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!

Ruby scowled at the paper and ripped it in two in anger before shooting an apologetic glance at Hermione and then resumed glaring at the ripped paper on her plate.

"How can they allow her to print this...this...slander? Libel? These complete and utter lies?" Weiss said in outrage as she pulled a paper away from a nearby Gryffindor student who'd begun looking at Ruby warily, like she was going to snap and kill all of them at any second. "Does this place not have any sort of libel laws!?" She said, before she lost coherence in her rage at the journalist, a term Weiss used extremely loosely in this situation.

"It is rather nasty" Blake said in her normal tone, though her team could detect a bit of tightness to it, indicating her true feelings towards the paper.

Yang however, she was close to bursting with anger. "THIS WOMAN THINKS SHE CAN SLANDER MY SISTER AND CALL HER A NUTCASE!?" Yang shouted as she glared holes into the paper. "WHAT IS THIS WOMAN'S PROBLEM WITH HER!?" Yang's voice quivered as her hair burst into flame and her eyes turned full red with her anger. "JUST WAIT TILL I GET MY HANDS ON THIS RITA WOMAN!" However, she was stopped from storming out by Ruby's hand on her shoulder.

"Yang, it's okay, really. It's fine. I don't care what they think, and I don't want you getting in trouble with the Wizarding Police or whatever they're called, for hurting this woman, we can just give a copy to Professor Goodwitch and we'll see what she can do about it, okay?" Ruby said, though she phrased her question more like an order, and there was a certain steel behind her normally lively eyes.

Yang complied with a defeated sigh as her eyes returned to their normal color and her hair simmered down, which triggered an almost Great Hall wide sigh of relief. "Fine Ruby, let's go take this" she waved the paper in her hand, "to Professor Goodwitch, you're probably right" she followed Ruby as she she began heading up towards the Head Table.

Professor Goodwitch had of course, seen this happening, she was extremely observant, and that display had been about as subtle as a Goliath in a Dust shop, so she looked up from her scroll and looked at the two girls as they approached her at her spot at the end of the Head Table. "Miss Rose, Miss Xiao Long, how may I help you?" She asked impassively, already having a good idea of what it was, after all she'd already read today's paper, or rag of lies as she preferred to call it.

She wasn't wrong either, after she finished her question, Miss Xiao Long more or less slammed that day's paper onto the table with a resounding crack in front of her Professor. "We were hoping you could do something about" she glared at the paper so furiously as if willing it to burst into flame, "this article that slandered Ruby." She said in a tone that clearly conveyed how outraged she was at the person who wrote it, and how much she wanted to hurt them.

Professor Goodwitch, unlike the rest of the teachers who had involuntarily recoiled when Yang had slammed the paper down on the table, calmly picked up the paper and skimmed over the article, refreshing the details of it in her mind. "I'll see what I can do Miss Xiao Long, Miss Rose, why don't you go rejoin your teams at the Gryffindor table so that Miss Rose can have a proper meal before the First Task?" She said, clearly showing that the interaction was over between them.

"If Professor Goodwitch can't get anything done, Yang, no one can" Ruby said in a calm, happy tone, as they walked through the silent Great Hall as they headed back for the end of the Gryffindor table.

Yang shrugged indifferently at this and crossed her arms in silent anger. "If Professor Goodwitch can't get anything done, I'll gladly beat this Rita Skeeter woman into pieces" she said as they sat back down at the table, Yang next to Blake and Ruby next to Weiss. "I just can't believe she'd lie like that! Isn't she supposed to be a reporter?" Yang began picking at her eggs, muttering about the injustice of the situation.

"She's more of a hussy than a reporter if you ask me" Hermione's voice broke through the silent musings of team RWBY, and team JNPR's frantic attempts to quell Nora's impulse to crush Rita's legs with Magnhild. The two teams turned to look at her with curious looks on their faces. Hermione hardly ever talked around them, preferring instead to talk to Blake quietly in the library, where they would discuss the literature of their worlds. "She interviews people, then she slanders them or somehow gets her hands on embarrassing photos or some sort of blackmail on the person that she wrote about and publishes it, destroying that person's reputation. The only person who ever completely survived Rita's slander with their reputation intact was Dumbledore when she outed him as a homosexual" she said in a way that sounded like she'd regurgitated it from a textbook. "I'm sorry this happened to you Ruby, it's completely unfair and I doubt there's really anything that can and will be done against her, especially since a lot of the people in the Wizarding World take her word as truth, no matter how far fetched and false it is." She then turned back towards her food, a small frown on her face as she thought.

