Did you ever want RWBY but with Mechs instead of Mechashift? Have you ever wanted to see the characters of RWBY through the cracked looking glass that is the 41st Millennium? Well look no further friends, because I think I have just the thing for you. This is my proof of concept chapter, and in any other format this would be the prologue, but I'll be calling it Chapter 1 for ease of counting. REVISED

She rolled quietly in the void. In life she had been a goddess of wrath. Destruction incarnate. She had sailed the void at the head of the largest armadas in the memory of mankind, if there had been men to remember her. Her cannons had been the end of days, her sensors had been the eyes of the God-Emperor. In life she had been a cathedral to war. In life she had been a beacon to the righteous and a hammer of wrath. In death she was a memorial to arrogance. A reminder that the strength of men had long since waned. A grim tomb for hope and progress.

She was an immense hulk drifting through the cold dark of the void. Her mighty bulk turned, trapped forever in the momentum of her deathblow. Her hull, three miles of the finest adamantine, was riddled with craters. Scored and pockmarked by weapons of apocalyptic fury. Her great cathedral spires were bent and dulled after three thousand years of drifting on the currents of space. Ranks of angels sat watch over the mouths of her cannon, each crumbling and featureless. Her prow, a great ram as was so common on imperial ships, was dull and blunted. Her engines, which had once roared their defiance against mankind's decay, sat cold, her reactors frozen and dark. Along her spine was a great rift, it stretched from prow to stern, a canyon of rent metal, scorched black and torn asunder by a blow of world ending proportions. A fatal blow. As if the blade of a titan had swept down and struck her from the heavens, forever dooming her to tumble, aimless, through the clutching black.

But there! Racing along her flank was something unexpected.

Warmth. Life. Hope.

Qrow Branwen sped along the hull of the ancient warship. He had found it. He had actually found it. This was the find of a lifetime.

No. Of lifetimes. Of millennia.

He banked around the pitted maw of a macrocannon and poured speed into his fighter as his heart soared. He had done it! He had done it! He was certain Ozpin had sent him on another snipe hunt. Another journey full of pointless wandering and disappointing endings. But here it was. Here she was. Right beneath him was something that he had spent his life hunting!

That Ozpin had spent his life hunting, which was something considerable.

Qrow pushed the Harbinger to even greater heights of speed and pulled away to get a good look at the wound on the old warships back. The Harbinger was a very special ship. She was a Scythe-class fighter, the only one of her kind. Equipped with her own Warp drive and Gellar field, something that no other ship her size had, at least as far as Qrow knew. She was perfect for extended scouting ops, which was all Qrow ever really got the chance to run these days. For a fighter she had a rather large profile, something more akin to a gunship, which made her an easy target in a dogfight. A fact that was always on the edge of Qrow's mind. To make up for that he had spent an extensive amount of time tinkering with her and fine tuning her strong points. One of which he brought to bear now. Speed.

He burned into the black, soaring over his find. His engines howled in victory, or they would, if he could hear them. The cockpit was silent. The only sign of his victory was the small smile he allowed himself. He couldn't get ahead of himself. He had to rein it in. After all, he wasn't sure yet. The warship alone was a monumental find, but he had to be certain. He had to be sure she could be saved. He had to make sure she was the right ship. And most of all he had to be sure he could make it back to Ozpin. His semblance made being a pilot extraordinarily difficult.

Qrow wasn't technically a psyker. Psykers could draw power from the warp and accomplish things people of the past would associate with wizardry. Psykers were born or had their connection with the warp unlocked naturally at some point during the course of their life. Due to their close bond to the realm of daemons, psykers tended to have a short lifespan, usually ending with insanity and possession if they were lucky, or in bloody service to the Imperium if they weren't. Qrow was an entirely different breed. A Huntsman. He was a normal man, up to a point. His soul had been unlocked by Ozpin, but it wasn't bound to the Warp in the same way that a psyker's was. In the same vein, he didn't have the same unbound potential as a psyker.

What he had instead was a semblance. Every huntsman or huntress got one, and only one. Unfortunately for Qrow, he had rolled poorly. He wasn't sure if a semblance was determined randomly or if it was truly a reflection of one's soul, but whatever it was he certainly wasn't lucky when it manifested. Semblances were, traditionally, a boon. As if to spite him for his poor treatment of it, Qrow's soul had given him a curse. The purest reflection of his soul was that at the worst possible moment if there was anything that could go wrong for him, it would go wrong for him. Naturally he was the pilot of an experimental ship that could travel back and forth between what could be gently described as Hell.

