Chapter 6

What makes a kingdom a Kingdom? Not just due to the capitalization, but rather, what makes a state call itself a Kingdom, even when it was an age where kings no longer reign in all corners of Remnant? The grand palaces and castles that once held the seats of power were now little more than tourist attractions or heavily secluded areas that guarded what scant few royalties still remained. Mistral was famous for technically having an Emperor still in an official ruling capacity, but everyone knew he was just a figurehead.

And yet, whenever anyone referred to Vale, Atlas, Mistral or Vacuo, they always referred to it as a 'Kingdom'. An appeal to tradition? No new names for what their nations should be called? Were republics not in the vocabulary of most people? Citizens directly voted for their council members in all of the four kingdoms, and three out of four of them did not have any form of monarchy in place for their system of government, so why did they still cling to those past notions? The answer was complicated, as Ruby learned, not one person could give her a singular response, so she dropped the topic entirely.

Looking at the Château de Valean, the King of Vale's former residence, Ruby wondered if her own mother once lived in a similar place. She remembered that her own primary school had organized a trip there once, and while her other classmates giggled at the weirdly proportioned portraits of the former monarchs of Vale, waves of nostalgia washed over her when walking through the lavishly decorated halls. Ironblood lands were dotted with places like these, with everyone from minor counts to kings of the constituent kingdoms that made up its core provinces. Of course, it was closed now, being so late into the night. The few ceremonial guards that still remained, decked out in clothing a century out of date continued keeping their silent vigil, still protecting the residence of a long-past monarch.

Ruby downed the rest of her energy drink and chucked the can far away right into a recycling bin. Normally, drinking an entire pack of them in one sitting was cause for concern and a potential medical emergency, but this was not the first time she did something like this, nor would it be the last. Sighing, she got up from the bench overlooking the palace, taking one last look at the decadently preserved building. It was a good sight to behold, but when it directly faced one of the poorest districts of Vale across the river, she felt that it was more of an insult than anything 'grand'. The Councilmembers bicker over their cultural heritage not being preserved, and that the new generation were losing what it meant to be Valean, all the while children in poverty go to sleep hungry. They didn't matter, however, after all, they didn't vote, so what was the point of helping them?

Making her way down to the streets, she noticed many of the stores were closing earlier. Molly had told her of this, a recent crimewave made many store owners jittery about opening this late at night, but unsurprisingly it only targeted the well-off stores in wealthier districts. Dust stores apparently were the most targeted of them all, but stores that purely sold Dust were a rarity nowadays, most also sold other things. Convenience stores were a much better name for what they sold, and stores that only sold Dust were usually considered 'higher-class', as they peddled higher-grade Dust not found in common stores.

Walking into one, nodded at the old man behind the counter before moving on to browsing the latest collection of Dust Engines Weekly, a weekly series that had the latest releases and developments of vehicles, both in land, air and sea. She had been eyeing a floatplane model for some time, but now she faced the hurdle of purchasing one as a fifteen-year-old. It was perfect to replace the Arado seaplanes that were missing from her vessel, but again, not many high school girls could just walk into a dealership-

RING

The doorbell into the store rang, but she paid it no heed. It was only when she heard a man's voice that she realized something was wrong.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a Dust shop open this late?"

Ruby recognized that voice, she sometimes heard it in Junior's club while there to take payment or take a new job. She has even met the man whose voice it belonged to, and she much preferred dealing with his partner instead.

Peeking out of a shelf, she saw the annoyance that was Roman Torchwick and some of Junior's muscle taking Dust from the store, a gun pointed at the old man. Unfortunate, but she had no reason to be involved, so if she was quiet enough, maybe she could-

"Hey! Alright kid, put your hands-wait a minute…"

Stealth was ruined before it could even begin. Turning around, she saw one of Junior's goons looking at her with recognition on his face. Quickly, she put a finger to where her lips were, but the goon still spoke out loud, enough for the entire store to hear, they weren't hired for their tact, were they?

"Hey…you're that kid who goes to Junior's every so often!"

