Chapter II

"So what's your first class, sis?" asked Yang.

Ruby stared down at the piece of paper before her as if it were a wanted poster demanding her death. The said layout of the paper was in spreadsheet format with each column holding a certain detail about a class. It seemed Beacon held the same six-class schedule as other schools, only difference being that freshmen had no say in what classes they got. This was not what Ruby was concerned about, however.

So many numbers… what do they all mean? BH2405? CA4600? How big is this place?!

"Rubes? Are you there?"

Ruby slowly looked up at Yang with tears in her eyes.

"Yaaaang…" Ruby whimpered, "What should I do?"

Yang blinked.

"Huh?"

Ruby couldn't take it.

"What do I do?! This can't be happening! This can't be happening!" Ruby wailed in panic.

"Hey now sis, take it easy," Yang said.

"How am I supposed to take it easy?!" cried Ruby waving her schedule around, "How are there nine-thousand rooms?! What do these letters mean?! How am I supposed to find anything?"

Yang stared at Ruby owlishly before she broke down laughing causing Ruby to feel more than a bit of irritation.

"I thought you were worrying about something serious for a moment there!" chuckled Yang, wiping a tear from her eyes.

Ruby glared at her sister indignantly.

"This is serious!"

Yang waved her hand dismissively.

"It's just the way they number the rooms, Ruby, it's not like there's actually nine-thousand rooms! That'd be insane!"

"But how do I know where to go?"

Yang made to speak only for another voice to break through the silence.

"Yo Yang!"

Ruby looked over towards the source of the voice only to see a boy running over towards them. Upon seeing blonde hair Ruby thought it was Jaune, but upon looking closer she saw that the boy looked slightly different, making Ruby deflate.

Of course it's not Jaune, he and Yang seem to not like one another…

Ruby frowned a bit. She still wanted to know about that… and her sister didn't seem to want to talk about it.

Maybe Jaune might shed some light?

Ruby knew that Jaune was a friend now, but perhaps it was too soon to be asking questions that brought discomfort. Of course this left Ruby with her curiosity being faced with the threat of being left unsatisfied, boiling up to the point where it may someday erupt.

"…Ruby!"

Ruby blinked at the sound of her name and was immediately brought from the fog of her thoughts to the real world where she found that the eyes of both her sister and the blonde stranger were now on her. Ruby tried to her best to fight off the accursed red tinge that threatened to appear on her cheeks as the feeling of embarrassment swelled within her. Apparently she was so deep in thought that she had missed an entire conversation and now her sister was throwing her on the spot! Accidental or not there would be repercussions for this!

"Uh…" began Ruby.

"Nice to meet ya Ruby!" greeted the blonde boy with a big grin before he turned back to Yang, "So how about it Yang?"

Ruby was left frozen with her mouth hanging open as the stranger blatantly blew her off in favor of her sister.

"Sure! Sounds like fun!"

And her sister didn't even care! What were they even talking about?!

"Cool! So what's your schedule like this year?" asked the boy.

"Can't complain," said Yang with a shrug, "Have Peach this time, wonder if he or she is actually here this year…"

Ruby blocked out the rest of their conversation as she noticed two things in a very specific order.

She noticed that the boy had a monkey tail, the same color as his hair. Faunus were cool with their extra animal appendages and their night vision!

The two blondes were walking off down the hallway into the crowd… leaving Ruby alone. Again.

"Wait! Yang!" cried Ruby desperately into the crowd hoping that her sister would hear only for it to be in vain as the crowd swallowed her sister and her friend up effectively cutting off her vision.

Ruby deflated.

Ditched again…

Ruby let out a small sigh as she stared down at the small paper in her hand, its list of complicated numbers seeming to mock her for her incompetence.

Great now I'm going to be late on my first day because I don't know where I'm going!

Ruby was about ready to start off in a random direction, hoping fate would grant her with a stroke of luck-.

"It's an address."

