Ruby slipped her laptop into its bag and zipped up the bag. Letting the bag fall back onto the bed with her duffel bag, her eyes drifted around the room making sure she hadn't forgotten anything when they fell upon the scroll Ozpin had given her after the mission with Qrow and Blake.

She walked over and picked it up, turning it over in her hands. If Ruby was to be completely honest with herself, she'd not given the thing another thought since she'd placed it on her dresser with the rationale that if Qrow was reporting on her then Ozpin already knew where she lived.

It wasn't that she was scared of what she might find on it, rather she just didn't want to deal with the emotions and memories that would undoubtedly be raised if she were to read the reports found on the scroll. With the way things had ended between them, all of her memories with Qrow were a big twisted ball of bittersweet confusion. On the one hand, the years she'd spent training with her former mentor had been some of the best of her life. On the other hand, she couldn't look back at those times without at least a little bit of cynicism. Had she known the real Qrow? Was their entire relationship just manipulation on the older man's behalf so as to gain him and Ozpin a huntress?

Her finger hovered over the power button, some dark part of her wanting to read the reports. To see herself the way Qrow had seen her. To-

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Ruby jumped in surprise, shocked from her thoughts by the sound of Frost knocking on the doorframe of her room. She fumbled trying to catch the scroll that had slipped from her hands when she was startled. Grabbing it, just inches from the floor, Ruby straightened up to her full height and set it back in it's place on the dresser.

Frost raised his eyebrows in surprise, not use to seeing the younger woman this...out of it. He stepped into the room, one hand gripping the doorjamb, and his body half-turned towards her. "You okay, boss?" he asked, his voice laced with concern.

"Yeah, I'm-I'm fine." She replied hesitantly, a hand running through her hair and a fake smile evident on her face.

Ever himself and with full confidence in the redhead, rather than pressure her, Frost took her at her word, and his face lit up with a grin, "Great! If you're ready then let's get going, we have just enough time to stop and get some pancakes from the Pancake Shack, before you need to be at the airport."

Ruby chuckled, making sure to grab her duffle bag and laptop bag as she followed him out. "Didn't you eat like half an hour ago? You normally eat dinner at 5:30."

"Eh," Frost replied with a shrug, "I'm a big man, I need a lot of food. You know that."

Feeling her somber mood lift the more she spoke to her bottomless pit of a friend, Ruby locked the door to her apartment and pat him on the back. "That I do, my friend. That. I. Do."

After getting a quick bite to eat at the local Pancake Shack, the two were on their way again and fifteen minutes later were pulling into the airport. Frost came to a stop at the drop off zone of the airport and turned to his passenger, "I guess this is it for now. I know what your answer is likely to be, but are you sure that you can't tell me where you're going, boss?"

Ruby shook her head and started gathering up her bags as she answered, "It's too big of a risk. The less people who know the less chance there is of it getting out. Remember Valerie?"

His eyes dimmed noticeably from the reminder, Frost glumly nodded, "Yeah...yeah, I remember Valerie."

Valerie, or Operation Valerie as it was more formally dubbed, had been a colossal failure and just the mention of the event was enough to dampen the spirits of anyone who'd been around at the time. Now it served as an eternal reminder to everyone then and to those who would come in the future as to just how quickly things could go wrong and just how wrong they could get.

Taken as a favor in an attempt to gain political credit with an ambassador from Mistral, Operation Valerie was named after the daughter of the ambassador, whom Junior had promised to protect. Everything went swimmingly during the entire operation until the last day when one of their agents not involved in the operation was tricked by an enemy agent with an Illusion Semblance into giving up the location of the safehouse Valerie was being kept in. That night, with only hours to go before the operation was to end, the safehouse was raided resulting in the deaths of twenty agents, Valerie, and the needful assassination of a Mistralian official before he could out Junior's organization or cause any future problems for it. Following Valerie, there was a huge change in protocol and the way things were done. One such protocol was the restriction of information solely to those who absolutely needed to know for the mission they were involved in.

His down mood quickly passing, Frost smiled at Ruby, "In that case, take care, and make sure to bring me back something to eat, 'kay?"

