AN: This is a Rewrite that is technically not a "rewrite" because this isn't a "fix-it" type fic. My main goal is to make the characters and story interesting, and if that involves some canon deviation then so be it.

A couple canon changes of note: there are no Aura/Semblance in this rewrite universe. Instead superpowers are tied to specific weapons. Each weapon is crafted from Dust cores/batteries and there is a limit to how much Dust a weapon can carry. Grimm are not monsters, instead they are a type of virus that can infect and power up any living being, including human/Faunus.

Once upon a time, there was a dear young girl, riding red radiantly down to where the trees would often sing. The songs of the red echoed from ear to ear, telling anyone willing to listen of the ghost who would hunt the wolves of these woods.

Some called this ghost a guardian angel, others deemed it a demon. But remember those who hath passed on tragically as crimson painted the stones, taken by the beasts of the night. Remember those who traveled these roads as traders, merchants or kings. Remember the daughters who would ride into Vale to mourn the Grimmed flesh and blood spilled wastefully.

Remember the Red Riding Ghost of the woods who kept watch over those who would travel, to stop the blood spilling wastefully.

(Excerpts from the Book of Spring's Chronicles)

"Please, just… just give me a couple more days… I'll pay you back, I promise," the old shopkeeper begged. Right before being slapped right across his cheek.

These goons had no respect for the elderly. Or anybody else for that matter. They liked to dress proper, in their fancy black suits and crimson ties, but everybody who lived around these neighborhoods knew well that they were nothing but wolves. The Seasons know they tried to hide it, but their true nature will eventually come out, they always do.

"What goes around comes around," said one of the goons as he pulled out an automatic rifle, "now, we're going to do this the easy way, or the hard way."

"Come now my friend," a devilish voice echoed from the entrance of the shop, "that's no way to treat an acquaintance to the family."

And emerging from the shadows came this slender confident figure striding through with a cigar in his mouth, lighting up beneath the shade of his bowler hat. His white coat was bright as diamonds, and he felt untouchable, unbreakable, shining in the darkness that hid his face away beneath the fiery colored hair. His green eyes glowed with greed, terror, trembling the shopkeeper to the point of near paralysis.

"You… you… you're supposed to be dead!" The shopkeeper stammered, "It was in the news!"

Roman smirked beneath the spark of the cigar:

"People like to say a lot of things, old friend. What they often forget, or don't realize is that I, Roman Torchwick – am invincible. I have never been caught, and I intend to keep it that way. So I ask again, are you going to pay what you owe the family, or do we have to get physical here? I'd prefer if I didn't have to clean up the bits."

"Okay, okay, fine," the shopkeeper trembled, "there's a bunch of cash in the back. I keep it in a safe. The combination is five, three…"

"Shhhhhh," Roman put a finger over his lips, interrupting the old man, "don't try to stall us with money, Airon. How long have you been here in the business? Ten, twenty years?"

"Twenty three years, three months and fifteen days," said Airon.

"Then you know full well that money means nothing to me," Roman flicked his unfinished cigar to the side, "the Torchwick family deals in favors. You want to know why?" He smirked, "because we're a family."

"I can't give you any more of my guns, Roman. The Huntsmen are hot on my trails for all those times I let you and your men skip out on the background checks. They're closing in on me."

A loud sharp clanking noise echoed in the back of the shop, cutting their conversation off short. Some of the rifles in the corner must have been knocked over. Somebody was in the shop with them, Roman thought to himself, unsure of why or how they got here despite the fact his men cleared everybody out the moment they arrived.

The grimace on Roman's brows began to show, he wasn't exactly worried. His Ability was still unbeatable, no one had ever been able to catch him before. But better safe than sorry he always said. He wasn't about to let his record be tainted by a careless mistake.

"You," he whistled to one of his goons, "go check to see what it is."

Something wasn't right about the sound they heard. There was no additional noise of whoever it was scrambling on their feet and running away. Roman couldn't pick up the sound of their breath either. Maybe they were breathing very quietly or they were dead. Both of which were unlikely.

Instead of seeing some poor unfortunate sod being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the goon ran into a small figure covered in a red cloak. The figure looked like a child, or maybe a really short teen. It was difficult to make out their face, obscured by the silent cloth of the crimson shadow. There was a certain enigmatic aura coming from the way they were standing completely still, enough to put the goon on edge and had his finger on his pistol's trigger.

"Whoever you are, come on out now," the goon cried out, "come out and put your hands in the air."

Silence. No answer.

The goon looked back to Roman, feeling a bit more anxious now. But the boss man's glare did not waver. Continuously glimmering with his command.

