Astartes were incapable of terror as mortal humans were, but they could still worry. Aramus was quite worried about his wargear as he hurried towards the abandoned house near the city gates.
His delay with the Huntress Yang had resulted in aquiring what the young woman considered a small fortune, but still it was a delay.
He would need to know more about this planet, and what they knew about the galaxy at large. Sparing her life was the pragmatic decision to make. Scout Sergeant Cyrus would approve, if he was here.
He worried about the 4th Company. Tarkus would lead them in his absence with skill and honour, but the Company was his responsibility still. He had to get back to his battle brothers as soon as possible, for they were his charges. It was his duty to the Emperor most high to lead them in battle and make sure their lives were spent for the most gain.
The rock slab was fortunately intact, with his blessed wargear hidden in the concealed cellar underneath. At first he wanted to use this Dust to recharge his armour the best he could, but with the funds he aquired he could just as well purchase a small hiding place in the city and gain access to the electric grid that it must have.
Perhaps the blonde girl did knew the local equivalent of an engineer. Imperial engineers were laymen under the Techpriest's total command who helped to keep the great vessels and machines of the Imperium running, but there was not a chance of finding even an Enginseer here. Heathen or not, this Yang would be an asset that fulfilled his wishes, should he be able to direct her course.
A Space Marine required as little as four hours of half-sleep a day, but a Blood Raven required none. Troubled by his predicament, he went into the house and began a repetitive patrol of looking out the ruined windows, his eyes easily penetrating the gloom. He looked out for trouble, and meditated on his next move.
Yang was grinning like a fool as she sneaked back into the dormitories. They had won enough Lien to last her for half a year and she has found this fascinating, hulking brute of a man who could throw dice so accurately as to always hit the desired number.
She quietly let herself in their small dormitory room and went straight to bed, happily hugging the small sack full of money. She was too tired to even note that Blake was still out for her nightly prowlings like a cat hunting mice.
Soon she fell asleep, dreaming of all the upgrades she could put on her bike, which while impropable in the waking world, made total sense to her in her sleep.
The next morning Ruby awoke to find a very sleepy Yang clutching her Lien sack like a comical cartoon duck with a fondness for gold. The next thing she found out that Blake was still missing.
For an instance she was worried, but a quick check on her scroll revealed a message from her team mate. 'I will be back in the afternoon. Found someone who needed help.' Now calmer about the missing cat girl, Ruby decided to wake up Weiss by the most pleasant method she could think of.
So by putting a cookie in front of the white haired girl's nose. No better way to wake up in Ruby's book, never the less Weiss was less than pleased. "Good morning... you dolt." How rude, that is no way to say good morning. Not everyone can appreciate a good cookie, Ruby thought, before stuffing her face with the inefficient Weiss-lure.
"Good morning Weiss! Blake is out helping someone and Yang got herself a big sack of cash. I think it is cash. Oh-boy-I-hope-it-is-cookies!" She may have been a bit too enthusiastic, as Yang muttered something that sounded like 'Leave me alone' before pushing her head and blonde mane under her pillow.
"Yaaaaang. Come on big sis wake up! What's up with the bag?" Finally Yang woke up with a loud yawn. "Hey there Rubes... oh, I don't know, just enough Lien to help me pay Dad's bills for like a year!"
Ruby's eyes grew wide as Yang showed the contents of the bag to her, something that even impressed Weiss. "That's more than my monthly allowance!" Which did cause the two sisters to look at her. It was a small fortune after all.
"How did you get all this money, Yang?" Ruby asked, hoping it was nothing too shady. "I almost punched a guy then found out that he is like super cool with a dice! He is so big and so mysterious, a bit clueless too."
"Oooooh tell me!" Ruby giggled at that. "Well I found him wandering around. He knocked Bumblebee about, but was like super proper about it. He maybe related to you Weiss." The young Heiress rolled her blue eyes.
