"Ruby! Stop tinkering, and get in here! It's time for dinner!"
Ruby perked her head up, wiping grease of her forehead, only serving to wipe the black marks across the top of her head further along.
"Coming Dad!" Ruby called back, placing her torque wrench on the tool rack on the wall of the workshop.
Ruby ran out of the workshop and towards the main house, the evening sun streaming down between the leaves of the bright green trees of the island of Patch.
She opened the door and quickly took off her boots, leaving them just in front of the door frame, before she stepped inside, her bare feet padding softly against the carpet.
Dinner smelt delicious, and Ruby wandered into the kitchen, bumping past her father to help carry the food out to the dining table.
"Ah ah ah! Rinse off first, don't want your grease in my butter chicken!" Taiyang ordered, slapping Ruby's hands away from the food.
Ruby laughed, turning the tap on the sink and pumping soap onto her hands.
"C'mon, Yang! Get down here!" Taiyang called up the stairs, and Ruby heard her older sister walk down, her mass of blonde hair wrapped up in a ponytail.
"Hey Dad, Ruby. How's the tinkering on Crescent Rose going?" Yang asked, pulling a chair out from the table and sitting down.
Ruby finished washing her hands, drying them with a towel hanging on the oven handle. "Not bad. She needs a few things tuned up, but she'll be in perfect condition for the next year of Signal. I've just gotta go into Vale, pick up some parts I can't get in Patch."
"Well, either Yang or I can give you a lift, or you could take Crescent," Taiyang said, as he served up three plates of butter chicken.
"I'll be taking Ember Celica, so take your pick Rubes," Yang said, before digging in.
"I'll take Crescent, I've got to get some ammo anyways, might as well save myself the effort of having it delivered," Ruby answered, taking a forkful of chicken from her plate.
"Well, be safe. I know you can handle yourselves, but I still worry," Taiyang said, his daughters doing their best to affirm his knowledge that they could, in fact, take care of themselves without hassle.
Dinner was finished quickly, and the members of the Xiao Long household went to sleep, content stomachs and content minds.
Morning was bright, as it usually was on Patch, and Ruby had been up since the early morning, in the workshop.
Tinkering.
She had spent a long time tinkering on Crescent Rose, and it was finally time for her to take her out for a test drive.
The mech stood tall and thin, covered in light armor panels coloured red, black and silver, glistening in the early morning sunlight.
Ruby placed her screwdriver to the side, and stood up, wiping sweat from her forehead.
"You reckon she's ready to run?" Yang asked, poking her head in the workshop, startling Ruby.
"Jeez, Yang! Don't scare me like that," Ruby cried out, jumping up.
Yang laughed, grabbing a set of keys off of a rack on the wall. "So?"
"Yeah, she's ready," Ruby replied, grabbing her own set of keys off the rack.
"Then let's go to Vale!"
Ruby nodded, grabbing her scroll from the workshop table and hitting a button, the rear part of the torso of Crescent Rose sliding open, a thin metal rod with two footholds sliding down with a hiss.
Ruby placed her booted feet on the footholds and wrapped an arm around the pole, before it rose, the metal plating retracted to cover the hole that Ruby neatly slipped through.
"Systems check," Ruby murmured under her breath, as she adjusted herself in her cockpit.
Ruby looked about the various switches and buttons, before attaching her scroll into a socket on the arm of her chair.
The entire cockpit lit up as the interior plating lit up, revealing the exterior of Crescent Rose.
With a few quick presses on her scroll, a small screen flickered to life in the top left of her peripherals.
"You ready to go, Ruby?" Yang asked, sitting comfortably in Ember Celica, having accepted the communication from Ruby.
"Whenever you are, Yang!" Ruby replied happily, her hands on the controls.
Ruby watched through her view-screens as her sister's golden mech began to stand up, towering at more than forty feet, it's metal plating thicker than Crescent Rose.
Crescent Rose followed Ember Celica at Ruby's behest, the slightly smaller mech standing up and it's arms coming off their locking points on the torso.
