Broken Branches
Previously in Broken Branches: Ozpin seems to have a plan to avert any panic caused by Armis' appearance and has roped General Ironwood in to his plan to help. Acompanying the General was Magos, a techpriest working under Armis' Inquisitor, who was revealed to be working with Atlas. Fortunately, no techpriest worth his cog cannot build and modify a mechanical prosthetic. Ruby should be in good hands. Right..?
AncientRaig: Yes my friend channel your inner Yang! And perhaps Magos can rearm the now eleven armed man, but for now, Armis has asked for him to focus on Ruby's prosthetic.
Redmechanic: Armis is usually in control of himself when fighting. It is only when he is under the effect of a combat drugs cocktail that he loses most inhibitions. Ruby mortality helped bring him back to some level of ethical integrity.
The ranking system in the Imperium is weird. To prevent a single person from gathering too much power, the main organisations of the Imperium don't have authority over one another. So therefore neither Armis or Magos technically have command of the other, as they were both equal inquisitorial operatives under the Inquisition. If Magos does something for Armis, it is because he, personally, wants to do it.
You never know with the Dark Mechanicum... Magos may be more heretical than you know. He is working for Atlas after all, the Guys that make AI. 'The Soulless Sentience is a threat to all life,' after all.
Le MAO XVII: Telling people about the horrors of the Galaxy is a lot harder to truly believe, as well as less detrimental to your health, than actually seeing it with your own eyes. Only Ruby has so far even seen a glimpse into the grim dark of the far future. Give her some credit, for she is a lot stronger than she knows. Look at the ending to Volume 3! Ruby is the only person in team RWBY who remains true to herself and stands up to do something.
As for the rest of team RWBY they care a lot more about Ruby, than they do for Armis. So no apologies this chapter. Maybe later... No promises.
Nemris: Glad to have you back, my chaotic compatriot. Magos: The Zwolf is from a truly ancient Terran language, lost to the throws of time. I believe the data slates name this dead langauge as... Jerman? The original data has long been corrupted and rewritten countless times. We will perhaps never know for certain...
'Thoughts'
"Speech"
I do not own either RWBY or Warhammer 40,000. They are each owned by their respective companies. This story is for fun only, no copyright infringements intended.
"This just in! The recent supposed terror in the streets, assumed to be the infamous Metzger killer, has been debunked by Beacon's and Atlas' headmasters Ozpin and General Ironwood. It turns out that the man in question, now known as Armis Zwolf, was desperately trying to bring Vytal Festival participant Ruby Rose to a hospital after a Grimm attack. Our hearts goes out to her and we all wish her a speedy recovery. Armis himself has not been seen since, but General Ironwood has admitted that he is the result of a forced semblance transplant. A group of breakaway Atlas extremists are responsible and the good General assures us that these 'unethical madmen' have been apprehended. For more details visit out scroll page. In other news, due to her injuries, the battle between Beacon's aptly named Team RWBY and Haven's Team ABRN will be taking place after all other Team battles. Ozpin has assured everyone that Ruby will have recovered by then."
'Well at least no one is freaking out anymore...'
Ruby sighed. She felt kinda guilty really. The news was all good wishes and get well cards, but they were completely directed at her. She didn't need any help recovering. It had felt like she had pretty much recovered instantly. Truth be told, she couldn't remember feeling any pain, she had been unconscious or sedated for most of it. Armis however... Ruby shook her head and sighed again. No good thinking about that now. The situation had been resolved for the better. She smiled inwardly, a slight redness passing through her cheeks.
'It just means that I'll have to make it up to Armis for causing so much trouble! I'm thinking a cloaked cuddle and chocolate.'
An sharp electric tingling ran through her entire body and Ruby let out a high pitched 'eep!' That very sensation brought her crashing back into reality.
"Interesting. Unexpected feedback."
"Owwwww! That hurt! Wait, you didn't even know if taking my arm off would hurt or not?"
"Incorrect. Pain was inevitable. I simply cannot recall a patient making the noise 'eep' upon removal of a augmetic."
Ruby groaned embarrassingly to herself. Magos' so called 'Sanctuary' was like someone had taken an typical Atlas kitchen, in all its spotless and high tech glory and let it get hit by a Vacuo sandstorm. And said sand was somehow red. The interior was covered in sand, or rust she couldn't tell, but at least all of the surgical equipment was in spotless condition. Oh wait, was that a splatter of blood? Nevermind. The room seemed to be divided in two by a large ragged curtain, but Ruby couldn't see past any of that. On her side of the room, several mismatched pieces of tech and equipment lay in a somewhat organised fashion, everything from dust engine prototypes to mechanical little fingers that seemed to twitch creepily. A large adjustable seat was in the centre, flattened until it was horizontal and at the perfect height for Magos to operate. The man himself had just finished removing her borrowed arm, although a thin cylinder of metal still wrapped around the stump, preventing blood loss. Ruby could only see the back of his hood and robes from here, although sometimes she caught glimpses of a gleaming tendril or two. Ruby promises herself that she would remain strong. She wouldn't panic, she wouldn't freak out, she wouldn't panic, she wouldn't freak-
Magos turned around holding Armis' bionic arm. In pieces. Ruby freaked out.
