Welcome back to Remnants! I do not own Overwatch or RWBY.
So I've been mulling over what to do with the Faunus for quite a long time now, trying to figure out if I should just leave them as is, turn the into Omnics, make them Remnant's with animalistic features until finally, I reached a common ground. Remnants, turned into cyborgs during the last years of the Omnic Crisis, called Fauns. Trusted by neither side in the post-war world, they're Outcasts.
Let's get right into the swing of things, shall we?
Chapter IV: Outcasts Part I
The Forever Fall, British Columbia, 12:03 EST
It was so beautiful here, every tree white as freshly made paper, their leaves redder than a strawberry, fluttering down through the air on the ever-present breeze. A scar of the Omnic War, possibly created during the Remnant event near the end of the fighting, but it was so serene it was hard to think of it as anything but a safe haven.
Blake lifted her metallic hand to catch one of the fluttering leaves, feeling the slightest hint of a caress against the simulated nerve-endings in her fingers. Her antennae twisted and turned, taking in the delightful sound of faint birdsong in the distance. She exalted in serenity for a few moments longer when a deep voice cut through her daydreaming.
"Blake, it's time." she turned, a flutter of mangled emotions burning inside her as she saw Adam. Her antennae betrayed the torrent within as one perked up, and the other pulled tight to her head.
Adam had augmented himself heavily, two short horns curved up from his forehead, his eyes covered by a magnetically attached mask covered in deep red flame-like designs. He stood several feet taller than her, his body augmented with the salvaged parts of destroyed Bastions, welded to his form to make it more intimidating, most noticeable his large backward bending legs somewhat resembling a goat's. His left forearm was bulkier than the other while the right was covered in red glowing markings that flashed with light like a heartbeat.
Standing a step behind was Ilia, more similar to Blake in general body shape, though the small horns on her forehead and a similar mask to Adam's set her apart as well.
"O-okay," Blake stated her eyes narrowing slightly as she picked up her cobbled-together weapons and got up from her seated position.
Adam turned and went into a sprint, his augmented legs chewing up ground faster than some motorcycles, with Ilia a step behind followed by Blake.
"You nervous?" Ilia asked, slowing down slightly to be in step with Blake, her voice being sent directly to Blake's antenna.
"A little," Blake admitted, sliding under a broken log as Ilia flipped over it.
"Don't worry, I've got your back," Ilia stated, her tone softening as she spared Blake a sideways glance.
"I know," Blake stated appreciatively, turning to look at Adam as he ran a step ahead of them.
"You're not the one I'm worried about." Blake thought to herself.
They ran in silence for several minutes before coming to a halt next to a cliffside the Canadian Rockies towering in the distance as the deep, whistle of a train shattered the calm around them. Several other Fauns rested along the cliffside, more of the White Iris, Fauns discontent with their place in the world. They all wore masks similar to Adam and Ilia's, weapons hanging off their side.
They all looked up at Adam's arrival, many standing to their feet as he walked past them and stared down at the swiftly approaching train. Blake pulled her mask out from a bag on her hip, staring at it for several moments before bringing it up to lock on to her face.
The train whistled again as it roared past beneath them, Adam leaping from the cliff without a second of notice, Ilia a step behind. Blake launched into the air after her, the others moments behind. The slid down the cliff, Blake passing Ilia, metal screaming against stone as the train grew closer and closer. Adam leaped, followed by black a long red blade emerging from a slot beneath his wrist.
Blake pulled free her own weapons, a cobbled-together machete, and followed his example, halting their momentum as their blades cut through the steel roof of the train. Ilia pulled free the bladed whip at her side, slingshotting herself towards Blake as it found purchase within the side of the train. Ilia skidded to a halt with a small grin on her face, her ponytail fluttering wildly in the racing wind. The others landed, some gracefully, others unsteadily, one a younger man with black markings on his mask, and curling ram-like horns teetered backward, almost falling off the train.
Blake moved to grab him only for Adam, to dart forward, his hand catching on the Faun's shirt. Pulling him back onto the train Adam held him at arm's length for a moment his mouth set in a determined line.
