Disclaimer, I do not own RWBY
Chapter 8: Persistent
"It's ugly as sin but I think it'll fly." Mercury stepped back to inspect his handiwork. The Manta still looked like a hunk of junk but he was reasonably certain it was functional again.
"You think. Encouraging." Emerald shot back as she put several rounds into a charging Beowolf, turning it to dust instantly.
"I'm 60-40 the thing will hold!" Mercury shrugged.
"Ah, 60-20-20 actually, 60% we fly, 20% we don't and 20% we blow up after take-off."
"Oi! Less talking more killing!" Jaune yelled at them to stop goofing off on the job. Perhaps drawn by the crash, they were being swarmed by Grimm. Just low level Beowolves, Boarbatusks and some Ursas, nothing too difficult to deal with but damn if there weren't a metric ton of them.
Jaune growled and delivered a right hook to an Ursa's jaw, knuckle dusters easily crunching its mask and pulping everything behind it. Leaving the dying Grimm to collapse, he spun to engage two Beowolves trying to get past.
Perspiration dripped down his forehead as he crushed those Grimm too. Normally Grimm of such low calibre weren't anything to worry about, but with their airship being held together by duct tape and a prayer, even a single Grimm getting to it might just cause it all to fall apart.
"Right, right. Hey! I'm done here, is the engine running!?" Mercury called out to Grey. A few seconds later the engine sputtered to life, a rumble running through the battered hull. His smile faded when the engine died seconds later.
"Oh fucking come on!"
"You're going to die here, all of you!" Lil Miss Malachite cackled from inside her box, unable to do much other than lie than and cuss them out. During their rough landing, it'd taken quite a few bad hits and caved inwards in places, horribly mangling Lil Miss. But of course, being the persistent bitch that she was, not even having half her body crushed to a pulp was enough to end her.
"Fucking shut up!" Mercury rammed a boot into the box, bitterly cursing the decision to remove her gag to check on her. His ears were bleeding from Lil Miss's incessant whining and they were all out of duct tape to seal her lips.
"No power to the engines, possible wiring damage." Grey called out from the cockpit. A sea of amber and crimson warning lights everywhere.
"Shit, let me see that!" Mercury hurriedly ran through the diagnostics, racking his brain to come up with some kind of solution.
"Ugh… what to do, what to do, what to… overcurrent protection is fine huh… I wonder. Yo! Jaune! You got any lightning dust!"
Jaune kicked a Boarbatusk aside with a yell of frustration. Ripping off his knuckleduster, he hurled it towards Mercury. "Some left inside Awe! Hurry!"
"Aight, here we go." Mercury snatched the weapon out of the air and ripped the dust cartridge out. Tossing the empty dusters in a corner, he shook the remaining lightning dust crystals.
"Don't blow up on me now." He muttered and shoved the dust right into a control panel, sending a surge of electricity through the system. Sparks flew and several lights burst immediately but Mercury paid it no mind.
"Try the engine again!"
Grey obliged and the engines sputtered to life again. Instead of a throaty roar, they got a diseased whimper, but at least the engines didn't fizzle out again. "Engines online."
"Fuck yes!" Mercury cheered, and something immediately exploded behind him.
"Gravity stabilisers offline." Came Grey's report.
"Fuck no!" Mercury cursed, already rushing to jury rig some kind of repair.
Outside, Jaune and Emerald were doing their best to keep the Grimm at bay, tearing through the black tide with desperate urgency. Then Jaune froze up all of a sudden, only a timely save from Emerald kept him from being batted aside by an Ursa's paw.
"What's the matter with you!? Wake up!" She yelled.
Snapping out of his sudden trance, Jaune shook his head and backstepped, evading a pouncing Beowolf before bringing his heel down on its skull. He paid the dying Grimm no mind, glancing to the treeline and straining his ears to pick out that sound.
He heard Mercury cursing, the hum of the Manta's engines, Emerald's guns firing, the roar of the Grimm and…
There.
He heard it again.
The clop of a horse's hooves on stone.
"No." He whispered.
"It can't be. You cannot be serious…"
"What!? What is it!?" Emerald snapped. Jaune was shaken and Jaune Arc was never shaken.
As though summoned by her question, a demon made from shadows emerged from the trees. Bleached white bone mask with long curved horns, unholy red-gold orbs burned in empty eye sockets, a mouth that looked to be sewn shut leaked unearthly crimson light.
