Chapter 1 – Ruby's First Issue

Come one, come all, to witness the super duper cool, hyper epic mega-amazingly awesome origin story of Ruby Rose, soon to be Remnant's greatest superh̶e̶r̶o̶!

Huh. That was odd.

Let's try that again – Remnant's greatest super̶h̶e̶r̶o̶!

Remnant's greatest superh̶e̶r̶o̶!

Um.

Remnant's…

Greatest…

Super…

H̶e̶r̶o̶!

Uh oh…that can't be good.

Today was the day.

Coming to Beacon was a dream Ruby had cherished since she was a child, but to get to come to Beacon earlier than everyone else in her year? And not just because of something stupid like a scholarship – it was because she fought a supervillain alongside an epic huntress teacher and impressed the king! Er, headmaster. Still cool, though!

This is the kind of story out of a comic book, Ruby thought. The epic origin story of Remnant's guardian – the Red Reaper!

Ruby stuck out her tongue as she paced back and forth on the airship to Beacon and bit down onto it, deep in ponderous thought. She had until they landed in the courtyards to come up with a better superhero name than the Red Reaper, and she was entirely certain that she could, because that one sucked.

The Red Rose? But it gave away her secret identity.

The Hooded Heroine? That made her sound like she peddled drugs.

The Crimson Crescent? Oh, that one was good. It even had her baby's name in it. Yeah, that was the one.

Ruby patted Crescent Rose on her back for the millionth time, just to make sure it was still there. She knew it was really unlikely that any of the other kids were going to mug her on the first day (that seemed like a rush week 'hazing' kinda thing), but it never hurt to be absolutely sure. Yang had already run off to be with her 'other friends' like the jerk she was, meaning that Ruby had no one to watch her back other than her trusted mechshifter. Tilting her head over her shoulder, she tried her best to keep an eye on said back, specifically the weapon attached to it, but her neck wasn't really flexible enough.

I really need to stop being weird. Everyone's going to see me craning my neck around like a brain-damaged giraffe if I keep checking on Crescent…so one last check on her, and then we're good.

She could see the end of her sniper scythe in its compacted mode when she twisted her neck around, meaning that even though Yang was gone, Ruby still wasn't alone. As long as she had her trusty scythe by her side, nothing could go wrong.

…nothing except her walking into somebody's chest because she was looking over her shoulder at her scythe.

"O-Oh my goodness gracious, I am so sorry!" Ruby frantically said, waving her hands around and looking for Yang. Personal growth be darned, she needed her sister to be here for stuff like this.

The somebody was actually someboy, and he was not looking happy about being bumped into. His face was flushed, so much so that Ruby actually began to wonder if he was going to start shouting at her.

"I'm sorry, mister! I didn't mean to, I swear! I-I-I should've been looking where I was going!"

The boy, a blond haired kid wearing a hoodie, looked like he was about to explode on her.

"I-I was looking for my sister," Ruby lied. "I'm awkward on my own, you see, and Yang has always been the social lubricant that makes my ball bearing rotate smoothly in the sniper rifle of social life."

That was entirely true. For instance, Yang would typically elbow Ruby before she said weird gun metaphors about lubricant and balls like that in front of other people.

The boy's cheeks puffed out.

"Uh…" Ruby's eyes glanced to the left and right rapidly, quickly checking to see if there was anyone else seeing the bizarre behavior of her new acquaintance. "Y-You okay, buddy?"

The stream of vomit that landed all over her hood suggested that he was not.

Miss Goodwitch, the aforementioned supercool huntress from earlier, was kind enough to chaperone Ruby to an empty dormitory building where she could use the showers to clean off when the situation was explained, but no matter how much she scrubbed her clothes, Ruby couldn't seem to remove the acidic smell of vomit. Seriously, what had that kid been eating that made his stomach so rancid? Rotten milk and spoiled fish?

Ruby felt her own tummy warble at the thought of the boy, apparently named Jaune, and his spew getting all over her. It had been super gross, and she was actually glad that Yang hadn't been there with her to see it. Ruby would've died from embarrassment if her sister had been there to witness her first real human interaction at Beacon end in her literally driving a boy to nausea.

