RWBY: Book of Thieves

Prologue - The Rose Thief

Vale City, California

The sky was mostly clear that night with the exception of a few smog clouds from the factories on the far side of the city. The black canvas above was clear of any stars thanks to the amount of light pollution the city gave off, but the full moon glowed dimly in the background behind the Beacon Tower. As the cool, Autumn air blew a chilly wind through the streets, a shadow moved stealthily across the rooftops, just out of sight of any who were to chance a look up. The shadow was practically flying across the long gaps between buildings, narrowly landing on the roof's edges without losing pace. They swerved around water towers, over satellite dishes, and off of chimney stacks with the skill and grace of a professional acrobat. They leapt across one final gap, bouncing off two neon signs hanging from the walls before landing safely. The shadow finally stopped running, pulling down the hood of their crimson-red cloak and stepping into the moonlight.

A girl, barely in her late teens, with short, choppy black hair that gradates into dark red tips walked close to the edge of the rooftop, her silvery eyes scanning the area. As another chilling breeze blew past, she shivered and rubbed her arms. She was starting to regret not listening when it was suggested that she should wear warmer clothing for the mission, but she liked her outfit – she picked it out herself! Sure, wearing a black and red skirt and stockings wasn't very practical for the weather, the thin martial of her silky blouse wasn't much help either, the combat boots would seem a little clunky for someone of her profession, and the corset seemed to have little use since she was…still growing, despite how much milk she drinks. All of these things together seemed very impractical for her job, but it was the image she made for herself – all of the greats needed an image!

The one thing she definitely wouldn't change about herself were her two most cherished items: her cloak and her cross. The red cloth that fluttered behind her was tattered – full of small holes and tears at the bottom – and looked like it had been stitched together more than a dozen times. She could have gotten a new cloak if she wanted, but she wouldn't. Though it was not alive, it was her oldest and closest companion. The same for the cross necklace that hanged by its silvery chain around her neck. It was scratched and cracked in a number of places, but the pendent with its gothic styling and it's tiny rose detailing in the center were irreplaceable. It was –

"RUBY! COME IN! RUBY! DO YOU HEAR ME?"

The girl named Ruby nearly felt off the edge as the voice screeched into her earpiece. She flailed her arms and pulled herself back, letting out a relieved sigh when she was safe.

RUBY ROSE - THE THIEF

"Yeah, I can hear you, Weiss," said Ruby, sticking a finger in her other ear. "I'm pretty sure the entire west coast heard you…."

At the same time, in a dark alleyway nearby, a black van sat very conspicuously in between the overflowing trash containers and the piles of broken boards and boxes, right underneath the flickering sign for a Faunus strip club. With its gothic-black paint job, rose petal decals around the wheels, and the giant red rose stamped on the side, Weiss often wondered if the police were really that incompetent not to put two and two together. There were literally two cops who walked past the alley, stopped, looked at them, and just went on their merry way not even ten minutes ago. But, despite the failing logic of it all, Weiss digressed.

She took her usual space in the back of the van, coordinating everything with the elaborate computer set-up she had personally installed. The lights of the blue screens reflected off her fair skin while illuminating the long, noticeable scar running down her left eye. She pushed the great length of white hair that she had tied into an off-center ponytail out of the way as she tapped away frantically on the keyboard, readjusting the angle of the camera that was pinned to Ruby's cloak.

A scowl crossed her features when Ruby's retort reached through coms.

"Well, excuse me for being a little concerned about the well-being of my partner," Weiss snapped.

WEISS SCHNEE – THE BRAINS

"You do realize how insane this is, right?" said Weiss, shaking her head in annoyance. "It's one thing to break out, but to break in! And in the Vale City Branch, no less! You know whose office is in there!"

"Would you like to call them instead?" Ruby responded. "Maybe we can ask them nicely."

"Don't even joke about something like that," said Weiss insipidly. "Do you have eyes on the target?"

Ruby walked over to the ledge again, reached into her backpack, and pulled out her binoculars. Just across the street from where she was perched was the American headquarters of the International Criminal Police Organization, or more commonly known as INTERPOL. The building wasn't as big as some of its overseas branches since it was only built in the past decade, but that didn't make it any less secure. Besides the numerous police agents milling past the open windows and filtering in an out of the front door, there were a dozen cameras mounted on every corner of the building and even some of them were aimed at the sky for intruders trying to sneak in from above. And then there were the things she couldn't see, like silent alarms, security lasers, and so on.

