RWBY: Book of Thieves
The Menace in the Machine – Rooftop Rendezvous
It was starting to turn dusk when Ruby and Blake made it back to the roof of their hideout in the boarded-up pub. The clear blue skies were subtly shifting into shades of orange and red above Dr. Watts's airship, though you could hardly tell the difference from anywhere else on the island due to the ever-present storm clouds with their howling winds and crackling thunder blocking the view. Hopefully, Ruby thought as she opened up the trap door to let Blake jump though, they would be able to fix the mess once they had taken down Watts. With that little happy thought in mind, Ruby downed down, closing the hatch behind her, and landed safely on the pile of pillows and blankets that had been laid out.
As she untangled herself from the sheets, Ruby found that Weiss and Yang had already beat them back. The hacker of the team was fiddling away at the bar table with her new laptop, which it looked like had been given a fresh coat of white paint and her signature snowflake on the cover. She was surrounded by a bunch of cracked television sets that Ruby knew hadn't been there when she left a few hours ago; Weiss must have stopped somewhere and convinced Yang to bring them all back. And speaking of whom, Yang was down on the dusty floor doing one-handed push-ups, and judging by the sweat glistening on her brow, she had been doing it for a while. Yang usually liked to exercise whenever she was bored or frustrated – Ruby suspected it might have been a little bit of both. Blake had taken a seat at one of the booth tables and was looking over her new guard uniform, inspecting it from every angle so that she could cover any potential slip-up in later missions. And Ruby, having nothing better do, thought she might as well go over and bother Weiss since the other two were never any fun.
The redheaded thief walked around the hacker, peeking over her shoulder curiously. To Ruby, the long paragraphs of random number and letters looked like gibberish to her, but Weiss somehow made sense of it. The Rose Thief frowned, crossed her arms in huff, and turned her head sideways as if it would make things any clearer. Weiss could practically feel Ruby hover over her shoulder, and, with an irritable expression, glared back at the team leader. Ruby raised her arm in surrender and slowly backed away. Now with her air space clear, Weiss went back to work on her laptop.
"Just once more sequence of numbers…and…DONE!" Weiss shouted victoriously with an over-exaggerated flourishing keystroke.
The old television sets sitting on the counter flickered to life with a loud static noise that made Ruby and Blake, whose ears were more sensitive than everyone else, clap their hands over their ears and wince. Thankfully, the noise died out in a couple of seconds when new images popped up on the screens. Some of the screens were still a little fuzzy and difficult to make out because of the spider web of cracks, but as Ruby leaned in close to one of the sets, she immediately recognized the images.
"Did you hack into the street security cameras?" asked Ruby impressively.
"Of course, what do you take me for?" said Weiss smugly, flipping her ponytail pretentiously. "I have eyes all over Gale Island, including the encampment in the plaza and several other secure locations. And the best part is, since we're riding along the same frequency, Watts doesn't have a clue that we're using his own security system against him."
"Weiss, you are amazing," Ruby complimented; Weiss's smile grew even wider. "So you can hack in to almost everything in town now?"
"Almost everything," said Weiss, frowning slightly as she tapped away at her laptop. "There are some stipulations. Namely this – " she tapped a key and displayed a set of blueprints. "Laboratory 6. Setting off the alarms to the building was easy enough, but the rest of the facility is completely off the network. It must run on its own system completely off the grid – it's effectively hacker proof unless I can establish a direct connection. Watts has to have something there that he doesn't want anyone finding out."
"Like something that could give Winter a reason to slap the cuffs on him?" said Ruby.
"Almost guaranteed," Weiss answered.
"So, what's the plan?" asked Ruby expectantly.
"Gather around, children, it's time to start planning a heist!" Weiss called to the rest of the team.
Yang, who had completed her five hundredth push-up, stopped, jumped up to her feet, grabbed a sweat towel that was hanging off the back of a chair, and walked over to stand next to Ruby. Blake, who had been searching the pockets of the guard uniform for any useful tools, immediately dropped the suit and joined the rest of the team on Ruby's opposite side. Weiss tapped furiously on her keyboard, bringing up a dozen pictures that essentially formed a slideshow.
