Ch 2: Crimson Rose, Azure Lotus

In the front of the store, the apparent leader of this little band of thieves was fiddling with a Dust crystal about the size of his palm, its red color indicating that it contained the power of fire. The man had slanted dark-green eyes and bright, long, orange hair, with long bangs swept to cover his right eye and black eyeliner traced around his visible left eye. He wore a red-lined white suit with long black pants and black shoes. Rounding out his outfit were a small gray scarf, black gloves with buckled sleeves, and a black bowler hat with a small feather tucked into its red band, along with a grey cane with a red tip and white handle slung across his arm.

The boss just looked at his downed man as he slid to the floor unconscious before gesturing with his head for another of his minions to go check out what the problem was. The poor sap promptly ran towards the back of the store, where he spotted the twins.

"Freeze!" he ordered, bringing his gun up to bear on the twins, but before he could complete the motion. "Hyah!" Ruby hit him with a flying kick and rode him across the store, through the cracked window, and out into the street with Ray following closely behind her, both of them intent on moving the fight outside their favorite Dust shop.

Drawn by the sound of the glass shattering, the four remaining goons, along with their boss, came to the front of the store to look out at the two teens in surprise. Ray was standing there nonchalantly cracking his knuckles as azure lightning bolts arced around his hands. Simultaneously, Ruby rose from the ground with her baby, a red-framed, black-trimmed, custom-made, High-Caliber Sniper-Scythe, unfurling across her shoulder from its compact box form into a vicious looking giant scythe. The weapon was longer than she was tall by half and had a blade that was more than half her height. However, any humor generated by the contrast between the giant scythe and the petit little girl was soon lost as Ruby spun Crescent Rose around effortlessly and planted the blade in the ground, pointing back at the thieves with a smirk on her face before finally remembering to turn her headset off. While the goons could only stare with blank faces, their boss's was twisting in a deeply annoyed grimace.

"Torchy!" Ray called out in apparent glee, a sarcastic smile stretching from ear to ear, spotting the man in the white suit and bowler hat. 'Torchy's' scowl deepened at the nickname as the corner of his eye began to twitch.

"Get! Them!" 'Torchy' shouted, causing his men to charge out of the store towards the twins.

"You know him?" Ruby asked her brother, seemingly not bothered in the slightest about the four men charging at them with drawn weapons.

"His name is Roman Torchwick. He likes to think of himself as something of a gentleman thief. I've had the pleasure of messing with him and his crew on several occasions." Ray replied, entering a boxing stance as two of the goons reached him.

"Several occasions? And you've still haven't caught him?" Ruby teased him as she did a breakdancing hand spin on top of her planted scythe, delivering a double kick to the face of one of her targets, knocking him out cold. Ruby followed up her kick with a smooth pull of Crescent Rose's trigger, using the recoil to dislodge her scythe out of the ground, with her still on it. Flipping through the air, she transferred all the momentum from her gunshot into a mid-air somersault that brought down the back of her scythe crashing down onto the shoulder of her second opponent, planting him face-first into the ground.

"Well. When it comes to running away, Torchy is almost as fast as us." Ray replied, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb as his two opponents collapsed to the ground, still smoking and sparking from the single swift lightning charged punch Ray had gifted to each of their faces.

Ruby turned to look where her brother was pointing in surprise. It had been less than ten seconds since Roman had ordered his men to attack them, and he had already run halfway down the block and climbed 3/4th of the way up a four-story building in that brief period of time. Roman had obviously recognized Ray as well and started making his escape as soon as the twins were distracted by his henchmen. He knew that the most they would be able to accomplish would be to stall for a bit of time.

"You ok if we go after him?" Ruby half turned to ask the shopkeeper, who stumbled out to his front door as the distant sounds of approaching sirens became audible. With a brief nod and affirmative mumble from the elderly man, Ruby turned into a storm of red rose petals, taking off after the fleeing criminal.

"Sorry for the window." Ray called out to the shopkeeper as he tossed him a couple of Lien before disappearing in a streak of lighting as he chased after his sister. Moments later, Roman had reached the top of the building and was halfway across to the other edge when a crackle of lightning and the sharp retort of a sniper rifle announced the arrival of his pursuers as Ruby and Rey flipped over the edge and landed on the rooftop behind him.

"Hey!" Ruby called out as she landed, bringing Roman to a stop at the edge of the roof.

"Persistent." Roman growled to himself, annoyed. Rey and Ruby lowered their centers of gravity, preparing for battle, when all of a sudden, a Bullhead class airship rose from the alley in front of Roman and held at a hover in front of him with the side cargo bay door wide open.

The Bullhead is a VTOL, or Vertical Take-Off and Landing, tilt-jet airship, meaning that it can hover, take off and land vertically by tilting the direction its jet engines pointed. This allowed it to tilt and turn sharply while using a minimal amount of airspace. Along with the Bullhead's rugged design, this maneuverability allowed it to take a beating and operate in almost any environment. Combined with its powerful engines, granting it swift flight and excellent lift capacity for its size made the Bullhead the favored workhorse of both the military and the public for work inside and outside the kingdoms.

The Bullhead swung its floodlight over the twins blinding them with its glare, giving Roman the opportunity he needed to jump from the rooftop into the open cargo bay. Having reached the safety of his get-away airship, Roman turned around, holding up the red Dust crystal he had been playing with at the shop.

"End of the line, Red. Let's not do this again, Blue." Roman yelled out over the scream of the jet engines. With those parting words, he threw the red Dust crystal at their feet. Ruby just stared down at it, confused over why he would throw a stabilized Dust crystal at them. Unlike powdered Dust, Dust that had been compressed and treated to form a crystal wasn't dangerous to handle with your bare hands and rarely reacted violently unless it was subjected to strong stimulation. She wasn't sure how she should respond to this.

Ray, on the other hand, was very sure and grabbed Ruby's shoulder. As the crystal landed between them, Roman raised his cane, revealing the gun crosshair on the bottom that flipped up, clearing the end of a gun barrel as he pulled the trigger concealed in his cane's handle, firing a red energy blast into the Dust crystal. The crystal detonated in a loud explosion and a pillar of fire.