"Well, there's no time to dwell on this at the moment." Ruby said, glancing at her scroll. "I've got to get to the competitor's tent, see you all after the task!" She yelled over her shoulder as she ran out of the hall.

"Remember Ruby!" Yang called out after her, "It can't be as bad as the Grimm!" Ruby nodded back with a smile on her face at her sister's reassurance.

Her sister most definitely was NOT correct.

She'd walked into the competitor's tent, Crescent Rose held in her arms in it's travel form, and had been told to pull a a figurine from the bag that had been thrust in front of her a few moments after she entered the tent. She figured it would be something simple, most of the worst things she'd seen in the history of the Triwizard Tournament were only XXXX Class creatures, which were about as threatening as an Ursa Major, something which Ruby could take down quite handily by herself, given the room to maneuver. So she reached into the bag, hoping for something no worse than a Cerberus or an Acromantula...

And pulled out a small dragon.

It wasn't any old dragon either, it wasn't one of the more docile ones like the Welsh Green, or a less close range oriented one like the Chinese Fireball, no her opponents got those. She got the Hungarian Horntail, one of the most dangerous breeds of dragons on the planet, this was an XXXXX Class creature, otherwise known as a "Wizard killer", all dragons had this rating, but some deserved it far more than the others, and the Horntail was definitely one of the ones that deserved it. She'd read about them as a break from studying other creatures and her normal studies with Weiss, and had found them fascinating, if not more than a little terrifying. But that wasn't enough for the officials apparently, no, they had to make them Nesting mother dragons, and they had to steal a golden egg from their nest full of other, real, dragon eggs.

Ruby took a deep breath and began her stretches and warm ups, rather glad she hadn't ate breakfast at that moment, as she wasn't sure she wouldn't have thrown it up when she'd recognized what it was, and what she would have to do. But as she got into her state of mind for fighting, she noticed that the others were being called to their fight. She was the last in line so she ignored it for now, instead focusing on her task ahead as she twirled Crescent Rose around effortlessly, as if it was as light as a feather, and not an extremely dangerous and lethal High Caliber Sniper Scythe. It wasn't long after she'd started warming up and practicing that she heard the announcer's voice, Ludo Bagman she remembered, called out for her over the noise of the stadium, she took a deep breath and twirled Crescent Rose shut, glad for the special dispensation she'd been given by Professor Dumbledore to use her weapon over her wand.

Ruby took a deep breath and flung open the flap of the Competitor's tent, walking towards the arena in long, confident strides as she reached it's entrance.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls! I present to you the representative of Beacon Academy, RUBY POTTER!" Ludo shouted as Ruby entered the arena, she cast aside the flicker of annoyance that she felt at being called Potter, and filed it away as unnecessary at the moment, she had to fight something worse than almost any Grimm she'd ever seen. As exhilarating and exciting as it sounded, she would have to focus and be on top of her game, there would be absolutely no room for error in this fight, one misstep and she would, and could, die horribly, though she doubted it would happen, as the second that it looked like it could, her team would jump into the arena and help her out.

So, reassured she wasn't going to die today, Ruby opened her eyes as she walked out into the fighting area and almost gasped at the dragon she was fighting. She'd known dragons were huge, she'd read about them, and she knew what a Hungarian Horntail looked like, though that was only from pictures and that small figurine she'd pulled out of the bag a short time before she'd come out here, but to see it up close was a whole different story.

It wasn't just big, it was huge.

