A/N: Just a little idea I was tossing around, might be a one-shot depending on feedback. A 'little what' had certain forces stumbled across Remnant during the Crusade. Pretty simple though any comments people might have are always appreciated.
(Disclaimer: I don't claim to own RWBY or Warhammer, those strictly fall under the purview of Roosterteeth and Games Workshop. This is just a passion project.)
- Remnants of Remnant -
Dragon of the XIIth
"Attack" is the only order worth remembering.
- Dogma of the XIIth Legion 'World Eaters'
(XIIth Legiones Astartes Frigate "Daggerline", 004.M31 Approx. - Lower Crew Deck Levels "Cisterns")
Yang Xiao Long smiled with bared and bloody teeth, continuing to do so even as cloth wrapped knuckles collided against the side of her skull hard enough to leave her blinking away motes of sickly starlight through strands of a brilliant golden mane before she responded in kind...
And how could she not? A throng of cheering onlookers roaring their ecstatic approval of the renewed violence.
The pounding thud of blows hammering flesh, of knuckles meeting bone and sinew. The cacophony of fists and blunt instruments pounding upon wrought iron gantries. Low hanging pipelines dripping with congealed sludge, and the thin mesh wiring rusted with oxidized iron all that separated them from the two savaged combatants gauging one another in the fighting cage beyond.
If one could even call it that...more a steel-shod hollow carved into a depressed vault of the chamber lined with chain and bolted scrap, the base of the decking underfoot coated with thick clods of dirt and debris pilfered at no small risk from the true arena situated in the upper levels of the ship.
A nigh on sacred place where their masters, the demigods of the Emperor's Crusade, clashed over matters of honor, pride, or simple lust for violence. Transhuman blood whetting the sands arterial crimson in the offering...
In comparison, this pale imitation was little more than childish sport.
And Yang loved every second of it...
All of the noise was good as music to her sore ears, a low heavy refrain of pulsing notes clapped in time with the fiercely driven tempo set by the crowd.
A rhythm pounding in time to every beat of the blonde's heart with every heated breath scented by the cloying stink of sweat and copper that she had come to crave. Heat building along her extremities that burned away the pain of injuries inflicted and left naught but strength and excitement in its place to drive her upright.
Broad-shouldered with lean muscled arms rendered thick by labor, hardship, and subtle gene-therapy, the young adolescent stood a bleeding mess of bruises, cuts, and contusions poised with fists raised.
A charm bracelet of thin chain weaved through with spent small caliber brass auto-gun shells and a single dangling jewel glinting like crystallized fire jangled lightly on her left wrist with every beat of her pulse. Seemingly ignorant of the vitae seeping from a deep gash along her hairline, painting her face in stinging wet warmth.
She could care less, lilac eyes glaring defiantly at the smug brute hunched opposite her in the pit.
"Feeling a little tired there, Blondie?"
Yang's opponent, a junior Armsman and low-deck Crew Rating by the name of Cardin Winchester, hocked out a gobbit of pink tinged phlegm onto the sandy decks. Reaching up a spade-like hand, fruitlessly wiping at the squashed leaking mess his fellow serf had made of his nose earlier in the bout, snorting like the irritated grox he so resembled.
"Feh...Thinking maybe after I finish putting you in your place, maybe we can continue this little spat back in my quarters, hmm? Heard you Artificiers are supposed to be pretty good with your hands, little massage, kiss this little boo-boo better, eh?"
The target of his 'affections' raised an blood slicked brow, a hearty chuckle escaping her lips despite the brawler's best efforts to keep to the mood. "Aw, look at you thinking? Mommy Winchester would be so proud."
She puckered out her lips and leaned forward pulling at the hem of her tattered undershirt suggestively until she couldn't keep up the charade any longer.
"Using words like 'boo-boo', ha ha! Oh shoot, give me a mom-ment...oops." Scattered bouts of laughter, hoots, and groaning welled up from within the crowd. All well familiarized with Xiao Long's particular brand of humor...or lack of it.
For his part Cardin just puffed up cracking his bruised knuckles for efficacy, busted face contorting even more so then before with an animal snarl and a snort of red mucous down his barrel chest. "Okay Blondie. you asked for it...!"
