Less than 12 hours after fighting Torchwick on the streets of Vale, now Ruby was flying over the city in an airship heading to Beacon.

Ruby had imagined going off to Beacon more times than she could count. She waved goodbye to her dad just like she always imagined. It was too bad her uncle Qrow couldn't make the trip on such short notice. He probably didn't even know she was going to Beacon yet. Ruby didn't even get a chance to tell her mom about it, as much as talking to a gravestone counted as telling her mom.

Patch looked a lot smaller than she imagined it would from the window of the airship, and Ruby never imagine quite so many people would be crammed into the relatively confined space of the ship.

Getting into Beacon two years early wasn't even part of Ruby's wildest fantasies. But it did mean that she got to be on a team with her sister! That'll be way better than being on a team with three random people who were probably going to make fun of her. At least behind her back.

So, like Signal, but she'd have to live with them.

Yay.

Ruby needed something to get her mind off that. "Do you think dad is going to remember to give Zwei his daily belly rubs?" Ruby said to Yang. Who was standing right next to her just a few seconds ago, but Ruby received no answer. "Yang?" Ruby turned to find not her wonderful sister, but a big bunch of empty space where her sister, who snored so loud she could wake up a bear, should've been.

Now Ruby was stuck in the middle of a crowded airship with a bunch of random people she didn't know.

"Yang," Ruby grumbled as she pulled out her scroll and called her older sister. Even if Yang didn't answer, Ruby should at least be able to hear her ring tone. But Ruby didn't hear a thing but the chatter of the people around her as Yang didn't answer and Ruby was sent to voicemail. "She silenced her scroll, she planned this."

This meant war!

Justice would be swift! Justice would be complete! Justice would be Ruby's!

Just as soon as she managed to find Yang. Ruby left the relative safety of her little isolated corner of the airship and ventured into the crowd of her fellow potential students. She just had to manage to not start any awkward conversations or bump into anyone. Which was a little easier said than done with the middle of the airship being fairly packed.

"Where are you," Ruby whispered to herself as she tried to squeeze through the mass of people. Why was everyone just standing in the middle? And somehow Ruby hadn't managed to find of single glance of her sister's stupid blonde hair after minutes of looking. How Yang had managed to go from being almost impossible to miss most of the time to ninja levels of stealth, Ruby would never know.

Luckily for Ruby, even though she hadn't managed to find Yang, she did manage to spot, out of the corner of her eye, what looked like an opening in the crowd. And Ruby went for it like it was an unguarded plate of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

Unfortunately for Ruby, for as fast as she was about to free herself from the mass of humanity that surrounded her, she found herself slamming into someone's luggage just as fast. Toppling the stack of suitcases and bags of whoever these things belonged to and leaving Ruby sitting on the floor surrounded by the carnage she had unleashed in the confined space.

"What are you doing?" And it looked like Ruby was going to get to meet whoever that luggage belonged to too. As Ruby looked up to a white-haired girl who was standing over Ruby with both of her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.

"I'm sorry," Ruby said, scrambling to her feet and grabbing some of the loose objects that fell out of the angry girl's bags. "I was just trying to find my sister and there were a bunch of people in the way and," Ruby mumbled out practically her whole life story as the girl grew more impatient.

"Enough," The angry girl finally yelled, grabbing her things out of Ruby's hands as Ruby stood there praying that Yang would show up, and noticing something that the other girl hadn't. A glass vial of bright yellow dust slipping out of the pile the angry girl held in her arms. Ruby couldn't get a word in before the girl started ranting. "Do you have any idea the amount of damage-…"

The glass vile of what Ruby knew to be light dust fell out and smashed on the ground. Ruby shut her eyes as tight as she could just before a blinding light erupted from the dust. Stopping the angry girl's rant in its tracks while temporarily blinding anyone standing to close to the dust and getting the attention of everyone else on the airship.

Getting yelled at and having tons of people staring at her were not at the top of the list of Ruby's most hated things, but they were pretty far up there. Ruby decided that while running away from that situation might not be the right thing to do, it was the only way Ruby was going to avoid everyone thinking she was a dumb kid before they even made it to Beacon.

So, she activated her semblance and tried to find something to hide behind before the angry girl could start yelling at her again. Luckily for her, she'd managed to stop someone tall with blonde hair out of the corner of her eye.

