"And so I said…" Ruby held back herself from laughing. "Now THAT'S a katana!"

Pyrrha burst out laughing, and Ruby joined her.

They'd been sitting on the bench, cooling off and talking for the past while, just enjoying the time to themselves. They told each other stories and jokes, smiling and laughing to the point their faces hurt.

"Oh my gods, Pyrrha said, wiping at her eye. "That's so immature." She couldn't resist chuckling at the tale, though.

"That's… that's…" Ruby took a deep breath, then broke down into laughter again. "Oh, geez…" She laid back and sighed. "That's probably my favorite story to tell. It's never gotten old."

Pyrrha shook her head as her giggles trailed off.

Ruby checked her scroll. She sighed.

"What time is it?" Pyrrha asked.

"8:30," Ruby replied. "Still got a while to kill."

"Well then…" She pushed herself up and stretched back. "I planned to walk my route for my classes before they started. Care to join?"

"Sure; what classes do you have?"

"Our group has Professor Goodwitch for semblance training, then Professor Port for combat studies, Professor Oobleck for world studies, and finally Professor Ozpin for general studies. I thought it was strange he would be a professor, but given his age I suppose he'd be rather experienced in the field."

"You're kidding me."

"What?" Pyrrha inquired. "Don't tell me…"

"That's OUR exact schedule! Are you serious?" Ruby exclaimed.

Pyrrha giggled. "Guess fate really likes having our teams work together?"

"Huh? What does that mean?"

"Well, you met Jaune after we got off the ship, Ren and Nora met you and Weiss in the forest, and Jaune and I met Yang and Blake in the forest. Then we ran into each other in the hall, and now this. It's almost too much of a coincidence, I'd say."

"Hammer Girl and Knife Guy are on your team? I didn't know that."

The two started heading on their route for the day. "'Hammer Girl and Knife Guy?'"

"I'm bad with names, okay?! Jaune was Vomit Boy at first."

"Um… name the members of your team," Pyrrha suggested.

"Huh? Of course I know them. There's Yang, and… B-Blink－"

"Blake?"

"Yeah that's what I said. And of course, the girl I found, Wy－Wee－Wi－uh… Wiss! Wiss, yup, her."

"Weiss."

"Alright, I get it; stop making fun of me!"

"I wasn't, I swear. I was just wondering if you deemed them with something like "Vomit Boy." It was unexpected to hear the team leade－"

"I AM NOT VOMIT BOY!"

Pyrrha and Ruby turned to the boy shouting from behind them.

"O-oh, hello Jaune," Pyrrha said awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I swear I didn't m－"

"Why are you here, Vomit Boy?" Ruby asked. Pyrrha and Jaune looked at her in shock. "W-what? I-I thought we were calling him that now."

Jaune sighed. "Please just call me Jaune."

"R-right, sorry... Jaune."

"Um. Well. Anyway. Uh… Why are you here, Jaune?" Pyrrha said, attempting to reset the discussion.

"Oh, I was just walking the, uh, the route for school."

"Okay you may have been onto something with the coincidence talk," Ruby admitted to Pyrrha quietly. Pyrrha smiled.

"We were doing the same; care to join?"

"Yeah, sure." Jaune ran up to match the pace of the two. "Ren said he'd seen you guys heading to the train. So are you guys, like, friends?"

"I just ran into her as I was going to the training area. I invited her to join. We did some battles against each other. She got me pretty good in the last match."

"Wait, so you like, duked it out?"

"I wouldn't put it that way, but I suppose it's accurate…"

"And, Ruby, you beat her?"

"Why? Is it that surprising?" She muttered.

"Remember Jaune hasn't seen you fight yet. He doesn't know how you and I measure up; however that was still rude, Jaune."

"Oh, sorry; I didn't mean it like that."

Ruby felt her face flush. She looked away from them. "Yeah, sure."

"Ahem." Pyrrha attempted to reset the discussion. "So this is Glynda's classroom. Easy enough to remember."

