Ruby eyed her father suspiciously as he set the slender package on the coffee table in front of her. It was a bland grey color, with the black seal of Atlas on the lid. Ruby stood by her father's side, and from the barely restrained look of excitement on their faces, Ruby could tell that something was up.

"Well?" Her father asked, nudging the box a little closer. "You gonna open it, or are we just going to sit around all day waiting?"

She looked back down at the box, confused. What could she do with anything from Atlas? She leaned forward, and pulled the lid off the box.

When her eyes met with its contents, she froze, her jaw hanging.

An arm, made of shining, silvery metal gleamed back up at her. She heard both Yang and her father laughing, and her father started speaking again.

"Brand new, state of the art Atlas tech! You know, I thought I was going to have to call in a few favors, pull a few strings, but you earned this one all on your own. Before I even talked to him, General Ironwood already had one of his top scientists working on it. He wanted me to tell you you fought admirably. You should be proud of yourself."

There was a heavy silence as Ruby continued to stare. The box lid fell out of her numb fingers, and as it hit her foot she jumped, blinking.

"I. . . I don't. . ." Her voice cracked, and she stood up, walking over to her father and putting her arm around him. Quietly, he did the same, and gently ruffled her hair. "T-thank you!" Ruby looked up at him as her eyes started to fill with tears again. She buried her face in his shoulder, squeezing as tightly as she could with one arm and continuing to mutter incomprehensibly into his shirt.

He hugged her back, guiding her back to the sofa and sitting down next to her. It took a few minutes for Ruby to calm down enough to stop crying, and when she did, her father scooted a short distance away.

"So, you wanna try this thing on? It's not doing much just sitting there, you know."

Ruby nodded vigorously, turning back to the arm and wrapping her fingers around the shoulder gently. She lifted it from the box, feeling its weight in her hand, looking closely at every joint, every actuation, everything she could see with her naked eye. There were so many moving parts. Even without opening it up, she could feel so much beneath the surface. Thinking about it almost made her head spin, and her father had to give her a small nudge again to bring her back to the present.

"Hey, you alright, kiddo? We can put this off a little, if you want. You know, so you can adjust to the idea or-"

Ruby cut him off, shaking her head and saying, "No, no, I want to do this now. We should do this now. How do you put this thing on?"

Getting the arm on was, as it turned out, a relatively simple matter. Ruby did ask for a little privacy as she did so, and as such had returned to her room. It wasn't more than a few minutes before she had it on, and in seemingly working order. All that was left was to actually turn the arm on. Her finger hovered over the small button, and her breath caught with the strangest trepidation. What would it feel like? Was she ready?

She closed her eyes and held her breath. Again, she could feel the phantom of her arm, hanging at her side, overlapping with the limp mechanical one. It was a funny thought, that the two were in the same place. She couldn't help but giggle at the strangeness of it. Then she stopped herself, took a deep breath, and pushed the button.

There was a small click, and the next thing she knew, Ruby was on her hands and knees, staring at the floor. An electric shock went through every nerve in her body, forcing her eyes wide as the world swam in front of her eyes. It felt as though a jackhammer had taken the place of her heart, but only for a brief moment, and as Ruby started to recover, she noticed that she'd caught herself with her hands. Both of them.

She leaned back, holding her hands in front of her face, side by side, comparing the two of them. One felt normal, and she wasn't sure how the other felt. It had been so long since it had felt anything at all, she was just happy for the moment to stare.

She didn't know how long she sat there, but when she realized that it had probably been longer than a minute, she shook her head and stood up, making liberal use of her new left arm as she did so. It felt good, responsive, strong, and she didn't have any feeling of dullness or loss of sensation. It wasn't even as heavy as she thought it would be. She could stand straight up without needing to compensate for the extra weight. In fact, she found that she was slightly off center from being lopsided for so long.

She started walking out of her room, towards the stairs, sliding her fingers over everything in her path as she went. As she came back into the living room, she held it behind her, hoping to surprise Yang and her father, even though the smile on her face had to tell it all.

They looked over at her as she leaned around the corner, and her father raised an eyebrow. "Well? Does it work? You're happy about some-"

Before he could finish the sentence, Ruby rushed forwards and embraced him for the second time that day, this time with both arms. He hugged her back, and Ruby felt Yang join the hug from the back. She felt like the weight of the world had vanished from her shoulders.

It felt like it was much too soon when Taiyang made to gently push them off, saying, "Alright, I'm happy for you and all, but we shouldn't just stand around here all day. Come on girls, I think this calls for a more impressive celebration, don't you? Let's go down to town, find some junk food or something to pig out on. What do you say, Ruby? Want to make this a little occasion?"

