Author's Note: Hey, all! With RWBY coming back from it's long break, I am also coming back from my long break of writing things that aren't RWBY. Okay, this is technically Agents of Beacon, but... um... that's RWBY-ish. And I'm the author, so I'm always right.

... Enjoy!

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Orange is the New Weiss

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Chapter One

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It really should have been simple, and frankly Ruby felt this was what should have tipped her off to how wrong it would go.

The target was something entirely normal for them. Too normal, in fact. A faunus, and a large one, had mauled a pair of campers; just a couple, out on a trip to enjoy the woods. It wouldn't have registered on Beacon's radar, save for the fact the wife had barely survived, and insisted constantly and in a state of extreme panic, that her husband had been killed not by a bear or a wolf, but by a lion.

It was an event that seemed to have become increasingly common in the last few months, sadly... Ruby could hardly remember her last case which didn't involve a faunus in some way. To Weiss, who had never particularly cared for the faunus anyway ("I try my best, I really do, but they act like they're the only people in the world who face any discrimination and it gets old. I spent my entire childhood without any friends, and unlike some of them, I have never eaten people."), this was not hugely worrisome, but to Ruby, it seemed like a problem. There had always been outliers, of course, the radicals, but it seemed of late they were more radical than not.

And of course, more and more of Beacon's informants had been whispering the name of 'White Fang,' and nothing that any of them had heard suggested it was anything good at all.

So in general, the feeling around Beacon was one of intense discomfort, and Ruby couldn't help but bring that feeling into the field with her, despite herself. At least she had kept Weiss from noticing how on-edge she was, but-

"Ruby!" Weiss snapped. "Are you blind? You just walked right past that snapped sapling without even checking near it. Look, paw-prints, too big to be anything that lives in the area. We're on the right track."

"Oh! Um. Sorry, Weiss, I…"

"Don't apologize. Just do better," Weiss said. "I know you're nervous about those White Fang… people… but this is just like any other case until proven otherwise. Keep your head in the game and your eyes on the evidence."

Well. Okay, so much for keeping Weiss from noticing her worries. "Right. Yeah," she said, nodding a few times. Normally Blake or one of the other faunus agents was sent on these sorts of missions, tracking in the woods, but the upswing of radical faunus attacking civilians had made even someone as open-minded as Chief Ozpin cautious. He had absolute faith that none of his own chosen agents would be involved in something like this, of course; but it was impossible to feel that same faith about sending them out against those who were. How could you ask someone to hunt down, even kill, someone who might well very well be an old friend, or even family?

Ruby suspected that was one more reason for Weiss's obvious bitterness, frankly. When a yuki-onna or half-breed like herself was the problem, she was almost always the one sent in, as a specialist. It was not personal; faunus were common all over the world, and basically everyone in Beacon knew how to deal with them. Yuki-onna, in comparison, tended to live only in very cold climates, and were very insular. It was entirely possible that literally no other hunter in the entire world knew more about them than Weiss, either in terms of dealing with them diplomatically or stopping them when they went on a rampage.

Ruby knew her partner well enough to know this was not much of a comfort.

"Hold up," Weiss murmured, lowering her voice and raising a hand as she pushed aside a leafy branch. "I think we found something."

The clearing was small, and not particularly well-maintained. The trees were only barely kept back from the edge, and nobody had made any effort to stop grass and weeds from growing around it, leading to plant life nearly as tall as Ruby and Weiss themselves (not that they were short!). There were no beaten paths through it, and no signs of anyone tramping through the tall grass fact, had it not been for the thin line of smoke coming out of the chimney of the decrepit cabin in the center, they might have walked past, assuming it to be uninhabited.

But there was a thin line of smoke.

And you didn't become a Beacon agent without learning to spot when a place smelled, however faintly, of blood.

"Okay," Weiss said softly. "We're reasonably sure he's a faunus, so we really only have two possibilities here. Either he's asleep, and he doesn't know we're here. Or he's awake, and he almost certainly smells u-"

With a bloodcurdling roar, a mass of fur and fangs the size of a bear smashed through the door of the 'abandoned' cabin, the lion faunus lunging through the grass so quickly it was barely more than a blur under the pale moonlight. Had Ruby and Weiss been a pair of, say… innocent campers out on a nature hike, they would certainly have been killed in an instant.

Of course… this was a big 'if'.

Weiss slammed her palm into the ground with nearly the same inhuman quickness as the lion, and the thick evening mist of the forest coalesced into into ice; not very high, but coating half the clearing.

And spiky. Very, very spiky.

The leaping faunus stumbled, snarling in mixed pain and fury as the spikes shot up from the ground and clipped its legs. The thing tumbled among the icy spears, most of them not piercing the thick hide, but enough doing so to piss the thing off. It crashed to its feet, ice shattering like glass, lines of red running down its coat. The lion roared its fury, a sound that these forests would never have heard in nature.

"Hiiiiiiii," Ruby said cheerfully, from right behind it.

