Chapter 1 - Ruby Rose

I'm so sorry Ruby.

Ruby's jaw tightened at the memory of her mother's words, still far too fresh in her mind. It had been less than a day since they had been uttered. They were stuck on repeat in her mind, stuck with the rest of the conversation which she had to listen to over and over again all day.

There's nothing I can do.

'That's a lie isn't it', Ruby thought to herself - there had to be something her mother could do. Anything more than send her away.

The train rattled beneath her uncomfortably. Behind her, she could hear a baby begin to cry as their mother futility tried to hush them. Unfortunately, those attempts only seemed to make the baby cry louder. All Ruby could do was lay her wolf ears as flat as she could against her head and under her hoodie while increasing the volume of her music in hopes of drowning out the noise.

Not that she could really listen to her music anyways. For her, it was just background noise that, at that moment, offered no familiar comfort or entertainment. Instead, she kept it on just to try and drown out everything else - the baby and the train for sure, but all she wanted was to not be left alone with her thoughts.

It was a shame that it did not work out.

I didn't mean for this to happen.

Ruby knew that. Of course, she knew that. Why would her mother want to get arrested? Why would she want to leave her child and send her off to her brother's house? Why? Her mother hated her brother, but apparently, he was the only family she had left and the only person who she could trust to take her in.

I promise I'll be back as soon as possible.

Ruby knew that as well. It wasn't like it meant anything though. Her mom had no control over how long she would be held in police custody, and she had no way of controlling how soon she would be in prison after she was sentenced. Sure, if she was lucky, she would only be in jail for a few days as she was interrogated before she was let go with a lack of evidence. However, Ruby knew not to get her hopes up. She wasn't lucky, and she knew the best outcome wasn't going to happen. Ruby knew it and her mother did as well.

I-I… I did some bad things Ruby. I worked with some bad people. I had this coming, but I'm sorry that it was while you were still here.

The girl balled her fists. The explanation explained a lot of questions that Ruby had but had never bothered to seek real answers about. Whenever she asked what her mother did for a living and why she got home so late, she was given vague answers. "I work as a security director", was her mother's default response whenever she asked about the nature of her employment, for a company with a name that Ruby wouldn't know anyways, so that was written off as unimportant. "I have to stay late to make sure that everything is locked up at the end of the day," was her response as to why she got home late. Ruby had never felt the need to ask further questions. She knew it wouldn't go anywhere.

I-I understand if you're mad but please Ruby, please know that I'm sorry. I won't beg for your forgiveness, and I know that you are mad, but please Ruby, I'm sorry.

Her mom had been close to tears as she said that. Ruby remembered her shaking ever so slightly as she crushed Ruby in a hug, unwilling to let go and give up her daughter. Her mother was a stoic woman. She didn't show much emotion, and Ruby had never seen her show so much before.

I don't want to leave you like Summer did.

Something wet hit Ruby's lap. It took her a moment to realize that a few tears were streaming down her face. She quickly wiped them away, but she could feel a few more trying to break away from her eyes.

'I don't need this now,', she thought to herself, 'I don't need any of this now.'

A few more tears hit her lap.

Her mom had taken her in after her birth mother, Summer, abandoned her.

It had been years ago - Ruby was only eight when Summer said that she was going to go on a business trip. She promised that she wouldn't be gone for long, but in the meantime, she would be staying at her aunt Raven's house. Days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months before it finally dawned on Ruby that her mother wasn't coming back. She remembered crying for hours when she realized that, while Raven, her real mom, did everything she could to try and comfort Ruby. In the end, her tears didn't stop until she had cried herself to sleep in her mother's arms.

Looking back at that experience - being dumped off at a stranger's house by her birth mother - Ruby couldn't help but remember asking why she was going to stay with Aunt Raven instead of her dad when Summer. She didn't get any real response at the time, but an answer came in time after a few years of living with Raven.

Alcoholics don't make the best parents.

Raven said that there was no way that Summer would drop her off to live with someone like Summer's ex-husband and Raven's little brother, Qrow Branwen.

Raven said he was an alcoholic. Raven said he was irresponsible. Raven said that he couldn't hold a decent job to save his life. Raven said that he didn't want to take care of his daughter anyways as he had left Ruby and her mother right after Ruby was born.

Yet now? Raven said he was drinking far less, that he was more responsible than he used to be, that he had a good job working at a prestigious high school, and that he would be happy to take in his daughter until Raven was free.

Raven had told Ruby all of this after she had gotten off a call with him, where Ruby had heard her all but beg him to take care of her. Luckily, the call didn't take too long, so Ruby knew it wasn't too hard a sell for her father, but it had still left her unsettled.

That day she had seen her mother at her weakest.

She had almost cried in front of Ruby.

She did cry - she sobbed quietly to herself when she had seen Ruby leave the room to pack up her belongings. Ruby knew that her mother knew that she could hear her, but she had still done everything she could to keep her daughter from seeing her cry.

Still, she had shaken in Ruby's arms.

Still, she had been absolutely desperate to know that someone could take care of Ruby.

All of that still affected Ruby. All of that would continue to affect Ruby. On one hand, she was scared at what charges could be placed on her mother that could reduce her to that, but, most of all, she was sad.

Sad that her mother was still going to leave her. Ruby knew that Raven was being honest when she said she didn't want to leave, and she knew that she didn't plan on just dumping her off with someone else without telling her why.

