Armsmaster shook my shoulder. "Ruby, we're here."

I woke up with a shock. "I wasn't sleeping!" But I was. Had been, I mean. I had fallen asleep against Lung's cage, on the back of Armsmaster's motorcycle. It was a big, noisy motorcycle (way cooler than Yang's, and not just because it was bigger and noisier), but I was so tired that I fell asleep anyways.

"I would have asked if you were up to being interviewed tonight, but I think I have my answer."

"I'm not tired!"

"I see. Well, I'll just get you settled in a room and you can sit in there."

My memories of walking into the building are fuzzy. I vaguely remember that the building was almost empty, being lead to one corner, a room with a big terminal on the wall, and then collapsing on a bed.

I began waking up slowly, then much faster once I realized there was some cloth stuff over my head. I struggled and got tangled up in all sorts of bonds. After a couple minutes I started to remember what was going on before I went to sleep and identified the cloth over my head as the ski mask, twisted a bit to one side, and all the bonds as bedsheets and my cloak. It took several minutes to disentangle myself, which I did as quickly as I could because I was excited about joining the Wards. Also, I needed to eat and pee.

I quickly got myself organized, leaving Crescent Rose, the ski mask, and the backpack on the bed (presumably my bed, for now at least). I was in a little room in a big room, the little room surrounded by walls that didn't reach the ceiling. It had a bed, a little dresser, and a table; smaller than the rooms at Beacon, but those were for four people. Going through the door, I came into a bigger room. To the left was the big terminal I vaguely remembered seeing last night; to my sides and behind me were more little rooms like the one I was in; and much of the rest of the room was full of furniture, with a couple normal-sized terminals on a desk in a corner and a screen on one wall. Not far from the little terminals on the desk was a pair of doors which probably lead to bathrooms.

"Um...hello?" No one answered, so I used the ladies' room (empty) and then went to the door at the other end of the room and opened it. "Hello?" I looked around. No one was there, but there was a machine of some kind at this end of the hallway and an elevator at the other. After looking around for a moment, I go back to the door to the big room, but when I tug on it, it's locked. Aw, man. Shrugging, I went to the elevator. The door opened, and I stared at the buttons. Normally, this is the part where I'd press a button to go somewhere, but I didn't have any idea what button to press.

The elevator started to move on its own; I wouldn't have known if it wasn't for the vague impressions of distant Auras starting to go up. "Is this elevator telepathic?" I asked the elevator. Wait, if it's telepathic, I don't need to talk to it. Can elevators be telepathic? This elevator's definitely fancy enough to be. If the elevator was telepathic, it didn't respond to those thoughts of mine. After a minute, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. They were fancy doors, and on the other side were a few people in some armor-ey stuff. They looked a little like security guards at the Communications Tower, except less shiny and better-armed. None of them were holding weapons, but they look surprised by me being here, so it's probably a good idea to make them not shoot me.

"Um...hi?"

"Who are you?" one asked.

"Oh! I'm Ruby Rose. I, uh...I was left upstairs by Armsmaster last night? After beating up Lung? Well, kinda. The Othersiders helped, and so did Ar—"

"Ah," another one said. "I think we heard about you. You're supposed to have an interview with some of the Protectorate, I think?"

"Oh! I remember that. Armsmaster mentioned something about an interview, I think. I...I was pretty tired," I admitted.

"Must've been," a guy in back said.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

The second one said, "It's almost noon."

"Oh! Wow, I slept a while. Um, can I get some breakfast first? Or lunch, I guess?"

"We'll see what we can do," the first one said. "But we should call the Protectorate HQ first."

"Oh, can I have strawberries?"

"We'll see what we can do," he repeated.

