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Jane Rolfe Jalandoni: All of your wishes for bloodlust will be satisfied in due time. May the god of machines guide you on your way. Gabe2000: You share a lot of similarities with a xenos threat designated as Hive Fleet Kronos. But my cogitators must be malfunctioning because if you were then the extermination protocols must be activated. Besides that, you are correct. Your hunger will hopefully be quenched by more chapters, and y'all do deserve more.
Speech Syntaxes:
-Speech- Lingua-Technis
"Speech" Low Gothic/English
Chapter's Pre-readers: JVMMM
Notes: Discord code is 8CkRfd. We recently hit over 100 followers. Thank you guys for sticking to this story for so long. If there is anything you do not like or think I can improve to make the story better, leave a review or join the discord to have a conversation about it. Dear Omnissiah, I sound like a terrible youtuber.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Derailing
Ozpin sat in his office silently, but now his coffee was already cold. Pugnus had started playing his hand in the metaphorical card game. The headmaster, while still holding all of his cards, did not know what the Magos Dominus wanted. He claims to the public that his goal is to bring this planet into the folds of the Imperium of Man, but it cannot be that simple. He has the power to conquer this planet within a year, yet he decides to assimilate peacefully. There must be something else he wants that this planet. Most likely something that the others do not. Dust only works on this planet, so that is off the table.
Leaving the only options Aura, Semblances, or Grimm. Ozpin knew that he did not know about the relics or maidens, unless he believes in fairy tales. The Adeptus Mechanicus show a want to exterminate the Grimm, so that leaves Aura. But during Dominus Ferrum spar with Yang, she showed technology that could create something similar to Aura. If he knew what they wanted then he could counter or perhaps stop them if needed. Then a simple idea popped into his head. Maybe they found something here that he does not know about. During his past lives and even up to now, not all of Remnant has been explored. With the benefit of orbital scans the Adeptus Mechanicus must have found something that is important to them.
A low ringing sound brought the headmaster out of his mind. Quickly pulling out his scroll he found out that the General was calling him. "General Ironwood, what is so important that you wanted to call me at dawn break?" questioned Ozpin.
"I have just received reports of five unidentified craft flying over Emerald Forest. Once they reach the location of the Grimm hoard Pugnus warned you about, they dropped missiles into the hoard before waving off. The Magos Dominus is not responding to any of my calls, also my soldiers are reporting that his forces are grouping up in the southeast of Vale. Ozpin, he knows that something is going to happen and is not telling us," warned Ironwood.
The headmaster stated, "Those five aircraft are owned by the Adeptus Mechanicus, there is no question in that. He predicts that the hoard will push towards Vale, but that is unlikely to happen. That will only happen if someone or something corrals them to the city, which is what he may be doing."
"Why would he want to bring a Grimm hoard to Vale?" questioned the General.
"If he does, and this is all speculating, there are two reasons that I can predict. One, he wants to slay the Grimm hoard but cannot go out to meet them. He is bounded by a deal he made with the council, but that does not stop him from protecting Vale from an attacking Grimm hoard. Option two is that he wants to show Remnant how superior his forces are than yours by defeating a hoard of Grimm attacking a major city. But this is all speculation," explained Ozpin.
Dominus Ferrum just witnessed the most unexpected action to ever be viewed by an adept of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Professor used one of his student's pet and his flaming club-which could be shift into a thermos for a decently sized beverage-to destroy a White Fang Paladin. Then he launched another five fireballs, without the dog's assistance, to obliterate the next mech. Ira did not know where to explain that this even happened because of the poor quality of Atlas technology, the untrained abhuman pilots, or the skill of a huntsmen. A large group of fully trained huntsmen might actually be a threat to their forces. Too bad they have nothing to protect against orbital bombardment besides hiding in caves similar to the one they are in right now.
The third walker attempted to engage them, but the tech-priest was not going to let Oobleck have all the fun and glory. -Concentrate all fire unto the servos-motors in the legs!-
The squad of Skitarii formed ranks and let loose the fury of the Omnissiah. Under the constant hail of lighting, one of the paladin's leg joints broke. Ira could not help but to mentally apologize to the machine spirit that she harmed. The mech attempted to approach them, but with only one working leg the abhuman could only yell as he realized his mistake. The stolen machine fell off of the train, but it was not crushed under the wheels. The tech-priest watched silently as the wave of Grimm cascaded onto the helpless mech. The Faunus' screams of pain and mercy echoed through the cavern as the tide of darkness ripped him and the paladin were torn to shreds. Dominus Ferrum sent out a quick sitrep to her fellow tech-priest about everything that has happened and will occur.