"AAAAAHHHHH! Why'd you do this! Armis is gonna kill me! I only just got it and it was really cool and me and him kinda had this opposites thing going on, not that that makes much sense because, you know ten other arms, but still my point is-!"
"Query. Do you require additional oxygen intake?" Magos asked monotonously.
"Yes!" Ruby shouted, and then took a huge gasping breath, counted to ten and then settled back down.
The Tech priest brought a skeletal hand to his chin and scratched it broodingly. "Perhaps current oxygen supply is unsatisfactory. One moment." He mumbled to himself.
A set of mechanical tendril's snaked their way from out of his robes and gripped an out of place bulkhead wheel. With a creaking snap, it span about its axis and several previously invisible vents around the room opened with a hiss. The Sanctuary soon filled with a thick smog that just barely made the rest of the room visible and increased the humidity of the room exponentially. Ruby took a breath and found that, after a bit of a spluttering cough and getting used to breathing in the smoke, the overall smell of it wasn't entirely unpleasant. It was like a weird combination of open fire smoke, oil, fire dust and those incense candles Armis burnt. Except stronger.
"What... What is this?" Ruby asked taking a deep, now smooth, breath.
Magos too joined her in taking a breath. Ruby only now noticed that he had removed the sleek gas mask that covered half of his face. Again she was surprised at how young he appeared. His face was pretty normal except for the large bionic right eye and pale skin.
"This is air filtered from Sacred Mars, imbued and distilled with Landraider cleaning oils and a Princeps' Imperator incense." Magos' eye seemed to glow with pride. Literally. "Glorious is it not?"
"It brings back good memories." Ruby replied, the smell reminded her of when she was making and modifying Crescent Rose.
The two of them just stood there for a while, breathing in the aroma of Astartes Armour, Battle Titan's and red Martian sand. Magos then gestured to the table and Ruby just took a seat at his unspoken request. Several of his tendril's had shifted and opened to reveal what should have been terrifying implements of death and torture, such as chainsaws, blowtorches and pincers, but Ruby had some understanding of how hard it must be for someone to make modifications to a bionic as tough as Armis'.
"What sort augmentic' surgery would you like undertaken?" He asked, data scrolling down his left eye, the bionic right zooming and adjusting, taking in every square inch of Ruby's skin, skeleton and everything in between.
"I thought Armis said that you could only change my arm?"
"Armis has no jurisdiction over a Mechanicus Genetor, just as I have no jurisdiction over him." Magos seemed to sigh, a amalgamation of whirrs and clicks. "Although I would like to avoid any misinterpreted data, or hard feelings as you people call it. It has been years since I have been able to work on true Mechanicus tech so I will content myself with augmenting solely this prosthetic."
Ruby shivered as he took a step closer, fear beginning to take root in her spin. Luckily Magos seemed to notice.
"You have no need to fear. I will make no augmentations against your will. Do not mind the mechatendrils. My machine spirits are simply getting restless." He said. The tendril's at his back twitching and inching closer only to be yanked back with a flick of Mago's shoulders. "What sort of specifications would you like for your arm?"
"Uuuuummmm..." Ruby wondered. 'What augmentics 'did' she want for her arm?'
She tried to think back to what Armis had told her about his bionics and that of the Imperium as a whole.
"Could you give me some time to think?"
"Ah yes, of course. How uncharacteristically impatient of me. Will bolster Machine spirit prayers at the earliest connivence." Magos nodded. "Secondary point: those not machine-bound are indecisive and have drastically slower thought process'. Providing examples should speed along surgery."
"Errrr... I'm right here you know?" Ruby spoke up indignantly.
"Yes. Yes you are." Magos agreed, to his patients dismay. "Where was I? Examples for Augmentics. I shall be making general adjustments and changes to this deserved machine, for it to better serve its master. Weight distribution, size, length etc."
More tendril's began snaking out of his robes, thinner ones this time, each moving towards Ruby and running parallel to one of her body parts or another, measuring and recording.
"However some more personal features may be added, at your behest. Armis for example preferred the clawed form this augmentic originally held. Four fingered and thumbed, razor edged with a perfect blend of finesse and deadliness." Magos seemed to be flaunting his own work a bit too much for Ruby's liking.
"But he had ten other arms to grab stuff with. I would just shred everything I touched." Ruby nay said.
"You still have half your flesh born arms remaining."
"I only have one left!"
"Very well. I assume that you would prefer a more 'human' variant?"
Ruby nodded. Magos sighed, again his filters were set rattling and whirring. He would never understand the people of Remanant. It had been the same with Ironwood. They had the choice of having the sacred chordclaw of a Silicarian Ruststalker, yet they only wanted the plain old boring 'standard' augmentic.
'Why do these people always have to put so much emphasis of this 'voluntary' thing? Just imagine the creations he could forge if given free reign.'
Ruby seemed to notice his displeasure and being the naive and kind soul she was, asked for his attention again.
"Why not do both?"
There was a pause as Magos' analytical brain comprehended the black haired little girl's sentence.
"Clarify?"
"The clawed version and the human version. Why not do both?"
Magos frowned and almost began scolding the girl for her ignorance. What did she know of machinery? She was no adept. She was not even an initiate. How could she possibly understand the great and glorious..!
