Pet Quartet (ch12)

2-DAY EARLY RELEASE FOR ALL MY PATRONS!!

Gah some of the reviews I got on this... you guys are more clever than I am! I wish I'd written some of these events/characters as you're predicting them cuz that would've been a lot cooler... but alas, I have what I have.

But yes, time for some villains!

Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.

------------

												Chapter 12. A Secret Friendship

Ruby woke a little earlier than usual that morning due to a growling stomach. She was happy to find herself snugly warm, wrapped up in Blake's front paws with Yang's tail brushing against her nose lightly. The sun wasn't really up yet, and she didn't want to wake the others.

Just a quick snack then it's back to bed! she decided.

Stretching out her front paws, then the back ones and her tail, Ruby was careful to slip away from Blake and the others. Her cat friend was curled up at Yang's side, and the dog was snoring, but despite the noise, Weiss was nestled in the long fur of her shoulder.

Ruby's whiskers twitched up into a smile as she took a moment to remind herself how lucky she was to have found them all.

Scurrying out of the living room where the four of them often slept, Ruby darted into the kitchen. The humans had told her she could take a cracker for herself if she ever needed to, but otherwise she should wait until the proper mealtimes. She knew Weiss would scold her for ruining her appetite if she ever found out, so Ruby was quick about it.

She crawled up the cupboards, using the knobs for support and her tail for balance. With ease, she maneuvered herself up and over the edge to where all the spices and seasonings were lined up in neat little jars of various shapes and sizes. But those all smelled too strongly for her tastes.

She followed her nose to a large, rectangular tin with a much tamer, more pleasant scent. Scuttling up the side, she made quick work of prying off the lid with her tiny claws, then leaning over the rim. Dangling by her back paws at the rim, Ruby lowered her front half down until her claws met crinkly paper. She reached past that until she finally found what she was looking for.

With a grunt, she lifted up a cracker almost as big as her own body. But when she thought of Weiss scolding her for not eating all of her breakfast later on, Ruby thought better of eating the entire treat and settled for breaking off half.

She hoisted herself back up over the rim with impressive flexibility, considering the prize she was holding. She held the cracker piece in her teeth for a minute as she fixed the tin's lid back on with her paws, then hopped off onto the counter once more.

There she sat and nibbled away, the only sound in the entire house at that early morning hour being the tiny crnch crnch crnch of her snacking.

In the end, half was all she'd really needed, and she wiped her tail over her whiskers. Ruby nibbled up the fallen crumbs to ensure there was no mess, then began her descent from the table. She was looking forward to going back to bed now, ready to curl up next to her friends and groom herself until she got sleepy again.

She dropped to the floor and headed for the living room once more, listening to Yang's snores.

But as she walked, there was a certain part of the house she passed that made her stop.

At the spot where the kitchen tile met with the carpeted rug, there was a door off to one side. That was the door where Ruby had actually come up from the very first night she'd met Blake.

She didn't remember much of her own childhood, just that she'd been born in an underground sewer amongst a group of other mice. She'd traveled together with them for a while, scavenging for food and rarely coming up to the surface. It hadn't been so bad.

But then, one day something had happened. Her mother had fearfully stuffed Ruby into a small crevice in the wall and had told her to hide and never come out until the noises had stopped.

But to Ruby, the noises had seemed to never stop. There were big footsteps splashing through the few inches of dirty water, and loud, booming voices. Then, there was a loud hiss and suddenly smoke had filled her vision. The terrified squeaks of the other mice had been the last things she'd heard.

The crevice her mother had pushed her into had actually led to a small tunnel, and Ruby had just been small enough to squeeze through at the time. And she'd followed it all the way here to this house's basement.

And there she'd lived for many weeks, making the cold, damp basement her home, waiting and hoping that some day her mother might come back to that crevice and find her.

She never had.

And just when she'd been giving up hope was when she'd met Blake...

As the memories ran through Ruby's mind, her whiskers trembled at the thoughts of her mother. She really wanted to curl up with her warm friends now for comfort.