"I mean there's a giant sign above it," Jaune pointed.

Pyrrha glanced at the sign. "If that's your definition of giant, I'd hate to see your definition of small."

Ruby suddenly tripled her pace. "N-next class!"

Pyrrha and Jaune stared at her in confusion.

The three walked the path to their classes in relative peace and quiet, with Ruby mostly reverting to her typical quiet self as Jaune and Pyrrha made small talk.

Their route wasn't especially long after reaching the first class, however the classrooms were in a different area of the school than the dorms and dining hall, so they agreed they should probably spare some time for walking after getting breakfast.

By the time they finished their route and walked to the dining hall, breakfast was about to be served.

Breakfast was served in a buffet style, with an excessive variety. Ruby and Jaune mostly took sweeter things, but Pyrrha wouldn't let Jaune take so many, and forced him to take more nutritious foods, much to his chagrin. Oddly, she didn't mention it to Ruby.

Ruby didn't even think about her team and where they were until Yang sat next to her as she ate with Jaune and Pyrrha.

"I thought you were a late sleeper," she said with a distracting level of volume.

"Guess not," Ruby replied between bites.

Yang, less than interested to try to engage in conversation with the introvert beside her, looked to Pyrrha and Jaune.

"Have you guys been keeping her company or something?" she asked with a mouthful of food.

"I suppose you could say that. I saw Ruby earlier and invited her to train with me. We had a fun time with that, then ran into Jaune as we walked our route for our classes."

"Did she kick your ass?" Yang asked her.

"I suppose so."

"Making a name for yourself before I could, huh?" Yang asked her sister.

"No one there," she said simply.

"Where is the training area anyway?"

Ruby grabbed her sister's scroll and searched the map app momentarily.

"There." She handed back the scroll with the training arena she had been at highlighted.

"Sweet, thanks."

"Say, where are your teammates?" Pyrrha asked Yang.

"Blake was reading, Weiss… couldn't figure out how to do the buffet and went back to the dorm. As "rich girl" as someone can get, I'd say. Bet she's waiting for a butler. What about you guys?"

Pyrrha looked at Jaune. He finished chewing and said, "Ren was sitting with his eyes closed, Nora was sleeping. He said she'd wake up once she smelled fo－"

A massive tray of food crashed down next to Jaune. A very small, light tray of food was set down gently next to it.

"You guys didn't get NEARLY enough food for our first day!" Nora exclaimed.

"You just got too much," Ren muttered.

Nora began to inhale her food at inhuman speeds.

"Um, Ren. Does she usually eat that much?"

Ren looked at the stack of food. "Pretty average."

The rest of the table looked on in shock and terror.

"The hell is that girl's metabolism?!" Yang questioned the world.

"I do not know," Ren answered.

Class 1, Semblance training with Professor Goodwitch.

The class consisted of three teams; RWBY, JNPR, and not main characters.

The class began with the students lining up in front of a device. It was a large rectangular box with slots for hands to go in. Glynda instructed them to project their aura into the box once they put their hands in.

Yang went first.

"Analyzing…" a robotic voice spoke. "Complete. Please take dispensed card."

A card printed out on top of the device, which Yang took before heading to her assigned seat.

The card appeared to be a school ID. It showed an image of their face, their name, their aura capacity compared to the average, and their semblance name. The back contained a full description of the semblance. Yang's was "Revenge." Blake was "Shadow Clone," Weiss's was "Schnee Glyphs."

Pyrrha's was "Polar," Ren's was "Nullify," Nora's was "Thunderstrike," and Jaune received only a reminder that he had nothing yet.

Ruby was one of the last in line. The machine seemed to glitch as she first did it. The text for her semblance was illegible. Glynda tossed the faulty card and told her to try again. It seemed to work after that. Ruby's was called "Zoom."

After the class all took their seats, Glynda began her lecture. It was the first day, so it was mostly the basic stuff.