He was certain that his semblance was involved in that somehow.

Qrow soared along the rift. To his eye it didn't look like anything irreplaceable had been hit, though he wasn't exactly an expert on starship mechanics. Honestly, he couldn't really get what he needed from a surface. He had to go inside. He had to be certain. If he left something to chance, he was certain it would go poorly for him. This little fact of life meant that Qrow, despite his unshaved exterior approached a situation only when he was certain of the outcome. That didn't mean that he couldn't go off half-cocked. He did.

Often.

But not for lack of care on his part. Qrow went in with every angle he could cover, covered. But he had to contend, ultimately, against himself. Always in the worst possible way. Which meant that he failed.

Often.

But he was still alive, and he usually got results. Which was why Ozpin relied on him so much despite his handicap. And with a situation like the one he was in now he was going to leave nothing to chance.

Qrow brought the Harbinger to a halt and matched the rotation of the great ship.

Nothing to chance.

He sent out an in-depth sensor ping into the great ship. There was no sense in hiding his presence out here, he was the only living thing for light-years out here in the void between systems.

No life. Radiation was heavy, but nothing his suit couldn't protect him from, and more importantly not so heavy that hardened memory banks would decay. It was perfect, or as perfect as a wrecked hulk drifting in the most hostile environment known to man, in this dimension, could be.

Qrow hummed with suspicion. Auspex wasn't picking up anything around. He couldn't see anything, and there shouldn't be anything out here anyway.

He hummed again. He tapped the auspex screen, hoping it would tell him that his sensors were malfunctioning. He drummed his fingers on the yoke. He hummed. He sighed. He couldn't really do more from out here and he was having a hard time restraining his excitement as it was. He needed to get on with it, every second he wasted gave something a chance to go wrong.

Qrow nudged the Harbinger forward, gently easing himself into the great rift. Debris softly plinked off of his armorglass viewscreen as he carefully entered the interior of the wounded warship. He needed to find an intact corridor and make his way to the ships battle-bridge. There he should be able to find everything he needed. He couldn't depend on the ships bridge having power, or even being intact, but he was certain that on this class of warship the battle-bridge had its own reactor, and if the specs he was looking at on his HUD were anything to go by, it shouldn't be depleted quite yet.

Convenient. Qrow hummed with the suspicion of a man who knew with absolute certainty that what could go wrong would go wrong.

He flicked on his floodlights and was greeted by a uniformed corpse drifting gently in the vacuum. Bodies didn't really rot in the void, internals would break down until the corpse sprung a gas leak, but external features generally remained untouched, at first. Prolonged exposure to the void sapped liquids from the body and discolored everything else, creating what veteran voidsmen called 'wraiths.' Qrow looked into the ghostly features of what had probably been a female officer a few thousand years ago. She was little more than a huddled mummy. Her hair floated in a great discolored mass and her hands clutched a rebreathing system, too little too late.

Qrow hated this part. He had dug his way through a fair share of hulks, and honestly the wraiths had stopped bothering him a while back, it was the bodies at the heart of the ship that he dreaded. Some of them seemed to be completely unaffected by the passage of time, they could have died seconds before he opened the door for all he knew. He hated finding those. Wraiths weren't really human, as far as he was concerned, but those bodies. Those reminded him all too keenly of his own mortality and the dangers of his chosen occupation.

"Aha." Qrow spotted his entry point. The spinal freight corridor. It ran the length of the ship and was connected to all the other major corridors and lifts; it should get him to exactly where he wanted to go. And, better yet, it was cavernous, he didn't have to abandon the Harbinger yet.

He eased his way down the massive corridor, sending debris and wraiths spinning gently into the walls and ceiling. He saw signs of conflict among the bodies; mixed uniforms, las burns on the walls and floor, destroyed crates and sundered bodies. As he moved, he tracked a battle that had taken place three thousand years ago.

She had been boarded, that much was obvious. The defenders had fought from behind boarding shields and makeshift barricades. The attackers hadn't needed to follow such niceties. They had been Space Marines. Demigods of war. Genetically engineered superhumans.

Monsters.

