Another colossal bang and flash lit up the horizon barely a hundred meters away, throwing up a volcanic eruption of fire and dirt. It looked like it had hit a fuel dump. A mammoth fireball spread out against the horizon, a new sun dawning in the night. This time, the concussive wave was so forceful, so shocking that soldiers around Verdant were decked over and staggered around gasping from the breath that had been knocked out of their lungs. Electric lights flickered and died as underground power wires were severed.

Time returned to its normal fluid form, breaking the stupor over their heads.

Just like they had frozen as one under the spell, they thawed out as one and the whole world went mad. Raid klaxons winded up, beginning their shrill wails and serving as the perfect background to the frantic panicked screams of men alongside the whistles of more falling shells, all melting into one perfect tune, a cacophony of chaos and confusion.

Hysteria seized all of them as they began to move a single entity, in any direction but the explosions ripping the horizon apart. Officers tried to restore order but their desperate calls for discipline were just dragged into the mosh pit. The trench-way quickly flooded into a river whitewater made of flesh, sweat, and piss.

A mass of flailing hands trying to grab onto anything solid threatened to yank Arc in. A pair of stronger hands seized him but instead of dragging him in where he would surely have drowned. He was pulled up onto the firestep, a small bank in a raging tide that could any moment gush over. The face of Verdant was inches from him, contorted with a fear that made his pupils just pin-pricks of black against a sea of milky white.

A trio of laser-accurate mortar rounds demolished the storage dugout. It was close enough that molten shrapnel fell upon them like steel rain. The ammunition inside cooked off in a spectacular manner. Multi-colored tracers punctured into the densely packed crowd. Hit or killed, it didn't matter, corpses and wounded were held upright by the sheer press of bodies. Those that did fall were trampled and crushed into the mud by their own comrades, many still alive.

Rounds whizzed close enough that Verdant could feel them pass by, barely inches away. He pressed him and Arc as close to the parapet as he could to avoid being shot or crushed by the stampede. Arc's feet slipped on the muddy floor and Verdant barely managed to arrest his fall by grabbing the harness strap of his back webbing.

Pulling him back up to a sitting position and knowing they were safe at least for the next few seconds Verdant looked behind him and over the lip of the parapet, trying to see what the hell was going on.

He saw hell.

They fell in the rain. They fell like rain.

Thousands of shells every second, light and heavy super siege artillery rounds from an unseen foe. Explosions scattered over the desolate landscape as far as the eye could see in a maelstrom of steel and fire. Entire sectors were being obliterated, simply vanishing in a blizzard of spraying mud. Thousands of infernos, from incendiary rounds or exploded ammunition depots, gutted the trenches and shrouded the broken moon with their acrid black smoke. Shockwaves from the heaviest strikes radiated out, gusting and extinguishing the existing fires. The ground quaked and convulsed under the hammer-blows, feeling like the entire world had gone into seizures.

Verdant smelled ozone burning its way up to his nostrils and his stomach turned over. To the rear of the line, rows upon rows of hard-light shields ignited as one in response to the strike. They came on with their signature white flashes before expanding out into a blazing blue translucent umbrella of pure shimmering dust to protect the vital gun pits and command posts under them. They flickered as enemy ordnance struck them, bouncing off the shields in great deflected blasts.

Further back down the front, lines of red-hot blazing tracers lanced through into the darkness by the dozens. Scything indiscriminately, shivering glowing lines from the tremendous rate of fire that waved back and forth, destroying scores of enemy shells far before they reached the ground in great mid-air blasts, each like a new star appearing for but a second. But even the brilliant inventions of Atlas' best engineers just wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough. For every shell they stopped, a hundred passed through.

"What's going on out there?" Arc hysterically screamed. He was clinging onto Verdant's hand so hard that his nails had broken skin and drawn blood. Verdant was too desensitized to even notice.

"Hell. It's hell." That was all he could answer. "It's hell."

Arc sobbed. "I don't wanna die… not like this."

Verdant didn't want to as well. Something about that idea snapped him out of the haze and the world came back rushing in. He was aware that the trench behind them, just moments ago packed to bursting, was now empty, of the living at least. Dead in their dozens were strewn over in the trenches, more than half of them killed by their own friends rather than the stray bullets. Fountains of blood had sprayed against like a hose had done the job. Meanwhile, what had once been the ammo depot was now a raging, sparkling inferno. Shooting ambers as high as a hundred meters, reminding Verdant of a rogue Vacuan firework.

He knew it meant two things. First, the fire was serving as a beacon that would attract more shellfire like moths to an open flame. Second, whatever munitions were still left were on the verge of detonating. Either option was equally likely. Either option still meant running for their lives.

