It was late. Too late. Something like three in the morning. Ruby rubbed her eyes. The time of day didn't matter. Not now. All that mattered was her work. The glass vials of dust sat patiently in the plastic stand. She grabbed one, filled to the brim with a softly-glowing grey powder. The masking-tape label that read 'gravity' was peeled off as Ruby pulled the rubber stopper out of the vial and poured the contents onto her electronic scale. She looked down at her notebook, smudged with grease and dust. Twenty six grams, she read off to herself, scooping out the correct amount into a large glass beaker. A bit of fire dust was added, followed by a healthy portion of water dust. She glanced over at her machine, sitting patiently in the corner. She remembered the last time she used it. She frowned at it, and turned back to her mixture, adding just a tad more water dust for cooling.

She leaned back on her stool, taking her face away from the noxious beaker. Sighing, she stood up and walked groggily over to the coat-hooks against the opposite wall of the lab, grabbing her dirty white lab coat off of its hook and pulling it loosely over her shoulders. The heavy white cotton pulled down on her tired shoulders as she moved back over to her work station. Her hand slipped into the right-side pocket, pulling out her safety goggles and a pair of yellow rubber gloves. Sitting back down on her stool, she pulled the goggles on and stuffed her hands haphazardly into the gloves. The next step would require intense focus. She grabbed her coffee mug from where it sat off to the side and took a sip.

Yuck.

The coffee was cold now. Oh well. The caffeine would keep her awake, anyway. She put the mug back down and grabbed a pair of science forceps from the drawer to her left. She looked over at the locked steel cabinet just behind her work station, where all of the more volatile compounds were kept locked up. It was time. She reached over to it and punched in the correct code, and the lock mechanism opened with a whump from within. The steam from the dry ice cooling system pooled out of the case and onto her desk as she pulled the heavy steel door open. Inside lay another plastic vial stand, filled with ten vials of a crystal-white dust that gave off a black glowing, as if it was absorbing all light around it.

Ruby clicked her forceps a few times to test them, re-adjusted her goggles on her eyes, and gingerly reached inside. Being as careful as she could, she picked up one of the delicate vials and brought it out of the cabinet. She blinked a few times and let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding. The tiny glass vial was different from the others, being more ovaloid than cylindrical. The small black printed label read Time Dilation, embossed across the front. She very quickly shut the cold cabinet again, trying to keep the cold inside. Her hand shook slightly with the forceps. She knew any miscalculation or mismeasurement would result in devastating consequences for her, and the laboratory.

The dust in the vial had started to condensate. Any longer being left unmixed and it would liquefy, then boil at this temperature. As carefully as she could, Ruby pulled off the glass stopper with a second set of foreceps and placed it aside. She looked down at her beaker of dust, then back up at the slowly-changing dust in the ovaloid vial. Here goes nothing, she thought to herself as she poured the white crystal powder into the mix. A quick puff of blue smoke rose up out of the beaker, quickly changing to grey and dispersing into the air. Dropping the forceps onto the counter and grabbing a glass stirring rod, she quickly began mixing the contents. Within moments there was a swirling pool of glowing black liquid in her beaker. Grabbing her temperature gun and checking her notes again, she gave a smile at no one in particular and gave a quiet cheer. It was perfect. Exactly as calculated.

She put a large plastic lid onto the rim of the beaker, sealing it for the moment. She stepped away from the counter smiling, satisfied with herself for the moment. She looked over at her machine again. The large glass enclosure, made from an upscale shower stall, stared back at her, its mass of silicone tubing and wires taunting her for a test run. She sighed. Today would have to be the day. Ruby rubbed her eyes again, trying to get rid of the slight stinging.

She walked over to her school bag which sat alone in a corner, and withdrew a deck of cards held tightly together with a fat elastic band, followed by a pair of digital watches and an apple. Unwrapping the cards from their elastic and tossing it back into her bag, she moved over to the machine and opened the glass door. Kneeling down on the lab floor in front of her machine, she slowly constructed a simple house of cards on the felt floor mat inside the stall. Once it was built to her satisfaction, she grabbed the apple and one of the two digital watches, quickly fastening the watch around the fat part of the apple. Moving as gingerly as she could to stop the card-tower from falling, she placed the fruit atop the cards. It wobbled slightly, but remained upright. Ruby sighed internally, relieved that she didn't have to build a card tower tired twice.

