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Ruby blinked up at the man staring down at her, before she remembered to breathe and felt pain flare across her chest. Coughing on a sudden, second intake of air, she wrapped her arms around herself and hissed as bruises all across her front and back lit up. Her eyes watered but she ignored it, remembering her bruises from when she was younger and her Semblance first came in, hurling her into walls and trees and furniture for months while she got used to it. Roman knelt before she could, leaning his cane against a shoulder and grabbing her shoulder to turn her away from him while she choked and squawked a protest.

"Shut up, brat." He snapped, pressing his hands along her sides and up along her ribs gently, "You took a beating."

"W-Why are you touching me?"

"Checking for anything broken." He answered boredly, "Seen the Bull-headed bastard cut telephone polls clean in two and crack concrete. He hits hard…"

"You're, what, a doctor…?" She asked, forcing herself to relax and straighten, even if her heart was hammering in her chest.

"No, but you learn to check for crap on the streets, kid. And I've had years to practice, so just lemme make sure you're alright." He grunted, grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around on her butt. He flicked a finger at her chin and lifted his own and, after a second, Ruby did as he asked and he pressed gentle fingers along her collar and the top of her chest. "Nothing seems broken… I saw the wince, though. Bruising?"

"Y-Yeah…"

"How's movement?" He asked, resting a hand on each shoulder and waiting until she stretched each arm out and turned them, testing her shoulders. He sighed and stood, bumping his cane off his shoulder where it hung and catching it with a hand so he could lean on it while he frowned. "Gotta ask, how good at brawling are you?"

"Why…?"

"I'm putting together a gym." He grunted, thwapping her calf with his cane. "Answer me. We don't have a ton of time, y'know."

Why they wouldn't have time, she didn't know, but Roman seemed almost… Nervous, somehow. He wasn't cracking jokes and being insufferable like normal. Instead, he was drumming his fingers on his cane and, when she didn't answer, he turned to watch the door while someone walked past, heavy boots echoing on the floor. When they were gone, though, he turned back and opened his mouth to say something, and she rushed to cut him off.

"I-I'm terrible at fighting without Crescent Rose…" She pushed out quickly, watching him warily and adding. "W-Why?"

"Because you can hardly knock me out and slip out the back if you can't fight worth a damn, Red." Roman sighed, shaking his head and turning to say, "They took your Scroll and busted it, so no tracking and no calling. Unless we use mine which, uh, not a chance, Red."

"Why-"

"Because that's a trail they could follow right to me, and I have absolutely zero plans to get on the other side of the horned hellion's sword, thank you." Roman sighed, shaking his head, "I'm not a fighter, Red. My k- My partner is. And I'm not risking her for you. Uh, sorry."

"First, I… Get that. I mean, I-I guess I get that?" She certainly wouldn't pick Roman over Yang, if she was forced to, at least. Even if she'd still try and help them both. "But I was going to ask why you're… Are you helping me?"

"Because I'm a thief, Red." He answered simply and flatly, turning to give her a hard look. "A lawless lowlife. Sordid scum. A designated degenerate. A back-alley black-marketeer. A killer, too, once or twice, and a hell of a lot of other not so clean descriptors that I am out of alliterative words for but you know what I'm not?"

"...Humble?"

"A kid killer." He sighed, shaking his head and pursing his lips, "I have lines I don't cross, and this? It isn't one. You or Kitty-Cat, it doesn't matter to me. Killing kids is way the hell past what I'm going to be able to sleep at night after."

"I…" She blinked, processing what he'd said and everything it meant. Letting out a shaky breath, she asked, "I-I'm going to d-die?"

"You or Belladonna, if I don't figure something out." Roman sighed, turning as the door opened and his grip shifted on his cane, slipping around it so he could swing it around if he needed with a hand over a little button she recognized from their first run-in. But it was just Neo who stepped in, closing the door behind her and leaning against it with a deep frown that made Roman sigh. "No luck?"

She shook her head and flicked Ruby a look, scowled, and pointed at her with a finger.

"She's fine, just bruised from hitting the wall." Roman sighed, "And that asshole kicking her…"

"Someone kicked me…?"

"Several times, before I convinced Taurus you were more valuable without a mashed up face. More marketable, you understand." Roman nodded, smiling and stepping to the side to lean against the wall on Ruby's left, tapping his cane slowly in a rhythm like a song. "Speaking of, sweetheart, how is the old tortoise? Did you find him on lookout like the schedule said?"

Neo smirked and drew a line over her throat before she made a shape with her hand like a dog's head opening, closing and shaking violently. Roman snorted and chuckled when Neo feigned dying and slid halfway down the door, turning it into a squat and standing in one fluid motion.

"Y-You killed him…?"

"He was an interrogator our dear leader wanted to come… Talk to you." Roman said, turning to give her a tired look, "Would you have preferred being water-boarded?"