Ruby didn't realize until it was too late that she wasn't hiding behind the tall blond that she was looking for.

The word rage didn't quite describe the feeling that Weiss had at that moment.

The volatile mix of emotions that ran through Weiss as she blinked away the effects of the light dust that some childish dolt had unleashed upon her could not be properly described by one single word. A bottomless chasm of violent intentions was the closest that Weiss could describe it as at that moment, and as her vision returned to her, she prepared to give that plebian girl a piece of her mind. Only a pile of red rose petals amongst Weiss' belongings lying about on the floor.

Wonderful.

Delightful.

And somehow that chasm got deeper.

This transgression could not stand, she would have her revenge, and the offending party had left a trail for her to follow.

Without a care for her belongings on the ground, Weiss gave chase. The crowd of people dispersed around her as she did so. Not a single one daring to meet her gaze. She followed the trail of rose petals until it suddenly stopped.

Standing in front of her was a crowd of students who all did their best to look at anything but Weiss, and a tall blond fellow. Who seemed to be trying to turn around, but was having difficulty doing so.

Perhaps the little cretin would've evaded Weiss hiding behind that man, if it were not for the bright red cape that was sticking out.

"Stop hiding, you dolt." Weiss said, with the blond in armor now looking at her with wide eyes and a pale face as the little red girl peeked around him. "Do you have any idea what danger you put us all in? If that were any other type of dust, it would have not only seriously injured or killed you and I, but potentially everyone on this airship. How could you be so irresponsible?"

"Uhhhh…" Was all that the red-haired girl said in response.

"What, are you brain-dead?" Weiss said, but as she got a closer look at the girl Weiss realized something. "Are you even old enough to be attending Beacon?" She looked up again towards the boy that dolt was hiding behind. "This isn't your ordinary combat school where you could sneak your younger siblings in to cause mayhem."

"I don't-…" The boy began to speak, before closing his mouth and swallowing what Weiss could only guess was spit. "I don't know her. But you should stop insulting her, this is all probably just a misunderstanding."

"She detonated a vial of light dust," Weiss said, pinching her brow in frustration. "How is that a misunderstanding." He opened his mouth to speak again, but quickly closed it tight. Clearly he had no response for Weiss' flawless line of reasoning.

"I wouldn't expect anything less from one of the Schnees," A girl wearing a black bow on her head said, adding herself into the conversation and clearly agreeing with Weiss' assessment of the situation. "That they seem to care as little for the safety of their own family as they do for the 'plebians' who work for them."

"The Schnee mines are the safest dust mines in all of Remnant," Weiss retorted, feeling a massive headache coming on.

"Compared to the one's ran by warlords and slavers, maybe." The girl with a bow said.

Weiss then had the feeling that this was going to be one of the longest days of her life.

Blake was supposed to be laying low. Not drawing any attention to herself. That's what she needed to do. That's what Tukson told her to do. Unfortunately for her, one of the Schnee's had decided to throw a hissy fit, and the need to tell Weiss Schnee, the heiress of the whole company, that she was acting like a brat was simply too much for Blake.

"The innovations of the SDC built the kingdoms into what they are today," Weiss said, fuming. "And you have the nerve to compare my family's company to slavers?"

"You should act less like slavers if you don't want to be compared to them." Blake said, if the stories Blake had heard about the dust mines from Adam, Ilia, and dozens of others were to be believed, the comparison was apt. Though Blake wouldn't expect someone living in an ivory tower such as Weiss to understand that.

Though if Adam or Ilia had been standing where Blake was, this conversation wouldn't be happening. Weiss would simply be dead, along with everyone else on the airship, if it were Adam.

Though maybe it was naïve to assume Ilia didn't share Adam's beliefs now.

"Who are you to say such things?" Weiss said, venom in her voice and with a glare that could've killed. "You are simply someone who believes whatever they wish as long as it-…" Weiss didn't get a chance to finish her rant before some turbulence shook the airship. Causing many to stumble.

And causing something worse to happen in a certain blond standing nearby. His face paling and sweat leaking out of him like it was the middle of a Vacuo summer. His put his hands over his mouth and said what Blake guessed was supposed to be a "Sorry," as he rushed forward, bumping into Weiss, and towards the bathrooms.