This was the first time her association with Junior backfired, and it was not a pleasant sensation whatsoever. Ruby was now desperately doing a cutoff motion to her throat with her hand, too little too late, however, as by the time the goon got the message, Roman came over to investigate.

"Alright, what's all the commotion-oh hey now, who do we have here?"

There was no easy escape now, Ruby had to deal with bowler hat menace one way or another, though the prospect of just decking him in the face and running crossed her mind several times. Alas, that was not the best move to do right now. Fortunately, Roman did have a bit more tact compared to those goons, and he knew to keep his voice low when approaching her, shit-eating grin on his face and all.

"Well, never expected to see you here tonight, unlucky accident?"

"Very unlucky." Ruby replied quickly, she didn't want to stay there any longer than need be.

"Eh, I expected something like this to happen anyways. We'll get outta here as soon as we finish, and both of us walk away afterwords, thief's honour." Roman flicked a thumb to his grinning face as he finished, but she didn't buy any of it easily.

"That amounts to something?"

"Psssh, oh yeah? What do you have? Smuggler's honour?"

"I have the honour of wanting to go home, so will we have a problem?" Ruby partially summoned Schwarz's face behind her to prove a point, which made Roman hesitate for a moment.

"Pah, you're no fun. I do not know why she gets along with you so well, just don't see it…not one bit."

Of course, he referred to Neo and how the two sometimes ran into each other at night. Despite her…questionable tendencies that is. That didn't matter to her, Ruby was no saint after all, nor did she have any illusions of being a 'hero'. She did not have the same hero-worshipping tendencies as some of her peers, that was a good way to get yourself killed early after all. Still, Neo was a good partner for night jaunts if you knew how to deal with her, it was bound to be exciting at least.

"I didn't know you were behind the recent…"

"Hm? Oh yea, believe me, because robbing Dust is sooooo profitable and definitely not without major drawbacks."

Interesting, so he didn't want to be doing this?

"Whatever, you don't need to know this. We're nearly done anyways, here's a tip, stay here and give a testimony that one of Junior's goons held you or something, at least that'll keep you off any suspect list for a while-oh! Better yet, give me your wallet so-"

"Take it and I take your head."

"Okay never mind, keep it. But really, do at least stay to give the cops something, have you ever watched one of those crime shows-"

"Shit, Roman! Goodwitch is coming here, and fast!" One of Junior's goons called out suddenly, and several explosions right outside the store followed immediately.

"It seems that I will be giving my testimony to this 'Goodwitch' instead. Have a good night, Roman." Goodwitch sounded familiar to her, but she couldn't quite remember where she heard it before…

"Come on! We were having such a good night, alright Neo, do your thing-oh wait right she's not here. Fuck."

His two-tone murder machine wasn't here? Rare, but considering that she sometimes found her alone meant that she also had her own things to do at times. Getting up from leaning on a shelf, she prepared to exit out of the backdoor, only to be stopped by Roman.

"Let go of my shoulder."

"Woah, Red. Let's talk a little bit about criminal solidarity here, people in the same biz help each other out, so how about-"

Was that the best he could come up with?

Ruby had a thoroughly unimpressed look as she gently removed Roman's grip, causing him to yelp. "You said it earlier, I am a smuggler, we have very little in common. Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Torchwick. I believe if you run now, you may still make it-"

"True, but I really need this dust to make the quota-I mean my client needs this. So, I will owe you one hell of a favour if you can distract her long enough to get us safely away with the goods-"

"You have nothing to offer me. Goodbye-"

"For the love of-FINE! You forced me to use this, but if I get arrested, I will sing like a songbird. Which may or may contain some verses about a particular crimson smuggler who frequents the bar I used to get my muscle-"

Crash

At this point, Ruby did not let him finish as she grabbed the collar of his white jacket and pushed him violently to a nearby store shelf, sending its products down onto the floor. With a slight glow in her eyes, she stared intensely into Roman's own.

"You dare?"

Credit where it was due, even with Schwarz now fully summoned and its jaw fully extended open, ready to bite his head clean off, he still adamantly held his ground.

"Yeah, try me, Red. I know you don't have the stomach to do it."

"..."

