"So I have Adam's word that you're able to do this job, but is it a certainty?"

"Someone as powerful as Adam doesn't have to lie about anything, if he says it's a certainty then it is."

"I don't exactly have any assurance that you are you you say you are."

"When you see me on the nine o'clock news you'll have plenty of assurance as to who I am."

"Cheeky." Roman Torchwick didn't like this one bit. His go-to thief wasn't taking his calls, so he was forced to go to Adam out of desperation; hoping Adam knew a thief who'd work on short notice, a rarity in of itself. Next thing Torchwick knew, he'd been given a scroll number and was told to meet on top of a random building that was under construction downtown by a groggy voice.

"Cheeky enough to take some half-baked job at one-forty two in the morning?" Roman definitely didn't like this thief. Roman wasn't even sure if he was an adult or not, what kind of adult came to a meeting to discuss a theft wearing knit sneakers, joggers and, a sleeveless hoodie? That's not even mentioning the canvas bag slung over his shoulder.

"I guess we'll see," Roman nearly spat as he reached into his white jacket and pulled out a yellow manilla envelope, "This has everything you'll need."

The thief took the envelope and opened it, quickly examining its contents, "This'll work I guess. Any specific requests while I'm on the job?"

"No. Adam said you work best unrestricted."

"Adam's right. Unrestricted is my jam."

He definitely wasn't an adult or at least he wasn't able to act like a professional but based on his appearance, Roman leaned toward the former.

"I want this done by sunrise."

"Wow, how incredibly vague."

"Saying you can't do it?"

"Saying that you better pay me up front."

Roman tsked, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a roll of lien, "That's five thousand Lien, you'll get the other half once I have what I want delivered to me."

"You're lucky I'm a reasonable man." The thief pocketed the cash.

"If you keep talking like that you'll be a dead man."

"I'm protected by Adam, you kill me and every gun at his beck and call will be aimed at you, not to mention some...other unsavory groups who'd be disappointed to see me go."

"Like who?"

"Like none of your business. If the fact Adam protects me isn't enough for you then you can keep your money, I don't do business with dead men."

Roman smirked, maybe this kid wasn't so bad after all, "Now now, let's simmer down. I was just curious."

"Curiosity kills cats and criminals."

"True enough." Roman admitted, smirking as he backed away from the thief, "But if this job's not done by six o'clock, I'm gonna start getting real curious and start looking for you."

Roman disappeared down a staircase that lead to the lower floors as the thief turned and let his cobalt eyes wander across the bright city, Vale's skyline wasn't the most impressive but was beautiful to most all the same. The thief sighed as he leaned forward against a railing and ran a hand through his blonde hair, "Sunrise, six o'clock, make up your damn mind."

/~/

Detectives and officers alike shifted anxiously as the entirety of Vale's police force was being crammed into the small conference room within VPD. Most of them had been roused from their sleep and called down to the station while the others had been pulled off patrol, a general sense of wonder and annoyance surrounded the why however.

Chattered began to fill the small room as someone new entered the room, a blonde older man in a navy blue uniform that was adorned with badges and a golden shield, this man was known to most of these people as Chief Xiao Long. Xiao Long stood at a podium before the sea of law enforcement officials and spoke with a booming voice that most in his inner circle were unfamiliar with, "Arsene has struck again."

Noise erupted within the precinct once again, everyone knew Arsene. He was a thief who'd- no. He was the thief who'd been on the VPD's most wanted list ever since he emerged four years ago. Taiyang brought a fist down on the podium, the sound of splintering wood silencing everyone within the conference room, "Quiet!"

Xiao Long settled before continuing, "We all know Arsene's general description, young man between seventeen and twenty nine, blue eyes, white skin, no visible Faunus traits or tattoos, distinctive possibility of being an Altered."

Altered. The very word caused most of the officers to shiver.

"He's guilty of multiple counts of trespassing, burglary, breaking and entering, assault and, murder," Xiao Long's voice became hushed before he continued, "Arsene is very dangerous…"

The officers listened closely as Chief Xiao Long continued, going more and more into detail about the dangerous phantom thief that plagued them and their city...

