p class="MsoNormal"A couple weeks after the first "Dust Incident"(my first story), Headmaster Ozpin decided to tighten Dust security to avoid anything like it happening again. He used a hallway of abandoned classrooms and created"Dust rooms" which were quarantined and staffed by medics and a very small security force… Nora had caused a lot of damage. Also, thanks to Ruby, absolutely no weapons were allowed inside the rooms, and no dust was allowed outside the rooms./p
p class="MsoNormal"Meanwhile, at the SDC, Mr. Schnee personally trashed his "Janus"dust project, and began a new research program, calling it the "Hecate" dust project. The purpose of the project was to be able to use dust to control lesser, that is to say, Grimm minds. Since his scientists were working around the clock, and a recent anti-faunus-experimentization act had been passed, he decided the only way he could test his dust was by sending them to his daughter. She had, after all, tested the last batch of experimental dust…/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"CHAPTER 1/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"THE DUST/p
p class="MsoNormal"Ruby, Blake, Pyrrha, and Yang had just finished breakfast and were heading back toward their dorms when Weiss came rushing up to them."Hey, you missed break— wait, whats wrong?" Yang asked, noticing how nervous Weiss was acting. "My father. He sent another crate of dust." She said through gritted teeth. Ruby looked up startled. "But I thought he—I mean after last time…" she said, glancing at Weiss's bandaged shoulder. "I know, but he said if I didn't do this for him, he'd cut my funding, and take me out of Beacon…" "Hello, I think this sounds personal… maybe I should-" Pyrrha started, but Yang cut her off. "No, its ok, Jaune is still in Detention(again), and Ren and Nora are still helping clean up the mess Nora made." "Well, I guess I don't have anything else to do…" Pyrrha said. "Anyway, I already had the crate moved to a dust room." Weiss said./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"After leaving their weapons outside, they were allowed to enter the dust room. The crate inside was full of prism shaped dust crystals. Like the Janus dust, they were clear. Unlike them, however, they only seemed to reflect only one person at a time. "Huh, theres no instructions… I guess we'll have to figure it out ourselves…" Blake said, looking up from her book for the first time. Weiss picked up a crystal and turned to Blake. She concentrated on her, staring at Blake's reflection in the crystal. It sparked feebly, then cracked slightly, causing the clear prism to become cloudy. "Anything?" Weiss asked Blake, but frowned when Blake shook her head. Blake tried next, turning to Yang, but with the same result. Yang turned to Pyrrha, who turned to Ruby, who turned to Weiss, all with the same result. "I guess that's a good thing… it could have been worse." Pyrrha said. "Yeah, I guess we shouldn't waste the rest of them… he sent a lot more than necessary" Yang said, looking into the box."Oh well, the rest of my team should be finishing up by now, so I'm going to go." Pyrrha said, and left./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"The rest of the day passed without incident./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"CHAPTER 2/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"THE NEXT DAY/p
p class="MsoNormal"The next day, Ruby woke up and went to jump out of bed, as she usually did. But she hit the ground a lot quicker than usual, stumbled and fell. "OW" she cried. 'huh, that sounded like Weiss… maybe I landed on her.'she thought as she got up. She happened to glance at the desk mirror as she righted herself, and saw Weiss standing there, also getting up. It wasn't until Ruby stood fully upright and was stretching until she saw the mirror again. Weiss seemed to be stretching too. Then she realized with horror. She had become Weiss. She shrieked and jumped backward, onto the bed. Yang and Blake sprang up as well, as did a figure who was sleeping on Ruby's own bunk… Blake screamed too, pointing at Ruby. "YOU, YOURE ME! WHAT THE HELL!?" Blake's exclamation didn't seem to register, as Ruby looked up to see herself jumping down. "How did I get in here?" she heard her own voice ask. "ALRIGHT, CALM DOWN!" Yang shouted louder than any of them. after they shut up, they heard someone banging on the door. Pyrrha shouted from outside. "HEY, LET ME IN! ITS ME, YANG!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"After they let her in, Ruby watched as Blake, who was really Weiss in Blakes body, begin to try to explain what happened to them. "Instead of mind control, we must have transferred minds. I am in Blake, Blake must be Yang, Yang must be Pyrrha, Pyrrha must be Ruby, and Ruby…" she stared at Ruby. It was just too weird to see her self stare back at her. "Ok, so we figured out what happened, how do we fix it? As much as I respect you guys, I like my team. Jaune would be able to tell something's wrong, and tell ozpin… things would spiral!" Ruby/Pyrrha said. "Then let's just go back to the Dust Room and do what we did yesterday, just in reverse!" Yang/Blake said. "That would be a good idea… but I might have sent the crate back to my father already." Blake/Weiss said sheepishly, "All I have to do, though, is call him and get him to send it back!" "That's great, but in case you haven't noticed, but youre not yourself right now." Ruby/Weiss said. "Well then, looks like youll just have to talk to him, Ruby!" Weiss said, grabbing her arm, and dragging her toward the door."Wait! What are the rest of us supposed to do?" Blake asked. "I don't know, what you, that is to say, your bodies, usually do./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"CHAPTER 3/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"HEIRESS RUBY SCHNEE/p
