what could happen, might need it. At least, that was always her reasoning for bringing it everywhere. Everyone just kind of gave up arguing otherwise to her.

"I'm heading out, dad!" She called out as she stepped out of the door. Their father was outside already, prepping Yang's motorcycle for the trip to the mainland, "Dunno how long I'll be out!"

He looked up from where he was tying the tarp over Bumblebee, and seemed to think for a moment before speaking, "Just make sure that you're home before dark!" was his response, which was a surprise to the 15 year old. He was usually a bit protective of her, even initially fighting her dream of becoming a huntress, but she wasn't going to question it.

"Thanks, dad!" She cried out with a smile, taking off running. A bark to her right brought her attention to her forever best-friend-and-sidekick, Zwei! Unfortunately, she didn't really plan on bringing him with her, so she began to shoo him away as he tried to run with her, "No, Zwei! Go play with dad for a bit, I'm going out!"

After a few minutes of convincing, Zwei finally took off back towards the house, leaving Ruby alone as she headed to where the ferry usually docked. She passed by a few of her friends from Signal Academy, the aforementioned school not far from the island's coast. Unsurprisingly, this was a result of much of the island's population living on or near the coast where the docks that could regularly bring supplies from Vale were. Those docks are where she would find the ferry.

There were a bunch of other people on the ferry when they set out, some having weapons like her. Of course, they were all probably Beacon upperclassmen who went home for the weekend. Ruby, the fanatic that she is, kept a keen eye on each weapon and pondered how each one worked as she mentally broke down the possible mechanisms behind each one. She was eyeing some kind of laser tonfa when she got the sudden instinct to go outside, it nagged at her unbearably.

Getting up and following her instincts, she went out onto the deck and looked out across the water. Patch was visible behind the boat, and Vale was also now visible to the front, they were at the midway point. Whatever she was going to do next was interrupted as sirens from both sides could be heard blaring a sound she knew, but had never been used in an actual situation.

"Giant Aquatic Grimm incoming!" She shouted out to everyone else on the boat, taking out Crescent Rose to use its scope and hopefully spot the danger. Sure enough, the dark form of a massive Grimm was making its way to the shallow waters of Patch. Panic overtook Ruby, and the other armed individuals made their way to where she was on the ferry. There was nothing any of them could do from here, only watch as a Leviathan rose up from the depths.

All thoughts of terror were suddenly interrupted as a trio of white aircraft flew over them and caused the ferry to rock. The trio fired their weapons and drew the Leviathan's attention away from Patch, the impacts caused it to roar and instead begin moving for Vale as it stomped through the shallow waters.

"Wow…" Ruby breathed out, not registering that, since it was now moving for Vale, the ferry was directly in its path.

"Damn, we gotta get out of here!" Someone shouted out to the ferry's skipper. What they were going to say next was interrupted by the Leviathan's roar as the aircraft made another pass, but something was different… and Ruby realized what was coming next as she saw the gills glow a fiery orange.

"EVERYONE GET DOWN!" She shouted as the monster unleashed a maelstrom of fire and electricity from its mouth into the air, thankfully missing the ferry by a wide margin, but instead it had aimed for the three aircraft as they were flying in formation. The beam didn't connect, but the aircraft had to break formation as they briefly scattered, and Ruby noticed the scorched side of the leader as it, while undamaged, likely lost control due to a surge of electricity from being near the beam. She held her breath as it plummeted, its trajectory causing it to slam into the water ahead of the ferry, which was chugging along as fast as it could towards the relative safety of Vale.

She did notice two major things, the other two aircraft seemed to lose some of their aggressiveness after the lead aircraft went down, and the aircraft that crashed was buoyant enough to remain floating on the surface of the water. The Leviathan roared again as it tried to take a swipe at one aircraft that got too close, but missed since it was too fast. The ferry began to pass the downed aircraft when the huntress in training noticed one very important detail.

It had an entry hatch at the top.

Once she saw that the vehicle wasn't moving at all, she resolved to do something that was either very brave or very stupid. Hopefully the former instead of the latter, or else she'd never hear the end of it whenever Yang finally came to the afterlife.

Using her semblance, Ruby flung herself over to the downed craft, ignoring the cries of those on the ferry telling her to come back. Slipping slightly on the wet surface, Ruby let out a yelp before digging the blade into the surface of the craft to stop herself from falling off. She heard another roar from the Leviathan, closer this time, and she saw it approaching. The ferry was also leaving her, not willing to stay and risk the lives on the boat to recover her. Whatever, she could do this… she was sure of it.

Thankfully, whatever security system the craft had that would have kept her from opening the hatch seemed to have been deactivated by the surge of electricity. She pried the door open with her somewhat flimsy arms, puffing her cheeks from the effort before jumping in and slamming the hatch above her.

Ruby wasn't sure what she expected the interior to look like, but she definitely didn't expect for some jet-like thing to have so many buttons, screens, and gosh-darn levers. She also didn't expect it to be without a pilot, but she guessed there was an autopilot of some kind behind it.

"Um, okay Ruby, you just have to find the start-thingy…" She muttered to herself, resolving to just push buttons until something happened. She was halfway across the first console when the machine suddenly sprang to life, and through the cockpit window she could see the Leviathan even closer than before, "Ok, good! Now just find something that'll help you NOT die!" She told herself as she bit her thumb out of fear.

Beacon Academy: Hidden Laboratory

"Doctor, Steel-1 suddenly activated!" A man at a console called out, his display beeping. The man he was addressing nodded with a grunt.

"Good, the electrical damage wasn't as bad as we thought," The scientist said, watching the main screen that depicted the Leviathan battling the machines Steel-2 and Steel-3. His next thoughts were interrupted by what the operator said next.

