Warning: This fic is rated M for a reason. Fic contains explicit sexual content. 18+ readers only.

Fic commissioned by Mr. What If.

Information on commissions obtainable by PM.

A/N: This is Chapter 1 of 2 commissioned.

A blur raced through Beacon Academy, leaving only rose petals and the flash of a red cape fluttering in her wake

The blur muttered to herself as she went by. "I'm late I'm late I'm late, oh, Weiss is gonna kill-" but before she could finish her sentence, she slammed into what felt like a wall at full speed, with a grunt from the unfortunate wall caught in her path.

She bounced off the grunting wall with a squeak and landed on the floor with her cape over her head, blocking her vision.

"Ruby? Is that you?" Said the the abused wall in a very familiar voice.

Under her makeshift veil, Ruby was still a little dazed, and it wasn't until she was physically picked up off of the ground and lifted to her feet that she realized that she knew that voice very well.

But before she could formulate some kind of response, or steel herself, her cape was gently picked off of her face and, like that, she was inches from the piercing blue eyes of her fellow team leader Jaune Arc.

A blush on her cheeks, which had been receding since she'd 'bumped' into him returned in full force and her face was almost as red as her cape as his eyes roved over her, checking for any damage. She could feel his gaze prickling her skin and she had to repress a very real urge to run away and ignore the whole incident in embarrassment.

"Well, nothing looks wrong from the outside...wait, Ruby, you haven't said anything, did you hurt your head when you fell? Nod for yes."

And like that Jaune had his finger in her face and the red faced girl finally snapped herself out of her shock, batting his hand away from in front of her face with a huff of annoyance.

"Am I fine? I should be asking you that question!" She said with a teensy bit of misplaced anger.

"Me? Why?" He looked genuinely confused at the statement, which made Ruby a even more annoyed, and she took that feeling and ran with it to focus herself.

"Yes, you! I just ran into you at like 30 miles an hour!"

Jaune looked down at his body, as if trying to tell if there was any damage to his Beacon uniform, and shrugged, nonplussed.

"I dunno, I'm fine, Nora's flying hugs usually have more force than that. Honestly, my sister's hugs are more brutal than that. Your sister's too."

Ruby's eyes followed his, and found them lingering on his body, roving over his broad shoulders and his filled out suit.

She walked over to him, fighting the blush that was threatening to get even worse, and stuck a finger into his chest with an angry expression.

It was meant to be intimidating, but under his shirt was hard, taught, muscle, and Ruby just ended up getting both more distracted, and more annoyed at Jaune. "Fuck, he filled out since freshman year..." she caught herself thinking before she viciously squashed the traitorous thought.

She spoke up before she could be caught staring again and she managed to come up with a squeaky voice that hopefully still conveyed the source of her annoyance as she poked him with each word.

"You. Are. Too. Tanky."

Jaune, confused as ever, just shrugged, and tried to change the topic.

"...only compared to you Rubes," He said as she fumed slightly. "So where were you headed?"

At this, Ruby's face finally dropped the blush that had come over her, and replaced it with a terrified expression that drained the blood from her face to leaving her pale.

"Crap!" She shouted, making Jaune wince slightly. "Shipment of White Fang stuff. Need escort. Team RWBY mission. Weiss is gonna kill me."

She looked at him nervously, and Jaune rolled his eyes.

"Rubes, if you're late then why are you still talking to me?"

She squeaked out a "Thanks Jaune!" before dashing off.

Jaune then started as if he remembered something and yelled to her receding form "And watch the language or Yang'll kill me!"

As she sped off into the distance, he could faintly hear his friend yelling "Fuck off!" as he shook his head in exasperation.

Team RWBY was understandably a little annoyed when the person their team was named after was late. Specifically, the 'W' in the team was so annoyed that the other two were annoyed at Ruby by proxy for bringing on the ice queen's rants.

"Of all the bone-headed, irresponsible, idiotic things to do, she just had to be late, didn't she?" Weiss said as the bullhead with the shipment landed on the docks and was beginning to be unloaded. Yang and Blake, while tired, and a little peeved that Ruby was not there as well, shared a quick look between them that mutually decided to just let the former heiress ramble on.

