"Ex- Excuse me?" Womack asked, taking a half step away from me and Roman.

"I don't know Red. It might be a little hard hiding everything," Roman joked as he leaned down and patted the suit's sides, "Oh yeah, it'll be hard to hide such a big body, I think you'll have to spend two favors."

"That is highly inappropriate sir!" The third wheel said, backing away from Roman's touch.

"You're a tough stickler you know that? Fine two favors." I shrugged giving in to his demands.

"I am CEO of the Womack Dust Cooperation, I don't take threats lightly." Standing his ground in defiance.

"Well get out, and you don't have to worry." I told him, firmly, letting him know what his options were.

Roman pulled a knife from his jacket and flipped the blade through his finger while he approached the man.

"Now be a gentleman and hold still," taking a quick drag from from his cigar as he approached, "I just had my suit clean and blood is a pain to get out."

"N-Now listen here sir," Slowly backing away from the ex-criminal, "I have the ears of powerful men, and don't think I'm not willing to have them deal with you."

"Hmm, your right," Quickly Roman lashed out, grabbing the man's tie and pulling him close enough to place his knife at his throat, "I guess we'll have to start with ensuring you can't tattle to anyone."

"Roman." I called stopping him before he actually did the deed.

"Mr. Womack will you please leave?" I asked him one final time.

The man quickly nodded his head, realizing this wasn't actually a question. I nodded to Roman, and with one quick cut past the man's throat, let him fall to the ground. He grabbed his throat and made a quick gasp for air with wide eyes; his nerves didn't fully process what had just happened.

Roman rolled the knife in his hands absentmindedly while he examined the now cut tie that had been removed from Womack's neck. The suit picked himself up and ran for the door. No final threats of vengeance or any form of retaliation that could slow him down.

I walked over to my office bench searching for what Roman came for. The criminal finished looking over the cloth in his hand before throwing it in the corner, missing the waste bin, but made no attempt to try again.

"So Red, how long till you expect a lawsuit?"

"Don't care. I could plead guilty and immediately leave without being released and they couldn't touch me."

"You shouldn't abuse that privilege your status brings, otherwise people will see to have it revoked."

"Says the crime specialist that trains the criminals he apprehends."

"That's called using the system in your favor. It's just business. If I didn't make the supply, the demand for me to catch criminals would be gone by the end of the week. It's a win, win, win."

"Yes, you make money from the police for catching them like a bounty hunter, you get money when you commit crimes and bring them along to show them the ropes, and you get money as a trainer's fee while they're out on their own committing crimes till they get a bounty."

I found what I was looking for at the bottom of the pile, typical, and limped my way back over to the gentlemen waiting patiently by the door still.

"Do you even need money anymore? Surely you have enough that you could retire and live like the old kings of Atlas."

"Listen doll face, I'm too young to be retiring. I'm not yet ready to just hand myself over to the closest retirement home to waste my days away watching tv among a bunch of old folks a little under double my age."

I quickly flashed my hand up, skillfully grabbing a single hair in his bangs and giving it a good yank. His hand snapped up to his forehead to where the root was, while I examined the grey fiber. His hair was still mostly orange, but greys were starting to become more and more common. I let the hair go, floating away to the floor somewhere, while I handed him his newly repaired cane.

"Look, same deal as always; you don't rat me out, and I don't rat you out." slightly irritated at the loss of a single hair.

"Fine. Also I noticed the rifling in the shaft was a little worn. So you shouldn't have any problems with slightly inaccurate shots for a while." I explained while finding a stool to rest on.

"Ha! I knew I had that guy in the center of my crosshairs!"

"Keep telling yourself that." With a roll of my eyes as I finally managed to take a seat.

"Well Red, I think that's everything. I'll just be on my way-"

I cut him off by quickly bringing the bottom of my precious up so the butt hooked his shoulder as he started to turn away.

"I think we can talk for a bit. The forge is closed after all." The cheer in my voice being no disguise to my intent.

"Eh, so what do you want to talk about?" His voice trying to sound more innocent than it had any right to be.

"Oh we have so much to talk about, how life's been, about my daughter, you know normal things people talk about."

"Well, um.. you see I have a police orientation to get to, I'm showing the cadets the proper steps to performing an investigation."

I decided to drop the charades and pulled his shoulder so he spun around to face me. In the same movement I had the hook go around the opposite shoulder and pull on his neck bringing him down to eye level with me.

"Don't fuck with me Roman! Tell me when she got out, and why I wasn't informed."

"Look, Red, that information is classif-"

"Not anymore. Tell me!"

"Alright, alright," I released his neck from Crescent Rose so he could he explain in a more civilized manner, "Look I was only told three days after myself. Apparently she escaped a week ago. I did ask the police if they planned to inform you and your team, but they said that was the warden's place on who he releases this information to."

