Citizens coward in fear at the pack of monsters that creep from the shadows of Vale in human flesh.
Innocent and curious orbs of different shades laid their vision on what seemed to be gangsters, as they passed them like they were nothing but ghost. Every stare soon turned into one filled with horror, concern, and stupidity at the foreigners who tried to play tough in their hometown. At the examination of these fine dressed men through the squeals of little children and horrified parents and teenagers, many could realize who exactly these men were.
There were four gentlemen, each corresponding with the other having black combed hair, red tinted glasses, and black hats. As for there attire, they possessed matching black suits that helped them camouflaged in the night, displaying them in public's eyes as flying faces on some occasions, same color gloves and solid black business shoes.
Some of Vale's citizens could easily mistaken them for their kingdom's finest men in black heading to probably a rich night club, but the majority already knew for sure, that these were with the presence of a man that stood out from his partners in crime.
He was a man with a slender figure hidden underneath a red lined white suit jacket with midnight black pants, making his attire a sore thumb compared to his allies. He also wore a gray scarf around his delicate neck, accompanying black gloves the same shade as his pants, and the signature accessory of all, his bowler hat with a small feather neatly tucked in it's red band riding along the bottom middle. Due to this, and his fire orange hair with his uncovered forest dark green eyeliner eye, all of Vale's night strollers knew who he was from the gecko.
The infamous yet underrated criminal, Roman Torchwick.
The mid to late thirty year old male had been noted for his sneaky strategy and unstoppable robberies mainly dealing with supplies of dust. And with his cocky attitude and henchmen to back him up, he had conceived a wild goose chase between him and Vale. Maybe all of Remnant, if being honest.
Due to the multiple robberies he committed around Remnant, many policemen and military forces have thought that the criminal has been working for someone in the shadows or that someone even bigger would be behind him on his sickening missions. But until they can catch the orange hair thief, there would be no logical answers. And unfortunately, tonight might no be any different for detectives and answer seekers.
After a few more glances, snickers, and gasp of fear, the man and his boys were finally met with a place in need of their pockets. A small convenient dust store, named "From Dust Till Dawn". The criminal who now revealed a cigar to the world to rebirth and kill between his lips, had heard of the good reception around this place. Reviews online and on the streets informed friends and families that it owned the best supply of dust there is, with the lowest prices in the kingdom, and best of all,
Open twenty four seven.
At the thought of how further the moon was traveling dust towards them and the store's idea of opening hours, Roman inhaled a portion of light for his cigar to feel it's soul pour inside his mouth. Eventually he exhaled it's soul back into the world to evaporate in the air, killing his little friend slowly but surely before entering the dust store with his men.
As soon as he threw himself into the small store, he was met with a older man in front of two counters of dust particles, behind a counter of beautiful dust crystals. He was rather old with a balding head that concealed gray hair on it's sides, bathed in wrinkles, wore a green dress shirt with a apron above along with grey pants, and stuck in a state of susceptibility. The orange haired man could already tell this would be a rather easy heist to pull off.
With a sinister smile gradually evolving into a frown, Roman greeted with a simple question, "Do you know how hard it is to find a dust shop open this late?" Without warning, the old man was met with a sound similar to an engine starting up and a sight he was all too familiar with.
The right end of a gun.
In it's eyesight, the shopkeeper wasted no time to freeze immediately, raising his hands up to surrender whatever they wanted. It was a shame he didn't fight back, but who cared, it only made his criminal's job easier. "Please! Just take my lien and leave."
"Sshhh," The thief shushed nicely before revealing his true motives in a whisper, "Calm down, we are not here for your money... Just the dust. Grab it." With his sudden order, two of his fellow men approached numerous tube containers on the wall containing different types of dust. Dust made for the cylinders they possessed in their hands. They watched as these objects became filled with liquefied weapons along with it's owner deliberately giving them out for the safety of his life. Things were going smoothly for the man. No police arrived, no complaints and no interruptions. This would all be smooth sailing...
If it wasn't for him to find a end of a reddish black gun, it's mouth pointing straight at him eagerly, by a feminine hand from behind the past owner's shoulder. He wondered as the hole stared deep into his lost orbs as if they longed for the reason he was there. Their moment of silence soon ceased from the sudden shift of the weapon being slowly moved away from his face to unwrap a surprising yet scary image to the criminal.
What he saw behind the murderous weapon was a young teenage girl who held a carefree and demonic grin his way. She was a rather fair skinned girl with silver eyes with a shade equivalent to cents and black, neck-length hair that gradated to dark red at the tips cut in an asymmetrical style.
She seemed to have wore a long sleeved thick black blouse with a high collar and red trim on the sleeves, a black waist cincher with red lacing up the front, and a black skirt with red trim.
Soon the teenager moved herself to the old man's side to show the thief her pair of thick black stockings and black combat boots with red laces, red trim around the top and red soles. Her attire was then topped by a red hooded cloak fastened to her shoulder by cross-shaped pins. Finally, her supposed emblem, which was a metallic flower, appeared as a large silver brooch and was pinned to a wide black belt slung around her hips on an angle, which also had bullets and a pouch attached.
