Roman sat in his chair, twirling a pen in one hand and reading through a familiar set of files in the other. Roman was beginning to feel the weight of his actions, the conscience that lurked deep within him started to rear its head. He had been given a direct order: Kill Ruby Rose. But ever since that night with kitty cat and the monkey, he was really wondering whether Little Red deserved the firework to the midsection. After all, the kid was hardly fifteen years old right?

He was Roman Torchwick, "Gentleman Criminal Extraordinaire" evading authorities for years without a hitch. This 'task' that Cinder was assigning him to be akin to stealing candy from a baby. As the hour passed, he fought with himself further. In any case an order was an order, and he dare not question Cinder herself. He began to lean over his desk, his fingers entwined and holding their place just below his nose as he stared intently at Ruby's picture on the map.

"I can't believe I'm feeling guilty about this." He said to himself in the dark of his own warehouse. The door creaked open and as Roman spun around the slender form of Cinder Fall walked out from the darkness.

"Roman, you do intend on going through with our little deal, don't you?" She said as the moonlight shined onto her, a glowing ember in the dark.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get the mutts ready in an hour or so, I want to get her when she's vulnerable." He replied sardonically.

"That's wonderful. I don't want to see anymore failure from your end Roman. Your time for fulfilling your end of the deal is running short."

A moment passed between them and Cinder turned to leave, seaming purposely seductive even in her disappearance and half way through the doorway stopping to state, "I'm trusting you'll do well Roman." then passing the rest of the way through and slamming the door closed behind almost as if to crush any hypnotic hold she might have had over the thief. Tonight though, things were changing in that head of his, and his thought were focused only on what kind of night he was about to ruin for the girl.

Miles away, across the City of Vale and upon the Emerald Cliffs, inside the Academy of Beacon Ruby sat atop her makeshift bunk bed. She had stayed up late to get a bit of her homework done and was beginning to grow tired, her yawns becoming more and more demanding. She had finished the work in question only moments before and was currently putting her books away when she started to catch things on the radar of her combat heightened senses. She looked around her the lurking darkness of nightfall obscuring her vision, her fellow teammates in their sleeping states revealed by the only dimly lit candle in the room. She stepped silently towards the window to grab Crescent Rose, the sound of wind heightening in volume every second.

"Guys, wake up. I sense something really weird about something." Ruby said, loud enough to wake up her allies. The rest of the group quickly made their way from their beds when they saw that their leader was holding her weapon.

Yang was the first to react, grabbing Ember Celica and standing at the door in waiting. Weiss refused to take the situation entirely seriously at first. Blake was donning her outfit as quickly as possible, knowing these kinds of situations on a personal level and getting similar feelings as Ruby.

Suddenly the figure of a Bullhead Transport came into view and with it the flares of Romans cane, the blasts flying through to window, shattering the glass and throwing Ruby through a wall and into the hallway.

Yang turned around in time to see the image connected to Ruby's screams of pain.

"Ruby!" She yelled before firing her own flares from Ember Celica.

Two White Fang members, one on each side of Roman, dropped to a knee and knocked each of Yang's flares out of the air, "Sorry, not this time kid." Roman stated as he fired upon the floor beneath her, caving it in and bringing down both Yang in her unsuspecting rage and Weiss in complete obliviousness, both of them being crushed by drywall, brick and shattered glass. During this, Blake took her chance to run past Ruby and go after the heart of the problem.

Ruby herself was, at this time, sore and ill equipped, currently being half way through a wall she decided she needed to keep her distance, so she unveiled Crescent Rose's full form and began firing upon the Bullhead.

Roman stepped into the vehicle, letting its armored walls take the shots fired by the sniper-scythe and began giving out commands in light of the new situation, "Corner Little Red, preoccupy her little friends and start up the auto cannons, everyone is a casualty as far as I care." He said through his communicator. Blast upon blast of the 50. Caliber rifle hitting the side of the armored vehicle, leaving dents in the armor and leaving quite the light display from the sparks coming off of its tungsten steel exterior.