"I will, ya big lug, and make sure to take care of Helia for me while I'm gone. You know she's liable to work herself to death if someone doesn't watch her." Ruby said before closing her car door. She watched as Frost gave her a mock two-fingered salute before driving off and leaving her alone on the sidewalk outside of the Vale airport.

With a sigh, Ruby turned and headed towards the doors of the airport. Having arrived four and a half hours early to make it harder for anyone to guess what plane she was boarding, she found herself a seat, put her headphones in and soon was drifting off to sleep.

*DtRH*

The day before and only two hours before Movie Night

Ruby sunk into her chair at the head of the table, spun, and slapped her hands down on the table to stop her rotation. "Alright!...what...exactly am I looking at?"

Giving her a brief glance to show he was listening, Frost quickly turned his attention back to his hands, one of whom was pinning the other to the table beneath it and about to impale it with a pencil.

Helia lifted her head from where it was resting in her hands, exasperation written across her face. She flippantly waved her hand in Frost's general direction before sighing and responding, "Apparently it's, and I quote 'Free-for-All Hand Wrestling Night' at our local conference table."

Ruby stared at where Frost's hands were most definitely trying to murder one another, "I-um, so I could be wrong, but Frost," Frost raised his eyebrows and grunted in what Ruby could only assume was meant to be a questioning manner, "I don't think opponents are supposed to try to murder one another in a wrestling tournament."

Frost tried to dismiss her concerns but with his hands currently occupied all he could really do was jerk his head in her general direction while his right hand attempted to strangle his left hand, "Don't worry. This is an underground tournament. Hah!" Frost abandoned his attempts to kill one hand with the other and instead smacked the table. "I'm a genius." He looked at the two women in the room clearly expecting them to get what he was referring to, and becoming crestfallen when neither did. "Get it? It's an underground tournament? We're...in a base...underground…Oh nevermind!"

Shaking her head, Ruby cleared her mind and prepared for the fight she was inevitably going to have on her hands following what she was about to reveal. "I have a name."

Frost and Helia nodded their heads and just stared at her in silence waiting for her to finish. Helia was the one who broke the silence upon realizing Ruby had no intention of continuing. "Oookay...what is it?"

Ruby drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out through clenched teeth, trying to decide on the most tactful way to proceed. "Well...that's the thing...you see...I can't really tell you that."

The redhead watched as realization slowly crept across Helia's face and Frost glanced back and forth between the two of them, being purposely dense so he didn't have to admit the truth of the matter to himself.

"And why can't you tell us? It's kind of hard for us to know how to proceed with our jobs if we don't know what we're working with." Helia forced out, her jaw clenched.

"I'm taking care of this persona-" Ruby was quickly drowned out by the other two.

Frost shot up out of his chair causing the poor thing to fly back and slam into the wall behind him as he did so, "Whoa there, boss! That is a no can do! We-"

Meanwhile Helia had slammed her fist against the table as she started shouting that she'd be damned if she'd allow Ruby to needlessly endanger herself by going and gallivanting off when she had brought the two of them on to handle things like this.

Ruby sat in her seat, taking it all in for a moment, still not sure which would be the most sensible way to deal with this before shrugging and deciding that sense could go chew on a candlestick for all she cared. Calmly standing up, Ruby straightened the suit jacket she was wearing and the cuffs of said jacket before looking up at her two friends.

"ENOUGH!" She shouted, instantly quieting her two subordinates. She crooked a finger downwards. "Sit. Now."

Both Helia and Frost hurriedly sought to comply, recognizing that by no means was Ruby asking them to do so, but threatening them and that if they didn't comply then things were to get really ugly, really quick.

Her hands splayed on the conference table before her, Ruby slowly returned to her seat. She looked from one subordinate to the other, making sure she had their full attention. "Now, since the two of you have decided that you can't talk about things like adults, I'm going to tell you how things are going to be. You're going to do exactly as I tell you to and then we'll proceed from there. Do you understand me?"

Knowing they were on extremely thin ice as it was, Frost and Helia both just silently nodded and kept their eyes trained on Ruby.

