[As months passed since the disappearance of Billionaire Philanthropist Bruce Wayne, Wayne Enterprises continues to defund various charitable organizations set-up by Mr. Wayne himself. Current-acting CEO William Earl claims that Wayne Enterprises is going to follow a new direction in order to continually grow the legacy in Mr. Wayne's absence...]
Somewhere in the streets of Vale, an old shopkeeper had begun closing up his little Dust Shop after a long day's work. The sun had already set, the shattered moon hanging up in the sky as many others began making their commute home. The shopkeep had already swept the floors clean and checked all the earnings he made for the day. All he had to do was wait for the young girl to leave before officially closing the shop for the night.
As the shopkeep flipped the sign on the window from 'OPEN' to 'CLOSE', he began looking around for the young girl. He found her by the magazine shelf near the counter, reading 'Huntsman Weekly' while listening to something from her scroll. The young girl appeared to be wearing an outfit consistent with a sleeveless red jacket with the hood pulled up and black leggings with red rose highlights at the sides. What caught his attention off her ensemble was the red-cloak she wore that reached down to the back of her knees. The cloak flowed softly with the air and looked to have glistened if it were near light. The ensemble was bright and eye-catching to any passersby around her.
[...In other news, the crime rate of the city increases as more Dust Shops continue to be robbed of their supplies of different types of Dust. Many believe that this would be connected to the string of separate robberies regarding SDC shipping containers earlier this week. Authorities suggest that the ex-rights activist turned terrorist organization, the White Fang may be involved with such crimes…]
The shopkeep hadn't realized he had already made it behind the counter until he heard the sound of the front bell ring and several other footsteps beginning to enter his shop. Upon looking forward, the old man was introduced to a neatly-dressed tophat man with several other men in black following suit. The older man easily knew who this finely dressed individual was.
"P-Please...t-take the lien," His words fumbled as he raised his hands in the air. "..I-I don't w-want any-"
Roman Torchwick raised his hand and the shopkeep immediately kept quiet. "Don't worry, we don't want any of your money." He assured the older man. Roman then turned to the crew behind him. "Grab the dust"
As the men began obtaining and depositing the dust supplies, the shopkeep had worried for the little red customer somewhere in his shop. His eyes glanced around the shop, only to find that the girl must've slipped away upon the criminal's arrival.
"Anyone else here?" Roman asked the shopkeeper, seeing him glancing around the store for someone.
But before Roman could even gain a response, the lights of the store flickered off as everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the bulbs above.
Roman grit his teeth and looked at his men. While the tinted windows prevented some light from entering the store, it was still bright enough to show the silhouette of the people he hired. "Oum damn it! Somebody is still here. One of you idiots check the back for a breaker and turn on these damn lights!"
As the hired thugs began using the flashlight on their scrolls, one of them journeyed to the back of the room to check out for a circuit breaker, not knowing that it will be one of his few biggest mistakes in his life.
For a small Dust shop, the place was actually quite spacious when it came to storage areas. There were various rooms filled with either empty boxes, old equipment used to move shelves and crates, or spare parts such as Dust container lids, weapon parts, and old long steel pipes. As the lonesome thug-for-hire began searching through the backrooms, he began hearing a strange sound coming from further down the hallway. He wasn't sure what it was but he could've sworn it sounded like a voice. The further he ventured into the building, the sound slowly, but surely, grew louder. It wasn't until he saw a small light coming from the corner of one of the rooms. The closer the thug got, the brighter the light b grew. But, upon further inspection, the light was nothing more than a fully brightened scroll with red-tinted headphones attached. That's when the thug began to understand what the voice was saying.
[...sightings of the criminal mastermind known as Roman Torchwick continues to grow around the city of Vale. Authorities and Huntsmen consider him armed and dangerous. Be advised that…]
Just as the report finished, the thug was immediately swept off his feet, falling face-first on the ground. Before he could respond, he felt a weight of pressure pushing him back down onto the floor while his arm bolted in pain as it was twisted behind his back. The thug struggled to escape the position until the person behind him twisted his arm further, intensifying the pain in his muscle. Someone behind him moved closer to his ear and began whispering.
