Ruby's head snapped to the side under the force of the blow causing her to stumble backwards and shake her head in an attempt to return to her senses. As her vision cleared she just barely managed to catch sight of her lumbering opponent stepping forward to continue his assault early enough to sway backwards out of range of his fist.

Not expecting her to recover so quickly, her opponent was thrown off-balance by his right hook, a fact Ruby made sure to capitalize upon.

Taking a step towards her opponent to get within his reach, the redhead activated her Semblance and rained a series of blows upon her attacker's torso. Two quick underhanded jabs from her left hand connected with her opponent's lower ribs and were followed by a straight from her right hand that slammed into her opponent's upper ribs, another jab from her left lifted her large assailant up onto his tiptoes, and a final overhand strike that connected with her opponent's upper chest and forced him backwards.

Not giving him time to recuperate, Ruby once again stepped into his reach. This time rather than punching his chest, she performed an elbow strike that connected with the man's jaw, causing his head to snap to the side and him to stumble back disoriented. Her right hook was deflected when her opponent caught her wrist with a raised forearm and pushed her arm out wide.

Rather than try to fight against the motion, Ruby went with the momentum of the deflection and turned it into a spin, falling into a crouch as she did so. Coming about full-circle, Ruby felt her opponent's fist swing overhead, missing her by less than an inch, and slammed the outside of her fist against the side of her opponent's knee. Her strike buckled her opponent's leg making him drop to a kneel. Once again activating her Semblance, Ruby surged to her feet and drove her opponent face first into the mat with a well-placed elbow strike to his temple.

The redhead drove her knee into the spot directly between his shoulder blades, grabbed her opponent by the hair, pulled his head up by the hair exposing his throat and drew her-

"Match!" As soon as Helia called it, Ruby was on her feet again and extending her hand to Frost in order to help him to his.

Frost flipped over onto his back and grinned up at Ruby before clasping her forearm and getting his feet under him once again. "Well done, boss. I almost thought I had you for a second there." Frost said, a smile on his face the entire time.

Frost...well, Frost was Frost. Standing at just over 7' tall and weighing just under 350 lbs., Frost was a mountain of pure muscle. His head was covered in hair naturally blue-steel in colour and his dark gray eyes verged on black but they held a twinkle of life and joy rarely seen outside of the face of a child.

Ruby chuckled and took several long gulps of water from the bottle Helia handed her. The redhead then wiped her brow with a hand towel and slumped down on a bench, resting her back against the mirror behind her. The coolness of the metal provided relief to the hot and tired muscles of her back that were exposed by her sports bra. She smiled back at Frost, "Believe me, for a second there you almost did."

The 24 year old pumped his fist in the air in victory. "Yes! A little more work and I just might beat you."

"Yeah...I don't see that happening anytime soon, Big Man." Ruby stated, patting her shirtless, chocolate-skinned friend on the back only to make a disgusted face and wipe her hand on Helia's shirt when it came away covered in Frost's sweat.

Narrowing her eyes for a moment for what the redhead did, Helia spoke up, "Now that you two are finished with your little romp, can we get down to business? I've been awake for the past forty-hours and I'd like to get at least a little bit of sleep before I'm inevitably called upon once again to deal with whatever tragedy the most recent group of recruits gets themselves into."

Ruby's eyebrows shot up in surprise at her strawberry blonde friend, "Are they really that bad this time?"

"It's not that they're bad per se but they have a real knack for getting themselves in trouble. I mean for Dust's sake, we found out yesterday that one of them smuggled in and was raising an Ursa cub because, and I quote, 'It's just way too cute.'" Helia said, dragging a hand exhaustedly down her face and sighing.

"Wow. What'd you do with the cub?"

This time it was Helia who raised an eyebrow, but at Frost, before she spoke, "You'd have to ask Frost about that. He offered to take care of it for me and if his sheepish grin is anything to go by he meant that a little more literally than I initially thought he did."

Frost shrugged innocently and raised his hands beseechingly, "What? It's just way too cute."