Quin Decium was overseeing the construction of the defensive lines of Skitarii near the predicted breach point. Recent reports from his fellow dominus assisted in the calculations, but nothing is guaranteed. He also faced another problem, having to move fifty-eight soldiers of the Omnissiah, twelve Kastelans, and two Onagers without drawing attention. Needless to say it was unlikely to happen. A stray news reporter approached him with a cameraman in tow. "Excuse me sir, can you explain what is happening here?" asked the civilian.
The tech-priest contemplated a moment before commenting, "I thought your council would have told you by now. After all we did inform them about the nearby Grimm hoard six days ago. I would assume that your government would alert the populous of a dangerous threat."
The journalist's eyes widened before she continued the questioning, "Then why are you not going out to defeat the hoard?"
"Headmaster Ozpin told my superiors that a second year huntsmen team would be enough to clear the area of threats without Adeptus Mechanicus support," explained Quin.
"Then why is your entire force here? Do you not trust Ozpin?" she asked with a devious grin on her face. The reported believed that she had cornered the adept.
Dominus Decium calmly explained, "The Adeptus Mechanicus does trust Ozpin and his students enough to let a second year Huntsmen team handle the pack. The only problem is that he sent out a first year team instead. No more questions at this time."
Yang slowly stood up after slamming into the door, the mimic was standing around ten feet in front of her. "So you can copy voices?" The Faunus only tilted his head playfully, as if he did not have anything to worry about.
A smug grin crept across his face as he spoke in her sister's concerned voice, "Yang, you okay in there?" In a swift motion the blonde chambered a shell into Ember Celica, a hail of shotgun pellets bombarded the criminal. The bird-man simply crouched behind his shield to save his aura, Yang grinned as she slowly took step after step towards her opponent. Once she got arm's length away, she stopped firing and launched a reverse punch into his shield to knock him on his back. But he was faster to respond.
With a flap of his wings propelling him up, Stumm shield slammed the blonde in the face. Thankfully her aura prevent her nose from breaking, but Yang's nose was still smashed nonetheless. Tears started to pool in her eyes, blurring her vision. Bird-man exploited his advantage to the fullest, the chain of his mace wrapped around the blonde's right leg with ease. A swift tug sent Yang parallel to the metal floor. Her vision was tainted with splotches of white, aura could do little to stop concussions. With an efficient twirl, the chain released Yang's leg from its iron grip. The Faunus slowly walked to the side of his downed opponent, he saw that her shoulders were moving up slowly as if she had trouble getting off of the ground. So her passionate fire to fight was still burning, but it was dimming. How warming.
A quick stomp to her gut quenched that fire, a struggled wheeze escaped Yang's mouth as she fell back onto the floor. Stumm raised his mace behind his shoulders to finish her off. "Yang, you okay in there?" he spoke softly. Suddenly a masked raven-haired warrior, clad in red and black, comes out of left field and knocks bird-man away from the teen. The unknown assailant glared at the Faunus as he muttered to himself. "Only bird-man cheats!" He used his wings to fly away from the Huntress into the next train car.
Weiss calmly raised Myrtenaster toward her opponent as the dust chamber slowly rotated. The lieutenant charged the Schnee without hesitation, his Faunus brethren were demanding the blood of the snowflake. He will see their demand filled in full. The teeth of his chainsaw were stopped with a glyph shield, the rebound of his strike allowed him to follow up with an overhead strike. The heiress crouched and slanted her rapier downwards to deflect the blow. Her weapon was never designed to block that was what her glyphs are for. Twirling out of the crouch, a jab passed through the Faunus' guard pushing him back. Flowing with the momentum, Weiss jumped over her dazed opponent sending a slash to his head.
With an unbridled roar of rage, the lieutenant's chainsaw swept ripped across the air horizontally. The heiress somersaulted under the blade, as if it was a deadly game of limbo. With his guard exposed, four swift slashes and jabs sent the White Fang member to the ground. The terrorist slowly stood up, now the momentum of the battle was on his side. The lieutenant did not learn from his previous mistakes, his multiple slashes and swings of his chainsaw hit nothing but air as his opponent casually dodged. Weiss lured out his guard with a feint slash, a swift jab exploited the opening send the White Fang member sliding against the steel floor.
The terrorist rolled back unto his feet, he watched patiently as the Heiress summoned a glyph at her feet that resembled a clock. As the Schnee charged him four snowflake glyphs surrounded him, a small smirk formed underneath his mask. The lieutenant dodged her first strike, but as she rebounded off the first glyph he commented, "C'mere, princess." With his spare hand he grabbed Weiss by the face and slammed her into the floor leaving a human sized dent in the process. He tossed his opponent up before hitting her with his chainsaw similar to a baseball player.
"What is up with you and drinking?" innocently questioned Ruby as she blocked all of his lazy and halfhearted attacks.