"Why not fit smaller claws just in front of each of the second knuckles? Maybe mount a dust generator in the wrist and incorporate the same shifting gears I use for Crescent Rose along with something like a motion gyrostabiliser. Sure you'll need to make a new claw for the extra finger, but hey! Flick of the wrist and snick! Fingers into claws." Ruby laughed, now proud of her own genius, turning to smile at Magos. "What do you think?"
Magos went completely still for several long moments, each tendril motionless around him. His skeletal hands crushed into fists and groaned as pistons and servos exerted force upon themselves. He began shaking, beeps and clicks echoing from inside his head as his mind's computing power went into overdrive. Ruby's eyes widened as steam seemed to be pouring from out of his hood.
"Use the ideas of a naive child fleshling from a backwater planet, far away from the Omnissiah's light?" Magos' rasped, his breath becoming more frequent. "Use Remnant Tech to create a blend between two Mechanicus designs... Two holy, priceless STC designs..."
"Hey Magos I'm fine with just the human variant if it offends any Techpriests ok?" Ruby tried to calm him.
"Offend Techpriests? A gross understatement. Tech-cleansings have been undertaken due to less." Magos seemed to add. "They would declare it Tech-Heresy. A insult to the machine spirit! This... This..."
Magos seemed to stop shaking and a gradual crackle began emanating from his hood. It took Ruby a moment to finally realise what he was doing.
He was laughing.
"This is genius! And the priesthood would hate it so much!" Magos nodded repeatedly and chuckling. Or his best approximation to a chuckle. "Yes, this new design will be perfect."
"But I thought you said it was tech heresy?" Ruby asked cautiously, trying to figure out the best exit strategy, if Magos somehow spontaneously combusted from all the lights and noises that was coming from him.
"Incorrect. I said other Techpriests would call it Tech Heresy." Magos stood up completely straight and his two skeletal hands appeared, interlocking fingers into a makeshift symbol of the cog. One of his tendril's lifted up revealing the deep black underside of his red cloak. "You, my dear soon-to-be augmented fleshling are in the presence of Magos Genatus! Apexist of the Companions of Vogal, Formerly of Forge World Stygies VIII!"
"I'm sorry. I know about forge worlds but what you said didn't make much sense to me." Ruby tried to say with the least amount of offence as she could possibly muster. She was still strapped to an operating table after all.
"It does not need too. It was simply to reinstall my faith in the Omnissiah and my decision to break away from the priesthood of Mars." Magos replied, turning around, and brushing the large dividing curtain to retrieve something.
Before Ruby could question him further, her attention became acutely more focused on the bare human foot that she had just caught a glimpse of on the other side of the room.
"Errrr Magos? Who is that?" Ruby asked blinking several times.
Magos looked up from whatever he was working on, in between the divide of the room. He looked too and from one side of the room hidden from Ruby and the other she resided in.
"This?" He replied, allowing another mechatendril to finally remove the barrier between the rooms. "This is my other patient."
Now fully uncovered, Ruby saw an identical chair that she lay upon on the other side of the room. A woman lay almost naked across it, except for a plain white set of underwear and a chest binder. After the initial shock, her fears about Magos experimenting upon some woman were laid to rest. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully, a heart beat monitor and a IV bag next to her. Her skin had only the lightest hue of a tan, and her other features seems just about average really. Small amounts of fat and muscle around her body, no tattoos or scaring. Nothing abnormal. The woman seemed older than her, perhaps in her early twenties. The only thing that seemed out of place and strange was her hair. Or her lack there of. A thin black layer of hair tufts was all that remained, evenly shaved. For Ruby that really was strange. For a man, her current example being Armis, she considered it odd to have so little hair, but nothing exactly wrong about it. However for a woman that was just unheard of! For the women of Remnant's Kingdoms, it was a chance to express individuality and style. You could make an educated guess of where a person was born just by looking at their hair. From the professional and somewhat practical ponytails of Atlas to the sheer variety of Vale. To simply have none of it was... Unthinkable. She remembered playfully tormenting Yang with tales of how people suddenly lost their hair and the blonde brawler still had nightmares about occasionally about waking up bald.
Ruby was snapped out of her train of thought when a sharp needle injected a foreign liquid into her neck. One of Magos tendril's quickly retreated back into his cloak guiltily.
"Hey!" She squealed, trying to rub her neck but finding she had been well and truly strapped down to the table, even her arm stump.
"Calm yourself. This will only put you to sleep. I will work and attach the augmentic as you slumber." Magos chastised her.
Ruby grumbled at this but tried to get back on topic. She suddenly found her eyes were growing heavy and her body was going numb.
'Is that woman imperial?' Ruby tried to say but found she could no longer speak, her mind lapsing into unconsciousness.
Magos left her there for a few moments and walked to the unknown woman across from Ruby. A mechatendril slid open to reveal a vox recorder which the Techpriest began talking into.
"Patient no. Two has been sedated. Work can once again proceed with patient no. One."
More mechatendril's emerged from the red cloak, several opening and sprouting needles, scalpels and focusing high powered lasers. And one miniature chainsword.
The sounds of tearing flesh and cracking bone filled the room. A few moments later a wet slap echoed past all other noises, as a mound of ill-looking flesh hit the floor.
