May contain side effects
Chapter 8:
Shopping
Team RWBY was leisurely strolling through the streets of Vale. Well, at least Ruby, Weiss and Yang were. They were completely relaxed, although it wasn't like they didn't have a list of shops they needed to visit: Ruby needed ammo, Weiss needed Dust and they needed to buy some sewing equipment and cloth for Blake's clothes. They had the whole day to do so however, hence they had all the time in the world.
The trip was doing wonders to the teammates. Being at Beacon all day long was nice and all, but at the same time it was very tiring, the students craved for some time outside of the school sometimes. That's why they were all fully enjoying themselves as they walked through the streets filled with people who looked like they had just woken up, and let the rather cold morning breeze flow through their hair.
The only one who wasn't really enjoying herself was currently sitting on top of a giant, at least in her perspective, roll of lipstick. 'Weiss doesn't even wear lipstick as far as I know!' Blake thought angrily. It was quite enervating for her to be sitting in the heiress' purse, trying to balance on top of the unstable mountains of boxes of makeup, while her teammates were having fun without her.
If they would have been in a hurry, the team would have split up to maximize the effective usage of their time. But not today, today was a free day. Without the stress of lessons or schoolwork, they had the whole saturday off and intended to use it for some well-deserved rest.
Their first stop was the biggest weapon store in all of Vale. It was like a full-sized mall, but filled with different weapon stores instead of clothing stores or other generic stores. They sold all kinds of stuff: weapons, weapon parts, bullets, ammo belts, armor… It was basically heaven for hunters and huntresses, everything you needed to slay the creatures of Grimm was sold here.
Blake was blinded by the intensive white lights of the store shining through the entrance of the bag, as the lid was still open. She was actually glad Yang had left it open, she didn't know if she could endure sitting in a pure black bag for so long. It would have reminded her too much of the room in the weird dreams she had been having. And there wasn't a lighter in her pocket to save her right now, she checked already.
All of a sudden the bag began shaking violently. The raven-haired Faunus assumed her team were ascending a flight of stairs at that moment as she remembered there being one near the entrance. She braced herself as the first boxes began rolling around towards the other side of the bag and thus towards her.
She had to jump off the lipstick as it began rolling away. Landing softly on the velvet surface of the purse, she snapped her eyes up just in time to see a package of eyeliner rushing towards her followed by the rest of Weiss's kit.
"Come and get it," Blake murmured, challenging the stampeding horde. It was incredibly silly, but at the same time it was also incredibly silly that she was just about three inches tall, so Blake couldn't care less at the moment. The only reason that she wasn't sliding away herself was because of her incredible, at least in her opinion, ninja skills. Skills she was going to have to put to good use in a moment.
She managed to skillfully front flip over the eyeliner before using the walls of the bag to help her leap onto Weiss's spare wallet. Gracefully jumping off, she thought the worst was over. She was proved wrong however as a tube of nail polish hit her square in the face and made her crash into the wall at the opposite side of the bag, along with Weiss's whole set of makeup.
'Why does the world hate me so much?' She thought as she groaned under the weight.
Meanwhile Yang was unaware of the thud coming out of the purse she was holding, or the fact that she was holding the bag a bit tilted. Who could blame her? She had been walking around with the bloody thing for over a few hours now.
The blonde was amusedly observing her sister, who looked like a child during Christmas Morning while she walked around the weapon's store. Everybody who met Ruby realized instantly that she was a huge weapon dork. Because the mall was filled with them, it and Ruby went together like peanut butter and jelly.
Her shrill and excited voice was able to be heard over all the rest. "Weiss! Look over there! That store sells all kinds of weapons that make use of Dust! And Yang, look! That place sells flaming gauntlets!-"
"Ruby, I already have a pair of gauntlets and I set them on fire myself, remember?" Yang interrupted her sister's flood of excitement. She had to grab the scythe wielder by her hood to stop her from running off.
"I know, but still, what if they sell ice gauntlets too? That would be soooo cooool!" Ruby stopped dead in her tracks as she realized she had just made a horrible mistake. "Oh no…"
"Good one sis! It seems that I am finally beginning to rub off on you!" Yang exclaimed happily before crashing the poor girl in a signature bear hug.
Weiss palm hit her face so fast, she feared that it would leave a mark. 'I can't deal with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum on my own! Why must Blake be sitting in my purse while I have to handle these two dunces!'
It took them only about three hours to get Ruby out of her favorite weapon store, a new record! Only reminding her that they still needed to get Dust and sewing gear plus the promise of cookies when they got home made their team leader divert her attention from the walls filled with weapons and the barrels full of upgrades and ammo. She had almost bought a flaming sword if Yang and Weiss hadn't stopped her ("I just wanted to upgrade Crescent Rose!" she had shouted as they had dragged her away from the weapon).
