The events of this Book start at some point during the events of the last one, meaning at the same time Team Jedi and Naofumi are doing their thing, Ruby & her friends are starting to get into shenanigans on Remnant.
Also, I went back and changed Book 32 Chapter 16 again; considering the fact it was a clean cut, and Signum got everyone to the med center promptly, I can't see why DDF med-tech wouldn't be able to reattach Yang's arm (though her confidence is still shot to hell). Also, decided to kill off Roman after all, to better fit with canon (and make it so Neo's later presence will make sense).
THE FOLLOWING THINGS ARE THE PROPERTIES OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS; I DO NOT OWN THEM AND MAKE NO MONEY OFF OF THIS STORY
Mahō Shōjo Lyrical Nanoha (Teana, various other characters) – 7Arcs
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (Shion and friends/family) – 07th Expansion and Studio Deen
Shuffle! (Kaede Fuyō and associated characters) – Navel and Asread
Erika's New Perfume (Marie, Sarah, Erika, Timmy, Veronica) – DeviantArtist 'Lance the Young'
Mai-chan's Daily Life (Mai, Kizuna) – Waita Uziga
Star Wars (Ahsoka, Cody, Rex, Force Unleashed cast) – George Lucas, Lucasfilm
Halo (Forerunners, UNSC, Sangheili Alliance) – Bungie, 343 Industries
StarCraft (multiple characters, events, and devices) – Blizzard Entertainment
Naruto (characters, techniques, abilities) – Masashi Kishimoto
Mahō Sensei Negima (characters, spells, abilities) – Ken Akamatsu
Kingdom Hearts (characters, weapons, enemies, concepts) – Square-Enix
Neon Genesis Evangelion (characters, concepts, tech) – Studio Gainax
Elfen Lied (Kaede K., others) – Lynn Okamoto, Arms
Red vs. Blue (The Blood-Gulch Crew, the ex-Freelancers) – Rooster Teeth
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic – Hasbro, Lauren Faust
Transformers Film Series – Hasbro, Michael Bay
Transformers: Beast Wars – Hasbro, Mainframe Entertainment
Yu-Gi-Oh! – Kazuki Takahashi, Viz Media
Sonic the Hedgehog – SEGA
Gears of War – Epic Games
Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles – Columbia Tristar (I think)
Mass Effect – Bioware
Metroid – Nintendo
Puella Magi Madoka Magica – Gen Urobuchi, SHAFT
The Legend of Zelda – Nintendo
Tōhō – ZUN
RWBY – Rooster Teeth
Pretty Cure / PreCure – Toei Animation
Kill La Kill – Trigger
Cross Ange – Sunrise
Cardcaptor Sakura – Clamp
Sailor Moon – Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha
Sailor Nothing – used with express permission of Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne; please visit his website for SN and his other original works
Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya – TYPE-MOON
Pokémon – Nintendo, GameFreak
Goblin Slayer – Kumo Kagyu, White Fox
My Hero Academia – Kouhei Horikoshi
Rising of the Shield Hero – Aneko Yusagi, Media Factory
PLEASE READ & REVIEW
PLEASE CAMPAIGN FOR THE TROPE PAGE'S DELETION
-BOOK 42 START-
Realm R38Y
In the heart of the Land of Darkness, beneath a blood-red sky, a towering crystalline castle stood amidst a field of pitch-black pools of tar-like Darkness, from which newborn Grimm periodically emerged. Inside the "Evernight Castle", in one of the larger chambers, Salem and Dyspear were donating magical energy to Maleficent in preparation for her to cast a rather complex and far-reaching spell, the faerie's brow furrowed in concentration as she turned to face their newest member.
"I should be able to reach back through time and grab your fallen subordinates' Hearts – their 'Sparks' – from just before the moments of their demises, and transplant them here, where my and Dyspear's magic shall create new bodies for them based upon their old ones."
"Excellent" Megatron grinned. "Ah, but if I could make a request? …Don't bring back Tarantulus. That treacherous spider was, in the end, more trouble than he was worth. …Let him stay in Hell where he belongs."
Maleficent nodded. "…Oh. It seems I will not be able to retrieve the Spark of the one called 'Rampage'. His death was caused by a shard of raw energon being stabbed directly into his Spark, and the resulting explosion killed his killer. I cannot pull his Spark forward in time without triggering a potentially dangerous temporal paradox."
Megatron sighed. "Understood. Ah well, we shall make do with what we have."