But a part of Ruby couldn't dismiss the fact that she was being left again. And she couldn't help but realize that she still didn't know what her mother had done to deserve to be taken away. She knew Raven had chosen not to tell her exactly why, and that lack of trust, even if Ruby knew it was to protect her, still hurt.

Ruby slumped her shoulders dejectedly. The baby had stopped crying, but her ears laid flat all the same. She knew she needed to stop thinking about this. She knew she needed to try and cheer herself up, to move on for now. The day had been terrible. But for how terrible it had been, it still could still get better. She still had her father to meet, and maybe, just maybe her day could be salvaged.

Still, a bitter part of her couldn't help but feel foolish at the thought. Were things really going to get better?

The faunus sighed. Her life was changing. She had to move. She had to live with a man she never got to meet. She would no doubt be going to a new school at some point in the future, full of people she had never met before.

She would have to make new friends.

The thought terrified her. She had never been the best at making friends. Heck, she had never even been good at it. She wasn't outgoing, she wasn't involved in any extracurriculars, and her hobbies were largely solitary activities. Though, all of this was made worse by the fact that she was going to be younger than anyone in her grade at the school. She had skipped eighth grade due to her knack at science and math, which had left her as a freshman without any of the friendships she had been building up since moving in with Raven during third grade.

Par for the course, her freshman year had been at best lonely, at worst embarrassing. While others knew she was smart and respected her in class, she was seen a teacher's pet and her attempts to make friends had been nothing short of abject failures.

She had a few kind friends, who at least didn't seem to mind her presence and who she made some small chat with during class or at lunch, but she didn't really know much about them and it seemed more an association of convenience for everyone involved. It felt better for all of them, as socially awkward as they were, to have people around so as to not be truly alone.

And now she had to go through that all again.

"At least no one will know me,' she muttered to herself, managing to slightly abate her fears, 'I'll just be some new kid who transferred. All the embarrassing things that happened at Signal won't matter in the city. Heck, maybe I can even learn from my mistakes - I can join clubs and, well, I can join clubs. I'll just be a new girl coming from the suburbs. Not some young smarty-pants teacher's pet, but a regular-pants not teacher's pet. Yeah, it'll be fine. My social life will be a blank slate, and, at the very worst, it can't be worse than at Signal, right? I can just try my best and that'll be it. Maybe even I will have classes with people my age? That would be good. Yeah, that'd be real good."

She took a breath and smiled before quietly affirming to herself, "Yeah, a blank slate."

That small smile didn't last the rest of her ride on the train. It didn't take too long to think back to the situation that had forced her to move anyways, but at least she was provided a moment of solace, and at least she felt she had her blank slate to look forward to soon. So, the rest of her train passed without any incident … although that may have been due to her lack of attention towards a woman sitting a few rows in front of her in a seat with its back towards the train wall who had been keeping her eye on the young faunus she had been hired to watch, occasionally taking notes that she would promptly send to her employer.

The woman had an idea as to why someone so wealthy might want to ruin some lowly faunus' life, but it was not something to which she had any care for. She was getting paid, and it was better her get paid to do her job than for someone else to be paid to do it.

Business was business.

0

The sun was still a few hours from setting upon the city of Vale when Ruby finally arrived at what the map on her phone said was her father's house. The building was nothing special - it was just another two story greystone, no more distinct than the countless others she had spent just shy of an hour walking past. Ruby couldn't help but be surprised by how identical all of the houses in the city seemed to be. She had seen maybe three different types in total - grey two-story houses with a stone exterior, brown two-story houses with a brick exterior, and then brick one and a half story houses. While Ruby was used to the cookie cutter houses of suburbia, seeing it in the city felt… different. Maybe it was just because they were a different style of architecture than she was used to or maybe it was something else. To be honest, she didn't know, and she didn't particularly care.

A different place feeling different wasn't a surprise.

Her walk had thankfully been uneventful. While a young girl with no company but her suitcase, backpack, and weekender bag would have undoubtedly been an easy mark for anyone looking for trouble, Ruby was happy to find that her father's neighborhood seemed safe, even if it did look a bit rundown. Ruby liked to think that it was just the neighborhood having some character.

However, as Ruby arrived directly outside the house, she was dismayed to find that the end of her journey was marked by one last flight of stairs. Her legs were aching from walking for the better part of an hour, but, with a sigh and a bit of pain, she walked up the last few, with her suitcase slapping against the concrete as she made her ascent.

Once at the door, Ruby took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. Then she waited.

And waited.

And waited.

For what felt like an eternity, nothing happened. No sound of feet against the floor came from the other side. Indeed, Ruby didn't hear anything except the quiet sound of traffic on the main road a few blocks and the soft cooing of some nearby mourning doves.

Ruby rang the doorbell again and then waited some more. This time though, she could hear what sounded like some pet scurrying around on the other side that proved to be a dog when she heard it yapping excitedly.

However, there didn't seem to be any human presence behind the door.

Ruby wondered if perhaps her father was out of the house, but that seemed like a strange thing to do when he knew he had a guest arriving any minute. However, Ruby realized that it would be easy enough to check if he had a car parked outside of his house. If he did, he was home. If not, then he was out doing something.

At first, she thought to check in a driveway, but, turning around, she noticed that none of the houses on the block had a driveway. Instead, all of the cars were parked in front of the houses on the one-way street.

It didn't take a second more to realize that her father's house had no car parked in front of it, and, with that realization, Ruby began to worry.

