Behind you, the voice only the Resurrectionist could hear whispered in her ear and she slid her hand in her pocket, weaving a mote of mana to merge the rings of Kassiterum, Perfected tin, on her right hand into a set of studded knuckles, harder than anything other than Siderite, not the alloy but Perfected iron. Ruby Rose turned at the tap on her shoulder, meeting the eyes of the black dressed thug glaring down at her through red sunglasses.

Pulling down her headphones with her left hand, she said, "Let me guess, this is a robbery?"

He nodded. She nodded.

Then she drove a Siderite toed boot into his shin with a snap, letting her Aura flow into her arm and strengthen it until she drove the fist into his gut, slamming him out through the front of the store. Disintegrating into a bunch of wilted rose petals, passing Nicholas, Gretchen and her Mom, she reformed outside, over the man and swung Frozen Rose off her back so the rifle-axe was aimed at his head.

"I don't have my Aura unlocked," the man gasped, raising his hands so he could block the gun as best as he could, "Please, I don't want to die!"

Ruby rolled her eyes and kicked the man in the head, knocking him unconscious and calling out towards the approaching criminals, "Anyone else not got their Aura unlocked?"

Basically every one of the mooks raised their hands, and Ruby sheathed Frozen Rose and shoved her hand in her pocket, glad she had decided to wear jeans today instead of one of her combat skirts, and merged the Kassiterum rings on that hand into another set of knuckles. She bounced in place a few times, limbering up as she drew on knowledge of a twin she didn't have, had never had, and would never have.

But Gretchen had. She wouldn't divulge his name, or let Ruby look into what he was doing nowadays, if he was even still alive, but Gretchen held her time learning to brawl with him close to her heart, and that made it all the easier for Ruby to draw on the knowledge with her magic. She was in the first grunt's guard in less than a second, wrapping her hand in his gut and throwing him into a second.

The third stabbed from behind her, and she activated her Semblance, just enough to shift out the way of the attack, and punched him upside the head, just enough to knock him out…

Ok, so she had probably concussed the poor guy. It wasn't her fault, it was really really hard to fight to incapacitate.

—X Glynda Goodwitch X—

Glynda Goodwitch approached the reported fight as quickly as possible. A dust robbery? At this time of night?

Had to be Roman Torchwick.

Leaping onto the rooftops, she had just enough time to take in the girl firing at the bullhead with a massive, single bladed ax, a bardiche that would have taken two men without Aura to lift. Torchwick stood in the bullhead door and threw a crystal of Burn dust at the girl, aiming for her with his cane. Before he could shoot it out of the air, or before Glynda could intercept it, the girl caught it and threw it straight at his head. Glynda, not being one to miss an opportunity, sent a bolt of Telekinesis at it, blowing it up in Torchwick's face.

Torchwick roared and staggering back and only not falling out of the bullhead because he was caught by the other occupant of the bullhead, who threw him into the captain's chair while they strode to where he had been standing. She swept her hands down her arms, activating Dust weaved into the fabric there, and shot a spear made of burning stone at the girl.

The bardiche shifted rapidly, until the blade was pointed straight up and the haft had shrunk to a hilt, turning the whole thing into a hulking great sword, more executioner's sword than practical weapon in Glynda's opinion. An opinion that was immediately shattered as the girl swung it in a one handed grip and shattered the spear into a hundred tiny pieces.

The bullhead started to pull away, and the girl aimed the butt of the greatsword at the woman while Glynda grabbed the entire thing with Telekinesis and held it in place. Amber eyes flashed like-

-like a Maiden. Just for a second, enough to weave a single spell into existence and force Glynda to pale. The rooftop around the girl cracked and turned molten, and Glynda let go of the bullhead to form a barrier around the girl. Keeping it up through the ensuing eruption drained Glynda's Aura and distracted her enough that the bullhead managed to pull off and fly high into the air, high enough that tracking it would be difficult at best.

"Damn, they got away," the girl swore, then, angrier, "I had some questions for the thief."

Oh, that was true for both of them. Glynda had serious questions for the Maiden thief. Glynda turned to the girl, who was storing her ax-sword behind her back in a folded form.

Bedraggled hair, deep set bruises under her eyes, skin so pale it was almost palid. A blood red cloak with white fur lining, a modest chest pushed up by a lightly strung bodice, a pair of black pants, and on her fingers were glossy, off-white rings.

Despite looking, physically, like she was one foot in the grave, the girl's eyes sparkled with life. She turned towards Glynda, a wide grin splitting her face as she did, "You're Glynda Goodwitch, right? Can I have your autograph!?"

— X Ruby X—

It was three AM by the time Ruby wished Yang goodnight and shut the door of her Demesne, her Sanctum…

Her bedroom in other words. The entire house was Warded to keep it from being spied on by scrying spells, a herculean task of Spacial Magic Ruby was pretty freaking proud of, since that wasn't her ballpark. But her room was special, it had been a multi-year practice of tearing down wallpaper, carving Atlantean runes to strengthen the spells, and then putting up new wallpaper, all while keeping the process a secret from Uncle Qrow when he came over.

Having one relative that was a Sleeper was such a pain in the butt. She much preferred Yang and Dad, who were Sleepwalkers. She'd have preferred it more if they were Awake obviously, but since they weren't, Sleepwalking was good enough.

Anyways, her room was warded against Spacial magic of all types, capable of keeping ghosts in, stayed at a balmy 72 degrees, had, hidden underneath the carpet, four carved circles for summoning, one shaped like an Atlantean pentacle, the second a Salemite Eye, the third a Brother's duality and the fourth a Maiden glyph, all filled with Kassiterum, which was the Perfected metal most associated with summoning.

She had never used the second and rarely used the third and fourth, but you never knew when the good ol' Pentacle just wasn't going to cut it.

Yawning and stretching, Ruby sat down at her CCT terminal and turned it on. Looks like it was another all nighter, if she wanted to study the Grimore she had picked up before the night went to chaos. She cracked open her mini fridge, pulling out an energy drink and getting ready to shotgun the thing.

Ruby, Summer reproached quietly.

"No more than one a week," Ruby sighed, replacing it with a carton of strawberries. Sometimes it was such a pain having the ghost of your mother bound to you as a familiar. The Kassiterum pocket knife was instead used to cut the top off of the strawberries.

Finally, the terminal connected, and Ruby navigated to the password protected chat room between her and another Mage.

Rose-Petals-Wilting: Hey MagneticSpartan, you know how we were talking about how you needed to come by when you got out here? Yeah, nevermind, I'm going to Beacon.

Cracking open the book, Ruby leaned back and began to decode it.