Reviews:
GhostScotch: I know, I just checked my Eidolon story and I cringed looking at it.
Zammy: Ozma will be confused for a long time. Sariel though, will recieve an explanation in the next chapter. Whenever I write it.
Guest: Some do.
Guest: If you know the lore of Astral Knights then you know that they don't have primaris since their homeworld was taken over by another chapter when they almost all of them were killed during the assault on the World Engine. But Girlyman is on his crusade and the Imperium has already split.
Guest: They are not mutants, yes. Mutants require the taint of Chaos. Abhumans are humans that have mutated because of environmental conditions. Meaning the Faunus ARE Abhumans. And not all Abhumans are animals just look at the Ogryns, the Squats, the Ratlings, the Neandors and others. And if the were neither of those, they would still be Xenos because they came from another planet.
Redbarchetta28: The Dauntless-class is around 4500 meters, the Firestorm-class is around 1800 meters, the Mars-class is around 5100 meters. I don't know what I got wrong.
LogicalWriter: Blyat!
Aquaticmammals:Mhm!
Now prepare for some racism.
The quiet halls of the moon shipyard came to life as Octavian established a new connection to the deeper parts of it. Behind him stood a three man squad of Astral Knights Terminators, they were ready to explore the depths of this shipyard and uncover it's secrets.
The door in front of them opened and the leader of the squad, Nathaniel, entered first, his Assault Cannon scanning the long hallway.
The second one was Nahum, the squads apothecary, with his Storm Bolter. The third Space Marine was Castiel, wielding the fierce Thunder Hammer and the Storm Shield.
These three were one of the oldest Astartes amongst the remaining in the Astral Knights, just behind Thade, their current leader.
The loud stomps of Terminator Armor echoed in the empty halls along with the silent crackling of the Thunder Hammer.
Soon they came upon the Main Hall of the shipyard. It was full of skeletons, human skeletons.
"Nahum, check the bones." The Apothecary did as told and scanned the remains of whoever died here.
"Brother, these bones... they are old, their age dates at least to the Age of Strife if not older."
"Perhaps this shipyard was truly built during the Dark Age of Technology." Intoned Castiel while inspecting the bones himself.
"No matter. Let us continue, we must find the Shipyard Master's quarters." They continued trekking, bones cracking under their feet, through the Main Hall it looked like it would never end.
They came upon a set of stairs, one were going up, the other down.
"Perhaps..." Muttered Nathaniel as he looked through the Main Hall, he then turned his gaze upwards and saw a huge window, it looked lavishly decorated.
"We are going up." The walk up the stairs was long, longer than any set of stairs the squad ever set foot upon.
The Squad came to the top and started walking another long hallway. They sure knew how to build corridors back then.
Their path lead them to a golden door, it was slightly open. "Ready your weapons, Brothers." They stacked on the door. "Now!"
The door was taken of it's hinges as soon as Nathaniel struck it with his Power Fist. The squad rushed into the room, scanning it carefully.
A few seconds later they moved further into the room. It was decorated with gold, every nook and cranny.
In the middle of it all stood a table, behind the table a chair and on the chair a skeleton. Unlike those other ones that were in the Main Hall, this one was dressed like a noble.
Nathaniel moved to the table and searched it. In the end the only salvageable thing was a Diary, that was kept on the noble's hands.
"Let us keep searching. We will bring our finding to Thade when we are done."
Perhaps this Diary was the key of figuring out what happened here.
Rueben groaned as he woke up from his sleep, the bed while extremely soft, was not to his liking. He was accustomed sleeping on his bed on the ship, it's mattress was almost as hard as Ceramite and sometimes he even slept on the cold floor.
He looked around to see everybody still asleep. Thoren face was like a stone not moving one inch, while the two brothers were both drooling on their pillows.
He shook his head and looked at the other squad or rather as they are called team.
Ruby was the same as the brothers drooling like a child, Weiss was sleeping like a noble, Yang wasn't covered with a blanket as it was beside her bed, the last member of their team was Blake, the one with the bow. Ever since arriving here and meeting her he was getting a weird vibe from her.
His thoughts were interrupted when his squad awoke from their slumber. "What time is it?"
"Around five in the morning." This surprised them. "Five in the morning? If we were back on the ship the Commissar would already be lashing us."
Indeed after all they overslept for 4 hours.
They went on with their morning routine. Pray, check equipment, pray for the equipment and then go eat, but since they didn't know where the mess hall was they had to wait for team RWBY to wake up.