"The two of you are to go about your jobs like you normally do. If in the next two months I don't return then Helia is to step up and take charge in my stead. You are in no uncertain terms to try and find me either in the next two months or if I don't return after the two months are up. You are to assume I am dead and continue on under that assumption, do you understand?"

The two of them hesitated a second, but discipline quickly kicked in, and Frost nodded his acceptance of the orders he'd been given followed a second later by Helia.

"Good. Frost you're to pick me up at my apartment on the intersection of Oakley and Figgins at six tomorrow evening. From there you're to drop me off at the airport and return here where I'll have left further instructions for you both." Ruby stood and looked at her two friends, who knew better than to leave their seats until told to or until Ruby had left the room when the redhead was like this. "Frost, I'll see you tomorrow when you pick me up. After that I'll see the two of you in two months time, hopefully with some idea of what or who it is we're dealing with." With her piece finished, Ruby about-faced and left the conference room.

*DtRH*

It was with great reluctance that Ruby emerged from the cool shelter of the airport into the dry heat of the city of Oasis in the blazing desert kingdom better known as Vacuo.

When one spoke of Vacuo, one had to make sure to specify just which Vacuo one was speaking of. There was of course the kingdom of Vacuo, but long before the four major kingdoms that currently existed had been established, there had been the desert known by those who dwelled within it as Vacuo.

Vacuo, the desert, wasn't really something one could get a sense of the vastness of by looking at a map. That was due in part because the great sea of dunes covered almost ten times the landmass as the kingdom of Vale - there was a reason no matter where you bought map which showed Vacuo on it there was always an asterisk somewhere on it that said, "Warning: Not All Things May Be Drawn To Scale" or some other variation thereof.

The size of the desert also couldn't be gleaned from a map because a large part of the desert had in fact never been seen by human eyes in all of recorded history, although it should be noted that the cause of that was definitely not for a lack of curious explorers, ambitious cartographers, or government funded expeditions. The timeless tracts of sand were home to some of the most deadly animals and Grimm to walk the face of Remnant. As if that wasn't bad enough, the climate itself seemed to have a desire of its own to eliminate anyone fool enough to attempt to delve into the secrets found within the barren desert. During the day, it wasn't uncommon for the temperature to reach in excess of a hundred degrees, only to drop below negative thirty later that same night. Needless to say, no one ever randomly decided to take a quick walk outside of the bounds of a city in Vacuo unless they were stupid, ignorant, incredibly skilled or a mixture of the three...more often than not though they were the first one.

Despite all of the difficulties that come with living in a place as inhospitable as the Vacuo Desert, Vacuo remained a thriving and wealthy nation that routinely supplied more and better trained Hunters- and Huntresses-to-be to academies like Beacon each year than any one other nation. On the flip side of that coin though was the fact that they also had some of the most highly-trained law enforcement officers in all of Remnant meaning the criminals that made Vacuo, and in this particular case Oasis, home had to be on the same level.

Ruby allowed her eyes to drift across the surrounding sea of metal and glass that made up the towering skyscrapers of Oasis while she went back over what she knew of the situation. Troy had told her that he didn't know where it was but supposedly there was a major base operating either out of or somewhere near the city of Oasis. So thirty-two hours after leaving Vale, four disguises, and six false destinations later, here she was.

With no contacts in the city, and only the things she had in her duffelbag and laptop bag, Ruby had to somehow become integrate herself with the rest of Oasis''s underworld while at the same time put herself in a position to get the lay of the land. Normally she'd do that by getting a job at a bar, but if this organization was even half as competent as Ruby currently believed they were then they'd make sure the only places their people frequented were those where they had influence and could keep tabs on who and what might be overheard.

Ruby shook her head in an attempt to clear it of the hundreds of miniature trains of thought currently plaguing her. She was getting ahead of herself, there was no point in worrying about any of that until she managed to acquire herself a place of residence for her stay here in Oasis.

One problem at a time, Ruby. She mentally chided herself. We'll cross those bridges when we come to them.