"Actually you did Momma's Boy." Yang straightened, taunting with a come hither motion, eager to see this end after catching sight of a familiar red cloak fluttering beyond the barricade. "And just so you know, think I'd rather mount an Ogryn. At least they can usually come up with better material than 'Blondie'. Smell nicer too, go figure."
"Graaaaaaagh!"
Seems the response that little tease got from the audience was just a little too poignant for the Armsman to bear, Cardin throwing himself into a wild screaming charge, arms splayed out to hem the blonde Brawler in.
Simple enough tactic true, but given his size he seemed confident enough it would work out for the deck Rating, and with any other opponent if just might have.
A brute of a bruiser all tattooed muscles half as hard as his ego. Youthful like she was and showing similar signs of gen-hancement to augment his already sizable bulk, strength, and reflexes well beyond what could expected of mortal humanity's usual stock.
All the better to serve at the behest of the Legion in whatever sordid capacity was required. In his case cracking skulls while putting down the occasional turf scuffle or sump fight.
And that wasn't all the adversaries held in common either, Cardin was Remnant-born too. One of thousands serving across the length and breadth of the 203rd Expeditionary Fleet since the Legions of the Emperor had first appeared in the skies of their home world all those years ago.
Taken in the tithes as punishment for their resistance in the face of the Imperium.
Another one of her people struggling to survive at the feet of their brutal Masters, and Cardin had fared better than most trying to scrape a living on the Daggerline.
A bully who knew the position he held over his fellow crew and he could get away with, often boasting of how he'd even been considered a possible candidate for recruitment into the Legion. To be given a chance to be remade as one of mankind's finest heroes in this greatest of endeavors, serving alongside the vaunted ranks of the Astartes and perhaps even the legendary Primarchs themselves.
To ascend as something greater...the same sort've pitch Yang remembered from poster adds scattered throughout her childhood. Only instead of Huntsman or Huntress it was something beyond human, and rather than the creatures of Grimm it was an entire galaxy full of horrors.
Would that the serf have been given the chance on Remnant, maybe in some other life, but not this one...she wouldn't dwell on what might have been, she couldn't.
Winchester evidently thought that to even be considered as an initiate was an honor that made him special, even if he didn't quite make the cut for whatever reason...and maybe it did.
But the simple fact was that Cardin Winchester wasn't a Legionary, not even close despite his size and mass.
He might well bellow and roar like one of the World Eaters, but his clumsy gait could never possess the raw killing grace that accompanied a Space Marine with even the subtlest movements. His hands might break and tear, but never with the sheer thoughtless ferocity and ease of an Astartes. His mind, self-centered and cruel, would never feel the bleaching bite of the cortical implants that haunted the Sons of Angron with every passing moment they weren't embattled.
Things Yang knew of all too well, having seen as such with her own eyes more times than she wished to count in her years of service to both the Company and her Master.
No, Cardin Winchester was certainly not a Legionary. He was simply human for all the changes wrought on his flesh, and the golden haired serf would do her damnedest to see his skull beaten into the sands.
With a quick breath and a growl she brought her arms up close and darted forward in a lunge to close the distance between the opponents in a heartbeat. A maneuver the Armsman certainly hadn't been expecting if his wide-eyed stare was anything to judge, thinking the smaller woman might retreat or try to flee.
Doing neither, Yang turned her gait at the last second with a quick weaving one two step just like Taiyang Xiao Long had instructed his eldest daughter, ducking underneath a meaty bicep the size of her head and using the sudden opening to eagerly punish the Rating for his aggression, his lack of forethought. The crowd ecstatic, pushing and shoving in their attempts to get a better view of the prelude to violence, their energy and emotion only feeding the fire...
The first first jab she threw collided with his bared abdomen, leaving her knuckles stinging as though she'd just struck rockcrete, even so it did the trick and stole the brute's breath in a solid splatter of red. That second strike was easier, the adrenaline pumping steadier through her veins and dulling the ache.
Meaning all she could feel was the oh so pleasant give of ribs buckling beneath her ministrations. Her charm bracelet jingling about her wrist with the heady impact all the while.