This thought plunged Rueben back into the conversation that they had yesterday.
After he told them they were not from this planet, the questions started flying. The girls were talking over each other and the squad didn't understand a single questions.
After he told them to ask one at a time, they calmed down and went to ask questions one by one. First was Ruby, then Yang, then Weiss and lastly Blake.
The questions went like this:
Are really from space?
Yes.
Are you really?
Yes.
Was that Airship outside actually a Spaceship?
Yes.
Are there Faunus on other planets?
There are other mutants and abhumans, yes.
What kind of weapons do you have?
The ones you saw at the Initiation.
Can I fight you?
Maybe later.
Is your kingdom big?
It's an Imperium not a kingdom and yes it is.
The questions stopped there since the Imperials had no will to answer them anymore.
His thoughts were once more interrupted, from the girls groaning. He looked outside and saw the sun was higher. Apparently he spaced out. Odd.
"You guys are already awake?" Yang's voice went through the room.
"We are, we've been waiting for you to wake up." Johann said while staring blankly at the ceiling
"Yeah? How long were you waiting?"
"Three hours, 47 minutes and 17 seconds." Those words caused the girl's eyes to widen. Rueben guessed that they were stunned from the answer.
Yang quickly looked at the clock on her scroll, it was almost 8. "You woke at four?! What were you doing all this time?"
"Praying, doing maintenance on our equipment, praying again. We wished to go to the mess hall, but since we don't know where that is we decided we'll wait for you to wake up."
"Ok..." An awkward silence settled in the room, well awkward for the girls not the Imperials.
It took them some time to get ready for the classes. "Alright! Let's go to the cafeteria!"
The girls ran out of the room, while the Imperials looked among themselves. Rueben just shrugged. "Come on, let's follow 'em." Before he went outside he took the paper that was on the desk labeled schedule
They quickly caught up with team RWBY just before they entered the cafeteria. As soon as they entered the sounds of teens and the smell of... something hit them.
"Come on, here's the food!" Ruby said before using her semblance to grab her breakfast.
The Imperials slowly advanced to the food stands. Once they took a look at it, they knew that they had no idea what any of this was.
There was something sweet, sour and everything in between.
Rueben took something that looked like grox meat, Thoren took something that looked like a bird's leg, Johann's choice of food was like a dish for a Noble, it was round and filled with some kind of fruit. Anton took some bread with meat and vegetable in between.
They took their food and looked around for the other team.
"Hey! Over here!" They turned to the voice and saw it was Ruby waving them to the table. They saw them sitting with four other people. They quickly walked there and sat down with them.
"So these were the guys that went through Initiation yesterday! I'm Nora Valkyrie!" The orange haired one was louder than some of the commissars.
"Nora please be quiet. I'm Lie Ren." The one with the pink streak introduced himself and chastised the hyper-active ginger
"Hello, I'm Pyrrha Nikos." She looked like she was expecting something from them. Whatever it was Rueben didn't care.
"I'm Jaune Arc, leader of team JNPR." This one looked like he was ready to shit himself if he glared at him.
"I'm Rueben, Arch-Militant in the service to Lord Sariel and leader of my squad."
"Thoren, Tempestus Scion."
"Johann, Tempestus Scion."
"Anton, Tempestus Scion."
Team JNPR looked awkward after their introduction and after they looked at them more closely they wondered why they looked like they just came out of a war zone. Their clothes or rather their armor was still on them, still dirty from the Initiation.
And apparently Team RWBY noticed this too. "Uhhh, why are you guys still in your armor, didn't you take it of yesterday?"
"We didn't bring anything else, plus an attack could happen anytime." Johann said while inspecting his food with a fork. It seemed the inside was filled with some kind of fruit product.
"An attack? Here? In Beacon? Highly unlikely." Scoffed Weiss. "If you think a hunter academy could be attacked, you would be sorely mistaken."
"Yeah and one of the nigh impenetrable fortress-worlds in the Imperium didn't explode in a planet-sized fashion." Silently muttered Anton, being extra careful not to raise more questions than needed.
"Anything can be attacked if it is in sight of a gun." Rueben fired back.
"Right..." Yang said lamely. "Anyway, why are you looking at your food weirdly? Just eat already."
"None of us have a clue what we took in the first place." Thoren said to them while lifting the bone with meat and inspecting it.
"How can you not know what a chicken is?!" both Remnant teams exclaimed after a momentary shook took over them. They then slowly came to a realization after team Imperium slowly turned their head and looked at them with no emotions on their face. It was like they were mocking them.
