"Saladin!" Julius called as the two soldiers serpentine through the trees, followed closely by the large snake beast that as expected followed their exact movements, "You're good with that sword yeah?!"
"What kind of Tallarn man would I be if I was shrakk with it?" He called back after jumping over a log in his path.
Julius vaulted over a boulder and continued on sprinting, "You split off from me, I shoot this bitch in the eyes, you scale as high as you can go and stab its underbelly!"
"That sounds good! Just give me a signal to split!" Saladin said jumping forward to avoid the snapping jaws from the beast.
Julius saw that some broken trees and low lying boulders were lying up ahead, "When we get closer I'll shoot its eyes out with the laspistol, are you certain you can gut it?"
"As certain as sand is endless!"
"…A simple yes would've been appreciated!"
The King Taijitu roared as it tried snapping at the two guardsmen again.
"I'm real sick of this bastard! On the count of three! One… Two… Now!"
Saladin broke off to the left running up a broken tree, Julius launched himself upwards from a boulder with his laspistol's sights aimed for the Grimm's eyes.
"Now you see us," Julius fired twice, both rounds hitting the Snake's eyes where the pupils would've been, "now you don't!"
The King Taijitu roared in pain as it flung its head back, its eyes were now red angrily boiling orbs that started pouring out of its head.
Saladin took the advantage of the Snake's momentary shock, he leapt off from his perch with his Khalig's end aimed right for the Snake's belly, "Yeeeaaaarrrgghhh!" He shouted as he slid down the Snake's belly with his sword bisecting it.
With a mighty roar the King Taijitu thrashed about with its insides displayed, it fell down with a heavy thud sending both guardsmen down on their asses.
"Yeeah!" Julius cheered firing two lasrounds in the air, "Hahahaha! Frakk you bastard!"
Saladin raised his sword in the air cheering in triumphantly, "The Emperor favors us! Praised be his name!"
While the two were celebrating their victory against the Snake, they failed to see the Beowulves sneaking up on them.
Nicholas ducked underneath a pair of snapping jaws, "Shrakk!" He cried nearly falling over, the helpful mechtendril from Edison kept him from doing so.
"This is the most running my legs have done in years!" Edison called, over to Nicholas over the roars from the beast, "This thing has to be getting tired or something!"
"Hungry is more like it Eddy!"
Suddenly the White head reared up in pain, roaring bloody murder as if it was in immense pain. The roaring caught the guardsman's and Techpriests attention as it started to slam into the trees in pain, similar roars came from the other direction only louder and in a shriller pain filled volume.
"Quick! While it's distracted!" Nicholas charged with his Shashka sword raised, he made one large slash into the underbelly of the snake and shoved the entire grenade bandolier he had inside, all pins on the Krak and Frag grenades pulled.
Nicholas ran back as fast as he could before dolphin diving underneath a log for cover, Edison already taking residence behind a thick tree.
Five tense seconds later and the hole Nicholas made erupted into fire, the top half of White's body fell to the ground with a humongous thud, its mouth opened and closed several times before finally closing. Its death sealed.
Both Nicholas and Edison jumped with joy, locking arms and spinning around in circles, "Whoo hoo!"
"We're alive!"
Then that's when they heard it, the growling. Slowly and with a small hiss from the both of them they saw what looked like wolves on two legs with bone armor staring at them.
"You are frakking kidding me." Nicholas sighed.
"What are the Omnissiah damned odds?"
Two wolves pounced with their claws out, ready to shred the two Imperials right then and there. Edison however had different plans; he raised his ballistic mechandendites with their lasrounds charged, both fired concentrated amounts of red energy into their snarling faces, burning away flesh and melting their bony faces.
Two corpses slid to the guardsman and Techpriest, the heads of the beasts looking like melted plastic.
"Damn…" Nicholas said looking at the damage, he then brought his attention to the remaining beasts raising his lasrifle to challenge them, "Well, who's next?"
