"Wow, you've had all this to yourself?" Yang looks around your room built for four people.

"Yep. It's been pretty nice."

"I'd say so. My room is half this big."

"Mine, too," Ruby says. "But we're gonna share!"

"Ruby, I told you that won't happen unless we get placed on the same team." Yang suddenly gets an idea and looks at you. "Come to think of it, if you've been here all this time, then do you know how we get paired up?"

You shrug. "Oz kept that a secret from me. I got nothing."

"Almost had him," Yang said, shaking her fist at the ceiling. "The gods have foiled me again." She tosses her bag on one of the beds you weren't using and sits down. "Ahhh it's so nice to have SPACE again."

"I very much enjoy not touching other people," Ruby whispers, far more comfortable now that she wasn't in a crowd. "Thanks for letting us in."

"No problem! I've been pretty much on own since I got here."

"What's up with that, by the way?" Yang asks, falling back onto the bed. "Why are you living here?"

You take a moment to think. Deciding on something that wasn't necessarily wrong, you say, "I kinda fell into it. My parents are… off somewhere, but Oz thought it was fine and the semester was starting up soon anyway. Before you ask, no, it's totally cool." You neglect to mention that, while your parents PROBABLY are out there, they may not be anywhere on this planet.

"Fair play. Cool you got set up, though. It's gonna suck not having your own room starting tomorrow."

You scratch the back of your head. "Uh… actually…"

Yang sits up and looks at you. "What?" Ruby also turns, interested.

"More long story short, but I'm not getting assigned a team."

"Why's that?"

"Truth be told, I'm a novice at fighting. Right now, I'd only get in the way. My Aura's also… wonky right now because of some deep injury, so I can't fight anywhere near your level. Oz thought it'd be best to have me heal up and go from there."

"I was wondering about your eye. What the heck happened, anyway?"

You have a sudden flash of inspiration. Covering a few bases, you say, "Car accident. A bad one. My Aura's still keeping me together, but I got pretty messed up. I still have a bit of memory loss, so I'm a bit fuzzy at times."

Ruby zips to your side, inspecting your face. "Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry! Are you okay!?"

"I'm alive." You ease Ruby's mind by raising your arms. "Lotta weird situations with me, so I'm taking it slow. Once I can use my Aura freely, I can go on missions and stuff, but for now, I'm just in training."

"We found a weird one, Rubes. I like him."

"He's not a zoo animal, Yang!"

Your cat ears perk up. You hope they didn't notice. Yang and Ruby were nice, but racism could hide behind all sorts. "Nah, nah, it's fine. Anyway, you wanted to look at my sword?"

Ruby pops up. "Oh, yeah! Show me, show me, show me!"

"Calm down, Ruby. He hasn't even bought you dinner yet."

"Yang!"

Chuckling, you pull your sword off of another empty bed. You decide to maybe organize things a bit more now that you might have people over, but you hand your massive longsword to Ruby, sheath and all. The young girl easily lifts it like it were nothing, despite it still taking you down a few pegs with every swing. Aura control must be crazy…

Ruby inspects the large, reddish brown sheath that was originally displayed with the sword. It was mostly featureless aside from some flame patterns burned into it. Measuring it with her eyes, she estimates the length, then gives you an up and down look. "Hey, can you show me how you carry this really quick?" She held out your sword, waiting for you to grab it. You take it and hang it across your back; it was a bit too long to hang comfortably at your hip without dragging, so you'd been getting used to that. "Ah, okay." Ruby beckons for it back, and you comply.

Ruby continues her survey. You and Yang watch with interest as she pulls the blade out from the sheath a few times, muttering numbers and descriptions to herself. Running her fingers along the sun-styled crossguard, she finds the trigger to the flame function. Finally, she pulls it out completely and inspects the Dust-infused blade. Looking between you and the sword, she focuses on solutions to whatever problems she was facing.

"So? What do you think?"

Ruby puts the sword back into its sheath and hands it back to you. "It's a bit old, but it's a great sword! It can coat itself in fire, right? That's what that mechanism is usually good for."

"Yeah, it does."

"Okay…" Ruby goes over her critiques. "So… you want me to upgrade it, right? Nobody would get angry if I modify it? It looks like it was passed down, so I don't know…"

"You're good. You know better than I do." You hope that whoever owned this sword would be fine with it being upgraded; hopefully, they wouldn't care as long as it was being used. They'd probably never know, anyway.

"Great! So I have a few ideas on how to make it better."

"Shoot."

"Well, I can't do that. It doesn't have a firing mechanism, and adding one wouldn't be worth interfering with the balance and would jeopardize the flame trigger."

"He meant say your suggestions, not actually make it shoot."

Ruby turns red. "I-I-I knew that! I was joking!"

"Sure."

"Your suggestions, please! Sorry." You scratch the back of your head again.

"Whoever used that last was probably a lot taller than you. It's too big to carry around comfortably, so you'll lose time when you draw. The handle is also a bit long for this type of weapon, and I don't see a reason why. With my tools and the workshop, I should be able to modify it so that both can be shortened." Before you have a chance to respond, Ruby continues, breathlessly explaining her decisions. "Shortening the blade will make it more compact and easier to carry. It'll make it easier to pull out, so you can use a modified hip-mounted sheath. I should also be able to add a second trigger that will let you extend the blade to full-length; you're already used to fighting with a longsword, so you'll still have access to that, but you'll also be able to wield it as a shortsword. I can do a similar thing for the handle, so it can be extended as well, allowing for you to use it as a close range stake-driver. It will be slightly lighter as a result, so it loses some attack power from the lost weight but will be slightly easier to lift. I won't be able to add functionality for other Dust types due to the Dust-Metal infusion, but I may be able to fit in an auxiliary attachment that can emit a cloud of Dust which can then be detonated, and you would be able to insert other types there for elemental attacks." You see Ruby suffer a flashback at that last sentence; for some reason, you think back to the explosion you heard when you woke up.