"Right, aliens." Yang uttered after a moment of silence. After those words reached the Imperials, the feeling of dread came to her pouring like bucket full of water.
"If you dare to call us that again, I will personally rip out your spine and use it to impale your head. Got that that?" Rueben's words emphasized by him getting close to her face and giving the most hated glare he could give her.
"R-r-r-ight." She managed to stutter out. Honestly, she was already regretting asking him for a fight yesterday.
"Good." Spoke Rueben after getting back to his seat. "Now care to tell me what we took for our meals? You already mentioned that Thoren's meal comes from something called a chicken."
"Right. A chicken is a type of fowl. Those are it's legs" Thoren didn't know what that meant, but accepted the explanation nonetheless.
"Johann has an apple-pie." The man knew what a pie was, the nobles eat it at celebration and from what he heard they were pretty good.
"Anton has sandwich, with cucumbers and ham. A cucumber is a vegetable and ham comes from pigs." He hasn't eaten a vegetable in his life, so Anton wondered what it would taste like.
"You, Rueben, have a beef steak. The meat comes from a cow." Another animal Rueben didn't know like the one before.
Johann was the first one to take a bite out of his pie. "It's sweet and nothing like I ever tasted." He commented and thought what to say next. "It's low on my food tier list."
Thoren was the next one to try his food. "Tastes familiar..." Were the only words that came from his mouth before eating it entirely.
Anton took his turn and bit down on the sandwich. He chewed slowly, with team RWBY and JNPR waiting for his answer. "Hmmm..." was the only thing that came from his mouth after he ate it, they were quite disappointed he had less to say than Thoren and he only said two words.
They turned to Rueben who already finished the steak. "Tastes almost like a grox. It's good." He was the most positive about his food.
"Hey, if our food is this bad why don't you bring us yours and we'll taste it!" Rueben's grinned like a madman when Yang said those words. He was going to get back at her on that alien comment.
"Wait!" Nora screamed at the top of her lungs. "If you guys are from space than that means you never tasted pancakes!" The only thing those around her did was facepalm.
"And those are?" Rueben tersely asked, this was probably going to be a rant.
...And indeed it was 10 minutes passed and the girl still went on about her 'pancakes'. The more she glorified them, the less he believed her. He quickly snapped the girl out of her rant and told her to bring some pancakes. And bring she did.
It looked like an horrible chef's cake covered in slime. Rueben took his fork and took a small bit. The girl was leaning over the table like she was expecting him to praise the food after he ate it. Well he won't.
He put the fork in his mouth and began to chew, then promptly spat it out. "Disgusting." He said after wiping his mouth.
The girl looked horrified. "How could you?!" She screamed like a banshee.
"Whatever that slimy thing is, it's so sweet that my gag reflex activated and that amount of sugar probably damages your body." The girl looked even more horrified by his explanation.
The two glared at each other, but stopped when the conversation shifted to bullying. Apparently the blonde boy was being bullied by someone named Cardin Winchester. The Imperials didn't care for their problems. It was then they heard a noise of distress from a couple of tables over.
It was a Faunus with rabbit ears being bullied by Cardin Winchester and his teammates. At least in team RWBY's and JNPR's eyes, the Imperials only smirked at it. What can I say they enjoy the suffering of abhumans.
"Simply detestable." Said Pyrrha Nikos, it looked like this disgusted her like everyone else at the table.
Rueben would watch the abhuman be bullied but he had other plans that just came to his mind. He grinned as stood from the table and went to team CRDL and the Faunus, surprising everyone even his teammates. The RWBY and JNPR thought he was going after Cardin, well he was but not in the sense of stopping him.
The other three Imperials cracked small grins when they realized what their leader was doing.
As the Arch-Militant approached Cardin, the boy saw him and asked him. "What are doing here? Trying to stop me?"
"Oh no, no, no, quite the opposite actually." A grin made it's way on Rueben's face. "I'm here to encourage you boys." The abhuman whimpered like an actual animal. It was amusing to Rueben.
Back at the table both teams were wondering what was going on. "Why isn't he stopping them?" Ruby asked the other men at the table. "Why would he stop them? I don't see anything wrong with their actions." The others couldn't believe their words. It was during this time that Rueben also came back to the table.
Blake looked at them sharply. "You thinks that discrimination is acceptable?!" The Imperials looked at her and simply nodded.
