A review I got earlier today made it clear to me that giving Neo the 'Slum Child' title might have implied she was a lot younger than she is in my head, so, sorry for that.

In Chapter 2, I state that Neo is 15, the Malachite Twins are the same age, Roman is 26 and Junior is 31. As such, Neo will be 20 when canon rolls around, Roman will be early-thirties, Junior mid-thirties and the Malachites 20 years old as well. I feel like mid-thirties fits Junior, and Roman has seen a decent chunk of the world in my opinion.

I won't lie to you all though, I 110% forgot that I ever established their ages like that. I know that Jaune is 12, that was my grounding point for how to measure how long until Canon starts, but other than that, nada. This means that Neo is now 16 as her birthday came and went without any fanfare in chapter 4 since she told nobody about said birthday.

16 is also the legal age in the UK, so take of that what you will ;)

Chapter 6

'Roman, I swear to fuck, I am going to rip your testicles off and boil them in front of you if you keep this up.'

She didn't sign those words, but she felt her glare perfectly encompassed how pissed-off she was, since he protected himself by reflex and took a hasty step back. "Now, Neo, be civil here. The good man said quite clearly he only has the one room, so-" Taking a knife out of her inventory and flicking her hand up to twirl it by the base, she kept her mismatched eyes on him, blatantly dropping her eyes down to look between his legs. "I don't know why you'd bother scaring me when I know about your Semblance, but anyway, since we have to wait for our target to be vulnerable we have to stick around for a while. So let's just calm down, we're all partners-in-crime here, right?"

Catching the dagger, Neo gave him a considering glance, then flung the dagger to stab the floorboards between his legs, rattling them. While he was contemplating that it wasn't actually a fake, Neo flicked up a sign. "You might be easy on the eyes but so much as 'accidentally' come too close to my bed and I'll make sure your screaming is heard by the Entire. Fucking. Town. Clear?" He gave a hasty nod, stepping back and bumping the wall as she walked leisurely over to her dagger and yanked it out of the floor, sliding her fingers along the end then folding it away again, disguising her placing it in her inventory by using Overactive Imagination to make it seem that the dagger had burst into sparkles.

"If you're done with the genital mutilation threats and the complete disregard for personal space, we can-" Neo turned away whilst Roman spoke, leaping onto her bed and admitting, if only in her mind, that it was at least high-quality, Roman hadn't taken them to a cheap-as-piss hotel at least. Curious as to why Roman had stopped speaking, Neo glanced over her shoulder at him, and caught his gaze in a very dangerous place. He realised near-instantly that she'd caught him looking, coughing and tugging his hat down. Feeling her cheeks heat just a tiny bit at the fact that he even seemed interested at all, even though she already suspected there was something more than just partnership between the pair canonically, Neo put it aside as he moved to sit on his own bed. "-we can start planning exactly how this is going to go down."

Rather than try to assert herself, Neo always took a back-foot on their planning for jobs, since Roman, for all his eccentricities and oddities, was like the Sun Tzu of planning stuff. "Okay, well, aside from admiring the view, either of them ;)-" She smirked as he looked away again, not bothering to shift her chosen position since she found she kinda liked the attention. "-I don't know much about casing a person. Just following whoever our mysterious target happens to be sounds like a stupid idea, and since you expect me to befriend this mysterious person, who I will assume is a girl from your stupid 'girl-powers' remark, I need some details."

"Alright, you got me there." Neo rolled over and sat up with a more serious expression taking over from her previous playful attitude, watching as Roman seemed to psyche himself up. Apparently trafficking an actual person, a little girl if her assumptions were to be believed, was a step too far. Obviously whatever had been offered to him was pretty major if he was willing to go so far against his own morals, twisted as they were. "We're going after, and please don't stab me for this, an eleven-year-old girl called Ruby Rose. She's got red hair, silver eyes, is pretty energetic, has a hero-complex, adores sugar and cookies and any kind of sweet treat, and...uhh, she 'should' have a Semblance of speed to some degree. Whether or not she's in control of said Semblance the dossier didn't say, but even if she has bad control, speed sounds pretty dangerous."