"A week?" Letting the information process.

"According to them."

I leaned back and took a deep breath. It wasn't Roman's fault, he wasn't officially police, so of course he wouldn't learn right away. I took a second breath to make sure my nerves were calm. Feeling my aura rebalance inside me I stood up, the butt of my gun on the ground as I tucked the muzzle and stock under my arm.

"Alright, let's go."

"Don't suppose you'll let me and the police do our jobs?"

I might have been a bit shorter then him, but when my glare met his I might as well have been twice his height.

"The bitch threatened my daughter."

He nodded in acceptance and threw his arm out toward the door. I followed his lead, and limped as fast as I could to keep in step with him. My leg agitated me for my reckless movements, but I paid it no mind as I made for Roman's car.

I took the passenger seat and knocked my feet together to keep any dirt on my feet off his nice interior. He opened the center compartment and pulled out a folder for me to read while he went about pulling out of my small parking lot behind the building.

"That's everything I've gotten on Cinder so far. As normal the actual cops don't have as many details as me, since I don't need them mucking things up for me or screwing up my plans." His mind clearly more focused on the road than talking to me.

"The night Cinder broke out there was a break in at a local mall, but all that was reported was property damage and about one hundred lien worth of clothing. Even the normal police can put those dots together."

"The police have been searching the docks for the past week looking for Cinder's hideout. A Schnee Dust Company security guard supposedly engaged a women in a red dress and raven black hair, but suffered a concussion and couldn't remember anything else. Though I doubt she would make a hideout in such a place."

"Why's that?" Not that I doubted him, but it would make sense to me.

"Well I looked a little deeper," He quickly pointed at the folder and told me third page. I pulled out the pair of stapled papers and looked them over. It was a shipping inventory for a freighter that came to port early that morning. He named off three random crate numbers and I took note of their specific contents then asked why it mattered.

"The other packet in there, look at the same numbers." He stopped his sentence a little early as he swerved out of the way of someone who randomly stopped. He honked his horn as he went by and shouted a profanity, but returned to the subject at hand.

I finished looking over the list by the time he stopped raging at traffic. I noted select forms of dust were reported missing; mostly fire and earth. It was only a little from each box, but it was enough that even I could probably go on quite the rampage through the city.

"Why weren't the thefts reported to the police?"

"There was no theft as far as they know, just a few missing vials. They probably just sent complaints to Schnee dust about merchandise that never arrived."

I looked over the papers a little more, before feeling my scroll vibrate in my back pocket. My lap and seat were so covered in random sheets by the time I organized everything so none of them would get ruined, the call had already passed. I opened the call history and saw the number for Summer's School at the top of the list. Worry over washed me and I immediately redialed the number.

"Hello, Vale Basic Core School front desk. this is Elm speaking how may I help you."

"This is Mrs. Arc, Summer's mother, did something happen?" I realized only after I was near shouting into the receiver.

"Oh yes, Mrs. Amber was just trying to contact you. It seems your daughter has gotten into a little bit of trouble involving another schoolboy, she is already on the phone with your husband. I connect you to her if you would like."

"No, that's fine. Jaune can take care of it. I was just worried something else might have happened."

"Oh no, don't worry you daughter is physically fine save a light bruise on her cheek during a fight with Vang the schoolboy I mentioned, but it should be healed up by the time she get's home."

"Oh thank goodness." I breathed, glad Cinder wasn't the cause for my new strife. I thanked the secretary for the information and wished her a nice day before hanging up. My peace was short lived as some idiot trying making a last minute lane shift for the exit coming up, almost sending Roman into the wall. Once more he slammed the horn, but both me and him shouted profanities at the guy who almost got us in an accident.

He pulled up to one of the docks and I let myself out. There were a number of officers walking around, and two bullheads hovering overhead. One officer was walking toward us, but Roman went ahead to intercept him, with me in foot.

"I'm sorry Mr. Torchwick, but there is still a live investigation going on. You're friend will have to wait here." He said holding a hand up to stop us.

"Don't worry, I can assure you she has clearance." He said, leaving the young officer confused.

"Are you sure? I could get in a lot of trouble if I let her in, and I only got promoted from patrol officer recently and I would rather not go back to writing tickets." Still eyeing me suspiciously.

"Kid, you realize this is Ruby Rose right?" He gestured to me, and I gave the officer a small wave despite only being just outside arms reach, "Kid she's saved Vale so many times, She's politically untouchable, so don't worry, the sheriff will understand."

