Prologue

Warning: Incoming call from a moron...Warning: Incoming call from a mor-

Her hand snapped out and grabbed her scroll off the bed. She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and answered her scroll, her sheets pooling around her waist, "What's up Junior? It's like…" She glanced at the clock, "...3 in the morning."

"I need you to go pick up a client for me at the airport…"

"Would you like a glass of champagne ma'am?"

Cinder didn't pause in her tapping or look away from the plane window before answering, "No, I'm fine."

"Okay, ma'am if you…"

Cinder tuned her out once again, this being the umpteenth time they had had this exchange on this flight alone. Her mind provided a poor imitation of exactly what the airline attendant was saying, if you need anything, anything at all, just let me know. By Dust and Grimm, she hated flying on commercial airlines.

Her bare feet made little noise as she padded over to her closet and started going through her suits, her scroll pinned between her head and her shoulder as she did so, "The usual or indiscreet?"

"Better go with the usual otherwise she's likely to be very unhappy with us."

"Is this an under or an over client?"

"Under, definitely under. She's about as far under, as they get."

She slid all of the white suits to her left and grabbed one of her black ones.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to start our final descent. Please ensure that your seats and trays are in their original upright positions and all carry-on luggage is..."

Cinder slammed her head against her headrest several times, Why? Why did I feel relieved when I got on this plane?

"...So then Melanie, whose dress is now stained by the wine, kicks the poor man in the nether region. Meanwhile Miltia is...

She fixed her tie one last time, checked her cufflinks, straightened her jacket, and grabbed her scroll off of her dresser. Turning it off of speaker scroll, she returned it to her ear, "Alright, you can shut up about Melanie and Miltia, I'm decent."

"Oh thank the Hunters. I don't think I'll ever understand your refusal to talk while you get dressed."

"Ah, but you see, Junior, if you look, and you don't even have to look closely, there is a big difference between how I look and how you look. I look crisp, clean, and professional. You, well, you look like...you."

"You wound me!"

She chuckled, knowing that even without her there to see it, he was likely to be pantomiming fainting like a damsel in distress, "I was trying to, Junior, that was the point."

"Haha, you think you're oh so funny, don't you?"

"I don't think, I know. What time is the plane landing, and is this a simple chauffeur job, or a chauffeur slash bodyguard job?"

"The plane is landing at 4:30," So she needed to be there by 5 "and the truth is, it's neither."

For the first time since waking up, she stopped all movement. When she spoke next it was with a low growl, "Junior, what in Remnant, did you sign me up for?"

"Oh...um...uh...well, you see, she needed a place to stay, and….refused to stay in a hotel...so since I was going to have you be her chauffeur and bodyguard while she was here...Iwasgoingtohaveherstaywithyou." The last bit of his statement was said in a rush, and she knew him well enough that it was probably followed by him taking one last big intake of air, holding his breath, tightening his grip on his scroll, scrunching his eyes shut,wrinkling his nose and raising his upper lip, as the rest of his body tensed up as if preparing to be hit. The mental image was almost enough to distract her from her anger towards him...key word, almost.

"Mother of a flapjack, Junior. Really? You could have at least talked to me first."

"There wasn't anytime! Honest!"

"Junior, the nearest airport by flight time is 4 hours away. It's just now 3:22. I know you didn't talk to her while she was on the plane if she's flying commercial in order to keep a low profile, so the more likely situation is that you forgot. Now, tell me Junior, did you forget?"

"Yes. I did." She could hear the pout present in his voice.

"It's fine, Junior. Just...a little forewarning would be nice next time, okay?"

"You got it!" The change in attitude was quick enough to give one whiplash, but then again, she'd known Junior long enough that she was use to it.

She snagged a set of keys from their hook by the door to the garage, and stepped through the door, "Why did you get me up so early anyways, Junior? It's only like a fifteen minute drive to the airport from where I'm currently at."

"Yeah...that's the thing...I kinda figured that since you were already out and about this morning that I would have you stop and pay someone a visit on the way."

"I hate you, you know that?"

"I know." And there was the pout again.