They began making their way towards a store which sold sewing equipment and cloth. Thankfully for them Ruby knew a store located in the vicinity of the mall, so they didn't have to walk very far.
The scythe wielder was explaining to her teammates what how she knew that particular store: "So here I was, strolling through Vale, a bit like we're doing right now, but the difference was that I had no idea where I should go. I needed to find a store which sold the right materials for a decent combat outfit, those are rare apparently as most hunters buy their clothes at the mall or have them made at tailors or smiths. I really wanted to make my own outfit but it looked like the odds weren't in my favor to find a store. When I had almost given up my search I walked by this little shop by chance. Well, it looks small from the outside but the inside is filled to the brim with all kinds of cloths and metals! Basically everything you need to make your own combat outfit is sold there! Ah, speaking of which, here we are right now!"
Ruby had been lying, the store was so small that Weiss and Yang would have walked right by if Ruby hadn't pointed it out to them. It was flanked by two much bigger apartment buildings which made it seem like the store was hiding itself between them.
The team leader opened the door and the trio stepped inside. A bell rang somewhere at the back and a rather old woman walked up to them.
"Miss Rose, what a pleasure to see you again! Did you get your cape damaged again? Those Beowolves can be quite vicious sometimes, can't they?" The woman asked with a friendly voice.
"Yes, they certainly can be, Mrs. Azure. But no, I didn't rip my cape again, I'm more careful now!" Ruby said with a beaming smile. "We're actually here to buy some materials to make some outfits, we want to surprise our teammate."
Mrs. Azure seemed to be interested. "Your teammate? That reminds me, who are your friends?"
"My name is Yang Xiao Long, Ruby's sister and teammate, and this is Weiss Schnee, our other teammate." Yang gave her friendly handshake.
"Yup! And together we form Teaaaam RWBY!" Ruby exclaimed excitedly.
This seemed to interest Mrs. Azure even more. "Oh, so you got into Beacon, Miss Rose? And you became team leader? What a pleasant surprise! And I assume you are surprising your final teammate, am I correct?"
"Yes madam, her name is Blake and she is my partner," Yang answered with a broad grin.
"That's so wonderful to hear! Blake is lucky to have such good friends, like you. I wish my son would be more attentive like you, I haven't even seen his face for months! Anyway, I'll let you girls take a look around, call me if you need anything," With that, the woman walked back towards her counter.
Noticing the weird looks Weiss and Yang had on their faces, Ruby quickly explained: "She used to be huntress a long time ago, that's why she knows so much about the team system of Beacon."
The three girls began to rummage through the store, trying to find the best of the best materials for their shrunken friend. They decided to stay with Blake's color scheme: black, purple and white. Weiss offered she would look through the normal fabrics as she was an expert in recognizing the best quality. Ruby was tasked to look at all the different leathers and other materials that were used in combat gear, while Yang simply looked for nice accessories.
A few minutes went by and all three had found what they were looking for, the regrouped at the counter and put their articles on top of it. The woman came out of the back of the store and began to scan the different clothes, leathers and other materials while Weiss reached in her pocket for her wallet. She had insisted on paying for the articles, she had a lot of money after all and what was better than to spend it on her friends?
All of a sudden her heiress realized she had forgotten her wallet at their dorm! She began to panic before she saw the snow white purse around Yang's shoulder. 'Do I still own that spare wallet?'
She came closer in the bag before searching through the bag carefully, after all Blake was still in there. Yang gave her a weird look, but stayed silent. Feeling the different boxes of makeup, she realized they had forgotten to take those out. 'Oh well, we're almost at the end of our shopping trip anyway. I do hope it isn't too inconvenient for her.'
Speaking of the devil, when she suddenly, to her relief, felt the contours of a wallet, her hand brushed against something warmer and softer than the rest of the items in the purse. Blake must be sitting on her purse.
Her cheeks flared a bit as she realized she hadn't touched her Faunus teammate since her transformation. She did *not* enjoy how fuzzy the girl felt, definitely not. Alright, maybe just a little bit, but she would never admit that.
When Weiss' fingers had slipped inside the purse, they had startled Blake a little. But when she had recognized who they belonged to, she had let them do their thing. That's when a few of them accidently began stroking her, utterly confusing the raven-haired girl, what was Weiss doing? The fingers moved a bit further and began tugging at the wallet she was sitting on. Quickly realizing what the heiress wanted, Blake hopped off to allow her teammate to take it out.