The gem of Maleficent's staff lit up green, and a complex bright green magical rune-circle formed beneath Maleficent's feet, spreading out to about eight feet across. She incanted in a dead language, and soon additional runes formed floating in midair. With four flashes of light, space & time being bent to the fairie's rule, and with soft cracks of displaced air, four glowing, pulsating orbs of crackling light appeared – Cybertronian Sparks. Then, matter took form around them, each Spark ending up encased in a body exactly like its old one, revealing four of Megatron's subordinates 'resurrected': Scorponok, Terrorsaur, Quickstrike, and Inferno. The four Predacons dropped to the floor, and soon they came to.
"What happened?" Terrorsaur shook himself awake. "The last thing I remember is the burning heat and pressure after I… fell into lava… How am I alive?"
"Ugh…" Quickstrike sat up. "How the hell are you two?"
Gathering himself, Inferno gasped. "Scorponok! Terrosaur! How can this be?!"
Megatron cleared his throat, grabbing the quartet's attention.
"Lord Megatron?" Scorponok spoke. "You look… different."
"Hey, how come you're back in your old body, boss?" Quickstrike asked. "What happened to your big ol' red dragon form? …Hey… Hey, I remember now! Y'all went mad with power once you got yer mitts on that warship, an' ya blew up me & Inferno!"
"I do apologize for that, truly" Megatron replied. "Carrying my predecessor's Spark within me had a somewhat… detrimental effect on my sanity, I will admit. Now that I can shift between that form and this one at will, I will only be using that form when the situation demands it."
"Uh, I'm more than a little lost here" Terrorsaur said. "Who is this guy?" he gestured at Quickstrike. "What happened to your body? …Who are all these people?!"
"Mm. I suppose I should explain things you four have missed, yesss…"
-5 Minutes Later-
"And that's basically it!" Megatron finished.
The four revived Predacons were quiet as they processed everything they'd been told about – the rest of the Beast Wars after Scorponok & Terrorsaur's original deaths (Scorponok was a bit depressed to learn that Blackarachnia had turned on them and joined the Maximals), what this little coalition of evildoers knew about the Dimensional Defense Force and the conflicts they'd gotten involved in (including that a previous villain tried to recruit Waspinator to fight the do-gooders, only for the bug to switch sides to the Maximals), the current state of affairs (including Tarantulus being left dead because of how much trouble he caused), the natures & identities of Megatron's new allies…
"Boy howdy, this is a lot to take in…" Quickstrike remarked. "But… If it means more chances to kick some keisters, sign me up! Good to have ya back to yer old self, boss."
"My loyalty to you is eternal, Royalty" Inferno bowed. "You can count on my support once again."
"I'm in Quickstrike's boat" Terrorsaur said with a wicked grin.
"And Inferno took the words right out of my mouth" Scorponok bowed to Megatron.
"Excellent~" Megatron grinned. "Welcome back to the land of the living, my Predacons. We and our allies have much to do…"
-Break-
Having crossed the sea between the continents of Sanus and Anima, six young adventurers (and their Pokémon) had begun their trek eastwards, heading for the Kingdom of Mistral. With Weiss on a different DDF mission, Yang still recuperating/training back at home on Patch Island, and Blake in Kuokuana on Menagerie helping her parents and the DDF get infrastructure improvements and additional settlements moving, Ruby had decided to join up with Team JNPR for a while as they went in search for information about Salem or any of her followers. Cinder and her two lackeys had used forged transcripts from Haven Academy to infiltrate Beacon, so perhaps they could find clues there.
Ruby and Team JNPR were joined by a DDF volunteer, someone whose arch enemy was a member of Salem's little alliance. Thanks to her experience as a Pretty Cure and her more recent training in ki and magic manipulation from the DDF, Kirara Amanogawa easily kept pace with the local quintet, she & her Furfrou pulling their weight against any threats. Good thing, too; now that Ruby was a Keyblade wielder after being granted that ability by one of the deceased wielder's spirits at the Keyblade Graveyard, creatures of darkness – Heartless and Grimm – would be drawn to her, though the effect was weaker when she didn't have her Keyblade out. Thankfully, the DDF's more experienced Keybladers had been giving crash courses to the new wielders, including Ruby; already, she was reasonably proficient with her "Divine Rose". Though, she was still trying to figure out how to wield her "Divine Rose" Keyblade and her Crescent Rose scythe-rifle (scyfle?) at the same time, if that were even physically possible.
The DDF had got a satellite communications network set up, but hadn't gotten it hooked up to the preexisting CCT channels yet, which meant that communication between kingdoms had to be performed through DDF channels, which in turn were presently only set up between Vale, Atlas, and Menagerie.
At the moment, the gang had been hired by a town to get rid of a Geist that dwelled in the nearby forest, the possession-type Grimm having been causing no end of trouble lately. They had hoped to stealth their way in, catch it by surprise and kill it in its weak base form, but unfortunately the Geist found and stalked them while they were trying to find it, waiting until they were passing by some huge old boulders and possessing the rocks; the young heroes barely reacted in time to avoid the opening charging swing of the Petra Gigas now attacking them.