"You have 30 seconds to answer each of my questions. For every question you fail to answer, a finger will be broken. Do I make myself clear?"
The thug growled in response. Who do you think you are?! He thought bitterly. "Why you little-"
All he heard next was a crack coming from behind him and a sudden stroke of pain erupted from his right hand. A yelp of pain would've come out and alerted everyone else in the building, but sudden pressure onto the back of his neck prevented any sound from coming out. As the pressure lifted from his neck, the voice behind him moved back to his ear.
"You got 9 other fingers and several other bones left in your body. Are you gonna talk or do you want to have a longer stay in the E.R?"
Before the voice could break another one of the criminal's fingers, he began talking.
"Alright! Alright! What do you want to know?" Was all he could muster. Nausea began rising into his brain and he didn't want it to grow with more broken fingers. This job wasn't that worth it.
The voice behind him smirked. "How many are you? I recognize that you guys are from Junior's club. So, mind telling me what is Roman Torchwick doing with hired thugs robbing Dust Shops? Seems pretty low for someone of his M.O"
"He hired 4 of us from the Boss. We don't know much, all that he needed us for a job," He gritted his teeth as more pain flared from his twisted arm. "That's it! That's all I know!"
"Thank you for your cooperation. Your reward is a fun little trip to the E.R and some time in prison."
Last thing the criminal remembered was his arm being released and a swift blow to the face before everything turned black.
Roman was beginning to become anxious from all the setbacks. These hired neanderthals were moving at a snail's pace collecting dust in the dark while one of them had yet fixed the lights yet. How hard was it to turn on a damn lightbulb!? Not only that, they seem to have an unwanted guest somewhere around the shop and could call the cops at any minute. They had to move quickly!
"Damn it, just pack as much as you can! Cops would be here any minute, or would you idiots prefer to be caught by a Huntsman?!" Roman called out to his men, taking a puff out of his cigar as he eyed the shopkeep in front of him. "Now, let me make me ask again, who else is he-"
Roman was cut off as he heard a variety of crashes coming from his right. That better not be the damn Dust! He angrily thought as he turned to face what those babbling halfwits did now. It was a surprise to see that the crash was caused by someone else.
As the henchmen continued packing up the final cases of Dust, they had failed to notice a silhouette in the darkness monitoring each and every move. The silhouette had been monitoring them, learning their patterns to determine how to intercept them without anyone noticing. There were 5 men in the entire store: the Shopkeeper, Torchwick, and 3 other unnamed men. 4 of them were armed, but only one of them seemed to be carrying a gun. Torchwick had the shopkeeper as a hostage, while the other men were beginning to finish up packing the dust. Time was of the essence, and it was running out fast.
It's been a while since I've done this. The invisible figure internally grumbled. I have to take them down silently before any one of these guys get an itchy trigger finger.
As soon as one of the men isolated himself from the group, the figure immediately took action. Using a pair of steel pipes that were found at the back, the hidden person quickly rushed behind the lone criminal and struck him to his knees. Before the guy could yell in pain, the person crossed the pipes around his neck and began choking him out. Normally, this process would've been over in seconds but the individual overestimated their current strength. This allowed the criminal to thrash around to try to get free from the headlock, knocking over shelves and breaking some valuables. The seconds it took for the felon to finally blackout felt like minutes, but even then it was too late.
"Freeze!"
As the remaining Henchmen shone a light onto the scene, everyone around finally got to see who was causing all the commotion, much to the shopkeeper's dismay.
It was the young customer from earlier, but her outfit color seemed to differ. Instead of the bright red color scheme from earlier, her ensemble was now pitch black, almost as dark as the shadows that surround the remaining light of the room. But none of that mattered now, she was caught and they were both going to die.
The girl had to act fast before they had a chance to strike. She quickly threw one of her pipes towards the one with the gun, stunning him. Using that to her advantage, the lass rushed the stunned enemy and began unleashing a series of strikes before knocking him down with a final swipe to the head.