"Our recon missions were successful in reestablishing a link into Watts's network and will make the upcoming heist a whole lot easier," she explained. "Unfortunately, it also revealed a number of new problems blocking us from the pages of the Book of Thieves." She brought up a picture of the town square. "The encampment around the airship's elevator," an image of a wander guard, "increased patrols, "and then an image of Watts walking with Winter and Oscar, "and probably the biggest issue: my sister and her new partner, Oscar Pines."
"What do we know about this new guy?" asked Yang, crossing her arms and tilting her head with a critical stare.
"Not much," said Weiss, bringing up a profile picture of Oscar. "He's pretty new to INTERPOL and there doesn't seem to be any record of past jobs or work experience. Hell, I don't think he even went through any formal training. But for some reason, he was personally recommended to Secretary-General Goodwitch by an unnamed source. He's unknown variable we have little information on. It could prove to be an issue in the future."
"I think he's kinda cute," said Ruby playfully.
"…what?" Weiss said slowly, staring at Ruby unblinkingly out of the corner of her eye.
"You know, in a farm boy kinda way," Ruby giggled, shrugging her shoulders innocently.
"…moving on," Weiss continued in a strained voice. "To summarize, a direct assault on Watts's airship is impossible."
"But you already have a plan to get around that, don't you?" said Yang confidently.
"More like a hope," said Weiss, bringing up the blueprint on Laboratory 6 again. "Dr. Watts most likely keeps all of his top-secret experiments here, in Laboratory 6. There might be something we could use there that'll allow us to reach Watts's airship without having to go through the encampment. Blake will go undercover in her new disguise posing as one of Watts's personal guard. With any luck, the guards working the lab will let you through without too much trouble."
"I did find a Level 4 security pass in one of the pockets," said Blake, holding up the laminated tag.
"Perfect," said Weiss optimistically. "Once you're inside, you'll need to locate the server room and insert my flash drive so that I can sync up with my laptop. I'm not sure if Watts's personal guard has access to the more secure areas of the lab, so you'll likely have to pick the pockets of some of the scientists. While you're there, keep an eye out for anything that we could use for the heist, or that could implicate Watts's enough to have him arrested."
"Simple enough," said Blake, nodding.
"Ruby, we're going to need your expertise to deactivate the external alarm horns around town," said Weiss, bringing up a picture of one as an example. "If Blake is successful in finding something that can get us up to the airship, we don't want to run the risk of alerting the whole town. Break open the panels and turn off the alarms using the manual override inside – don't worry, I'll be giving you instructions over the comms."
"Phew," Ruby muttered in relief.
"And Yang, I know how much you like beating people up, so I got you a fun job," said Weiss, bringing up a picture of another pub in town called The Salty Dog. "We want to reduce the number of patrolmen around town before we pull off the heist later this afternoon. Based on the ridiculous amount of text messages I managed to hack off the nearby guards, the majority of the night patrolmen like to hang around drinking at the Salty Dog before they have to start their shift. Yang, your job is simple: walk into the Salty Dog, kick their asses, and then stow them away somewhere no one will find them. According to my estimates, that'll reduce the number of guards around town by seventy-eight percent when night falls. That'll give us plenty of room to work around."
"I love this plan," said Yang eagerly, cracking her knuckles.
"Once all this is done," Weiss continued, "all that'll be left is to sneak on-board Watts's ship, steal back the pages of the Book of Thieves, and then get the hell out of here."
A patrolling guard snorted like a wild boar and grumbled profanities under his breath as he was forced to lug the heavy tool box under his arm. Ever since that false alarm went off in the doctor's super top-secret lab that hardly anyone was allowed into, he had been picked out of a hundred guards to do a thorough check of all the alarm horns in town. The patrolman didn't even know why Watts's had chosen him – he didn't know the first thing about electrical work; then again, the other guards seemed just as likely to electrocute themselves as much as they would shoot themselves in the foot. He thought the doctor was just being paranoid, but he didn't want to test his luck and make the boss angry – he heard the rumors about what he gets up to in that lab of his.
The guard double-checked the map of the town that Watts had given him and stopped in an alleyway between a rundown pharmacy and what used to be a butcher's shop. He shined the beam of his flashlight down the dark lane, pinpointing the large electrical box on the wall of the pharmacy. Unlike the buildings on either side, the box looked relatively new – something that Watts had added recently when he staked his claim on the island. The guard groaned as he set his toolbox down, pulled out a set of keys from his coat pocket, and opened the fuse box.
