Okay time to put something into the frame of this story. Giles is from E.D.N. lll of course but like the mercs from the early parts of the game he is aware of what a forest and a not ruined city is, but he has never seen one in person. So he is going to be having some pretty extreme reactions to a "proper" civilization like Vale and its forested surroundings.
Also i would like to thank the people that already reviewed this story. I was blown away by the speed at which people found this story. I literally just woke back up did some chores around the house and boom reviews. It was pretty surprising.
In the vast wooded area's outside Vale, known as the emerald forest, the early morning quiet is suddenly replaced with a cataclysmic explosion. The burning wreckage of a mechanical suit comes suddenly hurtling into existence among the large explosion. The trees in the surrounding area are blasted backwards by this explosion and the suit slams into one of them. The suits armor cracks as it comes to a rest among the splinters of the trees. It lays on its back against the pile of timbers and slowly cools down in the damp morning air.
Within the suit Giles lay unconscious as his Harmonizer got to work mending his broken bones and severe burns. Thankfully the suit had taken the brunt of the damage. The Mini guns barrels were melted slag and the auto cannons barrels had been broken in the landing. The shotgun had snapped off the main frame and lay, relatively intact, nearby in the blast zone.
Beacon academy, Ozpins office.
Ozpin had heard the explosion even from his office. He had quickly dispatched a couple of the schools bullheads to scour the woods for the source of the disruption. It had been just a couple short days after the most recent initiation and team assignment ritual and he was busy enough without any new events happening.
Their was a ding on his computer console as he received a feed from one of the bullheads. It showed a large crater deep in the woods with a ruined mech laying near it. The thing was obviously destroyed beyond any chance of repair but it seemed like the cockpit was still intact. What could be seen of the design was what piqued Ozpins interest though, General Ironwood had kept him up to date with the Paladin series mechs being developed in Atlas, and this mech while similar in the basic frame work was obviously very different. It was smaller lacked arms and seemed less cumbersome in general.
Salvage and investigation of the event being at the forefront of his mind he picked up his phone and made a call to one of the teachers of beacon. One Bartholomew Oobleck, with his keen intellectual mind and love of science he would love to get his hands onto a mystery like this.
"Doctor Oobleck reporting Headmaster Ozpin. How may I help?" Oobleck rapidly reported, already wide awake this early day.
"Bartholomew, I have news for you. The source of that explosion was found by one of the bullheads. I would like you to go investigate the crater and try to find out the source. Also their seems to be an odd looking but heavily damaged mech on site." Ozpin briefed him.
"Hmm, yes that would seem a likely connection, but was it the victim of the event or the source. I shall endevour to collect this salvage. I shall leave immediately." And with that the over active professor was away, barely stopping to grab his safari gear, his thermos and to close the call.
About 10 minutes later, with Giles.
Giles awakens with a groan of pain and a splitting headache. His VS was deactivated, all lights inside the craft shut down or broken and the access hatch on the front of the cockpit was slightly open, cracked open by the crash. The only light coming from the crack of the door and his harmonizers gentle light of restoration that was slowly easeing his pain.
Giles grabs his Thermal energy pack again and looks at the gauge. 42 units left. Giles swears under his breath shortly before checking the rest of his gear. Gun sword? Still here. Hand cannon? Yup. Grenades? Still in their pack. With his stuff checked on Giles grabs begins to notice that something is really weird, just a feeling he can't place right now. The air just feels off to him. He shrugs it off though and tries to push the door on his VS open but it barely shifts. He groans and sets his back to his seat and puts his feet up. With a mighty kick he blasts the door away from him and is blinded by the sunlight streaming in on him now.
After a second his vision clears and he looks out at... something green? Giles clambers out of the cockpit and stands on unfamiliar ground. Namely bare dirt.
"Where the hell am I?" He asks to the surroundings.
His mind races as he tries to figure out where he is. Theirs no snow or ice or even any rock formations. All he sees are these green and brown monoliths in all directions with the occasional green patch's scattered around in between them. He's never seen anything like them before in his life. Giles grabs his Rifle and ready's it before he begins to survey the area in more detail.
His VS was on the edge of a crater in the ruins of several of the monoliths and was a complete shambles. Giles approached it and placed a hand on its shell before muttering a quick. "Sorry Dad, i guess the old girls not coming back from this one." With his goodbyes given Giles wrenched open the storage compartment and started pulling out his emergency supplies. The extra Thermal energy tanks he had looted before hand, a couple days of rations, a handgun with ammo and his survival kit remained within. With a sigh he refilled his tank to max and drops the nearly empty tank in the storage unit.
Suddenly he feels a rush of air behind him and he snaps around to be greeted by a black and white blur of some creature charging him.
