The clangor of hammers rang out in perfect rhythm.

The roar of bellows punctuated each measure.

The crackling of welders accented each beat and brought it all together.

Ruby stood at the highest platform the factory, surveying all of the work being done. Absentmindedly, she etched channels into the wires as they were deposited at the side of her special workbench. There were some things that a hundred hands could do faster than she could, drawing wires from the stock was one of them. But, no matter how much she tried to explain the right way to pull the lightning brush over them, Yang was the only one who could do it properly.

It was so easy, you just needed to wait for the acid drop to be in the right location then move with a constant speed. The copper bristles would draw the acid along and etch at the same time! Of course, it took everything lining up just right for the technique to work. Something that most people could rarely count on happening once, let alone every stroke.

The only way it made sense was as part of her power as Anathema. Before her fingers, the entire world was an instrument that produced impossible works. Even when she had to lead others, they moved to the proper beat through happenstance and a little bit of nudging.

Ruby reached for the threads surrounding her and plucked a pair that were vibrating too violently. She counter-balanced the chaotic, raging power that could throw everything else off. The furnaces lit by Yang's green flames were more than worth it, but they always needed babying.

"Ruby!" A young man, Russ, ran up to her, bundle of wires in his arms. The end of one was perilously close to the trigger of his pistol, but Ruby could see that the safety was on. He pulled the top one out, perfectly straight with no metal bulges. "I did it!"

"Great job!" She cheered and tapped at the bin on the side of her table. "Put 'em there."

Last week, most of them would have been bent. But, Russ had spent more time than anyone else focusing on her lessons. He even took very detailed notes! Hopefully those notes would help out when he 'vanished' and turned back into Atlas' Captain Lowe. A diligent and skilled engineer who just happened to already know of a few techniques that Ruby had to discover on her own? Already suspicious. But an outsider who "couldn't help joining up when the Anathema took over"? That was too much. Spy was the only option, something she'd confirmed by looking into his future. Oh well. If Atlas wouldn't accept her sending them plans directly, the spying still got them out there. Losing Russ' help in around a month's time would suck, but he wasn't her only skilled technician. Not anymore.

Ruby picked up her radio and said, "Group three to my station to review lathe techniques in five minutes. Captain Ruby will show you what to do."

She pulled a ball yellow energy from her belt and double checked how frayed her teaching identity was. With each lecture, it got weaker and weaker, but pretending there were ten or so girls named Ruby Rose was easier than trying to explain the truth over and over. Between that construct and the blessings she'd put on their city, anyone could learn everything she knew. Even old men and women, who had spent decades without developing their skills, could pick up a tool they'd never seen before and work magic with it.

"I… Umm…" Pearl, one of the detailers, hesitated as she approached Ruby's station. She had a simple yellow robe on, a pair of hand-axes attached to her toolbelt. "Are you Ruby, the sister of Lady Yang?"

"Yep." Ruby grinned, though her mouth was strained at the edges. That was the one problem with pretending to be so many people. Each Ruby looked slightly different and, more importantly, was remembered as a different person. So, even if any given individual was able to put two and two together once, that wouldn't help them the second or third or fifth time. "What's up?"

"I… I wanted to know if you knew when Lady Yang would be returning. It's been some time since we felt her blessing and we..." Pearl's eyes dropped to the ground as her cheeks turned bright red.

"I don't know, sorry," Ruby lied. When one of Yang's... people… asked to work for her, of course she said yes. She needed all of the help she could get. But, it'd be nice if they kept that stuff away from her… and also their work… but mostly her. "Is there any problem with your station?"

"Oh no?" She shook her head. "Everything is fine. I just miss…"

"I get it." She really didn't. "But, I'm sure you'll all… feel when she gets back."

Pearl's eyes lit up as she bowed and walked away.

Ruby sighed, checking on her current piece. Stupid awful dumb-

"Lady Ruby, if I may have a moment." His voice was like a needle scratching a record. It brought her symphony to a screeching halt.

After taking a deep breath through her teeth, Ruby glanced to her side. A tall man wearing dark red robe had his head bowed. The rose symbol on his bandanna was staring at her instead of his eyes. The scythe that he insisted on building, even if it was actually more dangerous to him than his enemies, poked over his shoulder.