"Stupid scrawny mustache guy," the guard mumbled irritably, running his fingers over each wire looking for cuts or frays. "Making me come out here in the dark all by myself, doing a stupid system check. I'll bet a month's wage that it was one of the dumbasses in sector 6 that tripped the alarm and were too gutless to be upfront about it. Now I'm stuck here instead of having a pint down at the Salty Dog. Lousy, good-for-nothings…."
"Man, that really sucks," said Ruby, who was sitting cross-legged on garbage bin next to him. "Don't you just hate it when someone else causes trouble and you have to be the one to clean up after them?"
"Yeah, and worst of all, it happens, like, all the time," the guard complained, looking sympathetically at Ruby. "You would think they would learn after the first time, but noooo. Those dumbasses are always pulling the same crap and I'm the one left holding the bag."
"I feel you, my good man," said Ruby, crossing her arms and nodding in a very sage-like fashion. "I can't tell you how many times I've had to smooth things over with Junior every time Yang winds up getting drunk at his night club. Last time it happens, she ripped the disco ball from the ceiling, broke almost every window in the club, and punched Junior in the balls. I tell you, if it wasn't for the fact that Junior is terrified of her mom, Junior would never let Yang set foot in that club again."
"We sure have it rough, don't we?" said the guard with an exasperated sigh.
"Well, at least you're getting paid for the extra work, right?" asked Ruby.
"No, I'm still getting paid the same," the guard bemoaned, taking a screwdriver to the fuse box. "Even though I don't know the first thing about electrical work and am likely to shock myself. Did you know that they don't have workers' compensation? If I get injured on the job, I'm expected to pay for it myself. I'm working patrol on a hazardous island, for Oum's sake! That's a recipe for disaster!"
"That's so not fair!" Ruby gasped dramatically. "There's no way that's not illegal."
"I know, but we work for this guy privately, so we don't have a choice," the guard moaned.
"You deserve better than that," said Ruby firmly. She jumped off the trash can and snatched the screwdriver from the guard's hand. "Tell you what: let me worry about this dangerous electrical work and you go get yourself a pint down at the pub. On me," she added, handing him a crisp twenty pound note.
"Wow, thanks," said the guard appreciatively as he pocketed the note. "You know, you're all right, little girl. Here, take these," he handed her the set of keys. "You can use them to open the boxes. Meanwhile, I'm off to get myself rat-arsed! Cheerio!"
The patrolman happily turned on his heel and marched out of the alleyway with a delightfully spring in his step, humming "tiptoe through the tulips" as he disappeared around the corner. Ruby briefly waved him good bye, then looked at her newly acquired keys, jiggling them playfully, and pocketed them.
"…I can't believe that actually worked," Weiss said over the comms, dumbfounded. "Seriously, it's like every lackey on this island is missing a few million brain cells. Watts really needs to do a thorough evaluation of the people he hires."
"I'm not going to complain – makes my job a whole lot easier," said Ruby amusingly. She approached the electrical box and looked inside. "Okay, Weiss, I'm at the alarm. Now, I know you said I should deactivate the alarm with the manual…whatever thing, but wouldn't it be a whole lot easier just to break it with Crescent Rose."
"Only if you want to tip off Watts that we're coming," Weiss hissed. "You heard what that guard said: Watts has become even more paranoid since that false alarm went off at Laboratory 6, so he's double – and triple - checking all of the security detail around the island. If any of the guards see signs of tampering, they'll alert Watts and he'll no doubt increase the guards around the lab and his airship tenfold. His henchmen are idiots who don't know the first thing about electrical engineering. If we deactivate the alarms manual, they won't be able to tell the difference."
"Well, then it's a good thing that guard gave me his keys," said Ruby positively, patting her pocket. "So how do I do this? You got an instruction manual handy?"