"I said come out!" Cried the goon, "Are you deaf?"

Still no answer.

"I swear," he walked over in a huff, "if you're not deaf, I'll make sure you'll never hear again."

With one swift motion, the man yanked off the cloak covering the figure.

Only to reveal that this wasn't actually a person.

It was a potted plant, growing at an extraordinary rate, while simultaneously shining with a radiant golden glow and a beaming green light sparkling at the root. Dust – they were Dust. There was nobody back here this whole time. The growing plant was the thing that knocked the rifles off their stands. But why?

"What d'you find, son?" Roman called out from afar.

"Nobody here, boss," he answered, "just a weird plant for some reason."

"What? Let me see."

Little did they know – on the building right across the shop was a lone sniper, waiting for the opportune moment to take her shot. The moment when her trap would be set in motion.

"Jackpot!" She whispered under her breath.

"Hmm?"

A shot was fired.

Its sound echoed so loud and glorious, like the bells of the church ringing for time of worship, or the flapping of the wings of eagles flying towards their prey, snatching it before it even noticed. The echo of the metal, the soaring wind, the crushing of the skull, and the crimson paint. The phantom struck once more, and she had hit her mark perfectly.

"EVERYBODY GET DOWN!" Roman shouted, "Sniper on the roof, ten o'clock!"

But it was already too late.

Like a brief gust of the wind, a silent breath of the leaves, or a crimson whisper of a phantom, the bullets swiftly found their targets during the chaos of the trap. It happened so fast, there was barely any time to react. Roman quickly realized the horrible truth.

He was the only one alive.

It was such a rudimentary trap, a mere diversion. Just a bit of Water and Earth Dust combined to make the plant grow at an extraordinary rate, up to a whopping twenty feet in mere seconds, knocking over the other guns and Dust cases on the above shelves in the process. Just a split second of distraction made all the difference in the world.

The mobster quickly scrambled to his feet, grabbing his cane and bolted right out the entrance of the shop. Leaving his dead men in a bloody mess behind, drowning in the red.

But Ruby wasn't about to let this man get away.

The sniper on the roof was she, the one and only Ruby Rose. Sixteen year old protégé of the legendary Huntsman Qrow Branwen. Wielder of one of the deadliest weapons ever crafted, Crescent Rose, a high functioning sniper scythe combination repurposed from what used to be an anti-material rifle, now with Dust compartments and extra upgrades that allowed rotating blades at high enough speed for it to spin around; almost like a wheel on a motorcycle.

And that was the name of the game for Ruby – speed. The deadly rotating blade that was originally meant to act as a buzz saw of sort was now mainly used as a makeshift vehicle of sort, allowing her to travel at breakneck speeds. Even up and down walls if she so wished. Controlling the weapon's Ability was a challenge, one she had not exactly mastered.

But that did not matter, for tonight, Ruby was determined to catch the wanted criminal known as Roman Torchwick, head of the Torchwick crime family. Not much was known about this mysterious gangster other than the fact that he was exceptionally slippery.

Ruby did not care much of the details, however. She was turning seventeen next month which meant she would be eligible to apply to go to Beacon Academy, one of the most prestigious Huntsmen schools in the world. Catching this lowlife mob boss would look extremely good on her application.

Now, Ruby could've just taken the shot here from the roof where she stood, and Roman would've been dead just like that. But she knew full well that Torchwick had fail-safes in precisely situations such as this, back up plans that would no doubt allow his operations and gang to continue flourishing even with him six feet under. There would be no doubt a chain of command that will persist as if nothing had happened.

In order to take him down for good, Ruby needed to bring him in.

So she packed her bullets and binoculars, secured her backpack, and got onto her Crescent Rose. She was running short on Dust, so she had hoped to call it a day after riding down this building. Apprehending Roman should be easy now that all his goons were dead.

The rotating blade spun furiously, it was almost fascinating to watch as it carved a straight path down the solid brick wall of the building with sparks of steel flying everywhere as she rode. The exhilarating feeling of traveling vertically downwards at that speed will never fail to get a kick out of Ruby. This was what she lived for.

Ruby was certain that Roman had already seen her coming from a mile away, but it did not matter now. She got him exactly where she wanted. She might as well pull up with a whole parade for all the difference it would make.

"Prepare yourself, evil doers!" Ruby shouted as she gracefully jumped off of Crescent Rose, posing with the gigantic weapon held up behind her back, "For it is I, the courageous and righteous Red Rider, hero of Metroland!"