'What if this is the wrong house? What if he got in an accident? What if he abandoned me? What if he's dead or missin-'

Ruby shook the thoughts from her mind. She knew she had a tendency to worry, and letting her mind reach for unlikely possibilities would only get her wound up.

Still, she double checked the numbers above the door, and they were the same ones she been given.

The girl sighed. 'I guess I'll just have to wait outside for him to get back. The door has to be locked right? Would anyone in the city ever leave their door unlocked? I mean that would just be asking to get robb-'

Ruby stood still for a moment and bit her lip ever so slightly before reaching to the doorknob and turned it.

The door opened a crack.

"Okay then," she muttered under her breath, "I guess he left it open. Huh."

She pushed the door open fully and took a peek inside.

The door opened to a small entry area that was devoid of any decorations. All Ruby saw in the entryway was a pair of boots on the left wall.

Straight forward from the door was a steep staircase that led to the second floor of the greystone which, at the moment, Ruby had no intention of venturing up to explore.

Her legs were tired and all she wanted was to take a moment to sit down and rest.

However, far more importantly, directly below her, sitting down and happily wagging its tail was a very familiar looking monochrome corgi.

It took a moment of staring at it wide eyed before Ruby's broke out into a wide smile and she happily exclaimed, "Ein!".

The dog responded by tilting its head, but the gesture went unnoticed as the excited faunus quickly picked it up and brought it into a tight hug.

"Ein! I can't believe you're here too! Mom said that I couldn't take you with me, and I was so sad, I mean she said she was going to leave you with a close friend, but I can't believe that she dropped you off here! Oh my God, who's a good girl Ein, who's a good girl!"

Unexpectedly, Ruby was met with silence in response to her high praise.

"Ein is something wrong?"

She held the dog out a little further from her and, while it still had its tongue happily hanging outside of its mouth, its tilted head indicated that something was not quite right.

Taking a closer look at the dog, Ruby realized that something was indeed different. For one thing, the dog didn't have Ein's characteristic white fur around her eyes, which Ruby had always lovingly referred to as her glasses. In addition, the dog was just ever so slightly smaller than the dog she lovingly, and technically incorrectly, referred to as her puppy. But, as a dead giveaway, the dog's collar had a name tag that read 'Drei'.

Deflating slightly, Ruby sighed out, "Oh" before placing the dog down. Noticing her seeming disappointment, the dog nuzzled up against her leg before walking over a few feet and stopping before turning around to face Ruby again. The girl stared at the dog for a moment before the dog moved a few feet further into a room on her left past the entrance area, before stopping at a point just barely in sight of Ruby.

'I think she wants me to follow her?'

In response, Ruby pulled her suitcase over the entry step and entered into the home before closing the door behind her. Seemingly happy with Ruby's abilities to follow their intentions, the dog happily waddled into what looked to be a living room, with a comfy looking leather couch facing a decent sized flat screen television. The dog made its way to the back of the couch before turning to face Ruby and sitting down patiently.

On the top of the couch's back Ruby noticed a piece of paper.

Ruby walked over to the couch with her suitcase in tow, before letting go of it, dropping her bag besides it, and sliding off her backpack which she then placed on top of her bag. She then picked up the note as Drei rubbed up against her leg.

'Hey Ruby, sorry I am not here right now,' the note began, 'there's some stuff I had to do today that's going to take me awhile to sort out. Sorry about that. At least you have Drei to keep you company in the meantime. Although, she is probably going to try to get you to refill her food bowl. Don't fall for it. I filled it before I left, and she doesn't need anymore.'

Almost on cue, the dog, who she hadn't noticed leave her leg, trundled over from the kitchen past the living room, with an aluminum bowl in her mouth. She then placed the bowl at Ruby's feet and gazed up expectantly.

"Sorry girl," Ruby responded, "but you've had your food today."

The dog tilted its head at her before pushing the bowl slightly closer to her before looking back to Ruby, its ears lowered ever so slightly.

"No Drei. Uncle Qrow said no more food for you."

In response, Drei pushed the bowl directly against her foot before looking up at her with the cutest puppy dog eyes that Ruby had ever seen as she let out a small whimper. For a moment, Ruby felt her resistance falter before she shook her head.

She was not going to fail this.

"No means no Drei. I'm sorry."

The dog whimpered some more.

Ruby looked down at Drei and her heart sank. The dog was lying down now with her paws covering her face as she whimpered. It looked like the dog was crying, and Ruby couldn't help but feel guilty. She had never seen Ein try and do this, even when she really wanted Ruby's attention, and Ruby couldn't help but feel that maybe, even if the letter said otherwise, Drei was really hungry. Maybe she was a growing girl and needed more kibble than Qrow realized to become the ever so slightly larger big girl she was meant to be?

Conflicted, Ruby continued reading the letter for guidance.

'Drei will probably try guilt tripping you into feeding her and, if you really want to, you can give her a scoop of kibble to get her to stop. If she begs you for more, just pick her up and pet her. That normally gets her to stop pouting. The kibble is in the pantry on the top shelf.'

With a sigh, Ruby stated, "Okay Drei, give me one sec and I'll give you some food." Immediately, as Ruby looked down at the dog, she immediately perked up and let out a happy yap before waddling over to the kitchen with her bowl in mouth.

With the dog no longer pouting at her feet, Ruby continued reading to finish reading the letter.