While the last of the henchmen charged towards the young fighter, Roman quickly grabbed as much Dust as he could and left the establishment in a flurry. He barely made it out the door before the remaining henchman was thrown through the tinted glass window, landing next to him. Roman turned back into the shop to face down the hooded girl. There she stood inside the shop, her clothes back to their original color, glaring at him while spinning a lone pipe on one hand. Both of them staring each other down. Each waiting for who would react first in the standoff.
Roman reacted first, chuckling to himself and taking one final puff out of his cigar.
"Well, Red, I think we can all say that it's been an eventful evening. And as much as I'd love to stick around, I'm afraid that this," He dropped the cigar and aimed his cane towards the shop. "is where we part ways."
Crap! Without a second thought, the girl immediately jumped behind the counter and covered the shopkeeper with her cloak, protecting him from the explosive round that Roman fired.
The front of the shop exploded, temporarily engulfing the place with flames, burning everything close by to the explosion.
As the flames subsided, the girl immediately checked over the old man under her cloak. "Are you alright sir? Any burns?"
The old man shook his head, causing the girl to sigh in relief. Looking over towards the street, she finds Roman Torchwick missing. He can't have run too far.
"Do you mind if I go after him?"
After setting the store ablaze, Roman escaped towards a ladder of a nearby building. He quickly climbs the handles towards the top to call in his ride, unbeknownst to him that someone else was scaling the building by climbing and jumping onto different ledges.
Upon reaching the top, he sprinted towards the other end of the roof, waiting for his ride to pick him up. His wait was interrupted by a whistle calling from behind him. Turning around, the man finds the girl from earlier, looking fine and lightly covered with soot. But it was already too late as, out of nowhere, a bullhead lifted itself by the edge of the roof, allowing for Torchwick to climb aboard.
Turning towards the girl in red, Roman proceeded to throw a red dust crystal onto her feet. "End of the line, Red!" He yelled before shooting the dust crystal by her feet.
Thinking on instinct, the girl quickly picked up the crystal and threw it back towards the bullhead, proceeded by covering herself with their own cloak to protect her from the upcoming blast.
No blast would reach her as a tall blond huntress swooped down and protected her. Eying the woman's chosen apparel, a curly-bunned haircut and spectacles with a neat white blouse and pencil skirt, it suggests that she must be a teacher from a local Huntsman academy. Although her choice in the weapon, being a riding crop, would speak that she may have a part-time job as a local dominatrix. Speaking of which, her posture and stance scream authority towards anyone around her. She is definitely a teacher.
Anyway, as the bullhead tried to recover from the explosive attack, the blond huntress began to launch different spell attacks, such as firing ice crystals and raining down more ice crystals, to try to bring down the ship.
Upon regaining his bearings and seeing the huntress on top of the roof where he was, Roman yelled something at the pilot before disappearing into the cockpit. Out from the cockpit appeared another woman in a fiery red dress who fired bolts of flames to distract the pursuers.
The huntress and the young girl were forced to evade the attack, forcing the bullhead to escape with some cargo from the Dust Shop.
Seeing the bullhead escape, the young girl mentally berates herself, reflecting on different ways she could've stopped them before they escaped. It didn't take long to realize the feeling of someone glaring holes through the back of her skull. She didn't have to be a detective to figure out that she was in big trouble with the blond woman.
"If it makes you feel better, most of the damage wasn't caused by me"
It didn't.
For the last 30 minutes, the young girl sat in an interrogation room while the blond woman, Glynda Goodwitch, berated her for something about her carelessness and property damage caused by the incident. She wasn't really listening much to what Glynda was saying. There were bigger issues to be taken care of at the moment.
Why would a high-end criminal like Roman Torchwick stoop to low-level crimes such as robbery? What type of operation requires the sudden need for large amounts of dust? For that amount of dust, they had to have a large area to be able to store that much dust, but where could that be? Honestly, the bigger question here is why am I bothering myself about this problem. I don't do that anymore. I won't do this anymore.
