RWBY is owned by RT and Monty Oum

I don't own RWBY blah blah blah something something Critics United blah

Special thanks to Kronosmond for beta reading the story and acknowedging all the ideas flowing for this novel.

The Break: Chapter 1

I didn't pay much attention to Jaune at first when he walked out of the prison bus into Säbelzahn Maximum Security Prison. He looked like your typical Atlesian Master Race member with golden blonde hair, sea-blue eyes, standing roughly 6 feet tall wearing jeans with tears and a hoodie with a cute bunny on it. My friend Blake, my step-sister Yang, and I were talking amongst ourselves, casting bets on which prison newbie would break first.

"I bet you a flower and a mushroom that blonde guy will be the first to break." I cast out uncaringly, just taking in the details of other prisoners.

"Good choice, but I have to say that the fourth one from the front will break first for 5 flowers." Blake casted, "Yang, who do you think's going to break first in this line of new prisoners?"

We waited a minute for Yang to scrutinize the crowd and make her ultimate decision. "That red-head with mascara, he'll break by listening to the guard, ten leaves and a mushroom." Yang finally replied.

"Isn't that Torchwick?" I asked.

"Guess so, his break will be so satisfying." Yang replied.

"Getting confident are we?" Blake asked, smirking at Yang.

"I've won this game for 6 straight years. I bet I'm subconsciously influencing people to break." Yang joked back.

We watched as all of the members entered the Säbelzahn main building, which was the area where the prisoners were introduced to Headwarden Ozpin. Ozpin gives them a short speech about their new life, before they are stripped, washed down, and all crevices are checked for contrabands, regardless of gender or age. After this, the prisoners are violently beaten until their aura breaks. It's enough to keep you alive, but low enough so the guards only have to hit you one or two times to knock you unconscious. I could tell Ozpin really didn't like to do it from when I came in, but he's been in a very tight spot with Jacquess for some time now, so I really can't blame him. I guess while we're waiting for the Newbies to finish getting their talk and spray-down, I'll tell you a bit about Yang and Blake.

Yang is my step-sister, and she was sent here to Säbelzahn a full year before me at the age of 21. She had just gotten her license and was busy at Junior's bar; trying to get information about a very specific missing person case. As soon as he saw the picture though, he immediately refused to help her, which led to Yang grabbing his… Well I guess I shouldn't say it out loud, but Yang went into a full-on rage after he continued to refuse helping, one thing led to another, and before you could say, 'Kick the semester off with a Yang!' There were at least 30 civilians dead, three Aura-users injured, and Junior's Bar (Which happened to be a large sponsor of the Schnee Dust Empire) brought down to rubble. Jacquess was not impressed by this and immediately sent Yang here on charges of property damage, local terrorism, and murder after revoking her huntress license.

Blake's been in here ever since I was training to go to Beacon. She was part of the White Fang, a once mighty force which in recent times diminished due to tons of the Faunus going to prison. Blake and her then partner Adam were busy sabotaging a Schnee Dust cargo train. Their plan was to blow up a train car, stopping it and stealing the shipments of Dust. However their plan worked a bit too well and the entire train blew up since you know, DUST IS HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE AND WILL EXPLODE FROM THE SLIGHTEST BREEZE! I KNOW FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE! Anyway, the train crashed, and Adam and Blake were separated in the explosion. Blake was knocked unconscious at the scene, and soon after the police came in to investigate the train wreck, they came to the natural conclusion that the Faunus with the WF emblem near the crash site must've done something to trigger it. Blake still talks to Adam in prison courtesy of the Scroll I snuck in for her, and she constantly tells him things like, 'It wasn't your fault.', and 'I don't blame you.' and 'We can have a hot threesome with this blonde bombshell after we get out'. Shortly after we became close friends in prison, Blake likened herself to jailbait when she first came in, which did make sense considering she said she was 14 when she was sent here. That's ironic, the girl most guys would risk going to prison ended up there herself.

Looks like the Newbies are finally out. After the cleaning process, they're in the nude like a new-born child and are sent to their respective cells. If they don't do it right the first time, they're beaten with a cane, crop, mini-sledgehammer, or even their bare hands. Most of them end up stuck with another veteran prisoner, few are lucky enough to be the one person in their cell. It's a lonely way to spend time in prison, but it's better than having to watch your back to prevent getting shived in the back. Jaune was lucky enough to end up being the only one in his cell.

"636? Damn it, I don't want to have to remember counting that high." I heard him grumble as he walked past my cell, his pile of clothes fortunately keeping anything from spilling out.

At least he gets a corner cell, Cell 636 and a few select others are the best ones in Säbelzahn. You've only got one annoying neighboring inmate to deal with instead of two. I've seen inmates that killed just to try and get in the corner.