Body almost skeletal in appearance and covered in twisted armour plating, its humanoid appearance ended at the waist. There it was connected to another nightmarish figure, a massive Grimm horse covered in spikes and bone armour. Like its 'rider' its head was another nightmarish parody of nature, so much like an actual horse, yet so, so wrong.
Soulless glowing lights in place of eyes, a mane made out of wisps of shadow. A cruel twisted and broken horn jutting out from the centre. If ever there was an eldritch interpretation of a unicorn, Emerald was staring at it.
"W-what the hell is that?" Emerald involuntarily took a step back.
"…Nuckelavee." Jaune whispered.
"You know that thing!?" Emerald demanded.
"Killed one a few years back near Shion. Fuck me, there's more than one of the damned things…" Jaune whispered. An ear-splitting screech from the walking affront to nature made him want to claw his ears out as instinctual dread crept in.
Growling and shaking his head to clear his mind, Jaune cast his eyes about searching for any way to deal with the ancient Grimm. The fact that there were still lesser Grimm swarming about compounded the problem.
"Mercury! Get us airborne NOW!" Jaune shouted and drew his emergency sidearm. If this Nuckelavee was anywhere near as tough as the one they killed before, the pistol would do jack shit to it, but it was a comfortable weight in hand nonetheless.
"Can we kill it?" Emerald asked tersely.
"Probably, but not before it destroys the Manta. I'll engage, you keep it distracted with your semblance. It's damn near bulletproof, freakishly strong and fast, oh and it's arms can stretch bullshit far and punch through rock." Jaune replied, dragging up memories of his last fight against its brethren.
"God damn, does it have any weaknesses?" Emerald narrowed her eyes and hit the Nuckelavee with two different sets of illusion, one for each head to confuse it.
"Only one, it can't move both bodies at a time, I'll try to lock it down." Jaune grunted and sprinted right towards the Grimm, leaving Emerald to provide support and hold off the lesser Grimm.
The ancient Grimm screeched again as Emerald's semblance continued messing with its head, showing multiple copies of Jaune running around. In response, it lashed out with its stretchy limbs, swinging them outwards like twin shadowy whips and spinning its imp torso about like a top, striking at everything in range.
Jaune ducked under the incoming strikes, bobbing and weaving through the storm of unfocused attacks. As a near miss sent a spray of dirt everywhere when the Grimm's fist punched a large crater in the ground, Jaune closed into striking range.
Leaping forwards, he grabbed onto the unicornesque horn and used it to haul himself up. As expected, the Grimm began thrashing about, trying to shake off the unwanted rider it couldn't see.
Undeterred by the struggling Grimm, Jaune gripped the imp's shoulder with one hand and jammed his sidearm into the imp's eye socket. The angry screech the Nuckelavee released was nothing compared to the agonised howl of rage when Jaune squeezed the trigger, emptying the entire magazine of armour piercing bullets right into its eye.
As testament to its sheer durability, all that did was further piss it off. The Nuckelavee howled and screeched like a banshee, shaking like a mad dog in an effort to dislodge Jaune.
"Why can't you just, fucking, DIE!" Jaune roared and started bashing the imp's skull with the butt of his pistol. With one arm tied up holding on for dear life, there was no way to reload and meleeing the Grimm was the only option he had.
This wasn't going well.
The Nuckelavee was just as ridiculously tough as the one from back then. His one hope of ending it quickly with an eyeful of bullets had been dashed. If he still had Awe, he could have done another lightning overload to maybe put the Grimm down, but with it gone, the point was moot.
And just when he thought things couldn't get worse, one of the Nuckelavee's stretch arms circled back around and caught him with a lucky grab.
With a victorious screech, the Grimm ripped Jaune off its back and hurled him with all its strength towards the Manta.
Jaune hit, and he hit hard, crashing right through an already heavily damaged hull section and landing in a heap.
"Yo, what the fuck!? I just fixed that! And there was a door!" Mercury snapped and gestured to the door that was right next to the hole Jaune just punched through the ship.
"We need to leave now, or we're not leaving at all." Jaune groaned and hauled himself up. Stumbling over to the weapon rack, Jaune grabbed a rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Then he grabbed two rocket launchers and rushed over to the gaping hole in the side.
Noticing the Grimm shaking off Emerald's semblance and preparing to charge the Manta, Jaune levelled the first rocket launcher and squeezed the trigger. The launcher kicked in his hands as the rocket sailed right towards the Nuckelavee and detonated on impact sending the Grimm teetering backwards.
