This chapter was a bit awkward to move around, I had to slot the Elerium explosion in the beginning segment instead of elsewhere unfortunately. That does mean some context might get lost, but hey, it should still make sense!

Also, super-important question here. I've edited chapter 3 already and looked at 4, and then realised that if I removed everything which is not in Ruby's perspective, almost the entire chapter would be deleted. So, there's 2 options. I do that, and the chapter will also handle Ruby waking up and the events happening immediately after. Or I don't, I just edit the chapter to be better, but it would mainly remain the same as before.

It's up to you all honestly, either way works for me ^.^

Chapter 2

"Ruby?"

Blinking, Ruby swivelled on her seat, and her eye quickly lit up at seeing Shen. He'd been a pretty strong advocate for her getting to join the engineers and work on some of their non-critical tech, so he was always a welcome sight. Plus, the room she was currently inhabiting was thanks to him, it was half bedroom and half workshop, whhich reminded her of home and gave her some small degree of comfort. "Heya Shen, what's up? Did something break again?" Ruby asked, wincing at the memory of being elected every time, by the rule of being the smallest engineer, to clamber inside the smallest chambers of machines to fix any internal damage, and hoped she wasn't being called for again.

"No Ruby, I...well, I asked some of the other engineers to help with this, but most of it is from me and Vahlen. I think she was hoping to use it to bribe you into her laboratory for more questioning and tests, but oh well, better to ask forgiveness than permission." Shen said, pulling his hand out from behind his back to reveal a small black metal box which he gave to her.

Taking it, Ruby turned it over, humming in curiosity. "Shen...is this what I think it is?" Ruby said, pointedly not opening the box as she looked at him. After a moment, Shen simply nodded, quickly stepping backwards to support himself when Ruby reached out and gave him a strong hug. "Oh yes! Thank you Shen. Oh, think of all the babies we'll make together!" Ruby yelled, much to Shen's surprise.

"RUBY! No then, that's not what you thou-" He said, stopping when he noticed the smirk on Ruby's face, rubbing his eyes with a sigh. "I swear Ruby, you're going to be the death of me." Still grinning, Ruby patted him on the shoulder, sitting back down from where she'd risen. "Well, go on, open it, and whatever you do, don't drop it, that little thing is worth more than a pretty penny."

"Ehh, if the Elerium doesn't kill me first, that is." Ruby said in response to his words, remembering when she had nearly gotten blown to pieces by a drop of Elerium exploding. It wasn't fun waking up on an infirmary bed, both pairs of her ears still ringing, with a throbbing pain all across her side where the Elerium tried to melt her. Fortunately for her, it was at that moment that her aura decided to make a surprise appearance, flaring up in response to said Elerium explosion and protecting her from losing her arm, turning a mutilating or potentially fatal wound into a simple burn injury.

Though, her aura saw fit to immediately vanish again when the threat had passed, leaving Ruby to deal with the aftermath, both in terms of the pain, and the questioning. Explaining that little 'episode' to Vahlen was like trying to talk her way out of the mouth of a King Taijitu, since Vahlen saw the opportunity to investigate her supposed 'self-generated forcefield' firsthand. Thankfully Central finally brought the hammer down and refused to give the woman permission to attempt some more radical experimentation after she made a request to fire a high-powered laser at Ruby's arm, citing that she'd be more valuable with both arms operational.

Finally opening the box, Ruby was stunned to reveal a white orb. Gingerly lifting it, Ruby turned it around to see a replica of the silver visible on her right eye. Ruby had to stop herself from dropping the little ball in surprise, her ears twitching heavily in agitation as she looked up at him. "S-Shen, that's a joke, right?"

"No joke here Ruby. I did the mechanics, and Vahlen added her own little adjustments, mostly the biomechanical functionality and responses. All you have to do is, to put it crudely, stick that into your eye, the right way around, of course, and it'll automatically connect itself. Plus, it isn't just an eye. Go ahead and give it a shot." Shen said, still smiling as Ruby looked at the eye closely.

"Shen...t-this is...I.." Ruby started, for the first time in the base at a complete loss for anything to actually say, eventually settling for a simple, "Thank you." Getting up, she gave the older engineer a slow and sincere hug, far from the usual hugs she gave out, one that Shen returned after a moment. Returning her attention to the little box, Ruby picked the eye back up, looking once more into the same silver she saw in the mirror, before spinning it around and leaning her head back, opening her eyelids with her fingers.

