legions of remenent
A.N: this is my first fic so don't expect some work of art. i may also never finish a proper story so this will also be just some snips. i'll explain some of the lore at the end of the chapter. also most of the main character will probably be ooc so don't come in expecting ruby to be a happy go lucky hyper little girl. most of the characters will also be aged up a 4 years.
knowledge of warhammer 30k and 40k is useful and will help but isn't truly needed
disclaimer: i don't own rwby or warhammer.
- chapter 1
Ruby glared out over the field or corpses and snow. there were dead grimm stacked high into the sky spewing black smoke into the dawn sky casting the world in a smokey read heugh. there were other corpses too. dozens of bodies of her brothers, sisters and cousins scattered around the battlefield like gemstones among coals. most were in the dull light green of the deathguard or the burnished iron and gold of the iron warriors. further out where the fighting was thickest the contingent of grimm eaters were almost all dead. only their champion was alive.
she was snapped out of her grim thoughts by a black armored hand on her pauldron. she turned "what happened ren?" she asked "this was only the first wave. we should have been able to hold the line how the hell did they break our lines?". ren dropped his hand from her shoulder and looked down at the broken powersword in his hand. "the most emperors children abandoned us." he replied with a sneer whilst leaning down to take a new powersword from a dead iron warrior at their feat. "only one squad of kakophoni stayed to fight."
Ruby eyed him before looked down at the manreaper in her hands. ren was clad in a set of mark IV power armor painted with the old livery of the dark angels. this marked him as one of the so called fallen, dark angels who had seen the glory of the true gods and come to stand at the bastion gates. ren wasn't like other fallen though, he had been slated to join the alpha legion but a study of his genetics showed he'ed be a perfect match for first legion geneseed. on his hips were a pair of modified plasma pistols with heat resistant bayonets and laser sights.
"how many of us are left?" ruby snarled her question. the anger in her voice surprised ren. ruby was usually rather jovial what he had just said must have struck a nerve. "three full tactical squads of iron warriors remain along with the remnants of 3 squads and a squad of iron havocs however their captain was killed by a ancient nevermore. i and 3 of my siblings survived the wave and are ready to fight." ren turned to look over the field again observing the marines that were putting those that couldn't be saved out of their misery and collecting geneseed."the kakophoni that stayed are all alive and eager for the next wave. were having a hard time keeping them in line. champion pyrrha is the only one of the grimm eaters to survive their charge. blake an-"
"me and my night raptors lost about half our number." blake interrupted, catching both ren and ruby by surprise. blake glanced at ruby before looking past her "almost all of the deathguard are dead only 13 survived..." blake trailed of.
ruby growled and pulled her hood further down over her helmeted head. she took a few moments to calm down and then looked up at blake. she was wearing a set of corvus armor in the colors of the nightlords with a cape of grimm skin. under one arm she had her winged skull faced helmet and in her other hand she held a chainglaive. her pale face had a nervous smile she was also fidgeting and spinning up the turbines in her jump pack , obviously nervous and waiting for orders.
ruby turned towards the defensive lines, her dirty red cape swishing around her feat, and gave the ruined bunker line a apprising look. the pillboxes were mostly collapsed or tore open and the main bunkers were all ruins. one even had a death stalker half buried inside with the kakophoni squad surrounding it slowly torturing the abomination to death.
ruby started towards a large stone slab, blake and ren trailing behind her, that had been ripped off of a bunker whilst opening her vox. "everyone gather up on me we need to plan our defense from the next wave." ruby called firmly over the vox "that includes you emperors children kill the beast and come here." there were affirmations over the vox and the legionaries began to gather as the kakophani's tortuous song reached a crescendo and the deathstalker exploded in a shower of gore and exoskeleton fragments.
"we can't stay here" ruby stated looking around at the gathered astrartes "the defenses are in ruins we need to make a decision on to stand against the next wave."
"we should fall back." one of the night raptors called out "if this position in untenable we should abandon it and retake it later." there were mutters of agreement. blake opened her mouth to denounce that suggestion before she was interrupted by pyrrha punching the fool in the face and cracking his helm.
