A/N And it is on a little world in the Segmentum Obscurus, where we lay our scene.
More stuff at the bottom. But for now just know this is a new 40k crossover. It might get updated like In Passing does. It might not. But i am gonna try and give it a coherent story thread. Not just chapter to chapter. I know right? Terrifying.
Anyways. On with the show.
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The raindrops fell like starlight when she awoke.
That's the first thing she noticed. And that's how dread wormed its way into her gut. For as she noticed that the raindrops fell like starlight because of the reflection from the moon. So too did she notice that that was moons. Plural.
Ruby Rose got to her feet in a flurry of rose petals, stumbled slightly and tried to brace herself on a tree. Pain lanced through her clouded mind as she scraped her knee on a rock.
'Why didn't my Aura protect me?' she thought. Looking behind her what she thought had been rose petals were just autumn leaves.
Her Aura was gone. Locked. She could feel it. It felt wrong.
She looked around and saw only woods. It was late at night, wherever she was. Moonlight played off the blade of Crescent Rose. She gasped softly taking in the sight of it.
Her baby was in bad shape. The blade was nicked and scratched. Just looking at it she could tell the firing mechanism wouldn't work. There was a long gouge in the magazine, dust poking out of it.
Reaching out she caressed the weapon gently and found the folding latch. Working with care she manually folded her baby and clipped it to her back. Her first thought was to find a workshop. Which led to her second thought. 'Where am I?'
Looking around again she could see a surprising amount by the twin moons. Which she was purposely avoiding thinking about because it made her brain hurt. The conclusions she was drawing even not actively thinking about it where scaring her enough.
'This isn't Remnant.' she could hear being whispered to her. Ghosting through her thoughts and making her slip into panics icy grip.
Squashing it down she gathered up everything that was around her. Some Dust rounds and some ration bars as well as her canteen, half full. Seeing nothing else on the ground she picked a direction and walked. Memories came back to her as she wandered. Her team. Weiss, Yang and Blake. Beacon and the last few things she could remember. But she shut those out. It was too painful, too fresh.
The Fall of Beacon was not a welcome memory.
So many Hunters and Huntresses had fallen. She had watched all of team Juniper go up into the tower. The only one who came back down was Ren, his broken body leaving cracks in the cement and his usually serene face split into an endless scream. Only Cinder had come down alive. Holding the broken remains of Milo, Crocea Mors and Magenhild. They had been dripping with blood. Which turned to steam as she turned the remnants into ashes.
Then she had looked at Ruby. Eyes mad with power and flames licking at her sides. Heeling obediently like a dog. She'd hefted Crescent Rose and charged.
She'd died. It hit her like a bullet, the knowledge.
She'd died.
And now she was here. But where exactly here was was anyone's guess. She stalked through the trees silently, like Ren and uncle Qrow had taught her. Not making a single sound but the gentle drawing of breath. She may not be on Remnant. A thought that her mind was steadfastly trying to deny but her eyes did not deceive her of.
Spying light through the treeline she resolved to move towards it. Her mind was a swirling pit of confusion and she was struggling to grasp onto anything. But her survival instincts were too deeply engrained for her not to push on. Fighting the urge to lie down and vomit before curling into a ball and crying she put one foot infront of the other.
Clearing the treeline she found herself on a well beaten dirt road. The first glimpses of dawn were beginning to creep across the landscape. By the new light she could see she was following a carriage. Breaking into a light jog she ran along side and tried to hail the driver.
Her throat felt parched and scratchy and her voice came out in a wheeze, Like she hadn't spoken in years.
"E-excuse me!" she shouted as hard as she could. Which wasn't very impressive but the cart slowed to a stop after a quick "Yah!" and a tug on the reins by the driver.
"Woah. You lost ma'am?" said a lanky youth pulling down a brown woolen hood.
"Yes. Very very lost. I have no idea where I am or how I got here. There's two moons in the sky and I don't think I'm even on my home planet anymore" Tears threatened to break through but she held them at bay. Huntress she may be and while shed noticed she was a little taller and more filled out. She was still 15 at heart.