She mentally thanked Vahlen for removing her stitches as she slowly slid the eye into place, shuddering at the feeling of a foreign object being pushed into her head like that. The instant the eye was settled in, Ruby almost fell over as a flood of sensations rushed across her face, only being held up by Shen, though it settled just as fast as it came, and her vision became blurry, as her body tried to re-adjust to having two viewpoints again.

After a few moments, the blur started fading out, and Ruby marvelled at having depth perception again. After living in the base with only a single eye for such a long time, being able to see normally again was like not realizing she hadn't been able to breathe properly the entire time. Interrupting her though, Shen poked Ruby in the shoulder, watching her take a last look around before focusing on him, marvelling at how...different the world was with both eyes again.

"You know, it's not just an eye Ruby. Vahlen is actually the one to thank for realizing it, but she decided that, instead of just giving you normal vision, we could add a few...extras. Unfortunately, since we have no basis to go off, we can't make it respond to mental commands or anything like that, but we came up with the next best thing." Shen then raised his sleeve, revealing a small, almost bracelet-like object on his arm, which he slid off and handed to Ruby.

"On that little bracelet are buttons to change your vision. Of course, since it only has an effect on one eye, might be a good idea to close your other eye when you aren't using normal sight, since super-imposing the two different images would probably cause a bit of a headache. Then again, since your brain already separates the audio between your two different ears, you might have an easier time of it."

Shen watched her slip the bracelet on, then stepped in close, pointing out buttons to Ruby and labelling them for her. "That one is for thermal, that's a zoom, and that one is night vision. Now, this last one is going to be disorienting for you, but bear with it." Shen then reached over and pressed the last button, and Ruby watched as text appeared in front of her vision. "This one gives you a heads-up display. You can use it to display a couple of things like a clock, a map, stuff like that, though you'll need to have it updated with that kind of information if it changes, but we can handle all that later. The last trick is the best one." Handing Ruby her rifle, she watched as text attached itself to the weapon, telling her how many rounds were loaded into the weapon.

Reaching into one of the pockets of his jacket, Shen revealed several black bands, which looked honestly like hairbands or something to Ruby. When she looked to the engineer for an explanation, he smiled. "These are, to put it bluntly, trackers." Slipping on onto his arm and fiddling it for a moment, Ruby winced when suddenly her vision changed and she could see him, or rather an icon above his arm. "Your new eye can keep track of the location of these trackers, and it'll even let you see them through walls and floors. Pretty handy for a sniper, huh? If you used a decent rifle, I'm sure you'll find all kinds of uses for it. Knowing you, you'll probably end up using them to triangulate blind shots, huh?"

Smirking, Ruby closed her real eye, letting her vision be supplied by her entirely fake eye, and marvelling at the sheer absurdity of what she was looking at. It reminded her of home, and of how Velvet, one of the older faunus huntresses-in-training, was always playing around with hard-light constructs. What she could see was remarkably similar, though of course when she stuck her hand through the floating text that was displayed above the rifle, her fingers just slipped through it like it wasn't there...because it wasn't. The thought of seeing something nobody else could gave Ruby a bit of a headache.

After wrapping her head around the fact that she was looking at something that her eye was forcing her to was strange, Ruby glanced around the room with a gleam in her eye, affixing Shen with a predatory look. "So, how does it update? I'm guessing you had to manually input this rifle so it knew how many bullets it carried and how many are loaded into a magazine right? Or does it automatically count based on the size of the bullets and the magazine and made an educated guess?" Ruby roted off her questions in rapid fire, whilst simultaneously hopping around the room snatching up items and looking closely at them, each time surprised when her eye tried to provide any useful information it could find.

"Sort of. Ruby slow down please." Shen said, sticking a hand out to stop the girl from darting around like an errant storm. "Right now, your eye uses the internet to try to provide the best guess it can, though it's not perfect...look, the eye is complicated, alright? And one of a kind. If we could make one for every soldier who lost an eye we would, but it's a one-time item, do you understand? Central gave us direct permission to make it for you, but we can't do it again."

