Hello to all those who decided to read this fic! LightDusk16 here with another chapter for How I Failed To Avoid The Plot!

I'll have some things to say, but I won't keep you all any longer so onto the chapter!

Episode 2: The Red Hooded Mascot

Now the day my whole plan went down the drain started out as a normal day. Woke up from my cramped little box in an alley. Checked all my pockets to see if I was robbed in my sleep and then headed to a nearby gym for a shower.

A shower, by the way, that takes ten times as long to do since I usually smell like alleyway trash.

On my way to my shower I would usually get yelled at by some passerby who didn't know how to mind their own business. I would then get into a shouting match with said passerby which usually ended with me running for my life because some random thing they were holding turned out to be a weapon.

I'm serious. For some strange reason (probably the Grimm now that I think about it) everyone in this stinking world has some sort of weapon on them. I remember this one time I saw an old lady pushing a shopping cart full of food in the red-light district (the part of town where all the less law abiding citizens live). These guys dressed up in stereotypical thug clothes tried to rob her, but boy where they in a shock when she pulled out a god freaking tommy gun out of her cart.

Let's just say I've learned to be very careful when it comes to walking around the streets. I mean that doesn't stop me from getting into a shouting match with random strangers, but I know better than to go through with any threats.

Anyway I'm getting off track here. After my shower I would put on some cloths that I'd stash nearby since I couldn't exactly keep a bunch of clothes with me in a box, unless of course I wanted them to get stolen.

I think I was wearing the clothes I had on me when I first appeared on Remnat, minus my Red vs. Blue t-shirt. Instead I had a plain black t-shirt with a Pokeball on it.

Oh yeah! Apparently Remnat has a lot of the stuff we have on Earth. Entertainment wise at least, as advance technology tends to make stuff from our world not exist. And get this, apparently Atlas is where the consoles from our world come from.

I don't get it either, but I just assume that since they are the most technology advanced in Remnat that that's the reason why they invented video games.

Anyway, off topic again. Sorry about that, I tend to ramble…a lot. But still, after getting changed I still had a good couple of hours before I had to go to work so I decided to stop by a nearby library. I had figured that it would be a pretty good idea to know as much as I could about the history of Remnat, current and past, so that I wouldn't look dumb by saying something that had or hadn't happened or has happened.

After a few hours of reading I would head off to my job, part-time worker at Ye Olden Dust Shop.

Strange name I know, but it was the nicest shop I could find that was hiring. It's on the border between the red-light and the more lawful side of town. Strange placing for a dust shop I know, but you can blame my boss Old Man Fuller for that.

You're wondering why I call him Old Man Fuller huh? Well he's old and his name is Fuller so…yeah. I'm not the best at making nicknames for people okay!

Ahem…anyway,

I guess the best way to describe my boss is…well…you know that cool grandfather all families have? The one that is surprisingly active for someone their age and has muscles that haven't gotten weaker due to old age. Yet at the same time you would never introduce your friends or significant other to cause they'd just think he's weird. That's Old Man Fuller.

He's owned the shop for a very long time, apparently this place has been owned by his family for generations now. It's also tradition, apparently, to hire random 'hobos' (I'm not a hobo dang it! I just so happen to live in a box and be really low on funds is all!) off the street to work at the shop with low pay that could be considered forced labor.

…

Yeah I don't buy it either, but I'm not gonna complain. As far as I'm concerned he only hired me cause I looked old enough and was desperate enough for any kind of pay. But as much as I complain about the low pay and the labor, he's still a pretty cool guy. He lets me spend the night at the shop when it starts to downpour and lets me use his fridge he keeps in the shop (for some reason) to store all my food.

Overall a pretty good guy, if a bit eccentric. If there's one bad thing I can think about him is that he makes very poor decisions when it comes to his shop. I don't mean like how he spends the money he gets or anything like that, I mean with how he displays his products. For some strange reason he's got an obsession with having the dust be stacked on top of each other pyramid style and by the same type of dust.

Which leads me to what I was doing at work that day. Old Man Fuller had just gotten a new shipment of highly explosive fire dust. So it was my job to get them on display, and thankfully they were sealed in clear cylinder containers so it would be easy to stack them.