"Well Ma'am I'm heading into town of you'd like a ride. My momma would have my ass if I left you out here all lost and confused. And you're clearly not from here if you're lost. So hop on up." he patted the spot beside him.
With more luck and training than anything else she made it in one swift leap, crimson cloak flaring out behind her. "Names Aak. Aak Cridd." he said by way of introduction, sticking his hand out to shake. "Ruby Rose." she said taking the offered hand and shaking it. She noticed while up close that his eyes were purple. Almost light pink like Rens.
"So Ruby. You're on New Tanith if you didn't know. Settled by the greatest regiment the Imperial Guard ever saw. Taking by the very fact you can get lost I assume you're from off world. Can you tell me where in the glorious Imperium you hail from?" He never took his eyes off the path. Even when the trees pressed inwards and literally crawled across the track. He didn't react, just kept up his friendly cheer. "Remnant. I've never heard of any Imperium." Ruby began to panic even more. Remnant had no Empires or Imperiums or anything. Her brain had skipped right past the trees. Filed it under "freak out about later"
"Never heard of the Imperium? I've never heard of any human that hasn't heard of the Imperium. Not any that weren't heretics or xenos controlled or nothin. Tell me what you do know and I'll try and fill you in from there."
She didn't know what a heretic or a xenos was but she was pretty sure she wasn't one.
So she began to explain. Explain about Remnant and the Grimm and Beacon.
It got harder and harder as she talked about her team. She missed them terribly already. "Especially Weiss" her treacherous brain added, showing a small spark of the feelings she had buried about her teammate.
When she got to the attack on Beacon and how she died Aak stopped the cart and looked around. He wrapped his lanky arms around her as she broke down and cried into his shoulder. "You are either crazy, the worst kind of heretic or the poorest gak I ever met. But by The Emperor I believe you. My daddy saw some wild shit in his stint as a Guardsman. Sent alot of letters about warp spawned feth forsaken wild stuff before he bought it. You can come back to my place with me. Momma is always picking up strays anyways. We can get you out of those clothes. They raise too many questions. And questions are dangerous in these times."
They rode on a few more miles with Aak dumping the basics of information about the Imperium. It was the 42nd millennium (Ruby almost fainted then and there) and on Holy Terra the God Emperor ruled mankind in a deathless state. Keeping a giant space beacon lit to guide ships through hell. (Aak had forgotten a few of the fancier terms himself and was just telling her what his dad had told him)
The Imperium was beset on all sides by all manner of nasty "Xenos" and what she learned was called Chaos. Or "The Arch Foe" who had been run right out of the Sabbat Worlds. Their local star cluster. Rubys nose started bleeding at that point as she tried to absorb the craziest things she had ever heard.
"Stop!" she said in the middle of Aaks explanation about the Imperial Faith. "I can't absorb anymore and I think I need to lie down." he simply nodded at her and sat in silence as she pushed her way to the back of the cart and wrapped herself in her cloak. She didn't think she could sleep but training kicked in and she dropped off immediately. As a Huntress you slept anywhere, anytime.
She didn't dream easily. Sizzling blood on freshly fallen snow.
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She was woken up by a swift boot in the leg. "Urghh. Yang, five more minutes." She tried to drag her cloak back over her but it was violently ripped away.
"Up you feth. You wanna die on a heretic blade?" her eyes shot open as she recalled where she was. It was not Aak who was kicking her but a man with a pure white beard and a grizzly scar where his left eye should have been. In his hands he held a bulky rifle of some kind with some kind of bird stamped on the side. He shoved the rifle into her hands and gave her a bandoleer of what was clearly ammo. "Aak tells me you're a fighter. We've got in coming. He said for me to tell you to kill anything that looks like it belongs in a shifty metal band, whatever the feth that means. Don't die and step too it. On the bounce Trooper!" She stood up straight and resisted the urge to snap an Atlas salute. He was clearly used to giving orders so she hurried to get the ammo secured around herself. She remembered long talks with Weiss about military discipline versus individual skill. The difference between a soldier and a Huntsman. It seemed like for the duration she was a soldier. It didn't matter to her. She wasn't even fazed by news of an attack. Grimm didn't stick to timetables.