"Just like we expected," said Ruby, whistling. "These guys don't play around."

"It's INTERPOL headquarters – what else would they be if not one of the most secure places in western America," said Weiss irritably. "Are you sure we have to do this? This is taking way too big of a risk."

"Hey, you've got nothing to worry about," said Ruby. "You're the one sitting safe in the van. Besides, I have to get that file. You know how important it is to me."

"Ugh, fine, but you get caught, I'm ditching your skinny ass!" Weiss snapped.

"Should I be flattered that you stare at my butt?" Ruby teased.

She heard Weiss sputter unintelligibly over the coms, growled frustratedly, and said, "Blake, please tell me you're almost in position."

"I'll be there in just a minute," a third voice joined the conversation.

The INTERPOL security room was state-of-the-art, filled with the all the latest buttons, switches, and doodads to keep any potential intruders from getting in. The entire back of the room was covered from wall-to-wall with computer monitors linked to every camera in the station, all controlled from a single, colorful control panel for easy operator use...

It was also the single most boring job in the entire world. Just ask Officer Michael J. Caboose. The dull-looking officer was leaning back into his rolling chair, moaning loudly, and spinning around slowly just because he was bored.

"I'm bored!" Officer Caboose whined. "Monitor duty is so boring! I don't wanna do it!"

Just then, someone knocked on the door and walked in without waiting for a response. Caboose stopped spinning in his chair long enough to look at the newcomer as they closed the door behind them. It was a woman with long black hair, dressed in a prim and proper officer uniform, but wore her hat very low so that the bill cast as shadow over her eyes. Caboose tilted his head dimly as the stranger crossed the room, her hands folded behind her back like a dutiful officer of the law.

"I'm here to relive you," said the officer in a firm and even voice. "You can go home now – I'll take it from here."

"Wait…," Caboose said in a slow, suspicious tone, tilting his head. "I just started my shift five minutes ago. Shouldn't I have, like, another four hours or something?"

"….no…?" the stranger said in a slow, unconvincing voice.

"…Good enough for me!" said Caboose cheerfully. The stranger nearly fell over as Caboose practically bounced out of his chair, grabbed his coat, and jaunted over to the door. "Thanks for taking over, dude, I was totally dying of boredom! There's some leftover Chinese on the desk over there, Sarge is gonna be out of the office until tomorrow, so he won't be coming to check up on anyone. What else was there…? Oh yeah, I completely forgot to turn on all the firewalls and security programs, so anyone could just log in and take over the entire system if they had wireless access. It's a good thing you're not a criminal, or we would be in big trouble. Whelp, good night!"

And with that, he slammed the door behind him and walked away. The befuddled police officer stared at the door open-mouthed…before she removed their cap and revealed that she weren't a police office, but a Faunus girl with piercing-gold eyes and a pair of cat ear twitching on the top of her head. The Faunus girl blinked once…twice…three time, almost expecting the whole exchange to be a joke and that Caboose would walk back in any moment now when he realized his mistake.

He didn't.

"Well, that was unexpectedly easy," she said, scratching her head.

BLAKE BELLADONNA – THE MOLE

Once it became apparent that Officer Caboose wasn't coming back, Blake took his seat and rolled up to the computer terminal. She pulled out a white flash drive from her pocket and inserted it into the USB port. A red light flickered at the end of the flash drive before it turned a steady green. Blake turned her attention to the wall of screens, watching one of the monitors flicker back and forth for a moment before it was replaced by a blue screen with a white snowflake emblem.

"All right, I'm in," Weiss reported.

"Accessing all data files, overriding command locks," Weiss mumbled to herself, her fingers flying across the keypads. "My god, it's like they want us to break in. They literally have no defenses."

"We can thank the guard for that," said Blake. "He didn't exactly seem like the brightest bulb."

"Just a few more keystrokes aaaaand…," Weiss said with a satisfying click. "Done! All cameras are on a continuous loop and outer security has been shut down. We're in the clear."

"I still say I should have been part of the plan," an annoying grumble came from the front.

