Thanks for the understanding last week. The insurance issue still isn't sorted because of some scummy actions by the company that took the car away, but I'm determined to write this chapter before talking to any of them.

A brief reminder that this adds onto last week's snippet and would have been in the same chapter as it

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 37

It was the second day of the investigation into Beacon and all Blake could think was that they'd clearly got lucky the first time around with the Blank Slate stumbling upon them. It turned out that having to search every pair of panties in a school of several hundred students – when said underwear could move or be worn – was not easy.

Who could have guessed?

"Argh! This is a nightmare!" howled Blake, throwing several pairs of frilly lingerie into the air. Who thought lingerie was suitable huntress attire she didn't know, but whomever lived in this dorm needed a slap up the back of the head. Or a morning-after pill. "We must have turned two thirds of the school upside down by now and there's nothing. And don't you dare tell me I should be happy things are this boring!"

"Woof," said the dog that she knew was Jaune. Even that bark somehow sounded sarcastic, so she gave him the middle finger. He raised a paw back, then shoved his nose into the drawer again and started flicking it around.

Blake slumped on one of the beds with her chin in her hands. "Ugh. We don't even know what the anomaly does other than be worn by any woman, so we can't even track the anomalous after-effects. What if it's always worn by someone? We might be wasting our time flipping through drawers when we should be flipping skirts."

Jaune growled.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying you'd have to do it."

He could, as a dog, peek up skirts without being yelled at, but that felt wrong even for her. No, it'd have to be her doing that, wouldn't it? She'd have to become a stupid fluffy little dog and look up skirts while Jaune held her leash. Joy. It wasn't even that she felt any racial connotations to it anymore – not when Jaune had already put himself through it. And she'd held his leash so it wasn't like him holding hers meant anything either. Her frustration was more aimed at the thought of being such an obnoxiously small and cute dog.

What if someone picked her up? How would that even work when her illusion self would weigh a fiftieth as much as she did? Also, crawling around peeking up skirts wasn't her idea of a good time either. It was hard to think of any good excuse to have all the girls of Beacon line up and flash them, however. Did Beacon have cameras in the changing rooms? She kind of hoped not as that'd be more than a little icky.

Jaune finished with his job and then picked up the drawer in his mouth and carried it back to the chest to slide it in. Watching a dog lift something bigger than it like with its teeth was bizarre, but even when she intellectually knew it was his hands and that he was human, the anomaly he wore kept messing with her head.

That's a dog. My boss is a dog. Why do I work for a dog?

Scowling, she reached for the leash and breathed a sigh of relief when her employer became a human again. A clearly annoyed human desperately wiping his hands on his trousers like he thought he might have caught cooties or something. Wait, were cooties real now? No. She had to focus. Focus on the task at hand. Women's underwear.

"If you said anything to me earlier than I missed it."

"I know," said Jaune. "I was just saying that going through the dorms isn't so much to find the anomaly as confirm it jumps from person to person. Though, if that's the case, then I'm not sure how it got into the hands of the victim of the Blank Slate."

"Maybe they were female."

He hummed. "Maybe they were. We were never able to confirm since their identity was erased…"

"At least we can be sure this one isn't having that kind of effect or Ozpin would have noticed it sooner."

"That's true. Come to think of it, he said that everyone reported the missing underwear, didn't they? How likely are you to do that? I'd not care at all if one pair of my boxers went missing, but I don't know if that's a difference between guys and girls."

She wasn't sure she would either if she were being honest. Obviously, if she thought someone had taken them then she'd raise hell but that was more on the breach of privacy angle. When she was younger she lost plenty to just misplacing or forgetfulness or them getting mixed with the laundry of friends she might stay at the house of and never being returned. None ever prompted her to speak up because it was just underwear. It wasn't like losing an expensive top or your favourite pair of jeans.

"I wouldn't care unless they were important somehow. Sentimental value, maybe…"

"That's not likely here. Still, half the women in Beacon have reported them missing which means they noticed them and wanted them."