As it happened, there weren't many other students on that corner of the airship, meaning that Ruby's utter humiliation had not been witnessed by more than a handful at most. She'd taken up Jaune's offer of his lent hoodie to cover herself when they departed the airship, and in exchange had offered him a quick mint flavored candy out of her packed lunch to clean out the taste of his mouth.

I should've kept the mint, Ruby thought sadly. I think some of it got in MY mouth. EWWWW…oh, I need to stop thinking about it before I'm the one who gets nauseous.

Ruby grabbed her stomach and groaned as she toweled off and donned the spare outfit Miss Goodwitch had offered her. This was not how her superhero origin story was supposed to start.

"You okay, sis?" Yang asked, as they rolled out their sleeping bags in the center of the empty sleeping room.

Ruby forced herself to nod. Her nerves over the whole vomit incident were starting to get to her, and she was now feeling a little bit uneasy as a result of the pressure to not draw any more attention to herself, but Yang didn't need to know that. This ugly new schoolgirl uniform wasn't helping alleviate her stress either – no hood, minimal red, barely any style. It didn't even have a strap on the back for Crescent, leaving Ruby with no other choice but to stow her baby in one of the Beacon lockers.

"You're just looking a little…" Yang struggled for words for a sec. "…pale?"

"I'm always pale," Ruby grunted out, checking her hands and not seeing any abnormalities. "The hood kept sun off my face."

Concern filled her sister's eyes, and Yang placed a hand against Ruby's forehead, brushing off a thin layer of sweat. "Ruby, are you sure you're okay? You don't look so good."

No, she wasn't. It had to be nerves. When Miss Goodwitch had brought her back to the main body of the students, Headmaster Ozpin was already in the middle of his opening remarks. Ruby's entrance into the hall had interrupted his address when she accidentally opened the door too hard and slammed it into a wall. While the practiced man quickly caught himself from his brief stutter in the speech, everyone in the hall had turned to stare at her for that one second.

Ruby cringed. An entire class of hunters had gawked at the stupid little kiddie that had come to the adult school too early and didn't know how to fit in and had dropped her weapon after the speech because her hand had gotten sweaty and she'd ruined her first impressions and they were probably all snickering at her when her back was turned and…

The young huntress gripped her stomach tightly and clenched her teeth so hard that it started to make her gums sore. Her stomach was really roiling now, but if Yang started worrying, Ruby would never hear the end of it. Sitting upright made her feel even worse, so she decided to play it off as exhaustion and curl up in her sleeping bag, turning away from Yang so she couldn't see Ruby's flush face.

"Rubes? You alright?"

She grimaced.

"Yang, I…I'll be fine…"

"I can do it," grunted out Ruby.

"Miss Rose, it's quite alr–"

"I can do it! I can!" barked Ruby, so loudly that the attention of several nearby students came her way. This time, though Ruby didn't balk at the focus being on her, because she was distracted by the weight of the conversation between her and Miss Goodwitch.

"Miss Rose, you're clearly unwell," said the elder teacher, adjusting her glasses with a frown as she peered at a hunched over Ruby.

"She's been like this since last night," said Yang.

"Ya– ghhnnng!"

Traitorous sister – Ruby had been about to curse her out for throwing Ruby to the metaphorical Beowolves, but the pain in her gut forced her to quit midway. Ruby nearly fell to her knees as she desperately bit down on her tongue to prevent any of the sick from rising up out of her esophagus.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't FAIR! Ruby had done nothing wrong, other than apparently standing close to some other student who was prone to heaving all over nearby girls. She'd been nice about it, not bit his head off, done what Miss Goodwitch told her, and now she was being told she didn't get to…to…

"I can do it," pleaded Ruby, fear now present in her voice.

She could barely contain her horror.

They were talking about forcing Ruby to skip out on the test.

"Please, let me…nhhuuuhnnn. HRK!"

A little bit of bile from her stomach forced its way into Ruby's mouth, and she ignored her squeamishness as she swallowed it back down. She knew how this went from back at Signal. You could look cold and clammy all you wanted, but getting sick in front of a teacher was a guaranteed way to be sent home early, and Ruby could not afford to miss this test.