The slap of nearby explosions knocked him into action.

"Got to… got to move!" Verdant yelled, yanking Arc up by his collar and hoisting both of them back up to their feet, leaping off the firestep. They began to run down the trench, over a floor made of corpses as cooked-off bullets thumped into the dirt all around them. Arc suddenly screamed and fell to his feet, clutching his thigh. A bullet had gone clean through his thigh, leaving behind a hole big enough to see the other side. Verdant stopped and grabbed the blond-haired boy by his armpits, Arc wailing louder in pain as he was dragged.

Verdant wanted so badly just to drop Arc and run for his life. He maybe had seconds left. But he couldn't bear to leave behind someone that he could so clearly save and help. Damn that bitch Arras and her bullshit fucking philosophy. His determination still remained sturdy even as he felt a sharp stinging pain down his left bicep. It wasn't a direct hit but the graze left behind had taken off a decent chunk of flesh. Only sheer adrenaline kept him from feeling the worst of the wound.

Verdant had just barely dragged Arc behind a corner forty meters down when the munitions finally blew. From a shell or cook-off, he didn't know. It didn't matter. A concussive wave of pressure and fire blasted them clean off their feet. Verdant was thrown so hard against the wall he felt his right shoulder dislocate. Painfully.

The air was driven clean out of him and he instantly took another breath in, but the searing heat burned his lungs. He slumped to the ground. He knew that the bombardment was still going on as the floor quaked below him but he couldn't hear anything but the high-pitched buzzing in his ears, like the whirring of a drill that felt like it was boring its way into his skull, driving straight into his brain and putting him in so much agony that he could barely hear his own thoughts before they were crushed by the mind-numbing pain.

He tried to move his legs. It didn't work.

Get up.

He breathed deep, through gritted teeth. Tried moving his legs again. I don't want to die.

Get up.

His legs shifted slightly. A thousand red-hot needles pierced his dislocated shoulder. He screamed.

Get up.

His good arm grabbed at the wall. Tried to grasp onto anything. His fingers found a piece of plankboard jutting out of the wall.

Get up!

Ignoring the searing pain from his legs and arm, he wrapped his fingers around the rebar and pulled himself onto his feet. As he did so, he suddenly felt lightheaded as his vision began to swim. His legs felt like two twigs standing against a tsunami as he lost his balance, falling back to the ground.

Where was Arc? Verdant had to get him to the triage center or that leg wound would kill him sure as sure.

He took a few agonizing steps forward, and suddenly the dull ache in his skull bursted into a great white flash that overwhelmed everything.

Blinking, he found himself on his hands and knees.

Before he had even realized what had happened, he broke out into a fit of violent coughs and doubled over. What tasted like pennies filled his mouth and he heaved so hard that the bile came out of his nostrils. An immense pressure erupted behind his eyes. His empty stomach clenched from the pain and it just made him retch more and more. An eternity seemed to pass until it stopped and he could breathe again.

Throat raw and burned, his swears came out in hoarse gasps. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

He wanted so badly just to collapse and let himself die there, just let the fires or some random shell take him. He probably would have if it had just been him, but there was someone else at risk and certainly didn't deserve to die.

He got back to his feet again, stretching out a hand to brace himself against the wall. A few more steps and he saw through the smoke a crumpled figure that had tried to crawl away.

Arc wasn't exactly the shining beacon of health. The boy's trousers were soiled and soaked through with piss and blood. His skin was paper white and his lips were blue.

"Shit," Verdant murmured. "That looks bad."

Arc managed a weak smile and groaned. "You don't look any better."

Verdant made a pathetic giggle and kneeled down next to Arc, opening up his satchel bag and pulled out a wad of bandages, rolling it out. "By the Spring Maiden, you're… you're... bleeding quite a bit."

"I can see that…" Arc's voice was strangely calm, eyelids drooping. Verdant slapped him hard in the face, jolting him back. Trying his hardest to recall the basic medical training that he had received, he began to wrap the gauze around the wound and put pressure on it.

"Stay with me, Arc. Stay awake. Keep talking. You have family, don't you? Tell me about them? You got siblings?"

He moaned "Why?"

Verdant slapped him again.

"Ouch!" He cried. "That… hurt."

"Good. Answer the question. Just keep talking. Please."

"I've got six… or was it seven? Why can't I remember?" Arc slurred lazily, his eyelids feeling heavy.

Verdant tightened the bandages, causing Arc to yelp in pain and yanking him back.