In her curious choice of clothing and weirdly given smirk, the young female lifted out her open hand towards the male to command him harshly, "I'm sorry to inform you that those little pieces of dust belong to me. Hand them over... Unless. You want to die quickly." With her choice of words, the female expected the orange haired man to give them up out of fear like his victim. Or even escape without a peep with his somewhat useless minions. Instead though, she was met with a reaction that caught her completely off guard, in both a bad. And good way.
The man, without hesitation, continued to kill his cigar for one more second until he responded to her casually, "I'm sorry too, red. But you see, this little light of mine is important. So I have to bring it with me so it can shine."
"... That's the dumbest reason I have ever heard," The redhead replied not long after as she tried to negotiate with the man once more. But the girl had to remember, that even though she lived by the three strikes rule, Roman lived by another rule. No chances. No mercy.
With that being said, the orange haired man wasted no time to send his henchmen on her with a nod of his head. Before the teenager knew it, she was met with a sudden grab by one of his men. He thought he had shown the female how much of a fool she was to go against them. He thought he had won once again... But little did he know that in a matter of seconds, the teenage girl took hold of his arms, broke them violently to flip him in front of her and dash kick him with herself into the cold streets before the robbed store.
Luckily, the other three men wasted no time to approach the new challenger into battle. And Roman wasted no time to watch the show unfold. One of the henchmen headed out of the shop and ran towards the female, who simply unfolded her weapon into scythe mode to spin around it and fly into the first criminal, elbowing him so hard in the face that blood began to squirt from it like a fountain.
She then grabbed her scythe out of the ground caressly and propelled herself with it's ammo in the air to hit another one with a violent headbutt of her weapon, sending him flying into what might or might not be a coma.
As for the last man standing before her, now cowarding a little in fear? She fired again and brung the side down on the attacker and dodged the next's gunfire with her rifle's speed, getting close enough to possibly knock him down or into the air for a signature final blow. But did she do that? Apparently not, because before Roman knew it, he was instantly shocked at a image.
The image of his ally being stabbed in the chest and kicked off in a sickening manner.
"Well... Um.. Fuck this," The orange haired man nearly stuttered, still in disbelief as to what happened before him. "I would love to see what else you have in store for us tonight, but I have a schedule to keep up with. So sadly, this is where we part ways." The criminal, with his departure words, soon lifted his cane towards her face to waste no time and end her off with his own signature weapon. A cane which's bottom can transform into a riffle.
The teen, still smiling in satisfaction, knew what was to come, so she decided instantly that the best way to go after this. Was right towards the male. With her sudden action towards the male, the teenager with so much determination indicated in her eyes, dashed right through Roman, who realized that he had now wasted his ammo on the creation of another sick scene. He sadly missed the female, and to make matters worse,
She was now escaping with his supply of dust.
Roman wasted no time to dash quickly towards the redhead in the now initiated cat and mouse game. The orange haired man watched through the darkness as a fury of red flashed pass his vision like a speed demon of sorts. For a second, he mistaken the sight for one of his visions again or, if that street rat was around, another one of her tricks. Yet, that wasn't the case, because before he knew it, the young teenager had been found by his orbs, standing near the edge of a building in a frozen state.
As he finally approached her in this trance, the criminal couldn't help but smirk in a troublesome manner at what was to come. He then blurted out in slight excitement while panting to the girl possessing a blood red hood, "Persistent... But not for long."
Suddenly, as if he had gave the object a cue to arrive, a Bullhead immediately appeared from below to meet the glance of both him and his challenger. In it's glory, the machine delivered a harsh gush of wind their way to help the girl's hood look more like a wave of blood tissue connected as one rather then a natural red hood. Roman didn't see the face of the redhead clearly, but he already had an idea that she was speechless and horrified since she gave him a chance to hop aboard his getaway. Roman had kind of won this one after that. Now all he had to do was put the weird creature down naturally... If only it was that simple,
If the young teenager wasn't so intrigued by the sudden turn of tables here.
The teenager's smirk became even more apparent at the sight of a dust crystal in the man's gloved hand. A dust crystal that he showed no remorse for since he wasted no time to throw it her way, landing in her palms effortlessly. This could've been a victory for the young girl. She could've taken the object and go back home to her normal life. But no. She just had to wait for the man to shoot her down. And shoot her down he did, with an explosion caused by the defenseless crystal. Yet of course, he didn't have to cheer fortunately, because he could easily prove that this battle was long from over.
Through rubble and rigorous ashes came the blood thirsty warrior who charged right at him in super sonic speed. This action caused the teenager to slam the man down, making him grunt in anger at the intense pain met to his rib-cage. The two, now in each other's grasp, began to wrestle over the stolen dust as if their life depended on them.