Shaking her head, Ruby stood up with her bottle of water in one hand and her towel on her shoulder, and beckoned her two compatriots to follow along behind her as she left the gym and set off towards her suite of rooms in the base, "Come along, you two. I'll make us some food and we can talk business in my rooms."

And so off the three of them went through the base, which even at midnight was bustling with activity as people came and went. Some were just getting in from an assignment, some leaving on one, others just enjoying their time off but no matter who it was, everyone the three of them passed made sure to make room for what was arguably three of the most powerful and influential people in all of Vale.

Once the three of them had reached Ruby's rooms, Ruby started cooking while Helia sat upon one of the counters in the kitchen, swinging her legs back and forth, and Frost leaned back against the island in the kitchen. The three of them chatted amiably about nothing in particular while Ruby cooked and once she was finished, they each grabbed a plate of food. Frost and Helia both returned to their previous positions while Ruby sat cross-legged on another of the counters.

"Why exactly are we eating eggs and bacon at…" Helia glanced at the clock, "12:30 at night?"

Frost shrugged as he shoveled another forkful of food into his mouth, "Why not? Eggs and bacon can be eaten anytime, anywhere."

Ruby nodded and took a sip of her orange juice, "Precisely, Frost."

Helia shook her head, "The two of you are children."

Frost merely shrugged and continued eating his mountain of food while Ruby stuck her tongue out at the other woman.

After they each finished their food, they got down to business.

Ruby set her plate down on the counter beside her, the last one to finish and looked at her two subordinates. "First off, Frost anything to report on your end?"

While Helia served Ruby as her second-in-command - and Ruby as Junior's - her work was focused mainly outside of Vale. Frost was Ruby's third-in-command and focused on the day to day running of their troops inside of Vale and on protecting their territory in Vale and those who resided within it.

"No, boss. Sorry." He said, shaking his head and crossing his arms. "I've made sure everyone knows to keep their eyes peeled and ears open but there's been nothing. If this organization is as big as you're thinking it is then they're either steering clear of Vale entirely or they're extremely skilled at remaining inconspicuous about their activities here."

Ruby ran her fingers through her hair and sighed before she spoke again, "If I had to choose between the two I'd be more inclined between the latter but I don't really think either are the case. Going off of what I've been able to get off of Al-fris's scroll and what we already knew of his more recent activities, Al-fris was starting to get big into international human and drug trafficking. I think what this organization is doing is operating through local gangs, mobs, etcetera. What I want you to do is start having your people keep an eye out for anyone people or group of people who suddenly seem to have a lot more money than they previously have had or made."

Ruby waited for Frost to nod in affirmation before turning her attention to Helia. "You, got anything to report?"

Helia grinned for the first time that night. "Actually yes," She said. "In fact, before you and Frost roped me into refereeing your little sparring match, I was coming to tell you that we picked up someone we believe to be an agent of this shadow organization of yours."

"Where is he?"

"We currently have him being held in Interrogation Room 5. We've done a preliminary interrogation, but we haven't got anything out of him as of yet. I figured I'd come and let you know before we really started interrogating him."

"Does he know who we are or more precisely, is he aware of who's currently holding him prisoner?"

Helia shook her head, "No, he doesn't. From what he said so far, it actually seems as if he thinks he's been picked up by the Atlas Intelligence Agency for questioning and we didn't see the point in correcting him."

Ruby scratched her chin and stared off into the distance for a moment before jumping off the counter and clapping her hands together, "Alright. Here's what we're going to do. You two are going to get some sleep but before you do that, Helia, I want you to tell everyone to stay out of that room. I'm going to deal with this myself and we'll start by leaving him to stew in that room for the next couple of days. Don't let anyone come into contact with him. He's not to be fed. He's not to be given anything to drink. He's not to come into contact with anyone at all. As far as he's concerned for the next two days, the only things that exist are what's inside of that room, got it?"

Helia nodded.

"Good. Now you two take care of anything you need to see to tonight and then go to sleep. I'll be doing the same shortly."