"Mind control?"

"That wouldn't make sense if the anomaly wants to jump from person to person. Anomalies don't necessarily make sense but there's still some core logic to them. Mind control would be useful for making a person want to keep the anomaly, which is counter to its aims if it wants to hop from person to person."

Blake considered that. "Then what is-? Wait, no. I see it. You're saying that if the anomaly isn't the one making them want to keep it then it's the effect. Like the Blank Slate. It has a beneficial power that the people wearing it want, even if they don't believe in anomalies or think it's real. What did Ozpin say again? They'd lost their lucky pair of underwear?"

"I think so. Luck." Jaune tapped his gloved fingers on his arm. "I don't know if I even believe in luck. Not to say I'm unlucky or anything, but I don't think the world is so deterministic that one person can be more or less lucky than another. Random chance is just that."

"An anomaly could mess with chance, though. Right?"

"Could it? That'd require a lot of power. First, it'd need to be sapient and capable of empathy to even understand what constitutes as good or bad luck for the wearer. Or psychic. Then, it would need to have the power to reach out and change things. Either telepathy to move things to better suit the wearer, literal reality-altering powers to change the outcomes of things, or pre-cognitive and mind control powers to subtly make the wearer act in a way that leads to good outcomes."

And if they were dealing with that then these might as well be the most powerful pair of panties the world had ever seen. Sheesh, she hadn't thought "luck" would have so much infrastructure behind it, but she could kind of see his point. Luck was more manipulating the odds than genuine luck, unless, of course, he was wrong and luck was a quantifiable factor of life that anomalies could influence.

"So… if not luck then…?"

"I don't know," admitted Jaune. "But you're probably right that going through drawers isn't going to work out. I've got a feeling someone is wearing them right now. I do have an idea on how to help with that regard. Each year has combat classes at different times and they all use the women's locker rooms. You could go in there-"

"As a dog?"

"I mean, couldn't you go in as yourself? Last I checked you're a woman."

Jaune had never checked to her knowledge but she knew what he meant. Sadly, he was forgetting one thing. "I can go in the locker rooms but I'd not have a good reason to be there. Plus, I think me staring at the girls getting changed might raise a few questions. It's a good idea, though. Most of them will have to shower after lessons so they'll have to take the anomaly off if one is wearing it. If this thing does move then it'll either move in front of me or someone will report a missing pair."

And if she was there then she could catch it. Maybe. Hopefully. Either way, the only method of this working was if she wore the damn collar.

/-/

Technically speaking, Blake walked out of Beacon with her golden Labrador and Jaune walked back in thirty minutes later with a cute little Pomeranian. They had to be seen leaving and returning so as to keep I AM DOG a secret, and with the teachers aside from Ozpin not knowing the truth it was important they be recognised as different people and different dogs.

Wearing the collar wasn't as bad as she expected; she walked side by side with Jaune, on two feet, arms crossed, and she felt human doing so. The only difficulty was remembering to stay close enough that the leash didn't tug, but he was holding it so loosely that she pulled it out his hands when she did rather than be choked. It took a little getting used to, but she could honestly say she didn't mind the part where people didn't talk to her.

It wasn't that she was anti-social so much as quiet, and it was refreshing to not be the centre of attention for loads of students curious about her "cute doggie." Less fun was when a girl with brown hair, sunglasses and a beret bent down to pat her knee. Blake raised an eyebrow to Jaune, but he pointed down to remind her that, to everyone else, she really was that small.

"Are you telling me I'll have to get on my hands and knees!?" cried Blake.

"Awwww," crooned the brunette. "She's talking to me. What's her name?"

"Uh…" They hadn't discussed this. "They hadn't thought this might happen."

Blake opened her mouth.

Jaune beat her to it. "Fluff. Her name is Fluff."

"You fuckin' what!?" cried Blake.