"How did he look?" Asked the young girl, big silver eyes looking at her big sister. "Well he was super large, but handsome. He was like wearing rags until I got him something better. He was like a foreigner, and I felt bad for yelling at him. He was lost I'm sure."
"Wait a moment." Something clicked in Weiss's brain, and she brought out her Scroll to show Yang the video they have seen earlier.
"Oh, that's him! He is really handsome under that hood, but like super strange. He has a bullet stuck in his eyebrow!" Yang nodded, than made a face at the mutants comments. "I'll need to coach him a bit on that before he meets Blake!"
"He kind of sounds mean." Ruby mused. "He is like Weiss, I said. I don't think he meant to be an ass.. I mean a jerk. Its like he came from far, far away. He wanted me to meet him at noon at the Dust shop. Do you two wanna tag along?"
"A bullet in the eyebrow sounds like a good hunting tale!" Ruby nodded, while Weiss replied with a dignified shrug. "I need to see if he is truly as proper as you claim. If we do our homework quickly, we can go take a look at him."
Aramus receive quite the attention as he was pushing the truck towards the dust merchant's store, mostly from drivers who thought he was not fast enough. They all seemed to complain loudly and sometimes quite disrespectfully until he turned his eyes on them and looked.
Space marines had fewer emotions than a baseline human, but anger they were quite familiar with. So a dissaproving glare from a veteran Astartes was enough to send even the most uneducated and incensed driver on his or her way after a few seconds. There was a naked, brutal violence in that stare, a promise of utter destruction that chilled hearts and made curses fall quiet before they were even finished.
The truck was laden with the rest of the dust merchandise he salvaged as well as his wargear, hidden under a pile of rugs in a manner that would require him to ask for the forgiveness of its Machine Spirit before the day was over.
Imperial Plasma reactors used a warp-enhanced fusion reaction to provide great amount of power with minimal fuel costs, more fuel efficient than a basic fusion reactor by orders of magnitudes. But they still needed to keep some energy to maintain the fusion reaction, and his backpack was getting desperately close to the minimum treshold. The combined energy fields of a Storm Shield and Iron Halo could drain a reactor in a way that was impossible for the fiber bundle systems.
Not all Space Marines were in the habit of fully using their enhanced intellects, but he was a Blood Raven. Knowledge is Power, was the motto of the Chapter, and its members were far more learned in matters of Machine Spirits and other areas of science than most chapters, though they could not match the understanding of the Iron Hands or Salamanders in the regards of crafting their own wargear.
He still knew enough to keep most of his blessed wargear in good condition. Now that he had the funds to secure a small apartment and access to the electric grid, he was willing to gamble on the shopkeeper's character. He knew almost nothing about this Dust, but if this was what the locals had for ammunition, he would need help to make something that his Combi-Bolter could fire.
He turned the truck at the next stop, and saw his target in sight. His enhanced eyesight picked out the Huntress Yang, who had two of her companions with her. The young woman and her companions may be able to assist him, if he choose his actions wisely. Such subtletly grated against the Captain, for he was an Angel of Death to the core, an exemplar of his kind.
One of them was a woman with a lithe figure and a pose that even at this distance told Aramus of her noble upbringing, her head held high proudly and her body language projecting an air of confident command. The only flaw in her appearance was that her ice-white ponytail was slightly off center. She was obviously a person of some importance, though the lack of guards following her suggested that she either was a scion of a lesser noble house, or that rapier she carried was deadlier than it looked.
The other was slightly younger. In ancient Terra she would be considered a child, but in the Imperium she was a woman who would have been given a lasgun if necessary, but such ancient history was unknown to the Captain.
Her outfit looked more Imperial than the rest, and if not for the shortness of the skirt and the lack of skulls, it could have stood its place in the wardrobe of any moderately wealthy Imperial servant.
It was also matched in colour by the young woman's hair, a mixture of black and crimson that mirrored that of the armour hidden inside the cargo compartment of the truck. The hood on her head and her silver eyes reminded him of a servant of the Machine God.