Beacon Bullhead cabin…
The atmosphere in the Bullhead was tense to say the least; it was the first rescue mission for two freshman teams but just another mission for the Sophomore team.
Coco Adel was many things to many people; attractive, a fashionista, a friend, partner. Amused was however was not one of those things.
"How can he be so cold?" She asked aloud, watching Hansel from the far end far end of the Bullhead where he was field stripping his rifle, "He acted like that boys life meant nothing to him."
"Don't be too harsh on Hansel," Ruby, the first year team leader of team RWBY said, "he's- he was just raised differently…"
Coco raised a brow, "Differently? He's an ass. He has to be the coldest person I've ever met, other than that I've been hearing he wasn't too nice to Velvet or any other Faunus for that matter."
The Faunus in question hid her face with a magazine, trying to not tremble like a leaf.
Ruby scratched the back of her nervously, "Well… he's not exactly from here."
Coco scoffed, "Yeah, Velvet told me after Oobleck's class, he's some sort of spaceman or something."
Fox and Yatsuhashsi, the other two members of team CFVY rolled their eyes at the very mention of the subject.
Yang chuckled, "I thought the same thing, but I don't know Coco, Ozpin said he came through some sort of portal and plop! He's on Remnant!"
"I don't think Ozpin would lie about something like that Coco." Blake said poking her head over her book for a second.
Coco crossed her arms still glaring at the skull masked boy, "Whatever, that still doesn't give him an excuse for the way he's been behaving."
"Then I guess this should explain it." Ruby said, pulling up a video from her scroll.
"What's that?" Velvet asked as the video was buffering.
"A couple of nights ago Hansel gave us a brief history of where he comes from, I kind of recorded it secretly." Ruby said looking slightly embarrassed, "I didn't have his permission so don't tell him."
Coco lowered her sunglasses looking at the younger girl, then to the video… she couldn't tell which was scarier, the boy or his mask. His eyes were just devoid of any light, there was a sense of hopelessness, his face was just as blank if not for the claw marks that covered a good portion of his complexion.
Yatsuhashsi was curious now; he had only seen those eyes once, those eyes were his grandfather's whenever he spoke about the Great War and the horrors he saw on the battlefield, this boy was no older than he yet his eyes were quadruple their ages.
Fox listened carefully to Hansel's unmuffled voice, if anything the gas mask gave him more personality, without the mask it sounded as if the cold itself had the ability to speak.
Velvet's ears twitched upon the mention of weapons that devastated a whole planet's ecosystem, and even then the war continued on for nearly a five hundred years until everyone on the opposing side was dead. That sent a very uneasy chill down her spine, especially when it got to part of all Kriegans being sentenced to serve pay for their ancestors sins, having no other role to fight, kill, and die.
She couldn't hate him now, Faunus had it rough, but this was on a whole other scale of rough.
He had guilt over something he had no part of, and has no choice but to endure it until he died and would do so willingly.
"That's… that's really sad." Velvet said lowly, "I can't imagine all that weight on his shoulders."
Yatsuhashsi held his chin looking at the soldier in a new light, "That is a massive burden indeed, I have never seen his fighting style, how does he fight?"
"Mercilessly." Pyrrah said from across the Bullhead with JNPR, "He doesn't use an exact style at all, he strikes fast and hard, whenever I tried anything he immediately countered it. He put me in the infirmary for a few days from the internal damage each strike did. If he wanted to, he could've killed me."
"What's his semblance?" Fox asked now feeling a little bit more curious about the mysterious first year.
"He doesn't have one," Weiss answered, "he hasn't unlocked his Aura yet, but he does oddly have the ability to frighten Grimm."
"Bullshit, how is that even possible?" Coco asked.
"Miss Adel watch your language." Professor Goodwitch interrupted with a stern glare, "I will not have foul language on this expedition, and if you must know Hansel's people do not comprehend emotions, they have those beaten out of them when they are young children. Without any sense of fear, the Grimm just do not know what to do with him."
"So he's like invincible to the Grimm?" Velvet asked.