"I mean really!" She continued. "We brought down the White Fang all those months ago, it's our job to oversee the end of it, we need to be here. For closure."

At that, Blake actually perked up from gazing listlessly at the bullhead to instead look at her teammate in surprise. She never expected her friend to be the sentimental type, and Weiss was always at an arm's length from the issue during the past three years of hunting the White Fang radicals down and bringing them to justice. Her objectivity might have saved them more than once, but it was actually very heartening to hear that her slightly prissy teammate did care about her crusade to help faunus everywhere.

"And moreover, I reminded her day and night for the past week about this shipment!"

And Blake went right back to staring at the boxes of White Fang materials that had finally been unloaded, pausing only to share a smirk with Yang. So that's why Weiss was so pissed.

"I sent texts, I sent emails, I called her multiple times during the day, and I even reminded her in person not an hour before now. And she's still late!" Weiss fumed.

Yang snickered, but figured that her sister could use some slack, so she spoke up. "Relax, Weiss, we're on guard duty as a precaution, remember? It's not like there's anything left of the Fang to even try and steal this stuff. And it's not like it's important anyway."

Weiss was still annoyed, but years of working with her team, as well as her time at Beacon had mellowed her out from her angry freshman years. So, to her credit, she calmed down, but she still had to get in one last sentence before she let it go.

"...fine, but, as the leader of the team, we actually do need her here to actually accept the damn shipment on behalf of Beacon."

Yang sighed before replying again. "Yeah, well there she is." She said, pointing to a rapidly approaching red blur.

The blur stopped in front of them, materializing with a fluttering of petals into Ruby, clad in her huntress outfit, with the obligatory combat skirt, corset, cape, and out of breath face.

"You dolt!" Weiss berated her. "About time you showed up!"

"Sorry!" Ruby said quickly as the shipment approached them. "I got delayed!"

"Whatever," Weiss said with a huff. "Let's just get this over with, without any more problems, okay?"

Ruby nodded, and the Atlas soldiers with the shipment stopped in front of them. After exchanging pleasantries and signing some documents, they moved with the rolling cart across Beacon's courtyard.

Once they were a safe distance away from the soldiers, Blake, surprisingly, was the one to strike up conversation again.

"So Ruby, what were you delayed by?"

This caused their leader to stiffen slightly as she walked, and her reply was stilted in a way that none of her friends could miss.

"Nothing, I was just delayed by something! No big deal at all."

Blake's eyebrow raised itself, Weiss's eyes narrowed, and Yang's smirk stretched across her face in unison.

"Oh really Rubes?"

Ruby tended to have a sixth sense for when her scent was caught by a Grimm, if she had to describe it, it was a sort of chill in the back of her stomach. It hadn't failed her yet. And right then, the sinking feeling she was getting was so much worse.

"And what was this 'something'?" Blake said with nosy curiosity that really was not helping faunus stereotypes.

"Well, someone-"

"Oh, it's a 'someone' now?" Yang's tone just radiated her smirking expression as Ruby began to blush slightly.

"I just...bumped into someone." Ruby said sheepishly, hoping they would let up.

"You 'bumped into someone'?" This time, Weiss was speaking, and her own tone may have been annoyed, but there was an undercurrent of amusement in it too. "Pray tell, who exactly is so important that you nearly miss a mission?"

Say what you will about Ruby, she was an amazing huntress, an exceptional sniper, and probably the best scythe wielder in the world now that her Uncle Qrow was retired, but her poker face was shit. Her expression screamed embarrassment and confusion as she stuttered.

"I-I-I don't know what you're-"

"It was Jaune wasn't it."

Her whole body felt like it was blushing at Blake's declaration, and she let out a small squeak before she grabbed her hood and dragged it over her head.

There was a moment of silence, save for the squeaky wheels of the cart being pushed, before Yang broke out into laughter and the rest of Ruby's traitorous team followed.

"I hate all of you" she said as she listened to Blake's giggles and Weiss's chuckles at her expense.

"Awww, don't be like that Rubes!" Yang said as she tried to stifle her own giggles. "Come on, we're your team! Give us the scoop!"

Ruby sighed in annoyance. "I told you! I bumped into him. It's no big deal!"

