Ruby Potter

Chapter 8

Ruby woke up the morning of the First Task with a knot in her stomach. She had known for the last three weeks that she'd be fighting in the tournament, and she'd known for that long that she'd be facing deadly opposition, that was a given.

It just hadn't hit her that she'd be doing it in front of a crowd. If she'd been going against the danger of the first task without thousands of people looking at her, she'd be fine, but now, well she just had to hope her opponent was a big enough challenge.

"You ready for the task today, Ruby?" Yang asked cheerily as she popped her head in to her room to Ruby fastening her cape to her combat outfit. She looked at her sister with wide eyes, and immediately tried her best to hide her apprehension of the coming fight from her sister if only for her own sake.

So, Ruby smiled, nodded and gave her sister a thumbs up. Though she figured her sister would see through it anyways.

And she did.

Yang raised an eyebrow and put her hands on her hips. "Are you really Ruby?" She asked, clearly seeing through her lie. Ruby sighed in defeat.

"Fine, I'm nervous, okay?" She said tiredly, "These people here, they think I defeated some guy when I was one year old, which I still don't know the whole story too" she said trailing off as that thought entered her mind. "It's just, I don't like the idea of going into life threatening danger while being gawked at" she said moodily as she crossed her arms and glared at a spot on the wall.

Yang sighed, she knew her sister would be feeling this way, she'd never been good in front of crowds except during Combat class where she was focused on defeating her opponents and you couldn't really afford to pay attention to the crowds. "It's alright Ruby!" Yang began as she started thinking of a way to cheer her sister up. "It'll be just like combat class or Initiation! You don't have to pay attention to the people watching, it'll be like they aren't even there, I promise!" She said enthusiastically, noticing Ruby's expression lighting up at her assurance.

"You're right Yang, besides I'm the leader of team RWBY! I can't be nervous about stuff like this, besides, what do they have that could rival the Grimm?" Ruby said, now reassured that her sister was correct.

Ruby sat down at her now normal spot at the Gryffindor table, she'd been able to tune out the stares and whispers before, but now they were worse than they'd been since her first day stuck here.

Murmurs and whispers followed her as she had walked into the Great Hall, and they didn't stop until she was surrounded by team RWBY and JNPR. Her nerves were back with a vengeance as she tried so valiantly to eat something, but her stomach was churning and felt like it had rocks in it, making it an uphill battle as she listened to the good lucks and well wishes from her and Jaune's team. Ruby just wished that she could hurry up and get it over with.

It was at this point that she thought she was finally successful in completely tuning out the Great Hall's chatter when she realized it hadn't been tuned out, it had completely stopped. She looked up to see what was going on, and had a newspaper thrust in front of her by Hermione.

RUBY POTTER: INTER-DIMENSIONAL TRAVELER, OR DELUSIONAL NUTCASE?

By: Rita Skeeter

It was her interview from the Wand Weighing ceremony where she'd been forced to give an interview to an oddly dressed, and completely creepy, journalist named Rita Skeeter. It read more like Ruby had been shoved into a straight jacket rather than shoved into a broom cupboard where she'd been forced to answer questions. The woman couldn't even get her facts right! She made it sound like Remnant was on the verge of destruction every day, and that her and her team were a bunch of child soldiers! It then went on to try to say that Ruby had even forgotten her real last name and went by Ruby Lily!