Disclaimer

I don't own RWBY, or any company related to it.

Any of the names other than RWBY cast are fictional and resemblances to real people are purely accidental.

AN: Info for ease of writing and reading :P.

Gentle rose - a sabre sword.

Scarlet rose - rifle

Age - 13 years 4 months 3 weeks

My timeline of V1-3: imgur com /a/ZyoijxK

CHAPTER 14

The day before the arrival of Margaret Gera, Ruby checked her notepad on a mission page in order to check if she had not missed anything and compiled every bit of intelligence.

There are two crafts from Solitas incoming, one in the morning at eight and second twelve hours later. There were three shops that caught her attention as possible locations, where she could go first after landing, or two hotels with high enough standards. Ruby also remembered that she needs to gather some kind of proof, before killing or sparing her life.

'Damn lack of clues, could not it be a little easier? Maybe there is something in old notes about her, or the city' Ruby thought and immediately started checking her notepad from begining. 'Hmm, names of those bastards that killed my mother and enslaved me, Jim Scarlatina number and bakery location in Vacuo near shade academy with strawberry cookies… That's it, I need a break now'.

Ruby got up, prepared herself to go out and left securing her room first with a clear objective in mind. Leaving the hotel, she checked the bakeries locations on a map and chose the one that matched the description. With target pointed, scroll in a second mapped out route and time, which Ruby studied in an almost religious manner. Committing the patch to her memory, she closed the scroll and set up on her way.

Twenty minutes later, she was in front of a medium sized bakery built into a large housing block and surrounded by many others and the academy grounds on one side which covered about eighty meters in line from road to actual academy complex. The grounds were mostly empty, except for one class in the background practicing running with various obstacles, while being fully armed. The academy grounds were mostly covered with sand and roads at the edge area, while the inner zone of about thirty meters was covered in short cut grass with visible water providing sprinklers, which were turned off during the day.

The streets were busy with people shopping, walking and going to work late, as it was noon hour. She made her way to the target and opened the doors, only to be met with a small crowd and pleasant smell of freshly baked goods. Setting up herself to a queue, she checked the price of strawberry cookies and her wallet, which 'grew up' a little, due to mostly knocked unconscious and some castrated bandits that were willing to donate her some money without their knowledge, not that she felt bad, or anything, but Ruby could only appreciate their attempt at retribution.

Finally, when it was her turn to order she shyly said, while looking at the ground "I wish to buy strawberry cookies".

"How much?" Asked the clerk, who was a young human with light brown skin pigmentation, common type of local baggy clothes and dark grey hair.

For this question, Ruby looked at him directly into his eyes with a smile and replied confidently "All of them, including the ones not yet put on exhibition and before you say anything about the costs you need to know that I have enough lien".

This answer shocked the clerk for a moment before him calling "Jim! Bring out all the strawberry cookies packed in bags, even the very hot ones. We got a customer that wants them all".

"Give me a minute John and I will have them packed" a familiar voice rang out from behind the closed doors at the back of the clerk, as he started packing hers to be cookies.

Two minutes later a figure emerged from the back room with four bags full of cookies, which he almost dropped, when he saw her, but managed to place them on the counter and said, while going to her around the table "Ruby! It has been a long time".

Reaching her, Jim squeezed her in a tight hug "we need to catch up, since I see you got a new arm, since we have last seen each other. I am ending my shift in fifty minutes, due to spending most of my night here. Can you come back in an hour, so I can take you to see my new apartment? Or are you busy and can't wait? If so I shall tell you that my shift starts at three in the morning and ends at one o'clock. My house is n…"

"I have a whole day free and a lots of cookies to occupy myself. I will wait here at this table, so get back to work and stop squeezing me!" The last three words she spoke out much louder, as she felt her aura getting lower during his hug.

"At least you grew up a lot since I last saw you, but if you eat only sweets, then you will stay a midget to the end" he said with a small tease while releasing her from his arms.

Ruby angrily stomped on his foot, causing Tim to stutter from pain and retreat. "Well I need to get back to work, we will talk after my shift" He reminded her and himself, while moving back to the bakery back room.

Rose then set herself at the table and started eating cookies, slowly at first to enjoy the taste, but ten minutes later one of her bags was already empty, while her stomach was half full. "These are too good, only if they were not as fragile and more packed, then they would make an excellent food source outside of the city…" Ruby mumbled and started planning on how to fix this issue.

An hour later Ruby and Jim finally set out of the shop, with her still having two bags full of the 'goods'. "You really love those cookies" stated the man, as he led her towards his apartment.