Several hours earlier
Vale was considered to the the most diverse kingdom in all of Remnant. Mostly made up of forested woodland, the Grimm there were considered a low threat against the cities considerable defenses. Only in extreme cases such as 'the breach' was it even heard of that Grimm could enter the city. A large number of Vales population was made up of other kingdoms and the council of the kingdom welcomed them. They had long prided themselves on their diverse culture and democratic practices. It had been in Vale that most of the racial laws protecting and equalising the Faunus people had been drafted and spread across to the other kingdoms and as a consequence, they boasted the highest population of the beast people. You really could see anything in Vale. From Atlas gunstores, to Vacuo clothiers. There was something for everyone in Vales markets. Well almost everyone. Not everyone was looking for products after all. Some just came to relax at a cafe. Or try to at least.
"What do you keep staring at me?" Patient One asked him.
In the bustling shopping district of Vale, two strangers met for the first time. They say in a out of the way cafe on opposing tables, but close enough for them to converse. Both so very different from one another, but that difference was perhaps what brought them together. If anything that difference was what set both of them apart. One of them, the other observed, was sitting down in a primitive locomotive device, that looked like someone had crudely welded a set of wheels to a chair. Set out before her was a table full of drinks, plates and what he could only assume was an impressive amount of Emperor's Mercy bar rations, but empty of all other occupants but herself. The woman, wearing a thin shirt with the Vytal Festival logo emblazoned on the front stared back at him.
The man that had been watching her was sitting at one of the cafe's outdoor tables just as she was, but his table was devoid of any of the usual cafe contents. She couldn't tell where he was from. He had none of the tell tale signs that usually indicated a person's origin from within the four kingdoms. Although she mused that that probably went both ways considering her own appearance. In fact most of the man's body was hidden behind a huge red shroud. Luckily the hood he wore did not obscure his face. He was a bit too ashen skinned for someone from Vacuo or Atlas. Maybe he was from Minstral or Vale, but even then he seemed too pale for that. His face gave no emotion away and his lips were drawn into a thin line. Strange scaring seemed to divide his lower and upper head, as though he had always been wearing something, but never took it off, a sort of pale tan line. The weirdest thing however was his unblinking metal monocle that covered his right eye. Perhaps it was some sort of new scroll tech that was attached to your eye. It did have that signature blue glow to it.
"Hey I'm talking to you! Why have you been staring at me?" She asked again.
The stranger in red looked at her some more, his other blue eye blinking once.
"Your hair." He replied.
"Yeah what about it?!" She growled at him, she had had enough of people constantly asking about her hair. "Never seen someone with no hair before?"
"I can think of many examples of those whose heads are shaven, but all those are not from here. You are the first I have seen from these kingdoms." The man said nonchalantly, his voice lacking much emotion, speaking as though he was rolling off a list of facts. "All of your comrades that were previously around you wore such differing styles of their flesh born hair. Yet you do not. This is why I stare at you. You interest me."
The woman frowned, not understanding his answer. She didn't know if this guy was mocking her, being serious or seriously mucking up his attempt at hitting on her.
"Well I don't have this hair by choice you know!" She rebuked, her face contorted into a combination of frustration, sadness and confusion.
"Do you dislike your current hairstyle?"
"Yes!"
"Why?"
"What do you mean why? I don't have hair!"
"Exactly. It is perfectly practical in almost all situations. Less time is wasted due to social grooming and the trappings of flesh born society, and it allows easy access to the skull in the case of injury or needed surgery. Not to mention combat situations. Your hair is perfect."
The woman's fists bawled up and she was about to finally explode in impatience at this newcomer, until she suddenly realised. This man had called her hair perfect. 'Your hair is perfect.' The sentence echoed through her mind and her body relaxed, a small blush even crossing her features. She quickly settled down and looked into the man's visible eye. There didn't seemed to be any deceit in those eyes. He actually had complimented her. Thinking back on what he had said, she couldn't fault his logic. Many times her old long wavy hair had got stuck in something, torn and hurt her. It usually took her ages to get it ready and even after all that, some other girl would just outshine her with some new, more fashionable hair product. It was... Frustrating to say the least.
"If you despise you current appearance, why not grow it." He asked, as though it was the most simple thing in the world.
It wasn't. Not for her. She rested her head in her hands and her eyes began to wet slightly.
"I can't." Her voice cracked for a moment but she continued, looking up at him and rubbing her skull with one hand. "Not with this in my head."
The man frowned slightly and looked where she indicated on her head. The woman swore that his eyes lit up for a moment.
"A tumour." He stated, eyes lighting up again. "And current treatment in Remnant is..."
"Kymotheropy. The meds are apparently keeping me alive, but my hair gets the axe so to say." She finished his train of thought for him.
The man nodded understanding. "And your spinal column?"
The woman sighed and looked down at her wheel chair. Her only eternal companion. Her curse so to speak. She wondered briefly why she was baring her soul to this man. She didn't know him and he didn't know her. She shrugged and reached to unclasp a metal flask from the side of her wheel chair. Uncorking it, she let the hard liquor drain down her throat. She shrugged.
'Fuck it, it's not like there's anyone else left I can talk to. Even those guys spending time with me before, only did so because we met by coincidence.'
"A bullet." The man spoke up. It wasn't a question.