Glynda instantly knew that the young girl was spacing out of the lecture and was going to reprimand her even further until her colleague/boss instantly got the juvenile's attention.
"Ruby Rose,"
That's what caught Ruby off guard, Who the hell said my name?
Looking up at the source, she sees a tall grayed man holding a scroll in one hand and a plate of cookies in the other. It didn't take a lot to know who exactly he was at first glance, but the girl kept that to herself.
The man placed the cookies on the middle of the table and sat right across from Ruby. "You have silver eyes." He said, looking closer towards the features of her face.
Ruby kept herself quiet and her hands to herself. She held herself still and gave a neutral expression. The older man returned her look with a warm smile before asking more questions.
"What was a young girl like you doing in the middle of a store robbery?"
"Checking out magazines. I usually pick up a new edition of 'Huntsman Weekly' every month. Sometimes I even grab some beauty magazines for my sister. It was just today that Roman Torchwick coincidently decided to rob the Dust Shop where I normally pick them up"
Interesting. The man thought as he eyed both Ruby and the video on the scroll he was watching from.
"So instead of calling the police and hiding somewhere safe, you decided to act upon this crime yourself?"
"Well, I am a huntress-in-training. It's my responsibility to protect the lives of civilians against those who threaten them."
"Correct, but it's not every day you see a huntress-in-training stop the robbery of an international criminal with only their bare hands and a pair of steel pipes."
Ruby kept quiet after the statement, squinting her eyes almost as if she was trying to see the angle he was working at. She was about to retort but the man continued.
"Although it was rather odd that there was almost no footage of the incident that occurred. The camera's within the shop were cut off by a sudden power outage."
"Almost?"
The older man then placed the scroll down in the middle of the table to show what he meant. It was a street camera perspective of what happened outside the Dust Shop. While the quality of the video wasn't as decent, the figures were still able to be made out.
"That was a very brave thing you did there, quick ingenuity as well, might I add. What interests me the most about this was the durability of that cloak of yours and the way you chased after Roman Torchwick."
Ruby had kept the neutral facade, being unnerved towards the evidence brought up to her. But before she could retort, the man, once again, interrupted her for a second time.
"Do you know who I am?"
"You're Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy."
The Professor continued the warm smile he gave her. "Would you like to come to my school?"
Glynda was shocked at the suggestion of the headmaster and was about to give a piece of her mind until the young girl beat her to it.
"I would've been honored, but I would kindly decline your offer, headmaster."
This surprised both occupants in the room. A once in a lifetime offer to attend one of the most prestigious academies in Vale, 2 years in advance, and she just denied it without a second thought.
"Ms. Goodwitch, would you mind giving Ms. Rose and I some privacy for the time being?" The Professor asked his headmistress, who calmly, and frustratedly, leaves the interrogation room.
This leaves the 2 occupants alone looking at each other. The room itself was quiet and still with both occupants. Both had several questions for one another that needed to be answered but were merely waiting on who would strike first.
Ruby was the first to begin the game. "Would you like to know what I think, Professor?"
"Please, do enlighten me."
"I think it was odd that while an unreported Dust robbery was happening, the Headmistress of Beacon Academy, whom I'm sure is a very busy person, just so happens to be in the same neighborhood. The crimes committed were just simple robberies, no murders or any severe crimes that would catch the attention of hunters or huntresses, so she wasn't there on duty."
Ozpin kept silent during the explanation, and Ruby still continued on.
"Or maybe she was. Because less than 30 minutes after the incident, the Headmaster of Beacon Academy shows up with a handful of cookies, security footage, and a file about one of the people who decided to pursue the perp. There are many different people around Remnant with so much more skill and potential, yet you decided to offer a once-in-a-lifetime chance to have this random civilian to join your reputable academy. I wasn't carrying a special weapon or used any aura in the fight or any of the footage seen and certainly committed no special feats or acts that would suggest that I am a Huntress-in-training, yet Glynda Goodwitch already had you on speed dial before I even arrived at the station."