This time it was Blake's turn to chime in. "Your face is very red for 'no big deal'"

That, of course, didn't help Ruby at all and her face stayed very red under her hood, as she muttered more curses at her teammates.

Weiss was tempted to tease her partner some more, but she was more curious about why Ruby was so worked up in the first place, so relented on the poor reaper.

"Okay, okay, Yang, Blake, calm down, Ruby, we promise we won't tease you anymore, but seriously, why are you so flustered?"

Yang and Blake's curiosity was piqued, so both quieted down until the only noise in the mid-day courtyard was the sound of the cart's squeaky wheel again.

Ruby sighed, and now that her blush was under control, pulled her hood back.

"Look," she started "I was running to get here, when I literally bumped into Jaune."

Blake's eyebrow raised itself, Weiss's eyes narrowed, and Yang's smirk stretched across her face in unison. Again. Her teammates really were getting too predictable.

"And?" Weiss urged her on, the excitement not quite fully suppressed from her tone like she wanted.

"And I bounced off of him. And I ran to get changed and come here." Ruby said quickly

"Really?" Yang said, suspicion laced into her tone. "Then why were you so flustered, huh, sis?"

Ruby was getting red again, but a quick look away from her teammates gave her a bit of breathing room, and she spat out a quick mutter. "Because he's really big now."

Yang cocked her head. "I'm sorry?"

Ruby sighed. "Look, when I bounced into him, and poked him-"

"'poked him'?" Weiss said in confusion.

"-I realized that he got really strong."

Yang was, naturally, very confused. "So? Of course Jaune's strong now. We all know that. He's actually good enough I've been using him as a hand to hand sparring partner."

Ruby tried to articulate her thoughts in a manner they would understand better.

"Yeah, I know that, I've fought him before, but something's just...different, okay? I've never been...up close with him. I didn't imagine he was just so...big when he's up close and touching me."

"Wait wait wait-" Weiss interrupted "Sorry, you've been imagining Jaune touching you?"

With that, the entire group stopped and looked at Ruby, who really was living up to her namesake as, once again, her entire face was red from embarrassment.

Eventually, Yang was the one who broke the silence. "Ruby, do you have...feelings...for Jaune?"

There was a pause and Ruby quietly whispered under her breath "Maybe?"

"Well, there are worse choices." Blake said, finally chiming in, albeit in a slightly distracted manner as she gazed at the cart in concentration, her secondary cat ears twitching. "I should know. I dated most of them."

The other three snickered to themselves at her morbidly accurate statement and Yang began pushing the cart again as they all relaxed slightly.

"So Rubes.." Yang continued with a hint of concern. "How long has this been going on?"

Ruby's blush had finally subsided again, but she was still a little flustered when she spoke again.

"I don't know, it's just...I've been spending more and more time with him, playing videogames, reading comics together, tinkering with our weapons-"

All three of her teammates gave her deadpan looks at the activities in question, not that Ruby noticed, as she was too busy reciting more things they did together.

"And...I don't know, I just really like hanging around him. Even if we're just...sitting together quietly. And I like just...imagining myself with him."

The creaking of the cart did nothing to break the silence that befell them.

"Damn." Yang said quietly. "You got it bad Rubes."

"Well," Weiss said uncertainly. "Whatever you choose to do about this, we'll help you through this?"

"Thanks guys." Ruby said warmly before muttering under her breath. "Though I doubt you can do anything about those dreams I keep getting."

"What was that?" Yang said.

"NOTHING!" Ruby said quickly.

There was an awkward silence before Blake interrupted it, still staring at the cart.

"Ruby, I'll support you too, but...do you mind opening the cart?"

The other three turned to look at the only faunus in the group.

"Sure, Blake," Ruby said as she pulled out her scroll and pulled up the 'Leader Privileges' file, flipping to the access code she was sent. "But why?"

"I can hear something in there, like a high pitched whine?" The others were staring at her in confusion, so Blake gestured to her exposed cat ears. "Something humans can't hear."

"Ohhh…" Ruby said in understanding as she waved her scroll over a scanner on top of the cart, and the top of the box opened.