Astartes were not as superstitious as the rest of the Imperium's servants, but even he could not wonder if the girl's appearance was an Omen.
The Lyman's Ear that replaced his human ears could amplify and filter out sound more akin to a mechanical sensor than to a flesh and blood organ. Thus he had little trouble hearing the women's chatter as he kept pushing the truck towards them.
"Oh-my-Dust is he pushing that truck all by himself? That's cool!" The almost Tech-Adept girl sounded so cheerful that it was odd to hear. None in the Imperium, or out of it, had he heard talking in such a carefree, upbeat tone.
"I have to say I thought you were exagrating, Yang, but he is too big to get in the driver seat. I never quite heard of anybody as big as him." Commented the noble in white, her voice as refined as he would expect it to be. Most likely the leader of the group, Aramus decided.
"He is pushing it quite fast, Ruby. I told you he picked up Bumblebee like a lunchbox." The blonde aquitance replied. "His arms are thicker than my thighs, Weiss. I wonder what kind of pounding such a man could give..."
"Yang, at least try to behave in public." The high-born heiress rolled her eyes. "I meant his fighting abilities, you perverted snow angel." This comeback elicited loud giggling from the hooded one, Ruby.
Weiss, a name that sounded like the tongue of Krieg. He had heard the word mentioned on an ice planet by the Guardsmen, but never cared enough to ask what its exact meaning was. He was too busy trying to dislodge the Orks from the water refineries at that time. Yang's eyes were purple like that of a Cadian. Ruby's habit bore some resemblance to the holy vestments of the Tech Priests. Perhaps she styled herself as one, based on some ancient legend. He would have to investigate.
"I bet he could teach you to pound really well, Yang. You two should totally armwrestle and the looser would buy me cookies!" Ruby suddenly blushed and made an loud 'oooh' sound as she realised the 'pounding' part may have been referring to something other than melee combat.
"Come on Dolt, Yang's new friend is just three houses away. Let us act with dignity and make a good first impression. Or a less idiotic one, in your case." Ruby felt chastened and looked down at her feet.
Weiss could be as mean as she was pretty, and in Ruby's opinion, Weiss was extremely pretty. Initially she was hopeful when Jaune got shot down, but apparently he was just not cool enough. She had no problems with Neptune as a person, but jealousy was not something she could entire eradicate from her soul. But until they got married, Ruby could still hope for a change in her fortunes.
Her mind was stopped from descending into the gutter as she realised that not only did the big guy push the truck, he was doing it effortlessly with one hand, the other kept on the steering wheel. There was no sweat on his brow, he was not panting, and he was pushing the large vehicle forward with more speed than a team of veterans Hunters could manage.
Yang was right, he was no ordinary hunter. Ruby could feel a dignity radiate from the man, but one that outshone even the fabled Schnee sense of self-worth. He parked the truck before the shop and strode towards them like an ancient knight from a fairy tale, his head held high and his face set in the most serious of knightly expressions that Ruby had ever sawn. She half expected him to ask for the nearest dragon with an abducted princess in need of rescue.
"I offer greetings to you, Huntress Yang, and your companions. I have returned more of the shopkeeper's stolen supplies. I will require your aid in negotiating for his services." He offered a nod, every inch the warrior that Ruby expected. He did sound pompous, but in a good way that brought to her mind thoughts of noble adventure.
"Greetings. I am Weiss Schnee." Weiss offers a nod in return, and Ruby waves excitedly at him. "Hi! I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose! Its good to meet you, Ca Aramus! So what do you want the guy to do for you?"
The man raises an eyebrow. "I am Aramus. I require ammunition for my weapon." Ruby's silver eyes grew wider. "Oh, I'll help! Let-me-help, I-absolutely-love-guns!" She blurted out, too fast for anybody but him to catch. But understand her he did, for he nodded his head once more at her direction. "That would be most appreciated. You have no Tech Adept or Enginseer to contact, do you?"