Her head now clear, and her focus restored, Ruby had just turned and started down the sidewalk of the airport when she felt a rather warm and shapely body smoothly wrap itself around her left arm and press itself to her side as if it belonged there meanwhile the smell of cinnamon and cloves washed over her. Ruby glanced down at the top raven-haired head now resting upon her shoulder as the two of them continued down the sidewalk. "Cinder."

"Ruby."

"Might I inquire as to what I did to earn the pleasure of your company?"

Cinder threw her head back, releasing a deep-bellied laugh that managed to come off as both sultry and genuine. "Ruby, my dear, what is with the sudden formality? I thought we were friends? If anything shouldn't I be the one asking you what brings you to my humble city?" Cinder queried, looking up into the redhead's face, fully trusting Ruby to guide the two of them safely down the sidewalk, a hint of a playful smirk drawing up the corner of her mouth.

"I would ask for your forgiveness, but being ambushed as soon as I leave the airport in a city I had every intention of remaining undetected in, makes me a bit wary and has a tendency to put me on edge, and honestly I wouldn't mean it even if I did." Ruby bit out tersely, scanning the street before her for anymore possible surprises. "It kinda comes with my occupation. You understand, I'm sure."

"Oh?" Cinder raised an eyebrow, "And here I was thinking you were nothing more than a chauffeur on holiday. What are you doing, Ruby, that requires you to enter Oasis undetected?"

"Cinder," Ruby growled, "I'm truly not in the mood for games, and really don't need to deal with this at the moment."

"Shush you," Cinder said, sliding her hands down from Ruby's elbow to lace her fingers through the redhead's, and clasp the younger woman's hand between both of her own as she returned her head to its former resting place on Ruby's shoulder. "There's no need to worry. I just got back from a business trip to Haven and recognized you. Now, I've answered your question. Are you going to answer mine?"

"No, I'm not. Especially not when you're acting like this," Ruby snapped back, making sure to pointedly stare at their clasped hands. "And not until you tell me how you recognized me considering I'm currently disguised and have switched guises several times since leaving Vale."

"Acting like what?"

Ruby glared at Cinder, "You know how you're acting. You are usually nowhere near this touchy-feely or nice, and coupled with the fact that you still have yet to tell me how you managed to recognize me, I'm currently ready to shoot first and ask questions later."

The older woman sighed, let go of Ruby, and put some space between them. There was an immediate change in the atmosphere between the two. Suddenly rather than being uncomfortably intimate, things were the way they normally were between the two, meaning a comfortable air between two people who held a healthy respect for one another. "Better?"

Watching Cinder from the corner of her eye, the redhead gave a curt nod of her head, her shoulder and back muscles relaxing as some of the tension in her was released. "A little bit. Now, how did you know it was me?" she asked.

Cinder shrugged, "It was the way you held yourself when you stopped outside the airport. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Uh-huh. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see about finding a place to stay while I'm here in Vacuo."

"You don't have anywhere to stay?" Cinder asked, one eyebrow raised. "You could just stay with me. Unless that might cause problems for you? Then again, what kind of problems would staying with a friend possibly cause a chauffeur on holiday?"

Ruby furrowed her brows, her mind racing in an attempt to find a way out of Cinder's proposition without raising any more suspicion on the other woman's part. If she stayed with Cinder, Ruby wouldn't be able to sneak her way into the crime scene here in Vacuo because if anyone saw the two together they would automatically assume the two were working with one another and the redhead's cover would be blown. On the other hand, Ruby could use Cinder as a way to start making contacts here in Vacuo and give her a way to both seamlessly merge into Vacuo's underworld and be able to hear things she otherwise wouldn't. Unable to come up with a sufficient reason to decline and plenty of reason to accept, the redhead sighed and the older woman up on the offer.

*DtRH*

The elevator doors parted with a cheery Bing! to reveal what Ruby could only describe as the physical manifestation of every playboy's dream penthouse. The floors were all made of Mahogany wood. A drink bar took up half the wall to Ruby's left, a fireplace was the centerpiece of the wall to her right with an abstract painting hung over it's mantel, and a floor-to-ceiling window took up the entirety of the wall opposite of the elevator. The furniture was sleek, all black, looked as if all of it had been pulled from the latest catalogue, and centered around a television in the corner that Ruby was convinced was at least as horizontally wide as she was tall...okay she might be exaggerating there, but it was big.