"So, sleeping drugs in a bag of cookies? I can disguise myself as someone close to her, give her the bag as a gift, maybe I could put it in her locker with a note...if she even has one?" Roman shrugged at that, evidently he didn't have any information on Signal yet. "Well, cookies would be the best route to give her a sleeping agent if she loves sweets so much, you can gift someone a bag of cookies pretty easily after all." Neo then frowned, palming her chin. At Roman's questioning look she shrugged. "I just can't shake this feeling that something's wrong here. Not just the whole 'kidnapping a literal child' thing, but something bigger."

She saw the moment that Roman's gaze wavered just a little right as he read the word 'bigger', as though he was relieved she didn't dig deeper, and she was looking for exactly that. Last time, he'd caught her entirely by surprise when he dropped the bombshell that they were going to kidnap someone on Patch. Since he was being paid a pretty penny for it and there were very few high-value-targets on Patch to begin with, she was more thinking about the ramifications of what was about to happen.

But he knew that there was something wrong with the job. He'd never kidnapped anyone before, it was just too difficult to make good money doing it. So, he was being paid in advance to attempt to kidnap someone, and since he'd never taken that kind of job before, that meant something special had happened. So, mentioning that she thought something was wrong was an easy and risk-free way to see what, if anything, Roman knew about the job. "Okay, spill, what's so special about this kid?"

Staring directly at him without blinking, Neo all but dared him to brush her words off. To his credit, he held her gaze for a few seconds before breaking it to take his hat off and fiddle with it. "Silver eyes." He eventually muttered, not meeting her gaze. "Apparently, there's something special about silver eyes, at least according to the 'client', so I did some digging. Rumours and superstition mostly, but, according to legend, silver-eyed warriors used to be the best-of-the-best when it comes to killing the Grimm. So, whether they want to train her into an attack dog, use her as a breeding sow to create more, or maybe try to steal her eyes and implant them into themselves, I don't know. But what I do know is that if they need her to be kidnapped, whatever purpose they have in store for her is not a fate I'd ever subject an eleven-year-old child to."

During his last sentence, his eyes rose to meet hers again, mirroring her own firm gaze. With a quick wave of her hand, Neo relented, drawing his gaze away from her own as he read what she wrote. "Me neither. So, kidnap, apply friendship technique, get kidnappers caught by Hunters, send girl home, and back in Vale in time for tea?" He snorted and laughed a little at her brusque description of their plans, but nodded in agreement to the general gist of it all. Waggling her fingers, Neo flopped down onto her side, watching him for a moment as he got up and hung his hat up, then shimmied up to rest her head against the pillows, pulling out her shiny new scroll as she did so to burn some time.

Roman was, after all, all too happy to make up his own plans, and it meant she was free of all of the blame if they went horribly wrong somehow.

Under the disguise of her Semblance, Neo eyed Ruby as the young girl walked through Signal with the lackadaisical attitude of someone who had no idea the world rested on her shoulders.

Of course, right now it didn't. Aside from a very select few, nobody knew how important Ruby was. The fact was that those who did know her importance and were on her side believed that she was safe in anonymity, that nobody knew where she was or who she was. It was a stupid thing to rely on obscurity when any public record would show that Summer had a daughter, but since Ruby made it all the way to Beacon, evidently in canon, it worked.

That meant that butterflies flapping their wings had caused Cinder, Salem or whoever it was to get in contact with Roman, probably because they'd already made a real name for themselves, and then hired them to kidnap her. Maybe in canon they did so this early as well but because of whatever reason Roman didn't accept it. Never-the-less, Roman wasn't about to hand Ruby over to them, which just helped cement his position in her mind.