"foolish craven" pyrrha spat whilst moving to the slab "there's fifteen miles to the next defensive line. we'll be overrun by the grimm before we make it to them." she removed her helm and brought her hands up to her face before pushing on pressure points in her head to relive the pain the nails were inducing. she relaxed so it must have worked. "besides if we abandon this position we'll probably be subject to decimation." pyrhha glared at the raptor before hopping up to sit on the stone slab. she started fiddling with her ornate stormshield made to look like a old hoplite shield from mantels distant past. supposedly she was delvarus come again but ruby didn't truly believe it.
"so we can't fall back and this position is untenable." blake sighed. she was replacing the chain of teeth on her chain glaive. "what do we do then?" no one said anything for a short while. some legionaries looked around at the battle field and the walls of the immense canyon they were in. others counted their ammo or replaced chains of teeth in their chain weapons like blake was. most were looking at their respective sergeants and captains for guidence.
the leader of the kakophoni stepped forward with her helm under her arm and her power sword held loosely in her right hand. "we should move forward to the gully." she stated in a voice that warbled strangely. "its the narrowest point in this part of the canyon and the gully will be a natural impediment and there is a sharp rise a few meters from the bank the havocs, tacticals and my kakophoni can stand at the top and shoot over the heads of whoever will hold the gully." everyone looked at her and began weighing up the strategy.
"that could work." ruby mumbled whilst pulling out her plague knife and resting her manreaper against the side of the slab. she handed the knife to the noise marine sergeant "carve a map onto this slab coco?" ruby asked. coco smiled and nodded whilst putting her helmet on the slab and took the knife before starting to carve. pyrrha hopped of the table and blake, ren, the sergeants and lieutenants that survived gathered around. most of them removed their helms and put them on the improvised table. blake smirked at coco "try not to draw any porn on it" blake joked, coco snapped her head up and glared at her "i know you degenerates have a fascination with it." a couple of marines chuckled.
coco smiled sweetly and activated the doomsiren on her back sending a blast of ultrasound. most of the faunus marines flinched back from catching the edge of the sonic attack but blake caught the full brunt of it and the night lord dropped to the ground and writhed in agony. coco deactivated her doom siren and replied "i'm more of a music woman myself." she grinned at blake as many of the marines laughed at the antics.
blake held up her hand and gasped "point taken."
"enough fun" ruby snapped as she helped blake to her feet "we need to plan how we'll do this." she looked around at the gathered legionaries "we know the basic plan. we hold the rise and use the gully as a trench to slow the grimm's charge. and..." ruby hesitated before continuing" and i can call in a favor to turn the stream water into a toxic acid at the cost of some geneseed." some of the gathered sergeants shuffled and some of the iron warriors looked disgusted.
"me and my raptors will stand with the deathguard on the river bank." blake spoke up with a savage smile "it'll be good to get stuck into a proper fight." a couple of the raptors behind her started cheering.
"WHY ARE WE NOT VOXING FOR SUPPORT!?" one of the youngest iron warriors yelled pushing his way to the improvised war table. "WHY SHOULD WE MOVE FORWARD TO OUR DEATH WHEN WE CA-" he was interrupted by a punch to the face from pyrrha that knocked him to the ground who quickly jumped on him and started wailing on him. no one moved to help him. eventually ruby pulled pyrrha off of the poor bastard.
"since some of you clearly don't know why we can't vox for help without a landline!" ruby shouted picking up her manreaper and pointing its head down the canyon and at the black mountain in the distance. "do you see that mountain in the distance with the black clouds swirling around it. THAT is the biggest nest of grimm to ever exist and in that nest is something that block long range vox from the mountain all the way up to the abyssal gate!" the younger legionaries started muttering whilst the older warriors were silent. "now this is what were going to do! Ren, Pyrrha and blake you and your forces will stand with me and my siblings at the bottom of the rise!" the mentioned astartes stood to attention and blake laughed.
