Disclaimer

I don't own RWBY, or any company related to it.

Chapter 9

It's been a week since Ruby arrived at the castle and started learning.

"Good answer. Now please write the result for three times seven"

She wrote on her pen the equation and result of twenty four. Doctor then responded "That's the results of three times eight. The proper answer is twenty one. We will practice the table again, as it will be an important shortcut later in math. Now please…" He stopped when a scroll started ringing, but it wasn't his, but Ruby's.

"May I?" She asked her teacher in which he answered "five minute break. I need to get a new cup of coffee too"

After he stood up, Ruby checked her scroll and answered the call from Jim "Hey Jim, been a long time"

"Hey Ruby. I haven't seen or heard from you for the last week. How's your day and where are you?"

"Decided to stay with the fang and I was in middle of a lesson with Doctor Links. He is a great teach! As of where am I… I can not tell you, but enough about me. Did you meet your family?"

"No… They moved out of Vacuo apparently after my death and I don't know where they are. Managed to get a job at the local bakery, even without qualifications and finished school. Just finished work and got a break".

"Do you have cookies?"

"Yeah. Sugar cookies, vanilla cookies, chocolate, strawberry, gin…"

"Wait! Strawberry cookies!? It is true!? Where exactly is this bakery!? I need to find that place where two best foods got connected! Please tell me!" She yelled it out to the scroll not caring that everyone most likely heard her. That was more important than the doctor looking at her with badly hidden amusement and trying to stop from blowing up in laughter.

"Calm down. It is in Vacuo, near shade academy. It is the only bakery within a hundred meters from it".

Ruby noted that piece of information in her notepad with 'IMPORTANT!' sign.

"Umm. I need to end, My teacher is waiting for me to end talking. Bye Jim"

"Be safe and strong Ruby. Bye" she then closed the call and took a quick look at the list of contacts featuring only four people, the doctor in front of her, Jim Scarlatina, Michael, Sienna Khan".

After pocketing back her scroll, the lesson was resumed.

ELEVEN AND HALF MONTHS LATER

It was October 31. Day she turned twelve year old. Once her birthday, but now just another day of living and learning. With almost a year of her being with white fang. Her scroll ringed and checking it out Ruby found out it was Sienna Khan calling in order to get her into another weekly cuddly session. Well she will enjoy it now as a birthday present. She answered the call.

"Ruby here"

"Could you come immediately to my room? There's an important thing waiting for you"

"On my way"

She closed the call and started walking toward the sleeping quarters from the park, she was training stamina and muscles. It was her day off, as Doctor Links was busy outside of the castle for the last three days and he will be back shortly.

In this time Ruby managed to pass her pears in school and was about halfway to the next grade, but she outshined everything with her mechanical and biological knowledge. Her dream of building an artificial arm and weapon practically demanded it. She even had basic plans made for it, but still had a problem with connecting it to her nerves and then decoding and encoding signals from brain to hand and back. Also the more advanced version with mecha shift and weapons required a lot of additional work.

Opening the doors to Khan's bedroom she heard "happy birthday" yell with a set up table filled with cookies, strawberries and a cake. Ruby was shocked by it and cried with happiness, while getting on the only seat left.

"I know you like the old tales and legends, so there is my birthday present for you" Sienna said, giving her two books.

"For your little ongoing project, advanced books about mechanism, gunsmithing, dust and biology, since you will need it. Took me a couple of days to get them all" Doctor Damian placed four thick and heavy books on the table next to her.

"Well one of my agents managed to get the blueprints of the Atlas made prosthetic arms, during work and shared it with us. Here a copy for you" Michael then handed her a small data chip, she immediately placed it in her scroll, but decided to ignore it for now. She stood up and hugged everyone, which resulted in her head being rubbed again by a high leader of white fang and a laugh from others seeing her red faced expression.

After sitting back, Khan started to cut the cake piece by piece and handed it to everyone starting with her. It was mostly made out of creeme, strawberries and chocolate chips.

Three hours later everything ended, as everyone had their work to do. Ruby was left alone and engrossed in blueprints and books.

HALF A YEAR LATER

Ruby stood inside a workshop and abused her semblance on cutting metal and other alloys into the shapes she needed. In front of her on a table was a blueprint made by her of a robotic looking hand.

"So now that I have all parts ready, I need to set up wiring that would act as nerves in order to control my new hand" she mumbled, working hard without breaks, as between her new limb and lack of it, there stood only a couple of steps.

Connecting the wirings to the motors and end of her arm to an emergency switch off, then securing the cables, so they would not get damaged. There was also a built-in feature to cut off the connection to her nerves at the event of a shortcut or overload, rendering her limb unusable, but saving her from getting electrocuted. A rubber padding in between the outer shell and interior one to minimize the risk of insides getting fried by outside force.