'I probably won't be home until after 7. Until then, you can just wait and watch TV with Drei or do something on your phone or whatever you use to entertain yourself. The wifi password's Qrow&Drei. If you want, you can bring your bag upstairs and leave it in the room on your right.'

'If you're hungry, I have snacks in the pantry and fridge. Don't spoil your appetite though because I am going to be coming home with a treat. '

'Please call me when you can though.'

Included at the bottom of the note was his phone number, which Ruby entered into her phone.

She then paused for a moment, wondering if she should call now or later, but she decided that now wouldn't hurt. So, the faunus pressed the call button under her uncle's newly created contact.

As for phone began ringing, she prepared to talk to Qrow for the first time in her life. However, her preparation proved wasted as the phone cut to voicemail. On the other end of the phone, a raspy voice stated, "You've reached Qrow Branwen. Sorry, I missed your call. Leave a message and I'll respond when I can."

The phone sounded a tone, and Ruby replied, "Hey Qrow, it's Ruby. I'm at your house, and, uh, I read your letter, so I just wanted to call you to tell you that I made it here fine. Um, I'll see you later. Bye."

With that, she pressed the big red button to end the call and sighed.

From the kitchen, she could hear Drei begin to whine, so she walked over to where her uncle's dog was not so patiently waiting in front of the pantry.

Once Drei noticed that Ruby's attention was solidly on her, she began scratching at the door of the pantry while whining some more.

Ruby couldn't help but sigh in response.

"Okay girl, I'm coming, just give me one second."

Drei let out an excited yip in response as Ruby finally made her way to the doors and opened them. Inside, Ruby was surprised to see a sparsely stocked pantry. She saw a few cans of soup, a few bags of chips, a large box of ramen, two boxes of cereal, and then three bags of chocolate chip cookies.

The cookies had a post-it note attached to them that read "For Ruby". She let out a content hum upon seeing them before looking up to the top shelf to find a large bag of kibble. She stepped into the pantry and tried to reach up to get in before realizing that she was not quite tall enough to get it.

Slightly annoyed by this, Ruby exited the panty, while mumbling under her breath about the importance of dairy intake, before looking around to see if there was a chair that she could use to stand on. Seeing a simple wooden chair in a room past the kitchen, she walked over there to find a small dining room containing a small dark brown, square table with two matching chairs. Ruby recognized them as the exact same table set that she had gotten with her mom from Ikea after Summer had dropped her off at her mother's house.

Seeing them left the young faunus with a bittersweet feeling. She remembered walking around the giant store, which seemed absolutely colossal to the small child, with her mother. It must have been about seven years prior – and the only time she had been to the Swedish wonderland - that they had come to look for a table set and a bed for Ruby and spent what seemed like an eternity wandering around the labyrinthine store before finally finding what they had come there to buy. Ruby had gotten frozen yoghurt afterwards as a reward for her relative patience.

Ruby and her mother didn't get to use the table set together as much as either of them would have liked. Her mom got home late too often, so it was only really a guarantee for the weekends. Still, it was at the dinner table where Ruby would tell her mother about her week and her mother would smile softly and listen. Ruby loved those times together.

And now, that was something she might not get to do again though.

She shook her head. 'No… I don't need to be getting sad over a table right now.'

She picked up one of the chairs and brought it to the pantry, carefully making sure not to hit the dog which was still waiting restlessly for her food. Ruby then set the chair down in the pantry before stepping on top of it to reach the now accessible dog food. Grabbing it, she carefully stepped down from the chair before moving out of the pantry and setting the kibble down on a counter.

At her feet, Drei stood silently, but the wild wagging of her tail made clear just how excited she was to be rewarded for her pouting. She looked up at Ruby for a moment before walking away to get her bowl, which she once more set at Ruby's feet before taking a seat.

Ruby smiled down at the corgi before opening the bag. It smelled, well, like kibble. She wasn't a fan of the smell, but Drei's sudden excited yapping suggested that she was. Ruby took a peek inside of the bag in hopes that her uncle had left something inside to scoop it out with. Luckily, she discovered that he did in fact leave a measuring cup inside. Ruby grabbed it and scooped it full of the kibble before dropping the contents of the cup into the bowl.

Immediately, Drei dug into her food. In only a few moments, the bowl was empty. While the scoop had probably only been a half cup, Ruby was still a bit impressed with how quickly the dog scarfed down the food. She was less impressed, however, with how, immediately after finishing, Drei pushed her bowl into Ruby's foot, evidently wanting more.

"No girl, you've had enough already."

Ruby was met with a whine in response.

"Nope, no more whining. That is what you get."

The dog growled quietly before picking up her bowl and walking off.

'How dramatic', Ruby thought before picking up the bag off the counter and returning it to the top shelf of the pantry. After, she promptly returned the chair in the pantry back to the dining room before walking back to the pantry to close the doors. However, as she was about to do so, she saw the bags of cookies which her uncle had so kindly bought for her and, with a smile, she grabbed one before heading over to the couch.

The faunus flopped down onto the couch and briefly considered turning on the TV to stream something, but she decided against it. Ruby wasn't sure what services her uncle was subscribed to and, more importantly, she really wanted to watch a certain show that didn't seem to be on any major streaming platform anymore.

Not like that was going to stop her from watching it though.

Ruby slipped her phone out of her pocket and quickly logged into the house's wifi before immediately going to website that hosted her favorite superhero show from her childhood – the legality of whether or not they were supposed to be hosting it was irrelevant.

