RWBY A Day in the Life of Crime

Chapter Three: Sweet Tooth Nora and Reticent Ren

An orange haired woman, holding up a massive sledgehammer over her head with her right hand, let out an evil laugh of triumphant. She was standing on top of a bakery, in front of her a scene of absolute chaos. Members of the Grimm gang unit lay unconscious across the street in various funny positions. The black cars they had arrived in were stalled as well, with dents on their hoods that suspiciously looked sledgehammer shaped, and their glass windows shattered, doors half open as they idled, smoke steaming up from their busted hoods. No one could stop her as she took over this bakery. She already owned the one across the street, but now with this one demolished, the employees scared away, and all goods either ruined or captured, the place was as good as hers.

"Is this the best the Grimm gang has to offer?" she jeered from her high perch. "I would think they would have more man power than this. They can't even do anything to stop the Flower Power gang!"

"I think we should change the name," Ren showed up silently behind his comrade Nora, stopping the girl's speech.

"And why? Is there something wrong with our name?" Nora turned to him, hand on her hip and other one lowering her weapon so that it rested against her shoulder now.

He shrugged. "I think it's just a bit...not menacing enough."

"Well I think it's perfect!" Nora humphed. "It's the combination of two of our ultimate moves. It sums us up concisely."

"I suppose," Ren said, not having the energy to engage in a verbal battle with her. She could talk someone to death. He'd seen it happen with his own eyes. Maybe he could convince her to change the name somewhere along the way. They were still fairly new to this whole crime thing. Up until a month or two ago, the two of them had been wanderer's, traveling from town to town and doing menial tasks for the folks there. The money wasn't very good and the constant traveling put a toll on their bodies. They had been looking for new jobs at the local bakery when the place had gotten robbed. Several gang members all clad in black came storming in, demanding the place to surrender and turn over their assets to the Grimm gang. Nora and Ren, both people who carried weapons and had been trained since birth in their hometown on how to wield them before leaving for work, had used these said weapons to knock the members out. The store owners had been so grateful that they had showered the two heroes with free food.

Nora, digging into the tastiest cake she had ever had, had had a wild revelation. "Ren, this could be it! This could be the key to getting a steady job, to having money to send back to our families!"

"Fighting crime?" the boy had asked sensibly, nibbling on a piece of this and on a piece of that, not certain which he enjoyed more.

"No! Don't be silly. We can take over bakeries. Just look at this awesome and sweet food! I can't believe I've never tried some before. We need to protect this preciousness!" Nora cuddled the cake slice to her face before she devoured it next second. Ren wasn't even taken aback by her weird idea-he was so used to her odd schemes.

"That's because we've never had the money to afford any," Ren pointed out, secretly gushing over the sweets as he sat with a calm outer demeanor and ate them. Nora wasn't as good at hiding her emotions. She was literally jumping up and down as she shoved one snack into her mouth and then eagerly grabbed the next one. She was speaking around her full mouth, crumbs showering out of it and onto Ren's hair, which the boy brushed with his hand occasionally to remove the mess.

"So you agree with me!"

"I never said I did-"

"Great. Then that means we have to start making plans on how to take over all the bakeries in this city! They'll be under our protection or something like that. And in that way we can forever have them in our debt and have all the sweets we want!" Nora let out a wild whoop and raised her cake covered hands high in the air.

Ren let out a sigh. He would just have to go wherever it was Nora went, such was the foundation of their relationship. She would come up with some hare-brained scheme and he would go along with it to make sure she didn't get hurt along the way. Whether he did it out of obligation to when she saved him from getting bullied as a child, or out of something else, some feeling he could not yet name, he wasn't sure. But he would follow her anywhere and do anything she asked of.

"Okay," he agreed and the very next day the two of them had strode up to a nearby bakery.

"Good morning people of this wonderful bakery!" Nora had greeted, her sledgehammer slung over her right shoulder casually. The people of the bakery who had been sitting at their tables with their kids, eating their snacks, paused in their talk to look up at the newcomer. Ren was standing silently by her side. No one spoke as the door behind the two closed slowly. Only when it shut did the guy at the register, who also conveniently happened to be the store owner, address them. "Uh, can I help you two?" He eyed Nora's blatant display of her weapon.

"Yup!" Nora popped her p. "We're here to offer you protection."

"Protection?" the guy echoed.

"Recently it has come to our attention that around this neighborhood there are some nasty individuals that like robbing bakeries. And so we've come up with a solution for it."

"We...we don't want your protection," the man slowly said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion at the orange haired woman.

"You don't? Not even if the people come into your store and trash it?" At this Nora cocked her head in fake contemplation, putting her weapon down top first to the store floor, hand on it's handle. The store owner watched the weapon's shift in position warily but did not waver. "No thanks. We're not in need of such services. We can protect ourselves adequately."

"Hmm," Nora let her eyes close momentarily as a wide grin stretched on her face. "So you wouldn't want my help even if, for example, let's say the group of criminals came in and did this?" At this Nora lifted up her sledgehammer and with an easy flick of her wrist she turned around and smashed one panel of the store's glass front.

The customer's flinched collectively at this blatant attack and one kid let out a loud cry that was rapidly silenced by their mother in fear of attracting Nora's attention.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing!" the store owner shouted out, wagging a hand at them angrily. "Quit it!"