Ruby let out a squeak at the sudden voice. She spun around and was surprised to find a girl with long black hair staring down at her. The girl, like everyone else here wore the standard Beacon uniform, but with a small addition of a black bow nestled upon the girl's head. This, along with the girl's rather pale skin made her amber eyes stand out the most to the point where Ruby almost felt entranced.

Stop! You're being weird!

Ruby shook her head to focus herself.

"S-Sorry! You scared me!" said Ruby with a nervous laugh.

The girl stared at Ruby in silence for a moment before she spoke again.

"BH stands for Bell Hall, which is the building that you're currently in, the number 2405 stands for the location of the classroom, which would be on the second floor in your case."

Ruby felt her mind reel as she took in the information.

Address? Bell Hall? Second floor? What does she mean?

Suddenly Ruby frowned.

Wait… Address… Bell Hall… Second floor.

Ruby remembered when she entered the building with Yang it had words made up of brass lettering embedded into its stony entranceway. She also remembered passing by what looked to be a building directory with bunch of rectangles that had numbers on them, all of them numbered in the 1000s.

BH2405… Address…

Ruby's eyes widened as her mind raced back to the directory. She remembered a white line forming a square being labeled the hallway, and each of the four sides held different numbers in the hundredth position.

North holds the 100s and from there we go clockwise… East has 200s, South has 300s and West has 400s…

Ruby felt a smile on her lips.

BH2405. Bell Hall Second Floor Western Side Room 5.

Ruby felt a hint of pride within her for figuring it out, but of course the real thanks went to the kind stranger that helped her; the same stranger who had suddenly disappeared as quickly as she had appeared causing Ruby to deflate again.

I didn't even get a chance to thank her…

Ruby shook her head and held a look of determination on her face.

No! I cannot let myself get caught up over this! I now know where I'm going, I've made a new friend today, possibly another, and now I'm going to tackle the rest of this day with vim, vigor, and triumph!

Ruby nodded firmly to herself before looking back down at her schedule, looking beyond the room number towards what looked to be the name of the person teaching.

Mr. Port? As in portly?

Ruby shook her head as she read on, her eyes locking onto another set of numbers.

8:00 AM.

Ruby stared at the numbers for a moment, before she slowly looked up towards a clock that just so happened to be nestled above the door to the office that she received her schedule from. Only three more spaces were left between the minute hand and that fat mark pointing towards the '12', the hour hand almost threateningly pointing just below the '8'. T-minus 1 minute and counting.

Aw crud.

Ruby slid into an empty seat with a quiet sigh of relief. It took a full on sprint up the stairs, but she barely managed to make it on time to class slipping into one of the seats at the back of the class before the teacher took notice. The said teacher indeed being a portly man. Ruby would have laughed if it weren't for the fact that she was completely out of breath from running.

Thank goodness there were not as many people walking around then…

Ruby wiped some sweat off her brow as she felt her heart rate slow down and her body began to finally relax. Ruby reached down to her bag to take out her essentials for class, having made sure to pack everything the night before in order to prevent disaster on the first day. She had checked at least twelve times the night before in order to make perfectly sure that she was ready to go the following morning.

Yang wouldn't let me hear the end of it…

Ruby placed her notebook on the desk in front of her, which Ruby noted was nothing like the ones in middle school. Standard issue desks for schools were usually simple plastic chairs with metal legs and a small slab of fiberboard with a plastic oak wood film over the top attached by a single metal arm. These were cheap and easy to mass-produce thus why a lot of schools had them. Beacon seemed to hold itself to a higher standard as the chair Ruby was currently sitting in was made of a harder plastic with cushioning on both the seat itself and the backrest. What was more was the fact that the chair was not attached to the table in front of Ruby at all, the table itself being made of actual red oak.