Ruby saw her subordinates out the door and pressed her back to the door. A smile slowly spread across her face. "Whoever you are, I'm coming for you."

Two days later found Ruby entering Interrogation Room 5 at three in the morning, a Sam's Sammiches bag in one hand, a handgun on one hip, and a small metal case in her other hand.

Ruby slammed the case down on the metal table beside the sleeping head of her captive and watched as he jumped awake in fright. Had it not been for his hands, which were handcuffed to the table, her brown-haired, brown-eyed prisoner likely would have toppled his chair and wound up sprawled on the ground.

The man blearily blinked at Ruby in groggy confusion.

Ruby beamed her widest smile at him, "Mornin' Sunshine." She held up the Sam's Sammiches bag for him to see, "Brought you a little something. Figured you might be a bit peckish."

She tossed the bag onto the table, pulled out her chair, and plopped into it.

The prisoner tore into the sub he found within the bag and Ruby folded her arms and silently watched him.

After getting about halfway through the sub, he swallowed his current bite and stuck his hand out for Ruby to shake. "The name's Troy," He said.

Ruby smiled and shook his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Troy."

With the formalities out of the way, Troy turned his attention back to his food. "So what'd you guys pick me up for? It's not often one's held prisoner by the AIA. Also, just curious, but are you supposed to be the good cop to their bad cop?" He asked, speaking between bites. "You know, they leave me in here for who knows how long. The light's always on. Give me no food, no water, then along comes you. The Great Bearer of Sustenance that you are. Although you could have done one better and brought me something to drink."

"Sorry Troy, but you're actually wrong in at least two ways that I can think of off the top of my head. To begin with we're most definitely not cops or federal agents at all." Ruby stated in a distracted tone.

It took a moment to sink in, but once it did Troy's chewing slowed to a halt. He lifted his head to see Ruby slowly sliding bullets from a magazine and standing them up in a perfectly straight line, each one separated from its neighbors by an inch of empty tabletop. He blinked and started actually paying attention to what Ruby was saying.

"- you're actually in a base located roughly a mile beneath the city of Vale. No one has any idea of where you are. The second thing you're off about is the fact that in no way shape or form, if we actually were cops," Ruby slid the last and twelfth bullet from the magazine. When she set the empty clip next to the gun she'd pulled it from, she looked Troy in the eye. Her silver eyes were harder than the steel she made her weapons from. "I most definitely would not be the good cop."

Troy slowly lowered his mostly finished sub to the table and sat back. He gestured to the bullets in front of his captor. "What are those?"

"Bullets. I figured that'd be obvious."

Troy remained silent for a moment until he realized Ruby had no intention to elaborate any further without prompting. "What are they for?"

Ruby sat forward in her chair, resting her forearms on the edge of the table and lifted one of the bullets to eye level. "They're for a small game we're going to be playing, you and I." She said offhandedly, her attention seeming absorbed in watching the play of the light on the metal as she slowly turned the bullet in her hand. "You see these are hollow-point rounds. In case you don't know, a normal Full-Metal Jacket bullet travels so quickly that often times it will go right through whatever or whoever you shoot. Hollow-points have a small pit in the tip of them that causes the head of the round to 'mushroom' once it hits something. This 'mushrooming' has a twofold effect on whatever it hits. First off, it increases the surface area of the bullet slowing it down and making it more likely to remain in whatever it hits. Secondly, it causes the bullet to cause a significantly greater amount of damage to the tissue of whoever is being shot."

The redhead sat back and, looking Troy dead in the eye, set the round in the exact same spot she'd picked it up from. "I have for you, twelve questions. You're going to answer them truthfully and to the best of your ability. For every question that I feel you have not done your best to answer honestly, I will put one of these bullets in the magazine and then, once we're done with our little talk, I will shoot you in one of twelve pre-ordained locations in an order that I've already decided on."

Troy sat back, clasping his hands on the table before him. "You won't do it." He said, fully confident in his statement. "You need me for something. You can't afford to kill me."