"But...why would you give it to me?" Ruby asked innocently, her ears tilting to the side and adding to her already emotive face. The fact was that she was literally just an engineer. A good one, sure, thanks to her maturity, small stature, and general enjoyment for anything to do with mechanics and engineering, but not someone that would require such a high-tech piece of equipment to be made for.

"Ruby, I don't know if you've properly realized this yet, but the Commander wants...no, needs you in top fighting condition. If you had only one eye, you'd be fighting worse than normal, right? And considering how excellent of a sniper you are with just one eye, I'm sure every percent better you are counts for more than you could know, especially when you'll be being measured against the other snipers." Shen said with an easy smile. "And hey, don't get all sappy on me again. You know, the better you do out there, the more likely it is that we'll find another Hyperwave Relay and you'll get the chance to go home. Hopefully this time we'll be able to keep the damn thing stabilized and open the portal properly."

Smirking, Ruby turned her attention back to the rifle in her hands, cocking her head and pulling the bolt back. "Well, probably should do it with something a bit stronger than this old girl huh?" Hefting the rifle in her hands, Ruby ran her hand down the stock, across the receiver and up the barrel, before gently setting the rifle down on a table. "Not to say she's a bad gun, but against some of the stuff you've told me about, it'd be like throwing pebbles, huh?"

Laughing, Shen stepped towards the door, waving a hand for Ruby to join him. "Let's go get you some kit. What were you working on anyway?" Shen asked, gesturing towards the seemingly random components scattered across her workbench. Ruby followed his gaze, rubbing her hand against the back of her neck, before eventually shrugging and gesturing at it all leisurely.

"Secret."

Rolling her shoulders again, Ruby winced at the weight her new armour piled onto her.

Despite her protestations that since her aura had protected her from that Elerium explosion surely it'd do the same if she got shot at, Central was adamant that she wear something protective, though when Shen told her that since their heavy-hitters were all using the Carapace armor and she'd have to make do with standard body armor, Ruby was rather adamant that she have the lightest possible armour, a sentiment Shen fortunately shared, though it took some arguing to get that point across.

Her aggravation at the armour was off-set by the permission that Central gave that she could finally enter the armoury and pick out a weapon to use. Immediately bee-lining for the sniper rifles, Ruby felt her cape get snagged on something, and she was almost dragged over by a hulk of a man, easily more than a full half her height taller than her, who swatted her hand when she tried to touch the gun again. "Don't touch my gun." The man barked out, though Ruby was too surprised that the absolute giant was a sniper like her to care.

After a moment, she processed his words, cocking her head and letting her ears flop sideways, smirking as his eyes were drawn to them instantly. "Wait, your gun? But Shen said I could pick anything in here! Shen, you lied to me!" Ruby yelled jokingly, watching the engineer finish his brief conversation with the quartermaster and look between her and her assailant with a sheepish smile.

"I think I can guess what happened here. When I said any gun, I should have specified, any of the guns which have no tags attached to them. Any that do are personal weapons which have been modified and are only used by a single person. Now, Ruby, may I introduce you to Strike One's sniper, Major Casey 'Nixer' Jenkins. And Jenkins, as you could probably put together, you are holding onto the cape of Deputy Head Engineer and Sniper, Corporal Ruby Rose, who Central has just authorized to and I quote Ruby in saying this 'play with the fun toys.' And, just because she hasn't got a nickname yet, that hasn't stopped a bunch of the guys from calling her 'Red'."

"Wait, this short-stack is the sniper everybody's been talking about?" Casey said, letting go of Ruby's cape and crouching down to her level, ignoring the glare she was levelling him. "But you said she only had one eye?" He said. "Then again, these are a dead give-away." He gestured at the ears atop Ruby's head, ghosting his hand over them and smirking when they twitched about.

"She does. One of them is a fake one." Shen said, ignoring Ruby's surprise and full-focus pout to snag a rifle off of one of the nearby weapon racks. "Now, Ruby, this is a-" Shen began, though was interrupted when Ruby all but knocked him over in her haste to grab the weapon, looking over it carefully, almost willing the weapon to speak to her and tell her its secrets.

"WAIT DON'T TELL ME!" She yelled at him when she realised he was going to explain, running her hands over the weapon lovingly, unfolding the bipod, twisting the dials on the scope and inspecting every inch closely, her ears twitching about like mad in her excitement. "This actually looks kind of similar to Neptune's rifle...but there's no actual matter in the chamber...it's a laser rifle isn't it?" Ruby said, raising her view from the weapon to look at Shen, who just had a smile on his face as he nodded.

