Sorry for the recent delays. Trials is back and I was grinding power levels for a week one completion. I managed to get a flawless in, so I guess it was worth it. I also got flawless twice this second week (though the second one was with streamers cause my regular team wasn't on)
Also, Saint's lines in that game mode are amazing, I'll probably try and work some of them into this story, in future chapters.
A few weeks later…
Lisbon still doesn't know where he is. He tasked his Ghost with trying to find out but all that he got in return was uninterpretable data and complaints about the types of operating systems that this place uses. A few common words came back, though: Grimm, Remnant, Atlas, Beacon.
His cell's lights are shining extra warmly today, which is odd. He wonders if someone is controlling them right now. The camera is also following him pretty closely, too.
A few heavy footsteps come from the reinforced door. His guard must be here, is it dinner time already? Lisbon checks the digital clock that appeared when he returned from lunch. It's a handful of hours too early.
He is fed quite well here, better than Tower rations. The room is well-heated and the lights never flicker, which is a stark contrast from the City's apartments. The food's better than that bar in the Tangled Shore, too; Spider's Palace, if he is remembering correctly.
He stands, putting one hand behind his back. His guard has gotten used to his antics and has relented quite a bit since the first time he's pulled this trick. He wonders when he'll actually have something in his hand.
Maybe when he breaks out of this place. It's getting too cozy, he doesn't like it.
Sometimes he hears other prisoners being escorted to-and-fro the hallways. They're always screaming about something, whether it be about them not doing anything or if the guards knew who their close relative was. Lisbon thinks that he may have landed in some sort of luxury prison for people who have never gone to prison before. Probably explains the extensive and expensive-looking amenities that get restocked on a periodic basis.
Sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night, Lisbon's mind drifts to Rekkana and what happened in the Black Garden. He tries to suppress the feeling it gives him every time, not allowing himself to break down like this.
He never liked Rekkana in the first place, her and Yardarm had what was coming to them, they were never his friends.
It was all an accident, he didn't mean to do it, they just lined up like that and he panicked.
He tries to rationalize the events to no end and it always brings him back to the same conclusion.
To try and keep himself from spiraling into insanity, he thinks about home. The Last City, the bustling wilderness of the EDZ, the fluffy snow of the Cosmodrome, the harsh reddish sand of Mars. When that doesn't work, he tries to talk to the camera, hoping that someone's watching him and by consequence, listening. Every now and then the desire for food would suddenly appear in his stomach and he wouldn't shut up about wanting some. Whenever a guard would tell him to shut up, it would provide some sort of immense relief to him. Someone's listening, he isn't talking to nothing, there's someone to suffer with him.
The worst punishment of this cell is the silence.
At least Pietro is friendly enough to talk to, when Lisbon is out doing whatever inane test that's been put in front of him. The old man is quite talkative and loves to chat about some sort of project he's been working on in the past few months. Something about recovering from an accident during something called the "Vytal Festival." Lisbon doesn't understand what he rambles on about, but it provides a good enough distraction from the Black Garden.
Lisbon snaps back to reality. His cell door opens, and in steps in an orange haired girl wearing an army green skirt and white blouse. Her eyes shine green and she smiles with an uncanny happiness. Something's up.
"Exo," Lisbon mumbles to himself, meeting her overbearingly cheerful gaze.
"Salutations!" She puts one gloved hand up and waves once, her lips curving into a grin. "My name is Penny, what is yours?"
Lisbon is caught with his mouth half-open. "Uh-"
"No need to be shy! I am here to assist you in acclimating into Atlas Academy!" She says, crossing her arms behind her back.
"Sorry—what now? Acclimating into what?"
"When I am not protecting Mantle, it is my duty to introduce any late enrollments to catch them up on what they've-"
"I didn't sign up for anything." Lisbon puts his right foot back and the mechanics on his forehead take a more angled look to them.
"Now there is no need for aggression, perhaps there was a miscommunication!" Penny says, with that same joyfulness that's starting to grate on Lisbon. "Allow me to confirm with my superiors!" She side-steps out and in comes his regular guard.
"Oh, it's you again," Lisbon says, sitting on the side of his bed. "How have you been?"
The burly guard grunts and shrugs his shoulders.
"Pretty good? Your wife in…what's that placed called again?" Lisbon tilts his head towards him, waiting for an answer.
"Mantle," the guard grumbles.
"Yeah, Mantle. Anyways, how's she doing?" Lisbon asks, faking a smile.
"Okay. She had to evac because of some new mysterious plague that scrambles electronics and eats people alive," the guard says, rolling his armored shoulders. His Nova Mortis makes little clicks and scraping sounds as it rubs against his chest piece. "I'm being transferred to that area. Purification squad."