Ruby set her bags down just outside of the doors of the elevator and meandered across the room to the window, her eyes drifting over the contents of the apartment. Despite the luxury of it all, the entire apartment was devoid of anything personal linking it to Cinder. In fact, there was a sterility and stillness to the apartment that almost made it feel like she was in a hospital or the cleanest mausoleum ever built.

"Wow!" Ruby exclaimed upon coming to a stop at the window and seeing the view it afforded of the surrounding landscape. "Now, that's what I call a view."

Oasis was named such because the entire city was built around a lake 306 miles at its longest and almost 120 miles at the lake's widest, that just happened to be the only reliable source of water for at least 200 miles in every direction.

The city itself started off as a collection of smaller towns, hamlets and villages. As time passed, those towns, hamlets, and villages grew until smaller ones were swallowed up and assimilated into larger ones. Eventually all of those pre-Oasis settlements had grown so much that they formed one giant metropolis. Now the only signs of those days long past were the names of Oasis's districts which were all named after whatever town or city had been there at the time of their merging with the megacity.

Cinder came to a stop beside her, and joined her in looking out upon the city and lake sprawled before them. The two of them stood there in the complete silence of the apartment for a few moments, Ruby unwilling to break the peace of it, Cinder...well, to be truthful, Ruby had no idea why Cinder was remaining quiet.

When one of them finally broke the silence, it was Cinder who spoke first, "That lake is the sole reason for the survival of this city which makes it all the more amusing that there's so much we don't know about it. The largest question of all-" Cinder remarked, her voice laced with a kind of peace, Ruby had never heard from her before. It was almost like the older woman had been hypnotized by the tranquility of the scene.

"-where does the water come from for the lake?" Ruby finished, her eyes still fixated on the concrete-jungle. "There's no rivers, either visible or underground, to replenish it, and this place doesn't get anywhere near enough consistent rain to keep the lake full, so where does it all come from?"

"No one knows," Cinder shrugged, the movement of her shoulders seeming to break the spell on the two of them. "This lake, the very lifeblood of the capital of this nation, is just as mysterious to us as the Grimm are."

Turning back to the rest of the apartment, Ruby once again studied the place she would be inhabiting for the next few weeks to come. "You know if this is the kind of place you're used to staying in then your stay at my apartment must have been unpleasant."

"I'll admit, at first, the accommodations were somewhat lacking, but by the end of my two weeks there, it had kind of grown on me. It was...cozy," Cinder commented, striding across the room towards a door to the right of the elevator when facing it. "Although a good straightening up on occasion might do it some good. Come on, I'll show you to your room, before we leave."

Ruby quickly scurried over to the elevator, and grabbed her things. She then slipped through the door Cinder had disappeared behind, and found herself in a hallway with two doors on her right, a third to her left, and another at the end of the hall ahead of her before the hall turned off to the left. "What do you mean 'we leave'?" Ruby asked as she caught up to the amber-eyed beauty.

"Did you think I was going to let you stay here for free? No, I'm going to ensure I get my worth out of you." Cinder told her, as the older woman opened the door to the left, and stepped into the room. "The bathroom's through that door. There's a walk-in-closet through that one. There should be clean sheets, blankets, and pillows on a shelf in there," She said, making sure to point to everything as she mentioned it.

Setting her bag on the queen-sized bed, Ruby started pulling out the things she thought she might need. "So where are we going? What are we doing? I need to know these things if I'm to properly prepare." Ruby glanced up at Cinder as she spoke, finding the older woman resting a hip on the edge of the vanity table just inside the door with her arms crossed as she watched Ruby.

Cinder straightened up, and sauntered over to Ruby's side as the redhead continued pulling things out, and laying them on the bed. "On my flight back, my employer asked that I stop in and talk with a dear friend of ours."

"Uh-huh," Ruby's voice was laden with disbelief at the concept of the person being their friend. "And what precisely did this 'friend' do to garner the displeasure of you and your 'employer'?"