Ruby smiled, but said, "I don't think I should. When I turned the arm on it felt like I was getting tazed. I'm alright now, but it still feels kind of weird. I think I'd rather stay home just in case something like that happens again.."

Her father nodded understandingly, patting her on the shoulder. "Alright. Maybe try getting reaquainted with Crescent Rose. Yang was telling me that you were having some trouble with it."

Ruby nodded, then felt a sinking feeling in her chest. The feeling must have shown on her face, because Taiyang raised an eyebrow, and said, "What's the matter? You don't look so good."

Ruby shook her head for a moment, holding a hand over her mouth, before she choked out "I'm going to have to change everything back! I spent so long try to switch stuff around, to make it one handed!"

She started to shake, covering her face as a strange feeling came over her. Tears streamed down her face, but and she did feel sad, but it wasn't sobs that were wracking her body, it was laughter. The others came forward to help, but she put her back to the wall and slid to the floor before they reached her. She buried her face in her hands, sniffling and giggling to herself.

She felt Yang shake her shoulder.

"Ruby, are you alright? Is something wrong? Is it the arm? Come on, say something!"

Ruby tried to pull her face from her hands, but she could hardly think straight as it was. She could only shake her head as she continued to laugh. After several more seconds of this, she made a few vague gesture towards the door, and forced herself to squeak out a few words.

"Just go. I'll. . . I'll be fine. Just need to. . . calm down. . ."

Yang and her father said a few words to each other that Ruby couldn't hear, before they looked back to her, and her father knelt down beside her.

"Alright, well, we're gonna go then, I guess." He scratched the back of his head, glancing back at Yang. "You have your scroll on you, right?" She nodded as best she could, and he continued. "Alright, if you need anything, call. Actually, if you keep feeling like this for much longer, call anyways, alright?"

Ruby nodded weakly again, and the others bid a worried goodbye before stepping out the door. She was alone again, and after a little while longer of being mid-breakdown, she managed to bring the laughter down to a barely suppressed snicker. She stood again, swaying unsteadily and wiping her face on her sleeve. Every muscle in her body ached, but simultaneously buzzed with a newfound, manic energy. Not only could Ruby move, she had to.

Driven forward by the blend of emotions she'd found, she made her way back up the stairs and into her room. The door slamming open echoed through the house, and Ruby set upon her weapon with a zeal that burned brighter than anything she'd felt in what seemed like forever.

She opened a desk drawer to find Crescent Rose's original blade. She hastily removed the current blade and fitted the original back into place. With the scythe's first click a pain went through Ruby's body and mind. She took a deep breath. It felt like the first one in six months. A second click and Ruby's body went rigid. Her eyes watered up again, and she could only stare at her new arm, every moment filled with fear. Any moment now, she was going to wake up. She was sure of it. She would wake up, and everything would be the same as it had been this morning.

But she didn't. As she stared, everything started becoming brighter, crisper, and seemed to breathe again. She couldn't help but start snickering again as a smile cracked over her mouth, and she opened a different drawer. Her headphones laid there, still coiled up and unused for a long time.

It was probably a good thing that the others were out of the house, because Ruby would have been dreadfully embarrassed if they heard her singing along to her music. She knew her singing voice wasn't any good, especially not with the volume as high as she had it. It was loud enough to drown out everything else. She worked to the beat of the music, giggling and wiping her face of tears every so often.

It wasn't too long before she had Crescent Rose in close enough a condition to before she'd started modifying it that it would be easily usable with both hands again. There were a few little details that still needed to be addressed, but she could get to those later. She wiped her hands of the grease, put her tools back in roughly the right places, and picked the weapon up off the desk.

With a flourish she brandished Crescent Rose, swinging it in as much of an arc as she had room for, careful to keep from breaking anything. It felt exactly like she'd hoped. Ruby started running downstairs, narrowly avoiding carving a huge gash in the wall as she did so. She almost broke the front door off its hinges when she pushed her way out into the yard.

The sunlight gave her a new sense of renewal, as she walked past the small training site in the yard. She felt like she could throw a goliath, and she took a deep breath, enjoying the feeling she'd been missing for so many months. It was a beautiful day. Those didn't last very long on Patch. The weather was unpredictable and sunny days could be drowned in storms in only minutes. It suited her fine, though. She had always thought as a kid that the weather was always moving and changing, just like her.