"Yarr harr harr, I'm a pirate.", she said quietly to herself before resuming her watch of the series from its midpoint of the second season.

As the episode began, Ruby opened her cookies and began to eat them as the wait for her uncle truly began. However, it was only moments after opening the bag that Drei stopped her sulking to return to Ruby. Arriving at the couch, she managed to hop onto it before climbing over Ruby to try and get to the food.

In response, Ruby held the bag above her head while stating, "No Drei! These aren't for you! They're chocolate chip too so, please don't eat them or you'll die!"

Drei looked at for a moment before what appeared to be a look of realization dawned on the dog's face. Without a sound, the dog moved to climbed over to Ruby's legs before laying down between them.

"Good girl." Ruby replied at Drei's apparent show of restraint before picking up her phone and restarting the video.

0

Ruby had almost gotten through the second half of the season she was watching when Drei suddenly sprung out of her legs and ran towards the door. Moments later, she could hear the door open and as the raspy voice from the phone earlier called out, "Hey Ruby, you here?"

In response, Ruby poked her head up over the couch and responded, "Yeah, I'm here." As her eyes peeked over the couch's back, she finally got to see the man who she only knew from old photos her mother had.

Her father was a relatively tall man and thin man, with black hair that was beginning to show signs of grey, and what looked to be light red eyes, slightly duller than her mother's more vivid crimson eyes.

He wore a dark grey blazer with a light grey V-neck underneath, as well as a pair of dark-blue jeans and black loafers. Around his neck hung a necklace with a small, silver, crooked cross.

In his hands, he carried a large, white, pizza box, on which Ruby could not see any text at all.

Noticing her eyes on the box, Qrow remarked, "This is the treat I talked about in the note. I figured if you're gonna be living in Vale for a bit that the first thing you should have is some real deep-dish pizza." He said all of this with a small smirk before noticing not much of a reaction from the girl, to which he responded," Have you ever had deep dish before?"

Ruby replied with a shake of her head, which managed to turn his smirk into a full-blown smile, "Well then kiddo, you are going to be in for a treat."

With that, he then began walking towards the dining room, with Drei loyally following her owner at his heels. As he entered into the dining room though, Ruby realized something - she didn't know what to call Qrow.

Qrow was her father, in a biological sense, but, until then, he had been completely absent from her life, so calling him her dad felt … wrong, like calling Summer her mother. On the other hand, if she were to call him uncle Qrow, then he may feel that she didn't want to acknowledge that he was her father or maybe he might even be upset and assume that she had never been told. Either way, he may feel insulted, if not by her than by her mother, and Ruby didn't want her actions to impact whatever strained relationship that her Raven and her brother had. She knew that she could always just try for Qrow, but at that point it might come across as a bit cold insofar as denying any sort of familial relation, which wasn't what she wanted to do at all it was just -

"Kiddo, you coming?"

Her fathe- her uncl- Qrow's words brought Ruby back from outside her head and she quickly responded, "Yeah, coming, sorry."

"No problem, kiddo, it's fine."

The kiddo then headed over to the dining table to find her uncle waiting, standing up and the furry beggar waiting patiently under the table.

"Grab whatever seat you want, I'll grab some plates, forks, and knives, and, uh, what do you want to drink? We got water, milk, root beer, and, well you have school tomorrow, so no caffeine, so that's it."

Ruby's ears popped up in surprise, "Oh, I have school tomorrow? I, uh, thought that I was going to be out of school until we could find somewhere to transfer because, well, the commute kinda takes forever."

Qrow smiled at the girl as he replied, "Yeah, I was able to pull a few… well, a lot of strings and starting tomorrow you are going to be coming to Beacon Academy with me. Your classes are going to be a bit of a surprise for us both since I dropped this on your counselor when it really wasn't his responsibility to do anything this soon, but he insisted upon learning of your… situation that you get into school as soon as possible and get back some semblance of a normal life. Since school's ending in two months, you are going to be in a bit of a weird position, but we'll figure it out. There aren't many teachers who would be big enough assholes to hold you to the same standards of everyone else right now, and if there are, I'm sure I can talk to them about it. Anyways, we can talk about any questions you have over dinner. So, what drink'll it be?"

Having been listening intently to her new-found situation, Ruby was slightly thrown off by the repeated question over her choice in beverage, so she took a moment to respond before replying, "I would like milk please."

Qrow nodded before responding, "You got it kiddo. I'll be right back."

As the man stepped out of the dining room and back to the kitchen, Ruby waited for his return. She still felt a bit of the surprise from when Qrow announced her enrollment at Beacon, but after only at max one and a half days of planning? That was still surprising, but it felt like a good surprise. She had that much of a head start to make friends.

It didn't take too long until her uncle came back into the dining room with two plates stacked on top of each other with forks and knives for each of them on top. He then set them down on the table before stepping back out to get their drinks. As he left, Ruby could feel something brush up against her ankle, which she figured must have been Drei. Looking down, the sight of the corgi confirmed her intuition. As she looked down though, the dog looked up, first towards Ruby's eyes and then to the ears on the top of her head. Upon noticing Ruby's ears, the dog's mouth hung open happily with her tongue lolling out as she nuzzled up a bit harder against the bottom of Ruby's leg before closing her eyes and laying down.

Ruby guessed that Drei liked her canine trait.