"I haven't eaten any of them since, sinc-ce…" Ruby then started crying as memories of her happy family came back to her, only to be hugged gently by Jim, who gently said to her "here, here, it is okay to cry. After everything I still find myself crying back in my apartment… But after a while I remember them and hope they are safe, or watching me. I know that they would not want me to be stuck in the past, but to move forward. Think what your family would want for you and do it. It is hard, I know, but for them and for ourselves we need to move forward without stopping at the obstacles life puts in front of us".

Ruby stopped crying and with puffy eyes, she looked at him and quietly said "let's go". They made the rest of the way in silence, while little Rose stayed attached to his arm.

The apartment was small and lightly furnished, as only the necessary furniture and kitchenware were present, making a message of the owner only owning it as a place to sleep and eat, but to not get too attached, so he could just leave and never come back.

Inside the apartment they talked, shared stories and Ruby did not hold back any information, even about her previous mission, while he didn't like it, but after she told him about the man, Jim was still sad that it was her who had to do it, no matter the consequences. He accepted finally and hugged her gently again while telling her to not lose what makes her Ruby Rose, not some kind of avenger, murderer, or worse. To not lose herself in the hatred, as it will only make the faunus and her situation worse. She even informed him about the current mission, where he wished her good luck and made her promise to be safe and cautious. They spent hours talking, before she went back to the hotel before it would get dark with the last bag of cookies and full stomach after being treated to dinner at his apartment.

Strangely nobody tried to rob or attack her on the long way back, but just before reaching the hotel, Ruby overheard a whispered rumor about 'red cloaked castrating female cat faunus', which made her smile, as she knew who they were talking about.

Arriving at the hotel, she passed by the closed reception and reached her room, which wasn't touched ever since she left, making her a little relieved. Closing and locking the door behind her, she placed her bag on the table, reached her notepad checking it again, before stripping herself and taking a lukewarm shower.

After it she wiped herself, wore her underwear, set up an alarm on her scroll and went to sleep on the bed. Next morning Ruby got woken up by the ringing of her device, which she simply shut off, got up from the bed and prepared herself for a day. Setting up both of her weapons in the right places, placing the remaining cookies inside her small traveling bag, which she was leaving inside the hotel for now, taking the recorder and small camera with external memory slot, where pictures would be saved.

After making sure that everything is alright, Ruby left the room's closing and locking door behind her, bid goodbye to the owner in the lobby and made her way to the airport to find and follow her target.

She managed to reach the airport twenty minutes before the first incoming flight from Atlas and decided to wait on the roof of one of the buildings nearby. Using her semblance, she was able to easily scale the way from the unused alley, a couple of buildings away and then travel by roofs. She didn't want to risk anything, so she again cheated with her semblance to jump between the blocks.

Reaching her destination, Ruby took out for her gun and dismounted the scope, by turning a couple of locks into open position. After removing that part from the gun, she reached into one of hers pockets and took out the picture of her target. Looking at it, Ruby made sure to remember her face and other identifying things and waited for the bullheads or other type of aircraft.

Fifteen minutes later an aircraft with Atlas logo landed on one of the landing pads and Ruby, using her scope, watched the people leaving it, while searching for her target and hoped for luck so she would not have to wait any longer on the hot sun covered roof.

Finally one of the last people to leave the craft was her target, so she put back the scope onto her scarlet rose, mounted it back on its place and jumped out of the roof with a short burst of semblance for landing. Ruby then reached the entrance of the airport and found Margaret Gera inside taking her small bag followed by two bodyguards, who wore light type dark blue clothes, grey bulletproof vests and SMG type guns with most likely sharp dust ammunition.

Ruby forgot to account for possible hired bodyguards, which made her mood sour, but after some wondering she realized that this was a smart move on behalf of an Atlesian woman, as streets here aren't safe from crime and many local faunus hate Atlesians.

Going back to her target, Ruby decided to follow her, by the rooftops. Observing and using the semblance to get speed necessary to jump between streets without becoming a big red cloud in the air for random passersby. It did work for a while, until her Gera reached a white armoured car and took a passenger seat in the back, letting one person seat next to her, while the other took a driving seat.

Rose, seeing this, decided to speed up and keep herself as much hidden as possible, while using her semblance fully. Good thing that while using this she is aware and able to see everything, even though she can't understand how it is possible.

Twenty minutes later they arrived at one of the dust shops in the city and Ruby got off the roof and stopped near to observe.

Margaret left her car and went inside the shop and after a while one of the workers with the help of bodyguards escorted customers out of the shop, put a close sign and closed the door with a key.

