Author's Note: Hey guys and gals! While working on the next chapter for The Dark Rose I had an idea for a new story; one that had a much brighter tone. So here we go with this little side project that shouldn't be a very long story unless it's met with a positive response.
Chapter 1
'I can't believe Yang abandoned me like that!" Ruby thought to herself as she walked down the street in Vale. She had her hood raised to hide the scowl her face had adopted. 'We came to Vale to shop together! I take one moment to look around in the weaponsmith and she just leaves me! I better find her at the dust shop we were heading to or I'm going to have some choice words for her!'
Rounding the corner onto the next street, Ruby's destination was straight ahead. From Dust till Dawn was the team's favorite dust shop in Vale. The prices were reasonable and the owner was such a kind soul. Ever since Ruby had helped stop a robbery involving Roman Torchwick the owner had always welcomed Ruby and her team.
As Ruby entered the store she made a quick scan. Seeing no sign of her tall blonde sister, Ruby let out a sigh. 'Dangit Yang! Where are you?'
As Ruby pulled out her scroll to call Yang, the door chime rang out behind her. Turning, the hooded girl saw the exact criminal she had been thinking about.
"Why hello there Red, fancy meeting you here." As Roman stepped in, several White Fang members followed him into the store. Ruby discretely activated the distress call on her scroll, alerting her team that she was in danger and where she was.
"What do you want Torchwick?" Ruby asked as she reached for Crescent Rose.
"Ah I'm so glad you asked! You see we're in need of some very special dust for a side project, as well as a test subject. What a convenient coincidence that we have both here." A White Fang member steps up next to Roman and hands the mastermind a strange rifle. It looked like a narrow blunderbuss, but it seemed to be loaded from a dust canister on top. "And you just volunteered."
Before Ruby could react, a cloud of green nature dust is shot into her face. In a gasp of surprise, Ruby accidentally inhales a large amount of the dust. In a coughing fit Ruby collapses to the ground, her vision going dark with Roman's sinister laugh slowly fading as she fell into unconsciousness.
Yang was looking at a particular yellow dress when her scroll started screaming an alarm. Quickly putting the dress back Yang opened the scroll.
'Oh Ruby, what have you gotten yourself into now? I left you alone in the weaponsmith for twenty minutes!' Yang quickly pulls her GPS up to see Ruby's signal originating from the dust shop they visit. Yang quickly made her way to the shop.
On arrival Yang immediately noticed two things. First, all the windows of the store seemed to be shattered. Secondly, Ruby was nowhere to be seen. Before Yang could enter the store, a familiar voice called out her name. Turning towards the voice revealed Weiss and Blake running towards her.
Weiss quickly approached the blonde girl, anger evident on her face. "Yang what happened? You were supposed to be with Ruby?"
Yang broke eye contact and look down at the ground, shame evident in her voice, "Ruby was in the weaponsmith so I figured I had enough time to head around the corner to a clothing store. I guess more time passed than I though because I got the alert while I was still there."
Blake stepped up to change the topic and save her partner, "Have you been inside yet?"
Yang glanced to her partner, relief evident on her face. "No, I only just got here when you two did."
Weiss immediately turned to the damaged store. "Well let's go find Ruby then." The partners simply nodded and followed the heiress' lead.
As they entered the store, all of their eyes trained on what lay in front of the counter. Ruby's cloak laid in a small pile with Crescent Rose and Ruby's scroll next to it. Yang immediately set out to search the store.
"I'll head to the back and see if I can get the camera footage." Blake moved towards the back of the store and entered the back.
Weiss moved behind the counter to check on the owner. Finding him alive but unconscious was a relief to her, but seeing Yang moving back to the front of the store wasn't. Yang's eyes were glowing red and her hair was starting to ignite.
"Ruby's not here! Whoever robbed the store must have taken her!"
"Yang, hold on." Weiss moved to look over the shop's dust supply. "Only the most refined nature dust is missing. Who ever 'robbed' the store only took a very specific type of dust, but that makes no sense. Nature dust is one of the least volatile, so why would criminals want it? Why would they kidnap a huntress-in-training and only take a mostly benign dust? Something else is going on here."
Before Yang could reply, Blake emerged from the back. "The security film showed Roman Torchwick entering the store shortly after Ruby with a group of White Fang. There's no audio, but words were exchanged before Roman shot Ruby with a strange dust rifle." Blake showed an image of Roman pointing the dust blunderbuss at their leader.
"Is there anything after the shot?" Yang basically growled.
"No. It seems that the weapon disabled the video. It shows the shot being fired point blank at Ruby, the screen goes white, and when the light fades it shows the attackers leaving the store. The odd thing is that Ruby is nowhere to be seen."
"What do you mean?"