"We do not have the leisure of making mistakes today." he reprimanded, releasing the younger man, "Understood."
"Yes, sir!" came the parroted reply as the others included Ilia nodded in unison. Blake meanwhile had her antenna on a swivel, hunting for radio chatter to pick up on.
So far there was nothing, except a strange song that kept being butchered by static.
"We're clear," Blake stated, looking up at Adam, who's grin took on an edge that sent her heart fluttering once more.
"Good, let's move."
The raced across the top of the train, hopping car to car, hunting for a way inside the train until Adam slowed to a halt next to a hatch. His blade flashed out, severing the latch, and pulled it open, leaping inside, Blake and Ilia a step behind.
The interior was pitch black at first, only for a series of red light to begin to flash on one after another. A secondary hatch slammed shut, leaving the rest of the boarding party trapped up top while several drones woke up, armored faceplates slamming down over cyclopean red eyes.
"Look's like we're doing things the hard way." Adam snarled, as the drones surrounded them.
Ilia smirked, her whip crackling with electricity.
"Don't be so dramatic," Blake remarked, resting her hand on the hilt of her weapon.
One of the drones raised its arms, hands transforming into a set of assault-rifles. They vaguely resembled Bastion units but more streamlined, grey armor stamped with the white spear and cog sigil of the Atlas PMC on their left shoulder.
"Intruder, identify yourself." the drone ordered, in a deep, likely purposefully, intimidating voice.
Out of the corner of Blake's eye, she watched Adam smirk, raising his hands slowly, only for his arm to rotate around revealing the long barrel of a shotgun, which he fired directly into the drone's face. It lurched backward, Adam darting in, the blade emerging from his other hand, cutting a long slash along the front of its torso before spinning around to it's back, sending a cut the opposite way up it's back, bisecting it.
As the halves sparked and slid apart, the other drones turned to each other, blades of their own emerging from their arms, and darted forward. Four pincered in on Blake and Ilia.
Their blades descended from her neck, as she was shunted backward, a holographic image of herself taking the blow, while she spun in a circle, pulling her cleaver like blade off her back, cutting the head off one and removing an arm and a good chunk of the torso from the other.
Ilia meanwhile, ducked low under the first blow, pulling the trigger at the base of her whip causing it to punch forward, piercing clean through the head of one of the drones. Whirling around she kicked the other drone off its feet and vanished. The drone sat up, head-turning to face Blake. It went to move up, only for the bladed whip to wrap around its lower torso from behind and pull backward, severing the metallic spinal column, the torso falling to the ground while the legs stumble stepped forward several feet before collapsing.
The trio darted back towards each other, fighting back to back in a flurry of motion, ducking under each other blows, Adam's torso spinning like a top as he fired shot after shot from his arm-mounted shotgun. Blake and Ilia weaved around him, separating heads from necks, and limbs from bodies in a flurry of motion the slower drones struggled to even match let alone beat.
One drone planted far at the back and began to fire, bullets ricocheting off other drones, and pinging against the walls of the train car. Adam turned, the blade detaching from his wrist, He flipped it into the air, and caught it with his reassembled hand, blocking several shots in rapid succession, the marks on his armor shining brighter and brighter with each deflected shot.
Blake darted forward, deflecting several bullet's as well, as she charged the offending bot, sliding low across the ground, before leaping suddenly, decapitating the drone with a spinning swipe, keeping her momentum going she cut clean through another drone, followed by a third, when on her fourth spin she grabbed the cleaver-like blade of her weapon near the hilt, and pulled it away, revealing a thinner, slightly curved blade. She became a dervish of duel-wielding devastation, as Ilia darted behind her, electricity, snapping free of her whips as she shorted out drones, and dragged them away from Blake's blindspots.
Blake kicked one drone into the air, Adam charging to meet it with a fierce kick of his own, sending it crashing through the railcar's door. Adam raced after it, Blake and Ilia a step behind, revealing an open-air platform, covered in heavier cargo.
Blake's antenna perked up as a call went across all-comms, "Intruders have emerged onto car eight, all teams, weapons hot!"