"I don't know," Goodwitch answered glancing over to the boy as he finished modding his rifle, "we've only used Beowulves, never anything larger."
The Bullhead's Pilot called on the intercom, "We're touching down as close as we can get."
As soon as the bay doors opened Hansel was the first one out in a kneeling stance surveying the area with his Hellgun rifle, "All clear. Awaiting further instructions."
Hansel kept his gaze to the forest, ignoring the odd looks everyone else was giving him.
"Hansel," Ruby said with a deadpan, "please stand up."
He did so silently while keeping his eyes peeled, scanning the tree line with immense criticism.
Coco nodded her head at the boy, she felt he was being too cautious. Yatsuhashsi raised his brow at the Kriegans behavior, he was acting as if someone would be shooting at them.
Fox face palmed, "What are you doing?"
"Surveying area for possible hostiles."
"Why? If the Grimm come out then we can take them, it's not like they are going to shoot at us, and it's not like there is anyone to take a shot at us in the forest."
Hansel nodded his head, "Saying things like that will get you killed one of these days, there are worst things than Grimm that could take residency in a forest."
"That's a good thought Hansel, but we are in a hurry, I just received word from the Headmaster that the guardsmen have defeated the King Taijitu, but are currently being surrounded by Grimm and need our immediate intervention north of here." Professor Goodwitch said collapsing her scroll down to a more mobile size, "Everyone move out!"
Both teams broke into a dead sprint upon Professor Goodwitch's orders; the brush became little more than a passing glance for them, except for Hansel. Who was a little bit ahead of Jaune in the sprinting department even going at his full speed.
Even when in a full sprint his eyes scanned the area up ahead, while Hansel did see the urgency in saving fellow guardsmen in the hopes that they would have some way of communicating with the Imperium it served no purpose to be killed before reaching them, a tactic that seemed to be lost to these "Huntsmen" as they called themselves. If they die trying to rescue the guardsmen then what was the frakking point of coming out here?
'Morons,' Hansel thought nodding his head, 'I'm eager to serve the Emperor but this would have no purpose.'
As he sped past the forest he noticed something moving within the brush, whatever it was it kept his pace if not going a bit faster than Hansel but at a safe distance.
Hansel stopped and pointed his rifle at the brush; on que whatever was moving had stopped, waiting for him to move again, Hansel squinted through his lenses trying to get a better look, whatever it was it obviously wasn't a Grimm.
"Come out of there!" He raised his Hellgun with his finger around the trigger, ready to kill whatever it was.
For some reason it was focused on him, and only him, everybody else was farther down the path they were traversing. The bushes rustled slightly, twigs were being snapped rapidly which meant it was emerg-
"Gah!" From the bushes came a mass of black fur and… armor? Hansel struggled underneath the weight of the wolf like beast; his Hellgun was knocked from his hands firing off one round into a tree, he braced himself for whatever manner of death would give him, what he wasn't expecting was an obscenely long lick across his gas mask.
"Bwah?" Wrestling his right hand free he managed to push the creature off, "By the Throne…"
It defiantly wasn't a Grimm. It was a Krieg Hund, more specifically it was a Krieg Hund from Hansel's regiment as it had a pair of tags bearing the numbers 263rd .
Krieg Hund's were specially breed dogs with a DNA template used from an old Canine species that was native to Holy Terra and used by different militaries. This breed however was genetically engineered like the Krieg Steeds; they were faster, bigger, made to survive in hostile climates, and to be deadlier than their ancestors. A bite from a Krieg Hund has enough strength to bite through Flak armor.
These Hund's were used for a variety of purposes; guard dog, attack dog, bomb sniffer, bomber (runs at tanks with an explosive charge on their backs), but most importantly they were loyal to anyone in the Death Korps.
All Krieg Hunds had the ability to breathe in air that would've dropped a regular man in mere seconds. They were specifically designed to see out members of the Death Korps because they would grow accustomed to the chemicals soaked into their clothing.
