So the story goes that I got another idea for a RWBY fic, only this time for something more...ongoing. (Kind of like my Bleach crack fic "Cold Fuzz".) This is essentially a trial chapter, and if there isn't a lot of interest in it I'll wrap it up quickly so I can move on to other projects.

I'll get into it more in closing, but for now, let's just dive right in.

Edit: For the record, this takes place between Volume 1 and Volume 2. Any character development from Volume 2 does not apply here.

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"Are you sure this is the right place?"

"Absolutely. When have I ever steered us wrong?"

"Well-"

"That was a rhetorical question, Weiss, don't answer it."

"I have to agree with Weiss on this; how reliable is this 'Junior' person?"

"Wait, wasn't he the guy whose club you-"

"WE SHOULD GO INSIDE! I mean, how are we going to catch the bad guy standing out here?"

"Fine then, let's get this over with. But don't think I won't be keeping my eye on you."

"Weiss, I'm hurt you don't trust me! Seriously, when have I ever steered you guys wrong?"

"Well-"

"Shut up."

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Team RWBY cautiously made their way through the abandoned factory, on alert for any sign of their target. There were rumors of a new, previously unheard of type of Dust circulating amongst the underworld of Vale, one that had people worried. By all accounts (here meaning the hearsay of one Hei Xiong "Junior") there wasn't a large distribution network yet, so the powers that be wanted the problem nipped in the bud before it bloomed into an actual, serious problem.

And it didn't hurt that the White Fang was trying to scoop all the Dust they could, so this could possibly lead RWBY right back to the Faunus terrorists.

"Geez," Ruby griped, "why do bad guys always have to hide in creepy old buildings? Couldn't they hide in like, I don't know...a cookie factory?"

"Somehow, I don't think a cookie factory would make a good secret base," said Blake, drawing Gambol Shroud, "it would be too easy to get noticed. Also, cookies don't exactly scream 'evil'."

Ruby looked appalled that Blake would insinuate that the most perfect food in the world could ever be considered 'evil'.

"Personally," Yang butted in, "if I had an evil lair, I'd go for a castle of the side of a mountain. You know, something classic."

"I think you're missing the point of 'secret'," Weiss said as they stumbled upon a doorway covered in cobwebs. She pulled out Myrtenaster and swatted the webs out of the way. "Besides, shouldn't we stay focused on finding this 'Alchemist' character."

"With all the noise we're making, maybe we should just let him come to us," Yang suggested. She swerved out of the way of the webs Weiss missed, reflexively stroking her hair.

Ruby turned to Blake after passing the webs, "Hear anything, Blake?"

Blake shook her head, "Nothing except the rats."

"Rats?!" Weiss squeaked, zipping behind her closest teammate (which in this case was Yang). "There are rats in here?"

"No, of course not!" Ruby said, wearing the biggest, pasted on smile imaginable. She quickly turned back to Blake and hissed "You were just joking about the rats, right?"

The Faunus merely shrugged, continuing on heedless and alert.

Ruby joined Weiss behind Yang, rivers of tears running down their faces.

"I wanna go home!" Weiss sobbed.

"Me too!" agreed Ruby.

Needless to say, it was probably going to be a loooong mission for them.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

One fruitless search later...

"I don't get it!" Blake griped, frustratedly slamming the nearby wall with her fist, "We searched this place top to bottom; how did we not find him?"

"Maybe he's not even here right now," Ruby suggested; she and Weiss agreed to take turns keeping an eye out for rats, and right now it was Weiss's turn, "he could've stepped out to get food or something before we got here."

"So," Yang said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "you're saying that we alche-missed him?" She waited for the others to burst out laughing at her "brilliant" pun.

They glared at her.

"Seriously guys, it's like you don't even know what 'fun' is..."

"If there's nothing here then we should return to Beacon and report this," Weiss said, tapping Ruby on the shoulder (their agreed upon "all clear" signal), "I don't want to stay in this...place any longer."