"THE Ruby Rose!" He said with glee in his voice. I was actually taken back for a moment to when Jaune was first introduced to Pyrrha. "Can I get your autograph? I already have your sister's from when I pulled her over one time, but it would be great if I could get yours too!"

"Ehh..." I'll admit, I've had plenty of people ask for my autograph, but it was always just as weird as the first time. I agreed while Roman went ahead to where the skirmish happened. I quickly painted my sloppy signature on the back of a traffic ticket with a pen provided by the officer.

"Wow! thanks a lot! I grew up reading stories about you guys, you're actually why I decided to become a police officer." He looked like he was about to squeal at a moment's notice, but somehow managed to hold it in.

"Really? You didn't want to be a hunter?"

"Well I did, but I have very little control on my aura so I couldn't get into a combat school." His mood falling from cloud nine.

"Well you know, you don't need to go to Beacon to become a hunter. If you keep working on your aura and semblance you can hire a combat tutor and become a hunter still." That was actually a lie. The most he could hope to become was a freelancer, but they did the same things for the most part; just you don't get all the privileges and such that come with the "Hunter" title; but he didn't need to know that last part

He let me go while he went off to do whatever. I regrouped with Roman who was looking over everything. The evidence hadn't been moved yet, probably because they learned from last time and didn't want to overlook anything.

"So, Cinder was going through some crates when a security guard found her?"

"Guy fired a few shots," pointing over down the dock a little were a few yellow flags had been set up seemingly randomly, "And it looks like she engaged him hand to hand, and kicked the living crap out of him."

I left halfway through his explanation toward the small flags. As I expected, each was next to a actually very large pistol. With a little effort I got on my knee, next to one and picked it up.

"Hey, don't touch those! This is a live investigation!"

I ignored the random officer and continued my personal investigation. It was a pistol round certainly, but it was very large, probably a magnum of some kind. The tip looked like it was perfectly fine, in contrast to what the jacket around it looked like. I remembered Cinder had that strange ability to block bullets, and guessed this was the result when she did so. It looked like the round was discharged, then the tip just came to a sudden halt; but the force of the jacket caused it to collapse on itself, like it if it had hit something too hard to penetrate.

I stood and turned around to see Roman holding the officer by his uniform's collar with the hook of his cane. He pulled out a small baggie from his jacket and I placed the bullet in it. He then passed it to the officer while we moved on to the next spot.

"Are we sure Cinder didn't fire her weapon? Those bullets look a little large to be security standard." Not giving Roman my complete attention.

"Yes we are. When the man called in he was attacked, he was taken to the hospital to check for any internal damage or head injury. They found him with a heavy magnum pistol rather than the standard issue. He's currently under investigation for potentially being related to the recent gang activity around the docks who also have military grade weaponry." He confirmed as I took another knee where the man had apparently been knocked out.

"If he's in the hospital then I guess it would be beyond me to go in and interrogate him about Cinder while he's potentially in critical care."

"I don't think he's in critical care, but I would think it would piss off the police to interrupt their own interrogation."

I grunted to myself quietly while I looked over the area. A few pieces of glass from a helmet visor were on the ground, as well as a tooth and a few small splats of blood. It didn't look too bad, just a very hard hit to the face. I looked around some more, seeing a ring on the ground from a belt loop but nothing that would tell me anything about Cinder specifically.

"Did you miss that?" Roman asked pointing at another flag over to the side. It was a little far to have been part of the fight, but I limped over all the same to inspect it. It looked like a masquerade mask, made of what looked like some kind of black glass.

"Cinder always enjoyed her theatrics." Roman stated looking out to the dock.

His unintentional clue cued me in, and I realized it was the same kind that she wore to the dance during my first year at Beacon. I picked it up and fully examined it, it was plain black on both sides, and for the most part was exactly the same as it was during the dance, from what memory served. I growled at myself for not drawing any kind of clue from the mask, and crushed it in my hand, letting it fall to the ground in a small pile of sand sized grains.

Roman was still looking around, so I asked him what it was that had his attention.

"This is the same dock me and your team fought on when I first teamed up with the White Fang, remember?"

I looked around and sure enough, I recognized it as the one when we first saw Penny fight. I looked around for a moment longer before I was reeled back by Roman.

"This was a planned call out for you."

"What do you mean?" I asked, not getting what he meant.

"The mask, the location. I don't think she got found out by the guard, she let him see her."

"What makes you say that?" Still not getting what he meant.

"The mask is made from a fine combination of fire and earth dust. If she already had the dust why would she need to engage the guard when she could easily just flee? This is assuming he would have noticed her to begin with."

I couldn't find any flaws in his statement so I didn't bother to come up with another solution. All I had now though, was a message, but I didn't know what the message was. We looked around a bit more, but couldn't find anything. Even when they were trying their hardest the police still found a way to be incompetent, having flagged every little thing as evidence. They flag scuff marks from tires that looked like they were there for many weeks; even a random rock on the concrete that had no value to the investigation at all.