With a quick jump to the side Giles dodges and with a quick flourish he automatically unfolds his Gun swords blade and slashes upwards into the creature. The blade bisects it in one easy swing.
Now that its not rushing him Giles gets a good look at it. Its some sort of animal covered in fur and bones jutting out of its flesh. As he watches it it begins to dissolve into a black mist. Honestly after a life time of killing Akrid and watching them turn to ice statues, its not too weird to Giles. He's still on all the green honestly.
However as he looks back around he realizes that their are quite a bit more of these creatures in the surrounding environment. And that they are circling him.
"Alright you bastards come and get me!" Giles shouts at them before opening fire with his Gun sword back in rifle mode. As one the group of animals charge him. He mows some down with his rifle before they reach him. The massive caliber of his rifle, designed for fighting Akrid, tears through them with ease.
Most of the creatures that make it close to him are rapidly torn apart by his thermal energy encased blade but they are far faster then many Akrid that comes in such numbers usually and Giles is quickly pushed back to fighting atop the wreckage of his VS. He pulls out one of his grenades and throws it to the ground in front of him. It promptly deploys into a Human shaped balloon carrying a machine gun. As soon as it finishes deploying it starts pivoting in an arc in front of it and starts spraying the area with machine gun fire. It quickly mows down everything in front of it, freeing up Giles to focus on clearing up the creatures on the opposite side of the wreckage. Unfortunately after the weapons clip was used up the balloon deflated with a little pop.
"Where do these damn things keep coming from! This place was clear just a little ago!" Giles yelled out as he threw out a second deploy grenade from his pouch. It was then that he noticed his VS Shotgun laying on the ground nearby. He turned and fired his grapple hook to the ground nearby, that pulled him next to the weapon. He lugged the weapon up. It was for human standards a monstrous thing. And thanks to the harmonizer it was able to be fired by any one. He took it up, set his feet into a wide stable stance and fired it. The blast knocked him back a foot or two, but compared to the creatures it was a gentle breeze.
The first shot had turned the entire crowd between him and the nearest monolith into a fine mist, the second had cleared a quarter of the battlefield and on the third it clicked empty.
"God damn it!" Giles shouted as he threw the weapon down in frustration. It was at that moment that a Vehicle that Giles did not recognize flew overhead. It looked like an Osprey but had a distinct lack of visible weapons and much more armor. As Giles gawked at the thing the side opened and a man in a brown trench coat and tan helmet jumped out.
He was carrying nothing but a thermos? Which with a flick of his wrist deployed into a staff? Which is also a flamethrower?
"What the hell is going on?" Giles said out loud as the trench coated individual quickly started laying into the creatures.
"Fight now questions later my good man. The Grimm wait for no one." The man with the trench coat bellowed at him. Not one to hesitate in combat Giles set his concerns to the side as he joined the man in laying waste to the remaining creatures. Just before they finished they heard a loud roar come from behind them and a much larger Grimm, Giles had heard the man call them, burst into the scene.
It was a huge and heavily armored one covered in bone. It walked on four hooves and had two large tusks coming out of its face on either side of its mouth, which was full of sharp jagged teeth.
"Oh, how interesting this is, An alpha Boarbatusk, rarely does this particular grimm live to such a ripe old age. My Peter will be jealous." The man stated calmly as he sized the creature up.
Giles just stared at it, waiting for its move, he had plenty of experience with larger creatures from dealing with Akrid. He watched as the thing proceeded to roll up into a ball.
"Damn it its just like a Dongo!" With that Giles got prepared to dodge it as the thing proceeded to start to spin in place to gather speed. Then with a crashing noise it sped forward much faster then Giles had predicted. Giles had barely gotten to the side when it passed, the displacement of air throwing the mid-air Giles for a loop as he crashed to the ground rather then make the controlled roll he had planned.
Giles land roughly on his side facing the direction that the Boarbatusk had rolled and watched as it ceased rolling, turned sharply and started revving up for another roll. This is when The trench coated man hit it from the side with a blast of fire. They could both hear the creature squeal in pain, but contrary to both their expectations it didn't un-roll or even slow down. It was smart enough to keep rolling, which extinguished the flames into the dirt. Then the Boarbatusk shot off again, not at Giles though. It seemed that its primary goal was to get away from the flamethrower wielding man.
It did accomplish the smashing of the VS Shotgun as it passed it though. Giles quickly stood with a roar of anger at his weapon being destroyed. With this he stepped up even with the boarbatusks next pass, after it had unrolled and turned again.
"Enough of this bull. Your stopping here you irritating bastard." He yelled as he threw his rifle onto its back holster and drew his hand cannon from its sheathe on his leg. He aimed it directly at the Boarbatusk and steadied his hand.