"Get us out of here Merc, I don't think we have the firepower to take that thing down." Jaune grunted and tossed the empty launcher aside. Grabbing the second, he took aim and fired again, this time the Nuckelavee simply slapped the rocket aside with one of its arms, detonating it mid air without doing any serious damage.
"Ehg, we can fly now but our steering is basically shot to hell. We can just about fly straight and not much else." Mercury said.
"Can it be fixed?" Jaune asked, already firing on the Grimm outside with his rifle.
"Not anymore, you just smashed through the bypass." Mercury replied.
"Fuck, never mind. Grey! Get us out of here now! Emerald, get on! We're leaving!" Jaune shouted. On cue the engines ramped up and Emerald beat a hasty retreat.
"Hey boss, if we blow up or crash, I'll haunt you." Mercury grabbed a spare rifle and joined Jaune in giving Emerald cover as the Nuckelavee and other Grimm lashed out at her, her semblance no longer disorienting them.
Slowly, the Manta began to lift off. It was a bumpy ride and even with Mercury's repairs, the airship still listed to one side where the gravity stabilisers were too badly damaged to generate enough lift. They managed to rise high enough to evade the landbound Grimm but the Nuckelavee wasn't done with them just yet.
Its arms shot out and grabbed hold of the Manta, then it pulled with all of its might. The engines strained against the sudden resistance with an audible whine as the passengers were thrown about from the sudden jerk.
"No bloody way, it's trying to pull us out of the sky!?" Mercury cursed and scrabbled to his feet. Seeing one of the Grimm's arms latched onto the door frame, he started stomping on it, trying to crush its fingers and force it to let go.
"Oh no, it's not pulling us down, it's trying to pull itself up!" Emerald paled when she noted the Nuckelavee hunching down, its powerful legs gearing up for one powerful leap.
And leap it did.
The Grimm's massive bulk crashed into the Manta, putting it into an out-of-control spin as Grey fought the controls to keep them level.
"Ahahahah! You're dead! You're all dead!" Lil Miss Malachite cackled as her box started to slide towards the Nuckelavee and the gaping hole in the side.
"Em grab her! We can't lose her here!" Jaune yelled and fired on the Grimm at point blank range. The rifle's bullets simply shattered against the bone armour or were absorbed into the Grimm's shadowy essence. All they did was further piss off the enraged Grimm.
Jaune's ducked under a punch that promptly tore a hole in the back wall and cursed. This was bad, if they didn't get the Grimm off their ship asap, it would tear the thing apart from the inside and then they were screwed.
Mercury attempted to intervene by launching several high-powered kicks right at the horse's head, firing Talaria as he went. No dice, Mercury went flying shortly after when the Nuckelavee snagged his right boot with its horn and shook him about like a rag doll.
Their ship was getting more and more battered with every passing second and the Grimm was slowly pulling itself in. If they were going to get it off, they had to do it now or die trying.
Jaune grit his teeth and ruthlessly crushed the rising tide of panic. He already killed one Nuckelavee in the past, he absolutely refused to lose his ship here. There had to be something he could use-there, a half empty crate of gravity dust crystals that Mercury had been using for repairs.
The Grimm paused in its rampage, noticing where Jaune's attention was. For a split second, no one moved. Then Jaune dove for the crate and the Nuckelavee tried to bat it away with an arm. It succeeded, partially.
The crate was promptly smashed to bits, scattering dust everywhere, allowing Jaune to snatch one. Raising it towards the Grimm, purple light glowed in his palm. "Get the fuck off my ship."
A gravitational pulse so strong it visibly distorted in the air fired from Jaune's open palm. It struck the Nuckelavee head on and pushed it back with unbelievable force, instantly squashing the horse's head and sending the Grimm hurtling away.
It tried to hold on with its hands and hooves to no avail. Instead of anchoring itself down, all it did was rip away that section of flooring as the Grimm went tumbling into space and the Manta was Grimm free again.
"Good riddance." Jaune growled, relaxing slightly once the Manta's flight levelled out and their journey back to Vale was finally underway.
"What the heck was that? How'd you do that?" Mercury asked immediately after watching the Nuckelavee crash into the ground below. He was more than a little unsettled to see the Grimm rise from the crater to glare at them with its glowing eyes.
"Dust casting. I've been practicing." Jaune rose to his feet and dusted himself off.
"Heh… well um… cool." Mercury shrugged, not really sure what to say to that.
"Hey Em, you goo- oh shit."