"What is it, Robin?" Ruby asked without turning from her wires. Of all of the people to remember her, no matter the disguise, it had to be him. If this was another invitation to their daily prayer, she was going to… Stand there and be uncomfortable because they were so close to finishing phase two and if she sucked it up, they'd get back to work faster.

Robin looked up, eyes sparkling like a school girl's despite him being dad's age. "My Lady, your presence has been requested at the seventh section. Your devoted are-"

"Are they putting up the spikes or performing a ceremony?"

"The prayer has concluded." The pain in his voice was too obvious. "However, there's been a disagreement about which strut to begin work on next."

Ruby felt a headache coming on. They weren't supposed to still be on struts.

"Let them know that... I'll be there in five minutes," Ruby said without meeting his eyes. Acknowledging it would just encourage him. Better to be… cold and bureaucratic about it. "That should be enough time to finish the next batch."

"By your will." He bowed as deeply as he could. Ruby couldn't contain the grimace and shudder anymore, but at least he didn't see it. No, no, no: this was all so gross and… bleh.

She took her time with the last set of wires, powered off her bench, and picked up her radio. "I'm heading out for a bit. Group three, continue at your stations until I return. Everyone, reduce total output to sixty percent."

Without her listening for an energy buildup, something catastrophic might happen. It was another skill that she hadn't figured out how to teach Blake, let alone normal people. All of them were blind and deaf to the wonders of the world. There had to be a better way… maybe when they had Weiss around again she'd be able to figure it out with sorcery-stuff.

Ruby shrugged her current identity off and hopped down. There was a straight path from her forge to the northern wall. Ruby stepped onto the road and ran. The world blurred as she shot forward, her steps clearing blocks in second while a flurry of rose petals fell behind her. She darted between pedestrians, cars, and the remains of houses, invisible to any who could not sense Aura. Exploded buildings were easier, she just hopped over them. Thanks to losing all of the people against anathema rule, more than two thirds, no one really complained when she had Yang tear them down to make the energy flows better.

Within a minute, she'd reached the wall.

Once upon a time, it must have looked incredible: granite bricks held with rosewood facing. If she had her way, as much of it would be preserved as they could manage. But, they didn't have enough time, so the entire wall was covered in scaffolding as they tore bricks free and dug into the packed earth beneath to bury the conduits, wires, and grounding. A crowd had formed around the base. They were shouting loud enough to drown out some of the other construction.

Ruby Rose, Anathema, ran into an alley just before Ruby Rose, journeyman mason, stepped out. A young girl wearing dusty overalls, rather than mechanized armor, who no one needed to take notice of. Even if they weren't likely to recognize her, if one of their 'goddesses' suddenly appeared, no one would give her the information she needed without wasting time on… dumb things.

"You measured incorrectly."

"You didn't dig deep enough."

Cooper and Myst, the heads of her demolition and fabrication team for this section of the wall, were at the center. While they were in uniform, a grey jumpsuit with a leader armband. Ruby took a deep breath and told herself that they at least had their sword belts this time, even if the leather was now decorated with rose petals. The pair were pointing at a conduit that was bowing out of the trench it was supposed to be held in. The strain on the metal was audible, to Ruby, over the shouting. There were specific specifications that they should've followed to keep something like this from happening and-

She groaned as the realization hit her. They shouldn't need her to resolve it, if the problem was as simple as she thought it was.

"Look at this!" Cooper held up a dirt smeared blueprint. Ruby had passed it off to him a couple of weeks ago. At least it was still readable. "This does not match what you brought and we're already a day behind."

"It says seven-hundred and twenty inches long. We brought you exactly that." Myst poked her finger into the trough. "This, on the other hand, is too shallow. The arc is so tight, the walls would warp trying to fit. Low and behold, it's currently bending because of your team's laziness. If it weren't for you, Lady Rose would be-"

"She would-"

Ruby tuned the argument out. It wasn't going anywhere productive. As she pushed forward, the crowd started muttering and shouting, growing in volume as the pair did. It crept up to a low roar when she reached the front. They'd formed two mobs arguing about the best way to earn her favor. Yet, they didn't notice the sound of straining metal, its underlying pattern nearing the breaking point.