Ruby came to a stop, standing still in the grass and letting the breeze wash over her. Polin was in the air. Jaune's allergies would have him sneezing hard enough to knock him over. Despite that though, she wished he was here, along with the rest of her friends. Everything bloomed at once on Patch, and she was rewarded with a wonderful sight as she crest over a nearby hill. She smiled wider just a little more as she took another deep breath, enjoying the scent of the blooms welcoming her.

Her breathing became more regular as she dropped into a ready stance, her eyes locked on an imaginary opponent. A beowulf, tall and thin, with knife-like claws and fangs to match, snarling and drooling with eyes that burned like a fire, stood across from her. She could almost hear it snarling at her.

She slipped into almost a trance as she let her training take over, guiding her through stances and strikes as she laid waste to her imaginary foe. When the Grimm had been reduced to little more than a heap of meat, Ruby blinked, and it was gone. She took another deep breath and nodded to herself. She was back. She could fight, and she could win, she was sure of it.

Ruby returned to the house after dispatching a few more imaginary foes, folding Crescent Rose back up and laying it down on the kitchen counter. She hadn't loaded it before taking it out into the yard, and thus hadn't had the opportunity to fire it, but in her room Ruby had more than a few rounds that were ready to go. She didn't want to waste them on nonexistent Grimm, however. Setting up a small shooting range would be easy, but she wanted to take a breather first.

She took a seat next to the scythe, leaning back in the chair and looking down at her left arm again. It was still strange to see it there, but it was more than welcome. There was only one aspect about the arm that bothered her, and that was its shiney grey color. The shine was nice, but she knew that a glint could give her away in a tight situation, something she definitely didn't want to deal with. But more than that, it simply wasn't her color. Ruby knew Yang had to have some spray paint in the shed. She was sure her sister wouldn't mind her using it. Knowing her though, she had to cross her fingers and hope everything but the yellow and black hadn't expired. Ruby was confident that the blue, green, and purple were most certainly gone bad.

It took a while to find anything that wasn't yellow, but when she found a can of red paint, she was delighted to find that it was the same shade she used on Crescent Rose. A can of black paint was much easier to find, Yang used it on Bumblebee anyways. She wouldn't miss a little bit. Ruby didn't need much anyways.

Ruby set about getting her arm painted. She would have time to put intricate designs on it later. For now, she just wanted a flat red coat, with the joints of the arm a darker black than they already were.

She was done in minutes, holding her arm out with a rag ready to stop any drips. Nothing came after a few moments, and she let her arm fall to her side. She didn't care too much if the messy clothes she had on got any more dirty.

As she walked back to the house, something on the path leading away to town caught her eye. Ruby stopped, squinting. It wasn't Yang and her father, neither one was shaped quite right, and there were three instead of two. Ruby tried to make out their shapes, then gasped as she realized who it had to be.

She ran as quickly as she could towards them, waving her arms and shouting, "Hey! Guys! What are you doing here?"

As she came closer, the others started running towards her, shouting out to her and waving in response. Ruby tried to speed up, but she found that after so long of having not made good use of her legs, she couldn't go quite as fast as she wanted. Not accepting the minor defeat, she reached down in herself, and, using her aura, pulled herself forward at an incredible speed.

As the distance closed rapidly, Ruby realized that she had misjudged the distance rather severely. In spite of her best efforts to stop, she struck the center figure, knocking both to the ground.

After a moment of being dazed, she picked herself slowly off the ground.

"Sorry, Jaune! Are you alright?" She offered a hand out to him, pulling him up and rubbing her back with the other hand. "At least you had your armor on, huh? Figures, I get my arm back and break my back on you!"

Jaune nodded vigorously as Ren and Nora chuckled, sand said through a sniffle, "Yeah, I'm fine! And sorry about the breastplate, we just got off a job and I didn't really have anywhere to put it, you know. . ." His voice trailed off, and his eyes drifted down to her left arm.

"Wow! So you really do have your arm back! How does it feel?"

Ren stepped forward, catching Jaune's attention and pointing towards the house. "Perhaps we should continue this conversation inside. We're out of tissues, after all."

Jaune's eyes widened slightly, and he looked over to Nora, saying, "What? I thought you were going to get more!"

Nora put her hands up in the air, exclaiming, "I did, Jaune! You used them all!"

Ruby stifled a laugh as the two started bickering, leading them towards the house. Her back still hurt a little from slamming into Jaune, but it wasn't anything to worry about. She looked the others over as they walked. They all looked well enough, at least they weren't going hungry. Jaune was walking with a little bit of a limp, but she couldn't tell if it was a result of their collision or not. Knowing Jaune, it very well could be. He wouldn't say anything about it.