Beacon's initiation, often taking up to three months of preparation, was not something that could be rescheduled for a single case of a minor stomach bug. She'd asked Miss Goodwitch if there was any way for her to be given an alternative assignment when she felt better, to which the reply had been a forlorn negative. Ruby now regretted asking, because she'd more or less confirmed from her own mouth that she wasn't up for it, and the professor wasn't accepting her take-backsies.

Now, they were talking about Ruby skipping altogether until she was sixteen! Her biggest supporters, her own sister and the teacher who'd seen Torchwick get pwned by Ruby, and they were the ones insisting Ruby go and sleep instead of wreck some Grimm. What was the deal with that? She'd just gotten a full night's sleep. Sure, she'd woken up with queasy pain in her gut and mentioned it to Yang before she could think, but she could handle it.

She could!

It was horrible, a complete travesty. To have a dream dangled in front of her, only to be pulled away at the last moment? Horrible!

"Miss Xiao-Long, thank you for walking your sister over to me. I will take things from here."

Miss Goodwitch ushered Yang away with a swift brush of her hand, then took hold of Ruby's shoulder. Yang winced at Ruby's clear discomfort, though Ruby was unsure if it was pity for being sick or sympathy over Goodwitch not letting her take the test. Ruby kind of hoped it was guilt over tattling to the teacher what she had been told in confidence.

"I'll…I'll catch ya later, eh Ruby?"

Ruby just glared at her sister. Traitorous wench…

Yang waved, pretending to be oblivious to her own flesh and blood being escorted away from her hopes and dreams by a cruel, cruel professor/villain. "B-Bye, sis!"

"I can't miss this, ma'am." Ruby weakly tried to push Goodwitch's arm off of her shoulder and stopped walking. "Please, Beacon is my dream."

Ruby stressed the last word, hoping that the emphasis on it might be enough to sway the otherwise rigid teacher.

It was not. "Let's go, Miss Rose."

"Miss Goodwitch, I'll do anything! Another test, another two tests, another hundred tests, anything! Th-This is supposed to be my origin story…"

Goodwitch looked at Ruby with some confusion at the phrasing, but she clearly understood the message that was being conveyed. Sadly, though, understanding was not the same as accepting.

"You'll be able to apply next year, when the term begins," explained Goodwitch. "We simply cannot make another exception for you due to your age."

"So, if I was an older student, you woulda…"

Ruby trailed off. The distant look on Miss Goodwitch's face said everything.

"It's not fair," Ruby grumbled, pressing her nose into her shoulder to wipe it off before it started to dribble, lest they see it get runny and decide she was so sick they needed to kick her out of Signal, too.

The other students were all heading to their initiations with smiles on their faces, completely oblivious to the fact that a little girl was getting her entire life ruined all because of a stupid stomach flu. Ruby wanted to curse out the person responsible for it all, but she didn't know who to yell at.

Yang? Sure, she'd betrayed Ruby and sold her out to the teachers, but she probably thought she was protecting Ruby. In her heart, Ruby knew she was just angry at her sister because she wanted someone to take out her anger on who couldn't be permanently alienated no matter what.

Miss Goodwitch? She seemed sympathetic enough, but Ruby didn't need sympathy. Still, logic told her not to insult the person who was proctoring the test, just in case a miracle came from the heavens and she changed her mind before taking Ruby away.

Ozpin? He wasn't even here, so blaming him felt unfair.

In the end, as Ruby exited the locker room and watched the ambling crowd of soon-to-be huntsmen and huntresses proceed in the opposite direction, she had no one to be mad at. This wasn't anyone's fault. It was just one of those things that happened, one that you couldn't do anything about no matter how hard you tried.

Ruby took one last look at the other students before she left, just to soak in the sight of Beacon's newest class before she lost it for a full year.

She froze.

He…

He was…

The boy! The boy, Jaune, the one who'd gotten her sick by throwing up on her, he was with them!

"S'not fair," Ruby growled lightly. Goodwitch looked at her sideways but said nothing.