Emerald had managed to pull Lil Miss's crate back from the edge, but between the ship's erratic flight, the shaking caused by the Grimm and Jaune's gravity blast, the crate had taken several additional hard knocks, further mangling Lil Miss. And with Emerald right next to it, she'd ended up soaked in blood again.
She'd managed to maintain her wits and pull the crate away from the rampaging Grimm, but now that the threat had been dealt with, she was slipping back into catatonia. A rising tide of bad memories washing over her and dragging her under.
Team RRBYN advanced through the underground factory, keeping their guard up. The deeper they went, the surer they were that they were on the right path. Bullet holes, smashed up machinery and worryingly, more blood splatter.
"This place goes on forever, how did anyone set this up without anybody noticing?" Yang asked as they entered another section of the factory, one resembling a testing lab instead of more production lines.
"Nobody was looking for it." Ren replied.
"And anyone that did find the place might have been silenced. People go missing on the frontier regularly."
"I'm more worried about where the other facilities are." Blake spoke up.
"These… mech parts, they're incomplete. As they are, even if you assembled them, they can't really do much. The material is too weak, these must just be a… general frame of some kind, with the finishing touches added elsewhere."
"Someone's building an army." Ruby muttered.
"There has to be more to it. If they want a robot army, why not build normal AKs or something like that? Why weaken the mech with the uh… non-metal frame? It's not like you can have a shortage of metal if you can build all this down here." Nora gestured to the facilities around them.
"We'll leave to Winter to figure out, for now, let's focus on finding the missing soldiers." Ruby said.
Passing through several more testing labs, they started coming across the first bodies since Peter's back by the elevator. Two wore Atlesian uniforms, but the majority appeared to be civilian workers dressed in grey uniforms.
"Did… did Rust's team do this?" Ruby wondered aloud. The workers had absorbed such a ludicrous amount of firepower that they barely looked human anymore, just chunks of shredded bloody meat on the ground.
"Were they attacked by the workers? This is a ridiculous number of bullets to waste on non-combatants." Yang calmly analysed. The brief surge of anger at the massacre had faded as quickly as it arrived once the inconsistencies registered.
"Can we ID them?" She asked, nudging one of the corpses with her boot.
"Hey! Who are you people!?" A voice called out from the end of the hall. A lone Atlesian soldier stood there and he promptly raised his hands in surrender when he found five sets of weapons trained on him.
"That's our line, identify yourself." Ren called out.
"S-shit, okay, okay! Don't shoot! Sergeant Gold, 3rd Recon." He replied.
"Gold?" Ruby recalled seeing that name on the list.
"You part of Captain Rust's team?"
"…I was." Gold admitted.
"What the hell happened down here? Where is he?" Ruby pressed for answers.
"Captain went mad, dragged us all down here for no reason. Then some of them went mad, just started killing everyone. I… I ran, I don't know where he is now. But we need to get out of here before he finds us." Gold's eyes darted about, nervously searching for enemies in the shadows.
"Is that so." Ren narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Something felt fishy.
"Yeah! L-look, if you want proof, I don't have any. I-if you want to arrest me for deserting and running away, fine. Please can we get out of this place, I don't want to die down here." Gold pleaded, panic written all over his face.
"He killed them man, Dimitri, Alex, Jones… they're gone, they're all gone. I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die!"
Ren cracked a smile and stepped forwards before anyone else could say anything. The air around Gold was completely clear and that told him everything he needed to know. "Of course, we'll get you out of here. Come, this way."
Gesturing for Gold to approach, he ignored the looks his team was shooting him. Then right as Gold passed him, Ren struck. Ramming his foot into the side of Gold's knee, the bone snapped immediately and Gold collapsed.
As the Atlesian was falling, Ren promptly wrapped him up in StormFlower's binds, tying him up and keeping him from doing anything.
"Ren! What the hell!?" Yang shouted.
"No emotions." Ren said as he secured the bindings on the struggling and screaming soldier.
"Your semblance?" Blake asked.
"Yes. I couldn't see any emotions at all from this one, no panic, no fear. Therefore, he's acting." Ren replied, planting a foot on the sergeant's back to keep him down.
"Alright now, how about you tell us what's really going on. But please, resist." Yang growled and glared at the captured traitor.
"Rghhg… go to hell." Gold ceased his struggles and looked up at them hatefully. Then right before their startled eyes, he started melting from the inside, skin and muscle tissue sloughing off into a horrible mess.
"Ew, what the heck!?" Nora backed away in disgust.