"So…" Roman clenched his fist, "you are the brat who murdered all my men. You're going to pay for what you did, you hear? I refuse to be undone by a child in her little superhero costume playing make-believe."

"Oh, believe it, Torchwick," Ruby smirked. "I already called the Vale Police Department, they already had a team dispatched to this location as we speak, accompanied by a professional Huntsman to boot."

"Heh, the VPD are a bunch of incompetent buffoons," Roman sneered, still with a hint of desperation in his eyes. "I have never been caught by any of those idiots before, and I'm not about to start now. You are meddling with things you don't understand."

Roman raised his cane, and to Ruby's surprise, a reticle rose from the tip of the base, demonstrating to her that it was clearly modified to be a rifle of some kind. She was not afraid however, as she was confident in her ability to react against his projectiles, not to mention the difference in raw power between the two weapons were night and day.

"I'm giving you a chance to walk away right now, Little Red," said Roman, "and I'll forget ever seeing you tonight. You don't want to mess with the Torchwick family. I am invincible. No matter how strong you think your Ability is, I guarantee you, my Ability will outclass it."

"Let's bet on it then," said Ruby, readying her scythe, "I can travel with my weapon up to where you are and cut you up into pieces in less than a blink of an eye, no more than a few seconds. I'll turn you into ribbons."

"Perhaps…"

Then from the corner of his mouth emerged a confident smile, catching Ruby off guard. The green glint of his powerful eyes came back, as the desperation began to fade.

"You can try to cut me up, Red. But then you won't have enough time to save poor old Airon back there. I'm a very cautious man you see. All those men you killed? I made every one of them swallow a little time bomb in the case any one of their hearts happen to stop."

"WHAT?" Ruby cried, "You monster!"

"The clock's been ticking for a while now," Roman laughed. "And I'd say you have about less than ten seconds to get the shopkeeper out of the debris and into a safe distance. So what's it going to be, hero?"

"Dammit!"

Without a second thought, Ruby got on her Crescent Rose and put it on max speed, burning through the rest of her Dust reserves. She knew that she had just barely enough time to get the old man away from the blast zone, that meant Roman would be long gone by the time either of them gathered their bearings and got to their feet.

"So long, Little Red," Roman waved his hand as he disappeared into the night, "can't say it's been nice meeting ya, but just know that if you come after me again, you'll know the true power of my invincibility, and it'll be the last thing you'll ever see."

From behind the cashier counter, the old shopkeeper Airon knelt on the floor, with his hands over his head, still trembling from the gunshots that decimated his entire store. Ruby was able to swoop in quickly, grab him by the arm, and drag him away with her as she was being pulled by the spinning wheel of Crescent Rose.

She took a quick glance at the dead bodies littered around the shop, no more than a split second, and she could already see the Fire Dust igniting from the bombs they swallowed, swelling up their flesh like a balloon and inflating as the explosion quickly engulfed the entire gun store in its devilish hellfire.

"GET DOWN!" Ruby shouted, shielding the old man from the forceful blast as they barely got outside the reach of the danger zone.

Thankfully this part of the street was not thick in traffic at all, especially at this late hour, so there was no real casualty from any random passerby. The old man Airon did suffer a few light bruises from the crumbling debris though. Nothing a good night sleep couldn't fix, thankfully.

What was much more concerning for Ruby, however, was the distant siren of police vehicles as the red lights slowly turned from the far corner of the street, getting closer and closer by the minute. The gun store was blown to smithereens, the streets and the walls were carved with traces of a scythe blade, and the biggest mob boss of the city managed to get away, leaving behind nothing but corpses of his former goons, none of whom could be interrogated for obvious reasons.

"I'm in so much trouble, aren't I?" Ruby laughed nervously.

Behind bars, Ruby had only dreamed of this moment. In her pursuit to make her application look much nicer, she ended up spilling the whole bottle of ink on the paper, staining the entire thing.

Her father did not look happy at all talking to the chief of police. Why would he be? His daughter was in jail for crying out loud. The strange thing about it was that Ruby was a lot less concerned about how much he was going to scold her and more about whether he was going to tattle to her Uncle Qrow. She didn't want her uncle to think she was less cool by being a delinquent.

That and she was worried about the potted plant, too. Thank the Seasons for Mistralian Leather; with her hood covering the plant, the explosion prevented it from being damaged too severely. The root was still intact but the radiation from the Earth Dust was starting to wear off, and now it was withering away like an ancient oak. This was her sister's plant, too, the one she told Ruby to look after while she was gone. With that revelation Ruby began brewing up believable lies for when her sister gets back. Maybe a truck ran over it or a stray cat was gnawing away at the roots when she wasn't looking, or even a homeless man, hobos do love to gnaw. Somebody should get them some dental care.