It so wasn't fair, though! How come Jaune got to go off and be a huntsman even though he'd gotten her sick? Why wasn't he sharing in her misfortune and misery? If she got sick because of him, that meant he should've also been sick and unable to participate in the initiation. But there he was, joshing around with some irate white-haired girl and making smirks at Pyrrha Nikos and gallivanting off to fight Grimm without a care in the world even though…even though…

"IT'S NOT FAIR!"

Once more, all of the prospective students turned to look at Ruby, but this time, she didn't quail under their attention. Her sneer was visible to the lot of them, and none seemed to know what to make of the sniveling baby having a tantrum. Ruby sneered even harder.

"Miss Rose!" Goodwitch pushed up on her glasses with a sniff. "Please, I understand this is a difficult situation, but please refrain from distracting the other students."

Ruby was about a second away from exploding at the precious other students, at the teachers, at the entire world, when she caught sight of Jaune's face. He wasn't looking at Ruby with smirking disgust like many of the students or with the condescending pity that Yang always had. He instead just seemed to appear…

…sorry.

Suddenly and quite rapidly, Ruby's own suffering was forgotten, and she felt like the baby she feared the other students were seeing her as. It wasn't Jaune's fault he got sick, and if he didn't have to suffer as well and lose out on his initiation, that was a good thing. If he was forced to skip initiation too and lose his place at Beacon, that would've done nothing to make Ruby's life any better. Dust, it would've just taken away another huntsman from being out there and saving people from the Grimm and helping the world become a better place. She was being childish, and for no reason other than that her tummy hurt and she had involuntarily failed a test.

"I…I…I'm sorry, ma'am," Ruby whispered quietly. The crowd had already departed with Ozpin in the direction of a forest on the edge of Beacon while Ruby was having her introspective moment, and she was now alone with the professor.

"It's understandable that you would be perturbed by this turn of events, Miss Rose. I would fain allow you to take a substitute test of some sort, but policies exist to prevent such things. After three separate cases of nepotism in which a headmaster or headmistress scheduled an alternate – and usually easier – initiation test for a family member of close friend, a specific rule was added to the charters of all four academies preventing any deviations from the standardized curriculum."

Ruby scrunched up her brow. "You said it was because I was also younger than average."

Goodwitch sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "The rules are not rigid, and the people who make them aren't monsters. I could lobby the board or the auditors for an exception, but Ozpin once admitted to knowing your uncle, a high-profile figure in his own right, during a highly publicized trial a few years back. Because of the appearance of this case and your advanced entrance to Beacon, it would seem to an external source as though we truly are bending the rules for a friend of the family."

Ruby thought back to how Ozpin had referenced knowing Qrow back at the police station. He'd only offered to let Ruby into Beacon when she'd mentioned having been personally trained in scythe-work by her uncle. Something about that made Ruby feel even queasier.

"A-Am I really a case of despotism?"

Goodwitch tensed up.

"Because of my uncle?" added Ruby.

That seemed to calm her. "It's nepotism, Miss Rose, and you are not. Recall that you aided me in combatting Torchwick and the huntress ally of his. That is an indicator of your talent, and it was for the courage and talent you displayed on that harrowing night that you were accepted into Beacon. Not your familiar relation to Mr. Branwen."

That made Ruby feel a little bit better. Well, it made her heart feel a little bit better, but not her aching guts.

"So, um…what exactly is happening?" Ruby bit her lip. "I mean, what is happening to me? I-I mean, what's going to happen to me?"

"We are not going to simply throw you out into Vale, if that's what you're worried about, Miss Rose. Beacon applicants are all housed in onsite facilities until schooling begins, regardless of their success, failure, or nonparticipation in the initiation test."

Until the term began…assuming that Beacon and Signal worked on the same schedule, that meant Ruby was free to stay until the end of the weekend. She had three days left, since today was a Friday. On the plus side, Ruby would get a chance to explain herself to Yang and maybe pull one or two last epic pranks before she disappeared for two years. On the minus side, she'd be the odd girl out among the crowd of upbeat Beacon-goers for three days. Everyone else would have a team of their own, new friends, and a bright future, and she'd be left with nothing but her shame…

Ruby's stomach made noises that sounded like Zwei's woozy whimpers back when he'd eaten those wild mushrooms. Goodwitch wisely let go of her and stepped back as Ruby fell to her knees, opened her mouth, and aimed it downwards.