With a sigh, Ruby straightened up in her seat. "You know, one thing that makes me really tick is when people question my resolve."

Before Troy could even blink, Ruby's form blurred as she snatched the gun and empty magazine from the table, slipped the former into the later, turned off the safety, pointed the gun at him, and fired.

Troy froze in shock and fear, the urine he'd been holding for the past two days being released as he waited waited for the end that he was sure was coming. Only rather than feel an excruciating pain in his chest or abdomen as he'd expected, it was his ear where the pain radiated from. Lowering his head to his hands, Troy felt along his right ear. When his hand came away, he realized the thing running down the side of his face and neck was his blood. He looked back up at the girl - no, the woman - holding him prisoner.

Ruby ejected the clip from her handgun and placed both back on the table from where she got them.

Troy looked down at his hands - now covered in blood -, behind him to where the bullet had embedded itself in the wooden wall behind him, and back at Ruby. "You-you shot me."

The redhead shrugged nonchalantly, "Yes, I did." She leaned forwards, clasping her hands on the table as she spoke, "I know you doubted me before but believe me when I say that I didn't miss, and that that's the only round that was loaded in this gun that wasn't a hollow point. And to alleviate your concern about expiring early, don't worry about that, there are plenty of places I can shoot you that will cause excruciating pain and don't endanger your life. Also," She held up one finger and then undid the clasps on the case she'd up until this point neglected and opened it to reveal a Jet Injector and twelve vials of slightly glowing solution. "I made sure to bring these to ensure you didn't go into shock. We wouldn't want you to go into shock, would we?"

His eyes widening in fear and realization of just what and who he was dealing with, Troy watched as Ruby shifted slightly into a more comfortable position in her chair and smiled at him. "Now, Troy, shall we begin?"

With a hip-bump, the redhaired teen slammed the driver side door of her car, holding a Burrito Queen's bag in one hand and a strawberry shake in the other.

"You're doing what?" Junior asked, dumbfounded and staring at her over the roof of her car.

Pausing for a moment to phrase her response, Ruby took a sip of her strawberry shake before responding, "I'm taking a...vacation. That's the word I was looking for. I'm taking a vacation while I try to sort some things out. It won't be too long, I promise. Two months at most."

The two of them headed towards Ruby's apartment building walking side by side as they did so.

"Two months?! You don't just decide to take a two month vacation and not tell your family about it until the day before you decide to leave, Ruby!"

"What's your problem, Junior? I'm just gonna be gone for a bit. It's not like the world is gonna end in my absence." She took a long draw of her shake. "Besides it's about time that I get a break."

"About time that you get a break? You took like half a week off, not too long ago!"

"That was like two weeks ago and besides that was two weeks ago. A girl can only go so long before she needs a break from…" She glanced over at him out of the corner of her eyes, "all of the testosterone that comes with dealing with you and Roman...or the lack thereof as is the case most of the time."

Junior made a face at her back as he responded, "Haha. You're a real comedian, Ruby."

Ruby grinned back at him over her shoulder as she unlocked her apartment door, "You love me nonetheless."

"That I do, Rubes. That I do." Junior responded, inclining his head in her direction and following along behind her into the apartment until she came to an abrupt stop and made him run into her back. "Ooph. What'd you stop for?"

Gesturing into the apartment, the redhead shook her head exasperatedly. "Why do I even bother with putting a lock on my door? Everyone just walks inside as they please anyways."

Junior looked past her and chuckled to himself as he spied Roman and Neo sitting on the couch, eating popcorn, and watching a movie.

The orange-haired mobster half-turned and looked at Ruby and waved cheerily with a handful of popcorn, "Hey there, Red! We got here a little bit ago and decided to get this Movie Night started early. Hope you don't mind."

"No. It's just fine, Roman. I mean, it's not like I lock my door for a reason." Ruby stepped in, set her keys on the dining room table and froze. She pointed at a giant inflatable duck sitting on a stack of books on a chair at the table. "What the heck is that thing?"