"They know we're here," Blake reported, ducking behind cover as several more drones began leaping over the cover to meet them.
Ilia joined her while Adam continued to stand tall, deflecting bullets with his blade, "We stick to the plan."
The was a yell behind them, as the other White Iris caught up, some opening fire from where they stood, while others jumped down to join Adam.
"Lieutenant!" Adam barked, as the tallest Faun amongst them, long black tattoo's lining his remaining human arm, the rest of his body covered in metal, and synthetic muscle, his mask almost barn-owl in appearance, red marking surrounding its eyes and dripping down like bloody tears.
"Yes, Field-Commander?" the Faun asked, taking several shots to the torso but not even flinching as he grabbed an oncoming drone by the neck and then ripped it in half lengthwise.
"Carve a path!"
Blake winced as the dark laughter that colored the Lieutenant's voice, as he pulled an immense chain-saw that had been converted into a pike off his back, "Gladly!"
The large man charged forward, his powerful swings cutting through the Drone's like butter, the force behind them sending many careening off the train in a flurry of shattering metal and sparks.
Adam began stalking his way forward, Ilia jumping over the barricade, Blake following after her. A cry went up behind her, one of the Faun's crumpling to the ground with a wounded shoulder as several Drones emerged from behind them.
Blake spun around, her blade collapsing into an almost boomerang-like shape, a cord emerging from her wrists and mag locking to the hilt as she flung it like a yoyo. It sliced into the head of one of the drones, and as she yanked it fired, a bullet fired free of the weapon shattering the drone's eye and sent it sideways off the train. The blade whipped around as she spun, slamming into a drone Ilia had been fighting, beheading it.
Once more the dervish began, her gun-kama whirling around like the world's deadliest yoyo, its sheathe now maglocked to her back, as she whirled and twirled around.
"Hold the line!" Adam ordered as he darted past the Lieutenant, "Blake! With me!"
She darted forward ducking under the wild swing of a drone, that earned a furious dismemberment from Ilia for its trouble. Blake caught up to Adam as he bisected four drones with a single blow, the red-markings on his right arm, now steaming from the energy stored with.
Blake leaped at the one left standing, severing its right arm and head from the remains of its torso as she leaped past.
Adam kicked open the door to the next car, revealing several piles of crates, and three frantic Atlas Guards, an open crate at their feet. Adam sneered as they raised their rifles while Blake froze.
"You are interfering with Atlas's Supply Lines!" the eldest guard barked, leveling his rifle at Adam's head, "Stand down, or we will open fire."
"No," Adam said coldly, taking a step forward. The youngest guard panicked firing a stray shot that whizzed past Adam and struck Blake right in the shoulder. Her world disappeared in searing white-hot pain as electricity jumped and jolted through her entire body.
There was a roar of fury, and as her vision began to blink back into focus the sight was anything but welcoming.
One of the guards was strewn across the floor in a crumpled heap, feebly twitching while another was pinned to the wall with Adam's blade through her shoulder. He had rounded on the final guard, his shotgun an inch from the shaking man's temple, a feral snarl on Adam's face.
"Adam! Don't!" Blake cried, surging to her feet. He turned to look at her, the snarl remaining but some of the anger behind it burning away. He stood up, towering over the frightened man, and with a disgusted grunt kicked him backward. The man slammed into the wall, his helmeted head cracking against the wall. He fell to the ground bonelessly, Blake darting towards him, her heart beating a terrified staccato.
Kneeling down, she let out a gasping sigh as the man was revealed to be breathing softly the only wound a broken nose, and the rapidly growing bruise around both eyes.
Blake turned on Adam with a fearful glare, as he rounded on the pined woman, taking his blade in hand and pushing it deeper, eliciting a scream.
"Adam! Stop!" Blake demanded, as several of the others emerged from the shattered door, Ilia and the Lieutenant at the forefront.
"Sir, the last of the defenses have been defeated." the latter reported.
"Good," Adam remarked, cocking his head slightly as he stared at the heavily breathing woman before him, "How many more people are on board?"
"Twenty," the woman choked out, "They're civilians, please-"
She was cut off by a vicious punch to the side of the head, Adam pulling his blade out as he did so, letting her slump to the ground in a heap.