The big cat whirled, a shockingly human expression of surprise on its face as it realized that one of the humans it had sought as prey had, somehow, slipped through a field of ice daggers without making any noise and without being seen, in the space of a second…

Torn between two threats, caught in a pincer, the faunus's human mind panicked and defaulted to its instincts. The lion gathered it's legs beneath it, and pounced at Weiss, the smaller (And Ruby would never let her forget it) and weaker-looking of the two, the pain-filled mind of an animal unable to link the ice to the woman creating it, and unable to register anything but the thought that the weakest threat should be taken down first.

Ruby sighed, and showed it why turning its back on her was never a good idea, even if Weiss probably was full of vitamins. Rose, one of her twin pistols, released its cartridge of Dust with the impact of the pistol's hammer, and what emerged from the barrel was…

Well.

Not a bullet.

Ruby had never seen a lion on fire before, but the mane was actually somewhat more impressive this way. At least until it started rolling around in a furious panic.

"What do you think?" Ruby asked, casually leaping backward to land on top of one of the ice spikes, balancing on the tip with catlike grace. The faunus continued to burn, snarling in futility and rolling on the jagged icy meadow, only wounding itself further in its panicked attempts to extinguish the burning particles of powdered Dust clinging to its coat. "Should we try to take him alive? See what he knows?"

"He's a kook living in the woods, why would he know anything? And I'm not inclined toward mercy after he ate some poor bastard who just wanted to enjoy a walk with his wife," Weiss countered. "Particularly since he just tried to do the same to us!"

"But if he's White Fang…"

"I like to hope White Fang has more standards than that, but… what am I saying, they're savages. He'd fit right in," Weiss said with a sigh. "All right, if we can calm him without risking our lives, do your best. I look forward to Glynda ripping the information from his mind."

"Um…" Ruby said, motioning at the fire.

Weiss sighed, rolling her eyes. "Fine," she snapped, twirling her hand lightly. The ice on the ground tore from the grass like a thing alive, a wave of frost the ripped over the faunus, turning to steam on contact and dousing even the magical fires of Ruby's Dust bullet. The lion stumbled to its feet, clearly confused and in a great deal of agony as it stood on four shaky legs.

"Okay, Mr. Kitty," Ruby said, leveling her twin weapons and smiling innocently. "I like to think we've proven that you're not in charge here. Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to show you what kind of bullets are in the other gun? Hint: You'll enjoy them even less."

The battered, bruised, and burned lion looked back and forth between Weiss and Ruby, weighing its options. Ruby almost felt bad for the poor thing, it looked so pathetic, until she remembered that it was a murderer and it had tried to eat her.

Luckily, she was paired with Weiss in the field, and Weiss never forgot those sorts of things. She raised a hand, frost glimmering in her palm, and said, very calmly, "Change out of your combat form, or we will kill you. You have ten seconds. Ten… nine… eight… ouch!"

"Weiss, the next number wasn't ouch. It was seven," Ruby said, a bit nervously. Weiss wasn't the type to joke about…anything. It was part of her charm.

"I know how to count, you dunce! I just… I…" Weiss moved her hand away from her neck, where she'd snapped it during her little counting fiasco, and said, "Aw, crap…" as she drew her fingers away to see a small dart clasped between them, and a few drops of blood on the tip of it. Dizzy and growing rapidly more so, she fell to her knees, unable to muster the strength to stand.

The lion, seeming to recognize that this time, the weakest target really was weak, decided to be a jackass and charge her. Ruby yelped, her fingers tightening on the trigger…

And then the monkey came.

Ruby was not a zoologist, and she didn't really know what kind of monkey it was. It was a fluffy golden-orange type, with a lot of fuzziness and an adorable expressive face. It probably would have been really cute, honestly, had it not been roughly the size of a professional basketball player, and if it had not made its entrance by leaping down from the trees in a golden blur and, quite literally, flipping the lion over its head and throwing it. The rogue faunus slammed into a tree trunk so hard it shattered, and finally, finally went limp.

Ruby blinked. "Um. Thank you, monkey?"

The monkey turned to her, its tail curling in happiness, and it winked at her.

The monkey.

Winked.

And then, in a blur of motion that even she had trouble following, it scooped up Weiss in its arms and leaped into the trees, jumping from branch to branch like lightning as the half-conscious half-snow girl in its arms squeaked indignantly.

After a painfully long second of 'What the Heck', she burst into the chase, shouting out the only battlecry that made sense to her at that moment: "Give her back, you damn dirty ape!"

Behind them, the lion kind of twitched.

(*)

Sun Wukong was not, despite how this all appeared, a bad guy.

Oh, it was true he was kidnapping this Schnee girl from her partner, who was sprinting behind him oddly fast for a human and shooting what appeared to be some kind of lightning bullets at his backside (and worse, she'd called him an ape! Could she not see the tail?). But he wasn't doing it to be malicious. It was just that being a faunus in a world that largely liked to pretend magic didn't exist, and liked to set it on fire when it got too uppity about that attitude, left a guy with shockingly few career options. So Sun, since he had too many morals to join an outfit like White Fang, and not enough morals to just starve, had become a thief.