It had black scales, and was lizard-like in appearance. It's yellow eyes glared at the audience around it, and it's bronze horns and similarly colored spikes that protruded from its tail glinted in the sunlight. Ruby took a moment to take in all of her surroundings as she heard Ludo begin the countdown for her to begin fighting, the terrain was bumpy and rocky, meaning she had plenty of cover from the dragon's extremely hot flames, but she couldn't use her semblance as much as she wanted to. She would have room to maneuver, and there wasn't a roof, which meant she could jump high into the air for shots and slices onto the top of the dragon, where it's scales were slightly thinner than the ones on it's face and sides. She also noticed the dragon was chained so it couldn't fly, which would allow her to use her ability of jumping with Crescent Rose rather effectively as she could jump out of the reach of it's tail, claws, and fangs, leaving her only needing to deal with it's flames, which would be hard to dodge in mid-air.

Overall, she had the advantage, and was extremely glad she had Crescent Rose with her instead of her wand, she wouldn't have been half as effective without it.

"Begin!" Ludo's voice rang through Ruby's ears as she unfurled Crescent Rose and jumped into the arena, it's wicked edge glowing a slight red as she channeled her aura through it, and used her semblance to immediately put a scratch along the thick armored scales on the side of the dragon and dashed to the other side of the arena just as the dragon unleashed it's first volley of fire from it's mouth and began scanning the battlefield for it's opponent.

Ruby didn't stay hidden for long though, having dashed around behind it as it began throwing it's head around, looking for it's prey as it did so. However it didn't expect a sudden scraping sound as Ruby dragged Crescent Rose across it's back multiple times and fired her sniper rifle into the deepest gouge she'd manged to make, causing the dragon to roar with displeasure as the round buried itself in the Dragons hide, not quite penetrating the skin underneath the scales, but denting the armor even further regardless.

Ruby used her semblance to dash circles around the dragon as it tried to breathe flame at her, she ducked, weaved, and sprinted, leaving behind nothing but rose petals in her wake, which the dragon burnt as it tried to keep up with the girl trying to kill it.

After a few more seconds of this, Ruby had a small epiphany and immediately gave herself a small mental rebuke that she didn't think of it sooner.

She hit a button on Crescent Rose, causing it's blade to swing back, the butt of the blade almost touching the handle as it switched into it's more aerodynamic form. Ruby nodded to herself as she leaped over another column of flame and activated her semblance, rushing around to the side of the dragon as it tried to turn quick enough to keep up with it's opponent.

Ruby however, was a lot faster than a dragon.

With a thought, Ruby came down from her semblance enhanced speed and skidded on the dirt, swinging Crescent Rose in an arc over her head and embedding it into a gap between it's scales where it had been hurt from a previous attack. She fired the sniper rifle and used it's momentum to carry her under the dragon as she grabbed her golden egg and threw it into a safe corner of the arena before she brought her weapon down completely under the dragon and swung upwards with a recoil enhanced swing into the dragon's lesser armored belly, causing the scythe to bury it's blade halfway into the dragon's stomach before she fired the rifle into the wound, sending fifty caliber rounds through the profusely bleeding gash.

Satisfied the dragon was weakened enough to finish off, Ruby swung her scythe back up into the gash and reloaded her rifle before firing multiple rounds while pulling it forward with her semblance, dragging the scythe up the screeching dragon's underbelly and into it's neck before finally coming to a stop with the scythe pulled out from it's lower jaw before she fired the last round in her rifle to plunge it into the beast's brain, killing it once and for all.

Ruby yanked her scythe out of the dragon's head and twirled it, cleaning it of the red blood that soaked it's blade, before she flourished it a final time and placed it on her back. She checked her scroll to see what the damage was and balked at the fact she'd managed to use over three quarters of her aura in a single fight. Granted, it was against the most dangerous thing she'd ever fought by herself, but using that much aura was incredibly sloppy of her, Uncle Qrow would have been disappointed in her for it.

It was at this point Ruby noticed the fact the stadium was completely quiet, and had been that way since she'd killed the dragon.

Then the stadium exploded in noise.

Ruby covered her ears to attempt to drown out the sound of the cheering she was receiving as she walked out of the arena and was led to the medical tent where she was greeted by Madam Pomfrey waving her wand around her head before handing her a goblet full of water and instructing her to sit and wait for a more in depth examination as she went back to tending Cedric Diggory's burnt face.