Verdant slipped his hand under Arc and tried to lift him to his feet. He grunted in pain and Verdant almost fainted from even the small effort he exerted but Arc managed to keep his footing. Barely.

"Can you stand on that leg?" Verdant panted.

"I think… I think that I can…"

"Come on, we have to get moving." Verdant let Arc put his arm around his neck to use as support. Something strange was in the air and it took both of them several seconds to realize what it was. The bombardment had stopped some time before. They had just never noticed it. Gone was the mind-numbing insanity, save for a stray shell or two, replaced instead by the low tempo of the moaning of the wounded, the crackling of the fires, screams, and shouts, and the all-pervasive wail of raid sirens.

"I... I've got to take a break." Arc panted.

"No, no, no, just keep going. One step at a time.

"I... I… can't. Please, just ten seconds."

"The moment your arse touches the ground you're never getting back up again! I didn't risk my neck and get shot just for you to die on me again!"

Arc didn't listen and Verdant felt the arm around his neck slacken. Trying his best to continue to hoist him up, he eventually gave up and let Arc lean against the wall, reduced to just making sure the boy didn't fall.

Arc whispered something under his breath.

He leaned closer. "What?"

"Why?" Arc mumbled every breath a massive effort.

"Why what?"

"Why… Why are you helping me? Am I really that worth it?"

Verdant broke into laughter, ignoring the throb in his lungs. "Jaune Arc. I don't need you to be worth anything. People shouldn't need to have a use in order to be helped. You were just someone in trouble and I was there. You could have been worth less than a damn rotten cockroach and I would still have risked my arse over and over again."

"Thanks, that makes me feel better."

Verdant cupped his mouth with his hand as he broke into a fit of violent coughs that felt like someone was stabbing dozens of knives into his chest. He wiped the palm dry of blood on the back of his pants, making sure Arc didn't see it. They could worry about it later.

"You don't sound too good." But he had still noticed the hacking. "You alright?"

"I'm fine, don't worry about me. Got hurt a little in that blast but you're in far worse shape than me. Come on, you caught your breath yet? We have to keep moving."

Arc wasn't listening, his eyes were hazy and seemed to be focusing on something a thousand miles away. Verdant barely caught and stopped him from sliding down the wall, keeping him upright.

"You go ahead… I just want to close my eyes for a bit… just for a minute or two… just a second."

"God damn it, you worthless son of a whore! I didn't pull you out of hell just to let out die here. I swear if you do, I'll make sure you have a closed casket funeral! Verdant furiously barked. "You owe this to me, you sheep-shagging bastard!"

The barrage of insults managed to bring Arc back and he looked up with surprise. He found himself staring into a pair of eyes filled with fire and fury, something he never really imagined the former ranch hand to really possess. Frustration and pure determination to not only prove someone wrong but perhaps even to prove something to himself. Maybe some of it even transferred to Arc because the moment that Verdant grabbed his arms and hoisted him back up, he found the strength to stay standing and resume his pitiful limp going again.

"Come on," Verdant grunted through gritted teeth. "Keep talking. It'll keep you awake. You said you had sisters or something? Six or something?"

"Seven actually."

"Maiden, that must be a handful."

"It is. You know, sometimes they would jump me out of nowhere, pin me down, and play with my hair, put ribbons, and tie them into braids and everything. The noise, the noise they made all the time. There's a reason my teachers always thought I was a sleepy kid. But I tell you, it's worth it when you see just how cute they are. They're there whenever you need them to be. When you're sad, they're there to help, and when you're happy… well they ruin it but that's what sisters do."

Despite the carnage and death around them, and the growing pain in his chest, Verdant couldn't help but smirk. "Now you're just making me jealous."

"You never had any siblings?"

"Nah. Weren't lucky enough. Mama was never interested in having children."

"But, you…" Arc began.

"I wasn't hers. Real ones died... Grimm."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, I can't remember much of them anyway, and frankly I don't want to." He paused as he heard screams, but he knew they weren't real. "But forget about that. Focus on your sisters. I never had any but just the way you talk about them, it would be a damn shame, Arc, if they never saw their big brother come home a big hero."

"Big hero," the words hung on his lips. "Wanting to be one's the reason why I'm here."

Look where it got me as well, Verdant mouthed.

"Just keep that in your mind. I'm not saving your arse only for you or even for me, you got people that want you back home. In some way, you're lucky I reckon."

"Lucky?"

"Yeah. Lucky. I ain't no medical doctor but that wound's bad. But that's not necessarily all bad. Probably ain't gonna walk right ever again."

Arc's eyes widened in worry.