While stacking them, I had gotten into The Zone. You know that feeling you get when you focus really hard on something and you tend to ignore or barely notice your surroundings cause you're so focused on what you're doing? That's The Zone, and boy did I get into it way too often for my job.

It was for my own safety rather than anything else. I know just how explosive dust can be, and how easy it is to set it off. May I remind you all how Ruby set off a whole load of dust just by sneezing? So you can see why I would go into The Zone every time I had to handle this stuff.

Plus I'd read up on all things dust related when I got this job. I figured it'd save my life if I knew what I was doing with the dust. There are some things that the show failed to mention about it. Like how if you mix dust the wrong way you can create an explosion that'll wipe out a city block, or how if you consume gravity dust somehow all your internal organs go into your legs from the pressure of the dust!

Yeah…dust is a really scary thing. It's why I was so against Old Man Fuller's ways of stacking them for display. All it would take is someone accidentally knocking down a pyramid and then BOOM! No more shop…or the next few blocks either. But apparently it's tradition or something like that to stack them and he's dead set on keeping his ways.

Thanks to his old ways I'd almost died via dust explosion at least eight different times! If it weren't for the fact that he was paying me I swear I would have left a long time ago.

Anyway, back to that fateful day. I was stacking dust, in the Zone and all that, when I barely registered the door opening behind me with a chime of a little bell the old man had put up.

Now trust me if I had known who exactly walked through that door, I would have booked it out of that shop as fast as possible. But sadly I was too into the Zone to bother looking behind, I did however give the customary greeting while lazily waving my hand behind me to get whoever had entered my location as I said,

"Welcome to Ye Olden Dust Shop. Supplying dust to Hunters and Huntresses since you were a baby. How may I help you today?"

I had heard an adorable little "eep" sound come from behind me before hearing some footsteps come my way. Soon whoever had entered was right behind me…and was not saying anything. After a few minutes I had sighed in annoyance before saying,

"Look buddy, I'm kinda busy trying not to blow up the next couple blocks. So could ya kindly tell me what you need so I can keep my focus?"

Mean? Yes, but I couldn't afford to get out of the Zone unless I had wanted to take out a few blocks, so I had figured that getting straight to the point would get whoever was here out fast so I could focus more. Or get them to leave due to my attitude, whichever worked at the time.

It took a few more minutes before whoever was stuttering to finally calm down enough to speak their mind as they said,

"Um…I was wondering if you could tell me about how dust works? I have this huge test coming up you know and my sister is too busy hanging out with her friends and my uncle is handling detention at my school and he has my scroll so I can't just look it u-"

At this point I should have recognized her voice, but I was too annoyed at her rambling and too into the Zone to really care as I kindly interrupted her,

"Okay okay, jeeze lady no reason to tell me your whole life story. Look I'm a little busy at the moment as you can probably tell, but lucky for you I'm a master at multi-tasking. The first thing you need to know about dust is-"

And from there I gave her the whole rundown on dust, the different forms of it, how to handle it, the types of dust, the whole deal. Of course I probably gave her the simple and dumbed down version of it since I only knew from what I read in books, but I like to think I did a good job of explaining it to her.

After my whole explanation I had figured my job was done and had went back to putting my full focus on stacking the dust I had left. Sadly, for me that wasn't the case as I had just put down one more container of dust when the girl asked,

"So from what you said, does that mean fire dust would be the best at taking done the Grimm?"

Looking back at it, if I had just said yes I wouldn't be in this situation. But sadly hindsight is 20/20 and I could never keep my mouth shut when it came to correcting people. With that said I just sighed before saying,

"While fire dust itself is just fine with taking out a Grimm, it would be better used as a long term effect on big Grimm. You know, damage them over time so they're easier to take on if they are too powerful. If you really want to do some damage to Grimm, always go for a combo dust attack."

I could imagine a confused expression on her face as she asked,

"What do you mean?"

At this point I had stopped stacking dust completely and had gone into the Zone for lecturing the poor naïve hunter-to-be behind me. I never actually bothered to turn around, however, in fear that the incomplete pyramid of dust would fall if I took my eyes off it.

Anyway, I had just sighed again before saying,

"Well let's look at an example. Let's say you were fighting a Nevermore, you know the giant bird Grimm, and you only had a short ranged melee weapon that turns into a long-ranged gun. Shooting it with normal dust will damage it, but it won't really bring it down fast. However, if you were to combine a gravity dust round with a fire dust round, you'd be putting a major dent in it's armor, as well as leaving flames behind in the wound. It'll grow weaker from the constant burning and fly closer to the ground, where you can then slash and stab it to your heart's content."