"Because she's a little ball of fluff," guessed the girl. "Like a fluffy cloud. That's so cute!"

Jaune smiled awkwardly, fighting the sweat running down his head as Blake glared bloody murder. "I will feed you to Timothy. I will destroy everything you love. Fluff. Of all the things you could have called me, you called me Fluff!"

"Ahah." Jaune laughed and rubbed his head. "A-Anyway, we need to be back to work. Come on… uh… Fluff. It's time to get back to work."

She continued to glare until they reached the combat rooms which, according to the schedule they'd been given, was about fifteen minutes before the class for the third years was due to begin. Jaune unlatched the leash from her collar and let her loose, then took a seat off to the side like he intended to do nothing more than oversee the class. Blake growled one last time, knowing he'd not hear her words, and padded into the changing rooms.

When the first older girls arrived, they seemed surprised by the sight of her, but aside from a few pets and comments and the odd photo taken of her, they didn't seem to mind. One or two looked afraid of her and took the far end of the changing rooms and she let them. None seemed overly concerned about a cute little fluffy dog watching them change, however. Blake's eyes narrowed as she looked for any pair of underwear that would trigger her recollection of the last set. She couldn't remember what they looked like off the top of her head, but she was sure she'd recognise them if she saw them.

Nothing did. Blake's eyes roamed over more scantily clad backsides than she cared to, and after the girls had made for the showers she even walked about watching the lockers for any movement. There was none, and when the girls came back to get changed there were no complaints of missing underwear. Blake padded out to report her findings to Jaune, who talked to her in a low voice once he'd clipped the leash back on.

"That probably means we can rule out this year. That's a relief. We have the first years next. Are you okay to do the same again?"

"Yeah, sure. Just be careful around Yang. She still has it in for you over Ruby."

"I know. I was there when she told you. I'll stay out of view."

Blake nodded and went back into the changing rooms to wait. It was maybe twenty boring minutes until the door opened and the first year class arrived, much louder and far more vocal than the older class.

"-and it gave me an idea and I asked Miss Goodwitch and there were no rules against it," said a familiar voice. Yang. "He's trained and even has his aura unlocked, so he'll be safe here."

"I just think it's the height of immaturity to see a private investigator bring a dog and instantly decide to do the same," said Weiss.

Wait, what? Dog? Blake's ears – her faunus ones and her illusionary dog ones – flattened to her scalp.

"-private investigators," scoffed Yang. "Yeah, right. They're definitely something like that."

The group rounded the corner into the changing room and paused. Blake was faced with four girls, and many more behind, but her eyes were locked on the small form of a dog held in the blonde's arms. It was a corgi, grey and white, with black eyes and its mouth hung open, tongue lolling out.

"Huh." Yang looked at her. "Another dog?"

"I heard the investigator switched out their dogs to give the first a rest," said Ren. "I don't blame them when they've been at it for a day and a half now. I'm a little surprised something so small is a sniffer dog, but I guess it's more about the nose and the intellect than any specific breed."

"It's so cute!" Of all people, Blake Belladonna found herself lifted – yes, lifted – off her feet by Weiss Schnee. The girl's arms strained with the weight of a fully grown woman, and yet despite looking like she might collapse at any moment the oddity of a tiny dog weighing so much didn't cross the girl's mind. "Oh, you're so cute! Yes, you are. Who's a good- um…" Blake yelped as she was turned upside down. "-girl. Who's a good girl?"

Blake would have screamed and decked the girl if not for the fact she was wearing trousers. A skirt had seemed a bad idea when she might have to crawl around on her knees. As such, Weiss hadn't seen anything. The anomaly must have completed the illusion for her. Still, it was embarrassing enough being manhandled by someone who might as well be her natural enemy twice over. Once for being a Schnee to her faunus, and twice for being a Schnee to her ARC Corp employee status.