Cinder strode through jetbridge, the index finger on her right hand occasionally twitching as she tried to keep her urge to take out her frustration at flying commercially by burning those around her to a crisp like she'd been taught to do to her subordinates. Now she just needed to get through Customs, get her...wait Customs. The twitching of her index finger increased dramatically. She really, really hated flying commercial.

3:53

She glanced at the radio clock and cursed. She had roughly ten more minutes until she would get to her first stop, giving her roughly seventeen minutes to finish her business there, and still make the forty minute drive to the airport and pick up the client. Junior was going to owe her a big one for this.

The twitching had rapidly progressed to her clenching and unclenching her fist as Cinder dealt with Customs. Of course, they couldn't make anything simple. No, they had to make everything complicated. Now, now she remembered why she had been relieved to get on the plane because the actual airport was much worse than the flight could have ever been, literally. If the plane had crashed and she'd survived only to burn alive in the wreckage it would still have been preferable to having to deal with an airport and the people within it.

Junior was going to owe her a big favor for making her travel this way.

4:07

After getting off the scroll with Junior, she'd been annoyed. Now she was pissed. She'd got here on time that was great, that improved her mood, and then the universe decided to conspire against her.

First the door was locked which everyone knew was a no-no when you owed Junior cash for a favor or job. That had slowed her a good 30 seconds because she'd had to pick both the deadbolt and the regular door handle. Once she had that open, she entered to find herself in a foyer. The foyer was decorated with a couple plants on each side of the door she'd entered through, a crystal chandelier above lighting the room, doors to the right and left, and a table against the wall across from the door. On the floor in front of the table was a frond, likely placed there by the two asshats sitting on either side of the table playing cards while they were supposed to be on guard.

After following protocol and trying to talk to them and convince them that she just wanted to talk to their boss, a slight scuffle had occurred resulting in one of the idiots having his kneecap kicked in and a knife buried in his throat, and the other being shot in the heart.

Now after navigating through both the dining room attached to the foyer, and a hallway she was heading upstairs towards what was likely another room with guards. She reached the second-story landing and walked towards the door. Using her Semblance to give her leg an increased durability and a greater speed with which to kick thereby exponentially increasing the force of her kick, she kicked the door. The door was not only kicked open, but ripped off the hinges and sent flying into the room. Without stopping, even for the kick, she briskly walked into the room and surveyed the layout.

There were three guards sitting around a table ahead and to her left playing what appeared, at first glance, to be Remnant: The Game with one chair empty. One guard was exiting what appeared to be a small kitchen area holding a bag of popcorn, presumably to return to the game, and the last one was sitting to her right on a couch watching TV. Her first three rounds silently eliminated the three at the table before they were able to figure out why the door had suddenly exploded off of its hinges and about five feet into the room, the fourth round splattered the guard on the couch's brains across the TV before he could finish drawing his weapon. The fifth guard appeared to be faster thinking than the other four because in the four and a half seconds she took to eliminate his comrades he'd dropped his bag of popcorn, and taken cover behind the counter separating the kitchen from the living room of the kitchen/living room/bedroom combo.

Note to self; being the quickest thinker doesn't necessarily equate to being intelligent.

She fired at the exposed shin sticking out from the edge of the counter. The last guard screamed, dropped his gun, and grabbed at his shin. When he did so she took the created opportunity and shot him in the temple. All of this she did without stopping her forward momentum, until she stepped over the the guard who had been carrying the popcorn and had mentally labelled Orville and came even with the table holding the board game.

After pausing for a second she strode over and looked at the placement of the troops on the board, moved some of the pieces and nodded, "And Vale wins, it's actually kind of sad, he was so close to winning."

Performing an about face she walked over to the door, and tried opening it and... of course it was locked.

"If I have to unlock this door because you refuse to do so, the following conversation is going to go much worse for you." She paused and listened, a few seconds later she heard some quick shuffling, followed by the lock clicking, and some more shuffling.

She ejected the almost empty magazine in her pistol, placed it in an empty pocket on the inside of her suit jacket designed just for that, loaded a new one, and then holstered her pistol in its underarm holster. Then she fixed her jacket and opened the door.

