After a few hugs, some tearful reunions, and Ozpin talking things over with the police, the whole group headed to the train station. There was an almost unanimous decision to head to Atlas (Weiss being the only dissenter), and they were able to work out a deal with the conductor for half price tickets if they defended the train.
A quick bout of loading later and everyone was on board, (quick thanks to the Spartans being able to turn multiple trips worth of loading into just one, despite many people having an inability to part with what the Spartans thought was unnecessary luggage)
They all pretty much took over an entire car, which sadly did not have beds or compartments, but the seats reclined pretty far and they held the Spartan's weight with minimal creaking, so it worked out fairly well.
-Ruby Rose-
Ruby rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she heard the early warning system that the Spartans had installed blaring. (She had asked John earlier how it worked, he had said sonar, Weiss seemed to know what it was, Ruby didn't, but didn't want to look stupid, so she played along)
But it's so EARLY, she thought to herself as she checked her scroll for the time, straightened her skirt, and made sure all her magazines were loaded. It took a few seconds for the time reading from her scroll to register in her head.
"10 AM!? It feels like 5?!" She shouted suddenly.
Fred joined her on the walk to the end of the car and the ladder to the roof, commiserating, "Yep, constant firefights play hell with any sort of sleep schedule, no matter who you're fighting,"
Ruby harrumphed and stepped out into the frigid winter morning, quickly taking stock of their lineup of defenders this time.
Fred, John, Oz, and Qrow were already in position, with Ren and Blake coming up the ladder behind Ruby. They all had to take turns because of the massive amounts of extended fights with Grimm, Ruby felt like she was either sleeping, eating, or fighting, and the same could be said for anyone else of the crew. It had gotten so bad that it was to the point where some of the Spartans would sit out of fights in order to get proper rest, (which from what Ruby had seen, never seemed to happen, but it was now, because Kelly and Linda were still snoring).
Ruby shook herself from her musings to peer through her scope and take stock of the Grimm force currently heading their way, "looks like entirely Griffons," she called over the whipping winds, "I count at least 20, but they're tightly bunched so it could be 25,"
She saw heads nod as everyone readied weapons and the turrets on the top of the train cars opened fire.
As much as Ruby didn't like that they lured the Grimm forward in the train, she had to admit their effectiveness, especially with Pharia on the controls (she still hadn't had a chance to actually talk to or even meet the supposed AI because of being either exhausted or busy).
The sky lit up with gunfire as the Griffons came into range, and Ruby nailed one in the forehead twice, the first cracking the bone helmet, the second sending it down. She tried to find another target, but every time she drew a bead, the Griffon she was aiming at would disintegrate due to the massive hail of gunfire coming from the detached turret of the disabled truck they left in Mistrel that Fred was currently wielding.
As much as Ruby wanted to be the one using the massive chain gun, she had tried it before and nearly sent herself flying off the train with even the shortest burst. This, of course, did not stop her from geeking out about it. Ruby had spent the first day or two of the train ride with Linda, working on the chain gun, modifying, tinkering, and converting it into something usable. The whole experience made her regret not reaching out more to the red-haired Spartan earlier to get her to open up. Because Linda seemed to be the first person willing to geek out completely with Ruby about weapons (the other Spartans too, just to a lesser extent).
Fred's box of ammo ran dry and he had to begin the long process of reloading, though over half the Griffons were dust and echoes. The largest of the pack took advantage of the lull in the flak to dive down and take a pass, and promptly picked the two worst possible targets to snatch. Those being John and Blake.
Blake simply ducked and activated her semblance (with some added dust to cause the clone to explode in the Griffon's grip), while John was simply grabbed, though the Griffon lurched having a hard time going upwards with the new weight. In the Grimm's grip, John emptied his rifle's mag into the underbelly, chewing open a hole. He then wrenched open the talons while using his underbarrel grenade launcher to send an explosive into the Grimm's stomach area. He landed with a thud, and the wet detonation of the Grimm happened at nearly the same time.
Just as everyone's attention started to refocus on the remaining Grimm, Pharia's voice echoed in their ears, "A tunnel is approaching shortly, please get into the train car you are all standing on,"
Fred let a final burst out of his machine gun and hopped over the edge of the car, swinging into the storage area below, and the others were quick to follow, eager to get a chance to rest.
The group sat sprawled across the storage car and the boxes it contained as the train roared through the tunnel.
Ruby once again voiced an idea that had been previously decided to be too risky in order to break the tired silence, "we really should get a few of us off the train with the relic to draw the Grimm away, it's better for almost everyone, especially the civilians."
