A/N: Okay, so people are gonna call me a liar, so I'm gonna just say it. I tried this before and I was super excited to write it, and I wrote it really badly. I'm trying it again, and I'm hopefully gonna write it better. Rest assured, you'll have the promised MHA/RWBY crossover, but first I just wanted to crack this thing out.

I've had Stand ideas for a bunch of RWBY characters, but I just haven't had the time or the mindset to put it all into motion. I didn't have the whole plot mapped out either (don't tell anybody but I still don't have it 100% but it's getting there). Hopefully now that finals are over and things are relatively quiet for me, I can actually get back to work on writing.

As a sidenote, TIL that the Volume 7 design for Neon Katt was inspired by Jolyne.

Tell me, do you believe in Gravity? Aren't all meetings a form of Gravity? Gravity is something no one is able to escape. Not even Gods. All beings in the world are subject to the ever-present force that is Gravity. Even I am not such a fool to believe I am above this. But neither should you be, for it is in ignorance of the universal pull of Gravity that you will fall to your knees before the evil at your doorstep.

Your 'Gravity' is compelling, but has anyone taught you of the rules of physics? Every action must have an equal and opposite reaction.

Yes, even Gravity.

It was a cool night, just after midnight, by the click-click-click of his pocket watch, and all the pieces were in place. Nothing could go wrong. The target? The dust shop he'd been scoping out personally for the past few weeks, "From Dust Till Dawn." Believe it or not, it was the only dust shop open that late in the city. Most in Vale closed by nine on weekdays, and ten on Fridays and weekends if they were really desperate for business.

Roman almost felt sorry for the poor bastard. If he was open this late, it must have meant that the rising dust prices were hitting him hard, but that was neither here nor there. It wasn't Roman's problem and it wasn't his fault… okay, maybe it was his fault.

Oh well. It was about to be the shopkeeper's problem anyway. Roman was going to rob this grandpa blind.

"All right, boys, you know what to do," Roman said, motioning into the store with a shining, silver-gloved hand, "Grab the dust."

The shopkeep looked panicked, and quickly babbled out a "take my lien and leave! Please!"

Roman chuckled to himself, and looked to the man behind the register. It was the old geezer himself. Granted, of course it was. He had no other employees. Roman put his hands spread out on the glass counter, over the glistening dust crystals on display, the crystals' glow reflecting off his glittery left hand.

"I'm sorry, old man. If it were any other day, I'd be happy to take you up on that offer. Sadly, it is, in fact, not any other day, and I'm taking your entire stock," He said, threatening the man with a gun. Motioning to his henchmen, Roman said, "Search the rest of the store. If there's anyone else around trying to hide, take their lien. I want to make at least some money while I'm here on business."

His men were slow on the uptake, but got around to it.

A few quiet seconds later, Roman was getting bored. As much as he liked having people do the work for him, he missed taking his score with his own hands. Still pointing his gun at the old man, he started making small talk with him.

And that was when the old man responded by throwing his stapler in Roman's face.

Roman was by no means ready for an attack from a rickety old coot, and in turn, reeled back with a bright red mark on the left side of his face.

"Okay, you wanna play like that, you damn raisin? We can play like that just fine!" Roman yelled.

The old man responded by ducking behind the counter, fishing out a dust crystal, and throwing it over.

Roman was right in the path of the crystal. It was a red crystal, Burn Dust, which was highly volatile when handled incorrectly, so it was quite the surprise when Roman was able to bend over backwards and snatch the crystal out of the air in one fluid move. The fire blistering from the crystal calmed immediately in the clutches of that bright, gleaming glove.

"You civilian types just don't understand, do you? You're all ignorant of just how it is the hunters are protecting you, aren't you? You never once stopped to question, 'why do the Grimm just disintegrate in the face of those vainglorious bastards?'"

A surprised yelp was heard as one of the henchmen dropped unconscious in the back of the store.

There was a stunned silence for a moment, as no one in the store moved.

"Well? Go check on Vinny, you stupid mooks!" Roman said to the rest of his men, "I'll hold this smartass down."

One by one, all the henchmen filed into the back end of the store, and one by one, thuds of bodies hitting the floor reached Roman's ears.

Sighing, Roman thought to himself, Note to self: demand a refund from Junior.

Roman gave a warning look to the old man behind the counter and walked slowly to the back of the store.

He found his men neatly piled against a shelf, still breathing. Feeling some alarms going off in his head, he instinctively ducked. And it was a good thing he had, because if he had been even a fraction of a second too slow, he'd be K.O.'d just like his lackeys had been. A rubber bullet had impacted on the shelf at the same height as his temple. He watched for where it could have come from and found a diminutive girl in a red hood holding a pair of pistols.

"So, little red, you're the one who took out my less than stellar helpers," Roman said, intrigued.

"Yeah, I am. So what? You came in to steal stuff!" the girl fired back almost as fast as she had fired her gun.

"I came in to 'steal stuff' because that's what I do. If you have a problem with that, you can just quit while you're ahead. You have one thing that makes you better than old gramps over there," Roman said, his eyes wandering back to the shop's owner, who had been hastily calling the police, "and that's the fact that you have guns. But, ultimately, it'll soon be very, very useless if you continue fighting me. You see, I have what's called a Stand!"

Roman quickly kicked over the shelf that was between him and his quarry. She jumped back and put away her pistols. Roman stopped to see just why it was she had disarmed.