"Ahhh!" Blake winced as the noise was no longer muffled by the metal top. "I'm okay…" she said quickly at her teammate's concern. "It's just...loud. Can you guys-"

"I've got it." Ruby said quickly as she rummaged through the box. Nothing stood out, except for a cylinder in the middle of the pile, half buried under the other scientific instruments. It was glowing a bright red light that was flashing ominously.

Ruby, trusting that the Atlesian scientists had removed anything dangerous before they transferred it to Beacon, grabbed the cylinder and pulled it out.

"This it?" she said to the cat faunus behind her.

Though she couldn't see it, Blake was plugging her cat ears while Yang was covering her human ones. She nodded, and Yang responded for her.

"Yep!"

Now that Ruby had it in her hand, she could actually hear the noise at the corner of her range of hearing, so she held it up to her face for inspection.

"Looks like it's just dust."

At that, the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company walked over to analyze the dust cylinder herself. Ruby flipped the cylinder in her hands to give it to her partner, only to freeze when she spotted the source of the red light.

That's when the reaper realized that the red light on it was actually a countdown. She barely had time to register that accompanying the countdown were the words "Containment breach imminent" before the countdown reached zero and beeped threateningly.

Years of Huntress training had honed Ruby's reflexes, and even then, the only reason she was even able to react was because of her semblance activating at the last second to slow down time around her slightly.

She tore the canister away from Weiss's waiting fingers and threw itr into the cart, slamming the top of the cart down as quickly as she could.

Unfortunately, the canister chose that moment to detonate, and the top, which had unfortunately been pointed directly towards the poor reaper, blew off, knocking Ruby in the nose, and spraying her entire face with a concentrated blast of sparkling dust.

The dust was everywhere, in her eyes, her nose, she even thought she swallowed some before she finally shut the cart's top, stopping the dust from spreading further.

She could hear coughing around her as her body crumpled to the ground.

The last thing she heard before unconsciousness was her teammates shouting.

"RUBY!"

Ruby woke with a daze. Her eyes opened, only to have light shine into her eyes, blinding her before her eyes slammed shut again.

But her movement had attracted attention, and she could faintly hear someone around her.

"Ruby? You okay?"

The voice broke through her reverie, but the volume made her wince.

But despite cringing at the volume, she distantly registered that it was Blake, and her suspicions were only confirmed when a head leaned over her, and the shadow that blocked out the light had two triangle shaped ears on the top.

"Oww…" she said with an expression of pain. "Blake, could you keep it down?"

"Sorry Ruby." Blake said sheepishly in a quieter tone. "Been a while since I had to talk like this. But do you feel okay?"

Ruby sat up, and the brutal light that was blinding her was gradually dimming to normal.

"I...guess?" Ruby said as she took stock of herself. Everything seemed fine, minus a slight whine she could hear, but she worked around firearms, a little tinnitus was expected. She was going to give an all clear until she sniffed herself. That's when she smelled it.

Normally, she didn't pay attention to the smells around her, but upon inspection, she reeked. Blake looked at her curiously, and perhaps with a hint of amusement, as Ruby began to turn her head left and right, trying to figure out what that strong smell was.

"Blake...how long have I been in this bed?" She said uncertainly.

"A few hours, give or take." Blake said, shrugging.

Ruby, perplexed now, was trying to figure out what she was smelling, wriggling around before she pulled the covers up to her nose. One inhale told her exactly where the smell was coming from.

"Blake, did someone dump a load of bleach into these covers?" she said in curiosity.

"Nope," Blake said, looking at Ruby carefully.

"Well it smells like it, actually, Blake, where are we?" Ruby trailed off as she looked around.

Blake followed her gaze before responding, "Ruby, you're in Beacon's hospital wing, do you remember what happened to you?"

"Yeah," Ruby said absentmindedly. "We were escorting White Fang materials through Beacon's courtyard when…" Her eyes widened. "Oh my gods."

Blake jumped up to hold Ruby down her leader got ready to bolt out of the bed.

"Ruby, RUBY! Everyone's fine! Everyone's okay!" Ruby relaxed slightly in her grip and fell back into the pillows.

"Ruby? I need to ask you some questions." She said slowly, pulling out a pad of paper.

"Sure?" her leader said uncertainly.

"What's your birthday?"

"October 31st."

"Good. Beacon issued codename?"

"Reaper."