"we'll make the river run its banks with blood!" she laughed along with her siblings.
ruby turned to the iron warriors "deimos! you and your iron havocs will dig in at the top of the rise and rain hell upon them! velvet you and your siblings will dig in half way up the rise. you'll support us at the river bank, kill as many of them as you can before they reach the gully!" as one they held their hand over their primary hearts in salute.
"it will be done!" shouted deimos. "we'll focus on anything with heavy armor!" he hefted his autocannon and went to count the ammo they had. ruby nodded.
"we won't fall back until were all dead captain!" velvet called before grabbing her helmet and turning around to organise the remnants of the broken squads under her command. ruby liked the rabbit faunus, she was fun to hang out with but when combat came she was very serious and suffered no insolence.
finally ruby turned to coco "coco you and your noise marines will be dispersed among the tactical marines. keep any grimm that get past us from reaching the second line." coco laughed a grating laugh and gave a slight bow "our symphony will shatter their minds and rend their flesh!" she replied before putting her helmet back on.
ruby smiled at her before turning to blake "who is your weakest warrior?" she asked. blake turned to the raptor who had been punched by pyrrha earlier before turning back to ruby. "send him back to the second defensive line. they must know the truth of what happened here." blake nodded before turning to do as told whilst putting her helmet on.
as ruby turned away ren spoke up "what about the wounded that could survive? what do we do with them?" he asked "we can't take them with us and if we fall the'll be massacred when the grimm over run this position."
"give them grenades so they can take grimm with them when they die." pyrrha spoke whilst looking down at her daemon spear. she glanced up at them "let them drag some grimm with them when they enter the warp." ruby thought on this for a moment before giving the grenades on her bandoleer to pyrrha.
"see that they have at least one grenade each." ruby commanded before turning to ren "loot as much ammo as you can. we'll need it more than the dead." both ren and pyrrha saluted before going to complete their assigned tasks. as they walked away ruby turned to the east and the place they were going to make their stand. she smiled at the rising sun, it reminded her of her sister's hair. it was the only detail she could remember of her sister, that and her purple eyes, everything else was a blur. supposedly she was a lieutenant in the white scars hunting grimm down in vacuo, she new she should care but honestly she didn't truly see her as a sibling more of a distant presence like her mother. something she should care about more but really couldn't bring her self to. at least her mother left her the cloak she wore even now.
deimos walked up next to her a few minutes later. "we've gathered all the supplies we can carry." deimos informed her "we have to move now if we want to get there and have time to dig in before the vanguard of the next wave hit us."
ruby turned her head to look at him "do you think we will survive?" she asked. her voice had a odd inflection to it, almost like a kind of melancholy. it unnerved deimos.
"we'll crush the vanguard but the main horde?" deimos looked back at the mountain in the distance "unless whatever you plan to do with the river is as effective as i hope it'll be you'll be ground down along with the others on the river bank and the rest of us..." he trailed off.
ruby turned back to the mountain "it will be." she replied "it has to be." ruby closed her eyes for a second. "lets go we have a battle to win." she called out for everyone to begin the march to the gully as blake and ren fell in behind her as they began to march.
yang smiled down at the beowolfs skull in her hands whilst leaning back on her jetbike. it was a rare and valuable trophy and normally she would have to give it to the leader of the hunt but not this time. she had lead this hunt and the skull was her trophy. the reason it was so valuable was because most of the time grimm didn't leave anything behind when they died they left nothing behind but on rare occasions. skin was what was left most of the time but rarely bones were left behind and rarer still were skulls. yang traced the red lines of the skull down its cheeks with her thumbs. while it wold make a fine trophy yang had other plans for the skull. all she had to do was wait for her contact to arrive.
she was shook from her thoughts by the crunching of boots on sand and when she looked up jaune was casually walking up to her. "SISTER YANG!" the salamander yelled happily whilst holding his arms out to th side and a little above his head "the hunt went well. there were no deaths and many grimm were slain this day!" he pulled of his helm and mag-locked it to his waist. "and i see you have a fine trophy yourself!" he gestured to the skull in her hands with a smile.