"Nothing in particular," Cinder answered offhandedly. "I just detest the man on principle." She reached out a hand as if to pick up Crescent Rose, only for Ruby to lightly slap her hand away.

"You 'detest him on principle'? What does that even mean?" Ruby asked, ignoring the slight glare being sent her way by Cinder.

Seeing the younger woman had no intention of cowing beneath her glower, Cinder returned to her former place by the vanity table. "Go ahead and bring anything you think you might need. I have no intentions of this developing into a fight, it truly is just a meeting between associates."

Ruby glanced up at Cinder in exasperation, "You're a lot of help, you know that? You're almost as much help as Junior, which, for your information, is no help at all. Now shoo. If I am to be accompanying you then I need to get ready which means I need to get changed. And though I'd like to think we're friends, we do not know each other well enough to get naked before one another."

"Aw, am I not pretty enough for you, Ruby?" Cinder purred over her shoulder at Ruby in a show of uncharacteristic playfulness as the redhead pushed her out of the room.

"Begone yee foul temptress before I need smite thee!" Ruby bellowed, in a poor imitation of a stereotypical, old, wizened wizard, before slamming her door in Cinder's rather perplexed face.

*DtRH*

When Ruby finally emerged back into the main area, it was to find Cinder sitting on the couch, head bowed in thought and the fingers of her right hand tapping on her crossed-legs. Ruby drew up beside the couch and held out her arms, "Well? How do I look?"

"Hmm?" Cinder raised her head and blinked her eyes in order to refocus them before fixing on Ruby. Her dazed expression quickly faded in one of pure incredulity as she took in Ruby in all her purposely hideous glory. "What in the name of Dust are you wearing?"

Ruby grinned as she blew and popped a bubble with the gum she was chewing before sticking her hand out for Cinder to shake. "The name's Jasper. Jasper Hayes," She said in a voice that was pitched to sound like a character from one of the movies that Ruby had forced Cinder to watch when the raven-haired woman was staying with her.

My voice is going to be destroyed by the time we're done with this.

Ruby's philosophy for her particular outfit this time lay in two key objectives. 1)Make it so eye-drawing and stand out so much that people couldn't help but look at it, and 2) make it so ugly and downright outrageous that it pained the eyes and the mind to behold it so people couldn't help but to consciously force their eyes away from the metaphorical elephant in the room. Sometimes there was a kind of anonymity that was afforded to you when you stood out in a room more than a full-grown, tap-dancing, tie-dyed Ursa Major in the nursery of a hospital.

Ruby's outfit consisted of a baggy, reflective, silver track-suit that looked like it was made of aluminum foil and had navy blue stripes running down the arms and legs. Her half-zipped up jacket revealed a loosely fitted t-shirt of the same colours as the stripes on her jacket and pants. Her shoes were a pair of blindingly bright combat boots that went up to mid-calf and had the bottoms of her pants tucked in them. The left one was neon orange while the right was a highlighter yellow. Rather than the sky blue waist-length wig she had had on, her hair was spiked up with one-half sprayed a hot pink and the other half a lime green. Her brown contacts had been replaced with ones that gave her eyes the appearance of a colour wheel that went well with the brightly coloured collar she was wearing of the same appearance. Ruby had even bound her chest in order to make herself appear flatter than she really was. All in all she looked like some horrible epitomization of the spirit of the, thankfully, briefly-lived Disco era that followed the Faunus Rights Movement.

Cinder looked Ruby up and down once more before refocusing on her rainbow-coloured eyes, purposely ignoring the proffered hand. Her voice when next she spoke would, had it been anyone other than Ruby, brooked no argument and likely would have sent her target fleeing with their tail between their legs, "You're not accompanying me in that...atrocious costume."

"Ah! But there you are mistaken, my dear Miss Fall. You see, I will indeed be accompanying you in what you so delicately called an 'atrocious costume'."

"No, you won't."

"Yes, I will."

"No, yo-" Cinder cut herself off, and closed her eyes. Ruby could almost see the numbers tick off in the older woman's head as she counted to ten in an attempt to calm herself down. "I'm not going to get into a childish argument with you. You won't be wearing that getup, that's final. Now go change into something a little more respectable, so we can go." Cinder finally managed to grind out through her teeth once she opened her eyes again.

