RWBY: New ROMA
"How much should we sacrifice for progress? Years? Animals? Our very souls…?"
Chapter 1: All that we have wrought
The stars reigned high in the silent evening, the only sounds being that of the slight breeze in the air and the sound of a chalkboard being written on. The countryside of the mountain was always silent at this time of night. The Beowolf hunting parties won't come out for at least another hour or so. Leaving the silence in the wake of the stopping of the breeze and the silent ponderings of the writer.
The chalkboard in front of the man was a trifold, able to extend up three different times, giving the image of four chalkboards stacked on top of each other. There were three of them side by side. Each board was connected to a wire that led to a small device to the Man's right, allowing him ease of access to any and all of the boards. The board currently in front of him was full of an equation, which was titled: Armor Project (Silver) (CATASTROPHIC FAILURE).
The shuffling of papers filled the void of sound as the man went over a large stack of papers labeled research notes. With a red piece of chalk, the man circled three sections of slightly faded white chalk. He then shook his head and turned the dial on his right and brought forward labeled Seraph (Double Blade Two Blades Revolvers (BLACKDUST)?)
The door was opened behind the man as a second man stepped through the doorway. A rich Baritone voice came from the second man, "Figured you'd still be working. You do realize it's like 2 AM right? The Beowolves'll be here in like 20 minutes. You coming hunting with Midori, Alex and I?"
The man standing in front of the chalkboard continued to write through the entire question until the very end. The man set the chalk down and paused staring at his work. He then turned the dial's setting to the last board of the group, a list of names. "Thirty five dead, Fifty seven wounded…One hundred and ten families either destroyed or altered by the way of our companies experiments…we can't keep testing our projects in this way, Ocee… I will not continue a destructive practice until it defines us or destroys us…I will not be my father Ocee.
"You father was a man of great ambition and drive to make something bigger and better no matter for people looked at him or his work. He left you a good solid company; your brother Alex took the company mantle anyway. What are you so worried about?" The man named "Ocee" spoke from his position of leaning in the door.
"You know exactly that I am an only child now. Alexian is dead. And also this is what I am left with…his work is it could even be called that."
The man by the chalkboard slowly rotated the dial and showed all eleven projects the front board,
"Epsilon: Dust poisoning research. Lost 15 people to the dust poison that he had injected into their food and then watch them deteriorate as he studied them.
Beta: Faunus Research: Two murdered so autopsies could be preformed on the corpses and two wounded from the scientific experiments that he preformed.
Sigma: Cannon Research to replace the A9-2000 models, seven injured due to sloppy construction.
Alpha: Aura manipulation. Three dead, seven wounded.
Kilo: Android response upgrade: caused super high aggression in test units: Four deceased, ten wounded in the escape.
Hotel: Mobil command post: six wounded from Grimm attracted to the signal the MBU called out.
Charlie: Jet creation project: Three dead from Engine detonation, seven people injured from shrapnel.
Juliet: Image projecting device to display a hologram over the wearer, both subjects died from electrocution.
Oscar: Cargo mover Android one injured from dropped cargo.
Sierra: Silver Knight protector Android gone rogue. Six dead and 17 injured due the escape and defeat. Injured included yourself and Weiss Schnee, a powerful Dust Empire Heiress…
Seraph: My addition to the ranks of a science department full of a history of death and failures. My father did solve a single problem with this waste of life…He even had the nerve to call this…these atrocities…Progress. This wasn't progress it was a pointless and complete waste of life was didn't even help anyone they were profit experiments used to help the company coffers and not the people of the world. We are on the brink of extermination. If all the Grimm just massed attacked us, that's it, we are doomed, screwed, gone, extinct, completely"
"ALEX!" interrupted "Ocee".
"WHAT!" Alex replied. But seeing the concerned look on "Ocee's" face seemed to calm Alex down quite a bit. Alex walked to the board and flipped it over to show the two revolvers with currently no dust loaded into the revolvers, as the chamber was not going the dust's color. As the Bell tolled in the background three times slowly, Alex grabbed the revolvers and quickly loaded them with the fire dust rounded and put a fire crystal in one of the revolvers handles, as well as an air white crystal in the other handle. He then pulled the hammers back on the revolvers where they morphed around his hand into two Calvary sabers, each with a shorter blade. The left sword felt lighter and thus swung faster when used and had a current of air swirling around it, the other was heavier and seemed to continually burn. The triggers were released on the swords and the effects stopped. He then put the swords handles together and twisted locking the handles together, allowing the gaps in the swords to align together to form an area where a primarily right-handed person could hold the trigger to the weapon. As Alex pulled the trigger with the weapon facing up and down the weapon immediately felt lighter as a fiery blaze flowed around both blades of the weapon. As the fire reflected into his nearly full black eyes he spoke, "Let us join the hunt. And may the Grimm perish from the earth." Alex smiled as "Ocee" and two other voices, one additional male and a female mirrored his last sentence.
"Let us go." The full party stared at the boards as Alex pushed the dial on the wall down. The boards were raised above the wall into the ceiling as the door to the outside was unsealed and swung outwards, the Female wielding a sphere that had every manner of dust crystal in it also seemed to bob above her hand as she held it aloft. The unknown male wielded a crossbow that Alex knows turned into a greatsword.