Blake was relaxing too at each question as she continued.

"What's the name for your team attack with Weiss?"

"White Rose."

Blake's pen stopped slightly at that answer and she straightened minutely.

Ruby sighed as she racked her head for what she might've said wrong. She really hated head trauma questions.

"Originally it was Ice Flower but we came up with something better. It might still be listed as Ice Flower on the HTQ sheet"

Blake relaxed minutely even if she was slightly embarrassed that Ruby had an inkling of what she was asking. Oh who was she kidding, of course Ruby was familiar with HTQ's. She had Yang as a sister, and as Yang's partner, she could attest to the fact that the Xiao Long's were no strangers to head trauma...

"Favorite food?"

"Strawberries, tied with cookies."

Blake flipped a sheet over the top edge of the clipboard and Ruby faintly could see the questions and a disclaimer through the backside of the paper. Her eyes narrowed as realization struck.

"Today's date?"

"June 20th, Wednesday. Wait, isn't a doctor supposed to administer these?"

Blake tried to steamroll past the question and posed another.

"Favorite song?"

"Red like Roses, Blake, what's going on?" And like that Ruby's face expressed even more concern. "Blake, where's Yang, and Weiss?"

"First pet's name?"

"Zwei, Blake, you said they were alright."

"They are Ruby. First crush?"

Ruby's eyes flew to glare at her teammate. "That's not a HTQ."

Blake flinched.

"None of the last three questions were real HTQ's."

"How do you know-" Blake started accusingly before Ruby cut her off.

"That questionnaire is pretty useless unless I filled it out prior to getting a concussion. I memorized my answers months ago," She heard Blake swear loudly under her breath at her slip-up and kept going. "Also, I've gotten at least two detentions this year for giving first aid when there are doctors available. I find it hard to believe Beacon changed its policies in the past few hours"

"You'd be surprised…" Blake said quietly to herself.

"And you haven't even reached for your scroll." Ruby said quietly as her rant subsided.

This last revelation didn't sink in as well, and Blake just looked at her in confusion.

The reaper rolled her eyes.

"Weiss and Yang are probably livid right now. I'm honestly surprised they're not sleeping in those chairs." Ruby sighed. "And you didn't even reach for your scroll to call them, you just pulled out the clipboard."

Her gaze sharpened at Blake, who was looking suspiciously like a rat caught in a corner by a cat.

She sighed.

"Look, there's a reason for that. Actually, Yang and Weiss were here a little while ago. But the doctors thought it'd be better for me to be here."

"No offense to you Blake, but why would you be better?"

Blake smirked slightly at the dig, which she honestly couldn't blame her for.

"It's fine. I'd prefer if your sister and partner were here too, but I better understand what you're going through right now."

"Understand?" Ruby said confusedly. "What am I going through-"

She was interrupted by a voice in the hallway that carried through the door "I'm so sorry I'm late, I came as quick as I could-"

The door to the room slammed open with a bang that rattled the room.

In the doorway, Velvet Scarletina stood with a basket with weirdly shaped food in it. But Ruby couldn't take that in as she was clutching her ears in pain.

The door had struck with the sound of a flashbang, and the ringing of the door slamming was still reverberating in her head. The huntress pressed her hands to her ears, as if trying to squeeze the sounds out.

But it wasn't working, and her ears were still ringing, and the door was still banging open and shut. Finally, less than a second after the door flung itself open, she could distantly hear Blake yelling loud enough to break through the ringing.

"Velvet! Grab the fucking door!"

As she said that, her feline teammate jumped on her bed and was grabbing Ruby's head, frantically feeling it up before she grunted out a sigh of relief and pressed her hands onto two random spots on her leader's hair.

And just like that, the sound was muffled, and the pain subsided. Ruby could feel her heart rate dropping, and she chanced to open her eyes.

She saw a very contrite Velvet gently closing the door, and Blake's face very close to hers, and her body almost straddling her in her haste to grab her.

Ruby could hear her talking to her, but barely, since the noise was deadened.

"Ruby! I'm going to let go. Are you okay?"

"Yeah...yeah I'm good." She said, and she gently pulled her hands off of her ears, and Blake pulled her hands off of Ruby's head.