"Give me a second…," Weiss hummed over the speaker; Ruby could hear a lot of frantic tapping. "Okay, this should be simple enough, even for you. Take out the orange with yellow stripes and then replace it was the purplish-blue wire. Then move the white wire where the purplish-blue wire was and insert the orange with yellow stripes wire where the white wire was. Switch places between the red wire and the green wire with blue stripes. Then flip the switches labeled one – seven – eight – three – four in that order. Then – "
"Whoa, whoa, slow down!" Ruby yelped, still looking through the wires. "I'm fast, but I'm not that fast! Now…was it the pink wire with the fuchsia wire, or…."
Weiss sighed irritably repeated the steps over, slowly.
Ruby painstakingly followed each of the hacker's instructions to the letter, though nearly shocking herself twice when she came close to putting the wire in the wrong socket. Once she flipped the final switch, she heard a low humming noise dying down behind the box. The Rose Thief poked her head around the corner of the alleyway, spotting one of the dozens of alarm horns at the top of a lamppost down the way. The faint red light on it flickered and then clicked off – the horn had been disabled.
"Mission accomplished," said Ruby cheerfully. She walked back to the electrical box, closed it, and locked it with the guard's keys. "That was way too easy."
"You would have burned yourself to a crisp without my help," said Weiss snidely. Ruby chuckled, not denying it. "But the job's far from done. You only managed to disable a third of the town's alarms. There are two more electrical box on the opposite sides of town and both of them are bound to be more heavily guarded. One of them is, coincidentally, on the roof of the Salty Dog pub where Yang has already engaged in what could only be described as a stereotypical western style bar fight."
"Good to know she's having fun," said Ruby, grinning.
"And the last one will be connected to the radio tower that Xiao Long and I investigated," said Weiss. "We're not sure if anyone has found the guards we locked up, but they are bound to have a new patrol unit watching the place. Be careful."
"Weiss, relax, I've done this kind of thing before," said Ruby confidently. "I'll just take a shortcut across the rooftops. None of the guards ever look up there. I can be in and out without them ever realizing I was there."
"Somehow, that doesn't instill me with confidence," said Weiss bluntly.
Ruby rolled her eyes as she cut off the communicator in her ear before pivoting on her foot and running at alley wall. She kicked off the brick into the opposite wall, where she parkoured back and forth until she flipped to the roof of the butcher's shop. Having memorized the town's layout from her reconnaissance, Ruby knew which directions both the Salty Dog and the radio tower were, and calculated the distance between them. The pub was a little closer to her, plus Yang would be making a whole lot of noise to provide a distraction, so she could swing around the Salty Dog undetected before heading to the radio tower. This'll be a cinch, Ruby thought cockily.
The Rose Thief soared across the rooftops, practically gliding over the heads of the roaming guards who were either too dimwitted to notice her shadow zipping across the cobblestone road or were more preoccupied looking at their phones to care. There was a moment when a patrolman perked up after Ruby hopped off a hanging sign, which creaked under her foot, and looked up just as Ruby's cape whipped over the edge. Ruby immediately crouched low, her hand on Crescent Rose, contemplating whether or not she should take the guard out before her alerts the others. Thankfully, action wasn't needed as the guard shrugged his shoulders uncaringly and went back to playing Cavity Crash. Ruby let out a relieved sigh and resumed her run, albeit a little more careful this time.
Ruby rolled onto the roof of an abandoned floral shop ("You would think Watts would find something useful to do with all these buildings," said Ruby contemplatively), ran across, and stopped near the edge. Her target, the Salty Dog, was on the opposite side of the street, and looked to be the only building with any real working electricity on the whole block. The Rose Thief saw half a dozen of shadows running back and forth frantically past the tinted windows along with a whole lot of muffled shouting. Ruby briefly wondered if Yang was doing all right – her question was answered immediately when a brutish-looking guard was through head first through the window onto the street, immediately out cold.
" – and you're mama's like a doorknob – everyone gets a turn!" an obnoxiously loud woman yelled from inside.
"Oi! Me mum is a saintly woman, you tosser!" someone else shouted back.
"Sounds like Yang's doing a good job," said Ruby amusingly.
"If there's one thing Xiao Long is good at, it's pissing people off," said Weiss snarkily. "The alarm system should be on the roof of the pub next to the door to the stairwell. You'll need to get over there to disable it."
"Not a problem," said Ruby confidently.