"Uwaagh...you pathetic little blonde...!?"
"Really dwelling on the whole 'blonde' thing, aren't ya? Heh, got other...rrgh qualities too y'know!?"
Such injury would have put any normal foe out for the count if not far worse, Cardin merely staggered forward before swinging his arms out in flailing arcs hoping to catch her. Instinct driving the brute to lash out as any injured animal would, blinded by pain and fury, seemingly trying his best to emulate the Legionaries he so admired in his frenzy.
Unfortunately for him, their Lords among the World Eaters were trained and conditioned for such mindless fighting. Meanwhile what skill he had bled away with his anger as surely as blood dribbled from his smeared nostrils, Yang dodging the wide hooks easily enough with a grinning snarl as she threw punch and elbow through her opponent's nonexistent guard one after the other in endless succession.
Not so much beating her opponent down as she was demolishing him as she might a stubborn obstacle, bone by bone, brick by brick...
To her fellow Remnant-born's credit, it took a full minute and several more hefty blows than she'd expected before Yang could truly say she'd finished the fight. Especially when he'd made a grab for her hair, the whole world going red for a moment or two. Dodging a final lurching uppercut, snatching hold of his wrist and using the bully's own momentum to yank him bodily over her shoulder and onto the deck in a plume of stinging dust.
Ironically enough, it seemed Winchester would get his wish of having her on top of him after all, though these circumstances might not be so enjoyable. At least not for him, she wondered with a smirk, completing the maneuver with a savage war cry that riled up the throng into yet another frenzy, baying for more blood.
This wasn't one of those fights however, and Cardin was still useful to the Daggerlne's compliment, despite his being a prick. So Yang showed mercy, opting merely to twist his wrist in her grasp, dislodging his whole forearm from its socket with a wet *POP* that left the Armsman writhing yet not crying out, he wouldn't dare.
Even beaten with his face in the dirt he still had his pride, and there was the dangling piece of jagged crystal hanging inert from a braided cord about his mottled neck to consider, same as hers.
With an exultant cry of triumph she brought her arms up over her head, rallying the crowd to even greater heights even as she searched for a glimpse of red or silver. As she searched, the organizer of the fight came out with her winnings in hand, making quite a public show of support despite urging her to take the fall. Bleating out his passable oratory, a pair of attendants working hard to drag the semi-conscious Cardin to his knees.
One struggling to keep the youth upright while his companion tore off a strip of gauze from the fighter's shoulder, exposing the gleaming finger length red cut for all to see. A mirror to that of the one bleeding at Yang's waist even now and the many others written across their bodies.
Unlike hers however, the attendant picked up a handful of clumped sand and shoved it forcefully into the wound, drawing at last a moan from the defeated as the wound was colored a shimmering black that the brawler found she couldn't quite look away from...not even to bask in the feeling of the crowd chanting her name like one of the heroes they all served.
"...YANG! YANG! YANG! YANG! YANG!..."
"Yang!"
The sound of her name being called with such ecstatic vigor had Yang turning the instant she limped into the cramped vacant side-chamber and its flickering lumen lit gloom, or at least she'd thought it had been vacant.
An assumption immediately and rather violently disproved by the crimson blur that slammed into her, tackle hugging the blonde serf with enough force to almost pitch her head over heels.
As it was, she still wound up on the ground wincing from the sudden ache in her backside coupled with the slowly fading hurts of her other injuries. None overly serious, some even fading to some degree thanks to...well, they were fading, that was all that mattered.
That and the minuscule young woman, barely more than a girl really, hovering over her staring with those big silver eyes through a curtain of choppy black hair that bled to a deep crimson at the tips.
Rather noticeable qualities, even if it weren't for the tattered red hooded mantle she wore about her shoulders over the oil stained tunic she wore, little better than rags. Or the porcelain white skin bleached by lack of exposure to sunlight, just like they all were...except for Yang, for whatever inane reason. A Dust charm jangling from the mantle's clasp, shining dimly in the low light.
"R-Ruby?"
Yang shook her mane out as she fought to clear her head, ruffling the girl's hair affectionately while at the same time gently shoving her knobbly knees and elbows off the worst of the bruising. Seeing as that extended to most of her body below the neck...well, easing to a seated position was certainly better than standing.