`"You fool, get out of the way before it.." The man in the coat started up before the weapon discharged. With a thunderous bang the weapon fired a large shell, that blasted right through the spinning creature and crashed into one of the monoliths before finally detonating and bringing the thing down. With a final squeal of pain the boarbatusk shot off at a much lower speed then it would have preferred and ground to a halt right before Giles and started to fade away.
"Serves you right for smashing my stuff you pain in my ass!" Giles yelled again as he holstered his weapon. After that the area seemed clear and he turned to fully take in the man in the coat. He was quite tall, but thin, lanky one would say. He seemed to have a nervous air about him, as if he couldn't stop move for a second. He wore thick glasses and had very messy green hair. Under the coat he wore a white shirt with a yellow tie. He looked ridiculous to Giles.
Ooblecks point of view:
With the alpha boarbatusk dispatched with the thunderous retort of the strangers weapon, Oobleck turned to get a better look at the man. Not that he could see much. His clothes were vastly out of place in this forest. A light tan and white Parka and hood, with a matching set of snow pants with combat boots and knee pads. Over this parka was an array of bandoleers and pouches. On his back he had a couple of variously sized canisters, all glowing an orange color. One was connected by a wire to a metal device attached to his left arm. Over his face was an intimidating gas mask that seemed to be attached to the hood around it, forming a seal over his entire head.
Even stranger was his weapons. The rifle he carried, now slung over his back, was very bulky and had a bull-pup design to it. He had a fairly simple looking sidearm on his hip, and lower then that he had holstered on his leg the weapon that had eviscerated the boarbatusk in a single shot. That along with the now broken shotgun laying on the ground, that was absolutely huge, had peaked the Doctors Interest in this mans origins immensely. Along with his obvious combat experience, with the timely dodge of the boarbatusks spin attack and all, and his appearance from the wreckage of the mech on the ground, based on its now open door. Oobleck decided that this man should meet the criteria of his search rather well.
After the moments of sizing each other up Oobleck spoke up first.
"Hello my name is Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck and may i ask what you are doing here in this restricted area? And if I may be so bold, do you know what caused the explosion that made this crater?" Oobleck asked quickly.
The Parka wearing man straightened up at the words, restricted area, but seemed hesitant to answer the question.
After a short pause he exhaled, loudly due to the mask, before answering.
"Honestly, I Haven't a clue how I got here. One second i was awaiting my death as we killed the Over-G Akrid, the next my VS was slagged and i was pulling my self from the wreckage into this... weird place."
Oobleck studied him for a second trying to make sense of his words. The Over-G sounded like a classification of some sort, Akrid was probably some sort of creature from the context, VS probably referred to the mech suit laying on the ground, an acronym probably. What he couldn't understand was the weirdness of this place to the stranger. Trees may change but a forest was a forest where ever you may go. Even the frozen reaches of Atlas, which this man seemed to be from with the clothes he had on, had at least a spattering of pine trees here and their.
Unfortunately he had no way to tell if the man was lying to him. He couldn't see his face and the thick clothes muted most body language that might have been displayed. Unfortunately reading people was never the doctors strong point anyway. He was a historian not a diplomat.
"Well in that case I believe Headmaster Ozpin would like to see you, Mr..."
The man hesitated before chuckling to himself a bit. He reached up to his mask and un-sealed it with a hissing noise. It revealed a face that could only be called ordinary if it wasn't for his oddly pale skin. The most shocking part was his age, He was obviously young, about age for enrollment into beacon academy. He had short but messy brown hair and green eyes on a rather plain looking face. Not particularly handsome but not ugly. If it wasn't for the very pale skin and his out of place clothes he would be easily missed in a crowd. His eyes though were hard, he carried himself like a veteran of many battles. Head high but with a wary look about him. Not energetic like Oobleck himself, just wary.
"You can call me Giles. and lead on, anythings better then this place." He had taken a deep breath had screwed up his face like he smelled something absolutely vile.
With a quick nod Oobleck called the bullhead that had dropped him off for pick up.
And that should be wrap for now. You know i understand for story reasons why RWBY gets sent out to investigate the disturbance that brings the crossover character into the world. Starts building connections between characters and all. Gives a strong first impression between the group, lets them learn about the awesome abilities of the new guy/girl and all. But It makes little sense to me from a realistic point of view. Boom! An extremely odd occurrence has happened deep in the dangerous forest that's off limits to everyone but hunters. Lets send the 17 year old girls to investigate it and let them figure out the mystery. Instead of the veteran hunters we have on hand on staff, one of which is a PHD bearing genius type, with a specialization in archaeology, you know the lets look for clue type sciences.
Any way that is it for now. I Have a vacation right now from my job so that is why I started writing again for the first time in years. Should be fun. I will try to actually finish this one but no promises.