Ruby touched the metal plate with covered sockets on her right arm. She managed to create it two months ago and after reassuring it was safe, they installed it, after letting RD through the plans and device.

Two hours of assembly later, she finished the arm and plugged it into her limb. She felt a tingling sensation for a moment, in whole arm, and then nothing else despite the weight.

'That's either a good or bad signal. Does it work or not, that's the question' Ruby thought then started trying to move her fingers slightly. 'Finger one works, two need to be slowed down, third works, fourth needs a recalibration, fifth needs to be sped up. Now hand movements. Working correctly, elbow, works fine, but needs little tuning'.

Removing her arm, Ruby corrected her mistakes and retested the arm. 'Now that the arm is working correctly, I need to check the grip strength". Ruby gently caught the pen in her right hand, but accidentally crushed it. She then proceeded to a grip test machine set up in the workshop and started testing her arm.

A light grip was about 60 kg (about 120-130 pounds), which was a lot too much. She definitely needs to add some padding to her fingers and try to control it more. Increasing strength to max Ruby was surprised by seeing a number nearing 152 kg (about 304-312 pounds). It was enough strength to bend a three millimeters thick steel plate. Lucky her outer shell, insides of arm and hand were much thicker than that and made mostly of pure alloys without any damages or weak spots made by mistakes during the smithing process.

Adding the padding and training her grip took her around two hours, but she managed to lighten it enough to hold a pen and in the next hour to hold a glass of water. Ruby looked outside the window and saw that the sun was slowly rising from the night sky. She was tired from the whole night of working in secret, as she wanted to surprise everybody and did not want to wait another month or more for the RD to allow her to make this, or give her an already made product. It was her design and her work that made it even more beautiful and better in Ruby eyes.

She saw a coffee machine and one of the cups she used in training. A small mischievous plan budding in her mind. She made one cup of extra strong black coffee, which she took into her right hand and used her semblance to travel to the front of Khan's bedroom without leaving as much as a single petal behind, the effect of mastering her semblance, though if she wanted to leave them behind was easy for her. Finally at the doors, she knocked gently and heard after a while "You can come in Ruby"

Entering inside with a cup of coffee in her hand, she asked a still sleepy and half naked high leader sitting on her bed "how do you know it's me who is knocking?"

"You smell of roses, so it's easy to identify you, plus I smell a coffee for me"

Ruby offered the cup, which Sienna took without realising that something was wrong with this situation. Taking a sip her thought process cleaned from a rush of hot and strong caffeine making her spit it out while looking at her protege's new hand.

"How and when?"

"What do you mean? I made a coffee just a while ago in a coffee machine"

"I mean how and when you got the arm" Khan stated seriously.

"Ahh that… It took me the whole night in the workshop, but it's finally done and better than expected from the first version. I am already thinking about upgrading it! Adding a mechashift weaponry, better grip power, silenced guns and a sword with sweat inside. It will be epic!"

"Slow down. Did you just say that you were working all night without somebody watching you and risked your life with untested creation?"

"Ummm… I had installed a safety and a tested kill switch in it, before assembling it".

"I will let that go for now, but only this once since you impressed me. Next time get an adult to watch and help you".

"Fine, I will get a person to watch me, while I will be upgrading it and building a gun. I want to make a sniper rifle with a big range and caliber and add melee capabilities to my arm in the near future".

"Now I see your arm doesn't have any paint job, markings or a way to disguise itself as a normal arm. That should be your focus for now. You are too young to be having fun with blades and guns without adults watching you. Do you understand?"

"Yes mom… I mean miss Khan"

Sienna did not know how to react about this slip of a tongue, she felt happy and confused that young Ruby took her for a mother figure, but decided not to react and nod in confirmation. In the meantime Ruby became afraid and nervous about it, but calmed down after seeing Khan's reaction and thinking that she missed her naming the leader a mom.

"Also no cuddly session this week" Sienna stated at the end.

"You promised that there will be no punishment" Ruby defended.

"It is not a punishment, but a lesson for you" Khan answered with a smug smile.

"Fine…"

Later that morning she continued her lessons with the doctor, who was surprised and proud of his student achievement. At the end of the session Damian stated to himself "what an incredible feeling it is that a person you teach is able to make something great to defy her disadvantages and turn them into advantages" as they finished the lessons supposed to be two grades above her level and much more advanced studies on her two favourite studies.

AN: planning one more development chapter with gun development, arm upgrades and new look, melee weapon, combat training and joining officially into the ranks of white fang.