Jaune Arc awakened to a rather drastic change in scenery.
The first thing was that instead of waking up in his comfortable bed at Beacon, he was sprawled out on top of a somewhat large sand dune. The next thing to hit was a throbbing headache, the pure unbridled pain that each thump brought rivaled even the great 'Fruit Punch Incident' of his first Beacon dance.
The next thing Jaune noticed was that the sand was hot.
Very, very hot.
Jaune scrambled to his feet as quickly as his body would allow him, he shouldn't have been surprised that the sand was hot, but what did surprise him was the physical marks the sand left behind, as well as the swelteringly hot desert that surrounded him at all sided as far as the eye could see.
"What the hell?" Jaune whispered to himself as he looked around and tried to get his bearings, his lips felt almost as dry as the desert around him, and he could feel beads of sweat drip down his face.
'I need to get out of this sun.' The blond knight thought to himself, his eyes scanning his surroundings for anything that could be of interest.
After not spotting anything but mirages and blisteringly hot dunes, Jaune turned his attention to himself, it wasn't his first time in the wilds on his own, when he was younger the entire Arc family would go out on big camping trips every month, the only difference here is that instead of a lush and cool forest he was in a desolate and dry desert
"Okay," The blond muttered to himself before absentmindedly wiping his brow of sweat, "Three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food."
Jaune nodded to himself and looked down at himself, a sigh of relief escaped him when he found he was still in his normal attire and still had crocea mors strapped to his belt.
Jaune began the arduous process of undoing the many latches and buckles that held his chest plate to his body, as much as it pained him to say it, he couldn't afford to carry the heavy chunk of titanium alloy, and the fact that the metal was already burning to the touch told him all he needed to know about its usefulness.
He'd bought it with the remaining Lien he had after running off to Vale to join Beacon, it was a cheap piece of mass-produced armor normally reserved for younger hunters and huntresses to wear when sparing, but he didn't know that when he saw it in the window of a hunstman shop, to him it was more a symbol of his dedication to become a Huntsman.
What once was a pristine white chest plate was now a scratched, dented, and worn in piece of himself, where other students upgraded their arsenal to mech shift weapons and the newest armor trend Jaune remained. He didn't need fancy weapons or armor to protect people.
Jaune shook his head, 'the last thing I needed is to be getting lost in thought' he thought to himself before dropping the heavy plates into the sand.
Turning around, the blond pulled off his hoodie and raised it over his head, he'd need all the shade he could get.
-=-=-=Line Break=-=-=-
Jaune stumbled as the sand under his feet shifted, the blond panted in exhaustion for a moment before pulling himself up and returning to his trek once again.
He wasn't sure exactly how long he'd been walking, ten minutes? an hour? It was hard to know for sure when the only details you can make out are wibbly tan or wobbly blue.
Jaune felt the sand shift beneath him again but was quick enough to catch himself and continue on his arduous treck in search of shelter, water, and food, in that order.
The blond let out an exhausted sigh, as often as the sand shifted he'd be surprised if it didn't just open up and swallow him whole.
'It'd probably be more comfortable down there than in this heat' The knight laminated.
Jaune shook his head and let his morbid thoughts drift into memories of the past, memories that would always lift his spirits: Playing video games with Ruby, initiation with Pyrrha, training on the roof, that time Ruby dragged Weiss to JNPR's dorm to play video games.
Jaune paused, the memories were having the exact opposite effect he'd hoped. Instead of feeling happy and content he just felt empty.
he knew he'd probably never see his friends or family again, he'd had plenty of time to come to terms with it during his long walk through what felt like an endless desert.
But just because he'd come to terms with it didn't mean he wouldn't still miss them, Ruby's bright smiling face, the friendly jabs by Yang at lunch, The intelligent conversations with Weiss, His partner's proud gaze as they trained, and the friendly back and forth that Nora and Ren offered. All things he'd more likely than not never see again. All things he wished he'd be able to see again.
But people needed help.
Those images of death and destruction were still burned into Jaune's memory, there was no doubt they would haunt him for the rest of his life, but if he had to trade his happiness, his own life, to protect innocent people from having to live those nightmares, then he would gladly do it.
Jaune could feel himself losing the strength to stand, his entire body felt sapped of energy and he felt the world around him wobble around him.
The thunderous echoes of rifle and heavy weapons fire caused Jaune's head to snap up, his previous exhaustion forgotten in favor of this new distraction.
Silence reigned for a moment and Jaune almost feared he'd missed his shot when another triage of fire with explosions mixed in echoed through the desert once more. The blond knight turned to where he thought the sound was coming from and began shuffling towards it as quickly as his body would allow him to.
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Valmir 'Val' Fehr swept a hand through her bleached blond hair, her deep yellow eyes looking over her co-axial mounted Heavy Bolter as her Chimera rolled along the blistering, sand covered road ahead of them, well road was a little too generous of a word, it was more like a path that had been used so much the sand didn't have any more room to shift beneath them, making it one of the few reliable paths for heavy armor.
There were nine other Chimeras in their armored column, along with six Basilisk Artillery pieces, two Baneblades, and a myriad of support and supply vehicles carrying everything an aspiring guardsman could ever want from rations, water, and ammunition, to Amasec and some of the more 'adventurous' dataslates.
Val let out a heavy sigh, oh there wasn't anything in the world she wouldn't give to get her hands on a bottle of the good stuff the Colonel hid in the Baneblade, But she knew not to push her luck.
The blond-haired Felinid let out a huff before whipping the sweat from her tanned forehead yet again.
