Titus sat on against the wall of the training room and breathed deeply. The practice rooms at Signal Academy were open twenty-four seven and he needed every hour of practice he could get before practicals came next week. The wooden practice targets were riddled with bullets from past students, but thankfully Titus' weapon didn't use conventional ammo.

He carefully rubbed the smudges from the side of his bracer. Just above the elbow was a miniature ring engine, the same design used for outdated hovercrafts. Careful not to get the cloth caught, he gave it a few test revolutions to evenly wipe it down.

"Ooh! That's cool!"

Titus looked up to find a female underclassman looking at him with delight. Or more accurately, his weapon.

"Um…can I help you?" he asked. The excitement in her eyes vanished, replaced by a slight blushing on her cheeks.

"Oh, sorry," she apologized, immediately backing off. "I didn't think anyone else would be practicing this late so I thought I'd go check it out and then I saw you weapon and the spinning thing and-"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down." Titus held out his hand, a grin on his face. "I'm Titus."

"Ruby," the girl replied as they shook. "Sorry, my uncle says I tend to talk to people's weapons rather than the people themselves."

"Well it is Signal. Where else are you going to find the weapons you've never seen before?"

Ruby smiled, and Titus not knowing what to do next invited her to take a seat next to him.

"So what are you doing up this late?" Ruby asked him, careful not to trip over her caped hood as she sat.

"You're an underclassman right?" Titus asked. Ruby nodded. "I'm a senior, so practicals are tomorrow. If I don't make it into Beacon, it'd be nice to fall back on something like city watch or maybe join up with Schnee Security."

"You want to be a huntsman?" Ruby asked excitedly, and without waiting for a response continued, "I want to go to Beacon too!"

"No kidding?"

"Yeah, I'm actually trying out at the practical tomorrow to see how I'm doing in my training. My sister Yang says I don't need to bother with the practical, but I feel like it's nice to have something just in case."

"Wait, your sister's Yang?" Titus frowned. He had sparred against Yang the day before as they used similar weapons. He had utterly lost. If she thought her sister had what it took…

"Yeah, I mean you probably don't see the family resemblance but we're sisters."

Titus thought for a moment. He couldn't say no to his curiosity.

"Hey Ruby," he said slowly. "How would you like to spar a bit?"

Ruby seemed a bit apprehensive. She scratched the back of her head and looked to the side.

"Gee, I don't know… I mean-"

"Come on, it'll be good practice for both of us. These wood targets aren't putting up much of a fight."

Ruby fidgeted some more.

"Well I just had Crescent Rose cleaned and weapon wax is pretty expensive these days…"

She just needed a little more convincing.

"You'll get to see my weapon in action."

Ruby perked up at this and eagerly nodded.

They situated themselves at opposite sides of the room and drew their weapons. Titus took a fighting stance and began revving the ring engine. The air around him began to whip up sending his black hair wild. Ruby, in turn, pulled her weapon's condensed frame from behind her and quickly unfolded it. Her massive scythe point landed on the ground with a distinct clack of metal on stone.

"Is that a scythe!?" Titus asked, alarmed.

"It's also a customizable high impact sniper rifle." Ruby responded, smiling.

"Nice! Though, saying gun is a lot quicker," Titus advised.

They would be fighting by traditional Signal sparring rules. Aura would protect them for the majority of damage, but in order to be named the decisive winner, you had to daze the opponent, disarm them, render them immobile, or make them verbally surrender.

"Ready?" Ruby asked, her hands on the trigger and shaft of her weapon.

"Always!" Titus called out as he rushed at her. The bracers he wore quickly extended to cover his elbows up to his palm, and the ring engines began spinning faster.

As Ruby wielded a scythe combined with a sniper rifle, Titus wanted to avoid a long range gun battle. His weapon, named Twin Lacuna, quickly pulled in the surrounding air. He flung his arms back and opened his hands, releasing a large blast of wind which propelled him forward. Once in the air he brought his right arm up and thrust it forward. A condensed pocket of air burst from his palm as a large gust flowed from his elbow. He would have loved to add more power to his attack, but he need the counter wind so his arm wouldn't snap off his shoulder from the force.

Ruby was quick to dodge and she fired into the ground pushing herself in to the air. She watched as a small ball of condensed air landed where she had been standing with a loud thud.

"That…..was…..awesome!" Ruby landed several feet away and looked at the Twin Lacuna with excited eyes. "Can you fly with that!?"

"I wish," he answered. "There's not enough to push off against to maintain flight so I have to make due with short bursts."

"Ohhh, what if you reversed the engines so you could walk on walls."