John yawned and replied, "I initially thought that was an incredibly stupid idea. Why should we give up transportation like this?" Ruby gasped in disbelief and looked at John hurt, but he was unfazed, "But after doing nothing but fighting off Grim for a few days, I'm starting to see the merit."
The others all grumbled a tired agreement and Ruby looked relieved, then said, "Alright then! As soon as we get past this tunnel, we'll make our way back to our car and inform the others before any more Grimm show up."
A short time after the tunnel passed, the entire group was up on the train roof, surprised to see Kelly and Linda standing on the car directly in front of them.
Kelly shouted over the wind, "We saw something huge on radar as soon as we got past the tunnel, but nothing is up here."
Ruby gave them a shrug.
Suddenly, the previous statement was proven wrong as a massive dropship of sorts seemed to appear out of a spontaneous cloud that crackled with electricity directly above Linda and Kelly. The ship loosed two missiles that streaked between the cars and destroyed the couplings just as massive hooks descended and grabbed onto the train car.
The now unconnected final car in the train (with Ruby, John, Fred, etc.) slowed almost immediately, and the distances between the destroyed couplings widened. The aircraft flying above the train car started spitting out what looked like a cloud from something strange on its roof, then began to crackle with electricity.
Kelly read the situation and made a move quickly, bursting into a sprint and launching herself through the air towards the unconnected car.
-Kelly-087-
Kelly felt herself flying and reveled in the leap, enjoying the feeling of power in her own limbs, then crested her trajectory and came to the nearly heart stopping revelation that she wasn't going to make it as the train car and Fred and John's outstretched arms slid further and further away.
This is how I'm going to die, she thought, run over by a train car after a dumb leap of faith.
Her thoughts were interrupted when her foot suddenly hit solid ground. Kelly didn't question and simply pushed off, leaping a second time and catching the boys' outstretched hands. She quickly climbed up and saw open mouths from nearly everyone, then realized why as she looked down at herself.
She had a soft white glow covering her armor all over.
John wordlessly sent her a small helmet cam clip, it showed her leap, then almost dying, then a transparent blue platform appeared beneath her foot and her second leap occurred.
Qrow clapped her on the back, "Congratulations on unlocking your semblance and getting an aura kid."
In the chaos, Linda and the airplane were momentarily forgotten about, but heads quickly swiveled as the cloud fully developed and lightning struck through it, rattling the world with a blast of thunder, and everyone saw as the ship, the car, and Linda all suddenly disappeared and the cloud dissipated quickly.
A few minutes later, the car slid to a stop as the rest of the train disappeared over the horizon and everyone realized that Ruby's plan was happening whether they liked it or not.
The train car slowed to a stop as the group planned their next move. They all agreed that the lamp needed to be brought to their original destination of Argus, but disagreed on how to get there. Blake, Jaune, and Ren wanted to follow the tracks to maximize the chances of hitching a ride, Blue team (minus Linda) wanted to go as the crow flies, and Oz, Ruby, and Qrow wanted to go back to village hopping.
After a short discussion (everyone wanted to get moving despite being exhausted), they agreed to try to take as direct a route as possible, making minimal stops at any convenient villages along the way.
Fred ended up being voluntold to be the packhorse after stubbornly refusing to leave his chaingun and an exorbitant amount of ammunition behind, and everyone else grabbed their bags and started out.
Before long, Ruby broke the monotonous crunching of boots on snow by asking Oz, "You said the relic can sometimes draw in Grimm right? And I get that it's magic or whatever, but what makes it so special?"
Ozpin spoke through Oscar's mouth while they continued walking, "I have yet to test the full limitations of its abilities, but I believe it summons an omniscient genie to answer three of humanity's questions each millennium."
Ruby's eyes alit with the fire of excitement, "How?" She practically begged Oz.
Ozpin spoke again, this time coming to a halt, "The person holding the lamp will simply speak the Genie's name aloud, which is Jin. Though I would highly advise caution, as I have said, the questions are highly limited, and one has already been used."
Ruby did not seem to heed Oz's warning, and shouted, "Jin!"
The lamp, currently being held aloft by the girl, stubbornly remained the same. Ruby sighed and started to lower it when a blue smoke started to pour from the glowing portions of the lamp.
Everyone stood in amazement as the smoke twisted into a massive spiral, then coalesced into a majestic glowing woman. She paused to survey the group as everyone stood stunned. Her eyes smoothly halted on John, Kelly, and Fred, standing at the front of the group.
Her smooth voice resonated with grace and power as she said two simple words, "Hello Reclaimers."
