A pair of silver eyes stared out from the darkness of the alley into the dimly lit street.

'Remember Ruby in and out as quickly and quietly as we can' came the familiar dark voice 'we shouldn't stay in the city any longer than we need to'

"Yeah, yeah, Don't worry I got it" Ruby said aloud to the voice in her head. She then left the dark alley moving down the street. She wore a red hoodie vest over her black t-shirt with a red rose on it, black cargo pants that allowed her red tipped black tail freedom of movement, black combat boots, black wristbands on either arm, and in a makeshift sheathe at her back sat a simple kitchen knife. Her true weapon however remained out of view as the combination butterfly sword, .50 Cal. over-under double barelled handgun, and multitool was hidden on an inside pocket of her vest. Only the large bullets sitting around her waist belied the hidden weapon. Ruby walked quickly along the street passing by the many closed shops, Before arriving at one of the few shops on the street that was open.

'Here we are, dust till dawn,' the voice said before continuing to Ruby 'remember we just need the bullets, not the dust, not the weapons magazines, and most definitely not any of the weapons.'

"I said don't worry!" Ruby replied "I remember the plan, I won't screw it up."

'Right, sorry, you know how I get when we go into town.' Ruby knew all too well as she could feel the fear and nervous energy radiating off of her mental partner. It was understandable, but starting to spill over into Ruby's emotions.

"Just keep a lid on it will ya?" Ruby said under her breath as she entered the store. The store was much like any other dust shop, with more commercial use dust types towards the front and a series of large dispensers running along one wall. Ruby quickly searched for the shelf full of boxes of ammo and, after finding it, began to look for her favorite brand. While most bullets used a concoction of fire dust with a little wind dust to propel them, Ruby preferred a little gravity dust in the mix to give her bullets a little more kick. As she found the bullets she was looking for Ruby spotted a chrome plated Atlesian sniper pike.

'Ruby no.'

"aww c'mon, just imagine what I could do with a sniper rifle!" Ruby replied

'I'm too busy imagining how much lien that would take.' the voice rebutted. He had just finished his thought when the front door chimed open.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a dust shop open this late?" said a man at the front of the shop. He sounded friendly enough were it not for the sound of a pistol charging up immediately after.

'That sounds like a type 3 Valean' Ruby thought to herself.

'That's the pistol the police here use right?' her ever present ride along companion asked.

'yeah, it is' Ruby confirmed, 'let's see what's going on.' Ruby finished as she started to move slowly and carefully towards the front of the store.

'Ruby, we should leave' the voice argued 'I know you have your rule about bringing justice wherever you go, but Vale has their own police force. They can deal with a petty criminal.' Ruby pressed on, ignoring her permanent friend. Once she was close enough to see who was robbing the store she stopped and took stock of her unwitting opponents.

'Five crooks, four of them wearing similar outfits, three machetes, one type 3 valean pistol, and one cane' Ruby thought to herself.

'yes that cane is going to be such a problem' the voice said with much sarcasm.

'you never know…' Ruby started to reply until she caught the eye of one of the machete goons. She quickly ducked behind the shelf she was using as cover. 'crap, I think he saw me.'

'these guys look like gangsters Ruby, like organized gangsters. Confronting them here could have serious repercussions.' The voice warned.

'We'll see.' Ruby replied

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He could have sworn he had seen something duck behind that shelf, but the last time he had jumped into action at something like that he had been teased mercilessly by the other guys. Still never hurt to check.

He turned the corner to look down the aile, hand on his machete just in case, but he paused when he found nothing. He would have berated himself for being so jumpy and turned back to what he was doing, were it not for the thin, tiny arms that wrapped around his throat with surpising strength suddenly. Even as he grasped at them in an attempt to allow himself some air he found his efforts were blocked by something, he couldn't tell what but it stopped him from being able to pull the arms away from his throat. The answer hit him a moment later, an aura. He was dealing with, if the body pressed against his back were any indication, a tiny huntress. Even as the realization dawned on him, his world began to fade around him and he passed out.

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**THUMP**

'Um, wasn't that supposed to be a silent takedown?' the voice asked sarcastically.

"Shut up" Ruby deadpaned.

