Sapphire opened her eyes to a white ceiling with neat, uniform tile. She turned her head to face the light source-a window with thin white curtains waving in the wind slowly, with the white sunlight shining into the hospital room.

She sat up. It was no surprise to wake up wearing a white nightgown, sitting in a hospital. When a Titan was damaged like that, the Pilot took considerable damage to themselves. For example, when Ruby's Titan had been stabbed clear through the heart, she had been unconscious for two weeks. A blow to the central torso was no problem, compared to what had happened last time.

"Corundum."

Sapphire started, turning to face the voice of her supervisor, Colonel Diamond.

"Sir."

Diamond pushed her glasses further up her nose. "This is your second loss in a row. Do you have an explanation?"

Sapphire looked down at the white bedspread, tightening her grip on the top. "My Titan was damaged both times. The first time I was unable to move swiftly due to remaining damage to the sides and chest causing discomfort, and the second time to reduced leg mobility, Sir."

Diamond took a few steps forward. "We've noticed a hardware flaw. We are completely resetting the systems in order to repair the artificial nerve damage. You are required to be at headquarters tomorrow at noon. Do not be late. That will be all." Sapphire nodded, keeping her eyes on the bed. "Yes, Sir. I understand."

She watched Diamond leave the room. The doors slid and locked shut. Sapphire laid back down, her abdomen still hurting somewhat. She wasn't on any method of life support-she hadn't lost any blood, her airways were fine, everything seemed to be fine-just remaining soreness. The holographic calendar on the wall read September 4'th. Five days after the event of the Fae attack. She must be in the hospital because her condition was consistently unstable. She was probably under watchful eye.

She covered what used to be her left eye with her hand, staring at the ceiling once more. This was going to be an uneventful day. Just lying in a hospital bed waiting for noon tomorrow. Her usual life, in other words. At least it was better than the mission before last-her Titan's head and legs had been chopped off. Talk about painful.

She closed her eyes, sighing and letting her hand fall to her side.

Ruby punched her bag angrily. Still twenty-one hours until she went back to Headquarters. Something about testing or whatever. She didn't really care. She left the public gym without a word to anyone. What was even the point? They'd all die if there was a ground-class category-A Fae. Sky-class was easy-they couldn't fly very high. They only got tough once they got tougher than category-C. All ground-class Fae were difficult. They all had increased maneuverability, speed, and had very strong kicking power. In other words, one blow per Titan, even if all of them were deployed, and Beach City was as good as dead.

She jogged back to her empty apartment. Usually, Pearl and Sapphire were home. But Sapphire was still hurt or something, and Pearl was working late, repairing the hard-drives for Titan 3. It was pretty damaged, and there had already been issues with the computers. It was pretty old. Titans 1&2 had been destroyed right as Titan 5 was finished almost a decade ago.

Ruby dropped her gray bag onto the floor of her tiny room. It was barely bigger than a closet, with enough room for a cheap loft bed and a dresser not much bigger than her torso. And she was five feet tall.

She climbed up and flopped onto her bed. The low ceiling made her uncomfortable, and there was just a curtain in stead of a door, but it was still a pretty great room. She wasn't appreciating this right now, though. Completely alone in a run-down apartment. Dogs barked outside. The blinds over her window let small slits of light onto the carpet. Everything about this part of town was pretty bleak. At least power outages only happened pretty much bi-anually.

The door opened. She heard Pearl's voice call her name.

"Yeah?"

Pearl stepped through the curtain. She looked exhausted. "How are you, Ruby? I didn't get to see you this morning. How was school?"

Ruby jumped from her bed. "I'm okay. School sucked though. Everyone was, like, really rude about Sapphire and Amethyst missing. They pestered me and Lazuli about it. I mean, they also asked why I missed for two days."

"Did you answer?"

Ruby laughed. "Ha! I'd get court-martialed for that. I just told them that a tree fell in the fight and I couldn't get out of my house until they cut it up." Ruby faced Pearl, her expression darkening abruptly. "Is Sapphire okay? I know that Amethyst discharged a couple days ago but is duty-shirking, but Sapphire...?"

Pearl smiled. "She'll be out tomorrow at eleven. She's going straight to Headquarters, though. It's a shame that her Titan is faulty. She's really a very good pilot. Just look at what she did after her Titan's left leg was cut off three weeks ago."

Ruby nodded. "Right. Thanks for telling me. You should probably sleep though."

Pearl grinned shakily. "For a fifteen year old with anger issues, you're pretty sensible." Ruby laughed quietly. "Heh, I guess so. Er, when I'm not fighting." Pearl smiled, placed her hand on Ruby's head, turned, and walked off to her own tiny room.

At noon, Sapphire was standing in Titan Control Room next to Ruby. Everyone was shooting her weird looks. Judging from the snippets of conversations she had heard, her Titan had been torn up more, even after she was unconscious. Thankfully, Lazuli had kicked the shit out of the Fae before it had pushed Sapphire past the brink

She didn't recognize the man standing before her. He was nervously shuffling papers. "Would you two change into your...ah...clothes that you pilot in?"

Ruby and Sapphire exchanged a glance. "...You mean our Enhancement Suits?" Ruby asked disbelievingly.

"Uh..." The man flipped through the pages. "Erm, yes! Yes, that is it. Enhancement Suits."

Ruby and Sapphire left the room to change, watching the face-palming employees restraining laughs. Who even was that guy?

As they entered the room divided by a thick curtain, Ruby voiced what they were both thinking. "Say, where's the Colonel?"

Sapphire shrugged, before realizing that Ruby couldn't see her. "I don't know. Last time I saw her was yesterday. I think she's overseeing in a different room." Ruby seemed to stumble a little. "I see. Kinda weird, not having the watchful eye of a silent overseer watching us every second, huh?"'

"No, not really." Sapphire started changing. "Although I suppose it is rather difficult to request orders in this situation."

Ruby laughed purposely quietly, despite the soundproof walls. "Yeah. I'd rather have Diamond watching us. She's, like, unphasable."

Sapphire lifted up the Enhancement Suit after undressing. "She's not unphasable. That's a state reached by Gods, not humans. Especially not humans who are attached to a position of total power and grow fearful without it." She could practically feel Ruby shrugging. "Yeah. That's a pretty high bar."

Sapphire tightened the suit with the press of a button, and lifted the two headpieces from the small shelf, fastening the clips into her hair and placing the triangular bit of metal hanging from it to the right point on her face. "I'm ready. Are you?"

"Yep-er-doodles."

They left the changing room at almost the same moment. It had only been a couple of minutes, so nobody was annoyed at them for chatting. Nobody knew they had uttered a word. They walked back to the unfamiliar man standing in the middle, looking at the screen displaying the two Titans. Sapphire's was still damaged, she noticed with a cringe.

"Well, boss?" Ruby asked. The man spun around. "Oh! Uh, I'm just filling in so I do not know what to do in this...particular...situation. Uh, Pearl Mollusk! Could you take charge?"

Pearl looked up. "Er, of course." She darted up to the front. "You two, go to your respective Titans and prepare to enter. Sapphire, your test will be mentally arduous. Are you tired?"

Sapphire shook her head. "No, Sir."

Pearl smiled. "That's good. Ruby, you're just doing average repair drills. Nothing special-you'll be leaving long before Sapphire..."