"Relax. That in itself is a good thing. Means you'll get a discharge. An honorable one at that. Get a medal, a pat on the back, and a ticket home while we still slog it out in the mud. If you're really lucky you'll get a pension fund for the rest of your life if veterans admin feels kindly."

"Arrgh!" Arc yelped as his injured leg jolted. He desperately fought the tears coming to his already wet eyes. Panting, he said. "You say it's lucky, certainly doesn't feel lucky though."

"Well, you may see it-"

The shrieking of the shell descending from the black sky interrupted Verdant. It was falling right on them, right in the trench. Without thinking, he placed himself between Arc to shield him and closed his eyes, praying that at least one of them would make it. Instead of fire, flame, then nothingness there was mud, filth, then water so cold it made him gasp.

"Dud. It was a dud." Arc chattered.

Verdant dared to open his eyes a peek. Just barely more than ten meters in front of them, there was a small dent in the ground, in the middle a small sable cylinder that gushed smoke. He couldn't believe it. Those things were more reliable, always detonating on impact, than anything man had ever created. Not even the best engineers had been able to unlock the secrets of the organic machines of the Grimm. This was a one-in-a-million chance. No, one in a billion.

"Oh, Brother. Oh, Brother. I thank Thy for our salvation." Verdant choked out. He had taken the cross out of his pocket. He couldn't even remember when. He kissed it and then held it to his forehead. "I ask that You watch over our humble souls for just a little while longer."

"You know, I was never religious. But I'm now certain there's a big guy in the clouds looking at us." Arc remarked.

"A big guy... a big understatement," Verdant said, for the first time in a while with a smile on his face. Though the shell had not detonated it had caused enough destruction with the sheer kinetic force of its impact. The wooden planks that had made up the walls and the duckboard had been shattered into splinters. One plank was long enough for Arc to slot under his shoulder and use as a makeshift crutch. "You think you can walk on your own now?"

"I think I can." He took a few experimental steps forward, each difficult and bringing shooting pain through his already weak body. "How much further?"

Verdant was working off memory alone, barely good enough to navigate the maze of trenches, full of redundant ends and circle-around all on top of the fact that everything looked the same. Normally signboards and posts would have pointed the way but all of them had been smashed or were burned beyond reading.

"Just a little while longer," He lied for the second time.

A sudden bark of gunfire broke through the night, followed by a shrill shriek, slicing through the air, as bright and keen as a bayonet. Verdant and Arc froze. It was around the corner behind them. The second scream was weaker, like a man waking up from a nightmare and just realizing it was all but a dream.

Deep and dark, like a generator starting up, it was unmistakable. Coming out of their deep caverns blinking into the bright sun, humanity had soon learned in its early days to flee whenever they heard that sound, leaving behind their possessions and even throwing down their weapons which were futile against the foe they faced. The elderly and the slow were deliberately abandoned, hopefully, they would serve as a distraction, a sacrifice of flesh that would never be enough.

A million years of evolution had encoded a single fact into the genes of every human: dread and tremble before that very sound.

Without him noticing, Verdant hand unbutton his chest holster and grabbed the flare gun he had been given. See anything, say something. He didn't bother to check if the shell inside was still sound after all the knocks it had been through. A path of yellow smoke followed the bright right flare as it twisted into the night sky. He hoped that someone saw it, but it was amongst a dozen other shells floating in the chaotic night sky. How it would ever be noticed was beyond him.

"Go, run. Find anyone, I don't care who. Get help." Verdant's voice made a poor imitation of courage.

"What about you?" Arc asked through chattering teeth, his face assuming the rough hue of snow.

"I'll… I'll… hold it off."

Verdant was met with stunned silence.

"Go! You're in no state to fight, you can barely walk in the first place. Someone's gotta keep track of it. We can't have it running loose. You got seven sisters, remember? You swore to them you would get back home."

Arc grimaced but relented. "Just keep track of it. Don't fight it. I'll go find someone, get help."

"Then go! Get them! Go!" Verdant barked and looked back down the trench, to that corner. He heard Arc behind him shamble slowly away.

"You said you want to be a hero right?" He whispered to himself. "Wished at your tenth birthday that you would be a hero, a protector of others like those Huntsmen. Looks like you got your fucking wish…"

The Galesburg rifle had somehow managed to stay with him during the chaos. He pulled it off its strap across his shoulder. The magazine well was empty.

Rummaging for a box magazine from his ammo pouch, he found they were all empty, ripped open sometime in the chaos. The only one left was the one he had in his trouser pocket, the one meant for himself. He banged it against his helmet to make sure it was full.

It was.