Her father furiously stormed over to Ruby's cell as she was still thinking up of excuses for the plant, banging his fist against the bars to startle her out of her thoughts.

"What were you thinking?" He grunted, biting on his own fingers, "Do you have any idea… do you even… what were you… burn? Shop? ARGH!"

"I know this looks bad, but I swear, dad," she continued to laugh nervously, "there's a perfectly good explanation for all this. I wasn't the one who burned down that shop, you can ask the shopkeeper Airon himself. He helped me set up this trap, he was in on the plan. I was 'this' close to catching Roman Torchwick. THE Godfather Torchwick."

"Ha, you expect me to believe this wild story? Roman is dead," her father smirked.

"You have got to stop reading the funny papers, dad. All the serious news sources are moving to digital nowadays."

"Do they have the daily crossword puzzles?"

"Uh oh."

"Thought so."

"Bah, I'm serious, dad," Ruby cried out, "I've been tailing this guy for weeks. I even have video footage. Roman Torwick faked his own death, I can prove it."

Her father clenched his fist as he let fumes escape out of his nose and his ears. He clearly wanted to object, his gut and muscle memory dictated him so. Fortunately, his gut and his brain were two different things. Tense as it was, he swiftly banged his head hard against the metal bars – breathing a long sigh of defeat. The anger subsided quickly, but for him it lasted for a whole hundred years. Those anger management class must've worked wonders on him, Ruby thought. He really didn't want to lose his 50 day anger free sticker.

"I worry for you, you know?" He said, looking down. "If anything were to happen to you… I don't know what I would do with myself."

Ruby stood up, now more relaxed and calm, placing her warm hands onto her father's. She would've hugged him so tightly if it wasn't for the metal bars separating the two of them.

"I have two of the strongest men in the world to train me," Ruby smiled, "I know I'll always be fine because I know you'll always be here with me," she said, pointing towards her heart.

Her father sighed once more, now as a sign of relief:

"I love you, Ruby."

"Love you, too, dad."

"Um… Mister Xiao Long," the police chief waved from afar, "a minute of your time, please?"

"Be right there," he waved back to them. "I'll go over there and finish filing out the bail, be back in a bit."

"Hurry, don't know if I can stay in here any longer," Ruby whispered, "Yang's plant is dying, and the sleeping drunk old man in the corner is really freaking me out."

"Heh, you hang around your uncle all day, every day. I think you'll be fine," Mister Xiao Long winked before giving a quick peck on her forehead. It was amazing how fast he skedaddled off to the police chief. This must've been his punishment for Ruby.

It shouldn't take too long, though. It wasn't like this jail cell was hell on earth or anything. Tonight was a tamer night than usual it seemed, only one drunk old man arrested for partying too hard if Ruby had to assume. The smell of booze was strangely disappearing from the cell however, just as Ruby was looking around the facility, scanning the four walls covering the two of them.

And then… the old man was up and awake.

Ruby nearly jumped out from where she sat at the sight of the drunk old man sitting straight up. He wasn't sloppily passed out anymore despite his gruff exterior. There the grey bushy beard covering his face and the tattered leather cloth he covered himself with, now seemingly coming together to form a much cleaner sober man as he sat straight up from his slouching slumber.

His eyes – they glinted of green, mysterious, hiding away his true nature.

Ruby stood back, readying herself in a defensive position, just in case he was going to pounce at her. He did not look hostile, however. It was hard to tell from his posture and position. You could never be too safe, though.

"You… you have…" the old man spoke out in a surprisingly light voice, catching Ruby off guard and tensing herself up even further. He continued after a brief pause: "you have… something in your eyes."

"What?" Ruby raised her hand to her face, and sure enough, he was right, "Oh dang, I've been staying up for about two days now. I'll be taking a long nap after all this is over."

"That nap will have to wait I'm afraid," said the old man. "There are pressing matters to attend to."

"What do you mean?"

"Is it true?" He looked at her with a stone cold determined pair of eyes, "Is Roman… really alive?"

Ruby rested a bit easier from her tensed pose, knowing the old man might not be out to get her as he first looked.

She nodded her head:

"It's true. I saw him with my own eyes. I've been tailing him for a long time, I have countless hours of footage to prove it. Once I take them to the press, it'll only be a matter of time before he is flushed out of his hiding place."

"And you are positive that it is him? Not some kind of double, or lookalike? Or maybe…" the old man paused, stroking his silver beard, "a weapon's Ability?"