But there was something almost drawing her in towards the basement door. She wondered how much had changed since she'd last been down there. It had been a few months, after all.

Curiously, Ruby crept toward door. The knob was old, so it only took a small bit of prying at the bottom, even from her tiny paws, to get it ajar.

Almost instantly, Ruby was met with a dull blast of chilled air. She knew not even the humans went down here very much, unless it was to grab something from their storage shelves. Admittedly, that was how Ruby had survived down there alone for so long, by stealing paw-fulls of rice and nibbles of seeds here and there.

It wasn't a well-lit, carpet room like the rest of the house. The walls and floors were cold stone, and there was a lot of watery or steam-like noises echoing all the time.

She left the door open a crack behind her and started climbing down the steps, her eyes glinting in the darkness. She'd once called this place her home. Ruby had no reason to be scared.

She moved with nimble paws, jumping down each step in turn until she'd reached the bottom, where cold, hard stone sent a chill through her. She crawled slowly, sniffing as much as she could to recall the nostalgic scents of the months when she'd lived here by herself.

She climbed up shelves, crawled along the backs of the walls, and scuttled along the old wooden rafters. All the while, the ticking noises of big, whirring machines sounded in her ears.

Ruby decided she would run one lap around the place for fun, and then head back upstairs.

She raced around the shelves, jumping from one to the next to wake herself up a bit. She squeaked and giggled to herself all the while, always assuming there was no one down here to hear her.

A sudden noise told her otherwise.

Something seemed to move on the opposite side of the basement. It had sounded like a jar being shifted or pushed. Fur bristling, Ruby crept quietly towards that spot.

About halfway there, she stopped at a certain part of the wall. This was the place she'd come out through after her mother had pushed her in. Ruby remembered it as a small hole, just barely big enough for herself to fit through when she'd been younger and malnourished from life in the stinky sewers.

But now... now it was different.

Small portions of the wall had been chipped away as though by teeth, and the tunnel itself was much larger now. A sudden flare of hope shot through her.

Maybe Mom has finally come to find me! It's just taken her a while to make the hole big enough!

Excited now, Ruby forgot all about the noise she'd heard earlier and raised her voice to the entire basement.

"Mom! It's Ruby! I'm here!" She started to run along the shelves now, calling out loudly in hopes her mother might hear or see her. "Mom! Mommy!" Ruby ran along all the shelves, and once she'd passed over them all she jumped down to the floor. Another noise from behind her had her whipping around. "Mom!" she cried again.

Ruby faced the large, dark wall, her eyes straining to see in the darkness there.

Suddenly, the shadows moved. Two of them. And they were bigger than her.

They lumbered towards her, much bigger than a mouse, and even bigger than Weiss. But just because they were smaller than Blake didn't make them any less scary.

Ruby backed up, her fur naturally puffing up to try and make herself look bigger. The two shadows advanced, and she could soon see two pairs of beady eyes.

"Ah-" Ruby squeaked as her back hit a wall. She tried not to stammer as she faced them. "S-Stay back!"

The two bigger shadows seemed to stop at her words. They shared a look. Then started to laugh.

"Oh, man!" one said. "You scared her, Merc! C'mon, apologize."

"You're the one who scared her."

Ruby was frozen in place, not sure what to make of these two laughing shadows. But they soon stepped closer into a more well-lit area of the basement.

They looked like mice, only bigger, with longer, thicker tails. Two or three of herself would make one of them, Ruby thought.

One of them dipped its head and introduced himself to her.

"The name's Mercury. My sharp-fanged partner is Emerald."

"Nice to meet you," said the other big mouse.

Ruby shivered a little.

"I-I'm Ruby..."

"Hey, that's a great name!" Emerald said with a gregarious smile. She slipped close to Ruby and slung an arm around her back. "Hope ya don't mind we're crashing here for a bit with a friend of ours."

As the two big mice got friendlier with her, Ruby relaxed a little.

"Did you... did you guys come in from that hole?" she asked, pointing her tail.

Mercury nodded.