p class="MsoNormal"The walk to the Communications tower was suprisingly fast. The conversation between Ruby and Mr. Schnee was agonizingly slow. She followed Weiss's directions on what to say to the SDC receptionist, but froze when she saw Weiss's Father. His hair was jet black, but had pure white sideburns, and a short gray moustache. His eyes were also blue, but piercing, like Weiss's, but even more so. (was that even possible?) When he spoke, his voice was low, not deep, just quiet, like he was scolding her in the middle of an important meeting. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" he asked, his eyes seemed to cut into her soul. He waited, but Ruby was still taking it all in. Weiss had said her father was always strict, but Ruby wasn't expecting such a tone when he was conversing with his 'daughter'. "Um…" she stammered. His eyes flashed, "If I wanted stuttering, I would talk to a faunus. Now why have you contacted me so early?" he said, his voice staying even. "Well, Father, um…" she squinted at a notecard Weiss was showing her from behind the computer. "I was wondering if you received your dust crate yet." She said, trying her best to imitate Weiss's normal, accusatory tone. "Yes. I have. I have also received your report. Im sorry to say I expected something to happen… especially when you say you tried the dust on a faunus? I was thoroughly surprised it didn't work…" he grinned alittle, as though thinking of mind controlling faunus would be a good thing."Is that all?" he asked. "No, father, I was wondering if w-I could have the crate back." She silently apologized to Blake, to all faunus what she was about to say. "I think we did get a response from the faunus girl… she was acting more human today…" she smiled, but inside, she was sobbing. He smiled again, more warmly, though still cold. "I'm sorry, but I have already ordered the destruction of the dust. Your crate will be the last to be destroyed, but it is already too late… I have a meeting, let me know if your Faunus team mate stays the ways she is, or if she… reverts." The screen went blank. She looked up at Weiss, who looked a little sick./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"CHAPTER 4/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"TEAM LEADER PYRRHA ROSE/p
p class="MsoNormal"Back at the dorm, Yang and Pyrrha were the last to come in. Weiss and Ruby were arguing as usual, but Blake was taking Weiss's side, which was unusual. They seemed to be arguing over something Ruby had said. "I can't believe you would even say something like that about faunus." Weiss was saying."It was a gut decision! We needed that dust! If you weren't so stuck up about everything, I wouldn't have even needed to say it!" Ruby shot back. "Hey, hey, whats going on." Yang said, smiling uncertainly. The smile disappeared as Weiss updated Yang on the events that transpired. After she finished, Yang for once was silent. "We need to focus on the bigger picture. Your father is going to destroy that dust! We can't let that happen." Pyrrha said, feeling sad for Ruby, but also slightly angry. "And how do you suppose we do that?" Weiss asked. Blake spoke up. She was clearly disgruntled, and pronounced every syllable, "I have an idea. It's a bad one, but the only one I can think of. The only thing that's worse is getting stuck in each others bodies." "Well, what is it?" Blake answered by walking over to her bag, and pulling something silvery out of it. Two silvery things. "Hell no!" Weiss exclaimed. Two white fang masks were laid on the bed. "As I said, it's a horrible plan. We need to use these…things… to steal the last dust container back. The only way to do that without getting caught as students is to disguise as the enemy." Blake explained. Before Weiss could complain, Yang walked over and pulled on a mask, as did Ruby. Blake pulled more out of her bag. "Where did you get all these?" Pyrrha asked. Blake simply glanced at her before donning her own mask, "You don't want to know."/p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"Escaping the school was surprisingly easy, as though Ozpin knew what they were doing and pulled the security from just the right posts. It was even easier sneaking through the side streets to the Vale SDC warehouses. They approached quietly. "Blake and I will sneak in and identify which crate we need to steal." Weiss said. "Ill call Ruby when we found it, and she can… oh sorry… Pyrrha, right?" Pyrrha nodded uncertainly. "Pyrrha will zip in using Rubys speed, grab some crystals, then zip out again." Weiss finished, and she and Blake slipped away. "But I don't know how to 'zip in and out!'" Pyrrha said. "Don't worry, just concentrate on your legs, and imagine yourself running faster than you actually are. Its easy!" Ruby said. An hour later, they were starting to feel concerned, when Weiss and Blake returned. "Sorry, had to knock a few guards out, but we found it… the truck is leaving now." Sure enough, the gate opened, and a heavy armored truck went through, followed by a 18-wheeler marked SDC. Pyrrha stood uncertainly, and started running, closing her eyes and focusing on her legs. She opened her eyes and almost fell. The world was streaked around her, and she was suddenly in front of the freighter truck. It looked as though it were moving at 3 miles per hour. She ran around the back, and opened it. There were dozens of crates in the back. She quickly pried the boxes off most of them, but couldn't find it. She was about to give up when a flash caught her eye. The last crate she had opened had foggy clear crystals. Cracked ones. She grabbed some uncracked ones and flew out of the truck./p
p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"After she met up with the rest, they ran back to the dorm room. They formed a circle, and concentrated on their bodies. Sure enough, after concentrating for long enough, the crystal shattered. Even though they felt no different, she somehow knew it worked. Sure enough, the next morning, Pyrrha woke up to Ren's loud snoring. It was good to be back./p