Warnings: Brands, age changes, non-human characters, pack things, uncanny valley, epic FRIENDSHIP, past abandonment, past death, lore.

Prologue - Mass Hysteria

Little Ruby Rose knew the stories of the wolves.

She knew the magic of the moon, shattered as it was and therefore as ruined as it was. She knew the plants that could hurt her, the best meats for flavor, the way to stalk and pounce on Grimm. She knew them without explaining them and in her hometown of Patch, like a quilt and like a canopy of trees, no one asked her to define it.

Patch was as free reign as you could be in a land of monsters that suckled on depression like babies on mother's milk. Everyone knew they had to fight, everyone knew how. But you took the risk anyway.

Ruby, her small, red and black blades in hand (the scythe wasn't ready no matter how much weight she put on her front paws -hands, hands they were called hands yes she knew that), wandered the trees, looking for Grimm to kill and bears to hunt. Since the day of the flames Yang was too worried to let her go alone or to go with her. She was somewhere in these woods too, likely punching one of the dying trees into cinders and ash. But Ruby was not afraid, no longer afraid, rather. They would work it out, they always would and could. So she would find Yang and get scolded but tell her to stop being silly and pup-like. They were all right after all. Ruby was the cub here, not Yang. Yang was the growing dragon hatchling, according to their uncle.

If only auntie-mum hadn't clipped her wings. Yang would probably not have to make them up so much. Not that Ruby knew the difference between the types of caretaker, just that one took care of people and one was dead.

Ruby paused and sniffed. Not much, not outright. Even in Patch, natural things for her were strange to other people. Ruby didn't mind this. She was lonely, but she did not mind. It was the kind of loneliness that was natural for predators without packs. And her pack was small and all over the place. Inevitable, shall she say?

So she walked quietly (she had learned how to sneak up on her uncle in this way) and barely rustled a leaf. There was a strange smell in the air, like Dust (which made her sneeze) but sharper. Like tree bark smoked meat and soft fur at nightfall by a crackling fire and warm tea.

Safe as houses really.

It was concentrated somewhere. Like a thick cloud of some kind. Kind of like Grimm. But nicer. She turned slowly and said, in a singsong voice. "Oh Grimm! Come out come out! Let's fight!"

Never let it be said that young Ruby Rose, genius huntress, child of a thousand metals, lover of roses, wolf of the signal of psalms… was smart.

Lucky for her, the broken thing sharing her woods (and yes she had scent marked it therefore it was hers) was also a child and not very smart. Though unlike Ruby she did not think she was. "I'm not a Grimm!" she shouted from the safety of a tree. Ruby's head snapped up at the sound. She smiled. Good, not a Grimm, Grimm most certainly could not talk.

"Awesome, you answered! But no wonder I couldn't see you. You prefer to climb in the sky."

"I prefer not to be eaten by humans and Grimm." The voice was definitely a girl's, definitely not human though because she still smelled like flowers and dirt and blood and pack. Yes that was the smell she smelled quite like a piece of pack and that was good. That was safe.

Not a threat, said her smell. That was all Ruby needed to know. Well, no it wasn't, but it was a start. "Are you hurt?"

"I don't have to answer a human." The girl's tone wasn't cold or sneering or cruel. No, it was wary, hungry, bone hurting. "Not when it would be of an advantage to you."

Also regal. Oh she knew what this was now. She knew exactly what this was.

"You're a Faunus!" She felt triumph.

There was silence. Then she said, "Congratulations, human. You've figured me out. Now, no offense, but I need to leave."

"Don't be afraid," Ruby said. "I won't hurt you."

Ruby could. She knew that she could. But something in her, perhaps the smell of crusty blood and the taste of salt in the air, demanded she did not. Rather it said to hunt out the person who had made this one bleed and rend life from them instead. She had never killed two legged things before. But the feeling in her that said to do it was sure that she could and she was happy to think about it.

She tried again."It's okay to be afraid. But Patch is for the broken and thrown away. You're welcome here. You're safe here."

"Humans promise safety all the time."

Oh. Oh that was the problem. She sheathed her weapons. This Faunus' nose must be broken or aching or they'd know by now. "Oh no. Don't worry." And Ruby bunched over with glee and gratitude, her skin unfurling with fur, her finger bones and toes cracking and twisting happily into paws and the tail shooting out welcoming and free and bushy bloody red. "I'm not human. It's definitely safe."