When I didn't hear a response from the person behind me, I continued.

"Look, it's like this. Combined dust equals double the damage and effects, and signaler dust is just normal damage and effects. So by that logic, double is better."

A few seconds of silence passed and I had thought I would need to go into another lecture before I had heard a…I think squee would be the proper term to describe it. Honestly it was so high pitched I thought a bomb was being dropped or something. The squeeing had finally ended after a few seconds before the person said in an excited tone,

"Oh that makes so much sense! I'll pass that test for sure! Thanks mister!"

With that said I felt a gust of wind and the door slam open, I just assumed the girl had left. With a contented sigh I finally gotten back to stacking the dust. It was a few moments later that I finished and finally got out of the Zone when I noticed my boss looking at the door with an amused expression.

I gave him a confused look, which he probably noticed as he responded by saying,

"Did you scare off another costumer again Chris?! She ran out of here so fast her red hood almost flew right off! And what's with those rose petals all over the place! I just cleaned in here dang it!"

I was going to respond to my boss's comment in some sort of sarcastic remark, but I stopped dead when I registered his words. I remember thinking in a dreading tone,

Did he say just say red hood…and rose petals?

And like that it all started coming together. How nervous that girl sounded, how familiar she sounded, the red hood, the speed and the rose petals. It all led me to one thought.

"You're cleaning up this mess Chris! Cause if you think for even one second that I'm cleaning up then your de-huh? What's with that mortified expression on your face, it's just cleaning? Not like I'm asking you to swipe off the old dust storage…again."

I barely even recognized what he said as what just transpired replayed over and over again in my mind. There was only one way to express my sheer terror….

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Yeah…may not have been the best way to express my terror, but at the time I thought the world was gonna implode or Grimm were gonna breach Vale early. Then again with that thought process going out screaming isn't the proudest thing to do…

…

Like I said, not the best way to express my mortal terror.

It was a few days later after what I dubbed the 'Ruby Incident' when she showed up to the shop again.

I had calmed down a while after the incident. The only reason being that nothing bad had happen yet and I'd assumed that I didn't break the timeline with that interaction with Ruby.

Of course I did realize that I must have done something with what I told her about dust, but I was hoping that I didn't have that big of an effect. Maybe she was supposed to study by herself because she was all socially awkward and all that, but maybe because I was in her world she instead got a little braver and decided to go out for help.

Why she went to a dust shop near the red-light district instead of the library is beyond me through. The Butterfly Effect is a quirky little thing I suppose; the tiniest changes have the biggest effect after all.

Anyway I'm rambling again. So I was just doing some stock in the back of the shop, categorizing the newest shipments of dust before they went on display. I was still wearing the clothes I had on a few days ago cause the Laundromat I went to got shut down by a safety inspector (something about powered water dust mixed with water not being a responsible replacement for detergent) I was just finishing up and looking forward to my break time, when Old Man Fuller came into the back with a look on his face that I have come to fear. It's the 'I am going to force you to do something now' look.

Every time he had that look I had to do something that was way beyond my paygrade, and usually almost killed me too. So when I saw that look I knew I was in trouble as he said,

"Chris, we've got a customer in the shop. Go deal with them."

I gave him a confused look as I asked him,

"Why can't you deal with them? I'm just about finished and my break is gonna start soon."

The old man just gave me a mischievous smile as he said,

"Just Little Red Riding Hood, apparently you didn't scare her off last time."

I remember making an "urk" sound at the mention of Old Man Fuller's little nickname for Ruby.

I gulped nervously as I said,

"Uh…tell her I'm not here! Better yet tell her I'm dead, killed in a dust explosion cause of poor display judgment by the owner of the store!"

The old man just gave me a glare as he said,

"Now I know you have some strange phobia of girls, and I can understand that. Women can be pretty scary, especially if ya make them mad. But ya got to listen to the customer boy. And if the customer asks for a no-good hobo then ya give them a no-good hobo. Plain and simple."

I remember my eye twitching in annoyance as I yelled at him,

"I'M NOT A HOBO DANG IT!"