Ten rounds. Forty-aught-six. Galesburg Model three. Semi-automatic autoloader. Adjustable sights effective up to a thousand meters, twice that for marksman variants. Easy to dismantle and clean even without a kit.

Verdant was less going over the schematics of his weapon for details' sake and more just trying to take his mind off what he knew had to happen.

A stray shell fell nearby, just in a compartment barely five meters away, throwing up a shower of sludge and mud that fell back down to the earth like a deluge. The magazine slipped out of his now slick hands, into the muddy floor.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Verdant dropped to his knees and fumbled for the magazine in the darkness. He felt something hard and slammed it right into the receiver. Drawing back the bolt, he made sure that the chamber was cleared of debris and let the receiver slam shut again. The heavy iron barrel fell back to a level position. The rear sights lined up as perfectly as they could.

"O' Brother, beyond all praise and the creator of humanity, I beg for protection in your arms." Father Green had thought him verses of protection before he had left, whenever danger was knocking at the door. It certainly was now. His shaking hand steadied, his heartbeats lowered, and he couldn't feel the pain in his shoulder anymore. "From the plots and schemes of the malignant, Brother be our guide. From the curse of the evil, Brother be our shield. From the scourge and hate of the Beast and the Archenemy,"

Footsteps. Crunching in the mud just out of sight. He heard panting, wet and heavy. The putrid scent of rotting meat and sweat forced its way up his nostrils.

"Brother, be the fiery sword of wrath that we wield to purge our world of this blasphemous filth." He whispered under his breath. "Hearken unto my voice, O Brother, when I cry unto Thee; have mercy upon me, and hear me this:"

Whatever he would face he would kill in the name of his God and Remnant. Courage and fury like he had never felt before blazed through his blood.

What came around the corner, replaced all that courage and fury with fear and horror.

Low and hunched to the ground, it had the vague form of a canine with long gangly fore-limbs, from which claws were breaking through flesh. A long snout, shrouded behind a mask of bleached bone marked with crimson, trailed from gnarled lupine ears and ended at panting nostrils gusting blood-mist into the freezing air. The pitch-blackness of its fur was disrupted with the smear of gore and giblets. The sniveling creature would have been almost invisible in the half-light if not for its eyes, blazing an infernal red.

A Beowulf.

Without thinking, Verdant raised his Galesburg. He tightened his finger around the steel-stamped trigger. The space between the flaring lights disappeared behind the sights. Dead center.

"Strike down these Grimm scum in thy name."

He squeezed.

CLICK.

Click.

Click.

Click.

click…

The trigger was being pulled. Nothing was happening.

Weapon jam.

And the Beowulf had heard it. It snapped its head towards the trench. A snout sniffed the air, smelling sweat and… fear. A pair of baleful red eyes stared right into Verdant's. It took a step forward, with an almost child-like curiosity at first, and then took another, and another, and another.

Towards him.

It was coming.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." Verdant slammed the bottom of the magazine against his knee, ignoring the pain and trying to clear any misfeeds. Aiming again, he frantically tugged at the trigger. Too stiff. It refused to budge. He racked the bolt back. An unfired round still in its brass casing fell out. The bolt fell back into position. Maybe that worked. Hopefully. "Come on. Come on."

He lifted the barrel again. He saw the beast again. Everything about how it moved was wrong. A distorted vision of a man and animal fused, it advanced like it was on invisible puppet strings that randomly jerked backward, causing it to randomly spasm and slam itself into the walls.

It was barely ten paces away.

He pulled.

Nothing.

A paw with claws the length of knives swept aside his rifle and punted him to the ground. Landing on his back he tried to crawl away but he knew he would never be fast enough. Instead, he glanced back and instantly regretted it.

Snapping open its jaws with a sick cracking sound as if it was breaking its own bones to do so, it revealed rows of misshapen inch-long razor canine fangs, many disjointed and broken, some even stabbing into its own gums. A tongue that once pure black convulsed back and forth. The smell of rotting flesh was utterly overpowering. It had fed just recently.

And it would feed again.

It lunged forward.

He screamed.

MidKnightMoonglow99: No, the Warhammer 40k elements were deliberate. I was inspired mostly by 40k novels and 40k/RWBY crossover to make a story about normal people fighting against great odds and paying the price for it yet still continuing on to fight.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. This was my first time ever writing a canon RWBY character with Jaune Arc. How did you guys think I did? Did he stay in his pre-beacon character or was he one of the Jaune-in-name-only that I've heard is so infamous within the fanfic community. Any feedback or thoughts in your comments would go a long way. Thanks!