I learned that the Wards had to go to school, because they were kids, but the Protectorate weren't so they just did hero things all day. Mostly, those hero things were paperwork and being ready for if something happened, with some patrols and the occasional public event too. Armsmaster and other Tinkers worked on their stuff, Thinkers would answer questions, and of course there were always people who couldn't fit the normal rules, but most of the Protectorate peoples' schedules were pretty flexible. Armsmaster was working on his stuff, so he came, with Miss Militia, the second-in-command of Brockton Bay's Protectorate and either my second- or third-favorite local hero. She could make any weapon she wanted, which was awesome, but Dauntless was so awesome that his awesome leaked out of him and made his stuff so awesome it glowed and did other cool stuff! And it was kinda weird that Miss Militia wore the emblem of America on her face.

Eating lunch (or breakfast) with two of the coolest superheroes in the Kingdom was just...indescribable. It reminded me a little of the first time I talked with Headmaster Ozpin, except a lot more of that; they inspired the same kind of awe and intimidatedness. I mostly wound up being quiet, eating a sandwich, pear, and strawberry parfait, saying a sentence here and there. Miss Militia and Armsmaster talked a little, too, and then we went for the interview.

I expected a room like the one I met the Headmaster in the first time, barren and dark and big. It was the opposite, really, more like a classroom than an interrogation room. It was cozy, with a few chairs around a small table with a terminal on it, a dark red carpet on the floor, tan-ish walls around us, well-lit. Armsmaster and Miss Militia sat on one side of the table, and I sat in one of the chairs on the other.

Miss Militia typed on the terminal a bit; then there was an awkward moment of silence, then Armsmaster said, "Let's start at the beginning. Your name?"

"Ruby Rose. But didn't I tell you that already?"

"Yes. It's just a formality. And you want to join the Wards?"

"More than anything."

Miss Militia nodded, and I'm pretty sure she was smiling behind the stripey thing she wore on her face. She seemed nice. "Your powers?"

"Well..." This is as good a time as any. "Technically, I kinda don't have any. I'm not from this world."

Miss Militia raised her eyebrows in what was probably surprise. She glanced at Armsmaster, who shifted his head from side to side a little.

"Um...well, see, I'm from a Kingdom called Vale, and it's on a continent called Vytal, on a world called Remnant. And we don't have superpowers there, just Aura. And Dust. And people have Semblances, but I think that's basically Aura too. I, uh, didn't do too great in that part of school. I was better at the...y'know...oooOOH," (Miss Militia winced for a moment) "w-taaah, hooh...that stuff."

"Fighting? You learned how to fight in your school?" Miss Militia asked.

"Well...yeah."

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen and a half."

Miss Militia didn't look happy about that. "So. This...how does your Aura work?"

"Uh, well, everything has it, except Grimm of course. And you need to awaken it for it to do anything, well much of anything. I think there's a few things it does for everyone. But when it's awakened, it protects you, and you can learn to use it offensively too, making you stronger and faster and sometimes just smashing someone with a bunch of Aura. I can't do that." As I was talking, Miss Militia was typing on her terminal.

"And this is how you did all you did last night?" Armsmaster asked.

"Well, a lot of it. And technically, my Semblance is part of my Aura, but—"

"What is a Semblance?" Miss Militia asked.

"Well, everyone figures one out. Everyone with Aura, I mean, so probably no one here. Anyways, it's kinda a specific way to use your Aura. Like, I'm really fast, because that's my Semblance. My sister, Yang, she gets stronger whenever she gets hit. That's her Semblance. And Weiss—"

"I see," Armsmaster interrupted.

"You said Aura has to be awakened," Miss Militia said. "How did you awaken yours?"

"Oh, it's not hard. I can do it for you guys right now, if you want."

Miss Militia shrugged and got up. I did, too, and dashed over to meet her. I'd never awakened anyone's Aura, but it wasn't that hard. Everyone's Aura was waiting to be awoken, really. It was mostly reminding the soul of what it had to do, showing it how it could do so. There were some words, too; Ruby wasn't sure why they were important, but she was pretty sure they were.