"You know, if you want we can get you two a room." Casey cut in, gesturing between Ruby and the rifle she was still caressing. Smirking, she lifted the rifle, looking it up and d own more closely before frowning. She'd never been allowed to touch anything high-tech, at least as far as weapons went, the rifle in her room was the only weapon she was able to even get close to, so she had no idea how it actually operated really.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to do that. While I'm confident I could take her apart, I'd probably never be able to put her back together again. No, I'll do that later." She said, all but purring at the weapon she was cradling in her arms. It was a shame that she couldn't do just that, but the problem was that too much of it was alien technology and was reverse-engineered, so it was way too complicated for her to properly disassemble unassisted.

"Well, Ruby, I'm glad to see you appreciate a good weapon!" The giant of a man said with amusement tintin his voice. "Now, I've heard your shooting distances, and I can't say I believe that a chibi like you would pull those kinds of shots off that easily. What say you and I head over to the shooting range and you can get a few hundred shots off with that beauty? Better than the junker you were apparently using in any case." Casey said, gesturing towards a door and smiling when Ruby nodded enthusiastically.

After snagging a few charge packs off a nearby shelf, Casey grabbed his own rifle, slinging it over his shoulder and smirking at the look of adoration Ruby gave the weapon, one of the few prototype Plasma Sniper Rifles Shen had put together, before striding towards the gun range. Ruby followed close behind, talking animatedly with Shen about the weapons they were carrying. Shen had made most of the advanced weapons personally, so he knew the ins and outs of each and every single advanced gun there.

Ruby then quirked her head, realising something she missed. "By the way Shen, why didn't you tell me they came up with a nickname? I don't mind being called Red, it actually reminds me of someone back home, but I would want to know about it at least." Ruby said with amusement, catching Casey off-guard and almost making him drop one of his charge packs.

"I mean, my own nickname kind of means Ender or Canceller, which is pretty badass if you ask me. But hey, if Red is what you want to call yourself, that works. Most nicknames are recorded though, then used to keep things short and sweet on the comms, so you can't switch once you've had one specified." Ruby looked down at the crimson armour she was wearing, tugged a lock of her crimson hair, then twitched her ears. "Point taken." Casey said with a smirk that she mirrored.

Stepping into the gun range, Casey laid his weapon down on the table, arraying his energy packs to the side and stepping to the next bay, waving Ruby over, taking the weapon from her hands and laying it down similarly. "Now, I'm sure you know enough about gun safety to not be an idiot, right?" Watching Ruby closely when she nodded, Casey pointed at the weapon. "Well, what are some do's and do not's around weapons?" he said, crossing his arms when Ruby frowned at him.

"What, don't you trust me? Whatever. Don't look down the barrel, finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot, don't point it at anything you don't want to put a hole into, always treat the weapon like it's loaded, don't shoot inebriated, and don't let other people touch your gun. That good enough for you?" Ruby said with a smirk, pointedly leering towards Casey's weapon at her last point.

"Yeah, I figured, just wanted to be sure, no need to get snippy. I'd hate to have to explain why you shot yourself by accident. Now, let's do a little competition. I'll send my target downrange and shoot it, you match the distance. We'll keep going until one of us misses the target three times consecutively. Sound fair? Good." He ended, stepping out of Ruby's bay and into his own, loading his rifle and punching in a hundred-metre distance for the target, sending the plate down-range and watching Ruby's follow it.

"Hang on a sec. Can I do a few practice shots? I've never fired this thing before so I want to figure out the zeroing for the scope!" Ruby asked quickly, her head leaning around the wall separating the two firing positions. The fact was that she expected zero drop, so adjusting the scope should basically be just setting it to a straight line following the barrel, then aiming up by a few inches as the barrel was beneath her scope.

When Casey just nodded at her, she moved to the next booth along, sending the target half the distance out and firing a single shot, immediately yelping in an aggravatingly high pitch as an ear-piercing noise pelted her ears, which drew the attention of the other two. Shaking her head a few times to clear the ringing, Ruby lifted her hands and rubbed her ears, looking towards the others which made her realise that Shen was speaking to her. "-at's wrong?"