"I… I…" Weiss stuttered out, the wind being completely knocked out of her sails. After a few moments she let out a deep sigh. "I don't have time for this," and walked off, leaving the girl she was trying to torment and Blake standing there alone. If one didn't count everyone standing around them.

"Thanks for helping me," The short red-haired girl said, but Blake wasn't particularly interested in a conversation with a random girl. So, she walked off. It might have been rude, but that was Blake. "So, what's…" was the last thing Blake heard as she disappeared back into the crowd.

She needed to get her mind of the Schnees, and what Adam could be doing at that moment.

Jaune stepped out of one of the airship's bathrooms. He probably just ruined the week of whoever was responsible for cleaning them and everyone looked like they were trying to stay as far away from him as they could. But at least he actually made it to the bathroom this time.

So, it wasn't a complete repeat of the corndog incident.

Jaune sat down on the nearest open bench. So far, his plan to get to Beacon wasn't going quite as well as he'd hoped. The fact that his aura really didn't help that much with his motion sickness had definitely made it a rougher trip than it needed to be, and him not having enough time to really grab anything before he left home left him lacking in a few things. Such as Lien, which he was basically out of.

At least he had enough to wash his clothes the night before, and a nice shower came not long after that. He couldn't imagine going to Beacon smelling like he hadn't showered in three days. Cause he hadn't on the three-day trip from home.

It wasn't his fault it was such a long train ride from Domremy to Vale.

Getting dragged into the middle of a fight didn't help too much. Though he was more focused on not throwing up on everyone than whatever the girls were actually arguing about. Especially the really angry white-haired girl.

Jaune sat on the nearby empty bench. Leaning back, closing his eyes, and taking a few deep breaths to help his stomach settle a little more. 'She has to be the prettiest girl I've even seen,' Jaune thought, 'I wonder what she was so mad about?'

"Umm, hi?" said some girl with a familiar sounding voice.

Jaune opened his eyes to find a short girl wearing a cape standing in front of him. Wearing a look on her face that Jaune would see on his sisters when he caught them stealing from the cookie jar. "Hello? How can I-…" Jaune began to speak but stopped when he realized where he had heard that voice from before. "Are you that girl that was trying to run away from that white-haired girl?" Jaune said a little louder than he intended.

"Not so loud," she said, shushing him. Blushing a little and looking around to make sure nobody heard him before looking back to him and poking her fingers. "But yeah. And I wanted to say that I'm sorry for kind of using you as a human shield."

That's not really a sentence Jaune ever expected to hear, but he guessed he really couldn't be that mad at her. He'd been on the wrong end of a few women on a warpath in his lifetime. "Oh, don't worry about it." Jaune said to the shorter girl. Trying to keep his voice down since it seemed like she didn't want anyone around them to hear her. "Why was she even so angry?"

A deep blush came over the girl's face when Jaune asked the question. "Well, I might have accidentally… bumpedintoherstuffandmadeherdustexplode." The girl muttered out too quietly and too fast for Jaune to really hear.

"What?"

"I made her dust explode," Ruby blurted out, before pulling a hood over her head. "Yang just left me all by myself and I went looking for her and bumped into that girl and… yeah." It was still hard for Jaune to understand her, but he managed to this time.

"Wait, you were the one who caused that bright light earlier?" The girl nodded. Jaune didn't know too much about dust other than what little he remembered being taught in school, but one of the things he did know about it, was that it could really turn out badly if not handled right. So, it was a good thing they didn't get knocked out of the sky.

He needed to test out his aura, but an airship crash probably wasn't the best place to do that.

"Who's Yang?" Jaune said, figuring that the girl might prefer a change of subject. "Is she that black haired girl with the bow?"

"Oh no, Yang is my sister." The girl said, "Oh, and my name is Ruby. Ruby Rose."

"Jaune Arc," Jaune said, "So your sister left you all by yourself? That sounds like something my sisters would do." Well, a few of them would probably ditch him for a hundred different reasons. The rest would probably never let him out of their sight for fear that he might hurt himself again.

"And right after saying she would be 'by your side every step of the way'" Ruby said, doing a voice that Jaune guessed was supposed to mock her sisters and her previous embarrassment all but disappearing. "Sisters really are the worst sometimes, right?"