Ruby hated when he was right, and her annoyance showed clearly to the world, causing Roman to grin in victory. Dropping his collar, she spoke one last time to the bowler-hat thief before heading outside.

"You owe me one giant favour, I'll be coming to collect it soon. Remember…I can find you even across all of Remnant's seas, do not run from me."

This time, he quickly nodded, as a bead of sweat travelled down from his hair down to his cheek. Ruby's spiked finger accessory caught it, poking into his cheek as it did so.

"I'd hate for Schwarz to ruin that immaculate face of yours, test my abilities at your own peril"

With final warnings said, she made her way out of the store, and into the dark, empty street, where a good witch was about to arrive. All she had to do was buy time, anything afterwards, was not her problem. Taking a sword from a random goon in front of her, she jumped out of the window, and up high for a vantage point.

Glynda moved quickly, dashing across rooftops as she neared her destination. She was Beacon's chief administrator, not a regular patrolling officer, so why was she handling these robbery attempts? Because Ozpin said so, or rather, he 'convinced' her that they were of paramount importance, enough to take time away from her busy schedule to act as a rapid response to these robberies. Some of these days, she should cash in her vacation time just to see what he'd do without her.

Jumping down onto the quiet street, she was not surprised that it was near-silent, save for some bystanders running away from the scene. Good, at least this time she didn't have to deal with civilians close by-

"What-"

Dodging at the last moment, she used her semblance to propel herself backwards, away from something that tried to swipe at her. A dozen meters back now, she got a much better look at what attacked her.

"A Grimm?! Wait, no, it's…what are you?"

The…creature before her couldn't really be called a Grimm. What she saw couldn't really even be called an animal, rather, it was a creature made entirely of metal, sharp claws and joints protruding out of its serpent-like body. Its jaws hissed menacingly at her as she inspected it visually, overall, she guessed it was roughly three times her height. The colours were entirely black and red, a symbol of some kind placed atop its flat head.

Pushing her glasses up, she readied herself for battle, only for a presence behind her to make itself known. A hooded figure, also dressed in similar black and white jumped down from a building behind her, a machete-like sword pointed at her. Glynda couldn't make out any distinguishing features, as the figure had a hood and surgical mask covering the face. For a moment, she thought the figure had silver eyes flashing towards her, but upon closer inspection, they were yellow instead.

Years of combat experience told her that she was facing someone who had a summoning semblance, similar to Winter Schnee, having met her a few times whenever James brought her along. Sighing, she tried the diplomatic' option first, even if it rarely ever worked out.

"I do not know why you are fighting me, but I assure you-"

"Feuer."

Despite the voice from the figure coming out like a whisper, the serpent-like creature understood the command. The order was given in low Mantellian if she remembered correctly, and looking back at the creature, its jaws opened, only to reveal a barrel-like object protruding from its mouth-

BOOM

Dodging on instinct, a yellow ball-like projectile zipped past her and smashed into the asphalt just behind her, causing a small explosion. Due to her Aura, Glynda was unharmed, and she knew that was the point of the whole thing.

"Fine, have it your way. You'll tell me everything once I have you in custody."

The explosion caused pieces of asphalt to scatter around the street, a big mistake. Flicking her riding crop, debris pooled around her, forming into various shapes and sizes. Normally most criminals became uneasy at the sight of her semblance, but the figure who attacked her didn't flinch whatsoever. Commendable, but ultimately futile. All the figure did in response was to point her sword at Glynda, and the fight began in earnest.

AN:

Responding to reviews

BieberLover69:

It seems that people ignored the whole 'before rigging part' and treated it as 'when rigging is not deployed'. Two very different things, so that's probably where the misconception comes from.

Turtledude32:

Code G was able to survive without rigging, so that's not correct. Ships can also be interchangeable, as evidenced by Yorktown II, Bismarck Zwei and others. Sandy got her ship self basically sunk in the anime, and yet she was perfectly fine and crying on the pier watching it be towed away. Also, Oum is a reference to its use as a replacement for God in various RWBY fics, the Abrahamic God does not exist in RWBY so it would be pretty weird for me to use God.

Be civil in the reviews.