"No idea who those might be, but I'm the best with weapons!" Ruby smiled at him, finding it odd that he did not smile back. He seemed solemn to the point of outdoing Pyrrha in that regard. "I will be thankful for your assistance." He was not rude, but he was definately off somehow.
Braun was not fond of working on Sundays, but he had to make ends meet. But he forgot his misery as soon as a young blonde woman appeared in the store, with the giant hunter in tow. Carrying between them the rest of his missing, stolen Dust.
"How did you get this all back? I owe you twice now, Huntsman." He forgot even about a polite greeting as he rushed to check the crates. The content showed slight signs of tampering, but it was almost totally intact with just a few vials missing.
"I recovered these items from forest. The White Fang recividists have left them when they were attacked by the Grimm beasts. These crates too bear the heraldy of your shop." The giant nodded. Now clad in trousers and a shirt that seemed barely to fit him, he was all the more impressive. Thick corded muscles showed on his bare forearms... and were those black, metallic things on his skin cybernetics?
"Thank you, Huntsman Aramus. If there is anything I can do for you..." The small man could not believe his luck, and was surprised by the man's words that came next. "I do require assistance. My ammunition is low and my weapon is... unique. I am in need of resupply. Huntress Yang, Weaponsmith Rose and the highborn Lady Schnee here agreed to help me. Will you repay my honourable return of your property?"
Most Hunters would have either waved off any reward if they were the good sort, or asked for a big payout if they weren't. This man was asking for his help with custom munitions that he wouldn't profit from selling. Than he realised how the giant named the girl in white.
Highborn Lady Schnee sounded just right. Weiss had to admit she liked it, she liked it a lot more than Ice Queen or any other punny titles her friends called her. At last a proper gentleman, or at least gentlegiant.
"A Schnee? What an honour to have you in my humble shop, Heiress Schnee. Braun Wellington, at your service! I am a most loyal customer of yours! Can I get you something to drink, a tea or coffee perhaps?"
The small, balding man put an end to Weiss's swooning over such proper etiquette. The little man's mustache quivered with anxiety and she knew he would not calm down until she accepted some form of gifts. She had met thousands like him, small shop owners who thought that if they did not suck up to her, their shops would be closed down. Surrendering to the inevitable, Weiss nodded. "Just a cup of tea, if you please."
"Good, good, it will be just a moment, lady Schnee!" Wellington dissapeared into a back office with haste one usually reserves for fleeing from a Grimm ambush.
After a few minutes he returned with the hot beverage and a few sugar cubes on a small platter, offering it to the heiress.
"Thank you, mister." She took it and put a single sugar cube in the tea.
"Come on man, lets help him! I want to see how big his gun is!" Ruby was practically bagging the shopkeeper, who nodded. "Since all my goods are here I can offer a nice discount. What type of dust would you need?"
"I am not sure. The shells need to match these measurements." Aramus took out something that looked more like a small cannon shell from his pocket and Weiss cringed as she saw Ruby's eyes widen.
"Oh-my-god that is so awesome! What does it do?" She was practically jumping up and down before the puzzled giant, who with some reluctance handed the shell to the young Huntress in training.
"It is a self propelled armour piercing explosive bullet. I doubt you can recrate it. I require something that can be fired from the same gun." Ruby pulled Weiss in closer to show her the round, her face lighting up with the joy that most teenage girls reserve for a particularly cute puppy.
"What type of Dust does it use?" The snow haired heiress turned to Aramus. "It does not use Dust. It uses fyceline in both the firing charge and the rocket booster, diamantine and adamantium for the metallic parts and depleted uranium and fyceline mix for the explosive."
"I got no idea what those are. So it buries in the target and explodes." Weiss thought the weapon sounded a little bit too brutal, but the sheer craftmanship that went into the shell had her breathless. There were prayer strips engraved on it and tiny skull like symbols. It was as much a work of art as it was a bullet. Nora's heart-marked grenades were just outdone big time. Whoever Aramus was, he was no commoner, that was sure. Such craftmanship had to be extremely costly.