Even with the genetic breeding and mutations they still looked like German Shepherds, only twice their size, and marginally smarter, able to understand old Kriegan and follow more complex commands.
They were perfect companions.
"Hansel!"
He looked to his right to see everyone running back towards him with their weapons raised, aiming for the Krieg Hund.
The Hund did not take kindly to the gesture and stood in front of Hansel; teeth the size of knives bared, black fur from the exposed regions of its armor standing upright, a side effect from the mutations was that its eyes would start to glow a bright fiery red.
To them it must've looked like a Grimm.
This situation required delicate handling.
Hansel stood up and open palmed smacked the side of the Hund's helmet, making it whimper and bow its head.
"Nein," He grabbed it in a headlock and made it look at the huntsmen teams, "kameraden." Hansel said gesturing his hand to the bewildered teams and teacher.
"What is that?" Jaune wondered out loud.
"Dog, big dog!" Blake said on top of a branch.
The Krieg Hund sniffed the air and looked back towards Hansel with its ears standing up straight; it licked his mask repeatedly as if it was apologizing for threatening his comrades.
"Halt, halt." He said putting his hand on the Hund's snout, "What is your designation number?"
Hansel pulled at its tags and read the following: "K9-56874- 44. Edel Jaeger. That's your name?"
The newly named Jaeger barked in reply wagging his tail, he sniffed Hansel's legs and started licking at a pouch on his belt.
"You want a treat eh?"
Jaeger barked, jumping up and resting its front legs on Hansel's shoulders knocking him over.
Now usually people would've expected him to punch the dog in the face or shout something rude, in fact he did the opposite.
He laughed.
"Heheh, halt, halt!" Hansel's hands went behind Jaeger's mask and started to scratch behind his ears, he pushed Jaeger on his side and started to scratch the joints in between his armor.
"…." Ruby couldn't believe her eyes, not only had she seen the biggest dog in her life, but it was playing… with Hansel.
Yang frowned in confusion, "I… I don't know what to say…"
Coco slipped her aviator shades off to make sure she was seeing things the right way, "How… that… where did that dog come from? What is with your guy?"
"I really don't know," Ruby jogged over to Hansel, "Hansel?"
The Kriegan in question stopped scratching Jaeger and looked up, "Yes?"
"We have a mission to go to."
"Oh, right." Hansel stood up mentally cursing himself for letting his affections for Jaeger distract him, "Komm schon, wir haben eine Mission."
Ruby raised a brow at the strange language, apparently that is how he communicated with the dog because as soon as he said it the once cute and cuddly armored beast reverted back to the red eyed snarling monster she originally thought was a Grimm.
"Eh, eheheh, he's a big boy…" Ruby murmured stepping back a couple of feet, "What's his name?"
"Edel Jaeger, he is a Krieg Hund. Genetically breed to be the perfect war animal." He said patting Jaeger's helmet affectingly, "Now let's go find those guardsmen."
"This is such shrakk!" Julius yelled dodging a strike from the bipedal wolf monstrosities; he parried the next strike with his power sabre, plunging it deep into its chest where the heart should be and with a quick flick of his wrist he brought his sword back out, making the beast it slew fall to the ground.
Saladin did an overhead swing loping off a beasts arm, and a full three sixty spin slashing the current beast with every turn, "They aren't letting up any time soon!"
"Ave Imperator!"
Professor Goodwitch stopped in front of the middle of the rotting King Taijitu's body, "Alright, team RWBY you are to go after the Armageddon soldier and his
companion, JNPR you will go for the men wearing red that way. Team CFVY I need you to split up between both teams."
"Fox and me are going with RWBY, Yatsuhashsi and Vel go down with JNPR!" Coco ordered transforming her hand bag into its minigun form.
'Throne!' Hansel thought seeing the handbag turn into a weapon fit for a Space Marine.
Ruby glanced back to Hansel with a smirk, but that smirk disappeared as a Boartusk came charging at the group, "Lookout!
Hansel turned to see the hog Grimm charge for the members of JNPR, all of whom were ready to kill it.