People needed defending. And while Yang may personify the brawler she wasn't the only one in the family to find catharsis in combat. Right now Ruby needed that release. A chance to flex her au-
Shit. She didn't have her Aura. And from what she had managed to glean from Aak no one would take to kindly to her bursting into rose petals. Getting up and ducking into a barn she bought her arms up in an X shape crossed before her chest.
"For it is through sacrifice we are remembered. Through doing right we are venerated. It is my solemn burden and my greatest duty. An endless task without compromise or respite. I share this duty with you and release your soul, may it bear your burdens, and shield your heart."
Casting her arms downwards to break the X crimson light filled the barn. The Light of her Soul was blinding and the rush of unbinding it seemed to clear a fog from her mind. Seemed to grant her focus.
Then the whispering started. Like a dull roar but silent at the same time she could hear voices. Never catching their meaning but somehow feeling their intent.
Blood. Crimson. Red.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Driven to her knees she scrambled for her rifle. Bringing it to bare she scanned the barn. There was nothing but hay and equipment.
She rushed outside and came face to face with the grizzled old soldier. "How long do we have." She asked.
"Bout six hours according to the Navy boys. Take this." he pressed what looked like an earplug into her hand. "That's a microbead. Tap it once and it'll go to me. Twice for the whole damn PDF in this sector. Only reason you're getting one is because Munitorum fethed up and sent us a whole gakking cargo hold full of these and some Lasguns for reasons I suspect will make most of the conscription age boys on this planet piss their pants. Only reason I'm even talking to you is because Aak said you're a fighter and quite frankly I haven't got anything else to do before the heretics make planetfall."
A little insulted and a little excited by the fact she had a freaking lasergun she nodded. "Is there a workshop nearby?" she said. He merely pointed at a passing man in khaki. "Show her to the chopshop." the man nodded and gestured for her to follow him.
She had work to do.
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Ruby Rose was a weapons genius.
It wasn't arrogance. Wasn't bravado and wasn't a boast. When it came to weapons, Ruby came to life. She knew the layout of her baby better than her own mothers face.
So in six hours she had fixed, shored up and modified Crescent Rose to fire lasbolts. A fact which left the mechanic that had watched and sometimes helped her work stunned and muttering something about "tech heresy"
Five and a half hours after she had entered she left the workshop wearing olive green fatigues and carrying Crescent Rose MK II on her waist. Her Remnant Clothes and valuables were left in the workshop in a rucksack which she was going back for. In her hands she carried a Long Las which she had taken five minutes out of her modifying time to shoot every bottle the grizzled old soldier (She had learned everyone called him Sarge) put in front of her. To prove she deserved the rarer weapon.
She was tooled up. Kitted out and fully prepared to defend people. Her other issues were forgotten. Pushed down in favour of the job at hand. Life was precious and it must be protected. No matter what planet she was on.
Ruby Rose was a Huntress. And even as grief, loss and panic threatened to tear her apart she pushed it down as she always had.
Until she could either find a way home or find her place in this new galaxy she resolved to do as she always wanted to do. What she always had done.
Protect people. At all costs.
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Well. This is a thing.I have no plan or outline for this story. just a few general ideas. But i will try and update when i can. I love both Warhammer and RWBY.Like always im gonna play it fast and loose with the lore. Im taking inspiration from Gaunts Ghosts and A World Of Bloody Evolution. Some may say its a copy of either.Well this is here and its free for both your entertainment and my pleasure at writing. So drop a review, a suggestion or even just a complaint.Oh and for you shippers. It's gonna get pretty spicy later on. This is gonna be serious in some places and batshit insane in others so people will be drawn together for comfort.Until next time.