Unfortunately their discussion wouldn't last as Ruby quickly checked her scroll "Guys we need to go! Class is in 10 minutes!" The Remnant teams scrambled to to clean up the trays, with the Imperials slowly following them. Hey if they were late, it'll be on them.
The arrival to the classroom was swift and soon they teams were all seated. The Imperials were seated at the front while the others were behind them. Not soon after they entered the room, a boy barged in with such speed that it almost rivaled an Astarte.
"Good morning students!" The boy had green hair. Green! And it looked like it was natural. Rueben heard Captain Frescher's tales of their clothes and hair but this was certainly ridiculous. He just shook his head and focused on the man's words.
It happened that this class was history and Rueben needed any information they might have missed during their 'activities' in the public library. The green haired boy was speaking about some sort of battle during the abhuman revolution.
"Now have any among you been subjugates or discriminated because of your Faunus heritage?" The Imperials looked around to see if anyone would raise their hand. Some did and they just scoffed at the abhumans. How were they even allowed in a academy that teaches combat?
"Dreadful, simply dreadful! Remember, students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance that breed violence!" How was this ignorance? The abhumans didn't deserve this kind of treatment, they deserved worse because of their little skirmish.
The 'teacher' continued babbling, the words he spouted meant nothing to the Imperials. Rueben felt a migraine coming, he pulled out some Amasec he stashed in his pack and took a quick swig while the teacher was on the other side of the room. Then he gave some to Thoren, Thoren to Anton and Anton to Johann.
The bottle kept going around until another sound came from behind. It was Weiss.
"The battle at Fort Castle" Fort... Castle? Stupid name. "Precisely!"
"And, who can tell me the advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces?"
Rueben heard a flicking sound and someone going "Hey!" He turned around and saw that it was Jaune. "Mr. Arc! Finally contributing to class! This is excellent! Excellent! What is the answer?"
"Uhhhhh... The answer... The advantage... of the Faunus...had over that guy's stuff." Out of the corner of his eye Rueben saw Pyrrha gesturing to the boy. Her hands were pointing to her eyes and then she made circles around them? What on this Emperor forsaken planet was she indicating.
"Um, b-binoculars!" The boy said after he saw his partner's gestures. The whole room erupted into laughter. The Imperials didn't really know why, binoculars could prove a massive advantage in scouting the enemy positions.
"Very funny. Mr. Arc. Cardin! Perhaps you would care to share your thoughts on the subject!" The teacher called out Cardin who was laughing the most.
"Well, I know it's a lot easier to train an animal than a soldier." At this comment the Imperials let out a hearty laugh. They haven't heard that one before.
"Ahh Mr. Rueben is it? Would you like to add something?" The boy looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "I have to agree to his statement teacher, as it is true." Rueben said with a smirk.
"You two are not the most open-minded of individuals, are you?" Pyrrha said with a frown marring her face.
Rueben only shrugged his smirk still on his face. "As someone once said 'An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.' And I believe the man is right." The frown was still on her face as the two looked at each other.
Cardin decided to say something to the girl too. "What? You got a problem?"
"Pyrrha turned to the teacher and said. "No, I have the answer! It's night vision. Many Faunus are known to have nearly-perfect sight in the dark." At that Cardin growled and Rueben snorted. "They won't have any sight once I gouge their eyes out." Nobody but the other three Imperials heard the comment.
It was also that time that Blake said her piece. "General Lagune was inexperienced and made the mistake of trying to ambush the Faunus in their sleep. His massive army was outmatched, and the General was captured."
She then turned to Cardin and Rueben. "Perhaps if he'd paid attention in class, he wouldn't have been remembered as such a failure." At her passive-aggressive tone Rueben raised an eyebrow.
"You better watch your tone girl, before you found yourself without your tongue." Total silence enveloped the room, some were staring slack jawed at Rueben's words, although nobody believed his words, they were still amazed that he had the balls to threaten someone in a classroom full of Huntsmen in training.
The teacher cleared his throat. "Mr. Rueben, Mr. Arc and Mr. Cardin you will all see me after class for additional readings."
Rueben then aimed his gaze to the teacher. "As if. I have more important things do, boy."
The boy comment stood out from the sentence. "You call me boy, yet you are probably twenty years younger than me."
"Well then, how old are you? Let us compare." The green haired boy looked into his purple eyes and said, "I am thirty-nine years old." The teacher then felt uncomfortable when Rueben's face split into a smile.
"Then I am your senior by 212 years. Which means I can call you boy." The whole class went silent at that statement. "You... are 251 years old?" Skeptically asked the teacher.