"Try dealing with seven of them," Jaune said, and waited for the usual reaction people had to finding out how many sisters he had.

"Seven sisters?" Ruby said in a flat tone, a look of awe and terror appearing on her face. Her expression did not change as she sat down on the cushioned bench next to Jaune. "Seven sisters," She repeated before looking back up to Jaune. "How are you even still alive?"

Jaune had to stop himself from bursting out laughing. He'd definitely never heard that one before and it made him wonder what Ruby's sister was like to make her think that. "I'm really durable," he said, before realizing that Ruby's sister was on the airship with them. "Are you and your sister twins? Two of my younger sisters are."

"Oh no, we're not twins. Most people don't even think we look like sisters, but it's not my fault I took so much after my mom," Ruby said, "Yang's two years older than me."

"She's 19?" Jaune said. Why was she even on the airship then? She couldn't be starting at Beacon. They don't allow people over 18 to start becoming huntsmen and huntresses.

"Oh no, she's 17. Beacon kind of just let me in two years early," Ruby said, quiet so those around them couldn't hear. "I'm kind of only 15."

"You're 15?" Jaune said, with Ruby nodding in response and looking like she was preparing for Jaune to say something mean to her. And if Jaune was being honest, he shouldn't have been surprised that Ruby was younger. She didn't exactly look like she was 17, and her voice didn't help. "And they're letting you into Beacon?"

"Yeah, I stopped this Torchwick guy from robbing a store and then Professor Ozpin came down and was like 'You're so cool. You should come to Beacon'." Ruby said, and Jaune believed wholeheartedly, and all awkwardness seemed to disappear as she kept speaking "So of course I said yes. I mean, being a huntress is what I've wanted to do since forever, so why not do it a little bit early, you know?"

"I guess," Jaune said in a flat tone.

"But if I had to pick another job instead of huntress, I would be a weaponsmith. You like cook weapons, right?" Ruby asked, pulling out her scroll and shoving it in his face before he had time to answer. "This is my baby, Crescent Rose. The pictures don't really do her justice." They weren't allowed to carry weapons on the airship. "She's a scythe and a customizable high-impact sniper rifle!"

Ruby pulled down her scroll and looked up at Jaune with excitement filling her silver eyes. "What kind of weapon do you have?"

And so, for most of the rest of the ride to Beacon, Jaune and Ruby talked about their weapons. Jaune's simple sword and shield being quite a bit less impressive than Ruby's shifting scythe thing. Jaune also learned that combat school students apparently forged their own weapons instead of getting hand-me-downs like he did.

Maybe he needed to look into upgrading.

It wasn't long before the pairs conversation was interrupted by a girl, though luckily not the angry one from earlier.

"Hey, Ruby." A blonde girl said, walking up to Ruby and Jaune. "Making friends already? Could've picked one that was less… scrawny." She looked Jaune up and down with a suspicious eye.

"Well, I only had to start talking to him because you left me all alone," Ruby said to Yang with a pout, before realizing what she said and turning back to Jaune. "But you're fun to talk to!"

"I saw some friends and went to chat with them. I figured you'd be okay by yourself for 5 minutes," Yang said, though Jaune got the feeling she wasn't being completely honest. "Besides, you just ended up talking to noodle boy here." Wonderful, a nickname. "It's not like you almost blew the airship up like whoever was playing around with their dust earlier."

Ruby paled as an awkward silence filled the space around them. "That was you, wasn't it?" Yang said, facepalming before Ruby even had a chance to respond. "How did you almost blow us all up? Where did you even get dust?"

"It wasn't my dust! I went looking for you and kind of ran into this really mean girl," Ruby said, telling Yang about the argument Ruby accidentally caused in the middle of the airship. "And then Jaune threw up everywhere and everyone else left."

"I didn't throw up everywhere." Jaune said. "Besides, you were the one hiding behind me. You didn't even thank me for that."

"I was trying to not get yelled at by that mean girl," Ruby paused for a moment, "Vomit boy." She shakily squeaked out.

"Vomit boy?" Yang said, looking amused.

"Well at least I didn't almost crash the airship," Jaune said, his years of training in sibling spats failing him. "Crater face." So, he had to make do.