"Aw, so you won't be my guard anymore? I was getting warmed up to you," Lisbon forces a sad inflection and slackens his shoulders to emphasize.
"Unfortunately so."
"I apologize for the interruption but there has been a miscommunication!" Penny buts in, making Lisbon spring off of his bed. "It appears that I am to acquaint with you, Lisbon!'
"…What?" Lisbon blurts. "Uh, like…get to know each other?"
"Yes! We will be working together in a series of operations within the Red Lands. The General has requested that you make an effort to understand the type of effort Atlas puts for the people in Mantle and that it would convince you to enroll with us!" Penny flashes a wide smile, her green eyes glowing once.
Lisbon is caught with his mouth hanging open. "Uh…so we'll be…teammates? In the…Red Lands?"
"For the rest of your stay here in Atlas!"
"Wow she is positive," Ghost mumbles. "Am I like this all the time?"
"That's…great?" Lisbon utters out, still confused about the proposition.
"Wonderful! Our first deployment begins in three hours!"
"So, I really didn't have a choice in this?"
"General Ironwood requested that I insist, but as it stands, you have been nothing but cooperative!"
"Is Pietro aware of this?"
"Of course, he will be providing tactical support about the situation on the ground!"
. . .
Penny leads Lisbon to an armory with walls upon walls of weaponry that vary in size, length and type.
"You are free to choose any of Atlas' wide range of ballistic and energy weaponry, the Dust containers are behind the glass over there." She points to a sectioned off area of the armory guarded by two soldiers. "Don't worry about the guards, they will let you through."
She turns and almost jets off with those rocket heels of hers. "Oh! I almost forgot to hand you back the weapons we've recovered and suspect belong to you!"
A wide shadow appears above Lisbon. He looks up to see a massive pile of guns floating above him, held up by a green field. He Blinks to the side as it drops to the floor, creating the equivalent of a dust storm in the Manhattan Nuclear Zone. Except much less radioactive and much less infested by mutated Fallen. His photoreceptors zoom in, his machined pupils spinning and picking out the weapons that are and aren't his.
He recognizes a few tags that belong to some very recognizable Crucible champions including Josef and…Randy. The latter might not have been so much of a champion. He was well-known though.
Lisbon sends a ping to Penny, highlighting which weapons were actually his.
"Understood!" The pile lifts up and leaves behind two things: A shotgun and a hand cannon. Prophet of Doom and Ancient Gospel. "I have a question, Lisbon! How were you able to ping me like that?"
"Computer magic," Lisbon says dryly.
"Is that sarcasm?" She asks.
"Yes, that was sarcasm."
"Thank you for updating my databases!"
"Glad I could help."
"You don't have to be so mean to her, Lisbon. She's only been nice to you," Ghost says.
"Just half an hour ago you were complaining about her positivity." Lisbon rolls his eyes and dusts off his shotgun, shouldering it and mag-locking it to his back. "And how am I being mean?"
"I wasn't complaining, I was just pointing it out!" Ghost argues.
"Sure, let's go with that."
Lisbon loads a fresh cylinder into Ancient Gospel and fixes it to his waist
"How did you do that?" Penny asks, tilting her head sideways. "You summoned ammunition from nothing?"
"Computer magic," Lisbon says again.
"You are quite the sarcastic figure, Lisbon!" Penny remarks.
"Sardonic, sometimes."
. . .
Mantle, the Red Lands
Lisbon's boots clack against the concrete floor as he steps out from the V-TOL ship Penny practically threw him inside when they were at the landing pad. She lands beside him, her hands at her hips. He glances at her, then to the area before him.
A venous, bright red, tree-like growth comes from the ground, pulsating as if something was alive inside. It branches out into many smaller veins that attach themselves to buildings, signs and the metal corpses of Atlas' robot soldiers. A cloud of red swirling mites form on top of Penny's head and she swats them away, only for them to migrate to Lisbon. He looks up and stares at the tiny robots swarming around him, trying to find ingress between cracks of his faceplates or his frame.
"Huh…" Lisbon mutters, trying to dispel them with his hands. They don't leave him and instead change to a pinkish hue. "Guess they're stuck with me."
The sound of a radio crackles in his ear. "Juno-One this is Command, do you copy?" A woman's voice patches in.
"This isn't Pietro," Lisbon mumbles.
"Duly noted, Juno-One. Pietro will be with you and Juno-Two shortly. For now, you two are under my command. You may address me as Field-Commander Schnee, or simply, Command."