"Was it that easy for you to tell? Not many people have broken spines naturally or even accidentally due to aura, so yeah a bullet. A White Fang bullet specifically." She chuckled darkly. "They weren't even aiming at me. Just the luck of the draw really. One of my friends was big into sparing so me and him decided to fight with our auras at max. It was great fun really. Hitting each other but not really feeling pain."
"Aura truly is a great boon."
The woman nodded. "It is. Until it runs out. And the moment it did, and we settled down to go home, a White Fang raid went down in the room next door. Don't know what they were after and frankly I don't care. The long and short of it was that they opened fire. And a single bullet punched through the paper thin walls between us and them and caught me right in small of my back."
There was a moment of silence and the man only nodded slowly. After she finished her drink she returned the flask to its rightful place. She assumed the conversation was over and she began rolling her was to the cafe exit.
"Would it be agreeable if you worked for me?"
She froze. The question had come out of nowhere. She slowly looked over her shoulder, back at the man. Was he serious?
"What?"
"Are you already employed?" He asked.
"No, but why would you employ..." She slapped her palm against the side of her wheel, to illustrate her point. "Someone like me? What use would I be?"
"I require an assistant for my work. You are suitable."
She got angry again. It was lucky a lot of the cafes customers had cleared out otherwise someone may have called the police. She just didn't understand it! Why was she being complimented? Why was she being accepted by this man so quickly? Why was she being offered a job. Was this man mocking her? Had he even seen her? Was he blind?! A small part of her argued that she did really need a job, as due to her state not many people wanted to hire her. But the angrier side of her mind crushed the other smaller logical part.
"Why, by all that is Dust! Would you want to hire me!" She roared at him, her eyes ablaze with hatred directed more at herself than anything else, the darker self loathing part of her coming to the surface. "A shaven headed, ugly, legless bitch like me! Are you insane? Blind? There must be dozens, no hundreds of other people better suited than me. Who would want someone like me!"
"I would want you."
Inside her mind could have been likened to a lightbulb exploding, glass shattering and scattering everywhere, her brain overloading and turning to mush.
"Ok." Her voice began to fade just as the light in her eyes did.
The woman then promptly fainted, slumping forwards in her chair.
'He hadn't got an answer.' Magos sighed, as he pushed the woman back upright against her wheelchair.
He had at first been interested with this girl for being the only female from Remnant whom he had seen with a practical shaven head. His former priesthood had prescribed such a style to all of its initiates, and it was a tradition he had upheld and agreed with his entire life. It was nostalgic to see another not of the priesthood with such a similar style. But as he had learnt more, he had perhaps felt only pity for the girl.
If he did as she had and likened life to drawing cards from an ancient Terra past time, then she had drawn jokers. Both of them. A chance encounter with the White Fang, followed by news of a brain tumour had wrecked havoc on her fragile human body. He had seen her body and its flaws through his augmetic eye and to it's credit, it should have perhaps already expired. But it had continued to persevere. Her brain even showed signs of deep mental trauma, similar to that he had seen in scrambled guardsmen, or more relevantly, Armis. Magos resolved that this encounter was not coincidence. This was fate as set down by the Omnissiah himself!
He felt the phone scroll given to him by General Ironwood buzz within his robes. He sighed, the next breath he took reminding him how much he preferred to keep his gas mask on him at all times. If the General needed him then it was most likely something important. It really was a shame she had not consented to answering his request. After this issue with Ironwood was settled, what he would have to do next would be a gamble. But he believed that the Machine Spirits would be favourable and it would pay off.
He needed an able bodied assistant after all.
Armis was sulking in his room. He didn't know why. It had been a few days since his appearance had been revealed to the public and yet it still irked him that it had gone down this way. Several team fights had taken place since. Team JNPR had of course won their bout and would be proceeding to the next round. Apparently the enemy team had almost fled the arena after what Nora did to one of their companions. Armis had watched via scroll and was actually impressed at how her and her team had improved. Even Jaune had given good account of himself. No foolish team shout outs and reckless charges. The many armed man had even felt some amount of pride when Jaune had been disarmed of his sword, yet proceeded to knock his opponent out of the arena with a bone crunching slap to the face via blunt shield. A move Armis had used against him not so long ago.
He guessed that he should be happy that everyone believed he was some Atlas experiment, as though they could even imagine the technology to breed something like him, rather than a Imperial experiment. But it still held a bitter taste in his mouth at the state he was in when he had been revealed. He had gotten sloppy. He needed to retrain his mind and his body, better prepare himself for any other unexpected circumstances that came up. There has been too many complications as of late.
There was a knock at the door. "Hey Armis! You in?"
And here was one now. Although Armis would argue a good complication. He gave a loud grunt of confirmation, knowing that the door was open and Ruby would inevitably enter the room.
"I was just wondering if you could give me some advice on- woah..." Ruby started as she opened the door and stopped dead.
"Give me one moment. The next set is just about to start." Armis grunted through gritted teeth.
Vale had these wonderful things called paintballs. And he had enough know how to hook them all up together and program them to fire in certain sequences. At him. While he was upside down. A clear bing cut through the background noise of his room and the paintball guns from around the room started firing. Armis sprung into movement, his feet straining against the metal braces drilled into the wall that kept him suspended. The wooden batons, ten in total, one in each organic hand swatted and burst paintballs in a flurry of colour. Not one speck of paint made it onto Armis or the synskin he wore, even the errant spray from a exploding paintball was intercepted by another baton. The cycle continued for another minute or so, before a secondary beep sounded off and Armis relaxed. His batons were covered in paint and he discarded all of them to the side. His arms relaxed, hanging motionlessly towards the floor.