Ocee Removed the Claymore sword that turned into a large-full body tower shield on command. The Shield and sword were lined with air crystal "repulsers" used to launch any projectile that good within a certain small distance to be ricocheted back that the attacker. This made up for the lack of a projectile weapon.
"Allen, Midori, Ocelot. Glad to see you all accepted my invitation."
"The transfer request to Vale? Easily, We aren't going to just up and leave you boss. But why transfer there? I mean, wouldn't Atlas have more resources needed for you tech and better access to the hunting areas?" the girl, Midori, spoke softly.
"But also has better access to his father and vise versa. His father has no power in vale, that is strictly Schnee turf." Midori's adopted brother Allen Spoke.
"Also the one person who killed the Silver armor is there. Also happens to be the youngest Schnee daughter." Ocelot said as he rested the claymore across his shoulders.
"Also Winter knows what I look like, Weiss does not. Easier to blend in when, as far as they know, Runen Ochre and Alexander Lanciere aren't the same person." Runen said. Above the doorway a quote from Alex's mother was written, "Deception is a weapon, Persuasion is a tool, and spying is never a crime. For he who knows all, rules it all. But trust nothing for it all breaks: Machines, promises, letters, minds, bodies, souls."
Runen was snapped from his stupor as many as 40 beowolfs followed by Ursa came running at him. It was 3 am, the twilight hours, between now and sunrise the Grimm were at their most aggressive. The Best kind of training was under duress of course. "Standard formation, Ocelot with me!" Runen charged forward and sliced the head off on beowolf before spinning the double ended blade around and cutting another in half before catching one with the grip and kicking in down before splitting his blades and driving them both into the head of the creature. Ocelot swung in large sweeps cleaving through two or more Beowolves a swing. Turning his sword into his shield the repulsers knocked away two of the jumping beowolves into their comrades, knocking them down so when Ocelot slammed his shield into the ground, his semblance channeled through the ground and knocked pillars into the ground, impaling them and then exploding into rock shards towards their comrades. Midori was channeling simple ice dust through her orb as ranged projectiles causing them to be slowed by the dust effects or out right frozen. As the hoard seeming to collapse on the two she rotated the orb levitating in her hand and channeled the electric magic through the orb into the sky causing a carefully placed storm to appear above them. Ocelot communicated this to Runen who grabbed him and slammed his sword, now double bladed again, into the ground causing an orb of pure Obsidian rock to appear around them. Midori then rained the storm down upon the field, lightning disintegrating the beowolfs surrounding them as the bolt bounced harmlessly off of the orb. As the storm died the Ursa joined the fight with their remaining comrade beowolves. The orb faded away as Runen removed his sword from the ground. "Allen, Light them up." Runen ordered.
Allen switched the arrows from regular to fire dust explosive as he continued to fire the oversized crossbow, the vines coming from the ground rooting him in place, cancelling the knockback effect the over-sized crossbow would normally have. Then Allen saw more Ursa come through the woods and patted Midori's shoulder, a non-verbal communication that said he was heading up to fight with Runen and Ocelot. Allen switched his crossbow to its greatsword form and proceeded to move to Runen and Ocelot's side as the roughly 6 Ursa joined the fight. The ground was slowly infected with dry vines that crunched under the ursa's feet as they charged. Midori was ready and changed her orb to fire magic and shouted, "Ready!"
Ocelot slammed his sword into the ground as a ring of rocks surrounded them, Ocelot then grabbed Allen and threw him on to the ledge of the arena as Runen and Ocelot forced the Ursa to fight in the arena. The Fireball that Midori summoned slammed into the ground causing the vines in the ground to alight. More vines emerged from the ground and immediately were set alight as well, feeding the fires intensity. Runen summoned his orb around ocelot and himself as the Ursa burned while trying to crack the orb, to no avail. After the final Ursa had died, the vines receded into the ground and a small snowstorm from Midori set the fire out. Runen checked his watch as the time hit 3:10 am. "Fifty Grimm in ten minutes, I like the sound of that. Good job ROMA. Lets go to sleep for we transfer in the morning. I wouldn't what to disappoint the headmaster with a late arrival of his new transfer team. And Midori. I love the new weapon. Let me guess the switching mechanism is based on your levitation semblance, move some components up and down and spun to achieve the desired dust?" Midori simply nodded and smiled gleefully at the recognition.
They all entered Runen's workshop again and went to their respective rooms as Runen pulled up the boards and stared at his father's work. As Runen sighed and looked at his old gear, the gear he had been unable to save Alexian's life with, he spoke, "Ceaser, Anthony, Artemis…you may not be used again, but I will miss you…Maybe you will be used as a basis for a new generation of Hunter." As he looked at the boards and saw only the wasted life for nothing he spoke softly, "If you thought me one thing, father. It was who never to be like. You killed for no reason to accomplish nothing. I will not continue your mistake of a legacy." He turned around dimming the light on the room as the door shut, swallowing the room in darkness.
So an extremely big thank you to lordofthenight97, as he was the one who told of the formatting error that occurred during the upload. normal i would have caught that. however, yesterday i published the story right before i left for work and did not have the time. My apologizes everyone for the disaster of a story launch.