The gap between the floral shop and the pub was a considerable distance and not something that Ruby could just jump over, and it would take too long to go around. But as she looked around the street, she spotted to streetlamps on opposite sides parallel to each other. If she got the angle right, she should be able to do it….
The Rose Thief took a few paces backward, bracing herself, and then jumped off the roof with a running start. Ruby's boot slammed on the first lamppost – a moment of panic flittered up her spine when the light tilted – and leapt forward with all the strength her legs could provide. She already knew she wasn't going to make it to the post, but Ruby quickly whipped out Crescent Rose to its full length and stretched her arm as far as it could go. She barely managed to hook her the scythe on the crook of the lamppost, letting her momentum swing her around, and released at the highest point of her arc. Ruby nearly faceplanted into the pub wall before she swung Crescent Rose up to hook the ledge of the roof, planting her feet against the wall to stop herself.
The Rose Thief let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. She looked up and down the street in case anyone had seen her, but the lane was mostly clear except for the unconscious guards on the road, which seemed to have piled up while Ruby wasn't looking. Grunting with effort, Ruby pulled herself up over the ledge and landed flat on her bad safely on the roof, looking very relieved.
"See? Piece of cake," said Ruby with a sheepish laugh.
"Right…," Weiss said, her voice laced with disbelief. "Disable the control box before the guards wise up. Xiao Long can only be distracting for so long."
Ruby pulled herself up, nearly stumbling over her feet, and walked over to the electrical box attached to the sider of the rooftop door. She used the keys she got from the dimwitted guard to open the box easy enough, but that was about as far as she got on her own – her memory wasn't the best when it came to complicated stuff. Weiss once again had to instruct her through process, and when she flipped the final switch, the alarm systems on the streetlights below flicked out.
"And that makes two," Ruby sang cheerfully as she closed the box.
"Good," said Weiss. "That just leaves the control box on the radio tower. It sounds like Xiao Long is finishing up downstairs and Blake thinks she might have found something that will get us into Watts's airship undetected. Finish the last of the alarms and head back to the safehouse so that we can come up with a plan of attack."
"I'm already gone," said Ruby as she turned around…
And found herself going cross-eyed from staring at the long, customized cane being held up to her face.
The Rose Thief paused for a moment, her hands instinctively instantly raising themselves in a surrendering gesture, and her gaze travel upwards slowly. The cane belonged to Winter's new partner – Oscar Pines, if she remembered right – and the Ice Queen herself standing at his shoulder with one hand on the pommel of her saber. Oscar gestured hero stand up with his cane, which Ruby did slowly and realized that she was actually taller than Oscar, maybe even a few years older than him. How young was this kid, Ruby pondered.
"Well, well, look what we have here," Winter spoke in a silky tone with superior smirk. "We heard the commotion from down the street and came to investigate when we noticed to flying across the street like a trained circus monkey.
"Hey!" Ruby whined, feeling insulted.
"Ruby Rose, you are hereby under arrest for…um…a whole lot of stuff!" Oscar finished lamely, earning a couple of raised from Winter and Ruby. "What? It's my first time catching a bad guy. It's not like I had a speech ready," he complained, to which Winter rubbed the bridge of her nose irritably.
"Sooo…this is your new partner, Winter?" said Ruby casually. "He seems kinda…inexperienced for someone of your caliber."
"Hey…," Oscar moaned.
"Believe me, it wasn't my choice," Winter groaned. "The last thing I wanted was to get stuck babysitting the new kid."
"You know, I'm right here!" Oscar complained
"Regardless, you're pinned, Ruby Rose," said Winter, pointedly ignoring her partner and whipping out her handcuffs. "Make this easy on yourself and come along quietly. There's no one you're escaping this time."
Unfortunately, she's right, Ruby thought. Her back literally to the wall, Winter and Oscar were cautiously approuching her from either side, cutting off any immediate escape route. She could whip out Crescent Rose and try to fight her way out, but Ruby wasn't the best fighter on the team, plus Winter had a full decade of experience over her and Ruby had no idea what her partner could do. Ruby's eyes were running around the rooftop, looking for anything that would help her out of this precarious situation, when the rooftop door suddenly flew open and everyone froze on the spot.