But it didn't even get close.
"Fass!" Hansel pointed, Jaeger saw where his finger commanded and immediately charged the Grimm monster head on.
Yang gasped, "What are you-"
Jaeger reached the Boartusk before it could even see him coming, with a snarl Jaeger head-butted the Grimm's side sending it into a tree, he then pounced on the creature, keeping it on its back end while he chomped down on the pig monster's neck.
Jaeger lifted the beast in the air and started to shake it about snarling as the Grimm tried squealing, unable to as the pressure being applied to its neck was enough to snap five femurs in half. With one last heavy shake, Jaeger tore the Grimm's head from its body, both rolling adjacent from each other.
Then like a dog playing a sick game of fetch, Jaeger grabbed the Boartusk's head like a ball in between his teeth and brought it over to Hansel prancing with his tail wagging.
"Gut boy!" Hansel said fishing out a chocolate bar, he threw it into the air for Jaeger to jump five feet into to catch the treat.
The huntsmen stood mouths nearly touching the floor, never have they seen one dog not just fight, no fighting would sound like it had a chance, but utterly murder a Grimm before.
"That," Ruby gasped, "was awesome."
The noise of lasfire drew everyone away from their stupor, "Go now!" Professor Goodwitch commanded.
Julius somersaulted out of the way of a strike of a wolf monster and blasted its face with a lasround, "Throne damn you! Die!"
Saladin ran up a tree for a few feet before propelling himself backwards Khalig aimed for the stomach of another hostile beast, upon skewing with his sword, killing it, he swung out amputating another beat's leg off and finished it sending its head rolling.
Julius and Saladin bumped into each other, back to back, several more creatures surrounded them. Julius sheathed his sword and pumped his shotgun, "I got distance, you got 'em close."
Saladin responded by clanging his Khalig sword and dagger together.
"Like your style, reminds me of my old buddy. I could use him here."
Right when one of the wolf beasts lunged at the duo, a large caliber sniper round took its head off twisting the body midair.
"The frakk?" Julius looked up and he could not believe his eyes, the Emperor himself must've blessed him. Atop of a higher incline five absolutely gorgeous young women stood, armed with a variety of weapons looking down at him and Saladin… oh and one shirtless dude with swords on his arms.
The one that caught his eyes especially was the pretty one in brown holding a Gatling gun.
"By the Throne," He muttered, "I'm in love!"
The group of multicolored clothed woman opened fire with whatever long ranged weapons they had, taking all of the beasts out quicker than Julius could even look.
Saladin turned around to see the women, "Are they some sort of Sororitas?"
"We're going to find out mate." Julius said removing his helmet, he clipped it to his belt and reached into his coat bringing out a collapsed commander's cap, "Well praise the Emperor! I thought we were deadmen for sec. Who are you guys? PDF? Militia?"
The one in a red and black corset came up to him first with her hand extended, "Nope! We are huntsmen and huntresses from Beacon Academy! I'm Ruby!"
Julius smirked meeting her hand, "I'm Julius, Julius Romano of Armageddon's 101st Legion."
"Julius?" Came a muffled voice.
The yellow guardsman looked up to see a sight that made his jaw drop, a Krieg guardsman, not just any run of the mill drones, no, this one was a DeathKommando and he had a Krieg Hund with him.
"It's been awhile Julius." The guardsman said as he slid down the slope, followed by the large dog, "A few years if I wasn't mistaking."
"Well," Julius said in a shaky voice, "I be a son of grox, Hans. 345768-008976- Hansel. You son of a pod, where have you been!? I have been messaging you for three months you glorious son of a bitch!"
He lunged at the Korpsman with a hug, pulling him into the air, "Julius, let me down."
"Right, right, fine. Kill the bloody moment." Julius said throwing his hands into the air waving his fingers about, "You Kriegers and your bloody, 'don't touch me or else!' policy."
Hansel stared at him blankly for a second, before slapping him over the head.
