Beacon Academy general-purpose garage.
Within the colossal garage used for storing all types of vehicles used both by the staff and the occasional student who was granted a PVSU licence, Ignis stood with the chief of the maintenance crew.
The older ape faunus looked through the paperwork, checking the specs given on the sheet and the all-terrain truck in front of him that had an occupied flatbed trailer attached to it.
"Everything looks good, Mr. Ruben. But I am required to remind you that the bike must not leave the trailer as long as its owner doesn't get her PVSU issued."
Ignis nodded at the man's words.
"Thanks, Chief Kenneth. I'll make sure to inform my sister of that."
The man grinned.
"Well, that's that. You should run along up top. The airships should be docking any minute now, and Orientation will be in about half an hour or so."
Ignis cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders tiredly.
"I guess I can look forward to getting some sleep."
Chief Kenneth laughed at the teenager's words and patted him on the shoulder.
"Getting up so early in the morning and coming here first thing to get your vehicle registered will do that to ya. Now, go on, shoo. I still need to update the maintenance schedule to include your truck and that overengineered bike."
"Your truck shouldn't be much of a problem since it is pretty modular and uses standardized parts across the board, but that bike is going to require a lot of care while servicing."
Ignis knew the man was right since he was there when Yang customized Bumblebee into what it is today.
So, with a nod, Ignis headed towards the elevator that connected the garage, which stored all of Beacon's land-based vehicle fleet, the hangar, which stores all their Bullheads and Airships, and the main reception of the Academy.
Walking out of the elevator, the teenager headed out of the reception area, using his prospective ID to bypass the security checks, and walked deeper into the academy, cutting straight to the landing pads where the airships were supposed to land.
However, when he arrived at the landing pads, all he found was empty airships and a nearly silent courtyard, which meant that almost all of the prospective students were probably at the main hall.
"Damn it. Looks like I took more time than expected in the garage."
The teenager shot towards the main hall with a controlled sprint that propelled him at speeds nearly equal to that of a younger Ruby form when she was still a 10-year-old.
Thankfully, he made it just in time for the speech, catching his sisters' attention.
"Hey! Ignis! Over here!"
Spotting Yang and Ruby in the crowd with another girl who had a white dress, white hair, and...basically everything else being white as well, except for her eyes, he jogged to them.
"Hope I didn't miss anything?"
"Nope. Made it just in time. Oh, right. This is Weiss...?"
Ignis turned to the slightly familiar-looking fuming girl who was staring daggers at Ruby and was saying something about...nails and dresses and boys? Before giving a flat no when Ruby asked if she really meant that.
'.....Girls be wierd, man.'
The tapping of a mike caught everyone's attention, making them look at the source to spot Headmaster Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch, who had arrived on the stage at some point when they were all distracted.
"I'll...keep this brief."
Yang, Ruby, and Ignis shared a look at those words, knowing full well that it was probably a lie.
They had been fooled in the same way before when they joined Signal Academy, where the Headmaster had promised to keep the speech brief but went on for nearly two hours, basically putting half the student population to sleep and leaving the awake ones bored out of their minds.
"You've travelled here today in search of knowledge. To hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you are finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people."
Ruby perked up a bit at those words and stared excitedly at her siblings, as well as Weiss, who were busy looking at something else, not at all paying attention to the speech on instinct.
"But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy."
That instantly caught most of the students' wandering attention.
Some of them felt outraged at the perceived insult, others felt intrigued by what the headmaster meant. Some others did not care but found the man's choice of words interesting enough to listen to.
"In need of purpose. Direction."
"You assume knowledge will free you of this. But your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far."
"It is up to you to take the first step."
With his piece said, Ozpin stepped off the stage and headed to the back, leaving Glynda to speak about their arrangements for the night.
"You will gather in the ballroom tonight. Tomorrow, your Initiation begins. Be ready."
"You are dismissed."
With that, she too left, leaving behind the students to talk among themselves or explore the academy to their heart's content, except for places that were obviously forbidden for those who aren't yet students of the academy.
"Well, he seemed kind of...off?"
Ignis nodded at Yang's words, still trying to come out of his surprise that the speech really was brief.
