Ruby knew she was being followed, but her robotic and cybernetic arm had been acting up, and she had to –without an issue or comment- use her left hand more than she thought was necessary...

...Or needed.

...Or possible.

Either way, she speedily walked to the balcony, breathing a sigh of relief when she arrived. The stars were out tonight, and her ears flickered from left to right as she caught the sound of distant laughs and hurrahs from the other team leaders.

She lay her arm down on the balcony of the Academy, and that was when her arm acted up again, the motors giving a terrifyingly slow noise; and that was the issue. The casing around the motors was designed specifically to be soundproof so one of two things could have happened.

The casing got damaged, in which case she would have to scavenge for different supplies around Beacon.

Or, the motors and hypo-auto cleansing compartments were damaged, in which case it should be easy to fix with a simple screwdriver. The motors were designed to spin at least as fast as a minigun barrel's speed, which was incredibly fast, and for it to be going slow was something that could actually stop her robotic arm from picking up her nerve signals, and potentially make her invalid in that arm. Since this arm had been designed to be attuned not only to her nervous system, but also her DNA, she doubted she could salvage anything to create a second arm.

But just as she was about to unroll her sleep to see the issue with it, she caught the sounds of a rather stealthy white-haired heiress.

"Nice night." She said, as she approached the now stiffened Ruby, who just ripped her hand away from her sleeve and stared blankly up at the sky. For whatever reason, the sky granted her some peace, and kept her emotions locked inside her; she was no longer shaking- as she hadn't even noticed she was shaking until it stopped- and her breathing evened out.

"Yeah..." Ruby offhandedly added into - what was- a one-sided conversation.

Weiss came to rest her chin with her hands next to Ruby, who figured she was just out here to stare at the sky. She could feel something, though, a rather small nagging feeling, and she obeyed it; she looked to the side- where Weiss was- and saw, as her fears had amounted, that Weiss was staring at her with intensely soft blue eyes.

"W-Why are you staring at me?"

Weiss straightened her back, removing her hands' grip from the balcony. "...Because...I wanted to apologise."

Ruby looked at her quizzically and tilted her head in a manner that could only be described as a puppy in curiosity mode. "What does apologising mean?"

At this Weiss was furious. She had a remarkably nasty comment formed on her tongue, and it just couldn't roll off; the remembrance of what her mother had said, along with the sincere confusion evident in Reaper's tone and tilting of the head only told her one thing; she had no idea- because she was never given it- what an apology was.

"You...don't even know what an apology is?" Reaper shook her head, confirming her rather unneeded fear- Reaper had never been given an apology. "Well...it's like saying sorry for something, and meaning it. Then, you try to make up with the person..."

Reaper's face darkened considerably and she looked down to her right arm, then to Weiss again, and nodded slowly. The last 'apology' she got was "sorry for throwing you in the woods to have your arm ripped off by a beowolf and then subsequently putting you through emotional pain at pretending to be your friend when I wasn't."

Of course, the apology was nothing like that, but it practically summed up what Ruby was feeling in that moment; betrayal, loneliness and anger.

Ruby looked at Weiss, who had an apology with her mouth opening, when Reaper just cut her off. "I...don't want to hear an apology... the last one I got was...bad. But, at least you want to try and make up for it."

Weiss nodded slowly, mimicking Reaper's darkened expression. Just then a voice was heard- well, two.

"Hey, Reaper, there you are." Blake.

"...Yeah! Hey, what're you doing out here with ice princess?" Yang; so insufferable...

"Oh... hey guys. Well...Weiss was...a-apologising for what happened in the E-Emerald F-Forest." Ruby stuttered again, indicating she wasn't exactly pleased to see the blond person, but upon the sight of Blake, she relaxed slightly; somehow, Blake's eyes had a calming tone to them that only Ruby, herself, could see.

"Well...it sounded more like you were trying to say something to her, but we interrupted." Yang's tone of voice had a rather...seductive...tone to it. Rather creepy for Weiss, annoying for Blake and confusing for Reaper, who just tilted her head to the side for a second before she came out of her dazed stupor.

"I...don't want to say it now."

Aw, come on!" Yang whined rather annoyingly, gaining a small groan from Blake and a sheepish shrug of the shoulders from Reaper- or Ruby, unknown to them.

"Well...I for one would like to here what it is you were going to say." Weiss chipped in.

Reaper just shrugged again, contemplating on it, but another half of her thinking against it. Her survival instincts kicked in and she looked around to Blake, who just mouthed the words "only if you want to".

"...Okay...but w-what I s-s-say now...can it stay betwe-between us...?"

They all nodded, and Ruby suddenly lost her nervousness, much as a surprise to them. "Well, meet me in our new dorm and I'll show you instead."

Ruby disappeared in a cloud of rose petals, leaving behind three befuddled and curious teammates, before they followed the general direction of the petals as they fell, ignoring many a teacher's shouts and complaints about running in the halls.