"I didn't make a crater!" Ruby said.

"The airship would've if we crashed!" Jaune retorted.

"Oh gods, you're both terrible at this." Yang said with a laugh. "I guess we're lucky it wasn't fire or lighting dust. I can't leave you alone for 5 minutes, Rubes."

"And Vomit boy," Yang said, and Jaune wanted the old nickname back. "Thanks for being a human shield for my sister. Even if she didn't really give you a choice."

Before Jaune or Ruby could respond, a chime came from the various screens across the airship as a video of headmaster Ozpin began to play. With everyone stopping their conversations and looking towards the screen.

"Hello potential students of Beacon Academy, I am Professor Ozpin." He said, standing with trees in the background. "The airships you are on will soon be landing near the Emerald Forest, where your initiation will begin."

"I will warn you all, that of the over five hundred of you who are set to begin your journey as huntsmen and huntresses today, we will consider it a great success if three hundred of you pass." The old professor said, voice flat and serious. "Of those of you who don't pass, we expect a large portion of you to parish to the grimm, or to suffer life altering injury."

"For even though most of you have trained a large portion of your lives to face humanities greatest foe, it may simply not be enough." Not a single person on the airship dared make a noise as they listened to the headmaster's words. "Which is why I will extend an offer to those of you who feel that they are unfit for the challenge ahead."

"When your airship lands, instead of going to the cliffs that overlook the Emerald Forests. You may simply walk to the Beacon campus. Where you will be fed, and you will be allowed to return home."

"For those who understand the risks and wish to continue, Professor Glynda Goodwitch will lead you to the launch sites. Where I will inform of the tasks you need to complete."

"Whether or not you choose to continue along the path of a huntsman, remember that we all have a path to follow."

The video transitioned into some explanation of Beacon's housing policy, but few were actually listening.

Ruby looked as determined as ever.

Yang seemed to be excited. Though it didn't seem she could bring herself to look at Ruby.

Jaune simply stared up at the screen. So many of the people around him would be dead soon. He couldn't really believe it. How could they allow that? It had to be a lie. Just something meant to scare off people who couldn't make it as a huntsman or huntress.

He couldn't give up now. He wouldn't.

He, however, was starting to believe his father wasn't just trying to scare him.

Author's Notes:

Okay, so that's the end of chapter 1. Honestly, the Jaune section ended up being a bit longer than I intended, but I'm fairly happy with the chapter. I just want to quickly go over what I'm planning on doing with this thing.

1. The main team with be Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Jaune. Team RWBJ, it's still pronounced ruby. With Jaune taking Yang's place on the team and as a main character. Largely because I think Jaune fit it with the familial legacy theme I'm going for more so than Yang did. So Yang's going to be leading the B team on this one, and be more of a deuteragonist. That does mean that RWBJ is going to be lacking a bit in terms of heavy firepower, but I think I can make it work.

That also means that Yang's team (YRRN = Iron) is going to be... difficult to beat. I mean, Yang and Nora on a team is just unfair. Yang, Nora, and Pyrrha on the same team, Ren too, is just cheating.

(I thought about doing a Jaune version of the yellow trailor, but couldn't settle on an idea I liked for it.)

2. I plan on this being a more character focused retelling of RWBY with my own twist on things, and as I mentioned before, a larger focus on legacies and related things. This isn't really meant to be "RWBY if it was good" or anything like that. That being said, I do plan on going through basically everything after the Dust shop incident to the defeat of Salem. Which I give it like a 5% chance I actually end up doing that, but a boy can dream.

3. I'm moving the Vytal Tournament back to year 2. Which should be interesting, if only because without Sun there the end of volume 1 kind of doesn't happen. So I'll actually have to do a little more than just follow the canon plot there. Should be fun.

4. Will there be ships/romance? Eventually. With who? You'll know roughly around the same time as I do. But romance isn't going to be the main focus of this thing. So don't expect everyone to start pairing off, and what ships I do will be more of the slow burn variety. Good romance has to be earned.

So with that all out of the way, thank you for reading. I'm still trying to get the main team's voices down. I think Blake is going to be the hardest for me to write since she tends to be very to the point and I'm close to the opposite.

What do you think so far?