-Linda-058-
Linda awoke with an icy wind blowing across an open snow-covered tundra, and a small contingent of armored figures standing around her. She could hear one close to her head speaking into what she assumed was a scroll, "yep, we found her. Must've been thrown wide when we shifted back," He paused, "Yes I know, I've seen what they can do, I'm not taking chances."
Linda did her best to survey the situation without alerting the armed and armored people surrounding her to the fact that she was awake.
She quickly found that she was chained up, and with actual large steel chains, both keeping her arms behind her back and legs firmly together. The red haired Spartan also noted that 7 soldier types were surrounding her with rifles pointed in her general direction, as well as the man who was talking on the radio, who was armed and armored more uniquely. (Which, over the course of her stay on the strange world, Linda had learned was synonymous to being more powerful and dangerous).
She couldn't really get a good look at the man with her face planted in the dirt, but she saw he had on a slate grey trench coat, sturdy boots, and had a beautiful over under shotgun slung across his back. The clean condition of the gun indicated extreme care, especially when paired with the inevitable wear on the smooth wooden grip where she could see the man's hands normally rested.
The admiration turned to thoughts of her companions and how much Ruby would love the weapon, but those thoughts were suddenly driven from her mind like a household pet with a passion for being dirty the moment the word "bath" is uttered.
The man with the radio had just asked someone on the other end how they were going to, "get the girl out of the armor,"
Linda's blood ran cold and she must've twitched because suddenly 7 guns were pointed at her and the man on the radio slammed a helmet with an inbuilt gas mask over his face fast enough that though he turned around, Linda never saw his face. He spoke again, this time the helmet slightly muffling it, "Yeah, she just woke up, I'm gonna stun her and we can drag her in, then peel the shell."
Linda did not want her shell peeled, so she promptly shoved off the ground with her shoulders and face and into a roll onto the toes of an unfortunate soldier, while pointing her toes and rotating one leg, then ripping it upwards multiple times, finally freeing one leg on her third attempt.
Bullets started to pepper her Mjolnir as she sprung up and kicked the coiled chain into the soldier to her left, sending him sprawling with the weight of the bunched up metal.
Some rounds scored lucky hits, glancing off weaker portions of her suit and leaving stinging bruises, maybe even penetrating. Linda only registered the wounds to check them later as she sent a jab with her leg into the lower leg of a soldier, toppling him, then lunging to the next one and delivering a solid shoulder charge right to the jaw.
A rock offered a convenient launchpad to change direction and Linda rocketed in the other direction, kicking the next guy squarely in the chest and sending him sprawling.
Linda managed to break her hands free as the chain was weakened by the indiscriminate fire of her attackers, and she felt a quick moment of elation while she contemplated her next target for a split second.
Her moment was cut short, once again as she felt someone tap her on the back, directly on the hip bone, she started to spin as she felt what seemed like a personal earthquake suddenly vibrate through her whole body, her bones felt like they had been rung like a bell, her muscles all painfully cramped in an outward wave, blooming from the tap, and she could barely think as the last thing she registered was the man in the coat standing there, finger outstretched as she fell to the snow a second time.
Linda wrenched her eyes open and unconsciously looked for her mission timer to see how long she'd been out, then had a moment of panic when it wasn't there, then a larger moment of panic when she realized she was only wearing an undersized tank top and pants that were thankfully stretchy, but both articles were still too short. The top ended up looking like a crop top, and the pants barely made it past her knees, Linda thought it was too revealing, but moved on quickly and stopped caring.
She sat up to take stock of her surroundings as she thought, At least my captors were nice enough to let me borrow some clothes instead of leaving me naked on the concrete floor of this dilapidated prison cell.
She finished her scan of her new situation, seeing thick, but old bars, (a quick yank proved each one solid), a bare hallway that led to another one where she could hear and see guards regularly passing by, a crumbling wall that might be breachable, and finally, in her cell, a little old woman wearing some glowing blue goggles and a multicolored shawl.
The woman grunted, slowly getting to her feet, "took you long enough, wait another minute or two and we can get out of here. The guards won't be around for 15 minutes at that point." She paused, pointing upwards to a particularly dilapidated portion of the wall, "If you can open that up a bit and get me up there, I can squeeze through and raid the lockers I saw on my way in here,"
Linda interrupted, "They let you see your way in here?"
A devilish smile spread across the woman's wrinkled face, "Oh I was very polite, and nobody suspects a sweet old lady."