A few moments later, her uncle walked back into the dining room with a drink in each hand. One was her milk the other was a brown soda. He set the Ruby's drink in front of her and his own in front of himself. Qrow then opened the white box on the table and, as he did so, a marvelous smell rose up from the steaming pie below.

Ruby had heard of a deep-dish pizza before and was aware of what it was, a pizza with tomato sauce on top, with cheese underneath, cooked in a crust in a deep pan. She had felt that it all seemed a bit excessive, and she had never particularly cared to try it. But now? Oh, she couldn't wait to dig in.

"It smells pretty good", she understated.

Her uncle laughed, "Yeah, it'll taste better too. I don't know what toppings you like, so I played it safe and got cheese. Don't worry though, it'll taste even better than it smells regardless."

Ruby couldn't wait to taste it.

Her uncle then began cutting the slices of the pizza, which looked to already have some outlines of cuts in it already.

With a few pieces cut, Qrow lifted one up with a fork and knife and set it on the top plate. He then handed that plate to Ruby with a smile as he said, "Dig in."

Ruby was happy to oblige.

She quickly cut off the tip of the slice before bringing the little piece to her mouth. In that little piece, she tasted a little piece of heaven. The sauce was unbelievably savory - she couldn't taste anything more than the tomatoes and a little bit of seasoning, but those ingredients were all the sauce needed. The mozzarella added a fantastic bit of creaminess and the crust at the bottom was just crunchy enough to bring a change in texture in addition to a light buttery taste.

All in all, it tasted amazing, though Ruby knew it must be terrible for her. Perhaps that knowledge made the dish even better.

She continued to dig into her slice of pizza, which she quickly finished and was about to immediately ask for more, but she stopped herself. The food had been a very pleasant distraction, but they still had her future at the school to talk about.

So, instead of asking for another slice, Ruby looked up and instead asked, "Sooo… um… what's Beacon like?"

Her uncle, who had only gotten about half way through his slice met her eyes as she looked up. His face had a small smirk on it, but not much more. He took a moment to take a sip of his drink before responding, "It's a school. It's private. There's a bunch of different kids at Beacon. Some are poor, more are rich, but most are somewhere in between. Some of the kids are a bit stuck up, but most of them are fine…", he paused to think for a moment, during which Ruby caught his eyes flick to the top of her head, "There's a few faunus," he continued, "not too many, but more than just a handful too. I don't know how many faunus you went to school with in the suburbs, but there should be more here. If not a lot more, than at least a bit."

Ruby bit her tongue in thought for a moment before responding, "Is racism an issue?"

She knew that in the suburbs there were less faunus, and the less faunus there were, the more intolerance one was prone to receive. At Signal, she had received a bit of active discrimination, which at least the teachers were eager to correct, even if it seemed to make her stand out a bit more in requiring their help to do rectify her mistreatment. However, more of what made her uncomfortable at Signal was the fact that she got some weird looks in the halls and, in the cafeteria, and she could hear some slurs and jokes that, while not directed at her, did not make her feel any more welcome.

"I don't think so," Qrow responded before elaborating further, "I've heard of some faunus kids getting bullied from a few students, but it seemed to be more because they were easy targets than because they were faunus."

Ruby gulped. As an awkward girl who knew exactly no one there, who was younger than normal for her grade, who transferring mid semester, and who was a faunus, she could not picture herself as anything other than an easy target.

However, her uncle continued talking while she thought about that in her head, "The kids who get in trouble for bullying the most, these four juniors led by this asshole kid named Cardin Winchester. They bully kids who do not fight back. I wouldn't be surprised if the four of them were racist, but at the end of the day all they're just assholes anyways."

Ruby nodded her head in response before reaching for another slice of pizza. It wasn't surprising to hear that there were assholes who picked on people at her new school - it seemed that wherever teenagers were found in any reasonable number, one was bound to find some that would be terrible to their peers. But, knowing that her biggest threat at Beacon was only run of the mill bullying was, while not exactly comforting, better than having to worry about general racism.

After she placed a new slice of pizza on her plate, the pair ate in silence for a few moments before it was broken by Qrow.

"There is a girl you might want to be careful around though. A girl by the name of Weiss Schnee."

Ruby bit her tongue. She recognized that name, heck, anyone would recognize that name. Weiss Schnee was a minor celebrity on social media. She had a pretty face and a pretty voice, but, more importantly, her family was an absolute power house in the electronics industry. They were in just about any technology you could think of, from washing machines, to phones, to radios, to toasters. They were sold in every big-box retailer, and they had a few shops of their own. The Schnee's led the biggest American electronics company. Period.

But, Ruby knew that they didn't get there by playing nice. Everyone knew that they exploited lower-income communities, particularly faunus ones, in the U.S. to maintain their edge in the market, by paying them slightly above minimum wage but working them to the bone and treating them like shit. News reports came up periodically about how employees regularly had forced overtime at base pay (when paid at all), breaks that only existed on paper, and certain factories and warehouses of … questionable safety. Whenever these reports came out, the Schnee Corporation would deny them, insist that they treated their employees fairly, and would face backlash for maybe a week at most before they went back to business as usual.

Yet, it was faunus overseas that suffered that had it worse. They were the ones who got worked even harder with many living in near slave like conditions for twenty hours a day in company owned buildings, where they had to pay back most of their salary back to the company for food and rent. It was public knowledge that these factories created Schnee products, but the company argued that it was the faunus who ran them who were at fault - the Schnee's contracted the factories to make parts for their products, and they had very little that they could do in means of enforcement of their "standards" to make the factory owners comply. Ruby had read online that, while that claim held up on paper, some journalists had been able to find some money trails that suggested that the Schnee's, through a mixture of shell companies, bribes, and controlling shares in companies with shares in the factories, that the Schnee's had every ability to force the factory owners to comply.