Ruby let out a rapid burst of clapping, a smile on her face. It was muffled by cloth, but Armis could hear the soft clanking of her bionic between each clap. Magos had done a good job making it look like a normal human hand, in shape at least. It was still a signature silvery gunmetal in colour, but Ruby wore a long black sleeve and a red slender glove over it so most passerby couldn't tell.
Armis let out a rare smirk, but that was immediately wiped off his face when the paintball machine behind him fired one last shot sporadically. It hit him right between the shoulder blades, the ball refusing to burst and absorb the force. Painful spasms of pain rocketed through each and every one of his arms and they went to sleep. Armis was so surprised by the frustration and pain of getting hit, that he lost his grip with his feet and plummeted to the ground in a heap. Ruby rushed up to him, and helped him into a sitting position, but his arms still felt numb.
"What was that?" Ruby asked, looking at Armis with concern.
"That was Magos saying I should watch my back." Armis groaned and cursed, lifting his pair of tanned arms and lifting another of his pale ones. "Bastard hajacked the controls."
The limb raised up by its estranged brother collapsed limp when it was released.
"Are you ok? What did he do to you?!" Ruby exclaimed, no small amount of anger in her voice.
"Nothing serious. But as my body is unique, some problems were found after my induction to the Inquisition." Arms explained, shutting Ruby up instantly. She barely got to hear more specific details about Armis' service, so she listened intently. "All my surrogate arm nerves have a intersection just about in between my shoulder blades. Hit that and all but my originals go numb temporarily."
Armis sighed, but was taken completely aback when Ruby grabbed one of his arms and began rubbing her hands all over it, up and down, a small bit of semblance turning her hands into a blur. His arm quickly warmed up as the friction built from such quick motions.
"What are you doing?" He asked, more curious than anything.
"I do this when one of Yang's arms went numb after getting pins and needles. She said it helped." Ruby replied continuing her work.
Armis raised an eyebrow, but then as feeling returned to that arm he raised it. Ruby laughed in success and stuck her tongue out at him.
"Told you!"
"I stand corrected, but..." Armis lifted one of his other limbs, which flopped down lifeless as he let go. "I don't think it's worked on all of them."
Ruby pouted and with determination and diligence sped up with her semblance rubbing and massaging all of his numbed arms.
Armis smirked. She actually had some merit to her actions. His arms certainly felt better. However all of his limbs had soon regained proper function 'before' she had finished her first impromptu massage.
'But Ruby doesn't need to know that." Armis thought.
After all. He was enjoying himself too much!
"So what was it you wanted?"
"I needed advice on how to use my right arm. But also a friend of mine wanted to be introduced and I couldn't say no this particular person."
Armis only shrugged. "Very well. Allow me to grab my cloak. If one of Ruby's friends wants to see me then I will oblige them."
After leaving his room, his usual cloak draped over his shoulders, Ruby led him through the corridors and down the flight of stairs. While they walked, Armis once again observed the huntress-in-training's artificial arm. It moved back and forth as she moved, in perfect opposite to her true arm, not seeming to weigh her down or muddle her walking pattern.
"How are you getting used to your augmetic?" He asked, genuinely curious.
He had had his doubts after his drug fueled escapade that his original arm would be suitable for such a small girl. It truly had been a great coincidence that Magos had shown up when he did. Enough to make him suspicious.
"It's beginning to feel like my arm again." Ruby nodded and smiled warmly, like she always did. "And..."
Ruby took off her glove off to reveal the segmented flexible metal plates that made up her hand. She wiggled her fingers, then with a flick of her wrist and the signature sound of a shifting weapon filled the corridor. Small claws the size of her human fingers popped out of her second knuckles and replaced the remaining fingers.
"I've been treating it like an awesome new weapon! Like a baby Crescent Rose!" Ruby giggled as she waved the razor claws at Armis, who almost took a cautious step back on instinct.
Armis lip curled up slightly in his version of a smile, but behind that facade Armis was worried about one of the other features Magos had, on his own initiative, added.
"Inside your arm is a modified boltshell." Armis remembered Magos explaining. "It will serve as your 'Bravery Bolter.' Only use it in an absolutely dire situation."
Ruby had seemed rather happy about having a bolter named Bravery, 'just like Armis has,' she had said. She had even asked him to etch the word 'Bravery' into her arm, just below where the metal met flesh. However Armis actually knew what a 'Bravery Bolter' was. It was slang frequently used by the regiments of the Imperial Guard, referring to the bolt pistol a commissar held. Needless to say, the title was satirical. Armis knew what Magos had meant saying this. Ruby was dangerous enough to warrant not only a suicide weapon but also, judging from the simple black detonator he had found in his room with a white mechanicus cog logo, a remote kill switch.
'But why?' Armis wondered, looking down at Ruby's kind, childish face, that was still admiring her own arm. The girl was constantly waving her arm and twisting, retracting and extending the bladed ends of her fingers. 'Precautions such as this are only usually employed for psykers who are likely to become too powerful for their own good, but are also currently useful.'