/~/

Jaune yawned as he shuffled into his apartment, the clock had just struck six-thirty two and Jaune was much richer than he had been when he'd been woken up at one in the morning by a scroll call. The dimly lit apartment was nothing special but it was home for Jaune...and someone else.

Jaune yelped as he tripped walking between the couch and the coffee table. Lifting himself up, Jaune saw that his friend and roommate had passed out on the couch; TV on and all. Jaune shook his head, even the sound of his manly yelp and his falling to the floor hadn't woken his roommate, Jaune tapped the top of what he was assuming was his friend's head, "Wake up, Ren. Sleeping on the couch is bad for your back."

Ren sleepily swatted at Jaune's hand before rolling over on the couch, "Tired…"

"You can't be a transporter if you can't even sit up straight, go to bed." Jaune demanded, effortlessly picking Ren up off the couch and tossing him to the floor; the sound of Ren's groan and the thud of a body hitting the floor ringing through the apartment.

"Asshole!" Ren shouted in an un-Ren like way, he was indeed a man who enjoyed his sleep and messing with it was a sure fire way to break his stoic exterior.

"What of it?" Jaune asked, flopping onto the couch.

Ren begrudgingly lifted himself off the floor and rubbed his neck as she attempted to crack it, "How was the job?"

"Easiest ten grand I've ever made."

"Did you give Adam his cut?" Ren asked as he picked up the TV remote and shut the blinding machine off, leaving them only the early morning sun streamed through the windows.

"I'll do that in the morning."

"Technically it is the morning."

"Guess I'll do it now then, I'm already up," Jaune sighed, "I'm gonna grab a coffee, then deal with that noise."

"Paying the man who keeps us safe and in business isn't 'noise', Jaune." Ren insisted as he cracked his neck, "I'm going to take your advice for once and go to bed. Night, Arsene."

"It's just Jaune with you, Ren." Jaune said as Ren disappeared down the single hallway in their apartment towards his room.

Jaune sighed as he leaned into the couch, his body ached ever so slightly after this most recent heist; so much running and fighting that it had even started to get to him.

Jaune had always seen his criminal persona, Arsene, as someone entirely different; maybe it was a coping mechanism or it was just his way of justifying his brutalities, phantom thievery was a dirty business more often than he liked. It wasn't like in the movies where there was always a direct stealthy path right to what he wanted, sometimes there were "walls" without paths or vents to get to the other side of them undetected so Jaune sometimes had to smash through them.

Jaune groaned as he heaved himself up, he had to pay Adam his dues but first, he needed caffeine...a scone wouldn't hurt either. Jaune flicked on the apartment light, recoiling at the sudden flash before rubbing his eyes as they adjusted. Jaune stood in front of the tall mirror they had placed in their room and tsked, his hoodie had blood on it. Jaune sighed as he turned and pulled the hoodie off, tossing it into the garbage can and making his way to his room to grab a new hoodie before quietly exiting the apartment.

The sun had risen a bit more since Jaune had seen it but it was still fairly early and dim, the way Jaune liked it. Jaune's favorite cafe wasn't too far away so instead of catching a cab or even running, he decided to simply walk and take in the city. Jaune and Ren didn't live in a great area, mostly because it used to be all they could afford and now they were just too lazy move, but Jaune enjoy the view he had right out of his front door; Jaune could see most of Vale's skyline currently covered in a light fog that complimented the spring morning nicely.

The obnoxious ringing of Jaune's scroll brought him out his sight seeing and forced Jaune to pulled out the scroll and check the caller ID, Stabby McStabstab

Jaune groaned as he answered the call, "Do not tell me you have another job."

"Not quite, Adam is just wondering when you'll be stopping by...we might have to clean up."

"Why isn't the man himself telling me this?" I asked, leaning against a light pole as the light flickered out.

"He's-," the voice on the other end was interrupted by the loudest scream Jaune had ever heard before he continued, "...preoccupied."

"Tell him I'll be by in an hour or so."

"Make it two...there's a lot to clean up."

"Two it is," Jaune hung up the scroll and softly tossed his head back into the light pole, "What the fuck am I gonna do for two hours?"

/~/

Jaune found himself exactly where he had said he'd be, getting coffee. It was a very small cafe is the eastern part of the city, a part of the city Jaune didn't work in too often but it didn't stop him from learning his way around. He'd found the small cafe, Éclos, when he'd originally began working as a thief; Jaune had started searching for an escape of sorts and found it in the eastern part of the city, a part of the city that wasn't as seedy as the rest of Vale.