"What type of Dust would you like to use? Explosive, Fire and Ice are all good choices for the bullet." Weiss looked closer at the shell, but she could not understand the language. The letters were familiar, but the language was not one known to her. But at the back end of it was a serial number, and clearly intelligible hand made inscription reading 'For the Emperor' . He did not seem like the Mistral type, and their emperor was symbolic... and usually not capitalised.
"I will defer to your greater wisdom, Lady Schnee." Weiss glowed with pride. Finally the respect she deserves! Well she did until Ruby got the shell out of her hand. "Oh! This is latin!" Weiss blinked. "La-what?"
"Latin. The family had some religion generations ago and I kinda went through the old holy books. I and Uncle Qrow took the cross motif from there, it looks cool! Nobody is really religious anymore but it was interesting! It says... Emperor Mankind our salvation... I think!"
"Praise be His glorious name!" Aramus tried to keep a low profile, but a praise to the Emperor had to be answered. "Okey so who is this emperor?" Asked Ruby without much consideration, causing the giant to frown. "A tale for another time, young weaponsmith."
"I need to see the gun that fires it. Do you have it on you?" The giant dissapeared back to the truck, before returning with the most brutal looking gun Weiss ever saw.
Ruby was ecstatic as she saw the gun. It was at once brutish like an industrial tool, and beautiful with many golden inlays and symbols all over it. As if someone chose to practice his art on an Atlas Mech. The upper part had a strange, bulbous barrel and what appeared to be coils running along the upper side of the gun. The lower part was a huge-bore rifle that obviously fired bullets like the heavy, ominous piece in her hands.
"Oh-my-god what type of gun is that? So-awesome-I-want-to-see-how-it-works!" Ruby was once again surprised as the giant had no trouble understanding her.
"Righteous Judgement, my Plasma combi Bolter. I only have one hundred and eighty shells left, including the one in your hand. I require more."
She run her hands over the gun. It seemed heavy and dangerous, but it was beautiful too. The two headed eagle heraldy and winged skulls on it looked grim, but to Ruby Rose it was a work of art. A weapon clearly as beloved as her Crescent Rose, for none would put such miniscule golden script on a gun who was not very powerful and very wealthy. "The lower part fires the bullets... what does the upper part fire? Lightning? Flames? I can't make sense of it!"
Ruby had never seen a type of gun she could not instinctly understand the workings of, but the upper part mystified her. It was something truly out of this world. Aramus couldn't be a regular Hunstsman. This was cutting edge technology.
"Combi... plasma? Isn't plasma what some scientists say make up stars?" Weiss was looking at the gun with awe. Being a Schnee required one to be fully informed about the latest technological trends. Plasma was a proposed matter that existed in stars. As far as she knew, not even the Atlas military had luck with it. Lasers yes, but plasma not yet.
The strange man nodded. "I will require a source of pure hidrogen." Ruby's eyes lit up. "A gun that fires star fire? Oh-dust-I-need-that!" Aramus looked down at Ruby like a forbidding knight out of legend. "Can you make shells that will fit the weapon?" Shaken back to the real world from dreams of Crescent Rose going pew-pew, Ruby nodded. "It will take a few days but you can count on me."
"You will all be handsomely rewarded." He nodded and Ruby gave the shell back to him. The man easily undid the box magazine and pushed the last shell back into place. Ruby watched with her eyes wide. If the gun could fire at normal speeds, it would be utterly devastating.
"Come back when you need my dust powder." Mister Wellington replied and they said their goodbyes to the shopkeeper. Aramus put the gun back inside the truck.
"Now I need to find accomodations that has an electric outlet, and the tools necessary to tap into it."
Yang could not help herself but giggle when she saw Aramus trying to get into truck pushing position again. "I can drive that, you know!" The man took it with a graceful bow and got into the back of the truck, while Weiss took the right seat with Ruby squeezed between them.