Weiss hanged her head with an agitated sigh, turning in her chair to face the woman in the driver's seat. Her lilac-colored eyes were drooped in a bored expression as she leaned over the back of her seat, her chin resting on her folded arms, and her wild, untamable golden-blonde hair just hanging everywhere. The blonde woman was pouting like an overgrown child, which, Wiess reminded herself, she was. She gave Weiss those big, round puppy eyes and her lower lip quivers sadly. Unfortunately for her, that didn't work on Wiess – she couldn't never match up against Ruby's pouty face.

"When we need a wrecking ball to tear the place down, we'll let you know, Xiao-Long," said Weiss coolly, returning to her computer.

"Jeez, you are one cold bi – " the blonde woman started.

YANG XIAO-LONG – THE MUSCLE

"Can't we leave you two alone for five minutes?" asked Blake exasperatedly.

"They're fire and ice – they're gonna butt heads unless we're babysitting them," said Ruby knowingly.

"I don't need a babysitter," Yang complained, turning forward and crossing her arms. "I just don't like sitting around while my baby sister and girlfriend are on a dangerous job."

"Yang, we all agreed this was for the best," said Blake soothingly; Yang mumbled something under her breath. "Just get the van ready to go in case we need a quick exit. If we pull this off, we can have a nice night, just the two of us."

"You mean like that night in Cabo?" Yang said with a toothy smile, her voice practically purring. "That was pretty wild, even for my standards. I feel bad for the maid who had to clean until the hotel room after we left. There was whip cream everywhere – "

"WE DON'T NEED TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR NIGHTY ACTIVITIES!" Weiss screech, her face flaring up.

"They don't always happen at night…," Yang teased.

"GOD DAMN IT, YANG!"

"Can we focus on the job here, please," Ruby pleaded.

"All right, it should be simple from here," said Weiss. "With the security down, you should be able to get through the ventilation shaft on the north side of the building."

"All right, I'm going in," said Ruby. "Blake, get out and head back to the van. I'll meet up with you once I grab the file from the office."

"If Weiss has control of their tech, why don't we just pull the file straight from their computers?" asked Yang.

"We discussed this a hundred times, Yang," Weiss groaned. "You-know-who has the file, right? They're smart enough to know that we would try to pull the data from their computer. They're keep a physical copy locked up in their office, and Ruby has to steal it directly."

"Gotta hand it to them, though," said Ruby. "They really get us."

"That's not a good thing," said Wiess. "Hurry up and retrieve the file so we can get out of here."

Ruby cut of the coms, turned, and dashed along the edge of the building before jumping off to the next rooftop. Getting to the top of the INTERPOL headquarters was much easier now that she didn't have to worry about the cameras spotting her and alerting the whole building of her presence. The red-hooded thief looped around a water tower, bounced off a flagpole, and soared to the station, rolling onto the roof and stopping at a crouch. Ruby cautiously peeked over the edge down toward the entrance where a group of officers were walking in – none of them had noticed her. Still, not to take any chances, the Rose Thief crossed the roof low to the ground and found the opening to the air vent.

She grabbed the grate and pulled. It was bolted shut. Not a problem, she thought to herself. Ruby reached into her backpack and whipped out Crescent Rose, her trusty tool for thieving. At first appearance, it just looked like an oversized pocket knife, but with the press of a button, it transformed very sharp scythe (even if Weiss says it looks more like a climbing axe, dumb Weiss). When her adopted mother made the weapon for Ruby, the red hooded girl wanted to make it eight feet tall, but the woman denied her request, saying that an overgrown scythe wasn't practical for a thief. Now that she was older, Ruby agreed that it was a little ridiculous, but it would've been so cool!

Ruby jammed Crescent Rose into the corner of the grate and applied pressure, popping the vent cover right off its hinges. She returned Crescent Rose to her backpack, then got on her hands and knees and started crawling into the vent, moving very slowly so that she didn't make any noise. Ruby had been through a lot of vents during her career as a thief, always full of dust and spiderwebs, but this one was thankfully spotless.

"Wow, the cleaning guys must get paid very well," said Ruby; the shaft practically sparkled!

"Thank god, no laundry tonight," Yang sounded relieved.

