Weiss wasn’t as physically strong as her teammates, that was something she’d come to terms with very soon after the team was formed. Yang could bench-press a car and though not quite as strong Blake was nevertheless still physically tougher than most of the academy’s students and was extremely agile as well. And Ruby, somehow in defiance of her small frame, was not only strong enough to swing around that monstrosity of a weapon of hers but had a semblance that radically increased the speed and, by virtue of the momentum behind them, power of her physical attacks.
The heiress on the other hand relied more on finesse to win her battles. Combat skills gained from hours of practice, combined with an extremely versatile semblance and an encyclopaedic knowledge of dust and its applications. Not to mention a steady supply of the latest in dust products.
That was why, while the rest of her team were out wasting time, or ‘team building’ as Ruby called it, Weiss was busy mixing powdered dust into complex compounds for use in battle. It was a fairly dangerous task, since dust was dangerous at the best of times, and even more so if mixed incorrectly, but she’d done this a hundred times and she had a meticulous system for storing her dust that ensured she wouldn’t get the vials mixed up. Which was why she could only stare in confusion for a moment as the mixture in her mortar turned a colour it definitely should not have.
Still holding the now luminescent concoction, Weiss’s eyes shifted to her dust supply only to belatedly realise that they were not, in fact, in the order they should have been but had been haphazardly rearranged by person’s unknown or, more likely, by Ruby after the klutz knocked them over or something. For a split second she considered just throwing the mixture out the window, but then she’d just get in trouble if someone else was hurt. It didn’t matter in the end anyway as no sooner had the thought crossed her mind then the dust evaporated with a violent hissing noise, the resulting smoke bellowing around her face and leaving Weiss coughing and wheezing as she involuntarily breathed it in.
All at once the heiress was overcome with an intense bout of dizziness and fatigue, barely having the presence of mind to set down the now empty mortar before stumbling to her bed and collapsing in an undignified heap. Her body felt like it was on fire, yet at the same time she was freezing cold. The juxtaposition of sensations were making her sick and her head was spinning in a way she’d never felt before. With a final weak shudder she closed her eyes and allowed unconsciousness to claim her.
…
When Weiss awoke, everything had changed. She no longer felt particularly unwell, though there was still some lingering dizziness and a general sense of wrongness. Her eyes took a moment to come into focus as she gazed at the impossible sight before her. This was, her bed, but… not at the scale she had seen it before. With dread, the shrunken student realised she had been reduced to…