She stepped back from the machine and shut the glass door, kneeling down before it again and checking both watches. They both read three eighteen and twenty-six seconds. Perfectly in sync. Standing up, Ruby brushed a bit of dirt from the front of her lab coat and pulled her goggles back down over her eyes. She walked back over to her work station and picked up the sealed beaker and had one last look at the black liquid within.

Very carefully walking back over to the machine, she pulled the lid from the beaker and slotted it up into a holding receptacle, twisting in to lock it. The machine hummed quietly at this, powering up and flickering with light. The small desktop computer that sat a table next to it came to life, a series of graphs generating themselves on screen. Ruby looked down at them, typing in a few final commands on the dusty old keyboard. She glanced back over at the glass enclosure, where the card tower still stood with the fruit and watch still upon it. It was time.

Strolling back over to her work station, she pulled a dark grey crystal from a metal box she had left on the counter. She sniffed, examining it in her hands. The deep purple gravity dust crystal felt weightless in her hand, the soft grey glow it gave off illuminating her palm. Ruby walked back over to her machine, pulled open a small circular door, and pushed the crystal inside. The humming increased slightly and the crystal's glowing became brighter from behind the circular door. She stepped back slightly and placed her hand on a large steel lever affixed to the outside of the machine. One last check of the watches, the time indicating three twenty-one exactly. Ruby pulled the switch. There was a flash of blinding white light, which made her flinch briefly, before the room was dark again. She opened her eyes cautiously and examined the contents of the glass enclosure.

Empty!

Ruby shuddered with joy, a half-smile coming to her face. She wasn't out of the woods just yet. Quickly dashing over to the work station again, she grabbed her temperature gun and a Geiger counter from the drawer, positioned her stool in front of the machine, and sat down on it. The wait felt like an eternity. The silence in the room was deafening. She didn't dare blink, lest she miss it.

"Ruby?"

Ruby nearly leaped out of her skin, and turning to face the source of the intrusive noise, nearly had a heart attack. There in the doorway stood a short, white haired girl with a pale face and deeply sunken eyes, dressed in a long white sleeping gown. The monster spoke again.

"Ruby, why are you still up? You said you'd be done three hours ago..."

She let out a long sigh, relieved that she finally could identify the intruder as Weiss. She stepped off of her stool, and stood up straight, not wanting to fully face her yet. She smiled sheepishly, realizing that she had in fact been up far longer than she had promised.

"Yeah, I know... But lucky I did! I finally figured it out!"

Weiss opened her eyes a little more and stepped into the darkened laboratory, yawning deeply and scratching her eyes. Ruby fought the urge to yawn as well.

"Figure what out? Also, are you using dust? I didn't know you knew about dust manipulation."

Ruby sighed and slumped her butt against the counter top. Weiss trudged over, clearly still mostly asleep and leaned next to her, turning slightly sideways to give her a standing cuddle. Ruby smiled softly as the sleepy girl planted a kiss on her cheek.

"It's not just..." She briefly forgot what she was saying on account of Weiss cuddling her side. "...Dust manipulation, it's chemistry. And physics! I finally solved the equation I've been working on!"

Weiss looked slightly up at her through messy bangs.

"What equation?"

Ruby turned her head so her face was right in Weiss's, who in a sleepy state, blushed a little and giggled.

"Time Exploitation! I've been working for a while on how to more accurately manipulate time! Like the way you do with your glyphs, but like, more!"

Weiss leaned back slightly, a confused look crossing her face. Her voice wavered from the lack of sleep.

"How do you exploit time?"

Ruby stepped away from Weiss's grasp, and swung her arms in a wide arc.

"Think about it. What is time? It's the effect of gravity on moving particles! Like when there's a black hole, the gravity is so immense that it manipulates the way that particles move, giving the effect of different time! I've been working on a way to bend time to my liking using different amounts of gravity dust and trying to perfect a process where I can bend it to my will!"