They walked some more in silence, Ruby content, but Armis' mind ablaze with the implications.
'Did Magos consider Ruby a threat?'
'Had he deemed her as getting too close to inquisitorial business?'
'Perhaps there was something he had missed about Ruby, that Magos had found while operating upon her?'
'Was Ruby a-'
"Salutations!"
Armis' train of thought came to a grinding halt as he almost walked straight into someone. Armis murmured his apologies, but stopped fully when he realised that Ruby had stopped as well. He took a step back from this newcomer and got a good look at her.
She was about as tall as Ruby, yet that was about all the similarities you could make, other than gender. Her hair was a smooth strange orange, seemingly impossibly immaculate, curling into buns on both sides of her head. An odd stray length of hair stuck up and bent forwards over her fringe. Armis wondered how she kept her hair in such a position with naught but a pink bow at the back of her head. She wore a white blouse under a darker hued overall, green glowing neon vertically streaking from it's hem. The same bright green looped around her waist. Black frilly stocking covered her legs down to her shoes.
Ruby approached her and offered a handshake, with her right hand. Armis almost shouted in warning, but the girl after a brief hesitation took the outstretched prosthetic. Her own movements were slow but precise, entirely determined to shake Ruby's hand with vigor. Armis worried he would be hearing the sound of pulped skin meat and bone, but luckily that was not the case.
"Yes, you were right. A tough material." The girl answered, what Armis assumed was a previously asked question.
He frowned, as he could have sworn he heard the additional sound of scraping metal as their palms disengaged. Both girls turned to him and smiled, the new one tilting her head with a creak.
"Greetings friend of Ruby's. I am also Ruby's friend and am therefore yours, yes?" She asked, her voice always so infuriatingly happy, if a little broken and... mechanical.
"Aye..." Armis nodded slowly, his voice slow and hesitant. He looked to Ruby for guidance.
"Ah yes! Armis, this is Penny Polendina. Penny, this is Armis Zwolf." Ruby pointed at them bodily as she uttered each of their names. "Penny is a bit... Different."
Armis tilted his own head, this time in confusion. He took a better look at Penny.
'This girl seems perfectly healthy. Oh Emperor. Please tell me, I don't have to deal with another Variatus or Hirsutus.'
Some would criticise Armis' own misgivings against the Faunus race, for he still did not trust the beastkin and held a certain level of hatred for them. He himself could be considered abhuman after all. He had so far learned to hide any 'imperial' tendencies towards any Faunus that he came into contact with. However these feelings were deeply ingrained in him since his service alongside the Inquisitor. Having had the unseemly pleasure of being thrown head first into the howling, gnashing, clawing darkness that was a lower hive beastman den, Armis maintained that he had the right to be at least a little cautious around the Faunus. If any Faunus was unlucky enough to meet him, then they should count themselves lucky when receiving the stare of barely contained hatred he shot at them. Because what he would shoot at them next would be far, far worse.
"Different? How so?" Armis asked, giving up his observations of the gir, relying on Ruby for explanations.
The possible abhuman looked back at him. Armis found the way she was unblinkingly stared into his eyes was entirely disconcerting. Penny's eyes seemed too green, almost glowing. Strange glimmers of motion, like shutter cameras, appeared behind her eyes but mysteriously disappeared just as quickly.
"Different. Unlike another. One of a kind." Penny's eyes finally blinked. "We both are unique. I am like you."
Armis' eyes widened at that statement, and then he truly did laugh. Loud and hard. There was perhaps a hint of true amusement in his voice, but also a bit of spiteful hatred for some girl who thought they were anything alike.
"I sincerely doubt that we are anything alike. And I sincerely hope that you are not mocking me." Armis chuckled darkly, out of his cloak three hands revealing and flexing sporadically to prove his point.
"Not on the outside specifically. But inside we are both very different to normal people." Penny tapped her chest, a metallic clang quietly echoing from within. "Did you know that you have 'two' hearts?!"
She had said it so matter of factly, as though she was teaching a adolescent a science lesson. Armis kept on smiling for a moment, his face frozen in place. He stared at Penny. Then he looked back to Ruby. And to Penny. And back to Ruby. The Red Reaper frowned, seeing perhaps a serious glint in Armis' face confused as to why it was there.
The cogs in Armis' mind finally clicked. This girl had just scanned him. This girl was competing in the Vytal Festival tournament. With the Atlas' team. Atlas. Abominable Intelligence.
Armis exploded into motion and sent a flying kick into Penny's chest. The Abominable Intelligence was caught completely off guard and was sent flying onto it's back. Armis had felt the hard metal of it's outer shell, confirming its artificial origins. He landed and recovered his balance at a flustered Ruby's feet.
"What the- Armis why? Ahhh!" She cried, before he tackled her and threw her over his shoulders. "Hey! Put me down!"
Armis ignored her. He didn't know if Ruby knew about this Abominable Intelligence, or it had successfully convinced her that it was human, and he didn't care. He just kept running. He did not have the tools to deal with such a foe. Sure, he could cut its physical body into pieces, blow it apart with boltshells and plasma, but he had no way of dealing with rampant scrap code and malignant virus programs that it could release. The thing could have infected countless systems already and it needed to be cut off at the bud here, from this operating platform, for a hope of burning out any malicious coding from its source. But while he did not have the expertise or equipment to do so, he knew someone who perhaps did. And Magos was not gonna like this one bit.