They fought from inside great suits of ceramite plate. Nearly impervious to any man-portable weapons that could be brought to bear within the tight corridors of a voidship. And they used weapons that could annihilate several armored men in a single shot. Once they had been the God-Emperor's greatest tool. They had united mankind beneath His great banner. Then they had turned against Him and had broken everything He had wrought. Some had stayed loyal, many had turned against Him, and by extension humanity. Here were the actions of traitors.

Here they had marched forward and ground the armsmen of this warship into bloody meat, there the defenders had made their stand, there they had broken and rallied. Qrow watched the epitaph of violence, unmoved for so many thousands of years, tell its tale. The armsmen had stopped them. He wasn't certain how, but they had forced the marines to a halt and ground them down. These men and women, armed with nothing more than faith and copious amounts of laser fire, had turned back the greatest marvels humanity had ever wrought. Qrow looked up at the massive rift running down the ship's spine.

He could only assume that the Marines had been poor losers.

Qrow quietly cursed. Ahead of him was an impressive pileup of crates, corpses and ordinance. It stretched from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. He couldn't push through it, not without risking his ship and his life. He grounded Harbinger and maglocked her to the deck. He carefully decoupled the warpdrive and completely shut down the engines. There could be no mistakes.

Qrow put on his suit piece by piece, checking each of his seals and armor plates as he fixed them into place. He had time after all. He could afford to be a little cautious. Living under the Sword of Damocles that was his semblance meant that Qrow had to walk a very thin line between, "just get it over with" and "be prepared for anything." He dealt with it by carefully managing his time. When there were a lot of moving parts, he acted quickly, instantly even. When things slowed down, he took his time. He knew it was all going to go wrong, but there had to be points when everything was less likely to go wrong.

Right?

It was best not to really think about it too hard.

Qrow pulled his helmet into place and went over his seals one more time. His exosuit was a gray suit of carapace armor fixed to a jet-black body glove. His helmet was an armorglass bubble with attached cameras, flashlight, and soft blue heads up display. Qrow liked to see what was coming. And he figured that if something was going to land a headshot, a little more armor probably wasn't going to save him. So he'd rather see them coming than give them the chance.

He kept a boarding shotgun across his back, a short power-sword at his side, and three flash-bangs on his belt. Ideally, he'd face any prospective enemies in Harbinger, but on the off chance that he had to fight in the claustrophobic corridors of a warpship, he'd rather have something that couldn't really miss. And something else that didn't take a lot of elbowroom to use.

Qrow checked his seals and oxygen levels one last time before he cycled the airlock and stepped out into the vacuum.

There was something solid about being in a starfighter. Maybe it was the cool rush of air against your skin, or the feel of power emanating from the pedals. Maybe it was the ability to simply fly away from danger. Whatever it was it was wholly absent in his exosuit. Qrow was all too aware of the airless void centimeters away from his skin.

He tried not to think about it.

"Alright." He said to himself, more to challenge the silence than anything.

"Battle-Bridge…" He stopped and consulted the schematics that his helmet helpfully displayed in front of him, "Dead center of the ship, Deck 250-A." He sighed and reached for his flask, forgetting the myriad of reasons he shouldn't, and couldn't, take a drink right now. He sighed again "It's gonna be a long walk."

/-/

Qrow waded through the debris and wraiths that clogged much of the elevator shaft. He lightly hopped from hand hold to hand hold, annoyed that he couldn't simply soar down the elevator shaft. Any other time he'd be tempted, but not here. Not now.

"239-B, 240-A…" He rumbled as he made his way down the shaft. He'd been keeping a running commentary to himself as he'd trekked through the ship. He couldn't handle the silence. Not coupled with the corpses and the darkness.

Rationally he knew he was alone. He knew he was the only living thing aboard. His mind knew that. And his body had been well trained to stay calm. But a primal corner of his mind refused to be ignored, hence the mumbling.

"I wonder what Ozpin's gonna do when I get back?" He mused to himself in between counts.

"Anything I want is what he's gonna do." Qrow smiled. He'd have some time off after this. Oh. He'd have some serious time off after this. He could ask Ozpin for his own planet if he wanted. But he didn't really want a planet. No telling how his semblance would affect that anyway. What he really wanted was to see Taiyang and the girls. Ruby had to be five by now, and Yang must have been seven. He really missed them. And he was certain that Taiyang would be glad to have him around, at least for a little while. Summer had been off on assignment almost as long as he had. Maybe she'd be back when he got back. Now that would be something to see. STRQ never got the chance to get together. That train of thought brought him up short.