A full night and another dreamless sleep later, it was time for breakfast. We prisoners are pretty much fed the food that comes out of the dumpsters of orphanages. No gluten, no fruit, no vegetables, not even any real sugar, just a bland, gray, viscous thing that probably works better as cement than food. We occasionally got meat in it, and feast on it like Beowolves on vermin, despite the odd coincidence of babies disappearing and meat appearing in the food getting a little too close for comfort.

"Pay up sis, you owe me." Yang said with a toothy grin, having won our previous bet from yesterday.

"I swear to Oum Yang, you've got to be hiding a divination device somewhere." I mumbled under my breath, handing Yang 5 flowers, 12 leaves, and 2 perfectly proportioned mushrooms.

"Awesome, Mama Yang's going to see through time." The blonde said while staring her newly acquired treasures.

"If you give me some, it'll be more than time you'll see through." Blake replied with a seductive look in her eye.

"Come on guys, don't be so lewd, remember-"

"Don't lewd the Newb, yeah we got it a long time ago. No one ever acknowledges its existence though." Yang said, stating the truth and facts.

We soon had a local distraction, the Master Race guy happened to come by and sit at our table. Yang and I both acknowledged him for a few seconds before looking away back to our gray gunk. Blake on the other hand suddenly seemed more interested in the newcomer's gray mass. We soon found out why after he pulled a finger out of his gruel. Blake got all wide-eyed, and lurched across the table straight up in his face.

"Are you going to eat that?" She asked in a demanding tone.

"Wasn't planning to-" Before the boy could finish what he was going to say, Blake snatched the digit off of his fork and raced back to her usual eating spot. The blue-eyed boy kept moving his eyes from Blake to the finger, probably thinking she was going to eat it, but instead, Blake pulled away her jacket to reveal a baby crow in her pocket.

"His name's Qrow, I found him while the field was down. We're all going to raise him until he's old enough to fly." She said as she carefully cut the finger into smaller pieces and down Qrow's throat they went.

The blonde raised his eyebrows, "We?" he inquisitively pondered.

I decided to capitalize on that moment to introduce our group to him. "She's talking about me, her, and Yang." I said pointing to each respective person. "I'm Ruby, the blonde is my sister Yang, the cat-girl is her partner Blake, and that's Qrow named after my uncle Qrow. What's your name?"

After getting his head around what I said, he started his introduction, "Well the name's Jaune Arc. Short, swe-"

"No way! YOU'RE the guy who killed Pyrrha?!" Yang asked, somehow furrowing her brow even more than she had been.

"Well, that's what they say-"

"Guess I should call ya 'Lady Killer' now shouldn't I?" Yang interrupted sardonically.

It was at that moment that I just slapped hand to my face, both in exasperation at Yang's pun and her sheer bad manners.

"You really don't have to-"

"So Lady Killer, why'd you kill the lady?" Yang inquired, propping her head on her arm.

We saw Jaune visibly tense up when asked this question, before he relaxed and replied with, "I didn't kill her." Before getting up and walking away.

"Yang, that was rude, did you really have to ask that?" I asked my step-sister.

"Well you have to agree with me, there's no possible way that lank could've killed the 7-time Mistral Champion, there's just no way. Also, 'I didn't kill her?' Talk about a cliché answer. That asshole's not 'innocent' like he claims." Yang argues back.

"Isn't everyone in here innocent?" I was silently pleading at this point to get them to stop their attitude.

"I have to agree with her Ruby." Blake adds. "Unless Nikos wasn't paying attention, there's no way he could've gotten behind her back. Even if he could, she should've been able to defend herself."

"Why do you guys think he killed her?" I asked the two, trying to shift the subject away to something different.

"I'll try and remember the gossip, but it wasn't one person Rubes, it was two, Pyrrha AND the former heir to the SDE. I think it said that Lady Killer murdered the two because he was upset that Pyrrha left him for the heir, and just decided to kill them both for revenge." Yang said with a serious undertone in her voice.

"There were news reels from both the VNN and ABC, both of them had their differences in the perspectives of what fueled him to do it, but the undeniable proof reported was that there was a chainsaw and non-metallic arrows, stained with the blood of Schnee and Nikos, inside the trunk of the car he was sitting and drinking in. To think he went with weapons that directly countered her semblance shows his dedication of wanting to kill her." Blake elaborated.

"I thought Pyrrha was killed by a nutbag stalker that had maiden powers and pyrokinetic thingies and Whitley was killed by a lumbering Faunus who had an extreme vendetta on the Schnee family?" I asked, recalling my memory on the article I read.