He turned to face the Blake and the others, Blake staring at his aghast, her breathing hitched in a slight panic, while Ilia fidgeted slightly at the sight of the injured Humans. The others barely even blinked.
"Grab everything we can carry. Then set the charges." Adam ordered, pointing around the room, "Three of you go find the rest of the passengers, bring them here."
The Lieutenant and two other detached and made their way to the opposite door, only for Blake to dart ahead of them and intercede.
"This wasn't the plan!" Blake cried, frantically looking around at the others, "We were supposed to just leave a message."
"This is our message," Adam stated, pointing down at the Schnee family sigil printed across the numerous crates, several of which were holding high-powered rifles and Schnee ADaptive Utility Synthesis Tracer Rounds, which judging by the partially empty container is what she had been shot with.
"These weapons, if not in our hands, will be used against us," Adam stated, as the sound of an explosive charge being placed punctuated his sentence.
"Los Muertos, Helix, Schnee's attack dogs, they all think they can treat us like freaks! Like animals! That ends today." Adam stated.
"What about the passengers?" Blake demanded.
"What about them?" Adam asked, staring her down, waiting for her to cave, as she had before.
But this was different, these people had lives, families to go home to, "You're talking about killing innocent people! If you do this you'll be no better than Null Sector or Talon!"
Adam opened his mouth to make a counterpoint when a loud beeping noise cut through their argument.
He turned with a snarl, as the one guard had gotten to his knees, ignored in the commotion, and pushed a button on his wrist. Ilia struck out at him catching him in the back of the neck with her whip, electricity ripping through his body. Blake moved to stop her when something metallic caught her in the back and sent her careening only for Adam to leap into the air and catch her. He held her close to his chest for a moment, and once more confusion and fear burned through her mind.
He set her down and turned as a large, red-and-black crab-like drone, with four glowing cannons detached from the ceiling like an overgrown spider.
Ilia and the Lieutenant darted forward to meet it, only for the former's strike to bounce off the robot's thick plated-hide without even a scratch. It then fired, catching the Lieutenant directly in the face, sending him careening backward, almost sliding off the train and beneath the wheels as he floundered for a handhold. It rotated on the others, the other three cannons glowing, and fired, Adam, deflected the first two to the side, visible glowing steam now pouring from his right arm, ripping holes in the side of the train car.
He rebounded the third, sending it into the drone's head. It teetered back slightly, but recovered, a plasma burn the only sign of damage.
"We need to leave!" Blake ordered, the other Fauns darting behind her and Adam, while Ilia flipped away from it's stamping feet and skidded to a halt next to the pair.
As if in response the drone planted its feet wide, the cannons combining into one immense piece of ordnance, the maw glowing with snapping, building plasma.
Adam pushed Ilia and Blake behind him, raising his blade in a determined grimace, as the cannon unloaded. The world around them went white and as the flashbang effect of the weapon disappeared, Blake saw the shrapnel raining down around them, the Lieutenant sprawled across the platform unconscious and the other White Iris stumbled to their feet in a state of shock. She heard a shocked cry and turned to see Ilia, careening off the side of the train.
Her kama flashed out as a clone emerged, shunting her backward, and she pulled with all of her might, drawing in Ilia before she could hit the ground. Her friend fell into her open arms, a fearful hug whipping the rest of the world away for a moment.
"You-you saved me," Ilia muttered, her hands shaking slightly as she grasped Blake's arms, her voice filled with the same soft tone as before.
Blake's mask had cracked from the blast, falling away to reveal off her yellow-circuitry filled eyes.
"Of course I did, I've got you're back to remember," Blake stated, with a sincere soft smile, the moment shattered by another explosion and Adam yelling.
"Blake, Ilia!" Adam cried, deflecting another shot, as the drone crawled its way out of the shattered rail car.
"Buy me some time!" he ordered, firing his shotgun at the drone, the bullets ricocheting off it to little effect.
Ilia reached for her weapon, and found air, "I...I lost my whip."