"Bitch." He mumbled. Even gone, his sister managed to ruin his day. His mumbling monologue brought short, he focused on the numbers.

"249-B, 250-A." He grinned. "There you are baby." he purred at the door.

"Let's see what you've got for me." Qrow gripped the door and pulled. No dice. Oh well, he would have looked really stupid if he had breached an unlocked door. He placed four small charges along the doorjamb where the sealing mechanisms were. He had done this more times than he could count. And he was certain he'd do it more once he got back from his well-earned vacation. He wondered what Ruby would like. Yang would be easy, she couldn't have changed much in two years, But Ruby would be a completely different person-

The was a slight pulse as the breaching charges tore their way through the door and let out a sudden breath of air

Right. Delicate breaching operation.

Focus.

Qrow eased the now pliant door open. The bridge crew were still at their posts. And creepy. If it wasn't for their long nails and slightly longer than regulation hair, he'd have thought that his breaching charge killed them. Qrow floated onto the bridge and gently moved the remains of a tech from his station.

"Reactor, Reactor, Reactor." he mumbled, brushing the unfamiliar console. He flicked a couple of unfamiliar switches on and off hoping to get lucky. Like that would happen.

"Why do they never label the stations?" Qrow wondered out loud. "It's almost like they want to keep salvagers out." Grumbling, Qrow moved to the next station. Nope, that was auspex. He looked at the officer sitting in the captain's chair. He probably knew where the bridge reactor was, and if he was going to be forthcoming, his chair might.

Qrow sent the officer tumbling toward the ceiling and took a good look at the captain's chair. It was attached to a hydraulic arm that, if functional, would have allowed the bridge officer to move himself behind any of the command stations. It's armrests held several override keys that would have presumably allowed him to control any given station from the comfort of his chair. And most importantly, they were labeled.

"Voids, Engines, Vox, Auspex...Power!" Qrow gave a quiet whoop of delight, maybe luck was on his side for once. He pushed the button. Nothing. Well. That made sense. Okay, this was going to be a little more difficult than he thought.

Qrow sighed and looked up from the chair, hoping against hope that something would just stand out to him. And to his surprise, something did. A little red light. Faintly blinking.

Jackpot.

Qrow rushed over to the station. Nothing about it screamed "Power" but that little red light wasn't there before so it had to be connected to what he did right? Right? This couldn't be his semblance. Right?

Qrow sighed. Better not to think about it.

He pushed the button. The console hummed to life. Qrow breathed a sigh of relief. Another urgent button began to blink, Qrow took a closer look at it, not trusting fate to be kind twice. It was marked "Cycle." Reactors cycled. This was probably fine. He pushed the button.

The entire bridge hummed to life. Lights began to flash on all of the stations. He was quite certain a few alarms were screeching, but thankfully the vacuum protected him from such nonsense. He rushed over to the captain's chair. He only had one thing to do here. He slammed down into the chair, heedless of the corpse juice that had no doubt sunk deep into the leather seat. Well, not heedless, but ignoring.

He punched three buttons in rapid succession, bringing up the ships log and beginning the playback.

"Ship's log." A feminine voice crackled. "Beacon. Officer of the Watch speaking…" Qrow sat back, ignoring the rest of the log. He had found her.

He had found the Beacon.

Yes, this amazing find of Qrow's will be our analogue to Beacon Academy here in this Grimmdark future. I promise not to go overboard with the grim and the dark, at least no more than the canon authors. Next chapter we should see some of the Harbinger's arsenal and more of the cast. I'll try to put these out weekly. I'm publishing this on a Tuesday afternoon, look for regular updates on Saturdays. I'm new here on fanfiction, so there may be some formatting hiccups as we move forward.

Revisions; Primarily formatting to make this chapter consistent with later chapters. If I wanted to fix everything wrong with C1 I'd have to rewrite it. Which I might just do

Revisions Pt. 2; Chapters One and Two will be undergoing extensive grammatical revisions now that Celebreth has had a chance to look at them. There shouldn't be any substantive content changes. If there are, they will be announced in later chapters.