Her voice had shifted to a low growl as she spoke until she couldn't speak in human words at all. She groaned in relief. "Oh, that's much better." She shook herself until her fur poofed up messily. Yang would have to brush it later, she loved to do that.

There was silence, the smell of wonder and awe and sweat mixing into it. "You're the changeling?" The girl's voice had gone hoarse. "Summer's changeling?"

Oh. She was famous. Well that sucked. "You knew my mom?" She sounded too much like a cub for that! And also the girl could understand her. Awesome!

Slowly, something moved to the floor, shimmying down one of the thicker trees to her left. She could kind of see them, but mostly she saw a slightly less awful shade of black. A girl. A girl her age. Oh Dust!

And the blood smell was a lot stronger now. The price you paid for an actual working nose.

Black hair, shaggy and misshapen and framing olive skin, tipped with soft dark ears like nighttime without the moon, eyes the color of the darkest yellow dust and blood tearing up her left side. Ruby, even with her now kind of okay eyes, could count the girl's ribs through the tatters of her pelt -clothes, clothes! There are words for this and she keeps forgetting them! - and her bony, hollow face. And standing out on her skin, her collarbone, was what smelled like thread and burnt skin, old burnt skin.

Oh. Well, no wonder she didn't want to be found.

"My father knew your mother," said the cat after a moment. "She's a human welcome home, he said. She's a human who did something daring with her family and friends. She's a human who saved the witch and was blessed in the sparkle of silver down to the child she would one day carry. You, I suppose."

Ruby slowly shifted back to look the girl in the eye. Barely, because her forehead was right at the girl's nose. She reared back a bit. "Oh, I can smell it now," she muttered, making Ruby grin.

"I like you," Ruby declared. "You know things, and you're hurt but you accept things. I like you. You are pack now. Is that okay?"

The girl's mouth shifted and twitched, a fang rising from beneath her upper lip.

"You are my pack now," Ruby continued. "Because that's the only way I can waste the flesh of the people who hurt you. Otherwise I'd have to eat it, and I don't fancy eating food that is poisoned by human gunk."

The girl hissed. "I won't bow again. To anyone." She lifted her hands and Ruby admired the claws poking out of her fingers.

Ruby tilted her head. "Of course not!" She would never want that. Pack didn't bow. Pack submitted to pop of course, but it did not bow. "We're family now."

The amber eyes flickered with hope, slit pupil eyes desperate and longing and oh Ruby could taste the magic on her skin, the hope and that ugly thing in her stomach hissed to eat and burn. "I have a family."

"Pack is a different kind of family." Surely she knew this, did Faunus not know this? Or did the people who hurt her take this from her? Ruby didn't understand but for once Uncle's comments that Grimm were an easier monster to bear made a lot of sense. "And I want to be in your pack as you are with mine."

She wasn't really giving the girl much of a choice. She would die out here and Ruby definitely didn't want that. It would be a waste of meat and revenge and pack. Some deaths were necessary. This one was not for sure.

She held out her hand. "Please? I promise to share the best meat and fish and my sister says at night I cuddle just right."

The girl stared at her hand, at the kindness of her hand Ruby would remember later and seethe and seethe about, and then took it.

The magic rose up at once and Ruby felt all of her hair stand on end as, rather without permission, her body began to shift and change once more, shriveling and shrinking into fur and teeth and claws. And, before her eyes, the girl did the same. A cry of surprise tore from her mouth as she seemed to shrivel, fur bursting out in waves and a tail sprouting and leaving a kitten unconscious on the ground and bleeding.

Ruby, now a baffled wolf cub, shrugged a bit. It would be easier to get her home like this, even if she had no idea what was going on.

Picking up the kitten by the scruff of her neck, she began the journey home.

Taiyang has resigned himself to inhuman children.

Raven had borne him a cursed dragon child, desperate to hoard and keep what was hers (though, arguably that was because Raven had just left for whatever was more important, he wasn't even sure if it was worth it anymore, as well as Summer, gods of light and shadow Summer) and forcibly bright and good hearted and warm. Summer had borne him a wolf prone to wandering off and getting into trouble and keeping the strangest of promises.

Usually however, it was Yang who came home with things, rocks and coins and dust shipments and animals and anything that sparkled enough for her eyes and she thought they would like. Most of it ended up returned.

It was new to see Ruby with something.