The old man just snorted at my outburst and said,

"Last I checked, you are still living out in the streets. Pretty sure that's what a hobo does, even if ya happen to be cleaner than most hobos."

I was going to lash out at him again, but I figured that there were more pressing matters at that moment than whether or not I was a hobo. Which I'm not by the way.

So anyway I just sighed in annoyance before I said,

"Look, I don't have some girl phobia or whatever. I just have a legitimately good reason as to why I can't talk or even go near that girl!"

The old man had given me a suspicious look before asking me,

"Oh really? Pray tell, what is this all so good reason to ignore a girl?"

I had gulped in fear there before saying in a questioning tone,

"Uh…it's a personal reason?"

The old man just gave me a flat look…before he proceeded to lift me up and throw me out of the back room and into the main part of the store. I did tell you all he was ridiculously strong right?

After I had gotten up and dusted myself off I had decided to politely tell my employer,

"ARE YOU CRAZY OLD MAN! WAIT, YOU PROBABLY ARE CONSIDERING YOU JUST THREW ME INTO A ROOM FULL OF POWDERED DUST! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME!"

I got no response, so I decided to just grumble in anger about how stupid the old man was. As I looked around the store while pouting, I found the reason of my ejection from the safety of the back room.

Ruby, in all her red hooded glory, was standing patiently by the counter. She was even rocking back and forth while whistling. This all stopped when she saw me as she had begun to wave at me while smiling widely. As I gave her a lazy wave and kept a calm expression, on the inside I was having a major panic attack and was trying to think of any way to avoid her.

I could just make a beeline for the front doo-no that wouldn't work she's right in front of it! She'll think I'm running at her or something! Maybe dash back to the backro-no the old man is still there, probably to stop me from running back there. Fake a heart attack and pretend to die?

…

…

Nah, not that desperate.

After all that thought I had just decided to give up and let the universe blow up or something. Bedside's, how bad can one more talk with the main protagonist of the show be?

Oh if only I had known…

Back to the matter at hand, I had given a dejected sigh and had begun to walk over to Ruby.

When I reached her she got an awkward look as she said,

"Uh…hi! You probably don't remember me but I was that girl who came in a couple of days ago asking about how dust works?"

Even though I knew who she was and more of what she would be, I knew I had to keep up the appearance of someone who wasn't from another world where this one was just a web series. So I played dumb by putting on a thinking face and saying in a thoughtful tone,

"Hmmmm….now that I think about, ya. I remember you, ran out of here leaving rose petals all over the place. I had to clean it all up cause my boss is too lazy."

Ruby gave a sheepish chuckle before saying,

"Ya…sorry about that. I don't know why that always happens when I use my Semblance."

I had to remind myself to play dumb so I just gave her a questioning look before I asked,

"Semblance? What's that?"

Ruby gained a look of…excitement(?) before saying,

"Oh! It's this super cool trick that people can get after they unlock their Aura! Not immediately though, you have to work really hard to get it…at least that's what my uncle Qrow told me. Anyway, my semblance is super speed!"

I only gave her a nod as I digested the information. I didn't bother looking too much into Semblances and Auras since I knew I would never get one, either due to being from another world or because I would hopefully never be in a situation where I needed it unlocked. Even though Ruby's description of it wasn't the best definition out there, it still was something to go on.

After her little explanation an awkward silence fell upon us. This lasted for a while until I couldn't stand it, so I decided to make the first move. I thought that if I was gonna mess up the timeline somehow by talking with Ruby, then I was gonna do it my way!

So I put out my hand for a handshake and said,

"The name's Chris Sullivan, but my friends just call me Joker. What's yours?"

Ruby seemed to snap out of it as she took my hand and shook it while saying,

"Ruby, Ruby Rose."

I just smiled at her as she let go of my hand and I said,

"Well Ms. Rose, what can I help you with at Ye Olden Dust Shop?"

My words had apparently sparked some realization for Ruby as she gasped in surprise before pulling out a piece of paper from her skirt. Handing it to me after unfolding it, I saw…a high school test about dust with an 85% on it?

I gave Ruby a questioning look,

"Uh…what exactly am I looking at here?"

Ruby gave me a confused look before making an "oooh" sound before she said,

"That's the test I told you about! The one you sort of helped me study for! I came down here to thank you for the help! It's the highest grade I've ever gotten on a dust test!"