The two girls piloted their mechs out of their spots in the workshop, the heavy clunking of metal and the hiss of servos permeating the air as the mechs warmed up.
A second communication window popped up on both sister's view-screens.
"Have fun, you two. Just remember to be careful!" Taiyang said, as his daughters waved goodbye.
"Seeya later, dad!" Both girls said, before terminating the communication and urging their mechs into a jog, the thumping of metal impacting the ground a familiar feeling to Taiyang.
He watched them run off into the distance, before turning around to the corgi that sat behind him, tail wagging.
"What am I going to do now, huh Zwei?"
Zwei just barked in response, tongue hanging out of his mouth.
Blake opened her eyes, looking around at her view-screens.
"Are you ready, Blake?"
Blake looked at the masked face in the communication window in the corner. "Yes."
"Go."
Blake slipped on her mask, and urged Gambol Shroud to leap, the mech responding quickly, the black plating almost invisible against the night time sky.
Blake could feel the whistle of the wind against the hull of Gambol Shroud, before she was almost jolted out of her seat by the impact. She heard the impact of Adam behind her, Wilt and Blush landing just to the side of her.
A booming voice came over speakers, and spotlights lit the two mechs up.
"Alert! Alert! Two unidentified mobile hunter platforms have landed on the foredeck! All units, engage!"
Blake frowned underneath her mask, quickly drawing her weapon. Adam had already drawn his blade, glowing red, crackling plasma.
Doors slid open on the deck, and the Atlesian cargo craft that Blake and Adam were assaulting launched it's defenses.
She watched as a cluster of dark metal mechs rose on a platform. Atlesian Knight-130s, automated mechs designed as security.
Blake ignited her sword, purple plasma crackling, and she leaped forwards, Gambol Shroud responding in a single instant, her blade cutting the first of the twelve AK130s in half, it's plating unable to withstand the sheer heat that the blade gave off.
Blake wasn't finished, not by a long shot, as Gambol Shroud spun, the flat metal blade that Blake wielded in her other hand thudding into the central processing unit of the second AK130, located in the head.
Adam joined Blake in the fray, sword glowing as he struck. He sheathed the blade, the plasma vanishing as he placed it in the sheath. Wilt and Blush's fist twisted, and Adam pointed the end of the sheath at another mech, pulling the trigger.
The blast of the shotgun smashed through the mech, and it faltered and fell, plating bent inwards, and shattered.
The sword flickered in and out of the sheath, and three more mechs split, falling one after another.
Blake hadn't been idle, her sword having shifted forms, her pistol spitting out bullets. Each colossal round smacked into the targets she'd chosen, the AK-130s taking solid hits, shredding plating and collapsing on the deck.
She and Adam cleared the deck of hostiles, their weapons spitting out rounds and displacing sprays of plasma.
"Move to the cargo bay, prep the crates for drop."
Blake followed Adam's orders, and dropped down through the hatch from where the AK-130s had ascended, the elevator having retracted.
Gambol Shroud's feet thunked as they made contact with the metal floor, and Blake quickly stepped forward as Adam dropped in behind her, the bigger frame of Wilt and Blush landing just behind her.
The two stalked forwards past the unpiloted cargo mechs, and the two began checking and preparing the shipping containers, all of which were marked with either the Schnee Dust Company logo, or the smaller less distinct logo of the Atlesian Military.
Blake placed another package against the side of a crate, the package automatically sealing itself against the metal hull of the container.
"Blake, prep the crates. I'll set the charges," Adam said, maneuvering Wilt and Blush behind a stack of crates.
"What about the civilians?" Blake asked.
"What about them- Contact!"
Blake looked up as Gambol Shroud leapt backwards, and she noticed as something stirred in the darkness beyond the cargo bay.
One mechanical leg pressed against the cargo bay floor, followed by a second.
It was the third and fourth legs that grasped the top of the entryway that had Blake on high alert, as what had seemed like a lesser threat was suddenly proven to not be anything of the sort.