Val pulled her canteen free and took a long swig, it was warm, but she couldn't complain, free food, water, and she gets to shoot the big guns? What was there to complain about?
Before the guard, Val had been nothing more than an orphaned street rat in a primitive city local to Valya*, but now? Now she was a bonified badass in the 143rd Valyan Desert Raiders**, the only desert regiments to heavily use both Heavy Armor and Artiliary.
But if she was being honest with herself, life hadn't really changed all that much, most everyone in the regiment either just ignored her or outright hated her from the start, and the only reason they really kept her around was because she was a better shot with a heavy bolter than the entire company combined.
But she didn't care, she wasn't just some orphaned gutter rat anymore, she was an imperial guardswoman, she was the mighty hammer that the great God-Emperor himself would use to smite down the enemies of man, she was to be his instrument in the great symphony of warfare.
Val smiled to herself and muttered a quick prayer, she could hear the crew and Guard squad below her, all of them grumbling something along the lines of 'filthy abhumans', she was positive she wouldn't have heard them had her ears not given her an enhanced sense of hearing, but she ignored them just as she always did, as long as she kept the Emperor in her heart, she would be at his side in death.
The blond Felinid returned her gaze to the stretches of desert around her, she loved it, the blistering heat, the bright blue sky, the sprawling dunes, and the smell, sun-baked sand and a hint of... Val focused and sniffed the air in confusion.
"Blood?"
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!"
"CONTACT RIGHT!"
Forms appeared all around them as the overpowering stench of blood and gore hit her like a truck, just looking at the forms caused her head to pound and her eyes to burn, bile began to rise in her throat but she forced it back down in favor of readying her Heavy Bolter.
All hell broke loose, Val opened up on a group of Cultists who had huddled just a little to close together, the hail of explosive bolts tearing into the lightly armored heretics with ease and blowing them to pieces.
Val roared and raked her bolter across a line of cultists, the bolts hitting home and exploding in sprays of gore and sand, the lucky ones died instantly.
Val let slip a prayer to the Emperor as she raked the bolter across another line of cultists, each heavy thump sent a wave of pressure through her body as the heavy round soared through the air and caused the death of one more filthy Heretic.
And by the Emperor did she reveled in it, this was the Emperor's work after all.
Val's ears twitched to her left just as two explosions rocked the chimera, closely followed by two thunderously loud reports that she knew could only come from an Autocannon.
Val swiveled, lined her bolter up, and fired a burst of seven, each round slamming home into the emplacement and igniting its ammunition, causing a thunderous explosion that sent a wave of shrapnel and gnarled metal into any chaos tainted standing too close.
Blond feline ears twitched back to the right, and four more explosions rocked the armored transport, the armor only succeeding to fully stop three of the four heavy rounds, the fourth having penetrated the rear troop compartment before exploding violently.
Val cried out in pain and collapsed to the cramped metal floor, hot bolt shells littered the ground around her, and a long jagged piece of red stained metal was protruding from her right thigh.
Val hissed in pain as another triage of shots shook the armored vehicle, small shafts of light now being let into the gunner's compartment by shrapnel that just missed her.
Val felt beads of sweat and hot tears run down her face, her eyes were clamped shut, wrapping her gloved hands around the jagged hunk of shrapnel, the guardswoman yanked the piece free, ripping flash and spraying blood across her flak armor and face.
The distinct feeling of blood pooling around her caused the full reality of the situation to hit her, her eyes widened in panic, she didn't want to die, she was only 19, she'd only just been introduced to the modern world, there was so much she had yet to see, so much she had yet to experience.
"Please, I don't want to die!" Val sobbed, hot tears mixing with sweat and blood as it rolled down her face.
Blood only continued to pool around her as the jagged gash in her leg gushed blood in time with her heartbeat, she continued desperately trying to put pressure on the wound, but with the pain and her sudden loss of blood, she was losing strength quickly. Val could feel herself slipping when a hand was suddenly laid on her shoulder, a wave of warmth and comfort washed over her the moment the hand made contact with her body.
A man appeared within Val's field of vision, his face without flaws, piercing eyes and long black hair with a smile that mirrored that of a proud parent, the man spoke, but his mouth never moved, yet his voice still echoed within her mind as smooth as honey, three words, and the thoughts of bright blond hair and striking blue eyes flowed through her mind before she slipped into unconsciousness.
"The Emperor Protects."
*The planet Valya has only recently been brought under the Imperium's thumb. It was quickly discovered that the planet had a local population of both humans and Felinids that lived together in harmony within rather primitive cities and towns. The recapturing and reintegration of the planet and its populace was smooth and quick, five years later the planet has gained a reputation for having the toughest armored desert regiment in the Imperium.
**The 143rd Valyan Desert Raiders are masters in both desert and armored warfare. Hailing from the desert planet of Valya, their ranks consist of both Felinids and humans. While they are primarily an armored regiment, they do have a competent infantry company to supplement their armor.
A/N
I added a Felinid, I've never seen a Warhammer story that actually has any Felinids, so I thought it would be a unique little twist, they have a ton of potential in the Warhammer universe but the lack of lore for them has forced me to take a few creative liberties and say that Felinids in this story are more akin to cat faunus than to furries, it's just easier for me to write.
Yes, I do prefer wise and kindly Emps to 'Purge the Heretic' Emps, so that's how I'll be portraying him in this story for the most part.
Also, Jaune and everyone else on remnant speak low gothic, a language barrier in a story like this is a little above my writing abilities.
As always, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, drop me a review and tell me what you thought, it inspires me to write faster :)