Ruby giggled after she said that before she continued,

"The look on my teacher's face was priceless!"

I had to hold back a smile at Ruby's actions. Real now or not this was still the little girl who I had watched the adventures of before being sucked into her world. So to see something as adorable as this…well you can see why I had to hold back a smile.

Ruby's giggling had calmed down and she gained a nervous expression, she also started shuffling nervously. I gave her a confused look, and upon noticing she said,

"Also…another reason I had come down here was…well…I NEED YOU TO BE MY DUST TUTOR!"

I jumped back from Ruby's outburst in shock. I knew the girl had a good pair of lungs but dang could she be loud. I thought she saw a Grimm or something and yelled out in shock, and considering the Butterfly Effect and my luck I was surprised that that wasn't the case.

After I had calmed down from her outburst I decided to play it cool so gave her a blank look and simply said

"What?"

Ruby then gave me the most desperate look I had ever seen as she began to explain,

"Well you see it's just that my uncle and dad were so proud that I had gotten such a good grade for once that they took me out to buy some sweet weapon mods for Crescent Rose. But then they asked me how I did so well. So I told them about you and then they told me that maybe it would be a good idea that you should be my tutor! They said that they will pay for it and I'll be able to go for more weapon mod shopping if I keep getting good grades!"

I honestly thought that Ruby was gonna pass out after she said all that. I mean she said all that without stopping and in rapid succession. But like I said, she had a strong pair of lungs, so instead of passing out she gave me the look all men should fear. The one look no men can say no too, no matter how cold hearted or evil they are. This is the look that can strike down gods and demons alike with its power! That look is…

The dreaded Puppy Dog Eyes!

*dun dun dunnnnnnn*

"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease say yes to being my tutor!"

I remember trying my best to resist the look, trying to avoid the future of destruction that could happen if I continued to interact with Ruby. But like I said…no one can resist the Puppy Dog Eyes.

So after saying yes and a rather awkward hug, that marked the day of my tutoring sessions with Ruby. She would come in twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays to be precise. She would usually come by afterhours to avoid disturbing the customers, but that didn't stop Old Man Fuller from nicknaming her the Red Hooded Mascot of Ye Olden Dust Shop since she was here so often.

I was a nervous wreck during the first few weeks as Ruby's tutor. Every day I thought I'd wake up with The Breach happening early or the White Fang taking over the city, but it appeared that the Butterfly Effect was going easy on me and decided to not destroy the entire city cause I was tutoring a little girl.

…

Now that I said that, it sounds ridiculous. But I still stood by that the Butterfly Effect would cause some sort of disaster. In fact, it was about a month after my tutoring sessions with Ruby started that the Butterfly Effect reared its ugly head.

It was a Thursday night, and I was just about to close up shop. The old man was out on business to try and get a new supplier. I had finally gotten used to Ruby's visits and had gotten over the whole Butterfly Effect induced paranoia.

I had thought that the tutoring session was just going to go as normal. Ruby comes in, I start going over some dust related subject for her next test, and then she'll leave after paying me (25 Lein for 2 hours of tutoring isn't so bad).

But nope! The Butterfly Effect and the universe decided to be huge jerks, cause instead of that happening, no guess what happens?

I'll tell ya, I heard the door chime and get up from behind the counter to greet her, only to have the barrel of a gun get shoved into my face. As soon as I saw it I heard the voice of one Gray G. Haddock say,

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a Dust shop open this late?"

If I wasn't so terrified at that moment, I would have sighed and said,

"Did you dye your hair that color or is it natural?"

…

I'm a fan, cut me some slack will ya?

And there's the second chapter!

That is 4,934 words of work for all ya! I hope this'll make up for how long it took for this story to update.

This was my first time writing Ruby's character, and like I said before this is my first RWBY fanfic. So if I messed up please feel free to point out the mistakes so I can do better next time, or correct them if they are spelling/grammar mistakes.

Also, that whole dust logic I used is purely head canon on my part, so sorry if it's completely wrong, it's just how I see things.

A shout out to all you awesome people who decided to follow this story, and a even bigger thanks to those who favorited it! It fills my pride as a author to know my story was good enough to be followed/faved!

Thank you all for your time and have a wonderful day!

This has been LightDusk16, signing off!