Shaking her head, Neo refocused on Ruby, watching closely as she approached her locker. She opened it, surprised for a moment to find a small bag. After much planning and debate, they decided on using Taiyang instead. Inside the bag were some cookies, two custard donuts and a caramel twist, all of which were laced with fast-acting sedatives. As long as she ate more than two cookies, or a single donut or just the caramel twist, it would knock her out. If she ate it all in five minutes that was fine, they were going for safety after all, which was why the dosage was low enough that should she only eat one piece, she wouldn't get knocked out. That would complicate things, but it would make her drowsy and slow to react, which would make it easy to capture her still.

The note attached to the bag claimed that Taiyang was going to be late getting home, so she could enjoy some treats, and could play video games so long as her room was tidied up, which meant more than just kicking everything underneath her bed. Neo watched as Ruby's cheeks reddened and she pouted, grinning at having been spot-on about her habits. If she'd gotten suspicious, Neo was just going to give her a quick jab with a syringe and knock her out that way, but avoiding even the potential for a fight was best, since they were literally in the middle of Signal.

Ruby put the bag back and organised herself to go home, picking it up again when she was finished and swinging the door shut, heading for the main gates of the school with a hand already buried in the treat bag. That was not what she wanted to have happen, she was hoping Ruby would either eat some at the locker, or would wait until she was outside of the school. Thinking fast, she used her Semblance to create an illusion of Taiyang coming around a corner, prompting Ruby to freeze with her cookie-holding hand halfway to her mouth.

She used the illusion to make Ruby think he'd come over, smiled and patted her on the head before telling her to at least wait until she was out of school to start chowing down. Biting her lip, she then made her believe that he said he would take her to see the latest X-ray and Vav movie over in Vale if she listened to everything he said on his note, to which the girl very quickly nodded, wrapping her arms around the illusion and thanking her 'father' repeatedly.

Neo used the illusion to prompt Ruby into leaving, dissolving it once she was around the next corner. It was all for a good cause, so using her father like that was totally reasonable and not a bitchy move that was probably going to leave the poor girl utterly confused and wary for a while. Wait, that was a good thing though. If Ruby grew up more wary and cautious, she wouldn't get caught in so many...no, she would. The Interface thingie had literally told her that canon was still going to try and assert itself, so unless she personally trained Ruby to be a badass, a lot was still going to try and force itself to happen the same way.

Following along sedately, Neo observed as Ruby had an internal war with herself, amused by her desire to gobble down her sweets immediately. Fortunately, her obedience to her father held long enough to get out the gate and down the road. She walked while she snacked, and after a few more turns, the odd fuzzy-headedness she undoubtedly started feeling was replaced by an overwhelming desire to take a little nap.

It only took a few seconds after she leaned against a wall and shut her eyes, pushing her palms into her eyes to rub them, before she slid down to a seated position, then a few more for her to nod off completely. Heading over, Neo observed her for a moment before grabbing her wrist. With no reaction, she stooped down, and with a tug and a little finagling, hoisted Ruby onto her shoulder in a fireman's carry, only made possible because she had decently high strength and Ruby was only eleven.

She simultaneously hid the girl from vision with Overactive Imagination, leaving them both unobservable as she walked down the street, evading people with ease and making her way towards their chosen safe-house, which was the same hotel room they'd stayed their first night at. A bit of a learning experience living in the same bedroom as a man, but maybe it was deliberate on Roman's part, a way to bring them closer together?

Shaking her head at the thoughts that she'd inadvertently brought to the forefront of her mind, Neo returned her focus to the sleeping Ruby on her shoulder. Fingers crossed, this plan of Roman's worked and she could become somewhat of a friend to Ruby. The fact they'd kidnapped her wouldn't be good, but since Ruby was one of those 'power-of-friendship' protagonists, maybe she would still accept her friendship?

As she thought about that, Neo glanced at Ruby's leg, using her Observe function out of curiosity.

Ruby Rose - Level 8

Age - 11

Class - Huntress-in-training

Title - Plot-armoured Main Character - +100 Luck

HP: 125/125.

AP: 115/115.