"Yeah, you might want to put her down before Miss Goodwitch comes in to see what all the noise is," drawled Yang. The blonde was already pulling her uniform shirt off and had set the corgi down on the wooden bench. "Come on, Weiss, she'll still be here after. And besides, you have Zwei to fawn over as much as you want."

"I-I do not fawn! I am composed at all times!"

Blake breathed a sigh of relief as she was set down. Grumbling, she sat on her own section of bench, which probably looked like the tiny dog was laid down on it or something. Her eyes tracked Nora, the last person to have knowingly borne the anomaly, but her underwear today was a plain orange. They all had plain sets on. Blake let her eyes roam a little further, which was her excuse for not noticing when someone approached her. It wasn't until they spoke that she did.

"Well hello hello~" schmoozed a masculine voice. "I didn't realise there'd be a bitch like you around here. Mmhm. You fine, girl."

Blake's entire body froze. Was there a guy in the changing rooms? How was that not earning a reaction? The questions flashed through her brain alongside irritation at just being approached and talked to like that. "Excuse me? Who the hell are you calling a bitch-"

An elongated snout and little black eyes were fixed on her.

Blake shrieked and scooted back. "Eeep!"

"No need for that, darling. I'm not one of those city mongrels." The dog – a literal dog – pressed its chin to the floor in what might have approximated a bow. "I am Zweimillion Maximus the Second. Zwei to my packmates. And, might I say, I'm surprised to see such a dignified bitch around these parts."

"Are you… Are you talking to me…?"

"Is there anyone else here?" replied the canine. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth. "Or maybe you're just so stunned someone like I, Zweimillion Maximus the Second, would talk to you. Have a little more confidence in yourself, my dear. You are no crossbreed or mongrel." He came up to sniff her leg, and she was too stunned by the sudden communication with an animal to feel any panic. "Hmm. Such soft fur, so fragrant. Sweat, soil and flowers if my nose does not mistake me. And Zweimillion Maximus the Second's nose never does!"

"Awwww," crooned Yang. "Look at that. Zwei's made a friend."

"Um… I… Uh…" Blake's eyes flicked left and right. A person flirting with her she knew how to handle, but a dog? This was a little out her comfort zone. "N-Nice to meet you? I'm Blake. Uh. Blake Belladonna."

"A beautiful name for a beautiful bitch."

There was that word again. Blake winced but assumed it meant something less vulgar to a dog. Also, dog! What the hell – Jaune hadn't told her she'd be able to communicate with animals. Actually, hadn't he implied she couldn't? Was this a new discovery? Maybe her faunus heritage and ears, mixed with the anomaly, were giving her some extra benefits? Blake wasn't entirely sure it was a benefit right now, but she could imagine the ability to communicate with dogs could be if she ever needed to question any. There had been cases where parrots and birds had witnessed crimes and been asked about them in court, so she could imagine a dog seeing one and remembering as well.

"I'm working right now," said Blake. "So, uh, I won't be able to return your… very sweet… words."

"Oh? A working bitch? I can respect that. I, too, have a most important task. I have been entrusted with a broken human. I have spent many a year pushing him in the right direction, assisting him with important tasks. The poor man might forget to eat without me pleading with him." The corgi sighed, which was a ridiculously exasperated sound for a creature that looked dopey and stupid. "It's a difficult job, but rewarding, and someone has to do it. Of course, he is fortunate that I, Zweimillion Maximus the Second, am the one entrusted with his care. And the care of his puppies."

"Yang and Ruby?"

"Ah, you know them? Then tis perhaps fate we meet today. Tell me, my darling Blake, of this task you hold so dear, that I, Zweimillion-"

"Maximus the Second," finished Blake. "I get it. Look, this is hard to explain but… do you know what underwear is?"

"I know of it. Not as great a toy as the marvellous sock, nor as eminently destructible as shoes, but no less sure to draw complaints should I run away with one between my teeth. If you search for some then this is a fine place."