A few moments went by before Ruby realized what he was asking, and she cringed in response. "The laser made a really nasty high-frequency sound, but only my primary ears picked it up, my normal hearing heard what I guess you guys hear, so I need to protect one set but not the other. I should have thought of that, to be honest." She said with a sigh, pulling her custom-made primary ear earmuffs onto her head then turning back to her target and firing a few shots off, each time adjusting her scope to get the correct line-up. Nodding to herself once that was done, the wolf sniper re-entered her own booth and called out to Casey. "Okay, I'm ready!" She said, turning to the side to watch him take his shot.

Rolling his shoulders, Casey hefted his weapon, folding his left arm under the barrel and resting the gun in the crook of his arm, crouching down and stabilizing himself, crosshairs centred on the ugly face of the sectoid target. After a few moments of steadying his aim, the sniper fired, the plasma spearing straight through his targets head. Smiling, Ruby moved to take up her own rifle, settling it in both hands as she lined her crosshairs up on the target before her. After a moment's debate, she decided for a little flair, firing twice in half a second and putting both rounds into her target's eyes, then placing the weapon down again and looking back at Casey with a grin.

Ignoring the polite clapping from Shen and the few other people who came to the range to watch, Casey reached up from his position, sending the target further downrange before coming to stop at a very respectable two-hundred metre distance. Adding a little of his own flair, Casey put a shot through both knee-caps of the sectoid, finishing it with another lance of plasma through the head. Smirking, he turned to watch Ruby through the glass between them as she just blew some hair out of her eyes, shouldering her rifle and standing fully, putting three shots in quick succession in a line across her targets forehead, and winking when she turned to look at the assembled audience the pair had.

Grunting his approval, Casey decided to up the ante, sending the target to a much greater range, which Ruby again sent her target straight out to match with no hesitation. Lining his rifle up, Casey cursed when the first beam of plasma missed the actual target outline by a scant centimetre, immediately firing again and watching the plasma streak through the lung of the target.

Frowning, Ruby took her rifle up, hefting it a few times before sighing and looking through the scope. Normally she would use Crescent Rose as a giant bipod, but of course she didn't have her beloved weapon any longer. She pushed those thoughts away immediately, refocusing on her crosshairs. Once she felt stable enough, Ruby took her shot, watching the laser flash in the air and strike her target in the arm. Not a killing shot though, so she kept herself stable, having suffered no recoil from the laser-based weapon, and took her second shot, this time striking the head of the sectoid as she adjusted hher aim, glancing towards Casey as she gave an earnest smile.

All but punching the buttons, Casey sent his target out even further, grimacing when Ruby sent her own to the same distance and cocked her head towards him. Lying down and deploying his bipod, the sniper took notably longer to fire this time, taking several breaths to steady his aim, and firing. The plasma burned through the air, and missed the target by a notable margin. Adjusting, Casey fired again, and again his shot missed his target, though closer this time.

Risking a glance at Ruby, he almost groaned when she was just looking at him with a raised eyebrow, turning quickly back to his scope and lining up his third shot, swearing quietly when it only singed the border of the sectoid target. Unloading his rifle, Casey settled it down on the table in front of him, taking a breath before looking at Ruby and gesturing at the range. "Can you hit that?" He asked, and then watched as Ruby blinked a few times before she let a smirk slip onto her face.

"I can do one better than just hit that." She said wryly, stepping over to her distance selector and sending the target much further than Casey's had been. Sure, it was an arrogant boast, but the fact was that she hadn't even used the bipod yet, nor laid prone, and had still hit that target. It wasn't that Casey was bad, far from it, but she had grown up around guns and weapons and knew them intimately. Hell, she literally used an oversized sniper-scythe as a method of propulsion and death at the same time.

From spending so much time taking with Shen, Vahlen and occasionally Central, it had become quite clear that she possessed reflexes and abilities beyond what was normal on Earth. For example, being able to strike bullets out of the air with her weapon, it wasn't something that could be achieved by humans on Earth. And so, it led her to wonder what else was different. Casey was able to shoot far, sure, but she'd shot further.

Unfolding the bipod, Ruby laid herself down flat on the floor, resting the legs of the bipod on the ground in front of herself and positioning herself to look down the scope. "This is why Central doesn't want me to just be an Engineer. Not that he's prying me away from that of course." Ruby murmured the last words just barely loud enough to be audible, turning her attention back to the range and aiming her rifle.