"Wanna refill, Jaune?"

Jaune had been boredly scrolling through his phone, a half empty cup of coffee sitting in front of him within his booth before looking up to see a black and red haired girl in a distressed black shirt and red jeans, her outfit however was offset by the puke green apron she was being forced to wear for work.

"Come on, Ruby. You know I do." Jaune smiled at the young girl, she was the owner's daughter and was working there as a way to help pay for college. He'd been coming her for awhile so he had taken the time to investigate into her a little bit. He'd been coming here regularly ever since he was sixteen so he'd known Ruby for a fairly long time, ever since she was fourteen and came in after school to study while her mom worked. Ruby was a awkward girl to say the least, she never really talked about friends or crushes or anything social, her and Jaune's conversations usually drifted towards music, books, movies and, television.

Ruby took Jaune's cup and over behind the long counter that covered most of the cafe and reached onto the long and tall shelf that ran behind the counter that was filled with an almost limitless amount and kinds of beans.

"So how's school going kid?" Jaune asked.

"I am not a kid, not anymore at least." Ruby huffed, setting a jar of beans down.

"Sorry, it's just hard to tell sometimes." Jaune jabbed, fully prepared for Ruby's retaliation.

Surprisingly, Ruby bit back her jab until she began grinding beans, "This is why you've never had a girlfriend, Jaune."

"Who says I want one? I'm married to my work anyways." Jaune explained as Ruby went about making the coffee itself with the fresh grounds.

"What do you do anyway?" Ruby asked, it wasn't the first time she asked this question and it was one he dodged.

"Odd jobs here and there, ya know, that kinda thing." Jaune said as a steaming cup of coffee was set in front of him.

"Like what?" Ruby asked, sliding into the booth and sitting across from him.

"Don't you have customers to server or something?"

"No...I really don't, so spill." Ruby said, causing Jaune to look around and realize that the cafe was empty, he really had to start paying attention more even when he wasn't working.

"Well, ya see-" Jaune was interrupted by his scroll ringing and was eternally grateful to whoever was on the other end, that is until he saw the caller ID and sighed, Stabby McStabstab, "What? Don't tell me he's canceling."

"Yeah, no. This is beginning to look like a four man job and I'm thinking you'd be best su- No, Ja-!" Jaune flinched as a loud echoing gunshot rang out on the other end of the call.

"You okay bud?" Jaune asked cautiously.

"Never mind on the how help thing, you can come over anytime. We were almost done taking out the trash anyway, what's a little more right?"

"I'll be by soon," Jaune closed his scroll and tossed a small wad of bills onto the table before taking one last sip of coffee, "Gotta go, Rubes."

"This is a four hundred percent tip, how can you afford this?" Ruby asked as Jaune began to walk out. It was true, Éclos was a bit spendier than most of the other coffee shops around so a four hundred percent tip would make a massive dent in any normal person's wallet; fortunately Jaune's wallet was far from normal and felt that part of his most recent paycheck would be better in Ruby's hands than his own.

"Your service was spectacular as ever, figured you should be compensated." Jaune stated simply before he began to open the door, only to feel a light thump against the back of his head. Spinning, Jaune turned to see Ruby now standing and smirking at him.

Looking down, Jaune, unsurprisingly, saw the wad of bills he'd just given Ruby. After he'd bent down and picked it up, Jaune rose and looked at Ruby questioningly, "Why?"

"Friends don't tip friends."

Jaune narrowed his eyes at the girl before him pocketing the money; he was almost forced to shake his head and chuckle, "And here I thought you were a starving college student."

"Not starving enough to take a friend's money."

"You're a strange one, Ruby Rose."

"Not as strange as you, Jaune." Ruby shot back.

"Later, Rubles."

"See you soon, Jaune." Ruby waved as Jaune left, leaving the girl to stew in her boredom.

/-/

AN: Welcome to the new story, hopefully you'll enjoy yourself. I've been thinking about writing something non-RWBY to cleanse my palette between chapters, I've only been writing RWBY ever since I started writing, so almost three years, I need something new. Haha...