They just chose not to.

It was cheaper that way.

"Why should I be careful around her?", Ruby asked, although she already had some idea of the answer she might get.

"She's had some issues with some faunus students before. One time in my class, I had the students find news articles about current hot topic issues to dissect them to make sure they understood what made a source trustworthy. A faunus student chose an exposé about indentured servitude at factories that produce Schnee products and, well, Weiss didn't take kindly to what she felt was a faunus slandering her family's good name. Those two were at each other's throats, and I could tell that they were both about to say some really stupid shit when I sent them both down to the dean's office. Not even a day later, rumors were circulating about how the girl's family was involved with faunus extremist groups. While, as a teacher who theoretically believes the best of all my students, I can't say that I have some idea of who might've started those rumors, but, as a man with some common sense, I think I have a good idea of who that was."

Her father took a sip of soda before continuing.

"She's spread some other rumors about a handful of other students too, most of the human though - though no one has any proof that she's spread them. From some of the whispers I hear when my students are supposed to be reading though, whenever someone slights her, she tries to get even. As long as you're careful around her, you'll be fine."

Ruby nodded as she finished up her second slice of pizza.

'Be careful around probably the richest and most powerful girl in the school,' she thought to herself, 'that seems simple enough. Don't do anything to her, and she won't do anything to you.'

"Anyways, is there anything else you want to know about Beacon, about Vale, or about me?", Qrow asked.

Ruby thought about that for a moment. She wasn't really sure what else to ask about the school. Her uncle had said that he didn't know what her classes were going to be, so she could ask about what her teachers were like. Besides that, she really didn't know what else to ask about the school. As for the city, well, Ruby knew a bit about Vale. She lived in the suburbs of the city for her entire life, and she had been to Vale a few times already. It wasn't a foreign place to her, just a different place.

However, she did have a few questions for Qrow. Most of them though, she wasn't sure would be appropriate for a first meeting at the dinner table. She wanted to know about Qrow's relationship with her birth and adoptive mothers and why her father hadn't had any role in raising her but asking those questions then and there would have felt awkward. Instead, she decided to go with a question that had been on her mind for a bit now.

"Sooo…" she began, as her Qrow raised his eyes from Drei, who he had been feeding small bits of the pizza.

"Hmm?"

"I was wondering, um, what should I call you?"

The man looked at her a moment before asking, "What exactly do you mean kiddo?"

"I, uh,", Ruby nervously rubbed the back of her head as her ears flattened slightly, "I mean, uh, you're Raven's brother, right?"

"Yeah," he said with a nod.

"So, you're my uncle, but, um, also, you and Summer, uh,"

Qrow looked at Ruby with small smile before responding, "We had you."

Ruby nodded her head in response, slightly relieved that she wasn't the one to say those words.

A silence hung between the two of them for a moment, as both seemed hesitant to acknowledge what that meant.

After a few more moment though, Qrow broke the silence.

"So, you're wondering if you should call me dad?"

Once more, Ruby nodded in response.

Qrow sighed.

"You can call me dad if you want, but, to be honest, I don't feel like I've earned that title. I mean, this is the first time I've seen you in years, and I don't blame you for feeling more like Raven's kid than mine. So, don't think you'll hurt my feelings by calling me uncle Qrow. I understand. If it makes you more comfortable though, call me whatever you like. Qrow, uncle Qrow, dad - it's all good to me. Right now, I'm here to make sure that someone's taking care of you while Raven's gone, someone that Raven trusts. To be honest, that list isn't very long and I'm still surprised I'm on it. Besides you, I would guess it has maybe… two other names? The fact that she would trust me with you, the most important thing in the world to her, is still a bit of a shock."

Ruby was silent for a moment. On one hand, it felt nice to know that Qrow wouldn't be upset at her hesitance to call him her dad, but … did her mother also really not have anyone else? No one she could trust? Ruby knew that her mother had been pretty much all work all the time and, with the recent revelation that the people involved in her line of work might not have been the most upstanding of individuals, but … well, Ruby couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

It sucked to be alone.

There was a period of relative silence between the two as they continued to work on finishing off the pizza. Realistically speaking, they were not going to finish it, but the day had been long for the two of them, and the pizza, in its cheesy, saucy, goodness, brought some comfort.

However, the silence did not last forever - it was broken by the quite chime of an alarm. As it went off, Qrow groaned.

"Sorry Ruby. I'd love to spend the rest of the night to try and get to know you, but I told my students on Friday that they could send me their papers for me to look at over the weekend, and, well, I haven't gotten the chance so far. You know, things have been a bit busy."

As he said that he gestured towards her stuff.

"So, I need to give them feedback."

Ruby nodded before replying, "I understand. Thank you for everything uncle Qrow. I, um, I know that this weekend must have been kinda hectic because of me and I'm sor–"

Qrow cut her off, "Don't worry about it. Things come up in life. Shit happens. It isn't your fault of any of this happened, so don't you dare try apologizing for being here. I just spent the weekend doing what needed to be done to make sure that you can get things going back to normal."

Ruby nodded again before restating, "Thank you."

Qrow smiled at her, "Don't worry kiddo, everything's going to be alright."