"Heh, come on," Ruby smirked, "you and I both know those kinds of weapons are not possible with current technology. Besides, even if he were a double, the footage still shows behaviors that are just too close to the original for him to be fake. I've built a psychological profile of him, you see. I took a whole course of it back at Signal Academy."

"Torchwick is a slippery man, you know? Legend has it, the man has never been caught in his entire life. Not even his coworker, his subordinates, or even his own family knows for sure where he is at all times."

"Well, legends say a lot of things, and not all of them are true."

"Regardless, he is a cautious man," the old man stared straight into Ruby's gaze. "Not only that, he is also a brilliant chess master. Always allowing his opponent to think he is only one step ahead of them when in fact he is ten steps above and beyond. You were his opponent tonight, and he has treated you no differently from any of his other enemies, Red Rider."

Ruby spun her head as a small blush appeared on her cheeks, almost as if ashamed of her little superhero name she so brazenly shouted out earlier on in the night.

"How did you know… ahem… my name?"

The old man chuckled:

"Despite how I look, I am also what the kids would call… a comic book reader."

"It was just the latest issue, I swear. Just picked it up because I was curious is all."

"Latest issue for an 80 year old character? Ha!"

Ruby crossed her arms as her cheeks got redder:

"Alright fine, you got me. I've been dressing up as the Red Rider when I was a little kid, happy? The hood was just too cool not to wear."

"I think you bear more a striking resemblance to the Red Riding Ghost than you do the gentleman in the graphic novel," the old man smiled.

"No way, that's just some kid's fairy tale. And that's not cool at all."

"You do have to admit, a single Red figure, killing a pack of wolves in the middle of the dead silent forest of the night? I don't know if I believe in fate, but it's like you took the pages right out of those old scriptures, word for word."

"Whatever, old man, you wouldn't understand."

The old man's smile suddenly faded, just as he began leaning forward.

"Try me then," he said.

"What?"

"Try me. I want to understand – why did you do it?"

"Do what now? You mean kill all those gangsters? I mean, in my defense those were some horrible men who were going to get the death penalty anyway and…"

"No, not that," he cut her off, "why did you find Torchwick?"

And that caught Ruby slightly off guard. The old man continued, staring at her with great concentration:

"You got nothing to lose if you had just walked away or never pursued him in the first place. Let the more experienced Huntsmen or the police handle it. So why did you do it?"

Ruby fell silent briefly, gathering her thoughts as well as a deep breath. It seemed like some kind of tense interrogation at first, but once she searched deep in her heart to find herself, it all came to her more naturally than breathing, than walking.

"You really want to know the truth?" She asked, as the old man nodded. Ruby continued: "Well… the truth is… I want to be a hero."

The old man raised an eyebrow, but allowed her to explain:

"Not for the glory, fame or because of some kind of selfish or self-righteous sense of morality. I… I don't really know. Both my dad and my uncle are heroes. And my sister? Heh… she's a hero, too. In my eyes anyway. But for me… I never had to take up any kind of responsibility. Not as they have. I'm only a few months younger than my sister, but because I was born at the end of the year, I was often treated as if I was a full year younger. She took up responsibility so I wouldn't have to. I guess you can call it my sense of duty… or whatever. But at the end of the day… I want to do it – because it's right."

And thus, to Ruby's utmost surprise – the old man smiled.

Not only did he smile, he stood up from where he sat, as if he hadn't been drunk the entire night. Swiftly in one direct motion to tear off his silver beard, revealing a young man's face. The face was familiar, too familiar, definitely someone she had seen on the news. Ruby just couldn't quite place her finger on it.

The man thus then asked her one final question:

"Do you want a chance to show the world what's right?"

The sun was coming up, revealing a bright green shine in the old man's emerald eyes.

"I can give you that chance," he said. "Come to the department of education office tomorrow, the one near the airship field. Go there and put in your application for Beacon Academy. I'll tell the receptionist that you're coming. Do it before noon… and I'll personally escort you to my school."

Ruby sat there widening her eyes, frozen with her jaw on the ground. At this point dropping the potted plant wouldn't even mean anything to her, because it was already dropped on the floor, shattered into pieces.

She didn't even have time to react to the mess she made, or time to clean them up, or even time to look back up and thank the man, for she had now finally remembered who he was. It was just too late.

Because Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy, was already gone by the time the sun was up. Left without a single trace, as if everything that had happened was just a dream.

Far in the distance, outside the police department, in a mirror shop from afar, stood a young girl with beautiful snow white hair, posing, admiring her own reflection. Glaring with great determination and desire to kill the Red Rider.

To be continued…