"No, but… I mean, I'd rather that than someone dying?"

"Water-boarding is the opening act, you sweet summer child you." Roman drawled in a deep, purposefully mocking accent as he tapped the top of her head with his cane. Turning, he knelt in front of her and grabbed her by the chin, staring into her eyes and speaking slowly. "Listen to me, kid, you need to get this. If you play around, if you try and force your morals into this, or try and fight- These people will hurt you. And I don't mean bruises. I mean missing fingers, ears, teeth- Bad. Shit. You get it?"

"Yesh." She answered, grabbing his wrist but hesitating to pull his hand away when Neo appeared over his shoulder, scowling and tapping a naked sword against her shoulder in a way that told her Roman cared a heck of a lot more about her not drying than Neo did.

"Good." He sighed, letting her go and straightening to reach over his shoulder and take a notepad that Neo handed him. It had a pen he spun in his fingers, clicked and licked the tip of. "So. You're going to give me two numbers. One, someone on your little team-"

"What?" She blinked, "W-Why-"

"Because I am the one 'interrogating' you, and if you prove to Taurus that simply talking won't work, then he'll send someone in here with a knife and a hammer." Roman answered quietly, "So. Someone on your team, and someone who can get in touch with your hoity toity little Headmaster."

"Ozpin…?"

"I have run into a problem," Roman sighed, "and I'm working it. So, you want the knives and hammers or do you want to help me out here, Red?"

"...Fine…" She sighed, "I'll give you our professor's number, and he can get you Ozpin's. Okay?"

"Sure." He nodded, "Hurry up, now. I have work to do, and plenty of it. And now I have to redo the lookout roster thanks to someone."

Ruby and Neo both rolled their eyes, in spite of everything going on around them.

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Down in the heart of Mountain Glenn, the world was… Quiet. Oppressively so. As they walked, clambering over piles of rubble, crushed cars, and through dilapidated, abandoned checkpoints, their footsteps were some of the loudest things he could hear. That and every rock and chunk of metal that he knocked off the mounds of rubble they had to clamber on, sending them clinking, clacking and smashing down to vanish in the darkness. Around them, seemingly ancient buildings groaned as they settled and shifted, and rocks scattered and fell from on high, but otherwise, the world was quiet.

"So…" He muttered nervously, watching the shadow-cloaked windows and building fronts they passed by, a hand on Fiona's shoulder as she lead him along in the near pitch darkness. "Come here often?"

Fiona just snorted and shook her head - but it sounded like an amused snort at least. So Jaune took some comfort in that. But whatever the case, she just asked, "Do you, I dunno, feel something?"

"How do you mean…?"

"Like you're being watched…" Fiona suggested, turning to look over her shoulder at him, her bright green eyes shining in the darkness, like a cat reflecting the light at night. Those bright eyes narrowed a bit and she added, quietly, "I don't think it's Grimm, but… I've felt eyes on me for half an hour, now."

"My bad?" He half-joked weakly, nervous energy creeping up his spine.

"Funny." She smiled, shaking her head and turning to him, stopping and flicking her ears nervously. "I'm serious, Jaune…"

"Okay." He nodded, turning his back to her and bringing his axe around in a firm grip. "So, how do you want to play it?"

"I don't know…" She answered frankly, "Grimm wouldn't stalk for this long. Some would do it for a while, sure, but only until they had numbers. Or a chance to attack. Even they would get impatient, though. So…"

"So?"

"The old books, they talk about…" She sighed, in that put out 'I can't believe this is a thing' way she often did when it came to his history and powers, and went on, "Well, they talk about magic being a feeling. That you can feel yourself in it, right?"

"Right…"

"So…" He felt Fiona lean back, her back pressed against him, somehow warm in spite of all the armor he wore. "We're here looking for your magic. Can you feel it? Like, at all?"

He was quiet for a while, thinking about her suggestion. And then remembering his vision from before, how easily whatever that was had come over him. Something he only consistently experienced in the Tower, where his power's seat, well, sat. Why that had happened here was something he'd been scared to think about, scared to consider, because… Well, it made him feel like he was losing his mind. But if Fiona was right…

He raised his Gauntlet and peered at its ruby, glimmering in the darkness as if a thousand lights were being cast into it, and murmured, "What do you want…?"

"Jaune?" He sighed and turned to meet Fiona's gaze, but…

Instead, the world shifted around him. Rubble shifted and reformed, recoloring into the blackest black he'd ever seen, and the air around him turned frigid and harshly smokey, burning at his lungs. He blinked and stood in the broken hall of the Throne Room, shivering in the cold that fluttered in on snow-bearing wind through burnt and blasted holes in the wall and roof around him. Dead Minions littered the floor, against the walls, but his instincts pulled his gaze to the edge of a still-burning red rug at the edge of a broken floor, and he stepped to that edge, looking out on a silent forest he did not recognize as balls of fire shot up from the woods and came down along the Tower's frame and body.