The first thing she heard was Velvet, looking like she was on the verge of tears. "I'm so, so sorry!" She said miserably. "I was just late, and I was rushing to get here since I had to stop off...are you okay?"

Ruby was putting her finger in her ear to check for any damage, but couldn't find anything.

"I'm fine, just...geez Vel, if you keep this up, Beacon won't have many doors left."

Velvet looked puzzled looking back at the door, stuttering to herself "But...I didn't slam it that hard…" before she turned to Blake with a glare of realization. "Blake. You were supposed to tell her."

"I'm sorry!" the aforementioned cat faunus said in annoyance. "She just got up less than a minute ago, and I needed to give her an HTQ!"

"Blake!" The upperclassman said with intimidation uncommon in rabbit faunuses.

"I know, I know...look, Ruby, come over here," Blake said as she opened a door to a bathroom nearby "And promise you won't freak out, okay?"

Ruby walked over, albeit, with a fair amount of trepidation in her step. "Blake, is there something I should know?"

"Just...you'll see." Her teammate said with little to no reassurance as she gestured to the mirror.

Ruby stumbled over to the bathroom and looked at the mirror. She looked perfectly fine, except for the fact that she was in hospital scrubs, and she was about to ask Blake what she was looking at, when something on her head seemed to twitch towards Blake's direction.

She finally focused on her head. Specifically, on the two, half bent dog ears matching the color of her hair sticking out of it.

Blake, realizing that Ruby finally noticed, sighed in exasperation.

"Ruby, welcome to being a faunus. Trust me, shit's gonna get a whole lot weirder from here on out."

Ruby really only had one reasonable reply to this.

"Blake...what the fuck?"

Ruby had listened raptly to Blake's explanation of what happened, and despite hearing the whole thing, she was still skeptical.

"You're telling me that the White Fang, The White Fang, a terrorist group wanted on every continent for robbery, extortion, and murder, had enough financial and logistical backing to bioengineer a combination of Dust and viruses into whatever they wanted...and they gave me dog ears?!"

"Yep."

Ruby buried her head in her hands.

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard."

"I mean...it doesn't exactly fit with their prior actions, but you have to admit, being able to turn any racist human into a faunus would be a potent bargaining chip."

Ruby raised her head to give a look of utter disbelief at Blake.

"..."

Blake rolled her eyes at her leader.

"Okay, fine, it was still a stupid idea, but it was a stupid idea that worked, okay? People have been trying to separate humans and fauni on a genetic level for generations. They deserve a little credit for that."

"That just means the amount of medical knowledge and money wasted on this is insane. They could have built hundreds of guns, dozens of bombs, or even a few more paladins for the price of this."

Blake shrugged.

"But...they didn't. And as far as we can tell, you're fine, so the only thing the White Fang got out of this was prevent you from ever eating chocolate again."

Her leader paled suddenly as the impact of her new appendages sank in.

"Oh my god...BLAKE WE HAVE TO FIX THIS!"

Blake rolled her eyes again.

"Ruby, I'm sorry for your loss, but the ears are here to stay, for now. It would just be a waste of resources for the school to research how to reverse it."

Ruby recognized that trying to find a 'cure' was literally the same waste of resources she had been lambasting the White Fang for earlier, but she still rankled at the thought.

"Don't worry!" The chipper voice of Velvet said from her side, finally joining the conversation. "Being a faunus isn't that bad, you know?" She ended sheepishly.

The reaper felt her face blush again as she tried to cover up her mistake. "Oh god-I didn't mean it like that-I swear I'm not racist! I-"

"We get it, Ruby." Blake said comfortingly. "It might take a while to adjust to this, but don't worry, we've got thick skin."

"Thanks." Ruby breathed out with no small sigh of relief. "Actually, now that I think about it, why are you and Velvet here instead of anyone else?"

"Menagerie Accent." Blake deadpanned.

Ruby's face conveyed her confusion at the two word answer. "What?"

Blake gestured to her ears and Velvet's. "Most faunus don't actually like talking at the volume of humans. It's a slight strain on our ears. A 'Menagerie Accent' is just the tone fauni use when talking to other fauni." She gestured to Ruby's ears "Dog fauni in particular have it bad, at least compared to cat fauni, so we figured you might be a little overloaded when you first woke up. You'll get used to it, but for now we're taking it easy on you."