The half sober drunkard explained, "Because mead."
She tried to continue the conversation, "What is the real rea-"
"Because mead!" Interrupted mead man as he sucker punched the teen in the gut. Ruby quickly disengaged to catch her breath and gain the advantage. Her opponent did not have a ranged weapon. Laying fire down range with her child, a series of curses flowed out of the criminal's mouth as he ran behind the crates for cover. He warned the crimson reaper, "These boxes are filled with dust! If you shoot them, everything goes to shit!"
The team leader was about to believe him, but them she remembered back to her first day at Beacon. An explosion from dust would not hurt her from this distance. It appears that her superior thinking allowed her to defeat the baddies! Loading in a fire cartridge into her weapon slowly, she aimed down her scope and fired one round into the bottom most crate. Instead of an awesome explosion, Ruby was greeted with the sound of glass breaking.
Honig slowly turned to face the box the red girl just shot, turns out there is no dust in that one. What else would they be carrying in a bomb cart besides explosive dust? Slowly he opened the crate to see it filled with whiskey bottles, one of them had taken a bullet for the others. He cradled the broken glass in his hands, his aura stopping him from bleeding. "NNNNNNOOOOOoooo! How could you! I thought huntsmen were not supposed to murder innocents!"
Ruby shuffled sideways and got on her tiptoes to see what he was talking about, she was concerned if someone smuggled their pet onto the train and hide it in the box. Her fears turned into confusion when she saw that the crate was full of alcoholic drinks. The criminal quickly grabbed the bottles and attached them to clips on his belt. In a swift motion he chugged on of them down and broke the container against the crate creating a crude stabbing weapon.
"MEAD!" His war cry was filled with fury as he raised the remains of the bottle over his head. Ruby unloaded an entire clip into his chest in an attempt to stop his charge, but his aura took the damage and he pushed through. Once he reached melee range with the teenager, Honig unleashed a furious storm of stabs and cuts with a sharp piece of glass in his hand. The crimson team leader used that pole of her weapon in a twirling motion to redirect the drunkard's attacks to the floor. Luck was not on mead-man's side as he overextended during one of his strikes, resulting in him losing balance and landing face first onto the floor. Ruby quickly brought the back end of her blade unto his head, leaving him unconscious.
"Yes! Caught my first bad guy!" cheered the innocent teenager. Miss Rose was brought out of her moment of joy when her unconscious partner flew through the door. The White Fang lieutenant followed quietly afterward, the rev of his chainsaw broke the silence in the room. "Aw crap baskets."
"If you are a racist bastard then why do you work with the White Fang?" countered Blake as her hand reached for her weapon.
Sir Bar placed his right hand on his chest in a dignified manner. "I do not bear a grudge upon another for a trait they cannot control. Only a cretin would and could do that. I rightfully judge people based on how civilized they are in conversation. Since this location is populated by charlatans, urchins, and criminals; none of them are well versed in conversation at the same level as me. While any individual would be scorned by being christened a bastard, you are not amiss in your proclamation," spoke the pyromaniac as if he was giving a speech. His hand reached for his back as he equipped his weapon. It was certainly not built in a factory, probably by himself or an inexperienced blacksmith. It was a long metal pole connected by a hose to what appears to be a propane tank. The tank itself was fastened by two black zip ties. Near the nozzle of the weapon was a small flame that was always lit. The handle of the flamethrower was salvaged from a gas pump handle.
The Faunus attempted to taunt him, "For someone claiming to be above everyone else, you weapon does not help your ego. It appears you got it from a scrap yard." Unfortunately it did not work as intended, Brenn slowly shook his head in disappointment.
He commented, "It now occurs to me that you are not cultured enough to see this elegant delicacy in my possession ideal for a conversation. Grant me the pleasure to…enlighten you." The darkness in the room was cleared when Sir Bar squeezed the trigger of his gift giver. Thanks to her quick reaction and her semblance, a shadow clone of Blake soaked up the torrent of flames. She quickly switched Gambol Shroud from its katana form to a pistol form to unload a mag into the approaching pyromaniac. His purple aura came to life as the bullets impacted his chest, a soft and raspy chuckle escaped his lips.
Sir Bar swept the nozzle of his weapon across the room as more flames coated the area in front of him, the hidden Faunus feinted jumping over the flames to draw his flamethrower upwards. He fell for the bait, Blake quickly hit the ground and slid under the wave of fire. Her aura protected against any burns but a lucky lick of fire caught the bow that sat atop her head. Out of pure reaction for her safely, the ex-terrorist removed the cloth from her ears and dropped it on the ground. Brenn silently stared at his opponent as the singed fabric slowly converted into ashes. "Tis a wonder why you attempted to conceal yourself behind such an elementary bow. Was it out of shame, rage, or another mental state that drives the human resolve? Oh, I do apologize. That drives the human and Faunus resolve. But that alludes to another inquiry, are Faunus and humans propelled by the same emotions in an alike manner? For their dissimilarities in biology is effortless to ascertain, but do we comprehend topics in a similar method? Unfortunately a humble mind such as I cannot resolve those queries, because they would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy."
