Chapter 2
Vale; Present day.

It was night time in Vale and most of the local stores and businesses were closing for the night, but some were still open in case of any night time shoppers. One store in particular was still open.

The store was called; "From Dust Till Dawn", a dust store. An elderly man was working behind the counter as he was checking the Lien he had made for the day. He had just counted his twelfth card when the store's front door opened. Walking in were several teens, each wearing baseball caps and ski masks.

They looked around to the containers of dust as the eldest looking boy stepped forward to the shop owner and placed his elbows on the shops counter. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find dust shops open this late, old man?" he asked as one of the boys behind him pointed a hand held machine gun to the shop owner. "P-please…just take my Lien and leave…" he asked, shaking. The teen lifted his hand up "easy, old man, we're not gonna take your cash. Grab the Dust" he ordered and the teens nodded.

One of the teens behind him pulled up a metal boxed and placed it on the counter. He pulled out an empty cylinder, walked over to a red Dust dispenser and connected it. Soon Dust started to empty out into the canister, causing most of the other teens to follow his movement. One of the other thugs opened an empty box in front of the owner "Crystals, burned, uncut" he ordered and the shop keeper complied by grabbing a crystal and placed it into the box.

One of the thugs were about to load another cylinder with light blue dust, but heard muffled music to his left. He looked and saw a figure wearing a red cloak looking at a comic book stand. The thug dropped the canister, grabbed his gun and pointed it at the cloaked figure "You! Hands up!" he stated, but got no reaction.

He walked over to the cloaked figure and pulled their hood down. The figure turned its head to show a teenage boy with red hair, silver eyes and scar on his upper lip as he was listening to headphones. The thug pointed a finger to his own ear and the red head took off his headphones "yes?" the red head asked.

"I said, hands in the air, now!" he said as he pointed the gun to the cloaked boy. The red head knew what was going on but decided to play dumb "are you, robbing me?" he asked. "YES!" came the reply "Ohh" the red head responded.

Next thing the thug knew; he was flying out of the shops door and into the street. The lead teen motioned for another to investigate. The second thug lifted his gun up to the red head "Freeze!" The red head rushed to the thug and launched them both out the window and into the street.

Three more thugs and their leader looked outside the broken window to see their teammates knocked out and the red head slowly stand up. As he stood up, a giant red and black scythed formed in his hands. The leader scowled as the red head turned to face him with a smirk then span the scythe around his arms and dug the front of the blade into the ground before clicking a button on the headphones, stopping the music.

The red heads outfit was strange. Including his cloak, he was wearing a strange leather harness with a black shoulder-pad, a silver strap buckle, dark brown trousers that wrapped around his feet, two black pieces of metal on his forearms and two holsters on his waste with two swords in them. The red head then lifted a hood up that covered his silver eyes.

The leader tilted his head slightly "alright…" he then looked to the three thugs next to him "get him!" they turned to face him and nodded. They ran out of the shop with red swords in their hands and the red head reacted by hand standing on the handle of his scythe and round housed kicked the closest thug in the face, making him go flying into a lamp post.

The boy then pulled his scythe out of the ground and landed on his feet with his scythe behind him. He pulled a trigger on the handle and a shotgun blast sent the back end of the scythe's blade into another thug's stomach and knocked him upwards and into a tree. He then used the momentum to bring the back end down and smashed it onto another's head, knocking him out.

He then pulled the trigger again, launching him away from another thug who opened fire on him. The red head dashed from one side of the street to the other then used another blast to propel him forward and used the scythe's thicker part of the blade to the thug off his feet and into the air. He dug the scythes blade into the ground again and span on the handle.

He then launched himself into the air and used the back end of the scythe to bat him back down to earth. The thug slid across the ground to his boss's feet as the leader looked up to the red head. "I heard about you. You're the red assassin of Vale" he said, making the red head tighten the grip on his scythe.

"And you're James Brudenell, one of Vales crime bosses" said the assassin as he looked up to James's direction. "So, you know me, big deal, I'm the biggest crime boss in this country!" James stated as he lifted his hands to his sides.

The assassin pressed a button on his scythe and it compacted into a red rectangle. He placed it on to his back and cracked his knuckles "if you're 'the biggest crime boss in this county', then you should have no trouble beating the red assassin of Vale in a fist fight, right?" he challenged. The crime boss chuckled "if you insist" he said as he ran up to the assassin.

He tried to throw a haymaker, but the assassin lent backwards to dodge it. The assassin saw his chance and brought his elbow down, right into James's face, knocking him down to the floor. James picked himself up and shook his head "you punk! That was a lucky shot!" he shouted.

The assassin shrugged then brought his hands up in a boxing position and taunted the crime boss. James roared as he rushed to the red head, trying to deck him in the head again, only for the assassin to dodge to the side and punch James square in the jaw, putting him on the floor again. The crime boss tried to stand but the assassin put a foot on his back "stay down, you've had enough" he stated. James tried to stand, but gave up from being too tired.

Sirens went off as the assassin grabbed a rope from behind him and picked up James. He brought him over to his knocked out lackeys and tied them up to a lamppost. He then ran for a ladder, leading to the top of a building. He made it to the top just in time to see three cop cars arrive and six cops got out. He then turned and ran the other direction across the building. He then jumped down from roof top to roof top until he was a good few blocks away. He looked around to see if anyone was nearby, only to see no one around. Once he thought the coast was clear, he jumped down onto the pavement.

He pulled his hood back down and walked down the street to a local bookstore. He walked into the store and started to look around until he found the newspaper stand. He walked over and picked up the latest paper, showing him standing on top of a building as a police helicopter's spotlight showed his figure.

He walked over to a chair and began reading the article, but felt someone staring at him. He lifted his head up and his eyes widen as he saw a woman with whitish-blue hair, light blue eyes wearing a formal business suit with the symbol of the Schnee Dust Co. on the arm. She dropped her shopping and stared straight at the red head with widened eyes "R-ruben?..." she asked. "Weiss?" he responded.

End of chapter two.