"But if you have bad guys robbing your store then they won't simply just stop because you yell at them!" Nora said, her grin getting wider. "They'll take to destroying more things. Like this table here." And with that she wrapped both hands on the staff of the weapon and picked it up over her head before swinging it down with resounding force on the table next to her. The couple who were sitting at it, fell onto their butts as they tried to get out of the chairs in order to get away from her as the metal furniture caved in under the strike. They scrambled towards the exit and Ren let them pass. This seemed to break the spell that was held over the crowd and they all took to their feet, rushing out. Ren held the door for them as they did so. Just because he was helping Nora terrorize some people didn't mean he couldn't be a complete gentlemen during it.

The store owner in this time had taken to digging his Scroll out of his pocket and was trying to call the police. Ren tugged out his weapon, a cross between an smg and a blade, and shot off one bullet. The Scroll went flying out of the man's hand and he let out a little cry of surprise at that motion. Ren then lowered his gun arm and closed the door behind him, everyone having vacated the area except for the now scared store owner.

"So what will it be?" Nora asked the lone man, lifting up her weapon and swinging it around haphazardly in an arc to her left. He watched her weapon, leery that she would wreck something else of his, but he was also torn with looking over at Ren's weapon. Both were equally dangerous.

"I suppose...I suppose I'll take your offer," he said, not knowing what else to do in this situation. He needed to stall for time. Maybe he could somehow escape these two lunatics.

This statement made the girl happy. "Yay! Ren did you hear that! Did you! He wants us to help him!" Nora skipped over to Ren, turning her back on the store owner and leaving herself wide open. The store owner reached under the counter where he kept a shotgun just in case of criminals like these and lifted it, with the purpose to shoot her. Right now she was distracted and so was her accomplice, who was shaking his head in exasperation at her display of joy, one that warranted her to pumping her arms up and down over her head, her weapon discarded on the floor. The store owner quickly pumped the gun and set it's sights on the two, the orange haired girl first on his list, but before he could so much as inch his finger towards the trigger he found himself with a bullet to the chest. He let out a strangled cry and fell over backwards, the gun going off and blasting a hole in the ceiling.

Nora turned around at this, not even noticing that Ren had shot the man so in her own joy she was occupied. "Huh, what was that?" She walked over to the counter and peered over it to see the dead owner. "Ren!" she snapped back at the dark haired man. "You killed him! Now whose going to run this place?"

Ren sighed and shrugged. He didn't want to have to explain to her how the store owner was going to kill her if Ren hadn't shot him down first. It would be too much waste of breath. Nora would have still scolded him no matter what.

"Hah," she let out a loud breath and leaned her back on the counter. "I guess the place is ours now. Do you know how to bake?"

And that was how the two of them had come into possession of their first bakery shop. Nora then had gained the second one by much the same method. The girl wanted to help protect the people of the city from the gang that ravaged their baked goods stores but she wasn't entirely going about in a better way. The thing with her was that she was very one track minded and thought that she knew best. So if someone disagreed with her then she was wont to ignore their opinion and do what she thought was best.

And now they had just captured their third bakery. But they hadn't realized what a horrid mistake they had just made.

Ren noted a blur on the rooftops of the block over and he tugged on Nora's sleeve, pointing at it when she was broken out of her joyful celebration.

"Ooo, company. I wonder if they love cookies too and want to buy some," Nora asked obliviously.

"I don't think so," Ren said as the figure stopped before them, on the rooftop over. It was a young looking girl, with a red cloak around her shoulders.

"Hello there! I'm afraid if you want some baked goods from this place, you'll have to wait. The place is currently under going reparations and a shift in management thanks to the Flower Power gang," Nora called out, waving her hand in greeting at the girl.

"And who is the Flower Power gang?" The girl's voice was even and her face neutral. It was hard to tell what she was thinking right now.

Ren had a feeling this girl wasn't a regular customer. She had moved way too fast, leaping from rooftop to rooftop like it was nothing. She was trained it seemed, something akin to how they had been. He tightened his grip on his weapons. He couldn't see any weapons on her, her red cloak covering up most of her figure but it wouldn't hurt to be careful. He only wished Nora could be more wary too. As it was the girl was too high off her win to be careful.

"It's us two!" Nora proudly pointed at her and Ren. "It's only us two for now but once we get more money than we can afford to get gang members and getaway cars and all that great stuff so that we can protect the city from evil."

The girl was quiet before she scoffed. "What a stupid name."

"I told you we should change the name," Ren muttered to Nora who wasn't listening to him.

"How dare you insult us! It's a great name! Who are you anyways?" Nora pointed angrily at the other, her good mood souring and disappearing into the air in a charge of ozone. Her semblance was flaring up but the orange haired girl wouldn't activate it. She only reserved it for really taxing battles and she didn't seem to think this girl was dangerous.

"I'm Ruby Rose, leader of the Grimm gang, and you've just intruded on my territory." At this the small girl pulled out a weapon from under her cloak. It unfolded and turned into a massive scythe that looked too ungainly to wield.

Ren let out a sigh. Trust Nora to rob the one bakery that just so happened to belong to one of the most notorious gangs. "Here we go," he muttered and tightened the grip on his weapons once more.

A/N: I think I really like the idea of Ren and Nora as a crime fighting duo that defeats bad guys by committing crimes of their own. It fits in with Nora's character. She strikes me as a very pushy person who is so much focused on her thoughts and stuck in her head so often that she doesn't realize what she is doing can cause harm to others. She's not necessarily evil in this story, just hates people who have different opinions than her. She also loves fighting.

And poor Ren is just stuck in whatever situation Nora drags him into. As the voice of reason he doesn't get listened much to.