Current Time

Roman looked again at the tablet in his hands, one more charge to detonate then he could head back to his apartment for the night. All he had to do was wait for one little message from Emerald and he would know it was time. Across town buildings burned, but below him in the warehouse Faunus dashed back and forth moving and sorting crates of dust that were coming in to the sound of Cinder yelling. He chuckled quietly, how he didn't miss doing grunt work. His scroll beeped twice and he pulled open the message. "Taking Brother to Mom's house, love you Dad". He leaned over the railing.

"Emerald and Mercury are done and heading to base, how close to finishing are we?" He glanced at the clock on the tablet worried, if they didn't get the last trucks in the warehouse soon many things would go wrong.

"The last five are inbound Roman, calm down. As soon as we see them you can press the button" Cinder sounded a lot more relaxed than him but he could tell she was ticked off. Five trucks still coming meant that 25 had already made it. "Alright Roman. Do it" She didn't need to tell him twice and his finger tapped the screen. Far in the distance he could hear the explosions as the last of the compromised safe houses and storage facilities were blown to pieces. The warehouse they had now was by the docks and in a couple days ships were coming to get the Dust for transport across the water to Vacuo. The explosions around the city were meant for Ironwood and all the other do-gooders who were born to get in their way as a distraction while dust, stolen over the course of 6 months, was finally being transported from temporary storage. Cinder barked the last few orders to the Faunus; now that the difficult part was done they could handle the repackaging and sorting alone. Even with the high quantities they would be done by the next morning and to her standards. The fact that each one was looking forward to a lovely bonus check made quite the difference for morale

"Alright Cinder," he waited for her to grab her things, once he was at the bottom of the stairs. "Junior should be here with a car out front." Roman looked at his scroll again, a previous message from the man had included a picture of the vehicle they were going to run to. He pulled it up and showed it to the brunette "He said the coast is clear", his boss raised her eyebrow at him "but I'll go first just to make sure" He ducked out the door and strolled around to the front of the building casually. He'd rather get shot down by the military than have Junior see him looking paranoid; he'd never live that down.

The front seat was unlocked and he slid into the car next to his best friend. "Hey J, should we just leave her there guessing?" he laughed at the other man's face and took his scroll back out to send Cinder a reply to come out. "I was only kidding Junior, lighten up or I'll tell everyone about that girl you're seeing." He didn't mean it as a threat, Junior never would have seen it as one either. Both men were looking for a distraction from the sirens and smoke in the air "You still never told me her name, J"

"Keep quiet or I'll tell Cinder you want to date her" the big guy growled back at Roman trying to sound menacing. Roman couldn't help but laugh just as Cinder opened the door to the back seat and joined them in the car.

"Roman, you just blew up half the city. What could possibly be funny?" Cinder laid her hand on his shoulder and he tensed up.

"Nothing Cin, just imagining what would happen when Merc finally asks Em out." He tried using nicknames occasionally but only three really sounded natural when he said them. 'J', 'Neo', and 'Red'. Cinder laughed quietly but Roman only stared out the window, vaguely aware that Junior had started driving, and very aware that he had possibly just murdered a couple-hundred people.

2 HOURS Prior: Across Town

Ruby checked the time on her scroll again and took the last bite of her pizza. She had just enough time left to check out the bookstore before making up her mind on Blake's birthday present. She hadn't meant to stop for lunch but the food smelled delicious and she figured it would be best to not work on an empty stomach. She smiled as she gathered her trash imaging the smile on Blake's face…But what to get the cat Faunus…

The book store should have been the easiest place to shop but the girl had so many books already Ruby wasn't sure if there was a book she could buy that Blake hadn't already read. Ruby browsed the stacks looking high and low. She had a general idea on what authors and series but finding them was the hard part, Ruby was in unfamiliar territory.

"Welcome to Tukson's Book Trade" a tall man leaned across the counter eyeing Ruby.

"Oh. Uh, Hello" She waved nervously; his eyes reminded her of Blake's. How had the girl fooled them for so long? It was easy now, of course, to tell a Faunus by the eyes. "I'm shopping for a friend" she held out her list and walked up to the counter. She realized she was a little lightheaded but for some reason the sensation wasn't registering to her as a danger and she brushed it aside as she reached the desk. "She reads these but I'm not sure what to get her…" she paused and looked at the list "Actually… I'm not… why am I buying her a present?" the paper in her hand had a list of names on it. Were they people she knew? She looked at it closer…

"Miss? Are you ok?" The shop keeper started to walk around the counter towards Ruby eyeing her curiously and the girl backed away instinctively.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME!?" She wadded up the paper and threw it at his face. A horrible distraction but a distraction none the less and she bolted to the door. He was fast but somehow she was faster. She dashed out the door and slammed into someone knocking them over. "I'm sorry!"

"Can't you look where you're going?" The girl on the ground looked up at Ruby and silver eyes met red. "Oh NOT YOU! You ruin everything!" she reached out to pick up her scroll from the ground and looked back up at Ruby. "Do me a favor and just get lost 'Red'." She reached up to her head to make sure her mint green hair wasn't screwed up from the fall and took off running away from Ruby and towards a boy with grey hair. She said something Ruby couldn't quite make out and he looked back at where Ruby was standing smiling. Something didn't seem right, he looked happy but in a crazy way, but Ruby didn't think about it for too long because suddenly the world around her exploded.

Author Notes: I'm so sorry if this is awkward to read… I have all these story ideas in my head that I really want to write here but for some reason I've always been nervous about posting them…I'm sure, well I'm hoping that, my writing gets better and more natural as I progress. Please let me know if something sticks out that needs to be fixed. I wasn't sure at first how I wanted to give Ruby amnesia I was going between her getting hit in the head or some effect of a drug. Guess she really shouldn't have had the pizza after all ;D Going to be switching between characters throughout the story as well. We'll get to ships later (I ship everything but mostly Rosewick…sorry!) (Also I don't have an editor, I'm reading and rereading so I might not catch all the mistakes, please let me know if I screw up!) Most importantly: Thank you for reading! I'll try to update it often!