Not to see her lope into town with fish or meat. Everyone had gotten used to that… eventually. There were a few stragglers, but they were afraid of wolf Grimm, not wolf girls. So.

Still, she came home with a cat. Taiyang immediately sighed. "Rubes, you can't keep her."

Ruby growled at him, but it wasn't the 'I'm too feral to hear you' growl, it was the 'you don't understand, dumb human dad' growl.

Taiyang regarded her with one thoughtful eye. "Well, turn back and tell me."

Ruby huffed and put the kitten down, nosing at the blood. Well, okay, he was no vet, but he could put some bandages on, he wasn't heartless.

"We don't keep cat food in the house Rubes and we could poison them." The cat mewed as it opened its eyes, a nice golden color. "Well hel-" he was cut off by the cat leaping into the air and transforming into a battered faunus girl and stopped. "Oh. Oh dust."

"Who is that?" hissed the girl, ears high and back. "Who are you?"

He raised his hands to show they were empty of weapons. "Hold on girl. I'm Taiyang, Ruby's father. The dad of the wolf behind you?" He made a gesture towards Ruby, who was staring at the goings on with her tongue lolling out and still in pup mode. "She brought you here, unconscious. I thought you were a stray cat."

The girl's shoulders slowly lowered. "You were a lot bigger a second ago," she said.

Taiyang was half-tempted to tell her it was his semblance but he resisted. "You were a cat a minute ago."

"I'm a cat faunus." But she frowned. "There was a strange light when I touched her hand…" Ruby was now eagerly butting her head against the girl's fingers. Ruby then yelped as the girl swayed on her feet, catching her (barely) with her body.

"Aw shit," Taiyang muttered. Then he glanced at Ruby. "Don't repeat that." Ruby only barked at him in annoyance. "Yes, I'm going, I'm going good gods."

While rummaging through their supplies, the man cursed again, but returned post haste to tie up the girl's side.

"What's your name kid," he asked once he had removed her filthy shirt and tied her up.

The girl stared at him, eyes hazy. "Blake," she said. "Blake Belladonna."

She passed out again and Taiyang stared at his youngest daughter, who only wagged her tail.

"You brought home the missing Menagerie princess, Rubes," he told her.

Ruby woofed at him.

"Yes, you did. Now get your sister. I guess we're gonna need another fish."

Ruby's eyes lit up and she leaped on him, twisting back in his arms and hugging him tight. He sighed indulgently and hugged her back.

"Go on, scoot."

"I love you dad, thanks!" She did scoot, which gave him a moment to breathe and look at the sleeping girl. Saw the brand on her collarbone. A part of him wanted to burn, but he was older than his daughters, and buried it.

He let out a sigh. "Love you too kid. You and all the problems you give me."

He went to his scroll. He had a letter to write.

"I still can't believe your dad sometimes."

"Come on, Blake, you know dad's a big softie." Fifteen year old Ruby Rose reached into her hood and scratched her friend behind the ears. "He'd have never turned you away even if you ended up scratching me in the face!"

"He called me your sister, Ruby." Her best friend of eight years grumbled, leaning to the touch. Walking around anywhere that wasn't Patch, Blake just preferred to be a cat. Which was fair, Ruby preferred to be a wolf too. But they didn't let wolves listen to music and she was desperate to hear Casey's latest song, and it was so hard to do that in Patch. Closer to Signal, she'd have more luck which meant two feet and clothes. "I'm not."

"You're pack, which is better." Ruby hummed as she spoke. If there was anyone around, they'd have heard a teenage girl talking to a cat, which would do wonders for Ruby's reputation if she cared about it. But she didn't and Blake was the only person nearby she wanted to talk to. "Now, do you want an earbud or no?"

"... No." The cat burrowed deeper into Ruby's hood. "I'll listen when we get home."

Ruby giggled. "Right, okay. And you still want that book, right?"

"... Yeah." Blake swallowed. "Thanks Ruby."

Ruby grinned. "What's pack for?"

A/N: Hello hello! This one is... well it was a request and I kind of took the parameters and ran with them. This is so AU literally the most canon thing is that the characters, Remnant, and Faunus exist and they have to fight Grimm. Not everyone will be featured in each installment, if only because I have some sanity. That said, I will endeavor to make the characters recognizable, if very, very different due to situations. Like uh, Ruby being an actual wolf changeling over here. And you'll hear more about that... eventually. Until then, enjoy! Next chapter, Pyrrha is very, very much not prepared for this.