Lisbon stretches his arms and steps forward, closer to a tent that looks hastily setup and has a few bullet holes in the fabric walls.
"Make your way into Forward Base. I will brief you in on the situation."
"SIVA…" Ghost mutters. "They have a SIVA outbreak here. These people don't know what's coming."
"Are there evacuation orders…Command?" Lisbon pushes his way into the tent, squinting at the woman in white hair standing with her arms behind her back, staring intently at him. She's the same woman that stood beside Ironwood when he tried convincing Lisbon to join Atlas Academy.
"The entire district is being evacuated as we speak," Schnee says. "With mandatory sanitation before relocation."
"Ask her about the sanitation."
"Sanitation, what does it comprise of?"
"You didn't strike me as the one to be interested in details." A slight smirk forms on her face. "Sterilization with the use of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. The techs will know more."
"Bacteria only? That isn't enough."
"I am being told that it is quite enough to eliminate any traces of the…infection and frankly, I would believe them more than you." Schnee steps her way to the opposite side of the table. "We have several hotspots that are optimal for sample collection. You and Penny are the best resources we have for this. Every unit we have sent into these areas have either stopped responding or returned in severely reduced numbers." A holographic map appears, displaying the layout of this district of Mantle. There are several red and yellow spots that indicate regions that are heavily affected by SIVA, though it isn't labelled that, but "REPLI-1."
"Do we know the origins of this outbreak?" Lisbon asks. "Other than me crashing into the black site?"
"That is classified information."
Ghost appears and squints at Schnee with his single blue eye. She recoils back and draws a dueling saber, pointing it at the construct. "What is that!? Has it been recording us this entire time!?"
"Calm down, he's my little buddy." Lisbon smiles at the grey-shelled prism, who looks cheerily back at him. "He knows more about this than I do."
Schnee squints, then lowers her weapon very slightly, so it isn't pointed at Ghost anymore, but Lisbon instead. "Go on."
"I will put it to you frankly, miss Schnee. Your troops are not doing enough only evacuating this district. I've scanned the plans and the entire region needs to be evacuated, to Atlas if possible. We need an organized task force of at least a thousand trained soldiers in that complex now, to destroy it before it can spread even further than it currently has." Ghost glances upwards, in the general direction of that red vine. "We're running out of time, and if we don't do anything Mantle will be taken over. Do you know the nature of this? I can brief Ironwood if he wants to."
Schnee takes a moment to think and gently shakes her head. "We will follow standard procedure and wait for further instructions from the general."
"What I'm trying to say is that standard procedure isn't enough, miss Schnee," Ghost says, shaking his side-to-side. "There is no cure-"
An air raid siren goes off and the outside light takes a redder hue to it.
"We have hostiles incoming," Schnee says. She glances down to a tablet on the table. "It is originating from Ground Zero."
"Do we have a profile on these hostiles?" Ghost asks, floating over to her. She takes a step away from him.
"For all we know they could be anything. This is a first." She walks past Lisbon and outside of the tent. He follows. "There is a broadcast coming through on all frequencies."
A feed appears on the top-right corner of Lisbon's HUD. His entire field of vision starts having interference, as if every single frame of video coming from his photoreceptors were desynced, creating intense clipping in his sight every time he tries to look somewhere. A single symbol faintly takes place in the foreground that ~CONSUME ENHANCE REPLICATE~ forces him to run. To what direction, he doesn't know, but it's as far away as possible.
"Juno-One, where are you going!?" Schnee's voice manages to break through.
~CONSUME ENHANCE REPLICATE~
"I'm being taken over by these damn mites, give me a moment!" He yells batting his arms wildly in the airs. "Get everyone out of here!"
"Allow me!" Penny says. She flies above him, begins spinning mid-air and a light-blue glow starts enveloping her. A second later, she releases a pulse of energy and everything is silent. The siren turns off, the lights disappear, plunging the entire area in the darkness underneath Atlas' shadow. "All done! All squadrons, regroup and fall back to Forward Base Beta! Lisbon, come on, we're getting out of here!" She flies away, leaving behind a bright green streak that stays alight.
"Lisbon? Penny?" Pietro's familiar voice comes on the radio. "I read the electromagnetic pulse, is everything alright?"
"We're fine…ish. Penny's ordered a retreat and we're moving closer-"
The scuffling of light feet.
"…Did you hear that?" Lisbon asks. He looks to his left, to the source of the sound. A few sporadic clusters of red dance in the darkness. They vibrate violently, without any clear direction. The shadow above conceals their true details. "…Fallen. Not even, they're just…SIVA clusters that are using Fallen bodies as a vessel!"