"You're practically there," said Weiss. "Their office is right on this floor. Go straight at the first intersection, then take two lefts, then a right, then go straight until the end. The last grate should lead into their office."

Ruby followed the instructions, carefully moving at what felt like a snail's pace as she slithered around the metal maze; her body felt chillier since she was going against the air conditioning – who turned on the AC in the middle of October?! Several times, Ruby had to stop moving when she heard a pair of officers walking around below, stilling her breathing until she was sure they had passed. Ruby took a wrong turn once or twice, but Weiss was quick to correct her and got her along the right path. In no time at all, Ruby came up to the last vent at the end of the tunnel and peeked through the grate. The office was empty – perfect. She used Crescent Rose to pop the grate open again and dropped down.

The office was ridiculous levels of tidy in Ruby's unprofessional opinion. Everything was stacked neat and clean and everything was placed like it had all been lined up by an edge ruler. Even the personal photos on the desk were in a single file line approximately four centimeters apart. They really needed to get out more, Ruby thought.

The only thing that was in slight disarray was the giant corkboard on the back wall, pinned with dozens of photos consisting of Ruby and her gang along with various news clippings and internet screenshots, all connected by red strings on a global map.

"Wow, I'm impressed," said Ruby, looking over the conspiracy board. "It's flattering that they're so persistent."

"Don't be," said Weiss. "Just hurry up and locate that file."

Ruby started searching the quarters, going through the six different filing cabinets – which were all alphabetized, of course – checked underneath the tables and tapped the walls for a hidden safe. But when she got around to the desk, she found out that she didn't have to look too far. A manila folder was just sitting there; a snapshot of Ruby's face paperclipped at the top and the tag had her name printed on it along with a small stamp in the corner with the words "High Priority Case".

"Hey, Weiss, I found it," said Ruby. "It was just sitting here on the desk."

"Wait…," said Weiss slowly. "You found a top secret, highly-classified document in THAT person's office…just lying out in the open?"

"Yeah, they just left it where anyone can find it," said Ruby cheerfully. It took a moment before her mind processed those words, at which point her smile quickly dropped. "Oh no…."

"Oh, yes."

Before she even felt the cool metal against the back of her head, Ruby knew she had screwed up. She held her hands above her head, though still holding on to the file. She felt the gun make a gesture against her hair and Ruby slowly turned around until she was staring into the cold, icy-blue eyes of her assailant.

The woman had a familiar shade of white hair tied into a bun that curved her bangs to cover the right side of her face. Her attire was nothing like the drab matching uniforms of the police; it had a regal look to it, like the clothes worn by a Victorian gentleman, something Ruby would appreciate if she didn't have the barrel of a gun pressed against her forehead.

The thief wondered how the woman managed to sneak up on her without noticing; there was no place for such a tall person to hide when Ruby searched the room. But a glance over the woman's shoulder showed there was an open window behind her, leading to a fire escape. Ah, so that's how she did it. She must have been waiting for Ruby all night…. Ruby's silver eyes snapped forward again when the woman tapped her head with the gun to regain her attention.

"Don't even think of running, Rose," the woman said in a low voice. "I've caught you red-handed. Or red-hooded, as the case may be."

"Winter…hey, how's it going?" said Ruby nervously. "I see your hair grew back after that incident in Mumbai."

"Speaking of which, you have yet to return the Ruby Eye of Mumbadevi to its rightful owner," said Winter sternly.

"Yeah, you see…I was gonna give it back, but then this thing came up, and – "

"Save it," Winter grimaced. "Three years I've been chasing your little gang ever since you kidnapped my sister and strong-armed her into working for you. Now I have you right where I want you."

"For the record, Weiss was the one that came up with the idea for the kidnapping," Ruby commented lightly. "She's the one that tricked us into thinking we had a big score – "

"I've heard enough out of you," Winter hissed, pushing Ruby back a little with her gun. "Your global crime spree ends now."

Back in the van, Weiss, Blake, and Yang had been sitting in, listening to the conversation as it was happening. Without warning, Yang pounded the dashboard with a furious growl and started reaching for the door when Blake threw herself over her lover and stopped her by the wrist.

"Yang, what do you think you're doing?" cried Blake.

"I'm gonna rescue my sister! What does it look like?" Yang snapped, trying to throw the Faunus off.