"Okay…" Ruby said uncertainly. "But why didn't the doctors just speak less loudly?"

Blake looked uncertainly at Velvet, who smiled sheepishly before the rabbit faunus spoke.

"Humans are…" she looked at Ruby, before she took a breath to steel herself. "Really stupid. Like, just, super stupid. And trust me, we know how to keep our voices down to faunus levels, but the doctors will slip up a lot especially when they don't know what pitch to keep it at, and we figured that it would be best to just acclimate you before bringing in others."

"So why didn't you just bring in a faunus doctor?"

This time, Blake and Velvet both raised their eyebrows at her, somehow conveying their disappointment and annoyance at the same time.

Ruby withered a little under their stare.

"Did...I say something wrong?"

Blake gently grabbed her hand to comfort her.

"Ruby, there are no faunus doctors in Beacon."

"More specifically," Velvet continued, "There are only two faunus in the entirety of Beacon. And you're looking at them."

"Wait, really?" Ruby squeaked out, as her mind mentally ran through all the people she knew at Beacon, and now that she mentioned it, Blake and Velvet really were the only two fauni she knew in the school, much to her embarrassment. "Geez, I thought Beacon was supposed to be progressive…"

"Ozpin is trying, but most of the faunus that were here in our freshman year dropped out after the White Fang really started to step up. And Velvet's not entirely right..." Blake corrected her. "There's technically three now."

Ruby looked at her, trying to rack her brain for the third faunus, so Blake looked right back at her and rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time before adding onto her statement. "...and all three are in this room."

Ruby finally realized what Blake was implying, and her dog ears flattened themselves in embarrassment.

"Oh...right. Now I'm a faunus too...this is going to be weird, isn't it?"

This time Blake and Velvet spoke in perfect unison.

"Yep."

Ruby walked into class, her hood pulled down over her head. A quick nod from Professor (Doctor!) Oobleck in her direction was all she got in acknowledgement as she hurried into class. Her hood flickered from side to side as she looked for an empty seat, skimming over the entire class, which was packed to the brim with students, until it finally stopped on a certain blonde leader who had been waving her down the entire time, and the only empty seat in the room.

She quietly thanked him from under the hood, and sat down, He wordlessly slid her a binder full of messy handwriting and she began to copy down the notes at a frantic pace.

"You know," Jaune said under his breath, "If something's wrong, you can tell me."

Ruby froze in the middle of a line.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She repeated mechanically.

"Ruby…" The boy whined in exasperation. "Grimm biology, I get, it's boring as hell, dust 101, sure, that kind of makes sense that you'd get bored on the parts you're not blowing stuff up in, but you love leadership 101. And this is the fourth time in two weeks you've shown up late!"

The reaper in question sighed and gently moved her head to meet the table with a dull thunk, the hood she wore still pulled up, and still covering her head.

"Jaune, it's just…" she hesitated. "...it's not something you can help with, okay?"

The boy in question sighed and returned his attention back to the lesson.

"Fine…" He said as his eyes shifted forward, and Ruby was about to lift her head when she felt a large hand grab hers.

Her head twisted towards her hand so fast that her movement almost reveal her new appendages from under her hood. With a small squeak of surprise she pulled her hood back into place, and looked at him with a blush coloring her face.

Her silver eyes met his blue, and Jaune spoke to her gently as his other hand came up to engulf hers.

"Ruby, whatever's going on, whatever's happening, you know I'm with you, right?"

Ruby found her cheeks reaching a nice new shade of tomato red as her traitorous vocal chords refused to respond, so she settled for nodding dumbly.

"As a friend."

At that last remark, Ruby's blush toned down a little bit and she found it in herself to speak.

"Thanks, Jaune…"

She couldn't think of anything else to say, but luckily didn't have to, as the bell rang, and she disappeared in a flurry of petals.

Ruby threw shut the door behind her, and tore her hood off of her head, giving her canine ears a good scratch, as her other hand worked to shed her uniform.

She felt hot, unusually so, and her hand that Jaune had been holding her felt tingly, despite the intervening minutes since he'd grabbed her.