"Power." A deep voice from off to his side rumbled, yanking his attention to the Throne, where… Something sat, wreathed in showers and nearly limp.

"What…?"

"You asked what we want." Red eyes glowed in the mass of shadows as it leaned forward, blue eyes peering out from under a nearly destroyed helmet covered in spines. "Power. Power, in the palm of your hand. So do you-"

"-feel something?" Fiona asked, suddenly yanking him back to the darkness, a small hand reaching up to guide his gaze down to meet her own worried one. "A-Are you okay? What's going on, Jaune, I don't… I don't understand why you keep spacing out. And you were muttering- What was that?"

"A vision…" He murmured, meeting her gaze as it became even more worried and he brought his Gauntlet up to run a finger along her jawline. She flicked it a look and sighed as he turned and held it up, watching the stone as he turned, palm spread… And the ruby slowly shifted, turning a dark green until, finally, it became even brighter and he smiled. "That way."

"How…?"

"I feel it." He answered, booping her on the nose and chuckling when she scrunched it up and wiggled it, ears flicking animatedly. "Just like you said I should try, Fi."

"Oh…"

"Yeah." He smiled, "So come on- Let's get this done."

"...Sure." She sighed, turning and letting him take her hand so she could lead him through the darkness without him breaking an ankle. "But we're talking about the weird magic visions when we get back. Got it?"

"Yes, dear." He smiled.

"Oh I would thump you if you weren't wearing metal…" She muttered darkly, "Stupid sensible decisions about being safe and sound…"

XxX-XxX-XxX

Ozpin stared at the messages on his Scroll. One was from Oobleck, with a detailed summary of events leading to the disappearance of one of his best investments yet, Ruby Rose. That she had gone missing in the rear of a formation searching for misguided freedom fighters and terrorists filled him with an old, weary sort of dread. And gave him a litany of the same old, equally worn and weary questions which all came down to one.

What should he do now, to get her back or move on with her gone?

And a second, equally important one-

What pieces would he lose in either case?

Intriguingly the second message had come, at least by the ID number on it, from Miss Rose herself. He was smart enough to see through that, of course, but… That she had so quickly given up her password and his own emergency number, a number his admin privileges told him had not been saved to her Scroll no less, told him one of two things. Either she had broken immediately to the barest torture… Or she had agreed, for some reason, to hand the information over without much of a fight at all. Setting aside that she was simply a craven, as he had seen none of that in her when they'd met.

That intrigued him.

As did the message, 'Old man. Long time no speech to text, isn't it?'

It was an old, old joke… One from nearly twenty years prior, before this version of himself had even worked at the Academy at all. Back when he had been a young Hunter, making his name as a Kingdom Hunter in the city. Back when he'd engaged with criminals often enough, and as targets as often as informants, too. One particular target he'd never managed to get his hands on with his unwillingness to use his full power, diminished as it was, had been a young thief running rough-shod over Vale's underworld and overworld alike, one with a penchant for sarcasm and quips as a part of whatever strange game he seemed to be playing.

Roman Torchwick…

"But why would he reach out?" Ozpin mused, staring at the message with a deep frown. "He always refused to be an informant. Too in love with his own freedoms…"

So, what had changed?

And if he was trying to exchange Miss Rose - why? He was with the White Fang, according to numerous reports. They would be the ones making demands. Even if only so Roman didn't cross any of those oh so precious grey lines of his. Perhaps the rumors Qrow had heard regarding a young woman in Roman's care had merit after all…

Age and a family had a way of shifting a man's perspective of things, he knew.

So, with a breath, he picked up his little semi-public Scroll and typed out a simple message, "And what can I do for you, Miss Rose?"

His response was a set of coordinates inside Vale, down in the run down shipping industrial areas. And, from memory, one he had hit more than once back in the day to capture the man's stolen goods before they could be shipped out.

Taking a steadying breath, and bracing for a fury he'd been preparing for all night, he opened his contacts, slid down to a familiar icon, and hit 'Call'. It rang twice, and Ozpin opened with, "Qrow… I'm calling about your niece."

He wisely lowered the volume as he broke the news, but even so his office echoed with swears and incredibly graphic descriptions of his own head and where Qrow wanted to shove it.

XxX-XxX-XxX

Lea :

Part of that is me sucking at writing couple banter, part of that is me trying to make them still JUST A BIT awkward and unsure even if they're totally into each other. XD

And luckily, Roman is nothing if not a MASTER of bullshit.

Boundless Vortigern :

*evil cackling as angst temptations run wild*

Ahem. Glad you enjoy the story. XD

JRC1700 :

Why would Jaune regret saving Ruby? Genuine curiosity.

Vmage :

I'm glad you count me among them then!