Edit: I've gone back through my old chapters to rewrite them to flow better as well as grammer. Plot remains unchanged however.
When normal people thought of criminal masterminds, they thought hours upon hours of elaborate and careful planning, with backups for any contingency.
In truth? Roman simply planned for what he was going to do initially and adapt to whatever happens.
That was why his scheme to get Ruby into Beacon was brilliant in it's simplicity.
Having payed off one of the cafeteria workers, he knew that senior professors made coffee orders at around 8:45 PM, to a certain shop, located near a dust store that Roman hadn't hit yet. Plan was for Ruby to be in there already, doing something that looked innocent enough like reading from one of those weapon magazines she loves, when he comes in with the thugs he hired off Junior.
None of them actually knew of Ruby, meaning they'd try and do something stupid to her like try a rob her. Ruby would then take the fight outside and beat the hell out of the thugs, before he came up, said something to her and fired Melodic Cudgel at her, with complete faith that she could easily dodge it. He'd would then proceed to climb up to a nearby building and have Ruby see him and follow. Roman had managed to convince Cinder to be on standby with a bullhead, to which she could take and get this week's dust afterwards to ward off suspicion.
By now, the huntsman or huntress would have heard the explosion he fired and come to help Ruby. From this, they would likely try and ground the bullhead, but Cinder could easily stop them for him.
Roman thanked his luck that for all this time, Cinder still did not know about Ruby and could make this plan a success. Cinder seemed to be the kind to blackmail people by threatening to attack families, but Roman knew better and managed to keep Ruby from being known.
Later that Night...
Glynda Goodwitch sighed as she was walking in downtown Vale. While she personally preferred tea, it was an agreement between Ozpin and the three senior professors that every Friday night someone went and got the coffee ordered for next week.
As Beacon's professor for Combat Training and Criminal Interactions, she found mundane tasks like this boring, she'd rather go off and relax somewhere nice then get the favoured beverage of Beacon's faculty.
Well most of them.
Ruby knew that her dad's plan was simple, but she also knew that sometimes, simple is better.Her father had taught her much about how to be a successful crook, and one of the best lessons she had was that elaborate schemes had a tendency to go wrong somehow, and that it's better to have a simpler plan and be able to improvise should something go wrong.
As Ruby walked into the targeted store, called From Dust Till Dawn. Ruby couldn't help but giggle at the place's name. Ridiculous names aside, Ruby put her hood on and walked over to a stand with magazines for weapons on it. Taking a newer one, she stands by reading it with her headphones in and hood up.
Roman swaggered down a dark alley, thugs in tow, briefly stopping to smoke his cigar. As they made their way down the street, people stopped and gasped slightly at the sight of some dangerous men, moving out of their way quickly.
Well at least one of them actually is dangerous.
Roman walked down the street to the store he selected for his plan. Opening the door, he saw no one else was there, meaning his little girl was around here somewhere, a bit out of the way.
So ideally? It's perfect, no other witnesses.
"Sh sh sh sh... Calm down, we're not here for your money," Roman looked over at them, "Grab the dust." he intructed them. As Gary walked over to the dust dispensers on the right side over the store, he saw a little girl over reading some magazines. Drawing his sword, he pointed it at her, saying, "Alright kid, put your hands where I can see 'em."
When the girl didn't react, Gary scowled before saying again, "Hey, I said hands in the air!" while walking over to her, he mutters to himself , "Have you got a death wish or something?" He tapped her on the shoulder and knocked her hood off, revealing red and black hair.
Ruby feelt someone tap her and pull her hood off.
She turned her head around a little, seeing one of Junior's thugs pointing at his ear. Taking her headphones off, Ruby asked the man, "Yes?"
The man looked at her angrily and exclaims, "I said, put your hands in the air, now!"
Ruby looked at him, before acting a little dull, asking "Are you...robbing me?"
Almost shouting out a "Yes!", Ruby looked at the man with a dull look.
"Ah..." before she kicked him with a semblance powered kick to chest, launching him backwards.
Another thug aimed a gun at her, yelling "FREEZE!" to which Ruby simply fired off Crescent Rose, launching her forward into the guy and knocking them out the building through a glass window.
Roman stared out the window as he watched Ruby extend her weapon into it's scythe form. Roman never did know why she used a scythe, they were very rare and hard to use, much less master. But when his little Ruby put her mind to something, she didn't give up easily.