One of the guards from downstairs practically threw himself out the door and slammed it shut behind him, wheezing breathlessly. He was sporting an impressive shiner and his cheek looked remarkably swollen – looked like Yang had roughed him up could. The guard put a hand over his frantically beating heart, taking deep, calming breaths, and as muttering to himself.
"That bloody siren – a devil in women's clothing, that's what she is. Lucky to get out of there alive. If I never see one of those witches again…," He paused mid-sentence when he turned around, taking in the odd situation before him. His eyes first fell on Ruby, then Winter, and then Oscar. He quickly put two and two together and muttered a miserable, "Oh, bollocks…"
Before either Winter or Oscar had time to react, Ruby grabbed the guard by the wrist and shoulder tossed him on top of the pair. Ruby made a mad dash for the edge of the rooftop and jumped to the next building before Winter threw the guard off an gave chase, Oscar scrambling behind her.
"Get back here, Rose!" Winter shouted.
"No way!" Ruby retorted.
Ruby landed flatfooted on the roof, sharply pivoted on her heels, and leapt into the streets as Winter and Oscar landed behind her. Just like when she was crossing over to the Salty Dog, Ruby bounced off one of the streetlamps, shooting herself across the road looking like a flying squirrel, and used Crescent Rose to grab hold of the post on the opposite end before flinging herself up to the next roof. The Rose Thief breathed a sigh of relief, wiping the imaginary sweat from her brow, and turned around smugly toward her pursuers…who landed directly in front of her a few seconds later.
Ruby's jaw dropped dumbfoundedly. Winter rose from her crouched position carrying Oscar under her arm – the boy looked a little ruffled and somewhat terrified – before dropping him. The redheaded thief blinked owlishly, then pinched herself on the cheek only to realize that she wasn't imagining it.
"Seriously?" Ruby gaped. "How'd you make it over."
"My father forced me to take ten years of gymnastics because it would make good PR," said Winter, her tone laced with a hint of disdain, as she drew her saber and leveled it to her eye. "Last chance, Rose. Surrender peacefully, or – "
"You're been chasing me for three years, Winter," said Ruby with an exaggerated eye roll, "and when has that ever worked, huh?"
"…Good point," Winter conceded.
Ruby had almost forgotten how fast Winter was went she tried, because the white-haired fencer closed the gap between them in the time it took Ruby to blink. She stabbed her saber at Ruby's eye, which the Rose Thief narrowly dodged only because she was slightly faster. Winter stabbed on the opposite side and Ruby tilted her head out of the way. Winter then swiped wide across the air, which Ruby ducked and rolled out from underneath. However, this left Ruby's back exposed for Winter to strike from behind, which the officer wasted no time taking. But at the last second, Ruby extended Crescent Rose behind her back, which deflected the saber with an ear-splitting clang!
The Rose Thief twirled her weapon, throwing Winter off her guard, and spun around with a sharp kick to her sides. But Winter's reflexes proved to be sharper as the white-haired woman swiped the saber behind her back and blocked Ruby's boot without flinching. She pushed Ruby away and moved into a fencer's starting stance as she stared down her opponent, who was crouched low to the ground with Crescent Rose hoisted cautiously over her shoulder.
Then was a brief pause when both opponents stared each other down until Ruby made the first move. The redheaded bandit twirled around, her cape whipping in front of Winter's face, effectively obscuring her view, and then swiped her little scythe from above. Winter only narrowly saw the weapon coming out of the corner of her eye and raised her saber to block it. Unfortunately, her sword got caught in the crook of the scythe and was lowered to side against her wishes. This left Ruby open to punch Winter in the face directly…or at least she would have if the INTERPOL officer hadn't caught her by the wrist mere inches from her nose. Winter kicked her boots at their connected weapons to separate them and then pulled Ruby around her shoulder before sending her flying across the air.
Ruby managed to twist her body in midair and landed properly on her feet, only having just enough time to collect herself before she dodged another one of Winter's stabs. Winter swiped her sword back and forth at lightning speed, pushing Ruby closer and closer toward the roof's edge. But as the fencer brought her saber back for a wide swing, Ruby suddenly lunged forward and slid through the gap between Winter's legs, pulling the woman's ankle as she went. Winter fell forward and had to drop her saber to catch herself, leaving Ruby with an opportunity to make a run for it. The Rose Thief looked over her shoulder as she ran, cackling cockily, when she was suddenly knocked flat on her back by a blunt instrument to the face.