"Indeed, I am." The two stared at each other for a while until the teacher coughed and went on with his 'teachings'."
The rest of the class went on without a hitch. "What's next?" Asked Thoren as soon as they came from the classroom. "It's combat class."
Because of the incident in the classroom earlier team RWBY and team JNPR walked silently not one word coming from the, instead they listened at the conversation of the Imperials.
"Damn boss, you sure got him beat with age." Johann said jokingly. Rueben threw him a playful glare. "You calling me old?" The squad laughed together.
"Still that short exchange was entertaining. I couldn't imagine if Commissar Lucas came here instead of us."
After a short laugh Thoren said, "The boy would already be missing his upper body! The heresy he spouted during the class would have spurred him into rage and nothing would remain! Hahaha!"
Their words chilled the other two teams to the bones. They didn't talk like they were joking. They just silently continued onward, soon arriving into the arena.
"This is the arena?" The room was small with a raised platform on the other side. "It's smaller than our bunks on Spartacus."
The two teams didn't know what that meant, they just took their seats and waited for the professor to arrive. The Imperials themselves took this time to check their schedule that was waiting for them in the morning. The one Rueben called a boy was apparently named Bartholomew Oobleck. The next was one the list was Glynda Goodwitch. Who names their child Goodwitch?
They read the paper and learned of other classes and teachers, their names were weird to say the least, although the followed a similar pattern. They heard something something being hit and turned their eyes to the stage and saw that class was already in session.
It seemed that Cardin Winchester was currently dominating Jaune Arc in combat. A couple more hits and the match was over. Glynda started talking about the match but Rueben rather focused on the two boys.
Jaune Arc had a sword and shield, the combo was deadly if used correctly, especially if it's a Terminator with a Power Sword and a Storm Shield. His armor was... abysmal to say the least. The chest plate looked like it could be pierced by a kitchen knife, same with the shoulder plates.
Cardin Winchester had a Maul, the same could be said for him. His armor however was a different story. The boy was armored with thick metal that could maybe rival flak armor.
The Imperial then focused on Glynda as she said something about a festival. "Now that that is over, we have time for one more match!"
She looked at her scroll. "The combatants will be... Rueben and Pyrrha Nikos!"
The two combatants looked at each other. One with frown, the other with a blank gaze.
"Anton, give me your Hellgun. Don't wanna make any problems for us with killing someone," Anton handed him the las weapon. Pyrrha meanwhile strode to the arena already analyzing her opponent.
His armor would probably prevent him from receiving any Aura damage. She then looked at his legs that were relatively unarmored. She would have to capitalize on that.
Her opponent came onto the arena with a weapon from one of his other team members. "Are both combatants ready?"
"Yes."
"Aye."
"Then begin!"
The match began and immideatly Pyrrha rushed forward with her shield up, a strategy already in her mind. Rueben aimed the Hellgun at her and opened fire. Even at the lowest setting the las was dangerous so it was no wonder Pyrrha's shield heated up so quickly.
She tossed the shield aside when she came upon him and thrusted her spear towards his legs.
Rueben dodged to her right and discarded the Hellgun and took a stance with his fists. Pyrrha's spear came to him but he blocked it with his left arm while his right arm punched her in the face.
The power behind his punch dazed her slightly and before she could recover, Rueben was on top of her before she could recover. Every punch took her Aura down by five percent. She managed to block some of them.
The speed of Rueben perplexed her how was someone that big and fully armored that fast. As he was assaulting her she spotted a small opening between his punches. When the next barrage came she quickly attacked his left leg with her spear.
It struck! Rueben quickly took a few steps back, grunting each time he stepped with his left leg. Pyrrha wanted to attack him again, but then she realized that her spear wasn't in her arm. She looked at Rueben. The spear was in his leg! Half of it was through his leg. Blood was pooling around his feet and Rueben still stood there smirking.
"Have to hand it to ya girlie. Didn't think you'd even draw blood." He then pulled the spear from his leg and threw it off of the arena, his hands now bloody from it. "Now the real fun starts."
Pyrrha was horrified. "We need to get you to the infirmary now." She screamed at him. As she approached him he gave her a right hook, it struck her even harder than before. His blood came into her eyes
She didn't have time to register the left uppercut, that sent her flying into the horrified audience below.
"Rueben wins." Glynda stuttered the sentence, as she looked at the man. No man or woman on Remnant could still be standing after getting a fist sized hole in their leg, much less fight.
One thing was for sure, the Imperials knew how to fight.