He then got up and left the table and began exiting the dining room before he stopped and added, "Also, Raven said your bedtime was nine with her, so it'll be the same with me. Maybe when things settle down, I can be your fun uncle and let you stay up late, but we can cross that bridge when we get there."

With that, her uncle left the dining room and made his way towards the stairs. However, as he did so, Ruby heard him call out, "By the way, I'll take your stuff up to your room while I'm going up. Don't feel like you need to go to your room right away. You can stay down here if you like until bedtime. Just make sure that you're ready to go to bed by nine."

And with that, Ruby could hear her uncle make his way upstairs, with the steady 'clunking' of her suitcase against the steps as he ascended.

The faunus considered for a moment whether or not she would rather spend the remaining hour and a half before her bedtime downstairs on the couch or upstairs in her room. While a part of her did like the comfort of watching a show in bed, another part of her really liked her uncle's couch.

With her mind made up, she moved to the living room and flopped herself down.

0

By nine 'o'clock, the lights were out in the in the first room on the right on the second floor of Qrow Branwen (and Drei's) residence. Ruby was in what was now her bed, ready for sleep. She had spent most of her time after dinner finishing up the show she had been watching, with the rest of it dedicated towards taking a shower and brushing her teeth, but she had decided to poke around her new room a little before then.

It was unassuming.

The room had three windows, which projected outwards from the room in a roughly trapezoidal shape. On the window sill sat a few photos of Qrow, of Drei, and of the two residents of the house with a blond man and his small blonde daughter.

Besides the pictures, the room had no decorations.

Facing the windows, the room had a wooden desk and a comfy looking, cushioned swivel chair.

Asides from that area, the room had a closet on one end, and a dresser on the other, with a twin bed with a plain frame located next to the closet.

It was on the bed, which Ruby found comfortable enough, that Ruby found herself drifting off to sleep, as she thankfully found herself unable to focus on the more unfortunate events of that weekend.

Yet, as she found herself drifting closer and closer towards unconsciousness, something felt different in the back of her mind.

It would not be until she woke up in a different room that she would understand why.

Authors Note:

So that's the beginning of this story. I probably could have published this two or three months ago, but I was taking some college classes over the summer and I really wasn't in the mood to write or edit.

If you're wondering why Ruby is a faunus, it's because I like it that way. I have a few other reasons that are a bit more than just "I think it is cute and that makes me happy", but realistically speaking "I think it is cute and that makes me happy" is the probably the biggest reason. I am and always will be a fan of Ruby as a wolf/dog faunus (wolf-dog if you want to make it easy). If you don't like it, well, it is planned to at least be kinda important, but I don't think it should ruin the story for you.

This is a Persona inspired story in the sense that the themes and overarching elements present in Persona games are going to be present. While it obviously isn't quite there yet, next chapter is when that all starts. This chapter is meant to be like the first day in the games, while it isn't very exciting, it introduces the setting, circumstance, and living situation of the protagonist.

Then they have a weird first night.

Also, if you're wondering why Vale is basically just Chicago instead of either having this take place in the Ruby universe or just in Chicago, my response is that I wanted this to take place in the world of Persona (which is just Earth but slightly different) except slightly interwoven with Ruby's world. I like to believe this to be a result of the keystone in BBTag doing some sort of half merge between Persona and RWBY instead of just going with one or the other, but that is unlikely to really matter. As to why Chicago, Chicago is what I think of when I think "city", and I could totally see Vale being some near future Midwestern city.

I am not really a fan of long-winded author's notes, so I would aim to keep the rest as short as possible, so I will make a forum for this story under my profile. I will try and post explanations there as I see fit to keep them out of the way. That or I will add some sort of additional information chapter which I will update as need be, sort of like the glossary in Persona 3 (I don't know if it is just in the portable version or not though.)

I cannot possibly give anyone an accurate update schedule for this, so it will be updated whenever I update it. I am trying to write by forcing myself to write more often, and some parts of that show through more than others, but I am writing this as much for practice as much as it is to tie together what is quickly becoming my second favorite video game series and my absolute favorite show. My writing when I feel unmotivated is highly variable in quality and it makes me disheartened when I feel I cannot write anything decent which is partially why this took me so long to write - the end of this chapter was an absolute pain to write and I didn't finish editing for a while because I was disappointed with my writing. So, if you felt that things wrapped up too quickly, I agree. I just couldn't figure out how to end it, so I just ended it, so I could start the next chapter. Someday, I might come back to this chapter and make it better with a note in whatever my latest chapter to tell y'all about the change.

That being said, I am aiming for a chapter at least every two months, maybe sooner, but hopefully not later. I have college starting up later this month, so I don't know if that might delay my next chapter any, but rest assured in knowing that I aim on continuing this story until a point where I can comfortably end it.

Expect chapters to be of similar length to this one. I chapters that are around ten thousand words, give or take a bit, and I would rather release chapters that feel complete to me over trying to push out shorter chapters in less time.

Ships will be present in this although it will take a while for Ruby to start getting with anyone. I have two different characters in mind that I am still deciding between but both a going to be further down the line anyways, so I have time to figure things out. Neither of them are common ships, so it should be interesting either way.

But, with that all out of the way, interact with this as you see fit. I appreciate reviews and hope that you follow or favorite this if it really catches your eye. Seeing those numbers go up would give me the satisfaction of knowing that my work brought entertainment to others.

Thanks for reading.