Ren grimaced and detached the cables tying the dissolving corpse down, stepping away from the liquefying mess. "I've heard some black ops units and criminals use cyanide pills to avoid interrogation, but this is overkill."
"What do we do now sis?" Yang asked.
"…We continue. There's nothing we can do for Gold." Ruby averted her eyes bitterly.
"But there's still a chance Rust and the others are alive somewhere. Ren, keep a look out for anyone else lacking emotions, I don't want us getting shot in the back. Something tells me we're going to get a lot of company soon."
"Understood." Ren nodded.
Ruby's prediction turned out to be spot on. It didn't take long for them to get swarmed by 'workers' in grey uniform. Initially, they pretended to be non-combatants fleeing a massacre by Atlesian troops, but Ren's semblance cut through their lies like a hot knife through butter.
Once their cover was blown, they started attacking in force. Only a few of them had guns of their own, the others fought with metal pipes, crowbars and whatever they could get their hands on. Some even fought with nothing but their fists.
Every attempt to talk them down or suppress them with non-lethal methods failed, they simply refused to stop until met with a staggering amount of force.
"Eh, they're like machines! Why can't they just stay down!?" Yang roared and slammed her fist into a bear faunus's face, sending him flying. The man had no aura and a punch of that level of strength should have given him a concussion at the very least, taking him out of the fight. Instead, he was already getting back to his feet for another attack.
"Machines? No… don't tell me." Blake muttered as she tripped up several attackers with Gambol Shroud, taking out their footing and causing a large pileup.
"What, what is it?" Ruby asked.
"Are these people the mechs the factory is producing? If those parts were a skeleton or an inner frame…" Blake trailed off.
"…Forgive me." Ruby apologised to the nearest target to her. Swiping at the off balanced woman, she cleanly hacked off her right arm at the shoulder, causing blood to spurt everywhere. And through the deluge of crimson, she could see it, the severed wiring and mechanical parts.
Nora noticed too and a happy grin slipped onto her face. "They're not people! Ahahaha! We don't have to hold back anymore!"
"Nora wait!" Yang called out but it was too late. Nora had already waded into the scrum, swinging Magnhild every which way and sending bodies flying with sickening crunches.
"Still no panic, fear, or anger. Machines, all of them." Ren concurred with Nora's assessment and started striking with the edge of his weapons instead of the flat end. But unlike Nora's blunt force trauma, he went for more surgical strikes, removing limbs instead to leave something for possible interrogation or research.
"Ugh… fine! I'll trust you all. Oh god this feels so wrong." Yang grunted and stopped holding back as well. So much blood everywhere, even as a veteran huntress it was enough to fill her with unease. Machine or not, they looked human enough to give her pause.
Blake kept silent even as she demolished the disguised mechs attacking her. The ramifications of this discovery were overwhelming and her mind was already lost to imagining the worst-case scenarios. Mechs that looked like everyone else, if this factory was producing them by the truckload, then how many had already been finished? How many were already out in Remnant, hidden among the populace? Invisible assassins, a sleeper army, this was one hell of a problem.
Blake's ears twitched as she heard more gunfire in the distance, gunfire that was getting closer. Shouting a warning to her friends, she vaulted over the mechs, slashing at them with Gambol Shroud to clear a path.
Activating her semblance, she created a clone of herself and sent it charging towards the exit. As soon as it reached the doors, it was immediately gunned down by a hail of bullets and she could hear cursing from the shooters.
"What the!? Where'd she go!?"
"Eyes peeled, I don't want us getting ambushed again!"
"Yes sir!"
"Company!" Blake shouted.
With no place to hide or take cover in the lab, Team RRBYN stood their ground and finished off the remaining mechs. To their surprise, it wasn't a group of armed bad guys rushing them head on but a four-man squad of haggard Atlesian troops.
The leader's eyes widened in surprise upon spotting them and came to an abrupt halt. "Stop right there, criminal scum! Hands where I can see em!"
"They're human." Ren called out before any of them could start shooting.
"What?" Ruby sputtered as she found several rifles being pointed towards them.
"Wait! Wait! General Winter sent us! Nobody shoot!" She called out before anyone could start an unnecessary brawl.
"General Schnee? Haaah? You think I was born yesterday? You're not even in uniform!" The apparent leader, a man with greying hair and an impressive moustache and beard combo, continued aiming his rifle at them.
"We're freelancers and… Captain Rust? Is that you?" Ruby blinked, the man's features definitely matched their briefing.