You blink. It takes about a full three minutes before you process what Ruby said. Half of it is all the jargon you don't fully understand, but it sounded like she knew exactly what she was talking about and exactly how it would look, function, and weigh just from that description.

"So, you understand why Ozpin was interested in her?" Yang looks at you, beaming with sisterly pride.

"I can see why Ozpin was interested in her."

"And you haven't even seen me fight!" Ruby instinctual reaches for her weapon, her arm grabbing at something that would be mounted on her back hip. "With my Crescent Rose, I can– and I DON'T have Crescent Rose on me! That's embarrassing!" Despite saying that, Ruby already seems pretty comfortable with you around, so she doesn't freak out.

"You just couldn't stick the landing, could you?" Yang teases. "Nah, but she'd be happy to give your sword a tune-up once we get set up tomorrow. I don't think literally all of our classmates would appreciate hearing blowtorches go off all night, so you'll have to wait a bit."

"Yeah, I'd need my tools and to get used to what they have in the workshop here, but I'd be happy to help!"

You look expectantly at your sword and then back to Ruby. Though, it crosses your mind that Ruby didn't say anything about payment. If she was going to tune up your sword and out what sounded like a ton of work into it, you don't want to skimp her. You ask, "So you'd really be cool doing all of that? Like, did you need me to buy parts or anything?"

"Nah, I should have all I need. I got a lot of spare parts from Crescent Rose, and nothing in your sword would require any custom parts."

"What's she saying is that she'll happily do it for the low, low price of dinner for three~" Yang says, a seductively devilish smile on her face. "Not to strongarm you, but I think such a huge improvement to your sword warrants at least two Monster Mac meals." She tilts her head, making herself look as cute as possible.

Ruby turns to her sister. "Yang! Why does he have to buy YOU food, too!? You're not gonna be doing anything!" She looks back at you, nervously. "Not that I was gonna ask you to buy me food… I'M thankful enough that you gave me an excuse to leave the ballroom."

"Middleman fee," Yang justifies, laughing. "I introduced you, plus, you should NEVER work, 'for exposure.' You got talent, might as well make it worth your time."

You reassure Ruby, saying, "It's fine. That's the least I could do to repay you." You don't think buying fast food would hurt that much. Sure, you don't have a ton of money, but you'd be earning plenty and it's not like you have much to pay for; you don't pay rent, the cafeteria opens up tomorrow, and you're set on clothes for now. You can spare some change for the sake of friendship and badass sword mods. "Just let me know when you're all set up and you can go at it. We can grab dinner right after you're done."

"Great! I look forward to it," Yang says, despite this being Ruby's project. You wonder if the blonde sneaks in favors like this often.

"I'll let you know once I've finished tuning up Crescent Rose! I need to see what I'm working with at Beacon, so I need to work on her first to get used to things."

"It's settled then!" You're glad that Ruby is good to tune up your weapon, but she also makes you realize something. You didn't really think that a weapon name would be important, but Ruby has mentioned Crescent Rose several times by this point; you should probably think up a good name for your sword before she asks about it. You want to make it seem like your sword was passed down through your family, so it needs a name. That's a problem for later, though. "I'm good whenever."

"Same." Yang looks at her scroll. "That said, it's probably time to head back to the ballroom. They probably don't want us running around all night, and I KNOW you don't want me telling dad you spent your first night at Beacon sleeping in a boy's room."

"I very much do not want that!"

"Glad we're in agreement." Yang nods at you. "Hey, while we're here, mind if we use your bathroom to change? I got my pajamjams in my bag, and if we don't do it now, we're gonna have to wait for the ballroom bathrooms to free up."

"I hadn't thought of that…" Ruby mutters. "Yeah, that's a good idea."

"Go for it."

"Sweet!" Yang hoists up her bag and goes over to the bathroom to change. "No peeking~" she says in a manner that is far more flirty than it is threatening. You wonder if she would mind, but you feel like keeping your face intact, so you don't think of risking it; Yang was an attractive woman, with a great body, and fun personality, and some very impressive muscles on her, which also meant she could probably break every bone in your body should you perv on her. You're content to enjoy the fact that there's a hot girl undressing mere feet from you. That's a nice thing to think about.

Yang comes out dressed in a tiny set of short shorts and a tight orange tank top. As Ruby goes to change, you admire Yang's bare arms; without her sleeves, you see that she's pretty jacked, which belied the image you would normally associate with a spunky blonde. You wonder if all the girls at Beacon are going to be muscular; Ruby seems a bit smaller, but her sister definitely sets a good standard for your taste in Amazons (does that term even exist here? What's an Amazon again? Whatever, muscle girls are hot).

You and Yang make small talk until Ruby comes out of the bathroom in a black tank top and an adorable pair of rose-print pajama pants. They thank you for the rescue from the crowd and the opportunity to change, then say goodbye. You wave them off, glad to know that you made some good friends on your first day at school.