Maintaining his farce of not actually knowing what was happening, Roman watched her spin it around a little before planting the blade into the ground. Roman muttered to himself, just barely being heard by the thugs around him, "Ok?" Looking at the thugs, he scowled at them like it's the most obvious thing in the world, "Get her."
Roman then got a first class seat to watch Ruby kick the asses of the thugs, almost literally, as she spun on her planted weapons shaft, and kicked the first thug directly in the face. Pulling her scythe out of the ground as she kicked off the man's face, she fired it to get momentum, and swung it directly at two of the thugs, cloths-lining them and knocking them back into the store. The last thug decided to get loud, pulling out a machine gun and firing at Ruby, who, using her semblance, fired Crescent Rose to make her move rapidly from one spot to another. She repeated this twice, once to the left and right, before swinging her scythe like a bat and smacking the gunman up into the air, and slamming him back down him back down again.
Roman smirked as he watched the man land at his feet. Maintaining the act, he smiles at his daughter, "Quite magnificent little Red, truly. Now, right now, I got places to be this evening and no time to chat, so this," Roman raised Melodic Cudgel with exaggerated flair, aiming at his daughter, "is where we part ways."
Firing the second he finishef talking, Roman ran for the ladder at the target building. He watched Ruby fire her gun and fly up into the air, dodging his explosive flare with practised ease. Watching as she spoke about something to the shopkeeper, she followed Roman, using her gun like a Pogo stick to fly up onto the roof.
Glynda had just left the coffee shop, having just payed for next weeks coffee for almost everyone but her to enjoy. Glynda sighed as she started walking back to her bullhead, when she heard an explosion somewhere nearby. Using her semblance to get her onto a roof, she eyed the notorious criminal Roman Torchwick climb onto a nearby roof, soon chased by some little girl in a red cape. As she ran to help the girl apprehend Torchwick, a Bullhead flew by and the criminal climbed in, not before turning around and shouting, "End of the line, Red!" and throwing a red burn crystal at the little girl.
Glynda raced forward and projected a shield to protect the girl.
Ruby watched as the huntress in front of her made some kind of shield in front of them. Watching in amazement as the huntress threw some purple energy shaped like orbs at the Bullhead.
Shaking it but not causing much damage, it does cause Roman to stumble a little inside. Roman turned to Cinder in the cockpit, who swapped with him, as he took over flying. The huntress reponded by throwing a storm crystal, making a cloud appear above the bullhead, raining icicles down on them. Cinder launched some kind of fireball that is blocked by another shield, but splashed on the ground like water, then exploded upwards with a scream.
Back flipping out of the way, the huntress causes the debris to form a spear shape and launched it at the bullhead, to which Cinder shot it with 3 smaller fireballs that act almost like lasers. The spear of debris split into 3, each coming from different angles, but was stopped by some sort of nova from Cinder, causing all of the matter to disintegrate.
Ruby, not wanting to draw any suspicion, compacted Crescent Rose into it's gun form, and opened fire at the bullhead, which was casually blocked by Cinder, who created 5 smaller versions of that screaming explosion. Seeing her make a hand gesture that Ruby has associated with her attacks, Ruby leapt forward to dodge it, as does the huntress. However this distraction allowed her dad time to get away.
Ruby gazed over at the huntress before saying what would be expected for someone meeting a real one.
"You're a huntress. Do you do autographs?" Ruby asked with an almost fan girl look.
The huntress, Glynda, didn't do autographs.
But she did lecture, which meant that she was likely the teacher they were looking for.
"They started it, I was protecting myself!" Ruby complained like someone might have given they just 'stopped' an armed robbery by an notorious thief.
"If it was up to me, you'd be sent home, with a pat on the back," Glynda saw the look on her face, "And a slap on the wrist!" She the slapped her horse crop on the table right in front of the girl's hand, making her jump. "However, someone wants to meet you."
Ozpin knew when he walked in, the girl looks vaguely familiar. She had silver eyes, a rare trait, red hair that darkened closer to her head. But her cape looked very familiar but with different colour. Ozpin looked at the girl, who had only said that her name was Ruby.
Apparently when his deputy asked for her surname, she said she didn't have one.
"Miss Ruby, you have...silver eyes." Ozpin couldn't help but say, mostly to himself.
Ruby looked a little confused at this "Uh um...?"
But he cut her off before she could respond.
"So. Where did you learn to do this?" He asked with a curious tone. Glynda was holding a tablet, with a recording of Ruby's fight with the criminals.
Ruby looked at him before muttering, "I taught myself..." Ozpin is actually shocked when he hears this, though his face doesn't show it.