Roman looked back from the movie for a moment before returning to it. "Oh, that. That's Mr. Quackers. I found him on a shelf for sale in a Dust shop that I was liberating the Dust from and decided he was too irresistible not to take."
The scythe-wielder looked from the monocle-wearing, mustache-adorned duck to Roman and back to the duck. "He's creepy is what he is. I think I'm going to have nightmares now."

"Oh, don't say that." Roman leaped up from his seat, placed the bowl of popcorn in the lap of a now very disgruntled multi-colored girl, and ran over to the duck, and picked it up, posing with it like he was a showgirl on The Cost is Correct. "I mean look at this adorable face. Doesn't it just make you wanna hug it and squeeze it until it pops from all the love you're pouring into it?"

Ruby shook her head and pulled off her jacket, setting it on the back of a dining room chair. "No, it makes me want to get a needle and pop it. That's what it makes me want to do."

Setting her scroll and food on the coffee table, Ruby jogged into the kitchen where she grabbed a small thing of ice cream and a spoon for Neo before taking her seat in the armchair.

Junior pulled out his taco and bit into as Ruby sat down. "What are we watching?" He, asked, a couple strands of lettuce hanging from the corner of his mouth.

Roman looked over from where he was trying to wrestle a spoon of ice cream from Neo, "Oh, Neo picked it out. It's some campy horror movie that came out recently, The Forkening I think? It's about a crazy person who escapes from an insane asylum and goes around killing people with a fork she's convinced is possessed by the spirit of her dead son that's egging her on to do all of this to make up for his murder years ago."

The information broker set down his taco on the table and covered his mouth with his other hand as a wave of nausea swept through him after watching someone get disemboweled with a fork. "And I'm done eating now."

Roman threw a piece of popcorn at Junior bouncing it off the older man's forehead, "Stop being such a pansy."

"It's not my fault that I have a weak stomach!"

Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!

Chuckling at the group's antics, Ruby snatched her vibrating scroll off of the coffee table and slipped into the kitchen for some quiet as she took the call. "Y'ello?"

The scroll showed Charlotte's grimacing face as she tried to ignore the nuzzling her girlfriend, Dodger, was giving her neck. "Heya Ruby! Ow!" Charlotte squeaked and jumped before slapping Dodger in the side of the head. "Bad Dodger! No biting while I'm on the scroll talking to Ruby! Anyway Ruby, Dodger just got back from her business trip and I don't think we'll be able to make Movie Night tonight. She's being very-OW! Stop with the biting for the moment, Dodger! I'm serious. As I was saying, Dodger is rather insistent we stay home tonight."

"That's fine, Charlotte. I didn't think you were going to be able to make it anyway."

"Thanks Ruby. Talk to you later."

"Uh-huh. And Dodge."

Dodger turned her head towards the scroll, "Yeah Ruby?"

"Give Charlotte a big ol' bite on her neck for me will ya? She never did give me that money she owes me from a couple of nights ago."

The eighteen year old watched Charlotte's brows furrow in confusion, "What money are you - OW!"

With a smile and a shake of her head, Ruby snapped her scroll shut and headed back out into the living room just in time to run into Roman and Junior. Each of them grabbed one of her arms, lifted her a few inches in the air and carried her back into the kitchen as Neo followed behind them.

They deposited the now confused teen in front of her fridge and stepped back giving her some breathing room. Meanwhile Neo stepped forward in between the two men and they all folded their arms simultaneously as they silently stared at her.

Ruby looked between the three of them. "Alright, what's this? The last time the three of you ganged up on me like this was when I was going through that whole obsessed-with-Achieve-Men phase and you had that intervention to remind me there was more music in the world than them, so what's up?"

The three were silent for a moment longer before Roman spoke up, "Junior told us that you were planning on leaving for a bit."
"Yeeeesss." Ruby said hesitantly. "There's some things that I need to look into. What does that have to do with anything?"