Armis turned and went down another flight of stairs and turned down a corridor heading for Magos' personal Sanctuary. If he remembered correctly, he had moved most of his gear into Beacon for the duration of the Vytal Festival. But out of nowhere, the thing that had called itself Penny burst through the ceiling.
"Unhand my friend!" It screeched, hovering blades, barring his path.
Armis gritted his teeth and swiftly put Ruby back on her feet. The girl stood up and brushed herself down, giving him a hard stare.
"Ruby! Circle around and find Magos. Tell him this location and about an Abominable Intelligence infiltrator." He drew a pair of transonic blades from his cloak, alongside a pair of bolt pistols, Humility and Death, this time. "I may have to destroy its body prematurely."
Armis readied himself for the unexpected. AI's were always unpredictable to the extreme, you could never tell if they would fight according to programming, by-the-book precise and measured, or go into a berserker state of screaming static fury. Or a fluctuating mess of both and everything in between. But he was gobsmacked to see Ruby walk straight up to the machine and stand by its side.
"You will not destroy Penny!" She defiantly said, crossing her shoulders. "What has she ever done to you?"
"Thank you!" Penny smiled at Ruby, but put a more serious face on against Armis.
"Get away from it!" Armis shouted, edging forwards, a testing step at a time, trying to gauge the things movements. "It's an Abominable Intelligence, to rebel against its creators is in its nature. It could attack at any moment."
"Penny is not an it! She hasn't ever done anything like that!" Ruby shouted back. "She even saved my life a while ago."
Armis shook his head in frustration. "That was simply to gain your trust. It holds no sense of loyalty to you! It will discard you without a second though if it feels you have lost your value."
"I would never do such a thing to my friend." Penny rebuked, sounding insulted, if a unliving thing such as an AI could be insulted. "And Ruby is my friend."
"See? She's completely fine!"
Armis growled and his fingers went white around his weapons grips. A realisation suddenly popped into his mind.
'Perhaps that was why Magos had thought her dangerous?' Armis thought. 'Was Ruby under the effect of AI brainwashing? Was she a threat to herself just as much as to them? Maybe he could get through to her.'
"Ruby Rose! Fight back against this vile machine's pathetic excuse for will. For your honour and the Emperor!" Armis repeated a speech he had once heard the Inquisitor give a brainwashed stormtrooper.
It had been quite the shame that the Inquisitor had him voided after the battle due to the man's traitorous exploits. The fact that he had turned in the first place was unacceptable in the Inquisitor's eyes. Armis flinched as the unintentional unthinkable thought of killing Ruby crossed his mind.
'No! You are not the Inquisitor! Ruby is not a traitor by choice.'
'Was that stormtrooper? Was he a traitor by choice?' His mind spoke back. 'He was killed either way.
Armis had no response to that.
Ruby's face became contorted with anger and frustration. Her own fists clenched around nothing, shaking. Armis felt something in the world changing, physics bending to somethings will. The temperature in the room suddenly drop, a tightening feeling in his gut that wouldn't go away.
"I'm not fighting against Penny!"
"Listen, it's only-"
"No!" Ruby roared, her voice growing to a crescendo with unknown power, it's very sound felt like it was shaking the entire building with its grandeur. "You listen. You... You... You hypercritical idiot! You hate it when people call you 'it' or 'thing,' yet the moment something different shows up, you just throw the same words back into someone's face! How can you not see that Penny is harmless! I thought that you be understanding. Being the only one of your kind, with no one similar to turn to, no one to relate to, no one to sympathise with. But all you are is ignorant Armis Zwolf! Just like your Inquisitor father!"
Everything froze. Ruby realised what she had said. Armis' hands dropped, his weapons clattering to the floor. Penny pseudo gasped, hands to her mouth, looking back and forth between the two. Ruby's eyes welled up with tears, as Armis' facial expression shattered into a hundred different emotions. All summed up in a single word.
"What?"
"I... Armis, I'm..." Ruby started to try, but her own emotions caught up with her, and she ran crying from the corridor.
Deep red rose petals scattered in the displaced air that rushed past as the fleeing girl activated her semblance and disappeared. Penny, with one backward glance at Armis, ran after her calling her name. Armis slowly slumped to the floor, to his knees, mind completely shocked into inaction, overloaded with such terrifying revelation. His throat caught, hoarse with feeling, crushed by the emotion building in his body.
'Lies.'
'A trick.'
'Falsehood.'
'The Inquisitor couldn't possible be...'
"My father..?" Was all Armis could whisper.
'Could he?'
Revelations galore after the Vytal Festival is underway. Magos seems to have his own motivations and hidden projects, Armis begins to suspect something is not quite right with Ruby and is shocked upon finding P.E.N.N.Y, an Atlas AI in the middle of Beacon. And Ruby in her anger, protecting Penny, has unintentionally revealed a small piece of Armis origin, that even he did not know.
Here is another chapter. Very long and took a while to go over. I had some misgivings over this one, wasn't sure if it flowed right, but decided that I liked the actual content and story of the chapter enough to keep it. Let me know what you think.
Reviews and criticism is welcome.
Signed by Imperial Decree
BluePanedGasMask