…shame and vomit.

If there was one benefit to this whole situation, it was that Ozpin let her go into the Beacon's smithy all by her lonesome as a bit of a consolation prize. Everyone else wasn't going to be allowed into the forges and metallurgist's workshop until their classes began, meaning that Ruby got unfettered access to all the tools, and she didn't have to share them with anyone.

The solitude had initially bummed her out a bit, only serving to reinforce the isolation she felt, but after seeing that they had a rotating auto-sander, a Gravity Dust-stabilized micro-adjustment apparatus, and a dual axis lathe with temperature controls (she'd only ever read about those in magazines!), the depression had flickered away.

When the smoke cleared and Ruby's stomach settled, she'd realized that this didn't have to be the end of her epic origin story. Sure, it was a setback, but Miss Goodwitch had told Ruby she could apply next year when she was sixteen, and that was still a full year earlier than the rest. She wouldn't be Beacon's earliest ever attendee (assuming she got in then), but it was still special. When that time came, Ruby would be sure to have had all her shots, and she would crunch down a few of every type of pill in dad's medicine cabinet, just to be sure she didn't get unwell the second time around. Next year, there would be no stomach bugs or sick Jaunes or nothing; the only factor affecting whether she passed would be her skills and her baby.

To that end, Ruby was taking full advantage of Beacon's advanced facilities to tune up Crescent in an attempt to start upgrading early and ensure she was ready when the time came. The scope on her sniper was already perfect, but that didn't mean it couldn't be more perfecter as she installed an adjustable stock with the interwoven fiber grip that would hopefully enhance her aim. She already had the parts, but getting the screws to fit had been a bit of a challenge back at home on Patch using the plain old screwdrivers. It was much easier at Beacon, where the toolbox had a forty-five degree bradawl for every size of screw in the known universe.

Putting on the finishing touches, Ruby tested out the new and improved Crescent Rose. The stock seemed to have integrated perfectly without any swelling on the body of the scythe, and Ruby couldn't see any evidence of warping on the scope or handle.

Time to test it out with some live ammo.

Ruby leaned across the workbench to grab the half-empty magazine she'd been using. There was no need to actually fire Crescent, certainly not in the smithy, but loading a bullet into the chamber was easily the fastest way to tell if she'd made any mistakes. If it went in, she was good. If it got stuck or jammed, she knew that something was out of place. If she couldn't even load it into the chamber, she would probably need to disassemble the entire gun and start from scratch, given how fine these Beacon parts were. As much as Ruby loved spending time with her weapon, the thought of having to break it down all the way and lose all the customized adjustments she'd made along the way terrified her something fierce.

Please work, Ruby silently prayed as she picked up the first shot. C'mon, I deserve something to go right.

The bullet went in. That was good.

Ruby pulled back, holding her breath…

Click!

"Yes!" Ruby screamed, throwing her arms and the sniper they held into the air in victory. "I did it! All hail Her Royal Highness Ruby Rose, mega-queen of firearms mods!"

"Long live the queen," cackled a voice behind her.

Ruby hadn't been expecting anyone to be in the room with her (Ozpin had assured her that her work would go undisturbed), so the presence of another person, even one as familiar as her uncle, startled her. It certainly didn't help that she'd been hyper-focused on the fine procedure of inserting the screws for the past half-hour. Her gun slipped from her hands and was about to clatter on the floor when Ruby rushed her foot forward at semblance super-speed to kick it upwards. It wasn't the epic save she'd been hoping, as her baby was sent flying forwards towards the empty table, and Ruby had to scramble forwards to catch it before it went past the edge on the side opposite her and landed on the ground. Her stomach painfully impacted with the wooden edge of the table in her haste, and a bottle of vacuum oil got knocked over by her elbow to spill all over the floor, but she managed to clutch of her scythe, and not a moment too soon. The sharpened blade was less than a whisker away from the leg of a table when she got hold of it.