"It didn't start itself, someone activated it from the cockpit!"

"What!? Get a visual of the cockpit interior!" He ordered, standing up from his chair.

As the visuals came to life, he was met with a ghost from the past, "...Summer!?"

The person he saw was practically a spitting image of Summer Rose, but on a second look, he could see that they were much too young. The girl in the cockpit was also much more… panicky. He shook his head, grabbing the microphone next to him before speaking,

"Hey, you!"

Off the shores of Patch

Ruby jumped in surprise as a loud voice came from the console she was about to press a button on.

"ACK! What, who is that?! I'm not doing anything!" She yelped out, throwing up her hands in a mock martial arts stance.

"I'm sure you aren't," The voice said in an exasperated tone, "Now listen closely if you want to live past the next few minutes! Take a seat and grab onto the controls!" It ordered, causing the teenager to put her arms down and listen.

"Ok, anything to get me outta this mess!" She said, sitting down in the pilot seat and nervously holding onto the steering wheel-stick-thing, "What next!?"

"You see that red button on your left? Hit it! Make sure that you're prepared for heavy acceleration before you do."

Ruby nodded, buckling herself into the seat. She hit the button, and at the same time saw the Leviathan looking down at her as it raised a claw. She was slammed back into her seat as the machine suddenly took off between the Leviathan's legs at max speed, leaving behind a large spray of water. Thankfully, her semblance and unlocked aura helped her deal with the sudden acceleration and g-force. The machine seemed to automatically pitch upwards to gain altitude.

Seemingly by instinct, Ruby took control and maneuvered the aircraft to flatten out its movement and turn towards the Leviathan. She's played a few flight games, enough to at least understand how a plane flies. A bead of sweat made its way down the side of her face, but she wiped it away as she heard her next instruction.

"You're doing good, kid. Now this next part may sound strange, but you have to do it to beat this thing."

Ruby gulped, and nodded, wondering just what this man has in store for her. After a moment of silence, she noticed the other two flying machines beside her own.

"What is your mother's name?"

That question caused a pit to form in Ruby's stomach for some reason, but she shook her head and steeled her resolve despite the strange question, "My mom? Her name was Summer… Summer Rose!"

A moment of silence from the comms, then the voice returned sounding fired up for some reason, "Alright! This next step is voice activated, so you need to be LOUD and CLEAR when you repeat the phrase I'm about to tell you, understand!?"

At the nod from Ruby, the voice continued its instructions, "I need you to pull the lever to your right and shout: Change, Aura Rose!"

Right away, without question as the Leviathan stared her down with a charging beam attack, Ruby shouted at the top of her lungs, pulling the lever as the aircraft accelerated.

"CHANGE, AURA ROSE!"

The two aircraft flanking her suddenly reduced their speeds as multiple computers in her cockpit beeped in response to her call. Before she could question what was happening, she felt something slam into her from behind, a screen to her left displayed the words: "Steel-2 Connected". The Leviathan roared as the maelstrom of energy it was gathering was ready to be unleashed, and so it fired the thunderous attack. At that same moment, Ruby felt another impact right as another screen lit up with the words: "Steel-3 Connected".

She closed her eyes and crossed her arms in front of her face in fear as she saw the oncoming beam, but looked again when she didn't feel any heat or pain. A giant metal fist was blocking the beam as her machine seemed to dive through the attack. The fist quickly met the Leviathan's face, and they were suddenly sent tumbling into the water.

"What are you doing? Grab those controls and FIGHT!" The voice cried out from the comms, causing Ruby to start in surprise before grabbing the now morphed controls.

A pair of gloves attached to wires were in place of whatever control mechanism was before her previously. She quickly put them on and clenched her fist, the metal hands before her copying the same motion.

"Aura Rose will follow your own movements, now fight like your life depends on it because I can guarantee that it does!"

"Okay, okay!" Ruby shouts back, making a motion to push herself into a standing position. Of course, the machine obeyed. As the visuals got above the water, she saw the Leviathan slowly getting up, a dislocated jaw the result of their little moment of contact

She suddenly realized that her seat had turned into some kind of extension to the control devices, leaving her standing with tracking devices attached to her waist and legs. Shaking off her moment of confusion, she ran forwards, some kind of treadmill keeping her in place, and threw a rudimentary punch towards the Leviathan's face. She really shouldn't have slacked off on unarmed training…

Regardless, the punch stuck true and sent the Grimm stumbling. It lashed out with its tail in retaliation and hit Ruby in the side, sending her stumbling again. She saw one of the screens light up with a message that she read aloud.

"Tomahawk ready…" She mumbled, then steeled her gaze as she glared at the Leviathan as she cried out, "THORN TOMAHAWK!"

The display beeped as it shifted to the words: "Hardlight dust activated."

Projectors on the shoulders of Aura Rose suddenly activated as they created a weapon whose schematics were previously uploaded into the system. A massive hardlight battle axe now floated in front of Ruby, which she grabbed eagerly. The Leviathan roared in confusion and charged her with its claws ready to tear her apart, but she now had the advantage of a weapon.

"TAKE THIS!" She called out as she leapt forwards, bringing the axe above her head before bringing it down hard on the Grimm monstrosity's head. She missed slightly, bringing it down on its neck, but she cleaved completely through regardless. The Leviathan gave one final growl as the life faded out of its eyes, then began to disintegrate.

Ruby breathed heavily for a few moments, then realized how much she was shaking as it finally registered what she had done.

"OH MY GOSH, I JUST PILOTED A SUPER ROBOT!"