She paused for a moment. The vibration was visible to the naked eye.

Neither of them seemed to notice it.

Ruby bit her tongue to avoid saying something inappropriate. When she scanned everyone nearby, only two teenagers seemed like they saw anything. They were off on the side, eyes going wide as it began buckling. One of them tried to speak up, but he was drowned out by a call of, "Her radiance would never!"

With a deafening snap, the conduit tore free. Shards of copper and steel flew through the air, but she couldn't care about those because the long end whipped toward the crowd.

With a pulse of her Aura, Ruby rocketed forward. Petals covered the crowd as she vaulted over them, landing next to Myst.

The end of the band smashed into her bracer. Wires splayed from the shattered frame, wrapping around her arm from wrist to shoulder The middle kept moving past her, knocking both of her "heads" over.

The sharp edges bit into her Aura with as much force of Blake's swords. It drained her enough to force the sigil of Mars to appear on her forehead. A red light fell over the crowd, but her armor was untouched by the damage saved for cosmetic scratches.

"Welp, there goes that identity." Ruby sighed as she took the disguise off.

The crowd fell to their knees, completely silent.

Ruby turned to Cooper and Myst, not offering a hand up. "Don't ever do something like this again. If there's a problem, raise it up instead of… whatever this was."

They stared at her, quivering.

"Every blueprint uses Valish measurements. All of them do. This"- she shook the wire -"is seven-hundred and twenty Vaccuan inches. I don't know if someone read it wrong or used the wrong tools to measure, but..."

Cooper smiled slightly, raising his head.

"And you… don't think you're off the hook."

He shrunk back down.

"Why would you ever put pieces which weren't the right size in? If it's wrong, send it back."

She waited for a moment.

"Well?"

He glanced at her sheepishly, "It was most of the way in when we noticed the issue and it seemed like the more straightforward method of proving my point."

"Urgh." Ruby groaned, looked at the sky. "How many other- no wait, don't answer that."

She listened closely to the flows of energy through the wall. Three others were different then how she'd designed there. "You need to dig up and replace number two, four, and seven."

"That'll set us back two more days."

"And if you don't, then the wall might explode in the middle of battle." Ruby pointed a finger at the wire still looped around her wrist and drew a line of violence from it. The casing exploded as if it was struck by a medium-caliber round, freeing her.

After a long silence, a young man stepped out of the crowd: Cooper's husband, Barley. "O' Lady Ruby, The Girl in Red, Breaker of Beacon, Bane of Hunters, Forge-Mistress, the Absent One, if I may."

Ruby took a deep breath, but waved her hand to continue.

"I beg your mercy for these mistakes." He bowed very low, almost toppling over as his tool belt shifted. "We were merely attempting to hurry the construction and resolve the prior errors that caused us to break from your schedule. It was our hope that you would grace us with your presence upon completion of this section for celebration."

"Okay so, first off, no one's being punished." Ruby said, "If you really want me to be happy, then don't make me come back and fix stuff that's this obvious. This is childsplay. I'd understand if the errors was feeding the wire from the wrong end because Yang and I are the only ones who'd be able to tell which end is wrong, but… units... really?"

"W-we hear and shall obey," Cooper said with a slight stutter. Whispers of acknowledgement and groveling crept from the crowd.

At any other time, Ruby was sure this would have been enough. She looked at the pair who noticed the danger. Both of them went pale. "You two."

They glanced at each other and shivered.

"You're promoted to safety inspectors." Ruby willed a new blessing into existence as she walked towards them. A cool purple light flashed around their bodies as the blessing attached itself.

With her business done, Ruby vanished into a cloud of rose petals.

As the sun came down, Ruby landed next to warehouse five. A wave of darkness had swept into the area several minutes ago and boy did she need to find her. Thankfully, it was easy when her target wasn't trying to hide.

"How do you deal with it, Blake?" Ruby groaned, "They've added another title since last week."

"What is it?" Blake was sitting on a big crate labeled mortar munitions. Three others were next to it along with a machine gun box. The Atlas army could neither stop Blake from stealing these nor maintain their siege if they stopped ordering them. It was sort of perfect. As much as being under the constant threat of attack could be anyway.

"The Absent One."