"Ah...Aw c'mon, Sis. You know better than to hit me up like that, especially after the night I've had." She played up her reaction, affording her little sister a wink and a smirk just for her piece of mind. "Would it kill ya to be a bit gentler? I'm a delicate flower, bruise real easily."
"Yeah, I saw that." Ruby Rose pouted, crossing her arms across her chest and sitting in a puddle of red fabric. The image impossible not to chuckle at, even if she had to stop at the sour look on the red head's face. "What are doing down here, Yang?"
"Huh? That's a bit direct." She faked a pained grimace, one that predictably left Ruby scrambling to shake her head fast enough. "What? Not happy to see me?"
"No! I mean yes! Wait, I mean...!?"
It was too easy to rile her up, the sight of those wide silver eyes sending another thrill of emotion lancing through Yang's chest. Not the heated promethium burn of a fight, or any such thing. This was calm, relaxing, the pain of her injuries leeching away as she felt the other girl's Aura pull at her own unconsciously.
"Not like this, I don't. All beat up, fighting in the pits again...it's scary every time. And it's not like you need to do it either."
And like that, back to the old argument, her sister's ghostly pale hand absently drifting to scratch at her left shoulder. The meat of which, as Yang knew all too well despite how the young girl arranged her mantle and clothes to hide it, bore the numeral 'XII' sigil branded deep enough to scar into the into the flesh. A small symbol but one that held deep meaning to all who saw it and knew of its provenance.
To view it was to know that Ruby was bonded into the sworn service of the 12th Company of the XIIth Legiones Astartes.
To bear the mark was to act at the Legion's behest and in turn granted status and favor above all others in rations and comfort, to be recognized as necessary and deserving of protection by dint of skill or loyalty. And for one to harm such a person, well...to harm them was akin to harming the Legion itself through denial of a valued tool, and to risk the Astartes' displeasure.
No sane individual would wish to test the displeasure of the World Eaters, not if they expected to live a long life or suffer a clean death...and Yang had been the one to earn it from her Master, and the one to see it passed to Ruby in her stead.
She herself might suffer and go hungry, but by her hands her little Sister would want for nothing. Not for her the life of scraping for shifts on the maintenance crews, crawling through sump decks, or more...sordid means some other females in the Cisterns resorted to in their attempts to get by.
No, not for Ruby, and for that reason Yang clapped a hearty hand onto her sister, dragging her into a fierce if gentle embrace.
"Y-Yang s-stop...can't...can't breathe!" The red robed teenager squirmed and struggled against muscle like corded steel, smiling despite herself with the same happy glow that the eldest sibling cherished. "Yang, I'm serious!?"
"Well so am I." The blonde eased up, smiling broadly at those puffed out cheeks. Trying to ignore the reminder of how small and frail her sister was in comparison to her gene bulked physique. The two barely seeming to resemble one another in the days before Yang had been taken to the upper decks. "Maybe I just wanted to borrow Mom's cloak for awhile, ever think of that?" She tugged on the mantle of the long deceased Summer Rose jokingly, eliciting a squeak as Ruby snatched it back and bundled up even tighter in its depths. "Especially if your going to be giving me the cold shoulder like this, that's nasty, Sis. It's been awhile since I've had time to myself."
Frowning at the poor attempt at a pun, Ruby just sighed and plopped back down on her backside, the two sisters sitting across from one another feeling the constant thrum of the Daggerline's mighty plasma reactors beating throughout the plasteel structure.
"So it's true, the Legion's stopped again haven't they, I mean the ship had. I overheard one of the hanger deck crewmen complaining about it over drinks while I was uh...taking a closer look at this air cycler in the distillery that's been acting out. Just looking, I wasn't...um, you know...?" She fumbled with her hands, tapping her fingers together as though to give them purpose.
"Fixing it, you mean?"
Yang frowned but said nothing further, wondering just how many times she'd cautioned her sister about her tinkering. If even one wayward soul blabbed about Ruby's particular 'talents' to a tech priest well...she didn't know if the Legion brand would protect her from the dogs of the Mechanicum.