She headed towards the entrance, but before she made three steps the door suddenly slammed shut, quickly followed by all the windows.

"Oh come on!"

"I'm afraid the four of you won't be going anywhere!" a voice said, apparently coming from everywhere at once, "For you see, I have total control over this entire building, so I'm afraid you've all just become my own, personal Guinea pigs to play around with." This was followed by a bout of insane cackling.

"So you must be the Alchemist," Yang said, "Gotta say, I'm not really digging your choice of hideouts." (Weiss just sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose.)

"Yeah, me neither. I was hoping for one of those mountainside fortress deals originally, but you wouldn't believe what the rent on them was! Seriously, just because I'm a mad scientist doesn't mean I'm made out of Lien!"

"My heart bleeds for you," Weiss deadpanned. She drew Myrtenaster, switching to the light blue Dust, "now come peacefully."

"Now why in all of Remnant would I do that? I'm nice and safe in my little control room here, and all of you are trapped in here with me and my fun little experiments of death! So prepare yourselves for-"

"Question!" Ruby interrupted, "You're in here too?"

"Of course I am!" the Alchmist said indignantly, "How else am I supposed to operate all the death traps I have set up?"

"Soooo we could still find you if we wanted?"

"Well I suppose if you really wanted to you could- oh. I, uh...wasn't supposed to tell you that..."

"First one to find him gets to play bad cop for his interrogation!" Yang called as she raced off to locate the "mad" scientist, the rest of Team RWBY following a moment later.

"P-p-p-pay no attention to the mad scientist behind the curtain!" the Alchemist fretted, sounds related to fretting now coming out of the hidden speakers.

Yang scoured the building with a renewed fervor, calling out "Olly-olly-oxenfree!" as she searched. Weiss went about searching in a more methodical manner [yay alliteration!] while Ruby zipped to and fro with no apparent pattern or goal. Blake took a similar approach to Weiss's, only with less subtlety.

"I said go away already! Go bother some other degenerate lowlife and leave me in peace!" This, as you might expect, did nothing to deter Team RWBY from tearing the warehouse apart to find their quarry.

"Where is he?" Weiss grumbled, "We've already searched the whole place once; what could we possibly be missing?"

"Maybe he's hiding on the roof?" Ruby suggested, "We haven't looked there yet."

"Hah!" the Alchemist scoffed.

"We would have seen something from the outside," Blake pointed out.

"So that means he's in the basement." Yang stomped on the floor, "Did anyone find any trapdoors?"

"I thought I saw something behind some crates over there," Ruby pointed behind her, "but I couldn't get a good look at it."

"Then what are we standing around for?" Weiss dashed towards the indicated boxes, tugging at one. "Come on, help me move them over!"

"Out of the way, Ice Princess," Yang sighed, readying Ember Celica. Once Weiss was "out of the way" Yang pulled her arm back, releasing a shockwave punch that sent the crates flying.

Sure enough, there was a trap door where the crates had been.

"Anyone else wanna do the honors?" Yang asked. When no one else stepped forward, the blond brawler punched the ground at the edge of the door, before grabbing it and ripping it off its hinges.

Sitting in a cozy hole was a man with scraggly, shoulder length brown hair. He wore a white lab coat, and had thick, circle rimmed glasses.

"I don't suppose we can all treat that as a big misunderstanding?" Alchemist suggested nervously.

"Nope!" Yang said, popping the P. She yanked him out by his collar and chucked on the floor by her teammates.

Blake [figuratively] pounced on him almost immediately. "Tell us everything you know about the White Fang!" she demanded. She held out Gambol Shroud for emphasis.

"Oh please," scoffed the "mad scientist", "you think that puny toothpick is enough to even remotely intimidate-"

CLANG! Everyone looked towards Ruby, who was fumbling with Crescent Rose in its Scythe form.

"Sorry!" the young Reaper apologized, "Butterfingers..."

"That, on the other hand, might do it," the Alchemist whimpered. He then held his lab coat closed, obscuring the dark stain forming on his pants.

