Ruby lined her sights up on her target, his bowler hat and white coat were unmistakable amongst the otherwise deserted alley.
"Coral?" her target called out, "I'm here what was so important we needed to meet? Are you in trouble?" Coral was a smuggler for fun, had worked with Roman on several occasions, someone he apparently cared deeply for, and another one of Ruby's many personas she had adopted since taking this job. Ruby exhaled and squeezed Crescent Rose's trigger. If anyone asked her later Ruby would claim that all she felt was recoil, but if she was being honest with herself, she felt relieved at doing this. She and her former friends spent most of her time at Beacon hunting this particular criminal and attempting to bring him to justice. Well justice was about to catch up to Roman, at about four thousand feet per second. Roman turned as he heard the rifle fire, only to take the .50 Cal round directly to the face. He went flying one way and his ridiculous hat the other. Ruby sighed, that had felt good. Then Roman twiched and began to get back up.
"Ah! Whoever you are you're gonna pay for that!" he said while wiping his now very bloody and probably broken nose. "And if you hurt Coral I'm going to freaking kill you!" Ruby sighed again, this time in exasperation rather than relief.
"Of course things could never be that easy." Ruby mumbled to herself, she then adjusted her voice so she once again sounded like the Mantellian rich girl, "oh, Roman you came for me!" Roman paused, his suspicions raised, he readied his cane.
"Coral? Where are you?" he asked.
"Why right here!" At that Ruby stepped out of the shadows, she looked Roman in the eye. She was bereft of the pink hair and green eyes Roman associated with the smuggler. Roman seemed confused for a moment before his eyes widened in recognition.
"Red!?" Roman said in shock, "but people said you were…" he didn't continue to talk, just raised his cane and fired. Ruby dogged easily thanks to her semblance, unfurled Crescent Rose and dove at the theif. Ruby managed to hook the scythe around his arm fired, taking off his arm and getting behind him in one swift move. She then hooked the scythe around his neck and reloaded.
"How's it feel, knowing that you're going to die for all you did?" Ruby asked.
"I always thought it would end at the hand of a grimm," That wasn't Roman's voice, "but I already served my penance, I got out of the game kid." the man Ruby had been fighting turned around. It was Faught, the one armed retired Colonel stood in front of her like so many others had done when they haunted her sleep. "When are you going to serve yours?" he asked.
"Yeah when are you going to pay for all the lives you lost?" another very familiar voice asked behind. Ruby turned around in fright to see Stevens standing there with almost a hundred corpses standing behind him. They were all in various states of decay, but she recognized the faces, each one was someone she knew in the Corps. Then they all charged her.
000000000000
Ruby woke up screaming. A clattering sound to her right pulled her attention to the poor nurse who she had startled when she woke up. She was in Beacon's infirmary.
"Miss, Miss Azure are you alright?" the nurse frantically asked. While Ruby tried to slow her breathing and maybe her heart, which felt like it was trying to leave her chest, Ruby thought about the dream. Her fight with Torchwick had never been that easy, and she had sliced him in half, not taken his arm. On another note Faught's presence in the dream unnerved her, she was already haunted nightly by the dead, she really didn't need the living doing the same. Once she was a little more calm she thought about what the nurse had called her. 'Azure? Who's Azure?' Ruby then noticed a bit of her hair fall in front of her, blue hair, 'right I'm on a mission' Ruby thought as the events of the last week came flooding back. 'Neo, I got Neo.' there wasn't as much joy as when she took out Torchwick, but it was still another major player she had taken out.
"Miss Azure?" the nurse asked again, jerking Ruby from her thoughts.
"Y-yeah, Sorry." Ruby smiled apologetically, "PTSD sucks, don't ever get it." the nurse nodded solemnly.
"Well when you are feeling better the headmaster wanted to talk to you." the nurse told her. Ruby nodded and got out of the small hospital bed. The walk to Ozpin's office wasn't very far from the infirmary. When the doors to the office opened Ozpin looked up from his desk and smiled.
"I must say that when James said he sent his best, I wasn't expecting this." Ozpin said, "you've barely been here a week and you already rooted out and eliminated the spy." he paused and frowned a bit, "though you could have been more discreet on that last part." he motioned for Ruby to take a seat he had near the desk. Ruby did and crossed her arms.
"Unfortunately that wasn't an option," Ruby told him, "Neo realized she had been discovered and would have disappeared if she had gotten away." Ruby then looked Ozpin in the eye, she was almost glaring with intensity. "I have my own overarching mission to cause the terrorists as much grief as possible." Ozpin nodded.
"I see, is that a personal mission or?" he didn't finish but Ruby understood what he was getting at.
"It's an actual mission." Ruby simply told him. Ozpin waited for her to continue and when she didn't he continued talking.
"James never told me he had such a promising student at his academy." Ozpin said, "if I may ask when did you graduate?"
"You may ask but you will likely be disappointed by the answer." She told him and he motioned for her to continue, "I never graduated from an academy, I earned my huntress license, and Specialist qualification, from military service." Ruby told him.
"That's… difficult to accomplish." Ozpin said and Ruby nodded.
"Professor if you could help me, I need everything you have on Raven Evergreen and her team." Ruby said, quickly changing the subject.
"Of course." Ozpin said, "I will have it sent to the scroll number you provided to me." Ruby nodded and stood up to walk out. "It was a pleasure working with you miss Summers." Ozpin said as she reached the door.