"Uh, close your eyes. I think that's important." Miss Militia did; I reached a hand up to her shoulder, and closed my eyes too. Her soul felt weird, kinda...fuzzy around the edges, I guess? Maybe all people here were like that? Or did that always happen? Oh, right, the words. I thought them loud and whispered them under my breath. For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a...a paragon of virtue and glory to go above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I carefully reached a hand up to Miss Militia's chest. I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect you. I felt really drained all of a sudden; I knew it took some Aura to awaken someone else's Aura, but I didn't think it would be this much.

"Are you alright?" Armsmaster asked immediately.

"I'm fine," I said. "This is supposed to happen. I think; this is the first time I've actually done this. It takes a little energy to unlock someone's Aura, but then it just sustains itself."

"I see. Now, if you would return to your seat..."

"Oh. Sure." I dashed back, realizing how much awakening Miss Militia's Aura had taken out of me.

"Thank you. I think we understand your...Aura and Semblance. The weapon you were using last night?"

"Oh, that's Crescent Rose. It's a high-caliber sniper-scythe, I made it myself."

"It's a scythe?" Miss Militia asked.

I nodded. "And it's also a gun."

"I...see."

"And you said you made it? Could you make similar weapons?"

"Well, I guess? It's just a folding-frame weapon, anyone on Remnant can get one and everyone at Signal learns to make them. Oh, Signal's the school I went to before Beacon. I'm training—"

"Mm. Is there anything else you...made, or brought from Remnant that we don't have here?"

"Well, there's my Scroll. I mean, you have things like it, but they're thicker and don't fold up."

"Pardon me, but could you—"

"I've got it right here, actually." I took my Scroll out of my pocket and handed it to Armsmaster. He handed it to Miss Militia, who fiddled with it for a moment before sliding it open.

"It's dead."

"Yeah, it was like that since I came here. Crescent wasn't working, either. Not shooting—Hey, maybe whatever brought me here messed up the Dust? I thought maybe the..."

Miss Militia and Armsmater were staring blankly at me. Well, I assume Armsmaster was staring at me. His helmet was pointing my direction.

"What?"

"What do you mean, messed up the Dust?" Armsmaster asked.

"Well, made it so it didn't work."

"What do you mean by Dust?" Miss Militia asked.

"What do you mean what do I mean by Dust?" I waved my hands. "It's—it's—it's how stuff works!" I tried to channel Weiss when she was being smart and not mean. "Um—fire! Water! Lightning! Ice! It's for propelling stuff and powering other stuff and sometimes it explodes! Sometimes when it's not supposed to, but not usually. Um, it's—"

Armsmaster raised his voice slightly. "We don't have Dust."

"What? But—you have guns, and cars, and terminals and Scrolls and stuff! How could you do any of that without Dust?"

Armsmaster sighed. "...We cope. We have other ways."

"Oh." Wait, if they don't have Dust—"I won't be able to get new bullets for Crescent?"

"Hm?" Armsmaster asked.

"Crescent Rose fires Dust bullets."

"Ah," Miss Militia said. "Your rifle will, I'm afraid, need to be modified or replaced. We have Armsmaster and another Tinker, I'm sure they'd be glad to help you with that once you're cleared for firearm use."

"Huh? Um, okay, I guess I'd rather not mess with Crescent. Um..."

"And while we're talking about Tinkers," she continued, "I'm sure the Guild would be interested in any Dust you sent them."

"Oh, that's Dragon's team, right?" I asked. "With Massa—Massamun?"

"Masamune," Armsmaster corrected. "And yes."

"Thanks!"

Armsmaster nodded. "To summarize...you have Aura, which can be used to protect you or make you stronger, gets depleted, and can be passed on to others. Your...Semblance is the ability to move quickly. You can make weapons like your scythe, but not anything with Dust. And you say you're from another Earth, which is why you have these supernatural powers and unusual technology."

"It's not called Earth, it's called Remnant. But other than that, yeah."

"I see. Do you have everything recorded, Miss Militia?"

"I do."

"Then we'll continue. Now, Ruby, understand that you aren't in trouble or anything, these are just the kinds of questions we ask anyone who wants to join the Wards. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now, why did you choose to fight Lung?"