STR: 5.

VIT: 5.

DEX: 10.

WIS: 3.

LUK: 4 (104).

That was...a pretty absurd buff.

104 points of luck meant literally guaranteed Critical Hits on every single attack. Then there was the 'general luckiness improved' thing, which was probably why she hadn't been killed despite all the deadly situations she got herself into. Honestly, it made her quite tempted to put some points into luck. If she put 20 into it, every single hit would be a critical hit, and she would have a 520% chance for bonus loot drops from mobs, not that she ever fought them.

Her assumption with that was that she was supposed to be doing things like going to Beacon, fighting Grimm, going on quests and adventures, but honestly, hanging around Roman was where she wanted to be, so she never really got that chance. Robbing people meant no killing, and so she didn't get any kind of drops there aside from quest rewards. Maybe going out beyond the walls and finding some Grimm to fight might be a good idea? Or, better yet, maybe enrolling in Beacon? She had a year left before she was at the right age to apply, and sure, she didn't have an actual education, but if Jaune could get in, she doubted she would fail to do so.

It'd mean having way less time to actually do criminal stuff, but if she sold it to Roman well enough, maybe he'd be alright with it? If he really wasn't, then she'd...honestly, she would actually respect that and not go, which was weird to think about. She was still pretty free-spirited, sure, but somehow, going against Roman just didn't sound all that appealing. Yeah, they'd been partners-in-crime for a while, but still, the fact that the idea of respecting what he wanted for her being strong enough that she'd choose to not do something like go to Beacon was...weird.

Maybe this was one of those things that the thing that had explained the game meant about canon trying to assert itself to some degree, keeping her out of Beacon and next to Roman where she should be. But then, why were they being allowed to kidnap Ruby if that was the case? As far as she knew, Ruby never got kidnapped before, especially not by Torchwick and Neo, so what was the deal with that, it couldn't go both ways after all.

Whatever the case was, Ruby was now officially kidnapped, Roman was currently getting into contact with presumably Cinder or an agent of Salem's, and she assumed he was going to send a tip-off to Qrow, Taiyang or Ozpin as to the whereabouts of Ruby. Neo had the wonderful job of keeping Ruby company and trying to get an 'in' with her. And that was, now that she thought about it, an odd thing for Roman to want.

Sure, he told her that he'd done some research on the silver eyes, but why would he, a career criminal, be interested in her, when the silver eyes were basically just meant to be amazing against the Grimm, and thus of no use to him...it just didn't add up. The more she thought about it, the more things she realised were just a bit...off with Roman. Him taking the job, him wanting her to get close to Ruby, his little slips and mistakes, almost like he was expecting her to be something or someone else...and a theory came to mind, one that explained why Roman was so abnormal compared to what she expected.

It was a pretty outlandish theory, but so was reincarnating with a system that was styled to be like a video game...he was the same as her.

So, Neo might not be the sharpest cookie in the tool jar, but once she gets ahold of a thread, she'll follow it back.

So, she now at least suspects Roman of being like her. To what extent she doesn't know, but she'll definitely be bringing things up with him. For example, maybe making a mention about a bird tracking them or similar stuff like that. Things that he'd only get really concerned about if he already knew their significance. Sure, a bird tracking them was bad, but she could easily evade the bird by using her semblance, so if he got genuinely worried about it instead of just telling her to take them away under her Semblance, that'd mean he knew there was more to it than just them being tracked by a tame animal or a Semblance.

Name(s): Layla, Neopolitan

Class: Slum-child

Level: 57 (3,057/57,000 EXP)

Title: Partner-in-Crime - +25% damage when within 50 meters of Roman Torchwick

Health Points: 625/625 - 5% Regeneration Rate (81.25 Per Minute)

Aura Points: 640/640 - 7% Regeneration Rate (102.4 Per Minute)

STR: 17 (+12)

VIT: 13 (+5)

DEX: 52 (+14)

WIS: 16 (+2)

LUK: 26 (+17)