"It's not that. There is a…" How was she to explain this to a dog? Should she? It probably wasn't a big risk since no one could understand Zwei unless they could talk to animals, and the only way to do that was to have the anomaly around her neck. "There's a walking pair of them that is putting itself on human women. It might be doing something to them without their knowledge. My job is to find and capture it to protect all the women here."

"To protect the girl-pups?"

"Sure."

"Marvellous. Truly wonderful. A noble task indeed. Then I, Zweimillion Maximus the Second, shall assist you in this endeavour. And perhaps once you are free from such a task you and I might howl at the sky-light together."

Blake blinked. "Do you mean the moon?"

"Is that what you would call it? A lovely name. Not nearly as lovely as Zweimillion Maximus the Third, but perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. My nose is at your disposal, my fair bitch. If, as you say, the smelly-things move from one person to another than I, Zweimillion Maximus the Second, will surely smell it. The clash of two distinctively different scents will be offensively odorous."

Of course! The anomaly was going to carry scent from each person it had touched this day, combining them to what – to an actual dog – must have been ridiculously pungent. It was painfully ironic that, after pretending to be a sniffer dog, what they'd really needed was an actual sniffer dog. Blake wanted to scream.

Zweimillio- Zwei's head shot up suddenly. "It comes!"

"What? Now!?"

"Can you not smell it? A lingering odour that did not exist when we first met has suddenly arrived." The girls were in the showers now, and Zwei jumped down off the bench. Blake stood, following him. "It reeks of too many scents at once. It seeks to latch itself to a new girl-pup. Fiendish. I, Zweimillion Maximus the Second, shall not allow it!" He trotted to a locker and placed his paw against it. "The foul scent emanates from here. Of course, we will need a way to get into the metal box-"

Blake twisted the handle with her fingers and opened it. The thing wasn't locked seeing as how the owner was only around twelve feet away in a shower. Zwei goggled at her shin, which was the height he perceived her.

"H-How? Incredible! Truly, you are worthy of the Maximus name."

"I'm what now-?" asked Blake, distractedly. Her eyes were on the interior, where the owner had quite neatly laid a fresh set of clothes and then rather messily stuffed the rest into a bag beneath to be cleaned. Atop the pile of pressed clothing, sitting oh so innocently, was a bright pair of panties pink in colour with a black smiley face etched onto them. "Found you! Finally, I can get this job done and have a little normalcy in my life."

Blake touched them.

They vanished.

"What-?"

"My darling!" cried Zwei, horrified. "I will protect you!"

The dog bit her ass.

Or, rather, it bit the coattails of her suit jacket, which must have looked like her rear end to it. The corgi hung from her jacket, swinging back and forth twisting like a shark trying to tear a chunk of meat out its prey, all the while growling ferociously.

"Um. Why…?"

"Grrr-snf. Protec-mph. Fear not! Grrr. Zwei-mphmnn grr-mus, mp-cond will – mph – save you!"

Save her-? Save her from what? Blake was about to pry the dog off and go find Jaune when her eyes locked wide open. Zwei was biting her rump. No. He was biting the clothing over her rear end, as if trying to wrench it off. Heart racing, mouth dry, Blake yanked the waistband of her trousers out and looked down.

A smiley face on a pink background stared up at her.

Blake screamed.

/-/

Jaune wasn't sure what, if anything, he had expected, but he certainly didn't expect Blake, in her dog form, to come howling out the door to the changing rooms with another dog attached to her rear end. Blake was screaming bloody murder, yapping and howling like she was being savaged, while the other dog was similarly growling, but hanging onto her for dear life. Jaune sprang to his feet and raced over, terrified she might be killed. Intellectually, he knew she couldn't be as a huntress with aura, but I AM DOG had him convinced she was a small and frail little thing.

He caught her and tried to pry the small dog off to no avail. As he did, Blake snatched the leash in her mouth – or hand – and slammed it onto her collar. Instantly, she was a human to him, and the dog was gripping tightly onto her suit jacket instead of her body. That didn't alleviate her panic any.