"Hey! You! Stop!" another henchman said as he rounded the corner bringing the Type 3 up and pointing it at Ruby. Ruby reacted by tapping into her semblence and body slamming the goon through the front window of the shop. As she and the goon made contact with the ground outside the shop, Ruby drew her weapon and flipped it to her sword mode, before slaming it into the ground, through the goons pistol, to stop her momentum. She then drew her sword up and got into a ready stance. The goons looked at her, the sword level with her eyes and pointed at them and the other hand out in front of her.

"Okaaaay…" the leader in white said almost deadpan "Get her." the remaining to henchmen jumped to action, charging Ruby with their machetes. The first to reach her went for an overhead swing. Ruby pairied easily and then delivered an aura infused flip kick to the goons face, sending him tumbling off to the side. The other goon was slightly more cautious, though not much as he went for the same overhead strike but the moved to block the follow up kick after Ruby pairied. Unfortunately Ruby didn't try the kick to his face, but rather used her semblence to get behind him and delivered a spine shattering kick to his back. He screamed out but fell to the ground finding his legs useless. Ruby turned and saw the other goon getting back up, and unslinging a Type 14 Valean sub-machine gun.

'Ruby dodge!' the voice called to her. It was unecessary however as Ruby was already drawing forth her semblence. She was well out of the way before the first bullets impacted the ground behind where she had been standing. Ruby then dashed in close and kicked the smg into the air. The goon stared in shock until Ruby brought the flat of her blade against the side of his face. She the followed her hit with a roundhouse kick which sent the goon to lying at the bosses feet.

"You were worth every cent truly you were." Ruby could hear the man mumble under his breath. "Well Red I think we can both say it's been an eventful evening and as much as I'd like to stick around and chat…"

"Who are you?" Ruby asked interupting the man's monologue. He seemed to freeze for a moment before developing a small twitch.

"Y-You don't know who I am?" the man said slowly. Ruby shook her head. The man suddenly started laughing "I'm on every news station in the kingdom! I'm the most wanted man in Vale! You don't know who I am?! I'm Roman Torchwick!" the man spat at Ruby.

"Oh, then you probably have a pretty high bounty on your head right?" Ruby asked in a sweet tone of voice.

"What?!" the man asked, only to widen his eyes in surprise as Ruby suddenly appeared within arms reach of him. He was able to pary her initial strike just barely and the two began a heated duel.

'Ruby, somethings coming, it sounds like an airship.' the voice told Ruby. A few seconds later a bullhead came into view. Ruby jumped back as the bullhead targetted her with it's machine guns. A small rope lowered from the side of the bullhead and Roman ran to grab on to it. The rope winched him up and the bullhead began to turn away. Roman however wasn't done.

"End of the line Red!" he said as he pulled up a red dust cristal he had probably stolen from the shop. He then tossed the cristal at Ruby.

'Grenade! Dodge Ruby!' the voice warned Ruby, who moved to dodge but stopped when someone dropped in front of her. Romans attempt to detonate his improvised grenade were blocked by a purple glyph originating from the newcomer. She had blond hair and wore very proffesional clothing, and a dark purple cape. She looked at the bullhead and launched a volley of some kind of dust shots at the aircraft.

'Ruby that's a huntress!' the voice said, fear evident in its tone 'We need to leave now!'

Ruby nodded her ascent and went to move away before she suddenly felt the gound of the street rapidly heat up like an oven. Ruby had just a second to attempt to dodge as her mind instictively told her this was bad. As Ruby leaped to get out of the way the ground suddenly exploded upwards, throwing Ruby even farther and causing her to roll uncontrolably. Meanwhile the huntress had managed to evade the bullheads attacks but was finding her own attacks to be blocked at every opportunity. When Ruby regained her bearings she saw that someone else was in the bay of the bullhead. She was wearing a red dress and had black hair and orange colored eyes. The next thing Ruby noticed was that the huntress wasn't able to get past the lady's defenses. Switching her weapon to it's gun mode Ruby took aim and fired shot after shot at the lady. Even after two reloads of her weapon Ruby still couldn't break the lady's defenses, to make it worse she had blocked Ruby's expertly aimed shots with her bare hands. That was like pouring salt on a wound. Ruby let out an almost ferral growl as she reloaded her pistol again. So upset was she that she failed to notice the gound heating up again. Ruby did however notice when an unknown force suddendly threw Ruby's body foreward, and out of the way of danger. While the huntress had been preoccupied saving Ruby the bullhead turned away and flew off.

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