"Gah...doesn't matter, you're right though. The Fleet's situated in orbit over this garden world the locals call 'Ambria'. Looks pretty enough from the picts I've seen, sorta like home was. Wide green plains and forests spanning over the continents, people in shiny armor riding about on these big stubby lizard things. Ooh and the castles, tall enough to touch the skies, some of em'. Big as Beacon Academy was, I'd wager."
Her voice swelled adventurously, trying her best to paint a picture of the unfamiliar world for one who barely had any true memories of living in such a place herself. It was a tradition they'd kept to since the earliest days, alone in the dark, trying to keep thoughts of Remnant fresh through comparison.
"Shame they went and told the Iterators to drink piss and...er...you get the idea. Whole Company's been deployed in response, been too long since the last battle, since they've last..." She trailed off, not wholly comfortable with conveying the contents of what she knew or could intuit of the Compliance of wondrous Ambria, floating in the void so close but yet so far.
Not that she needed to go into any great detail, both Sisters were well aware of the type of war left in the wake of their Masters. Especially after so long aboard ship, with nothing to slake their bloody appetites on but emotionless combat servitors, each other, or the rare wayward serf unlucky enough to stand out.
Neither of them were unfamiliar with violence or impropriety, growing up aboard a Twelfth Legion vessel had stolen what ignorance either Sister could claim. Though some standards had to be enforced, at least in Yang's opinion. It was her job after all, the last one her father had given her.
"Captain Varren and Khalos are down their too?" Ruby broke the silence, once more fingering the mark on her shoulder. "Fighting, I mean? That's why you suddenly have free time, isn't it?"
"Lord Khalos is, along with the rest of 1st Squad from what the other Serfs can discern. I did say the whole Company." Yang corrected firmly, hating that she had to even as she said it. Having to be the responsible one. "And of course they're fighting. What else would World Eaters be doing?"
Certainly not showing mercy she expected, not with a full Company of the Emperor's most brutal shock troops deployed on its surface.
The blonde suspected that Ambria, or Two-Zero-Three Seventeen, would be rendered compliant by the end of a solar week if not sooner, their culture brutalized and their industry...what was left of it, turned to supporting the Crusade's efforts. If they didn't face 'Totality' for the affront of daring to challenge the bloody Sons of the Red Angel.
"Look, it's been so long. No need to dwell on the little stuff, eh Sis?" She said with a bright smile, downplaying the bloodbath no doubt being inflicted on the world below, focusing instead on the young woman growing before her eyes. "Don't know bout' you, but I'm starving after that little show. Whaddya say you and me hit up the Old Man for some grub for old times sake, maybe show me what's changed down in the decks? Heck, maybe if you keep that smile on I'll see about sneaking you into the Legio Audax Hangers again. Way Yatsuhashi tells it, they've got an honest to Throne War Hound Engine down there awaiting maintenance. Says he can get you up nice and close for a look."
It was a cheap ploy, and Yang knew it. Still, to see the awe playing across Ruby's face at the prospect of getting an up close look at one of the Omnissiah's god-engines in the flesh and not just the grainy after-action picts Yang had managed to procure, was well worth it.
Taiyang Xiao Longs's last pleading words before he'd run off to confront the fearsome invaders, giants with snarling helms ripping and tearing themselves from the burning edges of the forests with weapons that howled like Grimm. Pearlescent white armor awash with chunks of crimson gore, matted hair, and other things no child should ever have to see.
His final choking agonized moments echoing at the back of her mind as the pair picked themselves and moved down the maintenance tunnel, Yang ruffling those crimson tipped curls as the two smiled unabashed.
A simple order rising over the distant cheers emanating from the pits, the screams of transhuman monsters driven to frenzy by the implants in their skulls stored like munitions in the dark cargo shafts below, or the ever present heart flutter of the great warship's engines...
"...Look after your Sister, go! I'll be right behind you, just keep Ruby safe!..." Her father might have failed both of them that day, but Yang would not. She'd do her duty by her family, she'd do what had to be done, whatever it took be it pain or humiliation.