Her blazer, her shoes, and her Beacon corset all hit the floor, and she still felt unbearably warm.

Her bolero tie, a dress shirt, and a skirt were stripped off, and it wasn't until she felt cool air on her chest and thighs that she realized how undressed she was, down to a bra and panties, but for possibly the first time in her life, modesty was ignored because of the burning heat coming off of her in waves.

She couldn't understand it, she thought Yang was the one with the explosive semblance, but her own body felt like it was in a furnace, but Ruby's thoughts refocused on the feeling inside of her.

Ruby began to feel weird, like there was a pool of molten metal within her stomach, warming her up from the inside, out. She began to look back and forth for anything to satiate her heat, and she dashed to the bathroom adjacent to Team RWBY's dorm.

A quick twist of some knobs, and some discarded undergarments later and she was under the cold spray of the shower.

The droplets cooled her skin, but nothing could stop the burning inside of her. It wasn't getting any stronger, but it also wasn't calming down either.

She put a hand to her stomach, approximately where the warm feeling seemed to be originating, and she rubbed it slightly. It didn't do much, but something changed, and her dog ears perked up in excitement, despite the spray of water pressing them down.

She dropped her hand downward, to her belly button, and then lower, to her patch of hair waiting there.

Her pulse was spiking and the warm feeling was getting hotter.

With a blush, her hand went lower, and slowly moved towards her clitoris. She bit her lip, and pushed her middle and ring fingers around her button, rubbing the edges of her clit.

Ruby let out a breath of air, and her heartbeat began to spike again. The warm feeling was getting stronger, but something kept her going.

She began to roll her clit between her fingers, sending a pulse of pleasure shuddering through her body. A pull of her arm dragged her hand off of her clit and relieved ed the pressure on herself, but then she gently put the tip of her middle finger into her folds.

Ruby's pulse was skyrocketing again, and the feeling was still there, so she gently began to slide her finger into her slit. Her breathing was labored, but controlled, as she slid it out once more.

She slid it in again, her vulva dragging achingly against her finger, across each knuckle before she stopped as the full length of her finger was in her.

She took a breath, relishing the rest in stimulation as she just kept her hand buried in herself. The frigid water took off the edge of the her arousal, but the heat within her, the heat? It wasn't satisfied.

Ruby grabbed the knob of the shower and wrenched it to warm again, and her other hand drew her finger out of herself. Before she could come down from the high the movement had given her she pushed two fingers into herself roughly, and pressed her palm against her clit.

Her free hand rested against the stall and she leaned herself so the water wouldn't drop on her expectant pussy, and with the water dripping around her she began to piston her ring and middle fingers in and out of herself.

Her palm was doing a complex, but very well practiced dance where each time her fingers pulled out, her palm would rub her clitoris, to create a never ending wave of ecstasy through her body.

Ruby's hand flew, faster and faster, and she began to lean onto the wall for support, more and more as her pulse skyrocketed and her breathing became labored and heavy.

She could feel herself on the verge of orgasm, her hands were moving faster and faster, and she could feel the pleasure coursing through her veins.

Then she stopped, her breath held in, and her fingers poised over her slit, and she stood there, on the edge of her orgasm, trying desperately to prolong her pleasure a little more. But just as her pulse began to drop, she slammed her fingers back in, and she pressed her head against the wall of the shower, biting her own fist to keep from screaming, and she came with a crescendo.

The pleasure lanced through her body, and she shuddered into it, taking it in all of its glory, her nerves screaming as her orgasm rattled through them.

Finally, the pleasure stopped, and her pulse and breathing returned to normal. She used the hand she hadn't been fucking herself with to turn off the water, before she slumped on the floor of the shower.

As she tried to regain her senses, Ruby thought to herself.

The molten feeling in her gut was still there, but something about bringing herself to the brink of orgasm had calmed it, and she felt cooler that she had before she entered the stall. Her eyes strayed to her hand that she'd been using for her little experiment, and idly wondered to herself that if getting off once made her cooler, maybe doing it multiple times would bring it down into nothing.

Besides, she had a little time before her next class, she could afford to…dawdle...

Her mind made up, she pulled her fingers back to her crotch to test her theory, not even caring about how her canine ears twitched in anticipation…