"The White Fang," Blake persisted, "talk."

"I don't know anything!" he wailed, "I just perform unholy Dust experiments that go against nature itself, I don't know who uses them after I'm done!"

"You're lying!" the Faunus accused, forcing Gambol against the mad scientist's throat.

"I just leave the boxes outside the building at night and in the morning they're gone; I don't know who takes them or how they do it, I swear!"

Blake was to press further when Ruby placed a hand on her shoulder. "Blake, stop," Ruby commanded, "he's telling the truth." Blake sighed and put her weapon away.

Weiss took out her Scroll, "Then I'll call the authorities so they can pick this man up."

"You can try," "this man" challenged, "but they won't get here in time."

"Oh?" Yang raised an eyebrow (the left one), "And what makes you say that?"

"Because just before you busted open my control room, I activated a little something to help in my escape!" The scientist opened up his coat (revealing an oh so classy urine stain on his pants). On his chest was a small red light that blinked rapidly from under his shirt. "Hope you always wanted to know what the Afterlife is like, nyehahahahaha!"

"Is that a bomb?" Ruby gasped.

"Are you insane?!" Weiss demanded, "How is blowing yourself up gong to help you escape?"

"Come on, seriously?" the Alchemist made an exaggerated show of rolling his eyes, "What part of 'mad' in 'mad scientist' are you not getting?"

"Everybody find cover!" Yang shouted, grabbing Ruby and jumping behind an overturned crate. As the flashing light blinked faster, Weiss and Blake followed the sisters' lead, squeezing in next to them.

"Remember this well, neophytes," the Alchemist declared theatrically, "for this is that day that you almost caught the brilliant and ingenious mind...of Doctor-"

KA-BOOM! The bomb went off before he could finish his speech, sending out a shockwave. While not as big as they originally feared, it was still strong enough to blow everything in its vicinity against the walls, destroying crates and theirs more fragile contents.

Fortunately for Team Ruby their Auras were more than strong enough to withstand the force of the explosion, and they were mostly unharmed.

A moment later the smoke cleared, revealing Team RWBY with only the odd scorch mark to show.

"Everybody OK?" Ruby asked, only to find that she couldn't hear anything. On top of that, it also felt like she got some dirt or something in her eye, so that was just great!

As she stumbled around, trying to rub her eyes clear, she bumped into Yang, whose identity she realized only after coming into contact with one of Yang's more noticeable..."features".

"What do think you're doing?!" Yang shrieked, batting Ruby's hand away. Her voice sounded muffled, which meant that Ruby was actually getting her hearing back!

"I'm sorry!" she said automatically, "I have something in my eye and I can't really see where I'm going-"

"That's still no excuse for nearly groping me!"

"Yang, I already said I'm sorry," Ruby persisted,"it was an accident, I swear."

"What the hell are you talking about, Blake?" Yang inquired, "I'm Weiss."

"Don't be silly, Yang, you're-"

By this point Ruby's hearing had come back enough to stop being all fuzzy. This also brought with it the clarity that she was not speaking in her own voice; she was speaking in Blake's.

As you can surely imagine, this was quite confusing for the young team leader.

"But...I'm Ruby, not Blake," she said in Blake's voice.

"No, I'm Blake," Weiss said.

"And I'm Yang," Ruby's body said. (It was the weirdest thing, seeing your body from outside you body.) "And I've gotta say, it's super weird being short again."

Hesitantly, Ruby reached on top of her head and felt Blake's bow. She undid the ribbon and felt the cat ears it usually hid.

After which she promptly fainted.

The other girls just stared, all a little thrown for a loop by what had apparently just happened to them.

"...Anyone up for tacos?" Yang in Ruby's body asked.

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Before any of you ask, the "Alchemist" is a blatant rip off of Dr. Insano as seen on TheSpoonyExperiment.

Anywho, what did you guys think of this little experiment? Leave a review and, if you think I should continue, let me know what sort of hijinks the girls should get up to.