Luke's foot hit the floor for a split second before he forced himself off it again, flying into the air with the power of his augmented legs. He slammed a new cartridge into the R201, his trusty, standard issue assault rifle. Narrowly dodging another swipe of the beast's claw, he brought the R201 to eye level and pulled the trigger, allowing the weapon to burst fire. The weapon buried bullet after bullet into the beast's head as it roared in fury and attacked again.

Lucas Barrow served as a mercenary for hire, no attachments to anything or anyone besides his two AIs. He had been called in for a pretty simple search and destroy mission. Something big had been tearing up a section on a planet, and his contractors wanted it dead. It was probably messing with their equipment or something, Luke didn't really care. He got paid, and that was enough for him. He took his large ship, but elected to leave his titan, Scorch, in the hangar. He could always call it when he needed to. The computer pinpointed the monster and deployed a small transport ship, which carried him a few hundred feet above the beast before he dropped to get the first strike.

His reminiscing was cut short as a long claw caught him in the side, impaling him and throwing him into a wall. Through all the pain, Luke could feel his nanobots repairing his internals systems, which were undoubtedly a mess. As an elite soldier, he had managed to afford the highest quality bots and it was paying off now. Almost as soon as his bones had broken and his skin had torn apart, his body was stitched back together. The bots also inhibited his sense of pain, allowing him to continue to fire.

The beast was a massive, black as night brute that reminded him of a gorilla. Luke could see why people wanted it removed. The only part that didn't remind him of the night sky was the white mask it wore over its face and burning red and yellow eyes, which appeared to glow and flicker like a live fire. His body fully repaired, Luke shoved another clip into his gun and fired again. Finally, the uranium-depleted rounds managed to find a home in it's brain, and as it roared in pain, Luke was able to slip a frag grenade into it's mouth. Its mouth clamped shut, and then it's head promptly exploded.

The goliath dissolved into dust as Luke slowed his pace and hit the floor. At last, all of the black smoke dissipated, and only a faint, glowing, red crystal was left on the soft forest floor. Luke picked it up with a look of curiosity on his face, tapping his arm gauntlet.

"Fletcher, any chance you can tell me what this is?"

On cue, the computer voice came to life in his head and a soft, blue light absorbed the red crystal.

"Unidentifiable substance, Pilot. I recommend bringing it aboard for further analysis. I am sending a transport shuttle to your location, unless you prefer to blow your brains out and reclone up here."

"Affirmative. I'll take the shuttle."

Ten minutes, Luke was sitting alone on the shuttle, flying back to his ship, "The Fool". His helmet was off, allowing him to breathe into the ship. Despite only being nineteen years of age, Luke's hair was silver, likely caused from the stress of his occupation. However, he still wore it in a shaggy mop over his head that he could slick back when he needed to don his helmet. His face still appeared youthful, but his scars that dotted his face and body spoke of years of combat experience.

The transport docked in The Fool, and he stepped off and strode through the empty ship to the lab. The Fool was small by most standards, but Luke refused to allow any living presences onto it besides himself and his two AIs - Fletcher, the primary AI controller of everything on The Fool, and Scorch, the AI that ran the massive robot that currently sat dormant in the hangar.

Luke slid the crystal into an analyzer before wandering over to the kitchen. The Fool was equipped with a lab, a hangar, a launch zone, a kitchen, an armory, a common room, a command room, and a bedroom. In the lab and armory, mini drones tirelessly scrapped old rounds and harvested from planets to build anything he could need - everything from one more bullet for an assault rifle to an entirely new mech when Scorch got destroyed. Plugging some headphones into his ears, Luke made his way to the command room and plotted out his course to his next job - IMC units were terrorizing a free planet, and Luke was going to go fuck them up. He finalized the route and fell asleep on a nearby couch.

He was woken up by Fletcher.

"Pilot Barrow, we may have a problem."

He looked out the large window over the lush planet underneath him. Luke's pilot suit allowed him to survive on almost any planet, but not having to use those capabilities was always pleasant. The thing preventing him from being happy was the fact that the planet he was supposed to be headed to was a desert planet.

"So we took a pit stop. I don't know why, but I don't see why this is a problem." Luke yawned.

Fletcher replied with, if he wasn't an AI, might be interpreted as annoyance mixed with fear. "Because I can't get us out. That crystal you brought back is pulling us towards the planet, and while I don't believe we will crash, the jump engines are refusing to cooperate."

"So what you're telling me is we are stuck here."

"In theory, we could use the manual engines and try to get out of the pull. However, I have calculated the amount of time that would take and-"

"How long."

"Seven thousand, five-hundred, eighty-nine years and two standard months. However, I have detected signs of life on the planet. Whether it is intelligent remains to be seen."

Luke sighed and shoved his helmet back on and trudged towards the hangar.

"Then let's go meet the locals."

Explosions echoed around the students. The white fang had brought in a large amount of Grimm, and were launching their assault on Beacon. Pyrrha had failed to keep Cinder from the Fall maiden's power, but her friends had kept her from chasing Cinder up the tower. It went against every one of her principles, but she knew she would only be putting them in more danger if she went and tried to play the hero.