"We used to live in the sewer before."

"I did, too!" Ruby gasped.

"Hey, no kiddin'!"

Ruby nodded. "Yeah! Oh, hey, uh. I hope it's not rude of me to ask, but did you guys ever see any other mice? Not as big as you guys, but about my size?"

"Mice?" Mercury repeated. "We're not-"

"Ahem!" Emerald cut him off. "We're not sure. We don't really remember seeing any other mice down there." Emerald flashed Ruby a smile full of small, sharp teeth. Mercury nodded.

"Uh, yeah. Haven't seen much of anything down there since that extermin-"

"Hey, um!" Emerald cut him off again. "So, remember that other friend we mentioned before?"

Ruby nodded, having successfully been drawn away from Mercury's comment. Emerald continued in a suave voice.

"So, would you like to meet her sometime, Ruby?"

The little mouse nodded instantly, always eager to make new friends.

"Yeah, sure!"

"Great! How about... right now?"

"Okay!" Ruby readily agreed.

Emerald and Mercury shared a look and lashed their tails in satisfaction. But just as they were starting to lead Ruby, a noise from upstairs stopped them in their tracks.

"Ruby?" Yang was calling. "Where'd you go?"

"She didn't go outside by herself did she?" Weiss fretted.

Ruby needed to stop her new friends.

"Uhh, sorry guys! I should go back up! Oh! How about you guys bring your friend up with me? You can meet my other friends! And our humans! They're really nice! They'll give you some food!"

The two big mice shared a doubtful look and shrugged.

"No thanks," Emerald said. "Humans don't really like us. I don't think your friends would either."

"But-"

"It's fine. We don't plan to stick around long," Mercury reassured her. "We're just passing through. Just wanna help our friend find a good meal, y'know?"

Ruby tilted her head.

"Well, if you come up with me, my humans will-"

"No, we're just fine down here," Emerald said pleasantly. "We've already got all we need."

Ruby looked back and forth between the two of them.

"Well... if you're sure..."

"We are," Emerald nodded. "And uh, Ruby?"

The mouse stopped as she jumped up the first step and looked back over her shoulder.

"Yeah?"

Emerald smiled.

"You don't have to tell your friends about us yet. We'll meet them soon enough. But for now, let's keep this a secret, okay? Just between us."

Ruby seemed to like the idea of a secret friendship. It made her even more excited to introduce Mercury and Emerald to Weiss, Blake, and Yang later on.

"Okay! I'll come back down to see you guys tomorrow!"

With that she scampered up the stairs to the door, never seeing the wicked smiles the two exchanged behind her.

Once on the ground-level floor again, Ruby found all three of her friends searching anxiously for her, calling out her name. Weiss was flying about to check the higher-up shelves while Blake sniffed around the floor. Ruby could hear Yang calling for her from outside the house. Ruby quickly ran into the living room and raised her voice.

"I'm here, I'm here!"

Blake perked up and let out a sigh of relief. She hurried to the flap in the door and called for Yang to come back in. Weiss flew down in an angry fluff of feathers and landed in front of Ruby.

"Where have you been?" she demanded. "We were worried out of our wits!"

"Sorry!" Ruby apologized as Blake and Yang came rushing in. Each of them licked her happily.

"Geez," Yang whined. "Don't do that."

"I was really scared," Blake agreed.

"I'm sorry!" Ruby said again, hugging them all one by one. "It was nothing! I just went for a walk!"

The others all shared looks, slightly concerned. But Ruby quickly did her best to dash their fears.

"I won't disappear without telling you again. I promise."

At that, they seemed to feel better. Ruby hugged them all again, nuzzling Blake's and Yang's noses and Weiss' cheek. After that, she clapped her tiny paws together and made an announcement.

"I'm ready for some breakfast!"

---------

A/N: Being this fic was written back in 2015 originally, I only really had the older RWBY cast to deal with. I'm not gonna be going into Salem or any of those guys, just because then the cast in here would be way too big haha

But yes, Adam is not our only antagonist here!