Breathing out slowly, Ruby let her weapon sing, firing shots through each of the target's limbs, then a shot in the center of the chest and between the eyes, rounding it off with a shot to the groin and her last shot between the eyes again. Smiling, Ruby took the energy cell out of her own weapon, laying the rifle down and smiling at the stunned sniper next to her. "Yeah, I can hit that.

Ruby turned, exiting the room and looking forward to finding a project to disassemble in the Foundry.

"Ruby Rose."

The voice interrupted Ruby while she was busily taking apart a scope, making her jump, as she never heard the door to the workshop open, nor the footsteps that approached her, though that may have been because her primary ears were covered by her customized earmuffs. Leaning backwards to look at the person who spoke over her shoulder, Ruby frowned when she didn't recognise her. "Yeah?" She asked simply, watching the figure as a small smile appeared on her face. "if you want me to demonstrate my sniping skills, go watch the recordings."

The unidentified woman waved her hand casually. "Don't worry, I've already seen the recordings, and between them and everything Shen has said about you, I probably know more about you than you'd expect." She said mysteriously, garnering Ruby's full attention as she put the scope down and turned on her stool, giving the person her full attention as she contemplated who it could even be.

"O..okay? Then why are you here, and who are you?" Ruby asked, tilting her head, and unconsciously making her ears mimic the action. She didn't recognise the woman at all, so who she was remained a mystery. She could have been sent to fetch her or perhaps give her some information or a request, but if she had, she wouldn't have wasted so much time casually talking to her.

"Let's just say I wanted to get your measure personally. It's not every day that XCOM receives a friendly visitor from another world, now is it? And, if you haven't put it together yet, quite frankly I'm disappointed, though Central did remark that your engineering and sniping aptitude outweighed your deduction and planning skills somewhat." The woman said with a smirk, putting a hand on her hip as she waited.

Piecing it together, Ruby tried to figure out who it actually was stood in front of her. "Wait a minute...Central makes remarks at you, and Shen talks with you...Commander?!" Ruby exclaimed, eyes widening when the woman nodded, before they narrowed again. "You know, I was told to never expect to meet you, so I feel like I could be forgiven for not putting it together faster." She grumbled, folding her arms.

Unfortunately, this just made her smile. "I trust you'll keep this meeting secret, of course, I'm sure you wouldn't want the extra...'popularity' which would come from saying you've met me, now would you?" The woman said, nodding alongside her when Ruby nodded in agreement, in her eyes she had enough 'fame' as it was. "Good. Now, as I said, I've already seen your abilities with a rifle, and considering Shen's praises of your abilities in his Foundry, I daresay losing you wouldn't help us much. I do apologize for the rough stay you had during your first weeks here, but as I'm sure you are now very well aware, we had to be safe. If the aliens found out where we were based, our fight would become...significantly harder."

"Not that I don't appreciate meeting you, which is cool and all, but why are you even here? Surely you could just ask Shen about whether I was being honest, lord knows he can tell when I'm lying about whether I know what happened to stuff sometimes." At the face the Commander made, Ruby put her hands up in defence. "It's not my fault Elerium's so unstable okay?! I thought I could use it to permanently power scopes so we didn't have to change their power packs, and enhance their magnification. It's not my fault it melted out of its containment instantly!" Ruby yelled, pouting when the elusive Commander, a figure Ruby had a mental image as someone shrouded in darkness and mystery, someone unflappable like Professor Ozpin, burst out laughing with one hand over her mouth.

"I can see you definitely take after Vahlen in that regard. Pushing ahead without due caution. I read the incident reports involving you and Elerium, you're lucky you still have both arms." The Commander said, wiping tears from her eyes and smiling at Ruby. "I needed that, thank you, Corporal. I've spent far too long around straight-laced people, having a laugh like that is nigh-impossible. Of course, I have to do so anonymously, and yes, that is confirming the rumour I'm sure Shen has told you, I do actually walk around the base posing as a 'squaddie' occasionally. It's nice to act as a cog in the machine sometimes."

"I don't envy you, paperwork is scary." Ruby said, shuddering at the thought of a desk covered in papers to read and sign. All too often when she was in Ozpin's office after a missiopnm, she could see the hideously copious amount of paperwork he had, which explained why he was always sipping at coffee, lord knew the man spent enough time behind his desk being worn down by the endless pages.