Blake chuckled, stopped when she turned to Ruby's frown. "Sorry. They're not exactly wrong. You never talk to them and I think half of the city still forgets who you are from time to time."

"Try most of the city and the leaders, despite my wishes, don't forget." Ruby popped the gun box open. Two AM-19's with all of the bells and whistles put them close to what she wanted. "We'll need five more gun boxes like this and another ten of twelve millimeter ammunition. Regular's fine, but armor-piercing would be better."

"Noted."

"Anyway." Ruby closed the lid and double checked Blake for anything wrong. There was technically a risk of fighting every time she went out to steal from Atlas. Despite her teammate's initial resistance, Ruby had reinforced the durability of Blake's longcoat. It was heavier, but it could take small caliber rounds if... when... her Aura broke in a serious fight. "All of them know that Yang's sister, Ruby Rose, is the one they worship, but almost none of them can remember what I look like. So, they keep doing stupid things to try and 'win my favor' while I'm standing there, watching them be stupid."

Blake nodded. "You could actually take over, attend ceremonies, and give them direct orders."

"I went to one and that's one more than I should've. It started off as a normal religious service, even if it was a really uncomfortable one, but turned into a discussion of… Sightings of me and ideas about making me happy and-"

"I mean as their goddess, not as another face in the crowd."

Ruby slumped to the ground, eyeing one of Blake's pockets. It smelled suspicious. "That would be worse! Besides, it's really 'The Girl in Red' who they care about. The terrifying warrior who almost destroyed Vale… not me."

"I don't think that's true, but if you asked Yang to speak with-"

"I'm not going to do that. She already has enough on her plate dealing with her own… cult." Ruby almost spat the word. After waiting a moment for Blake to respond, she poked the bulging pocket. "Are those what I think they are?"

Blake rolled her eyes and pulled out a plain white package. In an instant, it was in Ruby's hands and in another the contents were in her mouth. The chocolate was a little crumbly and not very sweet, the dough was way too moist and sticky, but they were still cookies! Atlas military 'ready to eat' cookies that were supposed to last for twenty years, but cookies nevertheless.

After the number of times they'd stolen all of the chocolate, Atlas stopped ordering it, so there was a terrible cookie drought with no good remedy.

"You could also write down a few rules. That's what I did." Blake continued the prior topic.

Ruby shook her head, mouth too full of to say anything.

"All right then." Blake's cat ears flicked down and back.

After an enormous gulp, Ruby coughed. "It'll be fine. We finish the wall and I won't need to care about it anymore."

"Sure you won't." Blake pursed her lips and shook her head. "Do you know when Yang'll be back?"

Ruby leaned her head back and opened her ears to the sounds the the stars. Even with the sun doing its best to drown them out, she could still clearly hear their signals. "Nope."

"That's a shame." Blake sighed, her voice echoing in Ruby's thoughts. "He's watching us again?"

"Yeah. Yang will actually get into an argument with a girlfriend tomorrow and I kinda doubt you're gonna be the one." Ruby thought back. With the real message delivered, she turned her head to look right at a crow. It was sitting on a power-line, staring right at them. "You can just come down and talk to us. We've been here the entire time and still miss you."

He blinked twice and took flight, the incredible power of his Aura shifting ambient energy around itself. Ruby knew her uncle had always been one of the strongest Hunters. From what she could hear, he seemed to be second only to the Anathema, dwarfing every Atlas specialist by about the same amount that they did him.

"I'm sorry." Blake patted Ruby's shoulder.

"It would be easier if they just forgot about me. Then..." She held a hand over her heart and shook her head. It was just a feeling that she needed to get used to.

A/N: Well, it's thirteen months after I was hoping to be ready. A lot's happened during the past year, most of which can be blamed on the new job. It's the first time my work has seriously mattered in the grand scheme of things and the pressure was real. I think I spent half of the year pulling seventy hour weeks to make sure we released. That pretty much killed any and all energy I had, creative or otherwise, but that's just an excuse. I was still behind before that.

A big focus of mine for book three is going to be fixing my major writing mistakes from before. This is why I'm not going to force any sort of major schedule, since being unwilling to skip a week unless I absolutely had to was the cause of my worst mistakes.