That was her pledge, her oath of moment carved as deeply into her as the flawless triumph rope cut into her flesh or the paper strips favored by the Astartes of lesser legions to flutter about their armor. The Imperium, this cruel new existence, wouldn't take Ruby.
Such was the fire that kept the Dragon going in those darkest nights amidst the screams and the nightmares, and the bastard Emperor himself and his Legions could drown the stars in the heavens and burn the galaxy just as they had Remnant before she'd let that happen...
(Imperial Designate: Two-Zero-Three Eight upon Compliance, Formerly "Remnant", 994.M30 Approx.)
To most of the ascendant Imperium's vast multitudes of data archivists, lex-historians, and the like documenting the travails of the Emperor's Great Crusade, the events of what transpired counted little more than as yet another victory in a long list of victories.
Simply another compliance action inflicted upon yet another distinctly non-compliant world, selfishly refusing its place in the wider tapestry of mankind's dominion of the stars.
Remnant, a newly discovered Death World along the fringes of the known Galactic rim reclassified Two-Zero-Three Eight, in simpler terms the Eighth planet brought to Imperial compliance by the might of the 203rd Expeditionary Fleet.
Rather notable upon closer Auspex observation in a variety of ways especially to Imperial astrocartographers, its surface possessive of a temperate climate not all too dissimilar to what is depicted in ancient records concerning that of Ancient Terra. Accompanied in its travel through the void by an orbiting satellite moon that at some point in time had experienced catastrophic seismic upheaval. Damage deemed so severe that it is a statistical improbability as to how the planet below could maintain such normalized tidal patterns, let alone have avoided near constant bombardment from orbital debris.
Later examination and study by Mechanicum Explorator Fleets would seem to indicate the anomaly stemming from a pre-existing Warp-rift anomaly situated in relatively close proximity to the world similar to that of Caliban, adopted home world of the First Primarch if far less stable in the way such a term could be applied to the empyrean.
A phenomenon also believed to be responsible for heightened levels of of demi-psionic interference emanating from the world itself, featuring heavily among its populace and seemingly amplified by a newly encountered mineral locally referred to as 'Dust', utilized as an energy source but disregarded as a tithe resource due to the substance losing chemical reactivity upon exaction from the surface.
Similarly remarkable, if for far different reasons, was the fact that Remnant's human populace had seemingly thrived despite the presence of an existing predatory genus of alien xeno-form. Collectively referred to as the Grimm, these hyper-aggressive creatures presented in a disturbing variety of physical variants and were a primary challenge to humanities dominance, yet had been for the most part kept at bay by the power of innovative if nigh heretical technological advances utilizing Dust as well as the combined military might of the four leading centers of governance, the so named 'Kingdoms of Remnant'.
Beset by locals both xenos and man, Imperial Army Forces were pushed to call upon the aid of Legiones Astartes elements of the XIIth Legion 'World Eaters' stationed aboard, supported by elements drawn from the IIIrd Legion 'Emperor's Children' and XVIIth Legion 'Word Bearers'.
The subsequent pacification recognized as perhaps the largest gathering of these particular forces in such a scenario until this point in the centuries long history of the Great Crusade. Resistance of both hostile elements broken under sheer overwhelming force, the snow-capped wilds of the planet's Northern Hemisphere falling before the glorious perfection of the IIIrd. Abhumans, titled as Faunus, that were reported to be inhabiting the Souther continent displaying aggressive action upon encountering Ambassadors of the XVIIth Legion and purged wholesale in a sea of fire visible from orbit. And along the vast stretches of continent in-between strode the World Eaters, none capable of standing before their righteous fury.
By all accounts it was glorious, another world claimed in the Emperor's name. In truth, it was a campaign rife with discord. Scattered events playing out upon the surface firmly solidifying the reasons as to why such gatherings of these particular kindred were so rare in the minds of all involved...
Such differences are to be celebrated however, and all should remember and be ever grateful that such beings as the Astartes stalwartly serve the Emperor, and the Emperor serves only Mankind...
- Records drawn from the assorted musings of Balimund Nave, Acclaimed Archivist of the Remembrancer Order assigned to accompany the 203rd Expeditionary Fleet. Presumed Deceased.
- LOG TERMINATED: Continue?