Pyrrha threw her shield into another Grimm, narrowly saving Jaune again. A massive Grimm snarled at her. It was easily the size of a building, and the teams were too scattered with fighting and helping people to be able to focus on it. Pyrrha contemplated her imminent demise when she heard the roar of engines above her. It should have been impossible though. Why would an Atlas ship be flying directly into the heart of battle?

Rather than landing though, a single figure jumped and began to fall several hundred feet. Pyrrha braced herself to hear the inevitable crunch of it's legs as it hit the pavement. Instead, it extended it's arm, pointed at the biggest grimm, while screaming "DIBS!". Immediately, a rope fired from it, latched onto the Grimm, and pulled the figure towards it. It anchored onto the massive gorilla-like Grimm, reached under, pulled out some sort of rifle, and began emptying bullets into the Grimm's neck. The Grimm thrashed and flailed, but the figure stayed attached. Finally, it went to slam it's back into a building when the figure grappled to the opposite side of the street. It cut off the grapple and hit the wall and began running. Sideways. It pushed off, a small flash of light from the figure's strange backpack gave it another aerial boost, and it continued to fire. Its furious eyes turned back towards Pyrrha, who had been watching it all, having cleared out the rest of the Grimm. She braced herself and stepped to throw her shield when the figure dropped next to her.

"DON'T YOU DARE! I GOT DIBS!" it-he yelled, swatting her shield down. He took off again, running at insane speeds as he continued to fire. It raised a massive hand to crush him, and he immediately grabbed something circular from his best, cranked his arm back, and ran straight for the Grimm. It's hand slammed the ground and the figure slid and wrenched his arm forward, launching the circular object towards it, nailing it straight between the eyes. A blinding flash and several arcs of lighting blinded the Grimm as he jumped up and firmly planted his feet into it's mouth. He forced down and started throwing all sorts of stuff from his belt into the Grimm before grappling away, next to Pyrrha. She was dumbstruck. He was so fast, but more than that, he never stopped moving.

"Heya." said the figure.

"... Hi." replied a dumbstruck Pyrrha.

"Watch the fireworks."

Before she could get another word out, the Grimm's body exploded. Everywhere. It was kinda disgusting. Pyrrha couldn't even address him before he was sprinting away again. Just as well, Pyrrha had to take care of her teammates.

"Flashy as always, Pilot." Came Fletcher's disapproving voice.

"Oh hush Fletcher."

"You used that trick twice in a row."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"On your map I've pinged another location, where there appear to be a number of other titans, or possibly reapers. It's hard to tell."

"Stim?" Luke's voice came through the comm hopefully. Stimming allowed him to run at twice his normal speed for a short time, but taxed his body.

"No."

"Fiiiiiine" grumbled Luke as he raced towards the signal. Upon arrival, he spotted not three, not four, but five Reapers, or as he learned others called them, Atlesian Knights. He saw some of the children there, only his age, had already gone through three of them, but they were all looking pretty beat and they weren't recovering at an acceptable speed.

"Fletcher, bring in Scorch."

"Yes, Pilot."

Luke chucked a shining beacon, a marker to Fletcher onto the ground as he stimmed. One of the robots had it's fist raised, intending to punch one of the students and probably pulverize them. He was easily running at around 60mph while stimmed, and it thankfully was fast enough. He launched into the air, extended one leg, and let it slam into the extended arm of the bot, forcing it away from the unfortunate boy. The timer on the interior of his helmet showed it was almost go time.

Animal-like men and women gathered too, murderous intent all too obvious. Twenty seconds on Scorch. Time to stall.

"Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen! I am Luke Barrow!" He yelled with a sweeping bow. Everyone, both the adults and children looked at him like he was crazy. Probably because he had just shown up and kicked a robot, but still.

"I am a Pilot and mercenary for hire, and I like to think I am rather skilled at my job."

The adults pressed in, weapons raised. Three seconds. He pointed his left hand, his grapple hand, to the sky. If he could aim it just right, he could grab Scorch mid air and be inside before he hit the ground.

"In fact, I am so skilled, I have earned a nickname across… everywhere!"

"Doesn't matter! All you're going to be called is dead!" One of the aggressors, probably the leader yelled back at him. His red hair flared up, and his crimson blade pointed at Luke. He looked like an edgy teenager who spent too much time trying to be edgy.

"Rude. Didn't even ask what my nickname was…"

"I DON'T CARE! I JUST WANT HUMANS TO SUFFER FOR WHAT THEY'VE DONE!"

Definitely edgy.

Fletcher's voice chimed over his radio.

"Dropping now, Pilot."

Luke grinned under his mask.

"They call me 'Diablo". And he fired the gun.

The hellfire and terror that followed was incredible. Scorch was a titan that stood at least 40 ft tall. It was armed with a fire grenade launcher, a thermite launcher, two flammable gas canisters that it could shoot, and a heat shield that melted all of the pathetic bullets they attempted to fire at it. Most of the smart ones ran, both the children and adults. The rest tried to fight. The rest burned. All except one. Scorch's hand extended and grabbed the man who yelled earlier, who he later identified as Adam Taurus, terrorist extraordinaire. Luke's voice spoke through the robot.

"I don't know who you are, and I don't care. But tell your friends, your family, your enemies, hell, tell the whole world about today. Tell them not to fuck with Diablo." He threw the man to the side and stomped through the ruined city, leaving ash and smolder behind him.