Now, the massive stone golem with a disproportionately small bone-mask face was doing its level best to pound the heroes into paste, its footsteps shaking the earth, every dodged swing of its massive boulder arms cratering the soil or felling trees. Its solid-stone body, reinforced by whatever dark power fueled the Grimm, proved exceptionally resilient, shrugging off everything the teen heroes or their Pokémon hit it with. (Indeed, some of them had already been recalled due to being at a bad matchup against this monster; only Jaune's Galarian Farfetch'd, Pyrrha's Treecko & Nosepass, and Ren's Mienfoo were still in play.)
Pyrrha ducked under a swing of the Petra Gigas' massive arm, slicing her sword-form weapon at the "wrist" where two component boulders were touching, but even her Aura-enhanced blade couldn't cut through. As Pyrrha leapt back to avoid a giant stone fist hammering down at her, Ruby – fighting with her Keyblade, since Crescent Rose wasn't doing much of anything against this thing – fired a wave of rose-red magic bolts that the Petra Gigas raised its other arm to block, and then dashed in with a barrage of slashing blows that seemed to knock the beast back and briefly stun it but didn't do any noticeable major damage.
Nora switched her Magnhild to hammer mode and injected a cartridge of Lightning Dust into it, the hammerhead wreathed in electric power. Rushing in and ducking under a swing of the Petra Gigas' right arm, she struck the arm at the base, hitting hard enough to shatter the rock and sever the limb. The Gigas, after a few seconds, sprouted a large, skinny Grimm arm, and then it spotted a nearby felled tree and sunk its arm into it, possessing and mutating it into a new tree arm with branch claws.
"Big mistake!" Ruby cried. "Fire!"
From her Keyblade, she launched a Fire spell that struck the wood, engulfing it and setting it ablaze. Jaune grinned, but the grin fell away real quick when the now-flaming tree limb [heh, limb] was swung at him.
"Big mistake!" he shouted at Ruby.
The monster tried to chase Jaune, but Ren threw one of his Stormflower guns in a boomerang arc, the blade slipping past the Petra Gigas' guard and cutting a shallow slice across its mask-like face. The beast stumbled and fell, curling its arms around its upper body to prevent further attacks while it gathered itself. Meanwhile, the humans & Pokémon formed up.
"How are we gonna do this?" Jaune asked.
"His body is too thick to break through" Ruby said.
"The face might be a weak point," Pyrrha said, "but the Geist knows that and is protecting its face the best it can."
"Plus," Nora added, "it keeps on grabbing new limbs!"
Jaune's eyes lit up with a plan. "Then we hit it harder, faster! We need to take out its limbs as quick as we can, and then go for the face before it can make new ones to protect it!"
The team nodded, and spread out. The Gigas' stone arm swung at Jaune, but the giant rock fist was then intercepted and blown to pieces by a Rock Smash from Jaune's G-Farfetch'd and a Force Palm from Ren's Mienfoo. The Petra Gigas roared and tried to stomp on them, but a Bullet Seed barrage from Pyrrha's Treecko forced it to stop and shield its face. Ruby switched out for Crescent Rose and triggered her Semblance, a whirling mass of red petals shooting forward at the same time Pyrrha surfed atop a small mass of her iron sand to close in, sword-form Miló in hand. The two girls slashed out, cutting the tree-arm to pieces, while Pyrrha's Nosepass zapped the Gigas' left leg with a Thunder Wave, briefly paralyzing the limb and making the monster stumble.
"Twinkle Humming!"
Kirara's huge star-shaped mana blast struck what remained of the Petra Gigas' stone left arm, shattering it. A slashing sword-beam from Jaune and a Brutal Swing from his G-Farfetch'd struck the monster's leg, cracking and damaging it further, and as the beast knelt while looking around for more materials, Nora struck. Propelled by Ruby, the petite powerhouse swung her lightning-charged hammer right at the mask, and the blow made the entire Gigas construct shatter and collapse, inert. A few seconds later, the ghostly Geist emerged and took off in the opposite direction, fleeing as fast as it could.
"Ruby?" Jaune said.
Nodding, the girl knelt with Crescent Rose in rifle form, took aim through the scope, and fired a single shot. The bullet quickly caught up to the retreating Grimm and pierced through its head, and the dark creature tumbled to a stop and disintegrated into motes of smoky Darkness.
-Break-
"You kids sure you won't stick around? You've been real good to this town."
Ruby shook her head at the blacksmith's question. "Sorry, but we've got another mission."