Quickly, she pulled a rifle on him out from her cloak and fired wildly. Roman ducked behind another shelf and wondered to himself, How many guns can one little girl carry with her? Nevermind, it doesn't matter. I'll be out of here soon anyway.

The rifle fire slowed to a stop. The girl yelled to the old man, "Did I get 'im?"

That's my cue.

"I'm afraid not, little red. See, you may not know what a 'Stand' is or what it can do, but my Stand, [SMOOTH CRIMINAL] allows me to dodge and escape easier the longer someone fights me," Roman bragged.

What she doesn't know and what I don't want her to find out, though, is that it works both ways. The longer she fights me, the easier it'll be for her to dodge my attacks, Roman reminded himself.

So there they stood. Outside in the street, a group of police cruisers were blaring their sirens, and an officer yelled into a megaphone, "Roman Torchwick! Exit the store with your hands above your head, and your weapons on the ground! Do not attempt escape! We have you surrounded!"

"That's what you think," Roman whispered to himself, finding it all too funny that he knew that officer well. That specific officer had been chasing him across Vale for months. His chances just skyrocketed.

As soon as he finished a wave with his silver-gloved hand to the officer from a window, he dove through another window and bolted down an alleyway. What he didn't notice was a shot from little red. That shot had missed him by a hair, and was intended to land a tracker on his jacket.

The girl sighed, pulled open her scroll, and turned off the tracker she had just shot. Just as she looked around the shop in defeat, she was approached by a woman with blonde hair and a stern expression.

"Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you could be in, young lady?" the woman yelled at the girl.

"That… depends on if you can eyeball how much property damage we might've caused," she responded.

"Then you are going to have to talk to the-" the woman's scroll rang.

"Yes, Ozpin. I- the girl? How did you know there was- Yes, she's here now, and no we didn't catch him!" the woman sighed as she turned to the girl and said, frustrated, "It looks like my employer would like to have a word with you."

And with a bad feeling in her stomach, and an angry huntress watching her, Ruby Rose was escorted to the police station.

The room was dark and uncomfortably warm. It didn't help that Ruby was incredibly stressed beyond belief. She was sweating actual bullets, she was sure of it. Would she be expelled from Signal? Would she never become a huntress? Would her father ground her if he found out what she did?

Her thoughts were interrupted when the door opening snapped her to attention. In walked a man with dull gray hair, and kindly brown eyes. More importantly, he walked in with a plate stacked high with cookies.

"Ruby Rose," he mused, looking at her with the same interest that a talent scout might look at a promising idol, "You have silver eyes."

Ruby quickly became wary of the man, and shifted her chair back a few inches from the table.

The man sat down, and presented her with the plate, and watched as she made each and every single dessert delight vanish, as if by magic.

"So, Ruby, where did you learn to do this?" the man asked, presenting her with a video from the security cameras in From Dust Till Dawn that showed her fight with Roman and his goons.

Choking down bits of leftover cookies, Ruby stated excitedly, "Fhignl 'Krdrmrr!"

The man laughed quietly, and made a gesture with his hand to slow down.

Swallowing, Ruby retried, "Signal Academy. That's where I'm being taught. Someday I want to be a huntress!"

"And why would you want to do that?"

"Well… I always had stories read to me about heroes as a kid, and the heroes in the books always left the world better than it was when they found it, so I figured I'd do the same. It's what I was always told I should do."

There was a moment of silence in which Ruby had what felt like years to contemplate what she had said. Did I say something wrong? Did I offend him? Why am I here in the first place? When can I just go home?

"Ruby, do you know who I am?" the man asked, beginning to glow with a soothing green light.

"You're Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy," Ruby said, trying very hard to hide the 'starstruck' still evident in her voice.

Just as she looked back to Ozpin, another man was standing next to him, an exact copy of the man Ruby was sitting in front of, but for his outfit. The man stood at his shoulder was garbed almost exclusively in white, with a suit the color of freshly fallen snow, and a top-hat patterned like a checkerboard.

"Well, Ruby, how badly would you like to be a huntress?"

"Out of ten, I'd give it a billion and one," Ruby said, starry-eyed.

The man in the hat glowed green slightly, leaned down and whispered into Ozpin's ear. Ozpin looked to the angry blonde woman, who rolled her eyes.

"Well, then you'd better head home and pack, or you'll be late to leave with your sister," Ozpin said, letting the realization sink in.

Did he just say what I thought he said?

SMOOTH CRIMINAL

Destructive Power: E

Speed: C

Range: A

Persistence: A

Precision: B

Developmental Potential: C

[SMOOTH CRIMINAL] is a stand that, when used effectively, can assure the greatest hope in the most grim situations. It is used when fighting, both physically and verbally, to increase the chance that the user will escape from an encounter or simply dodge an attack. The chance of dodging increases exponentially as a fight goes on, and the chance does not dwindle between fights with the same person. Roman Torchwick uses the ability to pull off incredible capers with a seemingly unending amount of good fortune. It takes the form of a bedazzled silver glove on his left hand. What Roman wants no one to know about his ability, however, is that whatever chance he has to dodge an attack is mirrored for his foe. The ability itself is completely neutral, but it is used heavily in his favor in conjunction with his opportunistic style. He may be a thief, but what good is a thief if he gets caught?