"Maybe. Who wants to know?" Rust narrowed his eyes in distrust.
Ruby sucked in a deep breath. So far no one had started shooting, a good sign even if both the Atlesians and her team were on edge. "I'm Ruby Rose, leader of Team RRBYN. We're… we're here to rescue your team actually. You went missing a few days ago and they found your dropship. Look, I have a token from Winter here."
Ruby slowly reached into a pocket and retrieved a small token designating them as Atlesian military contractors. Rust took one look at it and snorted. "Yeah well, that don't count for much around here missy. I don't trust you, Durandal, check em."
Before any member of Team RRYBN could protest, several barks came from behind Captain Rust and an adorable beagle dressed in a tiny Atlesian coat jumped out from behind Rust, padding over to them slowly.
Blake resisted the urge to hiss at the dog as it started sniffing around them. The situation stank but any protest from them would probably lead to one big friendly fire disaster.
"Woof!" The beagle barked happily after inspecting them all and returned to its master's side.
"Good boy." Rust lowered his weapon and gestured for his men to do the same. Kneeling down he gave his beagle several ear scritches and belly rubs.
"Huh, you're all human. That's good, can't be sure if you're actually working with the general but at least you're not one of those freaks." Rust said.
"Freaks!? Oh, you wanna say that again?" Yang growled and her eyes flared red.
Rust looked up in confusion before noticing Blake's ears. "Not that! I mean this uh… oh, you're already acquainted."
He glanced at the bodies scattered all over the floor. The mechanical parts clearly visible on some of them.
"Uh sir? We kind of need to get out of here right now." One of Rust's men piped up.
"Haaah… shit. Alright RRBYN, if you're really working for General Schnee and not for… not for whoever's behind this mess, then we need to get the fuck out of here now. This place is going to self-destruct soon and I refuse to have this place be our graves." Rust said.
"Self-destruct? What do you mea-" Ruby began but Rust interrupted her.
"No time, I'm not sticking around down here. You want an explanation, you get it upstairs." On cue, the place started shaking and they could hear the distant 'whump' of explosives going off.
"Move like you got a purpose people! Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Rust ordered and the surviving members of his team beat feet, rushing past the stunned members of Team RRBYN. As more explosions sounded in the distance and the tremors grew stronger, the five of them quickly shot off in pursuit of Rust.
"Come on, come on, come on, move faster damn it!" Rust groaned as the elevator took its own sweet time rising. Dust and little rocks were falling from the ceiling and cracks were forming in the walls. Then to the Atlesian's despair, the elevator came to a jarring halt, trapping them in the shaft.
"Are you fucking kidding me!?" Rust screamed in frustration.
"Nine of us here… whoo, I can do this." Ruby slapped her cheeks to pump herself up.
"Everyone gather round, I'll get us out of here with my semblance."
"You can do that?" Rust glanced at her, not daring to hope.
"I can, but it's going to be rough." Ruby nodded.
"Alright I'll trust you, gather round boys. We're dead if this doesn't work anyways." Rust acquiesced and the nine of them bunched up.
Ruby sucked in a deep breath and activated her semblance, enveloping all of them before shooting towards the surface. Bypassing the collapsing rocks and debris, she rocketed towards the exit, emerging from the destroyed blast doors just seconds before the entire mine collapsed in on itself.
Ruby released them from her semblance and stood there, breathing hard, a brilliant smile on her face as she inspected all of them. No one left behind, she'd gotten them all out in time.
"Ugh… I hate it when we do that." Blake complained, fighting down the surge of nausea.
"Heh, that was some trick Ms Rose. Thanks for getting my boys out of there." Rust offered a nod of gratitude.
"Now, I don't suppose you have a ride back to Atlas we can catch?"
"Ren?" Ruby looked over.
"Dropship's already on its way." Ren displayed his scroll.
"So, can we have an explanation now?" Yang asked.
"Haaah… sure, why not. You deserve some answers at least." Rust sighed.
"It's a bit of a long story."
Author's notes: Team RRBYN (Ribbon) if anyone wanted to know, formed after Jaune, Weiss and Pyrrha were out. Saw a review about Chronos being a reference to Katana Zero, it wasn't intentional. Chronos was inspired by Slo-Mo from the 2012 Judge Dredd movie. But now that I'm aware of it, yeah, Katana Zero's Chronos is probably a better fit than Slo-Mo. Also, if it's not obvious already, this fic takes a lot of inspiration from various cyberpunk works.