Ruby groaned, blinking the color spots out of her eyes, and looked up to see Oscar standing over her with his cane pointed at her face.
"Cheap shot, bro," Ruby moaned.
"That's rich coming from you, criminal," said Oscar, trying to sound tougher than he actually was. "I'm placing you under arrest."
"I can't believe I ever thought you were cute," Ruby grimaced.
Oscar gave pause for a moment, his body fidgeting while he scratched his hair sheepishly, specks of pink forming on his freckled cheeks.
"You um…you think I'm cute?" Oscar asked embarrassingly.
"Oscar, pay attention!" Winter shouted from across the roof.
A little late, Ruby thought, as she kicked Oscar's face, knocking him flat on his back. The Rose Thief rolled forward onto her feet and took off at a mad dash. Oscar flailed around onto his hands and knees, scrabbled to his feet, and took off after Ruby with Winter pursuing from a short distance behind. The game of literal cops and robbers resumed across the rooftops as Ruby bounced from one building to the next with INTERPOL nipping at her heels. Funny enough, Ruby noted, they were making a whole lot of noise and yet Ruby hadn't seen a single guard look up even when she made a noisy clatter when she climbed over an old air conditioning unit. Either these guards were even dumber than she realized or they were running on video game logic.
"Ruby, I'm still seeing the alarm system in the northern section of town is active," Wiess hissed in her ear. "Where are you right now?"
"Would you believe I'm being chased by your stubborn sister and her not-so-cute-anymore partner?" Ruby wheeze, landing on the next roof at a very bad angle.
"What? How did they even find you?" Weiss shrieked.
"Well, they heard Yang's fight – "
"Never mind," Weiss cut her off with an exasperated groan. "I know you can get away from my sister with no problem, but there's still the issue with the alarm system. Blake just came back and we definitely have a plan of attack against Watts's ship, but we can't do anything if those alarms aren't disabled. Winter and the…farmhand won't give you enough time disable the system manually. Our best option might be to fall back to the hideout and try again tomorrow when they aren't expecting it."
"That would take too long," Ruby argued. She heard a sharp yell from behind; Oscar had tripped over an exposed pipe, but Winter quickly pulled him up by the back of his shirt and resumed the chase. "Besides, your sister already saw me hotwire one of the control boxes. How long will it be before she tells Watts what we did? He'll double the guards around the alarms and then we'll never take them out. And I'm pretty sure Watts will notice when a bunch of his guards have gone missing in the morning. We'll never get another chance at the pages."
"And what do you suggest?" Weiss challenged her.
"I've got one idea…," said Ruby.
"Am I going to like it?" asked Weiss.
"Probably not," Ruby replied amusingly.
"Then I'm not going to ask," Wiess sighed. "Just hurry up and take out the alarms. We'll have to start the big heist IMMEDIATELY when you get back."
"Roger that, Snowpea," Ruby acknowledged.
The communicator cut off as Ruby leapt to the roof of the ninth building they crossed since the chase started, pausing for a moment to look back at her pursuers. Winter was certainly keeping paced and she wasn't even winded – hunting Ruby for three years certainly kept her conditioned – but Oscar was falling farther behind as the race went on; he looked ready to drop at any moment. Ruby turned sharply on her heel, her cape whipping behind her, and started running again. They had reached a corner at the end of the street, so the Rose Thief leapt over to the nearest building headed in the northern direction. After crossing a few more rooftops, Ruby spotted her destination approaching from the distance: Watts's radio tower.
She stopped on the roof of the abandoned coffee shop, looking up and down the metal tower until her eyes fell on the electrical box welded to the base. Ruby smirked with confidence, looking over her shoulder once more. Winter was quickly catching up to her – Oscar looked like he would take a few more minutes before he was reach them, the poor kid.
Casually as one can be, Ruby walked over to the electrical box, turned around, and leaned against it in a way that concealed the box behind her cape. Ruby calmly crossed her arm and rest one boot against the tower just as Winter landed on the roof a few feet away. The INTERPOL officer paused in a moment of suspicion. She didn't like the way that Ruby Rose was smiling at her like that. Winter learned from experience that whenever she smiled after being cornered, it usually meant that she had some underhanded trap waiting for Winter to spring. That's the only reason she didn't immediately attack the Rose Thief. Instead, she kept a sizable distance between them while having her saber ready at the first sign of moment.