He was pretty good at it. Really good, in fact. And it turned out that, if you were a good enough thief, there were career options you might not consider. Sure, you could steal a famous diamond, but what then? You couldn't just pawn it off, unless you were willing to have it broken down into smaller chunks, and that just seemed douchey to Sun. But on the other hand, if you looked, you could probably find someone who was willing to pay you a lot of money to get that same diamond for them. Not because it was valuable, but because they just liked owning things that nobody else owned.

And so that was how he'd gotten to where he was now, kidnapping. It was really just stealing a person, right? And someone had paid a lot for it, so Sun was immediately interested. He wasn't some monster, of course; he'd researched the client thoroughly, made completely sure that the girl wouldn't be hurt. He wasn't the sort who would ditch some poor woman into a deathtrap, certainly! Kidnap her, sure, kidnapping was okay. Hurting her seemed rude.

A crystalline bullet slammed into the tree he had just leapt from, sending arcs of electricity roaring through it and making the trunk explode violently, splinters raining over the forest. Of course, I need to finish the kidnapping first, and then maybe wonder about the morals of it.

He had to admit he was impressed. He was a faunus, in his beast form; logic dictated that he was stronger, faster, and more agile than any human could match. Even better, he was a monkey; these woods were basically a walk in the park (was this as park? Because that would be kinda funny) for him. His instincts and abilities were turned to jungles that most definitely didn't have hiking paths or cabins, and most definitely did have jaguars and anacondas. There was no way she should have been able to keep up with him.

And yet, the Dust bullets were a-flying.

She was having trouble hitting him, or maybe she wasn't even trying; after all, he was holding her friend, and it was dark, and they were both moving very fast. She might have just been trying to scare him, slow him down. If she could keep him in-sight until they ran out of tree line, then they she might have a chance to catch up or land a clean shot on his back without fear of hitting her unconscious partner.

Well, that was fine. He only looked like a monkey, after all. She wasn't the only one who could come up with a plan. And more to the point, she wasn't the only one who was armed.

He reached into the pack belted across his waist, the only piece of clothing he wore in his animal form, and withdrew a half-dozen small, silver orbs. He took a flying leap, letting his tail snap around a branch and using the momentum to reverse his course, flying directly toward the girl pursuing him. She squeaked in surprise, skidding to a halt on her heels and aiming upwards, taking a shot at him as he passed over her. The crimson Dust bullet seared through the air, passing so close to him he felt his fur singe, but it was no hit.

The tiny bombs he dropped on her, however, hit just fine.

They were not explosives, he didn't carry lethal weapons as a matter of course. They were, however, very useful. The tiny spheres were a personal favorite of thieves the world over; a thick, viscous tar sample, laced with emerald Dust powder. When exposed to oxygen, the earth-elemental Dust reacted, and… well.

He thought the end result was hilarious. The girl probably wouldn't agree.

(*)

Ruby dove for cover as the tiny bombs exploded around her, only to blink in shock as she realized they were not, in fact, exploding. Rather, the tiny silver orbs released some kind of dark mist that followed her, trailing in the wind of her leap. She covered her mouth and nose as best she could with a gun in each hand, struggling not to breathe until she could get out of the cloud…

And she fell, suddenly feeling fifty pounds heavier as her limbs quite suddenly failed to obey her. She landed painfully on her elbows, unable to bend her legs to roll, and…

Oh, ew.

Something thick, black, and nasty was clinging to her legs where the mist had touched them, pinning them together. She tried to pull it off, only to find her hand stuck fast to it like superglue… seeing no other options, she used her remaining free hand to level Crescent and fire a crimson round, a blazing ball of burning energy. The general idea was to fire a grazing round that would blast away the bizarre substance while leaving her legs undamaged and ready to keep up the chase.

The bullet bounced off.

The crimson dust flew off into the wilds and hit a tree, starting some fires. Ruby wasn't too worried about that, there was already a lot of fire going on. It was a wet summer, it wouldn't spread too far, and Dust crystals that small didn't hold out for very long. She was, however, worried about the fact that whatever was on her legs was apparently Dust-proof and it didn't appear to be going anywhere, anytime soon…

The monkey looked down on her from the trees, hanging upside down from a branch by his tail. She narrowed her eyes. "You are such a jerk."

The monkey stuck its tongue out at her, flipped up onto the branch, and leaped away. In seconds, it was gone.

Ruby tried really hard not to scream in frustration, she really did… but she didn't have that much willpower.

Three hours later, just as the sun was beginning to rise over the city, Ruby walked into Beacon Headquarters through the tunnel from the parking garage, her back covered in mud and a grim expression on her face as she dragged an unconscious man with lion ears and a tail behind her.

"We have a problem," she said.