"Likewise, Professor."
00000000000
Ruby left Ozpin's office and began reviewing the files he had sent. Oddly enough Evergreen's team files had been validated by Haven, indicating that they were in fact actual students. Ruby was considering how to investigate this further when she ran into her former team, almost literally.
"Hey Shae!" the voice of Ruby's older sister jerked her attention from the scroll in her hands.
"Hello Yang, Weiss, Blake, how are you doing?" Ruby greeted.
"We are doing well," Weiss answered, "how are you? We came to visit you in the infirmary, but,"
"You were already out," Blake finished.
"Yeah, and after such an intense fight too," Yang said, "who'da thought she was hiding under our noses this whole time."
"I'm fine," Ruby answered, "I've had much worse fights than that." she said while motioning to her missing eye.
"About that," Blake began, "during the fight you said something about Torchwick?"
"Heard that did ya? A petty thief with a penchant for terrorism, he's actually the one who gave me this injury" Ruby said, "Actually he was a major player in a few attacks here in vale…"
"Yeah, we've heard of him." Yang said.
"Well, I finally caught up with him in Vacuo," Ruby continued, "We think he may have been planning to do something similar there."
"We?" Weiss suddenly asked.
"Ah, Right, I haven't properly introduced myself," Ruby said and at their confused looks clarified, "I mislead you earlier I am not training to be a specialist, I am one, Colonel Scarlette Summers at your service." At that she took a little bow.
"Cool!" Yang said, "well you already know all of us," Yes she did more than Yang knew. "Hey if you're ever in vale again look us up!" Yang finished and Ruby smiled.
"Maybe, we'll see." Ruby said before leaving the team behind and continuing to the airdocks. Once she arrived at the airdocks she went straight to the sleek, black colored atlesian dropship that belonged to Annette, who was currently trying to ignore a very enthusiastic Beacon pilot.
"Annette, I want wheels up five minutes ago." Ruby told her pilot as she entered the bay at the back of the gunship.
"Annette?" the Beacon pilot looked confused, "you said your name was Jewel."
"On it boss," Annette said, initially ignoring the other pilot, "hey flyboy, next time you try impressing a girl with your flight status, make sure she's not a better pilot than you first." with that she went inside and the gunship left a few minutes later.
000000000
"How about the Nightwing?"
"No."
"The Nightstalker?"
"No"
"The Blackbird?"
"Are you gonna tell me where we're going or am I just going to keep flying straight?" Annette asked, interrupting Ruby's attempts to name the gunship. Ruby then entered the cockpit to look at where they were at. Her hair, now her natural color, was still wet from the solution used to clear the hair dye. Her single silver eye found what she was looking for, and she pointed in a direction.
"Head that way for about ten miles and find a rooftop near a secluded alley." Ruby ordered and Annette began to move the the gunship to comply. While Annette was doing this she noticed a flash of red and saw Ruby putting on a familiar old cloak.
"I thought you said that thing would be too recognizable in a city?" Annette asked. Ruby finished clasping her cloak before nodding.
"It is, but where I'm going they won't do business with people they don't recognize." Ruby answered. After a few minutes Ruby found her feet on solid ground making her way towards a familiar club. The guard at the front was new and didn't seem to recognize her, so she was able to walk in with no trouble. Once on the inside though one of the older guards spotted the red cloaked girl and recognized her immediately. Ruby soon found herself surrounded by half a dozen goons with guns all pointed at her.
"Junior!" She called out, "get out here or you'll be burying these guys tomorrow!" Several of the older members of the group flinched when she said that. It took only a few moments before Junior came practically rushing from upstairs.
"Red, heard you were dead." Junior said when he saw her. "What do you want?" he clearly wasn't happy about her being back.
"Well the guns out of my face would be a start." Ruby told him, when nobody moved Ruby raised her voice, "seriously if I wanted to cause trouble for you guys I could have done it from the building across the street!" Junior motioned for his guys to go back to what they were doing before and motioned for Ruby to join him at the bar.
"So, what do you want?" Junior asked her.
"I need information," Ruby said, "and I'm paying this time." Ruby said as she put down a little more Lien than was standard fare for information brokers. "The extra is for the twins, how are they doing?"
"They're retired, you crippled Melanie, remember?" Junior spitfully told the girl.
"Of course I remember," Ruby told him, "why do you think I gave you a bit extra?" Ruby pointed to the pile of Lien cards, "anyways, I need information on Neo." Junior seemed confused for a moment before recognition, and fear, sparked in his eyes.
"Torchwick's girl?!" Junior said while backing away from Ruby, "forget it! You may kill me but she'll do even worse!" Ruby rolled her eyes.
"Relax, you coward," Ruby said, "she won't be coming after you, she's dead." Junior stopped at that.
"You're sure?" he asked.
"Killed her myself," Ruby told him while grabbing a bottle from behind the counter and pouring herself a drink, "that information doesn't come from you though, got it?" Junior quickly nodded.
"What did you want to know then?" he asked.
"How long has Neo been operating in Vale?" she asked.
"Since she was a kid why?" Junior asked.
"Has she ever been out of the country for a long time?" Ruby asked, ignoring Junior's question.
"Well that would depend on what you mean by a long time," Junior answered, "she's never been off the radar for more than a few months." Ruby nodded and finished her drink before getting up and leaving.
"Thanks Junior," She waved over her shoulder, "looking forward to the next time we work together."
00000000