The ground shakes.
"Lisbon?" Pietro asks. "I am hearing something coming. Is it Grimm?"
"Even worse…"
The lights come back on. Lisbon is alone. There are dead bodies with swarms of SIVA mites all around him. Devil Splicers circle him. Except they're not Devil Splicers…but used to be. Their bodies walk around dead, only carried by a computerized force who's only directive is
~CONSUME ENHANCE REPLICATE~
~CONSUME ENHANCE REPLICATE~
~CONSUME ENHANCE REPLICATE~
The three directives repeat over and over in Lisbon's head.
"We have to go, now!" Ghost screams.
"Right ahead of you!" Lisbon rolls and activates his Shade Step, turning invisible. He sprints between Splicer dregs, who don't react to his presence. He turns into an alleyway, making sure to look behind him in case anyone's following.
Something stabs into the ground multiple times, creating the effect of a multi-legged being walking. Lisbon holds his breath and sinks into a wall, holding his body parallel to a set of pipes that run along the walls of the buildings he's surrounded by.
"…Aksis. Except it's not Aksis…it's entirely taken over by SIVA and…don't you think it walks like a Vex?" Ghost asks. Lisbon looks down the alleyway to see a six-legged Archon Prime scurry past in a robotic, procedural walk. It doesn't notice him as it passes.
A hand covers Lisbon's mouth and a voice quickly shushes once.
"We're going to get you out of here, follow us and don't make a sound," the woman's voice says, from his right.
"Who are-"
"Robyn Hill, we'll get to know each other more later."
/
Argus, present day
Saint-14 stands in front of Osiris' new house. It looks cozy from the outside, with a small set of steps that lead into a wooden door that looks quite small for his size, surrounded by snow-covered bushes that are surprisingly still alive in this cold weather.
He can't tell if those are bushes or something a bit more intricate. He looks up, marveling at the sheer height of the abode; the houses in the Last City are at max half the size of this!
"Such prosperity…this is what I wanted for our City," Saint mumbles, looking over to Osiris, who snorts.
"Everyone wanted a better future, following The Collapse. We've all had to trade luxuries for safety. The Guardian is doing good work, back on Earth," Osiris says, crossing his arms. "We won't stay for long. Atlas waits, no? After that, we can work on returning home."
"Atlas waits…" Saint mumbles, shaking his head.
"Saint, Osiris, there's food, are you guys just going to stay outside!?" Ruby opens the front door and quickly closes it again. Saint shrugs.
"Come, Saint. They have a nice garden in the back." Osiris walks up the steps and opens the door. Saint follows closely and bumps his helmet on the top of the doorframe. He winces as he backs up and tightens his lips as his photoreceptors set on the new dent.
"Uh oh," Saint says.
Osiris sighs. "I'll tell her after, make sure to duck every time you get close to a door, hm?"
"I will keep that in mind, friend."
Saint bends his knees and walks inside the house. A wave of warmth washes over him once he crosses the line from concrete to the dark-brown wood floor.
"And this must be Saint-Fourteen!" A blonde-haired woman wearing in a beige vest says from a couch, further inside. "Don't worry about the floor, it can support three times your weight!"
"Osiris, did you tell them I was…heavy?" Saint looks to his Warlock friend, who sighs.
"No, Saint. I would never."
"He'll have to watch the carpet, though," a brown-haired woman wearing glasses sitting to the right on the couch. She gets elbowed on the side of her abdomen.
"The one on left is Saphron, the other is Terracotta," Osiris mumbles.
"Good to meet you both, Saphron and Terracotta!" Saint says, with his usual rambunctiousness. "You two seem to have carved quite a nice spot here in Argus!"
"Thank you, we've been living here for quite a while now!" Saphron says, smiling brightly while holding her baby on her lap.
"Ah, so you two are together? That is amazing! Back at Tower we could never find time for such things!"
Osiris chuckles. "They were all too busy fighting for their lives."
"Yes, what a wonderful city! Maybe here, my skull can rest for a moment!"
Terracotta raises an eyebrow.
Blake gives her input. "His fighting style revolves around using his head as a weapon."
"Thank you, that's what I meant." Saint pauses, and looks around. "Where is Lisbon? I haven't seen him around?"
"You mean the guy in the cloak, he's upstairs," Saphron says.
"Ah, he is probably brooding, which is what most Hunters do, he will return when he feels like it."
"Now that's a stereotype if I've seen one," Sagira says, rolling her eye. "There's some sandwiches left, Saint, get something to eat."