Ruby's friendly demeanor dropped in the blink of an eye as she adopted a decidedly more confident and authoritative stance. "Miss Fall, it would appear that you are operating under a rather grave misunderstanding. I, in no way, shape, or form, am beholden to acquiesce to your request. I am here purely due to the fact that you asked me to stay with you. While it would be slightly inconvenient, I would have no problems taking my things and immediately leaving should you overstep your bounds as hostess. I am helping you with this meeting and staying here because I chose to do so of my own free will. You did not hire my services and even if you had, you are more than aware that I demand more respect than you are currently affording me. You would do well to remember that. I do not respond well to having others attempt to dictate my life to me."

Ruby wasn't a fool, she knew this was an almost exact repeat of the instance in the car when the redhead had first picked Cinder up in Vale. She was also aware that if she continued contact with the older woman more of these moments were bound to pop up every now and then. Cinder was used to being in control. In fact she was a complete and utter control freak that loathed being argued with and was of the belief that she knew what was best. But Ruby also knew that she could work around that because in the long run, Cinder could be both a valuable asset and a good friend. She would just need to remind Cinder occasionally that she wasn't some meek pet who would do whatever Cinder wanted just for a simple belly-rub.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Cinder drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. When next she looked up at Ruby it was with acceptance. "Fine. Shall we go?"

Seeing that the raven-haired woman had come around, Ruby nodded, her confrontational stance quickly dropping and being replaced with her normal friendly demeanor. "Good, and, yes, we can get going now." With that said, the redhead about-faced and strode over to the elevator and pressed the button to summon it from the ground-floor. As soon as the doors opened, she marched in and went to press the button only to find Cinder in the same place she'd left her. "Come on, what are you waiting for? It's not like I have any idea where we're headed to."

*DtRH*

A/N: Annnd I'm back, even if it did take another three months. I'm proud, and glad, to announce that I am officially finished with high school. Meaning that I should be able to once again return to a more stable and regular posting schedule. This combined with the fact that I'm now on two medications, one for depression (turns out I've been suffering from depression since I was six or seven, almost twice as long as I thought I was) and one for anxiety, should lead to more frequent updates. On the flip side, said updates are likely to be once every other week since in order to allow myself to work on something other than DtRH so I don't get burned out, I plan on starting a new story under a new account and a different fandom pretty soon. Anyone curious feel free to ask me and I'll let you know when I start posting it.

Now onto a few things I feel the need to discuss.

1) I meant to bring this up before now but kept forgetting to and was reminded when going over a conversation I had with xplsov, this story is going to get much, much, MUCH darker in the future. There will be character deaths, both canon characters and OCs. There will be parts involving torture and much worse things. I've tried hinting at it throughout the story so far, but this is not going to always be as cheery or light-hearted as it currently is and I have no intention of shying away from anything. As far as my philosophy goes when writing, nothing is off the table (other than lemons and that's for the fact that I neither currently see any need for them in any story I might write nor do I believe I could adequately write one, but that's not to say I don't enjoy a good lemon as much as the next fellow) so long as it furthers the story I'm trying to write. I made this story M for a reason and that's so I have to worry about as little as I possibly can regarding limits on my story.