"Now, Mr. Haskins, we need to have a small talk about some funds you owe Junior and I. Then we're going to have another talk about why the front door was locked, and two idiots were playing cards on the other side of it…"

Not my bag. Not my bag. I swear that if they sent my bag to Vacuo that I'm going to go ballistic. Not my bag. Not my bag. I'm going to kill Junior. Finally! My bag! Or...not. Yeah, Junior is definitely a deadman. Oh thank the huntresses, it's my bag.

Cinder grabbed her bag from the baggage claim area and started walking towards the airport exits. She pulled out her scroll and dialed Junior, "Junior, Junior, Junior, I hate you. Did you know that?"

"It's actually kind of funny you said that. That's the second time I've heard a woman tell me that this morning in just as many hours."

"I really don't need details on your sad, sad, love life."

"Gaah! Love life? Love life? Who said anything about my love life? I think I'm going to be sick."

Cinder held her scroll away from her ear and stared at it with a furrowed brow until the sounds of Junior's vomiting ended, "Are you finished now? Back to business. Where's my driver?"

"I-just one second-George! George! Get someone to clean this up but first bring me a glass and a bottle of Everclear. I need to clean my mouth of this taste and my memory of that horrible insinuation. Thank you. Now Cinder, I-you know, what? No, I'm not going there. The driver I assigned said she would be there at five, so she'll be there at five. No sooner. No later. Just head out front and meet her at the pickup zone. I'm gonna go get blitzed and forget this conversation ever happened. My love life? Yeck!" Junior hung up still muttering to himself.

Cinder pocketed her scroll and shook her head, "I'll never understand how that man became the city's leading information broker."

4:55

She glanced at the clock, picked out a landmark to gauge where exactly she was, calculated how long it would take to get to the airport at her current speed, and started pressing down on the Dust pedal more. She had a reputation to keep and Haskins, Junior, and all the other things she'd had to deal with this morning weren't going to stop her from doing that.

Cinder glanced at her scroll as she shouldered the door open and watched as the time ticked from 4:59 to 5:00, "I guess Junior was wro…" She trailed off after looking up and seeing a sleek black two door car that hadn't been there a second ago. She started walking toward the car and watched as her driver got out and walked around the car.

Her driver was roughly her age maybe a couple years younger, so somewhere between 18-20. Is Junior hiring them from the cradle now? She had dark red almost black hair that lightened to crimson at the tips. She also had silver eyes and was a little taller than Cinder, standing somewhere around six feet tall. She was wearing a suit consisting of a black suit jacket, a black vest, a black tie, black pants, and black dress shoes. This was accompanied by a dark red shirt, cufflinks in the shape of a rose in bloom, and a red rose and red pocket square in her breast pocket.

Her driver went to open the passenger door for Cinder and stopped when something Cinder couldn't see in the early morning light caught her attention and caused her to purse her lips, "One moment please."

The driver stepped past Cinder, walked to the back of the car, took out the rose and pocket square, and removed her cufflinks and suit jacket. With the jacket draped over her left arm, and the other items in her left hand, she grabbed a briefcase out of the trunk, walked to the side of her car, and placed the case on the roof. After opening it, she pulled out what appeared to be an identical suit jacket, and placed it on the roof of the car. She then carefully placed the jacket she had been wearing in the briefcase, and returned the case to the trunk. Following this she put the new jacket back on, and returned her things to their proper place on her jacket.

It was at this point that she turned her attention to Cinder once again, who'd been merely watching the entire time, and gave Cinder one of the happiest and yet sheepish smiles that Cinder had ever seen.

"Please pardon me. Prior to picking you up, I had to pay a visit to someone who decided they weren't going to pay Junior what they owed him. I thought I had managed to escape unscathed, but it turns out that wasn't so. It was more than likely the idiot that I had to stab in the throat in the foyer whose blood wound up ruining one of my favorite jackets." The driver stepped to her left and opened the passenger side door. "My name is Ruby Rose. I will be your driver, bodyguard, and flatmate during your stay here. Welcome to Vale."

A/N: Well this is the first story that I'm putting online. The idea for this story came to me while reading Xekstrin's Chained Rose on Archive of Our Own. Past this point the entire story will be based upon my own ideas. Review if you want. It'd be much appreciated. Hope you enjoyed, until next chapter.