A Beacon of Hope

The flight to Beacon was uneventful—apart for one airsick boy—but Atrament had to admit that the view was breathtaking. The academy was located in a grand white castle that looked like it came straight out of a fairytale. A long, wide avenue lined with cyan banners led to the main door, and he could see large pools of water around it, as well as vast meadows dotted with green and red trees—the same ones giving its distinct appearance to Forever Fall.

"What are you doing?"

Atrament was distracted from his musings by a girl yelling a little further along the road. He looked closer and saw a girl in white berating another girl, this one dressed in red and black, that was sprawled in the middle of some luggage. He did not need to be a master detective to deduce what happened there.

"Uh, sorry," said Red as she started to push herself from the ground.

But apparently, Red's apology was not enough for White. "Sorry!? Do you have any idea of the damage you could have caused?"

"Uuuh..." Red did not seem to understand what White was getting at but, deciding to help her, she picked a white briefcase and handed it to its rightful owner.

"Give me that!" White snatched the case from Red's hands and opened it—probably to check its content was safe. "This is Dust, mined and purified from the Schnee quarry!"

"Uuuh..." Red embarrassedly rubbed her head.

"What are you, braindead? Dust!" White pulled out a vial of Fire Dust in powder form and slammed the briefcase closed in a cloud of... That Dust was not properly secured. "Fire! Water! Lightning! Energy!" As she spoke, she was shaking the vial, and a cloud of dust was pouring out of it. He... probably should intervene before the situation catastrophically deteriorated.

"I... I k-" Red started to choke from the loose powder and Atrament started to sprint. This was going downhill fast.

Still, White did not seem to realize what was going on. "Are you even listening to me? Is any of this sinking in? What do you have to say for yourself!?"

Atrament noticed what was going to happen one second in advance and turned his sprinting in a desperate dive out of the radius. Red sneezed and ignited the loose Dust, causing an explosion to engulf White. The vial she was holding, miraculously intact, flew away before landing at the feet of another girl, this one in black and white, that was absorbed in a book. Black-and-white looked down and picked up the vial, examining it.

"Unbelievable!" Apparently, being exploded did not seem to calm White down... Although Atrament couldn't call her White in her state. Soot, maybe? "This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about!" She firmly stomped on the ground, causing the soot to fall off. While that was impressive—and physically improbable, though you didn't know her Semblance and it might well be related—she was starting to get on Atrament's nerves. That and he was feeling bad for the cowed Red. Time to rescue the fair maiden from the claws of the terrible dragon.

"If I might offer a moment of perspective," Atrament said with a measured voice, "while Red stumbling into you was indeed her own fault..." Red shrunk on herself at his words. "...the explosion's responsibility is entirely on you taking the Dust vial out of its case and shaking it without first checking if it was still secured."

White's face reddened with outrage. "I... How dare... The vial's cork was loose only because that dolt decided my luggage was an appropriate mattress!"

"This should not have been enough to loosen it," Atrament countered. "A container that is unsealed from the impact of one girl tripping on it is not one I'd call secure, considering how volatile Dust is."

White's mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for water, her face so red that he half-hesitated to give her Red's moniker instead. "I... You..." she sputtered, finger jabbing in his direction. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

"Weiss Schnee." It seemed that Black-and-white was done simply listening to the argument and decided to chime in. "Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, one of the largest producers of energy propellant in the world."

White—or rather Weiss, apparently—smugly preened, clearly pleased to have been recognized. "Precisely. And that means-"

But Black-and-white hadn't finished saying her piece. "The same company infamous for its controversial labor forces and questionable business partners."

Weiss became even redder, and Atrament decided to twist the knife even further. "That explains it. The SDC isn't known for its customer-friendliness. That kind of corner-cutting..." He gestured towards the case. "...is typical of them. Unfortunately, their predatory business practices made them a quasi-monopoly, which means it's very expensive to buy your Dust elsewhere." There was an antitrust lawsuit about that a few years back—one the SDC lost resoundingly. Well, resoundingly might be an exaggeration, given that they managed to get quite a few concessions from the judge on what they'd have to cut—and it only applied in Vale. "Still, it seems like it might be worth the money."

"Wha... How dare... The nerve of..." He might have broken Weiss. Still, it seemed that she was quickly becoming aware that she wasn't surrounded by friends and sycophants. "Ugh!" She snatched the Dust vial from Black-and-white's hand and walked away under Red's giggles.

"Well, I might have been a little too harsh with her." Still, nothing Atrament had told Weiss was a lie, and her behavior was inexcusable. Black-and-white, seemingly not interested in socializing, walked away. He turned to the only person left—not counting the servants gathering Weiss' luggage—and introduced himself. "My name is Atrament Vellum. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss..."

"I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose. And... thanks. For helping me with... yeah." Ruby chuckled uneasily and scratched the back of her head, her eyes darting away. "Sooo..." Her eyes abruptly focused on Atrament's back—or rather on Fine Print. "Is that a giant pen?"

Atrament chuckled at Ruby's sudden intensity. She was a weapons aficionado, it seemed. "Indeed. Fine Print is also a mechashift rifle-spear." He smoothly pulled it out to demonstrate the shift from spear to railgun and back.

"Wow. So cool." Ruby pulled out a compact red machine and mechashifted it to turn into...

"A scythe, huh?" Scythe users were rare, considering you needed to be extremely skilled to wield one efficiently. Scythes were designed for field work, not war, and their only sharp edges were the inner one, which meant that you needed to let your enemy inside your guard in order to be able to attack them. But judging how Ruby was twirling hers, skill was clearly not an issue here.

"Crescent Rose is also a customizable high-impact sniper rifle!" And now, Atrament was impressed. Making a weapon that complex as compact as it was in its storage mode was no small feat of enginery—which was why Fine Print has no such mode.

"Impressive. You made it?"

"Of course! All students at Signal design and forge their own weapons!"

"That's rather common in primary combat school, I suppose. I did the same when I was at Pharos Academy. So you're a Signal alumnus, then?"

Ruby chuckled uneasily. "Well, kinda. I didn't really... graduate. I was invited at Beacon early."

"Really? How early?" She did look slightly younger than most other students, but Atrament had chalked that up to her simply being smaller than average.

"Two years."

"So you're 18 then?" Ruby sheepishly nodded. Atrament didn't see why she seemed so embarrassed. Sure, Huntsman Academies usually started at 20, but being younger was not that unheard of. If anything, it was quite the accomplishment to manage to impress the faculty so much that they offered you a spot early. "And how did you get scouted by Beacon?"

"Well, I was shopping at this small Dust store..." And as Ruby started to tell her story, the two young adults started to walk towards Beacon, ready to face their destinies.