The next to speak was Junior, "We want you to promise us something."

Ruby glanced at Neo as if expecting her to say the next thing, only for the multi-colored girl to jerk her thumb towards Roman.

"We want you to promise you that you'll come back to us alive. No matter what." Roman said when the redhaired teen looked at him.

"Because as dysfunctional as we are sometimes…" Junior trailed off and Roman picked it up again.

"...we're still family."

Grinning, Ruby opened her arms and hugged three of the most important people in her life as they all stepped forward into a group hug and for a moment they were all silent and happy to remain that way for the time being.

"What the fuck, Neo?! Did you just stab me with a spoon?!"

At least for a little while they were happy to remain quiet.

Author's Note: Fuck depression, fuck this chapter, fuck my inability to be happy with my own writing, fuck school, fuck work, fuck everything except for you guys because you guys are fucking awesome. Seriously, you guys are the only reason I'm still working on this thing and it's not just another one of the many things I've started writing, let gather dust on my computer for a bit, and then deleted so no one would ever find it.

Three months. That's how long it's been since my last update. Three goddamn months. I'm sorry, guys. For those of you who read A Snowy Promise and my promise to have a chapter out the next day, I'm doubly sorry. After getting reviews on last chapter, I looked back and quite frankly, I realized that the chapter didn't really come out the way I wanted it to. So I started this chapter about half a week after posting the last and I got most of the way through it and was going through it so I didn't have a repeat of the last chapter and...I deleted it because I wasn't pleased with the way it came out. I then proceeded to do this eleven more times in the following three months. That's right, this version is the thirteenth version of this chapter. I've written more versions of this chapter than I have published chapters of this story at the time I'm writing this. I have so many documents for this chapter spread out in both my Google Drive and my computer that my folder for this chapter has separate folders within it for each version of it since when I work on something over a period of time and not just one sitting, I usually break it up into parts and then create a compiled document of it all when I'm finished. That's just digital versions, that's completely ignoring the various spiralbound notebooks and composition notebooks I have spread around my room from where I couldn't access a computer and just started writing in them and then typed them up at a later date. I'm pretty sure that I've written more for this chapter than I have for the rest of the story combined so far. BUT! I finally got the chapter to a spot that I'm halfway pleased with. There was actually more that I wanted to touch on this chapter, but I promised someone that I'd have the chapter published on Sunday and I intend on keeping said promise.

I normally go through and respond to reviews here as well as in PM but I think I've waited long enough to get the next chapter out and don't want to take too much more time. I think I've responded to every review I could by PM but if I missed you, I promise it wasn't because I hate you, it was seriously just an accident on my part.

Thanks to everyone who followed and favorited after last chapter. Thanks to SentenRainen, SirRealism, Maelstrom of the Nine, tierboook, Fencer22, Shadow41425, and Chargone for reviewing (reviewers will be pleased to know that I finally managed to successfully fix the math in Chapter 5 for the payment, it only took me three or four attempts to do so).

I guess this is it until next chapter guys unless you're like Senten and completely insane and decide to do a reread of it. Au revoir.

P.S.: Mika, if you're still reading and the reason you didn't review was because of me telling you to make an account, I only said that in jest. I do greatly enjoy getting reviews from all of you and don't care if it's a guest review or a member review.

P.P.S.: I made a note of myself to ask and still almost forgot to do so, how the hell are you new guys still finding this shit? I know for a fact that this story isn't anywhere near the first page of any sorting method that currently has, and it's been three fucking months since I last updated so how are you guys still finding this thing? I mean there's been an average of like 20 views a day with it not being uncommon to reach 30 or 40 for the past month or so and there was a large influx of follows and favorites at the end of January and you guys have seriously got me flummoxed here. Um...shit this A/N got a bit longer than I planned on it being...sorry.

P.P.P.S. This would have gone out four hours ago had someone I know not decided to change the router password and blocked me from the internet between 12 and 4. Now I'm gonna go and plan a subtle but very aggressive technological and psychological campaign of war on my brother.