I asked an officer why it was marked, and he just said they were going to trace its origin to see where it came from in hopes of finding more clues on where Cinder had been before; and apparently hope to find a trail or pattern to catch her. I explained that anyone might have brought it, or even the wind, but he scoffed at the idea of me denouncing what he must have considered vital evidence.

I limped back to the car, with Roman in tow. My mind was distracted, trying to figure out what the message could mean. She already left a threat, so this clearly wasn't to reveal herself to me, but what could it be. I took my seat before being pulled out of my thoughts when I realized I was sitting on something.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention," Realizing I had sat on an envelope that must have fallen out of his folder.

"That's not mine." His voice showing no knowledge of the mentioned object.

I lifted an eyebrow at him, but he shrugged before returning his focus to driving. I flipped the envelope over a few times, it wasn't sealed in any way and was completely blank. Since Roman didn't know what it was I opened it up thinking he wouldn't care. I pulled out a single piece of folded paper, with a paper clip along the bottom that pinned a smaller sheet to it. I raised the fold that blocked the text before feeling my blood pressure reach a new record peak.

"What a lovely husband you have."

I pulled the smaller sheet from the paper clip and flipped it so I could see what it had. It took every ounce of my will not to punch a hole through a window, or destroy the the dashboard.

"Roman take me home, NOW!"

"What? what is it?"

"That bitch has Jaune and Summer!" I roared.

I presented what turned out to be a photograph of Jaune and Summer tied up with blindfolds. He only could give it half his eye as he navigated the river of idiots, but he didn't need more than that to know what it was. He pressed a button on the dash board and the front of his car started flashing red and blue. Traffic cleared away immediately and he sped down the highway as fast as he could.

The trip was much faster than usual and I didn't even wait for him to finish stopping when I jumped out of the car and hopped on one foot as fast as I could for the door. My shoulder was faster then my hand turning the knob and I could feel myself do a little bit of damage to the latch, but I wasn't at all focusing on that. I threw Crescent Rose on the back of my waist as I bound up the stairs for my room. I burst through my door, this time slowing down enough not to risk the handle.

I stripped down as fast as I could letting my cloths go where ever they landed I opened the wardrobe and smiled to see my combat uniform still hanging on the small mannequin within.

I put on my stockings and under shirt, before putting on my combat shorts and blouse top. I rolled the sleeves up past my elbows and pulled on the leather vambraces and the fingerless gloves. I made a few flexes of my full arm and wrist to make sure they were on right and didn't restrict my movement, then slipped the metal plates underneath the pads on my forearm and the top of my palms.

I tightened the ends of my shorts then I grabbed my waist cape and wrapped it around, before strapping it on with the matching sash. I pulled my ammo belt around my waist, then lined it with my powerful "Reaper" bullets. Clipping my pouch to the side. I filled the pack with the best ammunition I had. I then packed the inhaler like device that was my old painkiller injector. I had told Yang long ago I had gotten rid of it, but I kept it around all these years just incase I needed it. I then packed my "stress relief" and placed the small carton in what little amount of room I had left.

I grabbed my black combat boots like the ones I had when I was young and did the red laces, and tightened the strap so it was tight. The metal plates that protected the front were screwed in last.

With all my combat gear on I returned my leg brace around my knee and stood with Crescent Rose once more in my hand. I limped over to my wardrobe and pulled the last item in it. With a single movement I pulled pulled the red fabric over my head before letting it fall on my shoulders. I pinned my cloak just below my collar like I always did then took a quick look in the mirror to check everything was on right.

Satisfied with everything I walked out to the door, this time at a more reasonable pace. I stepped out of the door to see Roman leaning on his door smoking one of his cigars.

"You clean up nice kid." He joked before dropping his cigar on the pavement and smoldering it under his cane.

I didn't respond as I walked around back to the passenger seat. He was already inside starting the car when I took my seat and he asked me where too. I handed him the picture again, and told him to look at the back ground.

"Is that a factory?"

"As you said, she likes her theatrics. She doesn't just want a rematch. She wants round two."

Next time on Last Spark: It's the final battle Ruby vs Cinder, who will win! Find out next time!

Thanks to /u/Spartacus400 for editing, really, progress would not be as fast without him, his little box in the corner for some reason spurs me on to keep writing instead of getting distracted by Dirty Bomb or something.

Though It is still in rough draft form, the next story in the Last Spark AU is in the works, and it's one lots of people have been asking for. I won't reveal details now, but I will next chapter.

Review+ Follow; till next time cheers.