By the time they reached the front door Jaune was wiping his nose with every other word, and he had dribbles of mucus down the front of his face. Every breath was accompanied by a wet wheezing sound that only made Ruby more eager to get inside, where Jaune would have all the tissue he could need. At least, she hoped, anyways.

As she opened the door, she spoke to the group. "So how is everybody doing? Why didn't you call ahead like you usually do?"

Jaune opened his mouth and started to say "Yang-" but was cut off by a sharp elbow to the ribs from Nora, who shoved him through the door before continuing the sentence for him. "-Is probably going to say the same thing! It was kind of a last minute thing, right, Ren?"

Ren froze for a moment, before nodding and saying, "We got a small job on Patch. It was on very short notice, so we didn't really have time to. I'm sorry, we should have. If now is a bad time, we could-"

Ruby interrupted him. "No, no, no, you don't have to go! It's fine! I was just curious, since my dad usually at least hears about all the Hunter jobs here on Patch. He hasn't said anything about it recently. Where was it?"

Ren took a moment to think, before saying, "In the forest towards the north of the island. We heard that it's normally either Signal recruits or staff that take care of things over there, but for one reason or another no one was available for it. So we got called in, and here we are."

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, every so often everyone is tied up in other stuff. It's never too much of a problem, though, because we're so close to Vale. It can be a little inconvenient to get mainland Hunters over here, but the ferry doesn't take too long. Anyways, what was the job? Nothing too dangerous, probably. It's usually just a pack of beowolves that gets a little too big, or starts getting too close to villages. It went well though, it looks like."

Ren and Nora both nodded in response, before turning their attention to Jaune, who was heavily blowing his nose. Ruby felt her throat tighten in disgust as he pulled the cloth away from his face. He pulled a second one, and this time it wasn't quite as revolting as the last one.

"Feel better?" She asked, coming up behind him, trying to keep from looking at the tissue in his hand.

"Much better." He stated, pulling a third tissue to wipe his face clean. He asked for the bathroom so he could wash up, leaving the other three to unwind in the living room. Zewi came bolting out from the hallway, only to start running in excited circles in the center of the room.

"Well he's happy to see us." Nora commented reaching out for the dog, but Zewi didn't stop, letting Nora's hand pet him as he made each lap.

"He'll exhaust himself in a minute or two and be out cold for the next hour." Ruby responded, taking a seat in one of the chairs. "So, Yang and my dad are out right now, but they should be back soon. How are you guys doing?"

The Ren and Nora looked at each other for a moment before shrugging. Ren spoke, saying, "We are doing well. Not much has changed, to be honest."

Ruby leaned back, making sure that Jaune was still in the bathroom, before turning back to them. "How is Jaune holding up? He's keeping everything together, right?"

The others' smiles faded slightly, but both nodded. Nora said "Yeah, he's been doing really well. I don't think he's letting things drag him down. If anything, I think he has a lot of energy from. . . you know. He's putting all that into the jobs we get and training, which is fine, but we've been trying to find something for him to put it into that's a little less intense."

Ruby nodded, but just as she opened her mouth to respond, Jaune came back into the room. Without pausing, Ren pointed at Ruby's new arm, saying, "I like the paintjob on that. It's fresh, I assume?"

Ruby nodded, holding it up for them to see. "It's kind of rough, but there isn't really any paint running or anything, and it's got just the right colors! I'm pretty happy with it. And it works so well! It feels almost the same as my arm did before!"

She made a few motions with the arm, watching happily as the joints bent and moved as easily as her natural one. "It's from Atlas! Top of the line, apparently! It definitely feels like it."

Nora leaned forward, putting a hand out to touch the exterior of the arm. As she ran a finger up the side, Ruby was delighted to find that she felt it the whole way. Nora, however, looked down at her finger, saying, "Oh, right, the paint isn't dry. I'm just gonna clean this off."

As she got back up, Ruby's eyes drifted towards the window. She thought she saw a glimpse of something yellow, but whatever it was disappeared before Ruby could get a good look.

A moment later, the front door burst open, and with a loud yell of "Everybody get crazy!" Yang burst through the door, large cake in hand and several bags hanging from her arms, causing everyone in the room to jump, and Jaune to tip backwards in his chair, hitting the floor with a hard thump.

"What's going on?" Ruby asked, starting to get up.

Yang rushed over to her before she could fully stand, and pushed her sister back into her seat. "We're having a party!" Yang stated, ripping a handful from the cake and smearing it onto Ruby's face.

Author's Note:

As he always does, Leivve helped a ton with this chapter. Leave a review if you had any thoughts, comments, criticisms, do it.