Weiss looked perplexed, making Ruby smile again.

"Are you talking about... time travel?"

Ruby smiled and looked down at her watch.

"If you can wait... nineteen seconds, we can find out together. What do you think?"

Weiss grabbed a stool and placed it down next to Ruby's original one and sat down. They waited.

"What are we waiting for?"

"Science, Weiss. Science."

The last ten seconds were like an eternity. Ruby's heart thumped loudly in her chest, the agony was real. She wasn't fully sure what she was expecting to happen. The empty enclosure stared back at her, taunting her with the polished glass walls and chrome handles. This was it. A year of small experiments with dust and collecting parts from around the city led up to this. The machine started to hum again. She looked down at her watch. Two seconds. She closed her eyes. There was a blinding white light, followed by a wave of heat. Ruby opened her eyes.

Holy shit.

Even Weiss gasped. There they were. Exactly like they had been one minute ago. The cards, the apple, the watch. Ruby wanted to jump forward. She held up the Geiger counter and the temperature gun. Both read nominal. She couldn't even speak. No radiation poisoning, it wasn't on fire, and it was still all standing. It had worked. She stepped off her chair and cautiously stepped forward, slowly pulling the glass door open. She picked up the apple and examined the watch she had wrapped around it. Weiss made a curious noise.

It worked. It fucking worked.

"Weiss, look. The times. They're exactly one minute apart!"

She couldn't control her excitement. The two digital watches were still clicking away, the one from the machine precisely sixty seconds behind the once she had been wearing. She jumped for joy, dropping the apple in the process, causing Weiss to flinch. Ruby pranced about the room, giggling with glee and shouting 'It fucking works' over and over. In her haste, she tripped over her own feet and came crashing down to the tile floor. Weiss quickly came to her rescue and helped her back up, but not before a bout of giggling at her dismay.

"Be careful, you dolt. I can't believe you sent something through time! How is that even possible?!"

"Weiss, I think you need to go back to bed. I'll explain it in the morning, okay? Even I'm too tired for this."

Weiss pouted.

"Fine. But you need to come back to bed too. Don't you have sparring practice with Blake first thing?"

Ruby sat back down on her stool, still a little awestruck.

"Yeah, I guess. Suppose I won't be very good, eh?"

"Yeah. Come back to bed Ruby, after you've finished cleaning up, of course." she turned to leave, and reached the door in her sleepy stupor. "And if you're not in your pyjamas and in bed in five minutes, I will be very cross with you!"

Ruby smiled at her friend and sighed. It was impossible to deny the requests of Weiss. Most especially given their... romantic entanglement.

"Of course, Weiss. I'll see you in a few."

"I love you..."

Ruby smiled, a lonely tear coming to her eye. She brushed it away.

"I love you too."

The door closed. The darkness in the unlit laboratory overwhelmed her again. She blinked a few times, letting her eyes adjust. The machine still hummed quietly off to the side of the room, the computer screen glowing softly where it sat on a small table. She turned, and made to step forward, before pausing, unsure of herself. She wanted to test it again. The machine still had enough of the glowing black liquid for a second run. What would she test?

She approached the machine unconsciously, gliding forward against her will. She looked down at the computer. The destination time file was still open. She punched a few numbers in. A few minutes into the future again. She knew that she could only send herself forward until she had finished her return pad, lest she get stuck in the past or create a temporal loop. Again. The infinity apple still made her laugh, despite the implications. She pulled open the door of the glass enclosure and stepped inside. A little screen on the inside of the door confirmed her destination; one minute forward again. She pulled her goggles down and took a deep breath. She was ready.

The machine began to hum again. It wouldn't fail, she knew it. This was her specialty. No matter how many times Weiss made fun of her for being poor at certain subjects, Ruby still could trounce her any day in Merlot's advanced particle physics class. She could feel the air around her begin to move. Her particles were about to fundamentally change. Would it hurt? Would it work? It was supposed to. That's what a year of testing was for. She was about to be the first person to travel through time. She closed her eyes, and counted down the seconds. There was a bright flash, and then...

...nothing.