2) The topic of OCs. I'll be frank with you, I have no interest in reading or writing a story that focuses on OCs. They just aren't my cup of tea. If you like them that's fine, but I don't. Despite that I'm sad to admit that there will be OCs in this story, and for several reasons. The main one though is the fact that OCs are needed in order for me to tell the tale I'm trying to tell. Ruby works with Junior in an organization that spans all of Remnant, and DtRH is also going to span all of Remnant. Ruby has a past full of people and helps Junior run a massive operation. Frost and Helia are needed because Ruby likes to take a hands on approach with things. She needs people she can trust to run things if and when she's not there or able to. Having said all of that, my OCs are only going to be put in in places where they're absolutely needed and each one I create I will try to make as unique as possible. Every time I make one I come up with backgrounds, beliefs, motivations, goals, etc. And as time goes on, and the story progresses we'll start to see more and more of the cast from the show, but right now each and every one of them has their own place and things they're doing. This story will wind up being massive. It took me 60,000 words to get past what I consider Arc 1 or the introductory Arc. And like xplsov said in another conversation he and I had this is Ruby's story. At no point will this story or any of my stories ever feature OCs 'hat I assure you. I might have a Interlude or two to give you a bit more insight on specific characters and events going on, but the story will always be about Ruby. It's about her growing up. It's about her changing. And it's about the difficulties she's going to face in the future because rest assured, I intend on breaking her, building her back up, only to break her and build her up again. This story is Ruby's. It's not Frost or Helia's. It's not Qrow's or Ozpin's. It's not even about Weiss, Yang, or Blake. It's about Ruby, and from now until forever will remain that way. That I swear to you, but at the same time there's so much going on both before and behind the scenes of DtRH that as much as I may not like them, OCs are necessary but I have no intention of ever letting them take over this story. If you feel the need to stop reading because of that I fully understand and I hope you have a happy and fulfilling life and who knows I might very well see you in the future in a story with less OCs, but there is just so much that the canon cast isn't enough because they all already have their own places in the story. But enough of that because it's kinda making me sad.

3) I still somehow managed to have fucked up the math of Blake and Ruby's payment in Chapter Five last time I fixed it. I'm half convinced my profile is haunted by a poltergeist that keeps changing it to mess with me. It should be fixed as of me posting this chapter.

Reviews:

NothingExistence:...don't really have much to say to just 'Hooray' so... Huzzah! (For those curious me and Nothing did indeed have a rather nice discussion via PMs following his review).

Xplsov: Kinda already covered everything here above. Anything I didn't cover, is for the explicit purpose of not wanting to spoil anything.

Shadow41425: I'm glad you enjoyed it, and different continent (not landmass, continent) big enough setting change? Not intended dickishly, but rather cheekily, I'm a dick by nature but I try to keep it in check and I'm sorry if that came off wrong. Also thoughts on the grammar/flow of this chapter?

Blackwing - Balmung the Eclipse: No, you're awesome! Sidenote: I have no idea what a Balmung is but it somehow manages to sound like an insult and something really neat at the same time, also first reviewer whose name Google Drive doesn't try to tell me is incorrect meaning somehow Balmung is a completely real word. Who woulda thought?

Fencer22: I'm also glad it's back (again). And the gaps between chapters bothers me because it feels wrong to do to you guys, not to mention it annoys the crap out of me since I know how I feel when it takes forever for a story to update and I feel even worse since not once have any of you ever hounded me about updates.

Jiggly Joe: Yeah, walls of text are an issue of mine. I've been trying to work on it. Does it get any better in later chapters?

FOODninja- 321: Eh, I just wound up messing with all of his crap in really subtle ways. He should have known not to start something with the only person in the house who isn't semi-technologically-illiterate. Also, you're welcome!

ThatOnePsycho: Not commenting and I mean that in a actually not commenting because it has something to do with the plot in the future and not in a You're right or a You're wrong and I don't wanna give anything away.

SentenRainen: Yeah, transition chapters are a necessary evil kinda like babies and children. I think I'll stick with SentenRainen, it's less confusing for others that way. I also didn't ever notice that cut off at the end of your review until now, huh, wish I would have asked you about that before. Damn you obliviousness!

Silentstrixe: Heyo! Glad you're enjoying it so far. I'll also admit that I use the exception filters so often I totally forgot to take them into account. Thanks for letting me know how you came across this! Totally makes me a little less confused! (I prefer to remain at least a little confused at all times, helps me mess with others for my own enjoyment)

I would also like to apologize to Misha whose name I accidentally replaced with that of one of my classmates in my last Author's Note.

Thanks to everyone who favorited and followed, and those above for reviewing. Please let me know your thoughts on the chapter or story as a whole whether you liked it or not. Even if it's just a flame cause how else am I supposed to roast my marshmallows? And favorite and/or follow if you think I deserve it. Until next we speak! To Infinity and Beyond!