The blonde girl smiled to herself as Ruby kept on talking about how amazing the gun was. She herself was more interested in the gun's wielder, and Weiss looked like she was intrigued as well. The man was a mystery to be solved.
She knew the city well, and very soon they found their new friend a rather cheap housing. It was not in a bad district, but it was a rather run down small home. Aramus surprised her during the negotiations by pulling a very generic motorcycle model out of the back of the truck. That in itself would cover a few months of the rent, and the landlord was more than happy to own an unregistered vehicle.
The house was not something a Schnee would be usually caught in. The wallpaper was worn, the floor tiles faded, the furniture twenty years out of fashion. But it had a strong connection to the power grid, a cellar, and a large enough garage for the truck.
Weiss opened the gate, Ruby opened the garage and Yang parked the truck inside. Aramus apparently leapt from the back onto the bare concrete floor. The truck was rocked by the lessening of weight. He was much heavier than any men she had ever seen. Something that she resolved to keep in her mind.
The man bowed his head to the three girls. "I thank you for your assistance, noble huntresses. Is there anyway I could get information here? A library perhaps?"
"You could look stuff up on your Scroll." The man looked a bit puzzled. "I do not have any scrolls about this information, neither do I see scrolls on you."
It was Ruby's turn to laugh as she showed Aramus her Scroll, and after a minute of instructions the large man was searching through the CCT systems like a man searching for water in the desert. His fingers worked on it with a speed that fascinated all three girls, and after a minute he gave it back to Ruby. "Thank you, young weaponsmith."
"So you don't know a lot about Dust, about Scrolls and yet that gun was as advanced as any hardware out of Atlas's top research projects." Weiss was looking at him with an inquisitive air, before Ruby poked her in the ribs and showed her the search history. Yang leaned in closer and Aramus frowned.
Many of the words were strange, maybe more of that latin thing. Imperium, Imperium of Man, Segmentum, Astartes, Imperator, Mechanicus, Administratum and other words that sounded like proper words with 'um' and 'us' added to their back. The rest were all the more strange for being totally understandable. Emperor, God Emperor, Divine Emperor, Warp travel, Imperial Guard, Tech Priest, Mankind, Humanity, void ship, star ship, space ship, space port, star port, space travel, xenos, aliens, stellar war, space marines, space marine chapters, space marine legions.
These all had one thing in common. They were words and phrases straight out of science fiction books like Space Dust and Grimm from Outer Space. A man stood before them, yet larger than a man and wielding a weapon that fired non-Dust explosives and star fire. A lot of people made the mistake of taking Yang's punny and light hearted nature as an indicator of low intelligence. These people however were very wrong.
Yang needed no one else to figure this out for her. The man, his ragged outfit, his confused ignorance, and yet his lordly bearing and his strange weapon. He was out of this world in a much more literal sense than she first thought. It was however Ruby that spoke up first.
"Are you a space knight?" She asked, looking up at Aramus with amazed eyes. The large man's face narrowed into a frown and he looked down at them imperiously. Weiss moved to approach the man. "If you are a local, you can tell me about the types of Grimm. Surely any warrior like you would know them. How does a flying Grimm look?"
Ruby waited for Aramus to answer, and after a minute that he spent in deep deliberation, the giant nodded. "I am not built for subtletly. State the price of your silence, mortals." There was an edge that was not there before, and the word 'mortal' cut through everybody's senses.
"Look big guy. First, don't use that voice with my little sister. We did nothing but help you! Second, tell the truth." Ruby smiled as Yang put the large man in his place, who looked to be thinking fiercely to himself still. She just hoped he was not thinking about hiding the bodies or abducting them.
"The words you searched indicate that you are a human soldier... a space marine." Weiss looked at him with those piercing, wonderful blue eyes that made Ruby forget her predicament for a moment. "A space marine of the Emperor. That is what you are, aren't you?" Weiss looked at him with open defiance.
