The Shining Beacon

"The Shining Beacon" is the second episode of the RWBY animated series that was shown on the Rooster Teeth website on July 25, 2013, 7 pm at GMT -6 (July 26, 1 am at GMT +0). A preview of the episode during its unfinished stages was previously shown in the Rooster Teeth Expo on July 5, 2013, the same day of the premiere of the RWBY series.

Summary
The airship lands at Beacon Academy, and the students of Beacon quickly leave the ship, Jaune Arc emptying his uneasy stomach at a nearby garbage bin. Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long are amazed at the sight of Beacon Academy.

Ruby was initially overwhelmed at the sight of many weapons owned by the other students. When enquired by Yang about her obsession with weapons, and whether she was happy with her current one, Ruby explains that each weapon is as different from one another as their owners and seeing each one is like meeting a new person, only way better.

Yang encourages Ruby to find some new friends but Ruby is uninterested as she has Yang to hang out with. With this Yang reveals that she has already made some new friends of her own and rushes inside the academy to hang out with them. Left stunned and dizzy by Yang's exit, Ruby falls on a trolley carrying luggage owned by Weiss Schnee.

Weiss scolds Ruby on the volatile nature of the luggage explaining that the content is Dust. More importantly Ruby could have blown them both to bits, pointing out that Ruby is too young to attend the academy, further scolding Ruby on the fact that Beacon is a school to train Hunters to hunt and kill monsters not an "average" combat school like Signal Academy.

Unfortunately while waving a vial of Dust in Ruby's face she breaths some in and sneezes, quite explosively, on Weiss. Blake Belladonna spots the pair and explains that Weiss is the heir of the Schnee Dust Company which is famous for providing the bulk of the world's Dust supply but also infamous for its controversial labor practices and questionable business partners.

This latter point leaves Weiss stunned and angry and causes her to leave in a storm leaving her servants to pick up her luggage, while Ruby shouts to Weiss that she'll find a way to make it up to her later. She also attempts to thank Blake for defending her only to see her run off too. Disappointed by how badly her first day is going, Ruby lays down on the ground to think for a moment.

Luckily she finally befriends someone, who happens to be Jaune, and whom Ruby identifies as "vomit boy." The pair immediately hit it off, Ruby introducing her Crescent Rose and explaining that she went overboard in designing it at Signal. Embarrassed upon seeing the advanced weapon, Jaune awkwardly introduces his weapon which is a simple sword held inside a shield and sheath combination, a family heirloom.

The pair realize that they are lost believing that the other knew where they were going and followed suit.

Trivia

 * Roughly half of the episode was shown at RTX alongside the Pilot.
 * During RTX, the scene where Ruby sneezes on Weiss has the explosion and Dust effects removed and a cameo appearance by RWBYsaurus along with the captions "VFX missing" and "KA BOOM" is replaced.
 * When Ruby pulls out Crescent Rose in front of Yang at the beginning of the episode, another copy is present on her waist.
 * As Yang walks away from the airship, her bracelets are armed in one scene and then retracted the next.
 * Ruby reveals that all students at Signal forge their own weapons.
 * The mark Weiss received on her left eye from her injury in the White Trailer can be seen on her face implying that the trailer occurred before this episode.
 * At 2:10 the vial of Dust Weiss grabs contains green Dust, but from 2:14 onwards the vial contains red Dust.
 * When Weiss says "Aren't you a little young to be attending Beacon?", this is likely a reference to the Phineas and Ferb television series, which is a running gag in the show.

Mistakes and Inconsistencies

 * 1) Model - Shortly after Ruby's Chibi moment she pulls out Crescent Rose, when she does so a duplicate is also still sheathed on her back.