"You taught yourself how to use one of the most dangerous weapons ever designed?" Ruby shrugs before looking at them.
"I grew up with my sister, we had to learn to fight and so I read a book about weapons and I saw a scythe, so I got some tools and metal and built myself one. I practised with my sister until I was very good with it." The strangely familar girl explained with a slight frown.
To this, Ozpin raises and eyebrow and replies, "I see." He pauses briefly to take a drink of coffee from his mug, before continuing, "It just that I've only seen one other scythe wielder using at scythe with that kind of skill before. I thought that perhaps you had been trained by him." Ozpin waits for the girl's response, to which she doesn't. "Well then Miss Ruby, with skills like yours, what is it that you intend to do with your abilities?"
Ruby looks at him inquisitively before replying, "I don't really know, I'd like to be able to improve my skills and learn a bit more about Grimm and how to beat them."
Looking at the girl again, he can tell she is around 15 years old, and while entree to Beacon requires you to be 17, Ozpin can tell that for practical lessons, Miss Ruby will have little to now trouble or handicaps. Her theoretical work could always be taught, but it would be best to see what her kind of knowledge surrounding those topics. "Do you know much about how Vale is run, and the history of our world?" Ruby nods, explaining, "Yes, I spent a few years learning this things for fun and in case I needed to know them."
"Miss Ruby, do you know who I am?"
Nodding again, she responds, "Your Professor Ozpin, the Headmaster of Beacon."
Smiling at the girl's correct guess, "Hmph, Hello."
"Nice to meet you."
Ozpin glanced at Glynda, who rolls her eyes and shrugs. Looking back at Ruby, he asked her a question that will likely change her life for the better. "How would you feel coming to Beacon and becoming a huntress?"
Ruby looks amazed, "But, I've got no credentials or anything..." She said quietly. Just like another silver eyed girl in another time and place...
Ozpin merely smiled, "I will handle that. I believe that you have the potential to become a great huntress, but you'd have to put in the effort to learn the more academic aspects. So, do you want to come to my school?" Ruby takes a moment, clearly thinking about it, before nodding. "Well alright then, come to the Bullhead transports tomorrow, all new students will be there for the initiation."
Ruby started walking home and texted Neo to come pick her up. One teleportation later, they are both home. Ruby sat down on the couch with Neo as they both watched some action movies. A few hours later, Roman came home, and smiled at Ruby with a tired face that brightened at her thumbs up, "Good work Ruby, very good acting and ability at tricking a huntress. Now on a more serious note, what happened after?"
Ruby recounted what happened during her meeting with Ozpin, to which Torchwick congratulated his daughter on a job well done. "Now that your in Beacon, enjoy yourself, make some friends, do all that kind of fuuun stuff. Just be careful not to slip up and make them suspicious. Neo will be ready to bust you out if needed." Neo nods at her little sister, to which Ruby smiles back at.
"So, work out what Cinder is up to and let you know. Otherwise be another huntress in training. This is going to be fun!" Ruby says excitedly.
Roman smiled at her antics. He knew that she is a good person and her time at Beacon will be good for her practically. And she will be able to make friends hopefully and enjoy being a normal teen rather then a master thief.
"What is it Oz?"
"I will be taking in new students tomorrow, there is one, a young girl called Ruby. She's 15 but shows excellent weapon skills and keenness to learn. I want to know if you can finish the mission I gave you and not waste time coming back." Ozpin requested to Qrow over his scroll.
Qrow's face is scowling at what is being asked, "And why's that?" Qrow inquired.
"She uses a scythe and is very skilled with it. I would like you to teach her whenever possible." Ozpin paused for a minute. "Also, the girl reminds me of Summer..."
That got a reaction out of Qrow, who's eyes widen in surprise.
"I would also like you to look into her possible relation to her while you train her." Ozpin continued, Qrow is already nodding his head.
He had been very close to Summer and had been very angry when he had been told she died. He spent a few years trying to find his niece that disappeared, but to no avail.
"Alright, I'll do it, hopefully we can learn something from this." Qrow accepted with a determined narrowing of his eyes.
Ozpin waited as the call ended. Turning his chair around so he was looking out at the Beacon grounds, he sighed before thinking to himself.
'This is going to be an interesting year.'
Author's Note: And so like that Ruby is enrolled into Beacon. I would like to point out that I was thinking about skipping most of what happened here, such as the robbery and fights, but I wanted to start the next chapter with Ruby going to Beacon. So I kept it in and made it like this.
Until Next time AD.