"Well, I have to get back to it, no rest for the wicked, and it'd be bad if I weren't around when someone inevitably has something I need to do. I look forwa-" Just as she was speaking, a loud klaxon began to blare, jolting Ruby out of her seat immediately. After just a half-second, a message began to be reported over the entire base, making her immediately shove her earmuffs over her primary ears due to the volume.

"ALERT! ALIEN TERROR ATTACK IN PROGRESS! STRIKE-1, CORPORAL RUBY ROSE, ASSEMBLE AT THE SKYRANGER IMMEDIATELY!" The loud message left Ruby flat-footed as she realised that she was actually being called to fight. The Commander took only a moment to smile towards a stunned Ruby before darting off to wherever she commanded from, leaving Ruby to take a moment to shake herself from her stupor before she ditched her tools and ran for the door, mind racing.

Running through the Headquarters, Ruby noted the controlled panic currently going on, as people ran to and fro, preparing supplies or generally doing tasks Ruby couldn't figure out, though all cleared the way for Ruby, allowing her passage to the Skyranger to pass by quickly, and after a few minutes, Ruby arrived, noting the heavily armoured figures stood in a line and already ready to go.

Running over to them, Ruby waved at Casey, who beckoned her over, reaching out to rustle her hair at the same time as he spoke. "Looks like this is your trial by fire. I heard it's New York getting hit, so plenty of buildings for us to set up in. Now, go get your kevlar on, I heard Shen has a last-minute gift for you." Casey said, giving her a gentle shove towards one of the nearby armour and equipment racks.

Donning the armour quickly, Ruby let her mind wander to the future, and she didn't realize she'd been stood thinking for a good minute before Casey laid his hand on her shoulder, snapping her from her thoughts. "Come on, we're getting the briefing on the Skyranger. Don't forget to grab your rifle." He said, waving his hand at the rifle on the wall. Ruby shook her head, bounding over to pick the weapon up and sling it across her back, then smiling up at him and jogging over to the Skyranger, her quick pace matched by Casey, who frowned at her but said nothing when she raised an eyebrow. "Ruby!" The voice of Shen called out, the man jogging over with a few small gadgets in his hands.

"What's wrong Shen?" Ruby asked, curious when he handed her one of the items in his grasp. Looking over it, she could see a hook attached to the end, and what looked a bit like wire leading into the device itself, but she couldn't see a way to actually operate it. "Uhh, Shen, mind not giving me weird stuff right before I have to go fight aliens?" The man chuckled, gesturing for her to give it back.

"Well, first, you kind of forgot to bring the tag bracelets for the team." He said, shaking his head and chuckling when Ruby rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Don't worry, I brought some. Here." He handed the tags to Casey, who gave them a close look before taking one and passing the rest down the line. "Now, to those of you who don't know, Ruby has a fake eye. Those bracelets will tell her where you are, that way she's very unlikely to friendly fire you, and if you give her accurate callouts, I'm sure she'd be able to assist you even if she can't directly see the opposition." He then twisted the object in his hands over.

"Now, this, Ruby, is a salvaged bit of kit I took from one of the Skeleton Suits we had, and you can thank Casey for breaking it!" Shen said with a look towards the man, though the smile on his face offset the stinging words he used. "Since the armor was beyond repair, Central seemed all too happy for me to pull it apart, and I figured you'd appreciate the grapple function this little number has. Both of you." Shen gestured towards Casey, who was in his own Skeleton Suit, wincing as he presumably remembered the circumstances for breaking the original Skeleton Sui.

"So, how does it actually work?" Ruby asked, taking it from him and strapping it to her arm then looking it over closely. Reaching over, Shen pointed out a few well-hidden buttons and explaining which did what. There was one for firing the grapple, one for reeling it in, one for releasing the claws of the grapple, thus allowing her to unhook it from below, then an emergency wire-cut that would detach it entirely, but that was only used in really bad situations, like an alien grabbing the wire or grapple itself. After that was done, Shen departed the landing pad with a wave, leaving Ruby to follow Casey into the Skyranger, taking a seat and setting her rifle down with the rifle-butt against the floor as the aircraft sealed up and lifted off.

Her very first sortie against 'aliens'...she just hoped it'd go well.