"Wait, reversing the engines? ….That's brilliant! I just need to add a few diverters, change the ring engines direction-"

"What about making boots!? Then you could glide with your hands and propel with your feet."

"Thought about that one, and it would be too much weight. Plus these things are difficult to use when they're full capacity. I'd rather not have too many high pressure containers on me at once."

"Hmm, it'd be so cool though."

"….wait, wait, we're forgetting the match here."

"Oh, sorry. New technology gets me frazzled."

"Totally understand. Ready?"

Ruby smiled and pointed her scythe behind her before releasing a volley of shots. Titus could barely raise his arms before the stalk of the scythe hit him pushing him back. Ruby smiled as she had won the initiative, but her eyes widened as Titus opened his hands. A large gust blew Ruby off him and she landed safely a fair distance away.

"Not bad," Titus called to her, trying to get his breath back. He hadn't expected that last attack to come so swiftly. Propulsion from bullets was a new concept to him.

"How about this!" Ruby yelled, swinging the head of her scythe down in front of her.

Titus was running low on pressurized air and was forced to use more of it to divert the path of her sniper rounds. They embedded themselves in the stone wall behind them with a loud chunking noise. Titus began to panic. He couldn't build up enough reserve to keep up with Ruby's attacks. This had to end now.

Placing one hand behind his back and one in front of him, he rushed forward. He was expending all the reserve in his left hand to propel himself, and some with his right hand in front creating a thin wind wall to deflect oncoming shots. He was right in front of her. Titus quickly closed his right hand into a fist and brought it back. The elbow opening blew out a gale of air as he focused all his power into a single punch.

Thunk!

Titus fell back as his head ran headlong into Ruby's scythe, which she had positioned into the ground. His aura protected him, but he still felt a bit dazed as Ruby helped him up. The ring engines had stopped spinning and Ruby had left her scythe aside to aid him.

"Wow Ruby," he stammered, "just wow."

"Don't feel bad, I mean, it was probably dumb luck that I got Crescent Rose in the right position."

"So that was on purpose," he said softly. He felt ashamed. He knew there would always be stronger people, but why did it have to be a younger girl he had just met before practicals.

"Really, please don't feel bad," Ruby told him, concerned. She started walking away. "I'm going to get some drinks. What do you like?"

"Grape soda," Titus responded, still in shock.

Ruby hurried away to find a soda machine, leaving Titus lost in his defeat. He wasn't the best fighter at Signal by a long shot, but if a sophomore girl could take him out this easily. He was hoping the judges would be lenient, but if they were enraptured by her skill, then his efforts would turn form standard, to sub-par; at least, that's what he thought. And the more he thought, the more the darkness took him.

Titus looked around and listened intently. He couldn't hear Ruby approaching, and the Crescent Rose was lying in the open where she had left it. Titus walked over to it quickly and held it. The construction was beautiful and he could tell that it was well taken care of.

He looked nervously over his shoulder, then popped the ammo cartridge out. Rummaging through his pocket, he brought out a small container of high quality weapon wax. He normally used it to buff out the scratches after practive, but he remembered that if the wax were to bunch up, it would harden.

Titus took a deep breath and then started to smear large amounts of wax in the interior of the ammo intake. When he was done, he was careful to leave Crescent Rose exactly as he had found it, and momved back to his original spot. His heart was pounding, and his hands shaking.

"I'm back!" a cheerful Ruby said happily as she dumped several grape sodas into his lap. She opened one herself and sat next to him again. "Feel better?"

Titus nodded, though there were new knots forming in his stomach. He opened one of the sodas and drank, not registering the taste, only the slight bubbly in his throat.

"You'll do fine tomorrow," Ruby told him. "I mean, that look of confidence as you came at me was intense. You'll definitely be fine."

Titus didn't respond. They sat in silence for a moment.

"Well, curfews coming soon and uncle Qrow will kill me if he finds me out here." Ruby jumped up and walked over to Crescent Rose. Titus winced as she collapsed it to its travel form and hung it behind her waist. "I'll see you at the practical!"

"Wait, Ruby," Titus urgently called to her as she walked away. She stopped and looked back at him, still smiling.

"Umm, make sure you check your weapon over tonight," he advised, sweating lightly. "You know, regular maintenance. And good luck tomorrow."

She smiled and waved at him.

"Thanks, you too!"

Titus watched her leave, and sat back down wondering about what he had just done. After pondering for a while, he stood up and gathered the many sodas Ruby had brought for him. He walked back to his room, and tried falling asleep.

He was not successful for many hours.