"Geez" Ruby spoke for the first time since she'd left the Great Hall that morning. "You'd think that they'd never seen someone slay a dragon before" she said as casually as talking about the weather. The three other champions balked at her, and she looked at them quizzically, "You guys did slay the dragons...right?" She asked lamely, noticing the astonished looks on their faces.

"Non" Fleur said as she raised an eyebrow at the girl, "I did not slay my dragon, I put eet to sleep and took my egg" she scowled, "however ze beast did burn my skirt." She pulled at the scorched fabric in emphasis.

Viktor Krum nodded in agreement, "I did not kill it either, I blinded it and took my egg, but it smashed some of it's own."

"I made it chase a transfigured dog" Cedric piped up from his bed. "It turned it's attention back to me just as I got my egg though" he frowned as Madam Pomfrey stuck a burn balm against the affected part of his face.

"Oh..." Ruby said trailing off as she realized why they were so loud, "I didn't know" she shrugged as she sat back and began twiddling her thumbs and looking around the medical tent waiting for them to be called out for scores.

It didn't take to long to wait, and after a quick check up by an astonished Madam Pomfrey who couldn't find anything wrong with her, she followed the other champions back out into the arena as they waited for their scores.

"The Judges have deliberated, and have come to a conclusion on their scores!" Ludo Bagman's voice boomed throughout the stadium. "The Champion for Hogwarts, Cedric Diggory's score is" he turned towards the judges who began shooting numbers into the air with their wands.

Dumbledore shot up an eight, Madam Maxime fired a seven, Karkaroff fired a five, which was met with jeering from most of the crowd, Barty Crouch Sr. fired a seven and Professor Goodwitch? Since when was she a judge? Projected a seven from her scroll.

Ludo looked at the numbers before enthusiastically calling out, "Thirty four points for Cedric Diggory!" He called out to the crowd, the Hogwarts students cheering for their champion. "Next up! Fleur Delacour! Who earned a total of" he waited for the judges to shoot their numbers into the air before exclaiming "Thirty nine points for the Beauxbaton's champion!"

Ludo waited for the cheering to subside before he called out Viktor Krum, "The Durmstrang's champion, Viktor Krum is now in the lead with a whopping forty one points!" He shouted out giddily before calling out the final name, not noticing the seven other Beacon students sitting on the edge of their seats in anticipation. "And now, the Beacon Academy champion, Ruby Potter, the Girl who lived's score!" He turned back towards the judges and waited for them to give their scores.

Dumbledore smiled genially as he fired up a nine, Madame Maxime sent up an eight, Karkaroff a seven, Crouch sent up a nine, and Professor Goodwitch sent up a nine.

Ludo smiled wide, and seemed about to pass out from excitement. "Forty two points!" He called out to the crowd, "Ruby Potter is in the lead by one point! Closely trailed by the Durmstrang champion, Viktor Krum!" He waited for the crowd's noise to die down before he called out towards the champions. "Remember champions, the golden egg contains your clue for the next task, which takes place on the 24th of February, get to work on those clues champions! It will be time for the second task before you know it!" With that, Ludo waved his wand at himself and walked down from his platform, going over to the judges.

Ruby sighed in relief as she ran back towards the stand having noticed Yang's hair from the arena's exit and got engulfed in one of the biggest hugs of her life.

At first, she hadn't cared how well she did in this tournament, just wanting to get home to Beacon so she could go back to training to be a huntress.

But now, after that horribly dangerous, and extremely exciting fight...

Ruby was in it to win it.

A/N: I hope this lived up to the hype, I skipped the Weighing of the Wands purely because Ruby wasn't using her wand and we both know she wasn't going to use it in a fight any ways. Sorry if the Dragon fight was a bit rushed, but I couldn't really think of a way to make it more exciting as I was going from the book fight, not the movie fight where the dragon breaks free due to Ruby not you know...having a broomstick.

See you guys on Sunday as we start working towards the Yule Ball and the second task in the tournament! What will Ruby sorely miss? And will Ruby ask Weiss out to the Yule Ball?