I know I haven't been writing much lately, but it's Free-For-All time! The prompt I wrote for here was "Write RWBY as if it were Warhammer 40,000."
If you've never read a Black Library book before, this is my attempt to capture the tone and some of the tropes that show up a lot in 40k. Enjoy.
Chaos reigned throughout Vale. The Grimm hurled themselves at the city's walls in numbers beyond counting, summoned by the panic brought on by Penny's death and Cinder's manifesto. White Fang cultists struck throughout the city, dropped in from stolen Bullheads. They chanted oaths to their blasphemous gods as they slaughtered their longtime oppressors.
But standing against these depraved invaders was the full might of the Atlas military. Each of these soldiers had sworn an oath to defend humanity unto their last breath, and for those to weak to honor these oaths, the Commissars were there with the promise of summary execution for any who dared to flee.
Alongside the soldiers stood the Atlesian Knights, these lobotomized cyborgs unflinching in the face of impossible odds. Where the courage of the soldiers of Atlas was not enough, the weight of their guns held.
Far above the battle, three Atlesian battleships moved into formation to combat the Grimm attack. With the fire of their macrocannons, Vale would soon be purged of this infestation.
But this was not to be.
Neo strode through the halls of the Spear of Atlas. She had already thrown aside her disguise, and many tried to stop her. But they were only human, and she was a Huntress.
As she turned the corner into the ship's brig, two security guards raised their weapons to point at her. With her transhuman speed, she crossed the distance between them in an instant, snapping the first's neck with a single punch and collapsing the other's ribcage with a kick.
She deftly picked a key off one of the guard's bodies just before it collapsed to the floor. She placed that key in the lock of the cell the men had been guarding and turned it. The door of the cell slid open with a hiss, granting the prisoner inside his first glimpse of light in over a decade.
"Well," said Roman Torchwick. "It's about time."
The two criminals moved quickly through the battleship, killing anyone who got in their way. As Torchwick strode onto the bridge, he shot the ship's captain in the back of the head. With a smile on his face, he executed the rest of the bridge crew, an easy enough feat with half of them hardwired into their seats.
Neo shoved the dead captain out of his command throne, making room for her boss. Torchwick sat, and instantly the whole Spear of Atlas was at his fingertips. He struggled to contain his excitement as he input new targets.
In the bowels of the ship, the thousands of men, women, and children who had spent their entire lives working to keep the Spear of Atlas running received their new orders. None had ever met their captain before, and many did not even know his name. The idea that there was anything wrong with these new commands never even crossed the minds of any of these masses. They simply loaded and aimed the ship's weapons without ever considering that they might be about to betray their kingdom.
Across the Spear of Atlas, cannons fired into the engine blocks of the Enduring Legacy. The venerable battleship immediately keeled to the side, slowly falling out of the sky.
"We're hit!" cried a voice over the vox. "What's going-"
The transmission ended abruptly as the Enduring Legacy crashed into the Voice of Freedom, both battleships erupting in a ball of fire that lit the night sky for miles. In an instant both ships, along with their thousands-strong crews, were lost.
From his command throne, Torchwick laughed madly. "Oh, it is good to be back!"
Neo stepped forward to stand beside her boss. She held out a Scroll to him.
"Ah," he sighed when he saw it. "This is going to be fun." He took the Scroll and connected it to the command throne.
Far away, a being that had once been human sensed the new connection to his computerized mind. He would have smiled if he still had a face.
All across Vale, Atlesian Knights shuddered as their core programming was overwritten. Whatever part of them remained human resisted this violation, but it was not enough. In perfect unison they turned on their masters, shooting the Atlesian soldiers while ignoring the Grimm and White Fang. Countless loyal men fell to this treachery in seconds.
The walls could hold no longer. The soldiers could barely protect themselves from the Atlesian Knights; fighting back against the Grimm at the same time was impossible. And so, one by one the gates of Vale fell, allowing the monstrous hordes to pour into the city, butchering anyone in their path.
General Ironwood watched all of this in horror from aboard his command shuttle. He turned away just in time to see his own detail of Atlesian Knights aim their weapons at him. They fired all at once, but the general's transhuman speed allowed him to evade the bullets.
He could have destroyed all of Knights before they had a chance to fire again, but that opening salvo had torn the side of the shuttle open. General Ironwood howled oaths of vengeance even as the difference in pressure sucked him out into the night sky.
From high atop one of Vale's tallest spires, Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury watched the carnage below. Mercury had his Scroll out, recording the chaos to transmit across Remnant and provoke even greater panic.
"Beautiful," whispered Cinder. Through her psychic connection to the Immaterium, she could feel every bit of the pandemonium below. The terror of the citizens was like the sweetest wine, and the rage of the Grimm and the White Fang cultists was like the caress of a lover.
"It's almost sad," Emerald admitted, finally bearing witness to the fruits of her labor.
"It's horrendous," agreed Cinder, her body shaking with pleasure. "Focus on the Atlesian Knights," she ordered Mercury.
"Oh, I'm getting all of it," he agreed with a laugh. He wasn't a psyker like Cinder, but the look of victory on his face matched hers.
"Good," replied Cinder. "Continue the broadcast until the end, and do not miss what happens next."
The witch smiled. She could feel the pressure building within the Immaterium. The terror, the chaos, the killing, it had all reached a fever pitch. She raised her Scroll to her lips and spoke a single word.
"Now."
Far away on Mountain Glenn, her followers acknowledged her order. Six hundred sixty-six cultists raised ceremonial daggers and slit their own throats. As their blood pooled on the cursed ground beneath them, the frayed boundary between the material and immaterial planes finally tore open, and the monster tore its way into reality.
Its body was made of the same shadow-stuff as the rest of the creatures of Grimm, but none could fail to see the difference between this one and its lesser kin. Its size was greater than a Warhound Titan, and its wingspan was longer than an Atlas battleship. It had too many eyes and far, far too many teeth for anything that was meant to exist.
Some said that this monster was born within the Immaterium out of every myth of a dragon that was ever told. Others said it birthed those myths. None had ever learned the monster's true name without being driven mad, but there were some who simply knew it as the Great Black Dragon.
The Dragon soared through the sky towards Vale, inky black ooze dripping from its body. Wherever the ooze touched the ground, more creatures of Grimm rose to attack the defenders of Vale. As the Dragon flew over the city walls, it crashed its body into one of Vale's hab blocks, toppling the great spire and ending thousands of lives in an instant. The monster took a moment to savor these deaths before rising again to continue its attack.
At the foot of Beacon Tower, the students of the four academies gathered. These transhuman children, destined to one day be Huntsmen and Huntresses, stood together and prepared for battle. Even the terror of the Great Black Dragon's assault was not as strong as their oaths to protect humanity.
But there was one among them who wasn't even looking at the Dragon. Pyrrha Nikos saw Headmaster Ozpin emerge from the tower and met his gaze. He nodded once, and she knew it was time.
She stepped forward to confront her destiny.