Author's Note:

No, I'm not ending Death's Game. I simply had inspiration and since my damned alphasmart died and no longer has chapter 21 on it(Don't worry! It's saved elsewhere, I just can't get at it), I'd move to something else for a little bit. I plan to run both of these at once.

Also, I'd love suggestions for a change of title. Seriously.

It all started a month after Ruby's eleventh birthday.

Specifically, it started in the morning, when Taiyang went to put down a few pieces of toast.

"Uh, what happened to the toaster?" The sleepy father asked aloud. He heard a loud bang from in front of the house and Ruby laughing, though there was a unusual edge to it.

Oh, God no.

He races outside and sees several appliances and his car disassembled, and in their place a highly complex device had been assembled. Ruby is wearing part of a cut-up old shirt as a headband to keep her hair out of her eyes as she works frenetically on her cobbled together device. She's perched on part of it, in fact.

"Uh, Ruby, what are you doing?" Oh, god, it's just like Summer when she was cooking. Except with MACHINES! At least Summer's cooking was tasty, even if it was accompanied by evil laughter and sometimes had odd effects on whoever ate it. For instance, her calming cookies.

Though those were well worth the maniacal laughter in the right situation.

Apparently, she'd adapted the recipe from a cream pie from some guy she met. All he knew was that it had butter and nutmeg in it.

"I'm building Othar!" She responds cheerily as she works.

Summer had told stories of a hero from her world. Othar was his name.

"Ruby, PLEASE stop, and put my car back together?" He pleads helplessly. If she's anything like Summer was when she was like this, trying to pull her away from it would require insane levels of force and hogtying her-and they had managed that with Summer exactly once. It had taken all three of her teammates, Headmaster Ozpin, and two other Huntsmen-in-training to fully immobilize her, and then she got PISSED. Even if Ruby was a lot weaker than him, she also didn't have aura, so he wouldn't have any real options if she went berserk the way Summer did that time. Sadly, they had run out of calming cookies.

"But I'm almost done!" She exclaims. "Aaaaaand THERE." She hops down from the shoulder she was standing on and gazes proudly up at the Othabot.

It straightens up as it activates, gazing down at Ruby. While crude, it possesed a mock face.

"What is my duty, O My Creator?" the Othabot asked.

"To protect all Humanity!" Ruby exclaimed with a gleeful sparkle in her eye.

"Define Term:Humanity."

"Uhhhhhhh. You know. Humans? Faunus?"

"I see. Define Terms: Human. Faunus."

Taiyang sweats. This could be a issue.

"A human is someone like me, except they can be younger or older, and if they're older than me they're prolly bigger, and younger smaller. A faunus is a human 'cept they have traits from a animal, like ears or a tail."

"Processing... Verifying... Input accepted. Initializing personality... Personality initialized."

There is a pause as the Othabot suddenly scowls in the direction of the road.

"FOUL AUTOMATON! UNHAND YOUR CAPTIVES IMMEDIATELY!"

Yeah, Taiyang totally saw this coming. Not that it matters, since the Othabot takes off faster than he can readily follow and he doesn't have a weapon.

"Othabot! No! Stop! That's just a car, it isn't doing anything to them!" Ruby yells after it, starting to run in it's direction before getting stopped by Taiyang placing a hand lightly on her shoulder.

"...I think we need to have a talk." He says flatly.

Taiyang sits in front of his daughters, alongside Qrow. "Ruby, it's difficult to tell you this, but your mother was not from Remnant."

"WHAT?!" Both girls respond.

"Summer was from a distant land, and possibly from another time, known as 'Europa'." He says, taking a deep drink of water. "In this land, there were people known as 'Sparks' who have a natural genius...and a even more natural, uncontrollable urge to apply it. Sparks who were not educated early and well tended to apply this genius in more limited fashions-for instance, Summer was a culinary spark. We still have some of her pastries in deep storage, and others in containment. Her crossiants, as I recall, were particularly deadly."

Yang quirks her eyebrow. "Croissants? Deadly?"

"You really don't want to know. In any case, sparks tend to 'break out' in deadly ways, from what she remembers. We've been on high alert, and frankly we are quite fortunate that the only real consequences of your breakthrough were a couple of wrecked cars..."

Ruby bowed her head meekly. "...I will not apologize for Science, or for creating a Hero." She mumbles almost inaudibly.

Taiyang sighs and shakes his head. "Just...try not to do anything that will cripple anyone? Or scar them for life like the Ramen Noodle incident."

"The what?" Yang furrows her eyebrows.

"I'll tell you when you're older, kid." Qrow chimes in.

"Anyway, that's all I can tell you that she told me, but I'll tell you what I know about Sparks from observation. Firstly, you should be incredibly quick on the uptake regarding tech. Secondly, you must be kept away from any and all drinks with significant amounts of caffeine barring major emergencies... Thirdly...You SHOULD be naturally more resilient and strong, even without Aura."

Qrow quirks a eyebrow. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Oh yeah, that's right. She also told me that all Sparks are a little...unstable. Don't get offended if you're referred to as 'the mad scientist' or anything like that, because, according to her, it's actually...kind of accurate. For goodness' sake, Sparks have made SILVERWARE GUNS. And not knives either!"

"But... What if they're afraid of me?" Ruby asked, a little panicked at this point.

"Then they clearly aren't cool enough to be your friends anyway!" He pauses. "Besides, your mother always loved making the other Hunters tremble before her when she went Sparky. Maybe you will too?" He suggests hopefully.

"Tai, we're teachers. I don't think we're supposed to be encouraging terrified trembling." Qrow points out sardonically.

"I'm not. I'm encouraging my DAUGHTER to be happy with whatever emotions she ends up inspiring in her classmates." He says cheerfully. "Who knows, maybe someone will think she's really cool and it'll be the Sparkof a new friendship?"

His only response is a chorus of groans from both the girls and Qrow.

Othabot stares at a TV which is playing the first Indigo Bones movie.

"INPUT ACCEPTED. A HERO REQUIRES A HAT."

"Neo, do you ever get this feeling of sudden foreboding?" Roman casually asks as he flips a coin.

Neo shakes her head bluntly.

"Neither do I." He lies as one hand moves protectively to his hat.