Saint's photoreceptors flicker to the sandwiches on the coffee table. He hums in excitement and grabs one fast as his arm can move while with the other, pops off his helmet. He pushes the food in his mouth and a second later, it's gone.
The reactions are varied.
"You eat?" Yang asks, holding her last bite of sandwich in one hand close to her slightly open mouth.
"Whoa…could Penny do that?" Ruby says, her expression a mix of disbelief and awestruck. "Are you two related?"
Saint rolls his shoulders and wipes the crumbs from around his metal lips and pops his helm back on. "My creators, whoever they are, designed me and Exos like me to be the most like a regular person. Don't be shocked if I do something odd for a…mechanical man."
Something vibrates. Terracotta groans and looks at her Scroll. "Ah, damn it. I'm sorry but I'll be right back."
. . .
The sun is setting. Team RWBY and friends have gone out to go to the military base and have surprisingly asked him to stay behind. Blake reasoned that he would "punch out everyone on sight as soon as things when slightly negatively."
He doesn't think so, but everyone else agreed with the statement, save for the two other Guardians. Saint doesn't really mind, it gives him time to reflect on the past month or so; how far he has gotten since first entering the Infinite Forest, what his purpose is in this new world and just how much the Vex have infected this place. He wonders what the Undying Mind is doing in Atlas, all the way in the air. All of its potential minions have turned up dead.
Is the Mind disabled in some way? How long has it been here? Is it biding its time for the opportune moment to strike? What is it even doing in a place like this?
Saint waits in the backyard of Saphron and Terracotta's home. He sits on the edge of the wooden porch, his feet planted into the grass while he stares at a bundle of flowers on the opposite side of him, close to the wooden fence that's about as tall as him. He can't make out much of the details of the plants due to the sun's unfortunate angle and the small spotlight installed on the top of the porch door doesn't cover much.
The door slides open behind him, gently thwacking against a brick wall. Saint looks behind him, to see Osiris with his hood up and Sagira shining a flashlight using her eye. The Warlock closes the door behind him.
"It was a somewhat smart idea to have you stay behind. I'm certain that you would have gotten angry at two particular soldiers," Osiris says, taking a seat beside Saint. "Ruby is briefing the others on the current situation."
"By the Traveler those two…mimics piss me off so much!" Sagira grumbles. "I swear they just suck up to that Cordovin woman at every step!"
Saint chuckles once. "Where's Lisbon?"
Osiris shrugs. "I haven't seen him." There is a small pause. "He told me that Ruby Rose might be related to another Guardian."
"Summer Rose, correct?" Saint asks. Osiris nods. "I haven't known her very closely. If only Tallulah was with us, she would have known."
"Shame, from what I recall, she was a lot like you, but a bit more…trigger happy and joyful," Osiris says.
"I wonder if her Ghost is here. Maybe we could find it. Find her. We'll destroy all the evils lurking here." Saint huffs.
"Maybe, old friend. Maybe."
Someone begins yelling inside the house. A thump.
"I'll check it out," Saint says. He stands up and watches from the closed door.
"He's in your head, isn't he?" Jaune has his back turned to Saint and is talking to Oscar, who's backing away to a wall. "Did you already know about this?" The taller boy begins walking over to the farm hand.
Saint slides the door open, stepping inside.
Jaune grabs Oscar by the straps and shoves him against the wall, creating a low thud. "How much longer can we even trust him!?"
Saint charges a little ball of Arc in his hand. "Jaune, get away from Oscar."
"How do we even know if it's really him!? What if we have been talking to that liar this whole time!"
The Titan lets it loose and shocks Jaune. The blonde boy seizes and lets Oscar go. He snarls and snaps his head to Saint.
"Do you have anything better to contribute, instead of just sitting outside and talking with friends, like this was all just some reunion!?" Jaune yells, gritting his teeth and his eyes full of a desperate, angry glare.
"Jaune, I know you're upset at what you've just learned, but I know one thing that is incorrect. Salem is killable," Saint says, as calmly as he can muster. "I know this sounds crazy but we have to figure a plan out. This fight isn't for nothing, we will come out victorious in the end."
Jaune tenses, shuts his eyes, then sighs. "Yeah, whatever." He glances back to Oscar, then shakes his head. He turns to the staircase and makes his way up, his shoulders slumped.
Saint lets out a breath too. "Give yourselves time to think, it would benefit you all. Ruby, I want to talk to you in private."
Most of my crazy ideas are reserved for Season 7, which is where the big changes to the RWBY canon are coming.
Stay safe readers, and if you think you have COVID-19, self-isolate. It probably won't affect you, but think of everyone surrounding you.