Blake in the meanwhile was on her way to the floor above taking out guard after guard as she traveled to the floor above and got a sight of the Bullhead from another window amongst the hallways... "I've got you now Torchwick!" She shouted as she jumped on top of the bullhead with a loud thud and started carving through its roof.

As if shouting out her attack and practically crashing into the vehicle wasn't enough, Roman saw her blade and began to aim his Melodic Cudgel were he knew she would land. Blake, after making quick work of the vehicles armor and falling through met the smoking end of Torchwick's muzzle just in time for a blaze of fire from Roman's weapon.

"Ahh!" She screamed and fell to the floor of the ship, scorch marks bedding themselves upon her face and forcing one eye shut. She slowly began to pull herself but was interrupted by being kicked into the metal wall by Roman.

"Did I say you could get up Miss Kitty?" A grin streaking across his lips.

"You heartless bastard!" She said as he flipped his cane so he was holding it by the muzzle end.

"Meow…" Was the last thing she heard him say before he took a baseball-bat swing to her temple, handle first.

"Tie her up." He commanded before jumping off the craft and landing onto the now pelleted and destroyed building.

"Ruby has been captured sir." Was heard through his communicator.

"Bring her to me." He replied with haste then looked upon the destruction he had dealt to the room. Photos torn, pillows demolished, but there was one sight, a small Beowolf plush doll, a bullet through its head, that struck Roman good. His heart began to ache at the sight, the realization that he was the big bad wolf.

Within the next couple minutes Ruby was slouched in front of him, White Fang surrounding him on all sides. He had given himself the time to put away his regrets but was fighting a losing battle. That didn't mean his subordinates had to know.

"How does it feel Red? To see all your dreams crushed before your eyes?" Roman grinned as he tipped her head up by her chin and said this to her.

All she did in reply was stare as tears began to form in her eyes, something in Roman shattered at that, and he reeled back and leaned on his cane.

"Today… Today it ends…" He spoke, desperately trying to stash away his emotions.

He lifted his cane toward her, holding his head in pain as he did so.

"Today all the light in your world burns out…" He growled through a searing headache.

He leaned forward and put Melodic Cudgel to her head.

"Today I… Kill… Damn it all!" He shouted as his better half realized his folly, his pettiness at pointing his dear Melodic at a girl not even old enough to date.

He pulled away his cane and faced away from the teary eyed little girl.

"Why are you hesitating? Are you realizing you're the bad guy?" Came the words of Ruby as she tried to be brave.

Roman turned around and mouthed the word 'maybe'.

"Call off the attack, the whole damn school will be on us in time if we let them, let's get the hell out of here." He then walked out and jumped onto his ship, slamming the inside of the door as he jumped on.

"But Sir?!"

"You heard me! Get the hell in here, unless you all want to die!" The troops then all retreated leaving the building vacant and after much distress, the cold night air silent.

Soon after, Team JNPR charged into RWBY's dorm room.

"Ruby! Are you… O-oh my god! Ruby are you alright!?" Jaune exclaimed as he ran to the tied up, beaten, crying girl and looked up towards her line of sight to see the Bullhead getting away.

Hours later, after some cleaning up of the sight and the retrieval of Yang and Weiss, Ruby is found sitting in between the beds of her unconscious allies.

"Why did he do it?" Ruby asked Ozpin as he walked into the infirmary, not even looking up at him in her depression.

"Most likely to scare us… I do believe that it's worked, your other teammate seems to have been captured. Looks like you'll be going it alone for a while Ruby." Ozpin stated with tenderness in his voice.

"Do you think we can get Blake back?" Ruby replied.

"I'm not letting you go to rescue her Ruby." Ozpin answered sternly.

"Why not?!" Ruby complained to her superior.

"Because you'll lose." Ozpin stated with emphasis and stress in his voice.

"Fine!" Ruby said before running out the door. Ozpin looked dejectedly at the door before thinking to himself, "I'm sorry Ruby, but I just can't lose a student to that monster."