"You can't just go running in there without a plan!" Blake yelled back, struggling to hold her grip.

"Just watch me!" Yang yelled.

"Whoa, calm down there, Winter," Ruby spoke carefully over the coms, enunciating certain words. "You've got me. I'll stay put. Gotta say, you really know how to drive a point. Why don't park that gun back where you got it. There's not a whole lot I can do since you cut off my getaway."

"You hear that," said Blake when Yang visibly started calming down. "She's fine. Ruby has a plan – she always has a plan. We need to get ready to pick her up when she gets out."

Yang, still sour-faced, dropped her hand away from the door handle and rubbed her temple with an irritable sigh. The blonde brute too a deep breath, calming the last of her nerves, before she turned over the engine and drove the van out of the alleyway, her tires screeching into the night.

Winter pushed Ruby back several paces until they were in the center of the room, likely intentional to keep the Rose Thief from using any nearby objects that would help her escape the situation. And Ruby had to admit that Winter was smart to do that, but she neglected to take the case file that was still in the thief's hands. She possibly didn't think that Ruby would use a bunch of papers to her advantage; Ruby was going to prove her wrong.

"Hands behind your head and don't try anything funny," said Winter sternly as she presented a pair of handcuffs. "With any luck, the next thirty years behind bars will teach you the error of your criminal ways."

"As lovely as that sounds, I don't have any plans of going to jail until I'm an old hag," said Ruby playfully, her hands still raised in the air. "Now, I would love to stay and chat, but I just dropped by to pick up this case file. There're a few old scores I need to settle and your brilliant detective work might help me do that. So I'll just be leaving."

"And how do you plan on doing that?" asked Winter suspiciously.

"Like this."

Ruby flicked her wrist and tossed the folder into the air near the ceiling. Winter's eyes followed the case file subconsciously, and in that moment, Ruby swiftly dropped down and took a spinning kick to Winter's ankles. The INTERPOL officer let out a cute, girlish yelp that Ruby just thought was adorable as she fell forward, landing facedown on the carpet. Before Winter could get back up, Ruby snatched the case file out of the air and made a dash for the open window and onto the fire escape. Before she left, however, Ruby reached into her backpack, plucked out a single red rose that she grew herself, and dropped it on the windowsill.

A good thief always leaves a calling card.

Her cloak whipped behind her as Ruby raced down the stairs four steps at a time. She heard a pair of boots clatter on the metal above her, knowing that Winter was already on her tail. Ruby was on the bottom platform and was climbing down the ladder when a gunshot rang out and something whizzed past her left ear. Ruby looked up with a frightened gasp. Winter had forgone chasing after Ruby and was leaning over the railing, shooting her pistol from an angle. The red-hooded thief quickly slid down the rest of the way and took off as another bullet came dangerously close to her knees.

She had ended up in the INTERPOL parking lot. Ruby shoved her way past a couple of officers, who watched her run past dumbfoundedly when another gunshot made them drop to the ground in a panic, throwing their hands over their heads. The officers craned their heads up as Winter came sliding down from the fire escape.

"Get up, you idiot!" Winter howled, taking another shot. "It's Ruby Rose! She's getting away!"

At the mention of the global thief, the officers immediately bounced back up and whipped out their pistols. Ruby would be honored to get such a reaction from the authorities if they didn't start taking potshots at her back.

The Rose Thief weaved her way back and forth between the cars as all three INTERPOL agents started shooting up the parking lot. Most of their shots were wild and untrained. They broke several windows and left more than a dozen bullet holes in the patrol vehicles, not showing any signs of stopping, which made absolutely zero sense considering their guns shouldn't even be holding that many rounds.

Ruby rushed toward the end of the parking lot when a pair of screeching tires alerted her to what was up ahead. She felt relieved when a rose-patterned van expertly parked itself backwards into the lot. The doors flew open and Blake hurriedly gestured Ruby, yelling, "Get it, quick!" Ruby dived headlong insides just as Blake slammed the doors behind her; a repeated rattling filled the van as the bullets slammed the back doors.

"FLOOR IT!" Ruby shouted to Yang.