"Sis, that was Faux News, literally like the name suggests, it's joke news. You need to stop watching it and get with the real programs."

"That's what you said when they reported that the Dragon Grimm came from the moon, and then look what happened!"

"That was just a coincidence!"

"Personally, I can understand why Pyrrha left him." Blake intervened. "I mean, 'Lady Killer' isn't much to look at, even compared to other stick-figured inmates. I'd immediately go out with an heir over him if I hadn't met Yang here." Blake added, a shining look of lust in her eyes as she and Yang had a fierce staring contest.

"…I'll go talk to Jaune later and hear his side of the story. He's got to talk to someone soon about it. He's just got to." I said, walking away from the table, but not before I was out of hearing range from Yang.

"Bet you 6 Leaves he's not going to talk to anyone for at least a week." Yang had cast her next bet, maintaining the staring a few seconds longer before she flew forward and crashed her mouth against Blake, starting a tongue-war in their mouths. I'll never figure out how anyone can find that sexy.

A/N

There's some terminology that needs to be acknowledged;

ABC: The Atlesian Broadcasting Corporation is the main news reel of Atlas, and was the first to report on the death of the Heir Whitley Schnee. ABC mainly commented on what happened at the crime scene, with forensic experts giving their two cents at what happened and how the people were killed in all the gruesome details. ABC has also been criticized time and time again, namely due to the skewered perspectives of certain news articles and accusations of favorable bias towards the upper-Atlesian class.

Break: Break in prison terms is when someone loses it and has a psychotic fit/complete mental breakdown before being violently beaten up by the guards before finally finding their place and integrating into prison society. It can be either long-term or short-term, but it always happens to one new prisoner within the day they arrive. Most veteran prisoners can tell who'll break first just by looking at them. Cough, Yang, cough.

Currency conversion: There are 6 Leaves to a Flower, and 6 Flowers to a Mushroom. Säbelzahn currency rates consistently have a 'base-3' conversion method regardless of influx from one supply to another. Every item that is traded or traded for is analyzed by Ruby, and she makes a decision of the prices based on details that she can get from her scroll.

Faux News: Faux News is widely considered a 'joke' news outlet, similar to The Onion. It is often mocked by many people and even ABC once upon a time. The people behind it always come up with the wackiest theories/perspectives possible, regardless on the seriousness of the original subject. It's also the only news outlet Ruby actually pays attention to, much to the chagrin of her sister Yang.

Flowers: The first ever form of currency in Säbelzahn created by Ruby Rose. Prisoners can exchange items for flowers for their hallucinogenic purposes or vice-versa to request items from Ruby. Flowers can be found in the same places as Leaves, in the trees and bushes outside of the perimeter. These are also Ruby's default exchange stock, but if the cost/exchange of an item is not divisible by 6, she'll use Leaves for the remainder.

Leaves: The lowest form of currency, but one of the highest in demand. You can find leaves just by scouting out under trees or bushes located a little bit out of the perimeter of the fence. There's high risk involved, and you have only 4 minutes and to dash out and collect as many unbroken leaves as you can get before you're caught outside between a rock and a hard place (Rock being the walls, hard place being the fence).

Mushrooms: The most valued currency supply in the entire exchange, but never actually used for their original purposes. Mushrooms are very easy to come by, and grow pretty much everywhere on the prisons internal and external perimeter. However there is a very long and difficult process to neutralize the catalyst toxin (Which invokes the reaction that causes death in users that eat, snort, or smoke it) from the mushroom itself, this is why Ruby doesn't generally like dealing with Mushrooms and would much rather make exchanges with Leaves and Flowers. Mushrooms only have any value because of the aesthetics, and serve no actual functionality (It's a bragging right, like owning a Porsche or iPad Pro).

SDE: The Schnee Dust Empire is much more than just a company now. Led by Head Executive and Dictator Jacquess Schnee, the Schnee name has left an influence on every possible marketing branch in every kingdom on Remnant. The SDE is a corporate giant, which has not only made its mark on the supplies of Remnant, and is also a very prevalent force not just in Atlesian government, but in the entire governmental streams of the world.

VNN: The Vale News Network also reported the deaths of Pyrrha and Whitley, unlike ABC though which just reported on what happened at the crime scene and the lives of the people murdered (Which led to subsequent controversy that ABC cared more about the personal lives of celebrities than the fact that they are no longer living), VNN put more effort into trying to figure out why their own Jaune Arc organized and executed the murders by conducting interviews on friends, family, and other people who saw and talked to Jaune before the deaths occurred. VNN has a much cleaner record than ABC, but it is still subject to fall into degrees of bias, especially disfavoring the Atlesian upper-class, which often results in conflict between the two world news outlets.