The mech crawled out of the darkness, its legs latched to the ceiling, massive turret swivelling around to face where Blake and Adam stood.
Blake opened fire, her pistol blasting away at the thick metal plating of the spider-mech, but it almost seemed negligible as the plating tanked the rounds.
"Blake, hold it off for a while!" Adam called out, and backed out of sight of the spider-mech.
Blake dashed close as it dropped off the ceiling, and she slashed at it with her plasma blade.
The plating was so dense, so thick and so strong that her sword bit in only half an inch, but she was already moving, Gambol Shroud darting around and slashing at the mech once again.
Blake held this up for almost a minute, dashing and slashing at the mech as it spiralled its turret, unable to get a bead on the rapidly moving Gambol Shroud.
"Get clear!"
Blake quickly followed Adam's order, darting back and using the shipping containers as cover as Adam stepped clear, the blade of Wilt and Blush ready to draw.
The mech rounded on Adam, and fired, a direct beam of energy striking the rapidly drawn blade.
A moment passed as Wilt and Blush glowed, plasma spraying outwards as the beam was absorbed inside, flipping off the laws of physics as it did.
The cargo bay was silent before Adam sliced his blade through the air, a massive trail following the blade as he launched a wave of plasma at the mech, cutting it in half.
"Blake, drop the crates," Adam ordered, as he pulled out a much larger case from the inside of Wilt and Blush's cargo container.
Blake did so, hitting the manual release for the cargo bay door, which slid open on its now slack rails.
She began pushing the crates to the edge of the doorway, where the sky met the metal flooring. Once she had them prepared, she began slowly but surely shoving them out, the variously coloured steel boxes plummeting into the air below.
Adam walked back over to Blake, and stood at the edge, preparing himself to drop.
"Ready?" Adam asked.
Blake didn't respond, simply standing there.
A moment passed, and Adam noticed Blake cut the communication.
He then noticed as a metal hand shoved Wilt and Blush out of the aircraft.
Blake quickly turned and picked up the explosive charge Adam had set down, and set to work deactivating it.
It took more than a minute, but once she was done she sprinted out of the cargo hold, leaping as far as the servos on Gambol Shroud could take her, her black mech plunging into the night sky.
There was no way Adam would find her. At least, she hoped as much.
Honestly, if Weiss had to be honest, she was tired.
She'd never admit it, of course, or even show it publicly, but there were two people in the world that knew how tired she was at the moment.
Klein, her butler, and Winter, her older sister. One knew because she had vented to them, the other because they had done the exact same thing she had.
Even as she brought Myrtenaster's blade up to block the strike of the automated mech her father had pitted her against, she felt tired.
The cut across her face from the shrapnel that had penetrated the plating of her cockpit was enough to make her consider surrendering, but she was so close, so damn close to being out of Atlas that she was willing to withstand the pain, withstand the thought that her face would never be the same.
A small price to pay, she thought.
Her blade struck the enemy mech once again, finally crippling the robot.
It crumpled to one knee, dropping its massive blade to the floor as Weiss panted, exhausted.
She'd won, but the cost was steeper than anything she'd had to deal with.
"I suppose you have given me no choice but to concede defeat, daughter."
Her father's voice wasn't what she needed to hear right now, but it was all she was given.
"You may study at Beacon Academy, Weiss," Her father said.
Weiss perked up in the cockpit, even as she wiped blood off her face.
Her father walked away at that point, not even concerned about the wellbeing of his daughter.
Weiss was tired. But she was also far happier than she had ever been. Not that she'd ever admit it.
Hey all, AFatFlyingWhale here. Something new here, a little side project I put a little effort into. I had a craving for some mech stuff, and I noticed there weren't really any mech fanfics out there for RWBY, which is a surprise, considering how well it works. Consider this a way to hype myself up for Gen:Lock, so there.
I just wish would stop dropping out.
And, as always, see you next chapter
~AFatFlyingWhale