juane was strange for a salamander. it wasn't that he was cruel or anything like that, if anything he was too kind and chivalrous, it was the fact that his skin and hair hadn't darkened to a coal black color like almost all of his siblings. this was due to the organ that controlled the pigmentation of his skin and hair not forming properly and having to be removed before it could start darkening his skin tone.
yang smiled at him and replied "this won't be a trophy." she looked down at where the small multi legion strike force were gathering any remnants of the grimm. "im going to trade it to a magos for a tank or something. it depends on what he offers."
jaune tilted his head in confusion "why? would it not be more be prestigious to keep it for yourself or gift it to one of your superiors?"
yang glanced back a him before returning her gaze to where nora was annoying weiss about being a sorceress "a tank is more useful than a pleased superior. and besides" yang started to walk towards the gathered legionaries "my friend at the bastion gates say things are getting bad up there. i intend to trade it for a predator tank to send to the death guard."
"your sister?" jaune asked glancing at her again. yangs only reply was a nod.
as yang and jaune moved closer to the gathered warriors they could hear weiss and nora bickering with each other about who killed more grimm and weather fighting with a blade or magic was more efficient when killing grimm.
as she opened her mouth to speak yang got two messages sent to her helm. one came from magos pietro and another was from yatsuhashi.
yang opened the message from pierto first. it was curt with no unneeded words. it stated that he had arrived a the base of operations and would wait for a month for her to find and bring him a skull. if it wasn't brought to him before a month he would return to his forge temple and it would be up to her to bring it to him. "reasonable" yang thought with a slight grin.
the grin was quickly wiped of his face when she read yatsuhashi's message. yang swallowed her sigh and called out to the gathered legionaries. "brothers! sisters! i have good news and bad news!" everyone was quick to gather round to hear the news. "the good news is that the magos has arrived at base. if you want to buy or sell anything now is the time to do so." there were cheers from a few legionaries others clapped and most started muttering to each other in excitement. yang raised her hand for silence "the bad news is this. yatsuhashi and his force were ambushed by the sons of horus!" the mood soured instantly and before people could start yelling about vengance yang cut in "they killed all the sons of horus that ambushed them but most of yatsuhashi's team was killed. only him, drogo and fox survived." the mood calmed slightly at word of the sons of horus's deaths and quieted the mutterings. "get the loot in the transports. we'll divvy up the loot when we get back to base." at this command everyone gathered up the loot and piling into the razorback transports or, in the case of the white scars, onto their jetbikes and landspeeders and began the long ride to their base camp.
blake stood on at the top of the rise looking down at where ruby was doing her ritual. the slight green miasma that usually surrounded the deathguard legionnaire had thickened when she had knelt begun chanting in the daemon tong. gathered in a circle around her chanting supplications to their disease riddled god were ruby's sibling and at her side stood a true plague marine apothecary named Vrok who, unlike most of his younger kin, was heavily mutated. the veteran of the long war had mantis like blade arms that dripped noxious slime jutting out from his side below his human arms, flesh and tendrils bulged from the joints in his armor and across his bloated belly plate was a fanged maw, blood and puss oozed from the joints and opening in his armor. in his left hand ,the same arm which was armed with a narthecium, he held some gene-seed capsuals.
blake looked away as the chanting reached a crescendo. it hurt to look at the ritual, even more so when their chanting increased in volume. even with her admittedly weak psychic abilities guarding her mind from the caustic words her mind still felt like it was having something caustic dripped onto it.
blake looked around at the astartes digging in around her. even coco squad were helping to dig in. herself, ren , deimos and velvet were overseeing the digging of ditches. whoever when she looked further up the rise she saw pyrrha and a noise marine with a blast master staring out down the canyon towards where the vanguard of the horde was coming from. pyrrha was looking through a set of magnoculars and seemed to be having a quiet argument with the marine at her side. blake started up the rise to see what they were arguing about.