Weiss felt the little girl distancing herself from her wallet, she pulled it out of the bag in a fluid motion and handed the money to Mrs. Azure, who was waiting patiently.
With a polite goodbye they left the store and made their way to their final stop: From Dust till Dawn.
After a short walk they arrived at the Dust store. Weiss could have bought her Dust at the mall, but decided against it as she came to this place for a long time and thus she knew the shopkeeper.
Yang decided to wait outside with Blake in her purse and their other articles while Ruby decided to go with Weiss as she always looked at the magazines they had inside.
Looking around, Yang noticed it must be running towards the evening, the sun was hanging low above the horizon and the only people passing her by were going home, they didn't even glance at the yellow beauty with the snow white purse. Normally Yang would be a little offended with the lack of attention she was getting, but she found she couldn't care less at that moment.
Under normal circumstances she would observe the crowd walking past her, as all the different kinds of people intrigued her. Her favorite were the couples, they came in all forms: some were loud and had animated conversations, others were very silent and were just constantly cuddling. She always found the sight endearing but also painful at the same time. Yang knew what it meant, she too craved for the feeling of being together with a loved one.
Right now she decided against it as there were no couples, only plain looking business men and women.
Leaning against the wall of the building for a couple minutes she was beginning to get bored. She had almost forgotten that Blake was in the bag she was holding as she hadn't seen her partner almost the whole day. On top of that Yang was getting a bit tired as the sun set and the now orange colored sunrays shined upon her face.
Her eyes slowly closed. 'A quick nap can't hurt,' she thought as her mind was slowly shutting down.
Because she was absolutely paying zero to none attention, she didn't notice the man with his hood up walking towards her. When he reached the blonde he lingered a bit and imitated he was interested by something inside of the shop.
All of a sudden he made a move, he snatched the purse out of Yang's limp fingers and started legging it. The girl shot awake, her mind trying to comprehend what just had happened. As the puzzle inside of her head was solving itself, she became angrier by the second. She shouted as she dropped her remaining bags: "Hey he took my purse!" but nobody seemed to react.
'Never thought I would say that dumb line in my entire life. Why did I even have a purse on me?'
That's when it hit her.
"BLAAAAKE!" Yang shouted as her entire body caught on fire and her eyes turned blood red. The business people dove for cover as a giant fireball flew by.
Ruby was softly humming a tune and flicking through the pages of a weapon magazine as she waited for Weiss to finish. At the moment the heiress was having an animated conversation with the rather silent, but friendly shopkeeper while she was taking cash out of her pocket.
The calmness inside the store was rudely interrupted however as screams sounded from outside.
The scythe wielder dropped her magazine immediately and grabbed the heiress who had just enough time to grab her bag, by the arm. When they went outside they were able to see a fire in the distance along with people running and screaming.
Ruby's gaze fell onto the dropped bags against the wall of the store and noticed that one was missing. That's when she put two and two together.
"Oh, no…"
A/N:
Shout out to my two fantastic editors: Duranda1 and Heatrules!
Well I guess the plan worked, I got one chapter done in a week! Let's try to keep it up, shall we?
For those who are asking why I suddenly made Blake three inches small instead of five, it's because I realized five inches was a bit bigger than I thought. I normally use centimeters instead of inches, that is why I was confused. I'll change the number for the previous chapters as well.
For those who don't like cliff hangers, sorry but not sorry.
The story has reached over 60 followers and almost 40 favorites, thank you all so much for that!
Onto reviews:
To uberparagon:
I don't really how to answer that, but I'm glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully you liked this chapter as well!
To ReverseSlinky:
Hopefully, I won't. But I'm glad you like it, the more souls the merrier! I know this chapter isn't really that touchy feely, but I can promise that future ones will be.
To uberparagon:
You, my friend, can read my mind...
To Rusk:
That's indeed kind of what I'm trying to aim at, some chapters are funny, others are serious. Glad you enjoy it, made my day!
Like always, If there is anything you would like to see, just ask! (no promises though)
Review, follow and favorite or maybe you're next who is going to trapped in Weiss' purse...
DragonSlayer out!
Blake: You're seriously telling me that you would like me being small?
Yang: Yup!
*Blake palms her face as she mutters: "You're incredible..."*
Yang: Come on, Blakey, think of all the fun stuff we could do! The possibilities are endless!
*For some unknown reason, Blake starts blushing furiously.*
Yang: Ohoho! I didn't know you were into that type of stuff! You naughty kitten!
Blake: Please kill me...
Me: No can do madam, you're the one with the sword.