"Ouch!" Julius glared at Hansel playfully rubbing the back of his head, he then grabbed Saladin by the shoulder, "This here is Saladin Ad-Dīn Yūsuf, of the Tallarn."
The cloth masked Tallarn boy waved his hand, "I believe we haven't met, but you were under the command of Commissar Cestus yes?"
"Yes."
"Well, I met your kind when he and Commissar Havan were doing a drinking contest aboard the Emperor's Fire."
"Ah yes, I remember that, Cestus drunk him under the table."
Julius chuckled, "I can't imagine anyone out drinking that buzzard, so, who are the Emperor blessed angels you came with?"
Hansel rolled his eyes, Julius hadn't changed a bit.
Nicholas and Edison were outnumbered, again, surrounded, again, both ready to die fighting, again.
"Ever tell you how tired I am of all of this getting shrakk?" Nicholas asked blasting two wolf monsters with his akimbo lasrifle and pistol.
"About as many times as we've been together." Edison replied bisecting a relatively large bear looking beast, "So basically every Omnissiah damned mission!"
"It's not my fault! It's obviously Cadia's fault!"
Edison frowned, "How the frakk is it Cadia's fault?!"
Nicholas fired several more shots killing a couple of the smaller wolf beasts, "What does it matter to you?!"
Edison sighed, "You are an enigma you know that?"
Both fighters steeled themselves as another wolf beast prepared to pounce, until it exploded.
"Huh?"
"I'M QUEEN OF THE CASTLE!" Came a loud feminine voice… from the sky…
"The frakk?" Both Imperials asked watching an orange hair girl descend from the sky with a… "Is that a frakking warhammer?!"… aimed for a Beowulf's face.
The poor monster was sent through several trees before coming to a halt, completely broken.
A couple of more people came into view, without having to come in from the sky.
"…I think the Emperor wants us to live!" Nicholas declared as the other beasts were dispatched like clockwork from the new strangers, they were obviously not Chaos related, otherwise he would've already heard a variety of battle cries by now and probably be dead.
Edison sighed relaxing his metallic body, "Finally." He sat down on a large rock hunched over muttering prayers of thanks to the Omnissiah.
Nicholas pulled out his Amesac bottle and took a swig, a job well done deserved its rewards.
"Eh!" He called to the oddly clothed humans and abhuman coming down, "Thanks for the save there."
An older blonde woman cleared her throat, "My name is Pro- are you drinking alcohol? Are you inebriated young man !?"
Nicholas bellow laughing, "Me? Of course I'm drinking, it is a Vostroyan Firstborn tradition after all!" He offered his bottle to the girl with rabbit ears, "C'mon, everyone drink! Celebrate! I don't care if you're abhuman or not, we're all on the same team!"
Velvet blushed, humans on Remnant weren't even this kind, and honestly she expected these two to behave like Hansel.
Professor Goodwitch was not amused, "Young man put that away!"
Nicholas rolled his eyes, "Fine, fine! Whatever you request my lady!" He said with sarcasm.
Goodwitch's eye started to twitch at the obvious insult, her grip on her wand also tightened.
"For the love of- really Nicholas?" Edison asked standing back up, "Can't take a break before you get us into another fight?"
"Shut up Eddy, go fix a toaster or something! Hopefully that shouldn't take you five hours, like with Nikita's tank!"
Edison frowned butting heads with Nicholas, "Oh you flesh bag! I told you that the damn thing needed-"
"Blah! Blah! Blah! That's all you Techpriests do! You make up excuses for fixing your Machine Spirit friends when it shou-"
"Don't insult the Machine Spirits like that you red coated alcoholic!"
Professor Goodwitch facepalmed, "It's going to be one of those days."
Damnit to high hell! I accidently posted this chapter without my Beta Reader reading it. Hopefully I just fixed the problem and you guys are seeing his message now.
If you want to know what Jaeger looks like, then look up the Killzone Helghast guard dog armor, the Wolfenstein dog armor and put that on a big German Shepard.