So this is why so many people wanted to go to Beacon…

Ruby had heard stories of how nice Beacon was compared to other schools, but no rumors could really amount to the actual thing. Hell, even the classroom itself was an impressive sight as it was easily double if not triple the size of any classroom that Ruby grew used to during her time in middle school. The classroom itself was organized with the tables facing the front of the classroom along with three chairs sitting behind them. Each table had plenty of walking space between them so that students could walk to and fro without having to worry about tripping. Most of the other students were centered more towards the front of the classroom, all of which were gossiping about various things together. Ruby couldn't help the sigh that escaped her as she was cruelly reminded about the fact that she was starting from zero in the friend department.

Well, actually it's technically at three if I count Jaune and his friends.

The thought made Ruby feel a bit better about herself before her thoughts roamed to the amber-eyed girl who had helped her with navigating the building.

I should thank her the next time I see her.

Ruby nodded herself with resolve as she let her spirits rise back up to a more optimistic outlook as shook looked to her left to see if there was anyone sitting next to-.

Ruby's brain restarted moments later as she was able to process the fact that sitting right next to her was none other than the same girl who had helped her in the halls a few minutes prior. The odds just seemed so astronomically low for such a thing to occur and yet here she was.

Say something you idiot!

Ruby shook herself out of her stupor and quickly came up with the best possible answer she could come up with when greeting when talking to a stranger.

"Hi."

It took Ruby another moment to realize that it was her who made the squeaky attempt at a greeting and moment more to realize that she looked absolutely idiotic while doing it.

What is wrong with me?!

Meanwhile the amber-eyed girl spared Ruby a glance before she looked back down at her book.

"Hi," was the curt reply.

There was moment of silence between the two of them as Ruby tried to figure out what else to say without making a fool of herself, while the amber-eyed girl continued to read… whatever she was reading.

I wonder what she's read- Never mind that! I have to thank her!

Ruby steeled herself as she addressed the girl again in preparation to make her gratitude known.

"U-Uh."

It seemed, however that her mouth didn't get the same memo.

C'mon Ruby, you can do this!

Ruby took a deep breath to relax herself before she turned to address the other girl again… who continued to read as if she didn't hear Ruby's stumble. Ruby wasn't sure how she should have felt about that, but that didn't matter.

Right now I have a job to do!

"I-I just wanted to say thank you," said Ruby in a quick, small voice, "For helping me out back at the hallway."

Amber eyes flicked back to meet Ruby's silver eyes before they went back towards the book. Ruby deflated at the cold reply and slowly turned back towards her notebook.

"Don't mention it."

Ruby's eyes widened as she looked back at the other girl who simply turned the page of the book she was reading. Ruby stared at the girl for a moment as her meeting with Jaune went through her mind.

Strangers are friends you haven't met yet…

Ruby could almost see Jaune smiling encouragingly at her, something that made Ruby frown momentarily. It was an odd thing to happen from a person that Ruby had just met. Had his kindness really made that much of an impact on her?

Focus Ruby.

Ruby blinked before she looked up towards the front of the class seeing that Mr. Port looked like he was almost done writing whatever he was writing on the white board at the front of the class… and he seemed to have written a lot.

Maybe I should wait until after class…

Ruby bit her bottom lip as she felt her self-doubt resurface. Maybe it was wiser to just take more time doing things. There was no rush! She had a whole year to make friends and this was only the first day! Why try now?

"Why not?"

Jaune's words echoed throughout Ruby's brain. Those two simple words followed by that seemingly unbreakable smile filled Ruby with a determination she never knew she had. Ruby mustered up all the confidence she could before she turned towards the girl beside her once again.

"I'm Ruby," started Ruby already feeling her confidence slipping but pushed through until the end, "I-I hope we can be friends!"

This seemed to garner no response from the other girl, causing Ruby to deflate for the umpteenth time that , Ruby felt lighter after saying that, as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders.

At least I gave it a good, honest try.

"You have to make sure you have as little 'what-ifs' as possible!"

Ruby smiled.

That's one 'what-if' off the list.

With that thought Ruby got ready to tackle the day with renewed vigor wondering what Mr. Port would have in store for his class, completely unaware of the fact that the girl beside her was now staring at her from the corner of her eyes.