(^^^^^^)

Once they arrived at the dorm, panting and clutching at their sides or knees for support, they saw that the door was open and that was where the petals finished their journey. Reaper must be inside, and they all walked in, greeted by a harsh white light and a rather dull looking dorm room; four beds, a wardrobe and a door leading to an in-dorm bathroom. Other than that, there seemed to be nothing noteworthy in the place; save for maybe the bookshelf.

Blake- as she walked in- saw it and decided that was where her numerous volumes of books could go- to save space, of course.

"Damn, this is our dorm?" Yang asked, and the rest of them slowly nodded in agreement before all eyes were shifted to Reaper, who regained her courage and shut the door, before turning around and walking over to one of the beds; she used her left hand and her right hand slightly to turn it over, much to the confusion and mild annoyance of one white haired Weiss; yang just looked at her with amazement- not even she could lift one of these beds with one hand- and Blake just noted this down for later, raising an eye quizzically as Ruby slowly undid her leather jacket's sleeves.

She seemed to be having trouble with her right sleeve, and looked down with a slight blush of embarrassment. "Y-Yang, C-Could y- you help?"

Yang smiled and walked over. She grabbed Reaper's arm slightly and used her other to unhook the sleeve from the gloves, to which Reaper slowly nodded, as if in thanks, and placed her arm- facing her back to her team- on top of the overturned bed's wooden structure, an audible crack resounding through the room. It seems these beds were too weak to handle the weight of Ruby arm.

She waved them over absently with her left arm, and then she lifted her jacket off, showing her bandaged back and front to them. Blake knew that Reaper had it bad, but to have bandages surrounding your entire body? Well, either they were there to exaggerate her wounds, or she had it tougher than she originally thought she did.

They walked over with slowed footsteps upon seeing the bandages, but because they were wound so tight around Reaper, they couldn't see if there was any indication of wounds at all.

Yang was the first to arrive and saw that Reaper had bandages on her left arm as well. It really must have been hard for her. Then her attention was drawn by something shiny on the right side of Ruby's body.

Weiss saw it as well, followed by Blake, and collectively they gasped; two of them in awe, and one in utter shock.

Ruby had her robotic arm on full display for all to see, and therefore, felt extremely nervous, but the soft humming and occasional crackling sound coming from her arm began to annoy and worry her, so she reached up to her right shoulder, and used her left hand to pry the casing open.

As soon as she did, she reached her hand around and found the clasping material she had used to sloppily smelt her arm to her nerves, and with one pain filled pull, ripped her robotic arm form her shoulder, the noise stopping almost instantly. She pulled an emergency screwdriver that she always kept within her pockets out, and began to use it to search around within the robotic arm's casing for the issue. It seemed, after multiple sifting and searches, she ignored the fact that yang was eyeing the robotic piece of machinery with envy and began to weave her screwdriver around the various miniature- makeshift VI terminals and electronics in search of a breach to her arm's casing.

She found none, which confused her greatly. She then switched to checking the various other motors and springs that surrounded her forearm. Again, she found no issue, which began to worry and intensely confuse her. So she turned to the wrist area, which was, indeed, where the sound seemed to be coming from. As she continued routing around in her arm, Weiss was awed at the technical expertise of which Ruby created such a thing, and from what seemed to be spare parts no less.

She found the issue, and it seemed to be rather simple; the injector system, of which the built in syringe that she had used earlier for the Deathstalker venom, was lodged between two of her motors, which caused the entire arm to become unresponsive.

She quickly rectified the issue, removing the syringe and cleaning it properly, before she began to reattach her arm back on to her shoulder, first guiding the right components to her nerves.

Ruby then started attaching the multitude of wires that are to carry the computer equivalent of nerve pulses to the circuit board that will translate what her mind is saying, so as to control her arm, from the bending of her elbow to the tightening of her grip on something. It was all rather complicated to the others that were watching, mouths agape and flapping open and closed repeatedly, like fish out of water but for Reaper, it was all simplicity; it was as if she had just found a new form of a friend. Someone that you never let leave your sight and show the up most care to.

And then she mentally slapped herself; a robotic arm as a friend...how stupidly absurd.

But just as she fitted the arm on and allowed the in-built, Dust fuelled smelter to reattach her arm completely with no seams, she saw the looks of Yang- which was awe- and Blake and Weiss- which were that of surprise and mild shock.

"...What?"

Three words effectively left Yang's awe filled lips, and they all made Ruby flinch as they increased with sound.

"That's. So. Awesome!"

Effectively, this cut off the rest of Reaper's- Or Ruby's- hearing for the rest of the night, and she and the rest of them fell fast asleep, making a silent promise to ask Reaper how this came to be in the first place.

As they all fell asleep, they didn't notice Reaper grumble about how the floor was softer than the beds and fell asleep curled into a ball on the floor, dreaming of how happy her team could make her, even if she did get off on bad terms with Weiss.