Linda nodded in appreciation as she heard footsteps and whirled to see the man with the trench coat and the shotgun, who put his hands up in mild surprise, "Woah! Jumpy aren't ya?" He said in a surprisingly friendly voice, then continued in the same tone, "I'm sorry about earlier, especially to you, Miss Concerningly Attractive Prisoner," he gestured at Linda, "We've just seen what people like you are capable of, and wanted to take precautions, which, to be fair, you did prove were necessary. BUT." He stabbed his finger into the air for emphasis, "That's not why I came to talk to you. See we can't just let you go or risk you exposing us or our location, sooo, we have a few options. First being that we knock you out, keep you sedated, and dump you in a random town that is on the way to our next mission, second, you stay here, locked up but well taken care of, until we move on from this crumbling place or you get recruited, or third, and my personal favorite, we dump you out in the frozen forest with a coat and some rations, then take bets on how long you last."
He looked expectantly at the two of them, "So? What'll it be?"
Linda locked gazes with the man's faceplate, "Do any of those options involve getting my stuff back?"
The man didn't move for a second, then seemed to realize he was wearing an opaque helmet and whatever expression he'd been making went unappreciated so he apologized, "Sorry give me a second," he then took off his helmet and Linda saw his face.
Everything above the bottom of the nose was normal, some dark brown eyes, simple but defined eyebrows, and a mop of light brown hair all looked about average, but the lower half of his face was a mouth of metal. Linda was incredibly curious, she had never seen a prosthetic jaw and mouth before, but apparently they existed, because here one was.
The expression he was currently making was somewhere between disapproval and shock, and the robotic mouth hung open for a second before answering, "Yeeeeeaaaah, No. ain't gonna happen. What would you do with it? Turn around and kill us? Deprive us of some tech we've never seen before? That shell of yours is too juicy a haul to pass up."
Suddenly a memory clicked in Linda's head, she had seen that glyph before, and the mention of taking her armor for its value as a piece of technology solidified it, this group was the tech fanatics from Vale, maybe not the same exact group, but the same overall tech cult.
He stepped back, "Uh oh. What does that face mean? Does that mean you're upset? Angry? About to literally explode?"
The old woman spoke up, "looks more like a 'half recognition, half really attracted to something face,"
The man stepped back, "Whoa, chill. I don't even know your name, mine's Zach though." He raised an eyebrow once quickly.
Linda similarly stepped back shocked, she stopped for a second to reorient herself and replied, "Actually… sorry Zach, but… your gun is really really pretty,"
His eyes lit up, "Oh it is isn't it, it used to be my Dad's, but I've restored it and added some upgrades." He stopped, "Wait a minute, stop distracting me!" But he was smiling, "Anyway, I'll give you two some time to think on your options," he walked out of the room backwards and pointed finger guns at the two women in the cell, then turned around and started whistling without any lips somehow.
Once he was gone, the old woman who introduced herself as Maria initiated their escape once Linda peeled back some of the crumbling brick and lifted her up to the opening.
About five minutes later, Maria came walking casually down the hall with keys, some papers, and a large metal pole. She unlocked the cell as she flipped through the papers and Linda picked up the pole, "huh," Maria said, "this place is supposedly an abandoned pre-war work camp. Cool, I always wanted to explore a gulag."
Linda grabbed Maria as she heard the guards get close to the hallway entrance and pulled her inside the cell, closing the door but leaving it unlocked and hiding the pole behind herself. Once they passed with barely a second glance, Linda edged the door open and stood up, taking the map Maria offered from the stack of old papers she found and committing it to memory as she contemplated the best way to once again, retrieve her armor and escape.
AN: Hey people. I'm finally back, hooray. I don't know if you saw my post about this, but I edited and revised the earlier chapters, as well as added titles (Only on Wattpad, has such a borked UI I couldn't do it without risking screwing up the whole story). Don't feel the need to go back and re-read, it was mostly grammar stuff and adding a few lines to the occasional dialogue, just readability and flow stuff. Anyway, I've been busy with working more, skiing, etc. all that fun life stuff, but I kinda know where I'm going with this and am feeling motivated to write again, so I SHOULD be able to get a bit more to you guys.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed and next chapter is gonna be a doozy. (Also I felt bad not updating for a long time, but this one is extra long, so that kinda makes up for it)
Review Responses:
Matsuda Macober: while your concerns are valid, I had to tone down some of the spartans' abilities, somewhat because they are young in this fic, and have less powerful armor, and partially because I cant have this story just be a series of curbstomps. but yes, you are pretty much correct, though John seemed pretty stiff after falling from orbit, but thats about it.
Guest: yep, thats exa why there are no shields.