"Make it to Haven Academy, no matter what" Nora clarified.
"Alright" Jaune sighed as the left the shop. "Food and water?"
"Check!" Ruby said.
"Ammo?"
"Check!" Nora reported.
"Map?"
Pyrrha called up her Omnitool (standard issue for all DDF field personnel by now), displaying a continental map and zooming in to show their region. "Check."
"Then let's get moving."
-Break-
In Evernight Castle, the villains were in council, setting plans in motion. The four Predacons had gotten used to their second lease on life, slotting in amongst the lead quartet and their other subordinates. Inferno got along well with Tyrian, bonding over their respective zealous loyalties to their main masters; the mad assassin's bloodlust also struck a chord with Quickstrike, who in turn also got on well with Pete due to their love for a good scrap and preference for brute-force villainy. Scorponok was more on Watts' wavelength, his experience with science & engineering gelling well with the Doctor's (and he was glad that Watts was a lot less creepy, traitorous, and psychopathic than Tarantulus, his last science/research partner; "Thanks for leaving that bug dead, Lord Megatron; he always creeped me out like nobody's business" "To be honest, Scorponok, me too"). Terrorsaur and Close struck up a quick friendship, swapping stories (with Terrosaur conveniently "forgetting" to mention how he used to constantly try to betray and usurp Megatron until he eventually realized it'd never work and gave up on it).
Cinder was… not in good shape. Her hair had been cut short after most of it was burned off in the explosion, her new left arm was still wrapped up in enchanted bandages as she learned to control it, and a large scar surrounded her new cybernetic left eye that Watts & Megatron constructed and implanted for her.
"Cinder," Salem said, "you will remain here until your recovery is complete and you have gained full control over your new limb. Dr. Watts, you will take her place in meeting with our informant in Mistral."
"Very good" the mustached man nodded.
"Tyrian, I want you to continue your hunt for the Spring Maiden."
The lean, unstable man giggled creepily. "Gladly, your grace."
"And Hazel, I'm sending you to the leader of the White Fang. Adam Taurus has arranged the meeting. The boy continues to prove loyal. Ensure that Sienna Khan feels the same."
A tall, muscled man nodded. "As you wish."
"Stop, Freeze" Dyspear spoke up. "I'd like the two of you to attempt to gather more information about the 'Foretellers'. However, prioritize avoiding detection over acquiring intel."
"Yes, Your Majesty" the twins chorused.
"I might have a lead on how to find the Door to Darkness" Close said. "Should I follow it up?"
"Please do" Maleficent replied. "I will assist you, if necessary; just say the word."
"What about Rose?" Cinder asked, her voice raspy; her lungs and throat were still healing after being singed.
"I don't see why we should devote too many resources to handling the girl just yet" Megatron replied. "She's still a neophyte."
"But she is improving at a prodigious rate" Maleficent countered. "Plus, she is now a Keyblade wielder. And, there is the matter of the power in her eyes; she should be dealt with, one way or another, before she learns how to use them at will."
"Hmm, true enough."
"Agreed" Salem said. "…Tyrian, postpone the Spring Maiden for the moment. Find Ruby Rose, and bring her to me. Alive."
The man nodded, a fanged grin on his face. "Thy will be done, milady."
"We are making solid progress, everyone. Beacon has fallen, and Haven is next. We have a location on the Master of Master's Box, though it is not more heavily protected than we expected. We will convene again at a later date."
As Tyrian, Stop, and Freeze headed out to perform their assignments, Megatron stopped Scorponok.
"Follow him, discreetly" he commanded. "If he somehow ends up overwhelmed and in danger of capture or death, provide cover for his escape. But do not show yourself; the Predacons' presence in this little alliance should remain a surprise to our foes, yesss…"
Scorponok nodded. "Got it, sir."
"Royalty, why was he chosen?" Inferno asked.
"Terrorsaur is needed for another assignment in Mistral, and you & Quickstrike are not exactly known for stealth skills…"
"…He's got us there, pardner" Quickstrike admitted. "I ain't much for skulkin' around, and y'all ain't, neither."
Pete chuckled at their expense, only for Maleficent to shoot him a glare.
"That applies to you as well" she reproached him.
"Aw…" the big toon sulked.
-CHAPTER END-
And thus begins a focus on the RWBY-verse. The villains have more manpower now, and the proverbial snowball's started rolling down the hill. I don't know whether this Book will end after the events of, like, Volume 5 or 6, or if I'll keep pushing forward; I keep hearing conflicting reports on just how many Volumes RWBY is planned to have, with some saying 10 or 11 (meaning that, since V8 just finished, we're on the home stretch) and others saying up to 15 or more (meaning we're only halfway through).