"What are you up to, Rose?" Winter questioned her.
"What make you think I'm up to something?" said Ruby nonchalantly. "I'm just standing here, hanging out, pretty chill – "
"You do not have Belladonna's gift for acting," Winter interrupted; Ruby pouted. "What were you doing back there on the tavern roof? Tampering with electrical equipment? For what purpose? What are you planning?"
"You're the detective, Ice Queen, you tell me," said Ruby smugly.
"I know you want revenge for your mother's death," said Winter coolly. Ruby's smile immediately vanished and was replaced with a deep frown. "I know Watts was one of the people responsible."
"Then you should help me take that monster down!" Ruby snapped. "He's a thief, murderer, and his mustache is crime to facial hair! You're supposed to be one of the good guys! Where's the justice in letting that monster walk free?"
"I'm trying, but I need real evidence," said Winter. "I want to help you get the justice you were denied, but becoming a criminal to fight criminals isn't the right way to do it. Just…please, give yourself up quietly, and I will do everything in my power to see that Watts and the Grimm what they deserve."
She sounded almost pleading as she offered her hand to Ruby. The Rose Thief stared at the extended limb for a moment, then shook her head with an angry glare.
"I waited ten years for justice and I never got it," said Ruby heatedly. "The system doesn't work. So now, we're taking it into our own hands."
"…I can't let you walk away from this, Ruby," said Winter, raising her saber threateningly. "You won't be escaping this time."
"Are you sure?" said Ruby, regaining her smug grin.
Winter quirked a brow, pondering how the Rose Thief could act so calm and collected in their current situation. Not a moment later, Winter heard a "Don't worry, I got her!" over her shoulder and the white-themed officer looked to her right as Oscar flew past her. The rookie let out a strangled battle cry, brandishing his cane like a sword, and swung down on Ruby with all his might. Ruby looked rather pleased with herself as she casually sidestepped and revealed the power box hidden behind her. Winter saw it and immediately put all the pieces together –
"Oscar, wait!" she cried.
But Oscar had already smashed through the box, cutting halfway like a hot knife through butter. His hair stood on end as the electricity surged through him, shouting random gibberish before he was blown back by the ensuing explosion. Winter, who had shielded her face with her arms, searched the roof. Oscar was lying flat on his back, looking cross-eyed and mumbling incoherently, but it didn't look like he was in any danger of dying. Her partner's cane was still lodged in the electrical box, which looked little more than a crumpled heap of burned metal and frayed wires. And as for Ruby Rose herself - well, Winter hadn't really expected her to linger. Winter cursed and returned the saber to her belt.
"One of these days, Rose…," Winter muttered to herself. She shook her head and walked over to Oscar. "Come on, partner, let's go make sure you're not brain damaged."
"There's an old guy living in my head," said Oscar in a loopy slur.
Winter shook her head and picked Oscar up off the ground, flinching briefly from the residual static on him, and carried the poor boy off the roof.
Meanwhile, Ruby, who had climbed to the top of the radio tower during all the chaos, watched them go before touching the communicator in her ear.
"All three alarm boxes have been decommissioned," said Ruby victoriously. "We are in the clear."
"I see you couldn't help destroying the last one," said Weiss in an exasperated tone.
"Well, technically, I wasn't the one who broke it," said Ruby mischievously.
"I really don't care at this point," Weiss groaned. Ruby could practically see the crinkle in Weiss's forehead whenever she was stressed or silently angry. "Your little stunt didn't go unnoticed. Watts is getting all kinds of alerts about an explosion at the radio tower. Fortunately, Xiao Long took out much of the late shift guards at the bar, so that will buy us time, but Watts is bound to notice that his alarm systems have been tampered with and will likely find the mission guards Xiao Long and I left in the security room. If we're going to steal the pages, we have to do it NOW! Hurry on back to the safe house and be ready to head out."
"On my way," Ruby confirmed, leaping off the radio tower, her cape billowing dramatically behind her. "It's time to get a little overdue justice."