"Like he wasn't even there..." Ruby whispered as she too observed the anomalous behaviour of the man compared to how he was back in the station.
Then, a tall blond boy with blue eyes leaned forward and spoke up to the girls.
"I am a natural blond, ya know?"
Weiss immediately placed her palm on her face, realizing what had prompted the boy to speak at all.
It was her earlier off-hand, sarcastic comment about him to Ruby.
Meanwhile, Ignis's eyes slightly widened as things clicked in his head.
'Ah. Now I remember. This girl, Weiss Schnee, is supposed to be Ruby's partner in the original timeline, right? And the guy is probably Jaune Arc, the leader of their sister team?'
'That just leaves Blake Belladonna, the problematic cat girl. Nora Valkyrie, Lie Ren and....that red-haired girl, what was her name again....? Oh, right. Pyrrha Nikos. That overglorified gladiator from Mistral's circuit.'
Ignis did not mean any insult by thinking about the girl like that. He was only thinking about it through his personal experience. Because he had seen what those championships looked like, and he did not believe them to be proper huntsmen material.
The arenas of Mistral are geared towards one-on-one combat, where the participants hone their combat skills to fight against their opponents in quick bursts and swift defeats, all of which are confined in neatly organized, rigid rulesets.
However, out in the real world, when a Huntsman has to deal with multiple groups of Grimm or Aura-enhanced bandits and criminals that can lay traps or play the game of attrition, or even against those powerful people who don't play by the rules and fight with killing intent?
These gladiators will, 9 out of 10 times, fail.
That being said, Ignis is not stupid enough to dismiss Pyrrha as a proper huntress just yet, despite his low opinion of a gladiator.
Because, in Beacon's structure, where she would be assigned a team, most of these weaknesses of a gladiator will be mostly covered up by her teammates if she is lucky enough to get teammates who can do something like that.
And based on his limited knowledge? She really is that lucky.
Soon enough, the day slipped by as the students moved about, taking stock of their surroundings, before night fell, making the teenagers move back to the ballroom, where they were given sleeping bags and told to sleep.
It was at this time that Ignis beheld the most atrocious affront to fashion sense in the whole damned world.
As Ignis went about changing into a simple white tank top and black pants in the boys' changing room, he saw Jaune Arc, the blond boy, walk out in a blue onesie.
"....Dude, if you want to commit social suicide and remove yourself from the gene pool, be my guest. But why corrupt the eyes of others as well?"
"Hm? What do you mean?"
At Jaune's confused words, Ignis could not help but smack his face with his palm before motioning towards the mirrors arranged near the sinks.
"Look at yourself and tell me what you see."
Jaune just looked even more confused before he slowly spoke.
"I see...my onsie....?"
"And?"
"And...?"
Ignis sighed.
"Look, Jaune, was it?"
"Yeah. Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the...never mind."
Ignis nodded.
"Ignis Ruben. But, back to the point. Don't you see anything wrong with what you are wearing?"
"...Not really? I usually wear this to bed, so I don't think there is anything wrong with that?"
Ignis sighed. Again.
"What is wrong with it is that it is an affront to clothing all around. If you want to wear it in private, that's fine. But right now, you are walking into a public setting dressed like that."
"Simply put, you are going to be a laughing stock in the school before Initiation even begins."
"....But why though?"
'.....this dude is serious. He really doesn't know what's wrong.'
'.....you sweet summer child. How can someone be so naive in this kind of a death world? I mean, I know this kid was kind of stupid back in the show, but I don't remember it being this bad, or maybe my memory is just faulty.'
'Whatever the case may be, as a fellow man, I can't let this guy go through this kind of undignified social death.'
"Jaune. I will explain the reasoning later. But for now, I've got some backup nightware you can use. Just wash them later on, and give them back. As for that onesie, for your own good, never wear it in front of those outside your team if you get through Initiation tomorrow."
The boy still looked confused but simply nodded in thanks and took Ignis's clothes to change again.
By the time the two boys walked out, most of the prospective students were already by their sleeping beds.
"Alright. Get some sleep."
"Thanks, Ignis."
"Don't mention it."
With that, Ignis moved towards his sisters, who were already sitting by their sleeping bags and looked like they were sulking a bit for some reason.