Blake placed a hand on her shoulder, and stated very seriously, "It's fine, look after the others."
She then darted away, weaving towards the drone, both blades out as Adam flipped his bladed into his other hand and began to draw it along his glowing arm.
Throwing her Kama, she fired a shot into the robot's head, using the forward momentum of the swing to drag her under and over the back of the creature, landing another blow to the back of its head with her rapidly spinning weapon. He then leaped off it's back as it struck at her with the barrel of the cannon, weaving between and chopping at its legs to little effect. She then cartwheeled backward, a clone taking a hit for her as she then leaped upward sinking her sword into the drone's chin and fired shot after shot into its neck. She kicked off its chest, using another clone to tank a hit and send her even further back, landing next to Adam, his blade now wreathed in red-light.
The drone moved to make another combo-shot, and Adam turned, to her yelling, "Move!"
Blake obliged, leaping away and kneeling down behind a crate, Ilia alighting at her side with a tense expression on her face.
The drone fired, and Adam raised his blade edge first, not deflecting the shot but seeming to draw it into his blade, and into his body as red-fire began to play across his entire form, his eyes glowing from with his mask, his body turning a pitch black.
The drone leaped towards him, intent on bringing it's likely several tone weight done on top of him, only for Adam to lash out, a burst of red-and-black energy-burning across the creatures form as it fell backward, disintegrating into clumps of black ash that was swiftly blown away by the wind.
Adam stood up, his weapon disappearing back into his arm as the energy dissipated, leaving him standing with a triumphant smirk on his face. A cheer went up from the rest of the White Iris members, as he turned to look at Blake and Ilia.
The latter smiled over at her, placing a hand on her shoulder, "We did it!"
The rush of excitement and adrenaline fled Blake's body as Adam turned back to the car holding the Atlas guards and the weaponry, "Alright people, back to work, the world has yet to hear our message."
"Do you have any idea how crazy you sound!" Blake cried, causing him to round on her
"These people didn't do anything wrong!" she continued, "Why should we take their lives, the only message that sends is that people should hate us!"
"They already hate us!" Adam barked, stalking towards her, "Humans, Omnics, we don't match either of their molds We're just 'Broken Weapons', 'Warped Mistakes', Monsters! So why not act the part!"
"This won't get you what you want!" Blake cried, panic overtaking her as she looked around at the others, who were staring between Adam and Blake, Ilia focusing mainly at Blake.
"What if I want this?" Adam countered, stalking further towards her.
"I can't-what happened to you?" Blake choked out, "What happened to the person I fell in love with?"
Adam tensed slightly, a flicker of doubt on his face for a second, as the others' heads snapped to look at him.
His expression steeled once more, "I got tired of hiding. Now darling, are you with us or against us?"
Blake stared up at him, rigid, the only comfort Ilia's hand brushing against hers when a gun-shot ran out, startling her as a bullet cut a long line across Adam's mask and slammed into the back of the rising Lieutenant, sending him to his knees in a torrent of sparks once more.
Blake turned, as Adam jolted away from her and caught sight of an older Human man dressed in a red poncho, over battered brownish-yellow chest armor, brown pants with leather chaps overtop them, brown leather boots with stirrups, a belt with the word BAMF on his waist, and a scarred cowboy's hat atop his head. A six-shooter was held in his one hand, the end smoking, while another was holstered on his hip next to several long metallic tubes. His right hand, a robotic prosthetic raised to his bearded mouth as he pulled a cigar away and puffed a cloud of smoke into the air. He tilted his head upwards revealing kind brown eyes, though they were set in a determined grimace.
"Sorry to interrupt, but I think I speak for the girl when I say you need to back the hell off." Jesse McCree stated, as he flicked his cigar aside and drew his other pistol in one fluid motion.
Adam snarled, "Kill him!"
"Ten, no eleven on one? Now those are my kind of odds!" the cowboy laughed, pulling back the hammer of both guns.
And scene, tune in next time for the bombastic conclusion, alongside a different perspective when it comes to this little train heist. Hope you enjoyed it, remember any comments, questions, or concerns are always appreciated. This has been VerBeeker, signing off!