Aramus let out a low sigh that reminded Ruby of the collective Schnee family trademarked 'Noble in distress' sigh. Then he straightened out fully. Ruby shrank back a little on instinct. As if a cloak fell from his shoulders, Aramus stood before them tall and noble, and for the first time Ruby realised how truly huge he was. He was fully twice her height and the clothes Yang got him could barely hold muscles back.
There were also what looked like mechanical connection points that covered his exposed lower arms, their colour an odd metallic black. He was much more than a human. He was clearly a human and not an alien, but he was not really human. Nothing human was that big.
"I am Captain Aramus of the Blood Ravens Fourth Company of Adeptus Astartes, Scion to the Immortal God Emperor of Mankind and lord amongst the Angels of Death. I am the savior of the Aurelian sub-sector and Space Marine of the Imperium of Man. "
His voice was louder, somehow deeper and more resonant. All three girls were spellbound by the sudden majesty the space marine projected. "Ca Aramus... Captain Aramus... sneaky bastard!" muttered Yang, before Weiss spoke up.
"You are clearly a high ranking officer of noble bearing. What do you wish to do with us? Why are you here alone?"
"I require your aid. I have been marooned on this world due to a malfunction of my armour's teleporter. I need to get back to my Company and assume command once more. My duty to the Emperor Most High requires nothing less, thus I will accomplish this or die trying."
Did he not say he was related to this Emperor, Ruby mused as the giant went into the back of the truck and came back to lay down a large, thick fabric before beginning to put pieces of his armour on it, carrying each one reverently from the truck.
Ruby's eyes widened as she saw the ornate, brutal red armour with the raven and blood drop symbol, the giant sword, skull decorated shield and the strange pistol. He knelt before his armour and muttered somethig that sounded like a prayer.
She moved without thinking, stepping closer to examine the armour. It was a masterwork like the weapons, its decorations grim and imperious. The giant red cape won her approval instantly as did the black, bone and gold highlights. "It is so beautiful."
"That is the Armour of Glory. A relic of the Chapter for many millenia." It did have an age of antiquity about it, the armour of an ancient knight reimagined for warfare amongst the stars. "So you are related to this emperor?" Asked Yang, looking at Aramus with the same wonder as Ruby looked at the armour.
"All Astartes... Space Marines are imbued with the blood of the Emperor. That is what separates us from mortal men. A spark of His divine majesty flows in the vein of every battle-brother of every Chapter." Ruby felt the urge to bow. Had anybody else said they were the descendants of a god, she would have laughed. But Aramus ment it, and she felt the truth of conviction in those words.
"So you are a soldier of an Empire. What do you fight?" Asked Weiss. The giant nodded, apparently approving of Weiss's logic. "The servants of Chaos, the same fell power that is behind these Grimm you fight, as well as the xenos. The alien that wishes to destroy Mankind."
"So your Empire is the only human kingdom?" Yang asked, and he nodded. "Some humans serve the dark powers, but mostly that is the truth."
"Wish we could persuade Professor Port to let you tell a war story. I bet you could do it better than him." Yang chuckled, and Ruby swallowed. Her sister seemed very impressed with the space knight.
"Will you swear upon your honour as a warrior that you will aid me, before the all knowing sight of the Emperor on the Golden Throne?" Ruby shivered, and felt that there was much hanging in the balance.
"Will you help us in return?" Asked Weiss. "I will aid you if you aid me. That I swear upon my honour. The honour of a Space Marine is his life, and none may dispute it."
The three girls all swore to assist the space knight, and he accepted their word with a very solemn bow of his head. "First I need your help in connecting my armour to the electric grid of the village's generatoria."
The three girls all examined the heavy generator backpack that Aramus held as if it was a light school book pack. "We'll need to get some wires..." Yang mused, before Ruby interrupted her. "First, we need cookies. I don't know what space men eat, but I'm starving!"