Stumm fled into the next cart where he was met with the White Fang Lieutenant walking into the room mead-man was in. His partner needed help, and he was not going to let him down. Using his wings he flew into the room behind the terrorist, he saw a crimson teenager kneeling next to another female teen and behind them was mead-man on the floor. "You okay in there?" he asked in a voice he heard today.
Ruby's eyes went wide when she heard the bird Faunus speak in her voice. "Did you just speak in my voice?" The person in question just tilted his head slightly in confusion as he slowly walked to the left side of the room. Lieutenant went to the right side of the room in response. In a burst of rose petals, the team leader and her partner left the room through the door the pair entered. The White Fang member growled under his breath as he chased after them, leaving bird-man alone in the room with mead-man. Stumm rushed to his comrade, shaking him to wake him up.
"Didn't I tell you to never wake me up when I am drunk you stupid bird?" questioned Honig turned to lay on his back.
Bird-man informed him, "Yes yes. We leave now." He extended his hand forward towards the drunkard, who grasped it without hesitation. In a swift pull both of them were standing.
He supplied himself with another whiskey bottle from his belt. "Good idea, I already got all mead that here. I heard of a great bar in Vale, not that far away and the police there are shit."
Weiss awoke to see two of her team members, Yang and Ruby. "What happened?"
Ruby hugged her partner tightly. "Thank Oum you are okay!" Once Weiss was able to escape, the team leader explained, "Once I defeated the criminal I was against, the chainsaw guy threw you into the room I was in! Then the Faunus Yang was fighting followed him in! He spoke in my voice I think…but before they could harm you I escaped into the room where we all entered the inside of the train! That is when I found Yang laying on the ground."
"Then where are the criminals?" questioned the heiress. None of the girls had to answer that question, the screeching of metal against metal from the barricaded door was enough. The Schnee reasoned, "Behind that door is at least one criminal and at most four. Since our scroll have no reception, we can only assume that Blake's status is." She turned to her partner before asking, "What's the plan Ruby?"
Dominus Ferrum watched patiently as Doctor Oobleck moved to the rear of the train to engage the last two paladins. Thanks to this encounter with them, she was able to start identifying ways to eliminate these types of mech with limited casualties. Of course due to that Talpa Code they already had the blueprints, but they can only provide so much. Ira turned to check the front of the train for enemies. Instead she saw something worse, a closed steel blast door at the end of the tracks. "Frak"
Sir Bar waited to see what his conversation partner would do before completed his side of the dance, but she just stood still and glared at him. Was it because he accidentally offended her heritage which made her cut the conversation short in retaliation? Improbable because her conversation piece was still out and an uncultured person would not know how to properly end a conversation. His train of thought was halted when a ringing noise came out of his pocket. "My deepest regret, but I must make this conversation brief. Even though you are uncultured, it would be ignorant of me not to give you my entire title before leaving. I am Sir Brenn Bar the Atlesian Archbishop of Arson, and until we meet again. Adieu." Using his axe, he smashed the nearest window and leap out of the train before it crashed. Blake turned to the control panels, but something else caught her eyes first. A dead end in the tracks. She started running into the cart behind to escape the crash, but it was inevitable.
While Ruby was trying to figure out what to do, everything turned into a torrent of red. Her vision went black as she activated her aura to protect herself. After an unknown period of time, the crimson reaper was finally able to see again, with ringing ears and whiteness covering the edge of her vision. They were still underground in a wreck of some kind, did the train crash? As she tried to sit up, pain shot through her body. Weiss and Yang were starting to wake up in a similar state, but in the middle of the destroyed car was the White Fang Lieutenant, with a jagged strip of metal protruding through his chest. Blake was still nowhere to be seen, but the odds of her being alive were not on the bright side. The silence of the wreck was broken with a long and droning siren. The first Grimm attack on Vale in a long time was starting.
Dominus Decium watched silently as ground in a small section of the plaza ruptured from an explosion. He decided now was the time to start a morale speech, "You are all soldiers of the Omnissiah! No matter what comes through that breach you will stand your ground!" As if on cue, a giant midnight black snake burst out of the rubble with countless lesser Grimm following.
Afterword: I might do a summer special next chapter if y'all want one. Pm me or leave a review if you want anything added in.