The blonde all but slammed her heels on the accelerator and the rest of the team was thrown back as the van suddenly went from a zero to a hundred in just a few seconds. Once they leveled out on the thankfully empty stretch of road ahead, Ruby crawled her way up to the passenger's seat and threw herself down with a relieved sigh. In the side mirror, Ruby could faintly make out Winter throwing her gun to the ground, possibly screaming a lot of expletives, before she faded into the background.

"Phew, that was a close one," said Ruby, immediately regaining her chipper tone. "Good work, gang! We gave Winter the slip yet again!"

"Not without filling my baby with more holes," Yang complained, caressing the dashboard like it was a puppy. "Did that mean old Ice Queen hurt you, sweetie?"

"I thought I was your sweetie," said Blake teasingly.

"Aw, you know I love you both equally," Yang declared with a playful laugh.

"Don't know how I feel about that," said Blake blankly.

"Winter was really pissed this time," said Weiss, clattering back to her chair. "I haven't seen her that mad since I was four years old and accidentally tore off the ears of her favorite stuffed bunny."

"Probably still mad about the hair thing," said Yang. "I know I would be."

"I hope whatever's in the file is worth all the trouble we went through," said Blake with a sharp glance toward their leader.

"Speaking of which, what is in that file?" asked Weiss. "You never told us why you wanted it. What makes it so important."

There was a moment where Ruby was hesitant to answer, something that neither Weiss nor Blake had ever seen before. It looked like she was contemplating whether or not she should actually give an answer and turned to Yang for help. Of everyone here, Yang was the only one that understood the importance of the file and why Ruby was determined to get it. She had a serious look in her eyes as she returned Ruby's gaze, slowly nodded in silence before turning her eyes back on the road, which led to the outskirts of Vale City. Ruby looked at the file thoughtfully one last time before she turned around in her seat, leaning over the backrest as she faced Weiss and Blake with an unnaturally serious expression.

"You two have stood by us these last three years and we owe you for that," said Ruby softly. "And if we're going to go through with this, you should know what you're getting yourselves into."

"I already don't like it," said Weiss, crossing her arms.

"Ruby, just tell us what you're planning," Blake asked kindly.

"Okay…," said Ruby slowly, uncertainly. "The reason why we had to get this file is because I need it to avenge my family and get back our most valuable treasure."

"Avenge your family?" Weiss murmured surprisingly. "You never talked about your family before."

"That's because it's not a happy story," said Ruby sadly. "To really understand what happened, I need to go all the way back to the beginning…the very beginning."

Hey, look at that, another parody. Anyone who is surprised that me, the Queen of Copycats, would be writing another parody, raise your hand. What? No one? Didn't think so.

I was replaying the Sly Cooper series one day out of nostalgia when it just clicked in my head and I ended up making this. Honestly, this was just done on a whim and I have no real obligation to finish it like the Akko Kagari series and the Serenity Academy Series. This will probably be mostly used to give me something to do whenever I am in the middle of writer's block, to get my creative brain functioning again. So I'm telling you ahead of time not to expect an update every week or something. That being said, here's a basic rundown of the characters.

Ruby – the thief and main character. She makes a perfect Sly replacement with her speed, acrobatic skills, and she has Crescent Rose like Sly has his cane. She's the technical leader of the gang, but it's the rest of the team that mostly does the planning and inventing while Ruby handles the field work.

Weiss – In this universe, Weiss is a genius hacker and serves as the team's coordinator, but she's not an inventor like Bently and can't just make machines and fancy gadgets to save the day. Her job mostly consists of aiding the team remotely, which comes in handy when most of the world runs on computers.

Blake – like the sneaky ninja that she is, Blake is the team's mole. She is a master of disguise and expertly plants herself inside their targeted locations without anyone knowing she's not supposed to be there. Her job is mostly to trick the guards into moving somewhere else while Ruby goes for the target.

Yang – As you might expect, Yang is the team's muscle and getaway driver. She is the strongest of the whole team and has been trained in almost every known form of combat. Unlike in canon, however, Yang isn't related to Ruby by blood, but she has known Ruby the longest and treat each other like sisters.

Anyway, tell me what you think. I repeat that I have no real obligations of finishing this. Maybe when I get through the other stories, I'll consider running this full time, but for now, it's just a playful little side venture, one that you hopefully enjoy.