Hello all! So this is my second story. This is a crossover AU fanfic that features characters from both RWBY and Red vs Blue. This first part is a short prologue to the story itself. I hope you all enjoy it and as usual feel free to write a review and like/share/follow it.
Huntsmen Aren't Paid to Die
Prologue
Ruby leaned against the boulder behind her as she allowed one leg to hang off of the cliff situated one hundred and fifty feet above the forest floor below. She calmly moved her SRSS99-S5 AM to keep its sights on the target she had been tracking for the past week. It was a massive Ursa Major with scars covering its entire body. She had been contacted two weeks prior by a poor border town near the Emerald Forest to hunt the large Grimm when an entire family was killed by it. She was informed that the town had sent five of their best hunters to track down the beast but none came back. She slowly tracked the large Ursa's movements through the trees as she thought about how she could convince the town to only pay her half of the normal wages for a Huntress to kill such a dangerous creature. Ruby wasn't one for taking advantage of those in need, even if it was technically her job to do so to an extent.
"Crescent Rose?" Ruby said patiently as she kept her rifle's sights on her target.
"Yes ma'am?" Came the cheerful but professional voice of Ruby's AI unit that was installed in her helmet.
"Pull up trajectory simulation alpha. Also, I need a suggestion on how to talk to the mayor about our pay when we get back to town." Ruby commanded as she continued to think about the small town.
"Roger that, I will make a note of it for when we have a confirmed tag on the bounty." Crescent Rose replied as a series of stats and projected simulations popped up in Ruby's visor.
Ruby's popularity as a Huntress had developed partly because her team were well known to be one of the only teams from The Huntsmen Corps to reduce their prices or to allow bartering when it came to being hired for jobs. Team RWBY refused to charge full price, no matter how big the job, when it came to dealing with border towns or clients in desperate need. They were one of only a handful of teams with such a policy and thus had earned a small fortune from the amount of jobs they had been called into over the past five years since they had graduated from Beacon Academy's Huntsman School. This demand sometimes called for Team RWBY to split up in order to do several jobs at once with each team member taking a percentage of the payment from the bounties.
"Alright Crescent Rose, that looks fine to me. You ready to bring the pain?" She asked with excitement as her trigger finger began to tremble with anticipation.
"Excellent choice ma'am. I'm ready when you are." The AI responded as it finished calculating Ruby's chances of making a kill shot from her location.
Ruby grinned happily as she eased her heartbeat and began her breathing technique. She slowly inhaled a deep breath and then released it. She repeated this process twice more, then with the last exhale she held her breath halfway through and gently squeezed the trigger of her rifle. The recoil of the large sniper rifle smacked the armored plating in her shoulder with a strong thud as the round exited the rifle's barrel. A small image in her visor quickly tracked the flight path of the round before it slammed into the Ursa Major's spine just between its shoulder blades. The large Grimm gave out a loud groan as its spine shattered and the bullet, along with bone fragments, tore downward into the its chest cavity.
"Good hit! Target's spine has been severed along with massive amounts of internal damage to both the lungs and heart. Target has been successfully eliminated." Came the report from Crescent Rose within a second of the bullet hitting the large Grimm.
Ruby quickly jumped to her feet and slung her rifle onto her back as the report came from Crescent Rose. She looked down the face of the cliff at the ground below her, her hooded cape fluttering in the wind. She then calmly walked off of the edge, falling straight down. She gracefully landed, her armor and shielding successfully absorbing the impact of the landing. Ruby then quickly gained her position and activated her armor's special function before sprinting to the corpse of the Ursa Major.
Ruby's Spartan armor was a customized Deadeye class set with integrated speed enhancers built in from her AI's programming. Ruby would be able to outrun any other Spartan, Huntsman or Atlesian, without even breaking a sweat. Her armor was painted black with red stripes and had a small hooded cape attached to its shoulders. Because of her deadly sniping skills and hooded appearance, Ruby had gained the nickname "Grimm Reaper" over the years of her service as a Huntress.
"Crescent Rose, archive the footage of the kill and then start recording here for tagging." Ruby commanded as she pulled out a large combat knife from its sheath that was attached to her chest's armor.
Ruby kneeled next to the beast's lifeless body, black steam still slowly rising off of its corpse. She made sure to capture enough visual proof of the Ursa Major being that of the one her contract detailed before she proceeded to tag her kill. She quickly worked on cutting the Grimm's head off before carving a large rose into its forehead. This made sure she had not just video proof, but physical proof of her completing her contract. This also allowed her to claim her kill just in case other Huntsmen or Huntresses were in the area and wanted to try and steal her contract. She then placed the Grimm's head into a mesh bag and attached it to her waist before cleaning her knife off on the corpse's fur. She then stood and quickly ran back towards town with her prize.
As Ruby reached the edge of town she noticed that there was a Bullhead VTOL resting in the center of town with a figure standing next to it. Ruby calmly walked into town as she watched the figure begin to walk towards her. She entered the town hall and discussed payment with the mayor, who insisted that Ruby take full payment for the contract. After a few minutes she finally talked him down and told him that it was the least that she could do. As she began walking towards the front of the building, Crescent Rose chimed in.
"You know she'll be waiting outside, right?" Crescent Rose asked cautiously, her tone changing from earlier.
"Yep. I guess she just couldn't stand the fact I'd been gone for two weeks. Prepare for an earful, partner." Ruby replied as she slid her hood down and took her helmet off, shaking her short hair as it became free of the helmet.
As Ruby exited the town hall she came face to face then none other than Weiss Schnee, another member of Team RWBY. Weiss frowned at her as she looked her partner up and down, taking in the young Huntress before her.
"You know, it'd be nice if you actually answered your scroll once and a while." Weiss scolded her right off the bat.
"Knew that was coming." Ruby muttered before responding to her old friend. "It's kind of hard to keep in touch out here, especially when hunting an Ursa Major that is worth twenty five thousand lien. Also, didn't you have a job with Yang?"
"Yes, and we finished that job a day after you left for this job. I'm not mad about you taking the job or even how you did the job, Ruby. I'm here to tell you we have a big job on the table." Weiss replied as she motioned Ruby to follow her to the Bullhead.
"Big job? How big of a job?" Ruby asked as she quickly followed. It would have to be a very important job for Weiss to come all the way out here to retrieve Ruby.
"Possibly the biggest payday we have ever seen." Weiss replied as they reached the Bullhead and it began to take off.
"That important, huh? Who's the one who called it in?" Ruby yelled over the sound of the VTOL's engines.
"Schnee Dust Company. Winter called me personally and requested I find you then as a team meet her at SDC headquarters as soon as we were able to. She didn't tell me anything besides that. But for Winter to call us for a job, it must be huge." Weiss replied as she sat across from Ruby in the aircraft before hitting a button to close the outside doors as they flew through the air. "You need to get some sleep, you look horrible." She finally said before smiling gently at Ruby.
"Yes ma'am!" Ruby playfully replied. "Please wake me when we get close to home. I can only guess what kind of mood this has Yang in, so I'm going to need some rest." She said as she got comfortable in her seat and slowly closed her eyes and quickly drifted off into a light sleep.