Slashes, firing guns, punches and kicks were met by the other who showed no mercy. Their struggle continued for a while until the female did the one thing that finally made Roman admit that this female took the cake as the most psychotic person he's ever met. Even worst then the pilot of the ship that left him to nearly die.
This action, was simply the teenage girl slashing and dicing inside the Bullhead. Her effects on the ship was two ruined engines, two halves conceived from a whole and once again, another shipment of dust escaping from the man's grasp into the female's. It was in that instance, that both Roman and his partner to a degree realized that they had lost, due to the fact that after they escaped the grave crash, their enemy was nowhere to be found.
Through the crackles of flames and faint screams, the criminal instantly sat at a stable bench to his left to grief at his lost. He had just let a little girl get away with his dust, he thought furiously. The bastard ruined his perfect streak as being a unstoppable criminal. And to add to that, he probably wouldn't see that red haired punk ever again... Wait. She had red hair, right?... So, why was it that when she tackled him on that ship, her hair was pitch black, he asked himself. Was it because of the lighting? Was he hallucinating again? Or does she have the same ability as that street rat?
Sadly, his answers and questions had to be ceased at the sight of a certain someone. The sight of his pilot and leader of the cause. The person who definitely was going to punish him after this.
The human he feared right now was none other then a slender woman who had ashen-black hair and bright amber eyes, while her fingernails were painted dark red. In "Black and White", she wore lipstick and violet eyeshadow. She wore a dark-red, off-the-shoulders, v-neck mini dress with yellow designs. There was also a blue feather-like accessory on her right hip, at the top of an open portion of her dress. The dress ended in an upside-down triangular tail in the back, ending just above the knees.
There was a baseball diamond-shaped keyhole on the dress' upper back at the same height as her chest. The sleeves ended in a triangle shape, which were wrapped or tied around her middle finger, with the gold designs of the sleeve taking over at the wrists.
For her bottoms, she wore black shorts underneath her dress, as well as a black choker on her neck. She wore a gold loop earring with a black gem dangling from it on her right ear. She had dark, glass, high-heeled shoes and a jeweled anklet on her right leg. She might've looked like a beauty in the orange haired man's eyes, but she would do anything but eat his heart out. As a matter of fact, she probably would clobber it in a few seconds.
Eventually, the ashen black haired female stood in front of him with an emotionless expression on her face. Her and her partner shared a blank stare together through the smoothing sound of fire crying as they gradually began to die down. But not for long when the silence was killed by the female's cunning voice, greeting him with a medium monotone, "You should've known who that was... Were you aware as to who she was?"
"That punk," Roman questioned more then answered after lifting his head in her direction. "I didn't know who the hell she was. She just showed up out of nowhere and used my robbery as her own!"
"Aww. Why so upset? You should remember, people don't always play by the rules here. Especially since you've never player by the rules."
"It doesn't matter," The orange haired man nearly screamed in frustration. "She tricked me and pissed me off. For that, she deserves to get the crap beaten out of her."
"... Ruby Rose."
"Excuse me?"
"Her name is Ruby Rose," The woman repeated intentionally, no annihilating the look of nothingness on her face. "She's the child of Summer Rose and Taiyang Xiao Long."
"She's the senior dragon's kid," Roman asked in disbelief only for his partner to nod with content closed eyes.
"And she was taught by Qrow Branwen... It's interesting that such a girl can possess those techniques without messing up... She might be helpful in the power department. As for if she can control it? I don't know, she was rather reckless with her attacks... Until the end that is."
"Yeah," Her ally agreed in a puzzling state. "For some odd reason, as she was fighting my men back at the store, she was like a wild animal. She didn't care who was around her, she beated those men to a bloody pulp. Hell, she even killed one of them right then and there.. But when we were fighting over the dust on the ship, she was more-."
"Human?..."
"Yes..."
"... Then that does it," The black haired woman continued, crossing her arms next to her chest before discussing the game plan. "We're going to find the girl and recruit her for our cause. She might know the ropes of Remannt. But she doesn't know the ropes like we do... Besides, we already have the runaway, the orphan, and the left eye's offspring. What's wrong with having the serial killer?"
"Are you out of your mind? She almost killed us back there. We can barely control those three. Let alone snowflake and the black panther. We can deal with that naturally born assassin."
"You're a natural born criminal and I deal with you everyday," The woman revealed to the orange haired man swiftly to his distaste. He wanted to just grab her and tell her they weren't going to ask that beast to join them. And that was final. But he could already mentally see himself turned into bar b q if that was the case. He knew very well to never get on his pilot's bad side. Especially after those set of words. So without a single peep from his mouth. The man gave up the fight and surrendered to her word.
"Now, call the headquarters and tell them to send another ship our way. We leave at dawn tomorrow after we regroup... And Roman?"
"Yeah, Cinder?"
"Please don't worry," Cinder begged through a perfect smirk that pierced his heart slightly. "We are capable of putting her down and turning her into our everyday pet. Besides, even if she was stronger then us combined,
She's nowhere near Her power..."