Every human is capable of manifesting a semblance, it's often fitting to the personality of the user, the variety of semblance is so great it's unknown how many there are, blah blah blah.

After a very boring 50 minutes, Glynda told them to learn the semblances of their team, and class would be over.

"I'm sure you already know, but I have the Schnee family glyphs as my semblance," Weiss declared in a tone that radiated rich girl energy.

"Yeah, whatever," Blake said. Before Weiss could even voice her fury at the apathetic comment, Blake continued. "I can create a clone in my current position; it pushes me in the opposite direction it spawns from, so I can use it for mobility. They can't usually take much impact, and I can use dust with them."

Since she seemed done, Yang started, "I can take the damage my aura's taken and dish it all back in double with an unstoppable barrage!" She punched her fists together as she finished.

The three glanced at Ruby, who had hesitated to start. She cast her eyes down and mumbled, "I can manipulate my velocity."

The task finished, the four made their way to the next class; Ruby and Blake keeping to themselves, Weiss ignoring them, and Yang just being lost in a sea of introversion.

"Now then!" Professor Port shouted in the area-like classroom. "For today, you need to learn what your teammates fight like! Show each other your weapons and explain your personal style!"

Yang tapped on yellow wristbands, unfolding into their full form, a gauntlet-like device covering most of her forearm, with a barrel poking out on top. "These little suckers are the Ember Celica! They reduce the strain on my arms when I punch and can shoot fire dust-laced shotgun shells, like a wave of fire."

"You use just your fist to fight Grimm?" Weiss asked. "There's no way such a savage fighting style could be effective against them."

"Huh? Savage?! Like hell it's savage; it's just more personal. You don't need to be rich and refined to fight Grimm, Princess."

"I'm not a princess, I'm a－"

"Daughter to a bastard of a CEO who runs a corrupt business model, yes, we know," Blake interrupted, only increasing Weiss's seething rage.

"What do you mean, corrupt?! You're talking about the man who supplies the entire world with dust!"

"Oh please, stroke his ego more why don't you?" Blake told her.

Weiss may as well have had steam coming out of her ears at this point. She was gritting her teeth so hard it hurt.

"Is something wrong over here?" Professor Port had come up to them without them realizing.

"Oh! Uh, nothing, sir!" Yang forced a smile.

"Hm. If there's a problem, make sure you tell me; best for teammates to get along as best they can."

He walked off, monitoring the other groups who had already begun to show off their fighting styles.

Blake watched him leave in silence. She took her sword out of the sheath on her back, then grabbed the sheath itself with her other hand. "My sword, Gambol Shroud. I attach it to the ribbon on my arm so it can be thrown and pulled back. It has a pistol-like gun in the hilt. It can fold into a more gunlike form, as well. And the sheath is bladed."

She placed the weapon back.

Weiss whipped out a rapier in a speedy, yet elegant, fashion. "Myrtenaster, a rapier with dust infusion slots." She placed the sword back in its sheath.

"Um, I have this." Ruby detached the gun from her hip and expanded it into its scythe form. Blake was noticeably taken aback by the sudden appearance of the massive weapon. "Called… Crescent Rose. Has sniper features, can use dust bullets." She placed the weapon back.

The four stood in silence for a few moments.

Port called out suddenly. "Alright, Huntsmen, gather up!"

As the four teams gathered around, he continued. "Now then, you seem like you all at least showed your weapons, so let's get to the fun part! Person Vs. Person combat! Or, I suppose, Team Vs. Team! Team RWBY, you'll be sparring with Team JNPR, and Team SNOW will be with Team OCEN. Now let's see some action! But no bloodshed! Watch your auras!"

Ruby took a moment to process that. She'd have to fight… with those three? Against Pyrrha? And Jaune?"

You know, kiddo, my time at that school was like the dawn. It was when I really started my journey, y'know?

Uncle Qrow once said that to Ruby about Beacon.

She grit her teeth.

Almost everything so far made it feel more like the end of an enjoyable life for her. More like dusk than dawn.