"Looks like our queen's a bit of a klutz, ain't she?"

"Uncle Qrow, I swear to Grimm!" Ruby set down Crescent, carefully this time, and turned around to face her miscreant of an uncle. "What if I dropped Crescent?"

Qrow held up his hands in mock horror. "Shucks, that mighta ended the universe as we know it. I'm real sorry, kiddo."

"It's not a joke, you dum-dum. You're lucky no one got hurt. Guns aren't toys."

Qrow snorted at that, and Ruby had to fight down her defensiveness when he mumbled something about her playing with them like they were.

Ruby ran her fingers along the new and improved stock. "She could've misfired and taken your eye out, and let me tell you: you aren't cool enough to rock an eyepatch."

Qrow snorted. "Yeah, I think I'll be just fine, kiddo. Question is, will you?"

Ruby looked at her workbench, where the bradawls and the old scope from before the upgrade were splayed out. "I'm okay, but you made me knock over all my –"

"I didn't fly out from Patch to talk 'bout yer tools, pipsqueak."

Ruby let out a deep sigh. "I'm fine, Uncle Qrow. My stomach isn't acting up anymore. Well, it is a bit sore, but only because I bumped into the table when you came in." She stuck out her tongue.

Qrow drummed his fingertips on the flash at his hip but didn't take it out. "Didn't fly out to talk about your rumbly tummy either."

Tiny hands balled up into tiny fists, and Ruby turned away from her uncle to start working on her gun once more. "Then why did you fly out all this way? Just to bring up how much of a loser I am?"

Qrow raised an eyebrow. "The only loser I see is the one in the reflection of the buzz saw on the wall."

"I had a one in a million chance to get into Beacon two whole years early, and I blew it." Ruby disconnected the steadying mechanism from the blunt side of Crescent's curved blade and began to polish it with a rag. "There's no way I'm not just as much of a loser as you are."

"Yowch. I'm pretty sure I felt the sting from that one."

She shrugged. "Hey, you said it first, not me."

"I was bein' encouraging."

Ruby couldn't see Qrow drinking behind her, but she heard the telltale chugging that signaled his impersonation of happy hour. She checked the clock in the corner of the room – 3pm. He sure was starting early today.

Must be to drown out the disappointment from his niece being so pissy at him over a failed test that wasn't his fault.

"I'm sorry, Qrow." Ruby set down Crescent Rose and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm just…if I'd failed, I might've been able to accept that. I can handle not being good enough. But I never even got a chance. And then there were all these rules from Miss Goodwitch outlining exactly why it was so important that I wasn't allowed to have a second chance even though I never got a first one, and I got mad at Yang betraying me, and I got even madder at myself for being upset with Yang even though she was only looking out for me, and all the other students were staring at me…"

Qrow clicked his tongue. "Sounds like a lo–"

"…and Mr. Ozpin bent the rules so much already for me to be here, so I feel like I'm letting him down, and the way everyone just looks at me with such pity rubs me the wrong way, like I'm some infant diaper baby who can't be mature about it, and…and…and…"

"Kid…"

"I thought I could be over it if I tried." Ruby heard her own voice start to rise along with her temper, even though she didn't want either of them to. "I thought I could move on, but I just can't! Every second I'm not spending on tuning of Crescent, I'm worrying about how I'm going to go back to Signal and come to terms with the fact that I failed."

Her fingers tightened around Crescent Rose so tightly they started to shake, one hand on the shaft and the other on the blade. The anger that she'd been so mature about quashing down until now started to seep out.

"It wasn't fair," Ruby growled.

Her right hand was starting to hurt from how firmly she was gripping the scythe end of her weapon, but she didn't care. Class started tomorrow for all the other kids, but poor little Ruby had to slink back home in disgrace because of some stupid bacteria in her stupid intestines.

"IT WASN'T FAIR!" Ruby screamed, throwing down her weapon in her anger.

CLUNN-AAANG!

Crescent Rose hitting the workbench made so much noise that Ruby actually fell backwards onto her butt. Even though she was the one who hurled it down, she hadn't been expecting the explosive clatter, nor had she been expecting the sawblade hanging on the wall over to the side to come crashing down at the same exact time. Huh. Weird coincidence.