as she was making her way up the slope her mind was suddenly wracked by visions. most were meaningless words but two were very important. both showed a alpha beringel charging down the canyon at them but in one it showed pyrrha telling the noise marine at her side not to worrie about it and that she would handle it but when pyrrha confronted the beringel it quickly overwhelmed her with its strength and speed before tearing apart the rest of the marines whilst in the other pyrrha told the noise marine to kill the beringel however all it did was drive it into a pain fulled rage and when it struck the defensive line blake herself stood against it and after a few dodges blake used her chainglaive to carve its Achilles tendon apart but was backhanded into a crumbled part of the canyon wall but the beast was blindsided by vrok and drowned in the toxic sludge filled gully. as the visions faded she heard a faint voice talking about assassins and vindication.
when she came out of the vision induce seizure and was able to see she was met with a rather alarming sight. the noise marine that was with pyrrha had removed her and blakes helms and was leaning down to give mouth to mouth. from her position on the ground blake could easily see into the noise marines and could see her long serpent like tong that was covered in a pink tinted liquid in her mouth. blakes first reaction, and probably only reasonable reaction, was to punch the degenerate in the teeth knocking her on her ass.
"she's fine!" said deimos from further down the slope "get back to digging!" most of the gathered legionaries did but the two night raptors that had took notice and came over closed ranks around her pushing pyrrha back slightly.
"what did you see sister?" one of them asked.
blake ignored him and turned to the noise marine that she had punched. "you. what is your name noise marine?"
"my name is sona." was the reply she got from the astartes as sona sat upright. her voice was strangely ethereal
"you will kill the beringel." everyone around her looked at her is surprise. after a moment of shock pyrrha started to object but blake interrupted her "you stand no chance in combat against the beast pyrrha. we both know it to be true. sona. you will kill the beringel."
"i dont think i can kill it at this range before it make it to the gully." sona responded in her strange voice. "not with my blast master anyway."
"that's fine." blake said whilst standing up "if you can't kill it before it reaches the front i'll confront the beast." she held out her hand to sona who took it and was pulled to her feat. sona nodded and moved further up the rise. as blake put her helmet on and turned to march down the slope pyrrha spoke up.
"you had visions didn't you." blake turned back to look at her surprised at the question. she had expected anger at being denied a battle with the alpha beringel not a question about her curse.
"what?" she asked with a tilt of her head.
"just then. you saw something. my defeat at the hands of the abomination." pyrrha replied with a strained voice. at the top of the rise next to a iron havoc sona let rip with her blast master and sent a continuous blast of sound at the beringel.
"yes i did." blake nodded. she moved closer to pyrrha but she jerked away from blake.
"don't." she snapped "the damned ritual is making the nails bite hard." blake took a step back and nodded.
"the grimm will be here soon. you can slake the nail's thirst for violence then." as she finished her words there was a sound like rushing water. both women turned to look down at the gully and were both just in time to see the gully fill up to the brim with with a fetid hissing sludge. vrok was no longer holding the gene-seed containers and from the way ruby looked to be comforting him it seemed he was upset at the loss of the invaluable substance.
"everyone into positions!" deimos yelled over the vox. "we only have 5 minutes to prepare for the vanguard." pyrrha nodded at blake and together they started down the slope towards their places at the gully bank.
A.N: just so you know manreapers a just power scythes and butchers nails are brain implants that drive the implanted subject to violence and release dopamine when fighting. they are also agrivated by psychers.
aura will still be a thing but im leaning towards astartes not having a semblence. (being a psychic isn't the same as a semblance but they are related and only astartes can be truly strong psychers.)
most of the youngest (16-24 years old) legionaries of the traitor legions aren't anywhere near as mutated as the older legionaries
as for the ages of the characters be just four years older than cannon as for the ocs:
deimos is 27
sona is 17
vrok is 183
drogo is 49
3 more ocs will be added next chapter after wich ill start writeing shorts. hopefully
legionaries don't age anywhere near as fast as a normal human so drogo looks to be in his late 20s.
few legions will have different names:
world eater = grimm eaters
space wolves = war wolves
the horus heresy happened a few thousand years ago and the grimm destroyed most of the cities in remnant