The girl in question simply leaned back into the chair and crossed her arms. "So let's cut to the chase of why I'm really here, what do you want with me?"
Saying that he was impressed was an understatement. This girl had managed to come to that conclusion, in a span of 30 minutes while also being lectured by a Headmistress. Ozpin had already known her deductive reasoning was stellar, but he should've expected it just based on who her mentor was. As soon as he picked up the scroll, he brought out different digital documents and articles before placing the scroll back onto the middle of the tabletop for both of them to see.
Viewing the documents caused Ruby's eyes to go wide and her face to become stern, as the documents are from different newspaper articles from Atlas and Mantle: 'Billionaire adopts new protege!', 'New sidekick of the knight: Robin, the girl wonder!', 'Batman and Robin MIA?', 'Billionaire Philanthropist disappears yet again!'
"Ms. Rose-"
"No"
"I haven't even-"
"Whatever it is, I decline the offer. I'll tell you this once, and only once. Robin hasn't been sighted for a couple of months and will continue to be so."
Ozpin raised his eyebrow at her statement. "Tonight spoke otherwise."
"Tonight was the act of some good samaritan offering their services for the community. Now, if I am not mistaken, I am only held here to be interrogated by 2 Professors from a prestigious academy. The Police had already gotten my statement and have no reason to keep me here. Now, may I please leave?"
The Headmaster sighed as to what had come forth of the meeting and merely nodded to the young teen, allowing her to leave the interrogation room.
With that, the teen immediately took the chance to get up and leave the interrogation room and the Professor behind, wanting to forget the night even happened. The meeting has brought up too many bad memories and she didn't want to reflect on those thoughts tonight. She didn't want to deal with it right now.
Upon reaching the front desk of the station, Ruby was greeted to the sight of a Police Sergeant arguing with another familiar buxom blonde teenager.
"I thought you said 'she is only going to be asked a couple questions'! What kind of questions are you guys asking that will take more than an hour?!"
"Ma'am, please. You're causing a sce-"
"You guys have my baby sister locked up somewhere for helping you guys stop a robbery! So either you've lost her or I'm smelling some corruption around here!"
The one yelling would be Ruby's overprotective older half-sister, Yang Xaio Long. Cops must've called her to pick me up, but something tells me they didn't tell her about the Professors.
Before Yang would escalate the situation and make things messy, Ruby immediately whistled out for her sister and waved her arm. "Yang, over here!"
"Ruby!" Yang completely forgot about her argument with the Sergeant and rushed to give Ruby a very tight hug. "I was worried about you. Imagine my shock when I get a text from Dad saying you were taken in by the Police for stopping a robbery."
While Ruby may have matched her sister in height now, she couldn't in strength, causing her to be squished and suffocated by her sister's deadly grip wrapped around her. She could barely muster any straight words. "Y-Yang...P-lease...st-op"
"Whoops, sorry sis," Yang apologized as she released her younger sister from her impending doom. "So, what was this about you being interrogated?"
"That would be by us, Ms. Xiao Long"
Both sister's eyes widen as they face Professor Ozpin, who was just about to leave the police station. While Yang was shocked to find out the headmaster of her soon-to-be academy, Ruby simply glared at him, unsure of what's his next move.
"You see Miss. Xiao Long," He said before directing a smile towards Ruby. "Ms. Rose and I were discussing her early enrollment to Beacon Academy. Ms. Goodwitch and I saw a lot of skill and potential she had and decided for her to come to my school, 2 years in advance."
Both sisters were speechless at his declaration, but for different reasons. Yang's silence turned into unyielding joy as she picked up her sister and began cheering for her 'achievement'. "I am so happy for you, Ruby! My little sister is coming to Beacon with me! This is the best day ever!"
Ruby, however, was still completely in shock at first, until that shock turned into silent anger. That son of a... What is he planning? And why the hell does he need me that bad?
I do not own any of the characters. All characters and names used are owned by either Rooster Teeth and Detective Comics (DC)