"Ghhh…R-Ru…"

Ruby picked herself up and wiped the tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry to take all this out on you, Uncle Qrow. I just haven't really had a chance to talk to anyone else about it. Yang doesn't understand, even though she says she –"

"Ru…ehhhyy…"

Something about the gurgly way Qrow was speaking made Ruby turn in his direction.

He…

Was that blood?

Her lips started to spurt out words as her brain tried to make sense of the scene in front of her. "U-Uncle –"

"R…"

Why is there blood?

Ruby felt her panic rising.

Why is Uncle Qrow's neck bloody?

Her eyes darted around the room, desperate to make sense of the scene before her, and they eventually landed on the sawblade that had fallen down. There was a small dent in it.

If Crescent misfired and ricocheted…but the odds would be impossible! One in a billion! It would have to be the worst luck in the world for a misfired gun to go off at just the right angle to hit an even surface and hit a critical body part!

As Ruby scrambled to deny reality, Qrow collapsed, still clutching at his throat. A single bloodied hand reached out to his beloved niece, and then dropped to the floor. It was the kind of thing that Ruby would have teased him about for overdramatizing if not for the fact that the blood coming out of his neck was real.

There was silence for a moment.

And then Ruby screamed.

She screamed for what felt like hours, but it was probably only a minute or two.

She screamed until her throat was hoarse.

She screamed even when Ozpin and Goodwitch rushed into the room.

She screamed her lungs out.

She screamed, because this? This wasn't the kind of origin story that a superhero got.

This was the origin story of a supervillain.

Coming Soon – Ruby's Task

And now, some tone-deaf jokes to remind us that this fic is a comedy:

Welcome to Ruby's Life Hacks, an interactive programme in which you shall be exposed to the greatest fount of wisdom on Remnant – me, Ruby Rose! These self-help tricks/time-saving formulas for success at the end of every chapter are guaranteed to make your problems flutter away faster than my semblance's rose petals in the wind!

(author's note – These tips are jokes. Do not ever follow any one of them.)

Ruby's Tip #45 – Keep forgetting where you parked in a crowded lot? Write your name on the bottom of your car in permanent marker.

Ruby's Tip #318 – Always save your receipts. They make excellent fire starter, and kindling can be expensive.

Author's Notes

I've been waiting way too long to write this. It was my third idea ever (The Empty Trashcan was first and K was second), but I've been putting it off for a while, writing things like Living The Dream (ninth) and Murderess (eleventh) instead. But now it's here, so I can rest easy and begin a new project.

Let's get started, then.

Fully written as always, with XXX,XXX words and XX chapters. Yeah, for the first time, I'm not going to tell you exactly how long it is. Crazy, right? But I don't want to spoil when it's about to end, so I can't say. Sorry. Suffice it to say it's big enough.

What I can say is that it's going to have two weekly updates on Wednesdays and Sundays. It's been a while since I did that, but I've found that shorter chapters are easier to write and tend to not have fall-off in terms of viewership. Plus, it's more fun to get two chapters in a week than one.

No real romance in this one. There will be Ruby/Cinder, but it's not going to be good for anyone. You'll understand eventually (you probably do now).

Also, the little 'Ruby's Tips' will be replacing omakes, since they're funny and not as difficult to attach to random chapters.

If that ending to the first chapter wasn't a sufficient indicator, I'll clarify: this fic can get dark in some spots. It's going to be a bit of a tough one to read at times. The basic premise will be that Ruby (soon) is going to be asked by Ozpin to infiltrate Cinder's and Salem's operations by pretending to be a villain.

TRIGGER WARNING: We're going to have heavy amounts of death, and plenty of talk of suicide. If this might disturb you, you may want to decide for yourself in advance if you're sure you want to read this.

It's not an edgy goth murder story, though. Just a dark one, with plenty of comedy mixed in (see the Ruby's Tips listed right beneath Qrow's violent death for references). If you do decide to read, I hope you enjoy.

Oh, and no one owns Ruby, and I'm technically a one, therefore I don't own Ruby.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!