"IT'S GOT ME!" screamed Blake. "IT'S GOT ME!"

"I'm trying to get if off!" said Jaune, wrestling with the dog."

"Fuck the dog!" screamed Blake. "Get my pants off!"

Jaune paused, dog in gloved hands, no longer tugging as he stared at his partner. "What…?"

"Argh, you're useless!" Blake gripped her belt and fought with the buckle, yanked it apart and then hooked her thumbs into her waistband. Jaune had the briefest moment to panic, in which his eyes widened to saucers, before she pushed down and revealed smooth, bare thighs and long legs. Having grown up with sisters, he had the presence of mind to throw himself back, narrowly dropping the leash before Blake exposed anything else.

Suddenly, it was a tiny dog rolling on the floor with another.

And then, just as suddenly, a black pair of suit trousers materialised in front of them, tossed into reality and flopping onto the ground. Seconds later, they were followed by a pink and frilly thing with black across it, appearing from nothing and landing atop the trousers. Instantly, the corgi released the Pomeranian and lunged for them, snatched them up in its jaws and thrashed its head left and right.

His small dog trotted toward the leash in Jaune's hand and reached for it with her mouth. Jaune wrenched it away, spinning and hiding it against his chest. "Noooo!"

"Woof?"

"B-Blake," stammered Jaune, his eyes on her trousers. "T-Think about what you're wearing." His voice rose an octave. "Or what you're not wearing!"

"Woof…?" The Pomeranian looked back on its hindquarters. "WOOF! Woof woof woof!"

Scurrying so fast its paws struggled to find purchase and made funny little noises, the dog sped for the discarded trousers and rolled into them, making them vanish. It then thrashed on its back briefly before hopping back onto its feet and padding slowly toward him. Jaune gingerly let her take the leash and breathed a sigh of relief when a fully clothed Blake appeared before him. Fully clothed but flaming red in the face and staring at him.

"How much did you see?"

"N-Nothing…"

"How much!?"

"Thighs. Knees. N-Not much more."

Blake's eyes closed. "We never talk of this."

"We sure as hell don't! My sisters don't need more reasons to want to kill me!"

"Good. No, not good, but… oh, screw it." Blake pointed. "That's the anomaly. I can't pick it up because it teleported to me. Ate my underwear," she grumbled. "Or displaced it. Erased them? I don't know. Maybe you should try pick them up." Her breath came out in a sigh. "Zwei, let them go."

The dog did so instantly, showing a surprising amount of training. Jaune gingerly picked the article of clothing up and dangled it from his finger. It didn't jump to him, which might have been because he was a man but might have also meant there was some degree of skin contact required. He was wearing gloves after all, and plenty of anomalies were made safer because of that.

"Well, I guess this all worked out." Carefully, he opened a metal briefcase lined with lead, and dropped the anomaly into it. He sealed it shut and twisted the code lock. "Good job, Blake. That's one more anomaly safely contained. I hope. We'll have to see how its teleportation powers work, but I think they must be limited by distance for this to have stayed in Beacon and not moved to Vale. We should be able to store it off-site."

Blake opened her mouth to respond, then paused and looked down. The corgi had its forepaws up on her shin, and she wasn't freaking out like she normally would have. He watched, curious, as her face grew increasingly hotter, increasingly redder, and her mouth opened wider and wider. It continued until he thought she might burst like a red balloon.

"Blake? You okay?"

"Y-Yes. M-Mission complete. Let's go. Now, please. Right now."

The corgi whined unhappily and barked after them but trotted back into the changing rooms without following them. Blake kept close to him, not even complaining at the collar or the leash, as they made their way to Ozpin's office to report a successful job.

"So," said Jaune, "That dog seemed to like you."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Did something happen?"

"I really don't want to talk about it…"

What are the panties' effects? As in the benefits as to the luck factor? Will be fully discovered later

Next Chapter: 23rd January

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