"None of the Fang or Torchwick are seen carrying Ruby. It's just like she disappeared."
"Then where is she?"
Ruby slowly awakens, her head pounding. 'Ugh, what did Torchwick hit me with? Opening her eyes, Ruby's vision is filled with a red fabric. Recognizing it as her cloak, Ruby tries to move it away but seems to fail. The cloak seemed to have become a lot larger, almost like a blanket. No matter where she moved, she couldn't escape her red prison.
Ruby lets out a frustrated sigh, but instead of hearing her voice a light whimper is heard. 'What was that?'
From outside her soft cage a voice boomed, "Did you hear that?" 'Is that Blake?'
"Yeah, it sounded like a puppy." 'Okay, that was definitely Yang'
Ruby tried to yell to her teammates, "Hey, I'm over here!" but instead an actual bark escaped her mouth.
"Did that come from Ruby's cloak?" Weiss's voice said as the clicks of her heels made an approach towards Ruby. The clicking stopped right next to her then the red veil unfolded around her, light blinding her. Once her vision cleared the first thing Ruby noticed was that her entire world seemed larger, including her team.
"There's a dog in Ruby's cloak." Blake took a visible step backwards. 'Dog? No, it's me!' Another whimper escaped Ruby's lips as a tail folded down between her legs. 'Oh my god I have a tail!'
"Yang give the poor thing some space, you're scaring her!" Weiss knelt down and carefully held her hands near the puppy. The solid black puppy looked like a husky, and had scarlet tips on her ears. "Hey there, we won't hurt you."
'What's going on? How am I a dog? What's am I going to do?' Ruby just curled into a ball and tried to hide back in her cloak. Suddenly a hand starts petting her, starting from behind her ears and running down her back. The feeling was oddly comforting. Ruby lifted her head to see Weiss as the source of her sudden comfort and the two made eye contact.
"Wait..." Ruby could see the gears turning in Weiss' head. "Yes Weiss! I know you're smart enough! Come on, make the connection!'
"Don't call me crazy, but I think this puppy might be Ruby." Ruby jumped with glee and let out a few happy barks. 'YES! Go Weiss'
"What are you talking about Weiss? How can the husky be my sister?" Yang asked, confusion obvious in her voice. Bake's expression shared a similar confusion.
"It's something we discussed in my advanced dust applications. Before humans developed the techniques to use their aura for defenses purposes, using dust was extremely dangerous. It often did more damage to the user than the opponents. It's a common theory that Nature dust being used before aura defence is what caused the birth of the Faunus as a species because the nature dust would infuse the humans with the genetic makeup of the animals nearby.
"Again, this is all in theory. If the refined Nature dust somehow got past Ruby's aura and was mixed with some husky fur in the store..."
"Then the dust could turn Ruby into the husky puppy that we found in her cloak." Blake finished for Weiss, doubt pouring into her words.
"But it makes sense! The video didn't catch Ruby leaving because she never did! She was in the cloak the entire time!"
"Why would Roman make a weapon to turn people into puppies?" Yang's question hung in the air.
"I have no idea, but all this means that our leader is currently a husky puppy and we have to find a way to turn her back!"
Blake slowly knelt next to the husky. "Ruby, if that's really you, nod yes please." Ruby quickly nodded several times, ecstatic that her team now knew it was her.
"Well that settles that, my baby sis is now a puppy. I think we need to tell Ozpin about this." Yang carefully picked Ruby up and held her.
"Back to Beacon then." Weiss said as she grabbing Ruby's stuff. Struggling to carry Crescent Rose, Weiss hands the weapon to Yang. Yang passes Ruby to Blake, who accepts her leader turned dog but is visibly uncomfortable.
"Weiss trade me. I'm sorry but a dog is still a dog; I can't do this." Weiss placed Ruby's cloak and scroll on the counter and took Ruby from Blake. Ruby glanced back at her feline teammate and whimpered trying to convey her guilt.
"Oh Ruby please don't do that! I'm really sorry, but instincts are hard to overcome." Blake quickly grabbed Ruby's belongings and moved to leave the store refusing to look back at her leader.
'I'm sorry Blake. I wish I could help.' Ruby thought dejectedly as her team started back towards their school.
Author's Note: This was actually a lot of fun to write, so I may focus on quickly wrapping this story up. I don't think it will go much more than two or three more chapters, but you never know. Until next time!
EDIT AU: TheShadow997 pointed out that there is another story similar to this called A Small Fuzzy Problem by Nightshade498 that I was completely unaware of. I have no intention of stealing ideas from other writers here, so I would like to make sure I state that did not purposely steal inspiration from. (It was actually scary when I read A Small Fuzzy Problem to see some similarities between the two stories.)