'Well that complicates the mission, I need to find a way to record their talk, or get a copy of documents. Might find some stuff there, maybe at the back there is an open door or a window' Ruby thought to herself and went behind the shop and found a slightly opened window.

'That must do' she thought and used semblance to get inside and hide behind the closest cover. She was in a small kitchen with doors leading to the shop part, a small magazine and a room with chairs, lockers and a table, where her target, two bodyguards, owner and two workers. Ruby sneaked next to the doors and turned on a recorder placing it under the slightly opened doors, before going back to her cover and focusing on her ears to listen to the conversation.

"... Yes I will be taking over this place and a couple of other places and I will give you all new policies, prices and restrictions. I don't care what you think, since I have enough money to buy you out or destroy you completely. With new policies and restrictions you will be able to get dust at a much cheaper price, even when taxed additionally by me all thanks to Jacques Gelè known for a long time as a Schnee after marrying and convincing the previous head of SDC to let him lead the company and my brother who owns two dust mines. Sign these papers now, since I have busy schedule"

"W-what are these new policies and restrictions?" Shop owner asked Gera while feeling overwhelmed and scared.

"New policy is that you are forbidden from selling dust or any other things, which account also to hiring, to the animals known as faunus under pretext of terrorism suspicion. Restrictions will forbid you from selling the books and magazines not approved by SDC. Now sign these papers and enjoy higher earnings, or you might disappear and one of your workers will have to sign it with the ownership papers" Annoyed Margaret answered him with a not so subtle threat at the end.

A moment later he signed it and Ruby took the recorder and turned it off, before leaving the shop and going to the roof to check the recording and copy it into her scroll. After copying, she made sure there was only this one recording on the recorder. After a moment she resumed following her target now marked for assassination in order to find a place where Gera might be killed with ease and lack of witnesses.

Five hours later and a couple shops later, not all of them were dust stories, but others like local mall, pharmacies, which she decided to take over. It was hot outside and the woman was already sweating, before calling it a day in a local higher grade hotel.

Ruby sneaked inside and followed Margaret from a distance making sure her hood was masking her faunus ears, to find her apartment number. After seeing her target entering room number 32, Ruby memorised the location and exited the building in order to get inside the room by window if possible, hoping that she would not have to fight two bodyguards in front of the room.

Luckily she saw Gera opening one of the windows and Ruby waited ten minutes, before using her semblance at fast speed to minimize risk of detection. Inside the apartment she heard a shower going on and decided to hide under bed as this was the only good hiding place. Five minutes later she stopped hearing shower, meaning that her target was about to exit the bathroom. Moments later Ruby heard the door opening and footsteps coming into her direction.

Managing to keep calm, she waited for her target to reach the bed and sit on it, or lie down, before taking any action. In seconds that felt like minutes Gera reached the spot and sat down, causing Ruby to use her semblance to move and appear behind her on the other side of the bed, with her hands between Margaret's head.

'That it' Ruby thought while putting her right hand on the mouth of her target and left at the back of the head, before twisting it about one hundred degrees right with a crunch of broken spine. The naked woman in fifties in her hands was dead, as Ruby placed her on the bed, covered lightly with bed covers and untwisted her head to make it look like she was sleeping.

'Now I need to leave a sign and a proof, the back of the door might be a good place. Not a visible one, but investigation will find it for sure.' Ruby thought and reached her bag, removed from inside the cans of white and black paint, White fang cutout logo with a rose on it, and a recorder, which she attached with a piece of duct tape to the door. Rose then sprayed the logo with the white paint and rose using black one, before bagging her stuff back into the bag.

After a moment she left the apartment by the window and went back to her hotel room. Next day on the TV news, Ruby found the title of 'White Fang strikes again. Woman found dead and naked inside her apartment. Investigation in progress, by police investigators and a hunter team from local academy' then they started talking about what a nice and kind of a woman she was, without mentioning a recording she left. Ruby calmed herself down after a moment and decided to wait a week, before visiting Jim once more two hours before her flight back to the continent of Anima, to talk, get cookies and say goodbye.

Next morning she was back at the entry of the White fang castle, greeting the gate guardians.

AN:

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I am not dead, nor pulling on disappearing act under 'writer block'.

Truth is:

Wake up at 7 AM

Work at workplace

Work at home after 5.30 pm

Relax after 7-8pm

Duties at 8-9pm

Sleep at 11.30 pm - 1.00 am to 7 AM.

From Monday to Friday

Weekend - work at home related issues from morning late afternoon. Playing with Boyz after 8pm.