Hi everyone, sorry if you had a "ghost chapter" or two pop up. I had accidentally posted a chapter while testing out a new app for fanfic, turns out it doesn't work very well (hence why it uploaded a chapter without me wanting to). But after a long delay due to school, work and other things, here's chapter 9. I hope you enjoy


"I'm not afraid of you!" Ruby stood her ground as she shouted at the mechanical bird.

"You will be… You will fear me… you will fear the name, Clockwerk." Suddenly the ground and trees behind him were sent hurling up. His large metallic wings reached out from the forest as they spanned out. Then with one powerful movement, Clockwerk got airborne. His deep harrowing screech resonated throughout the forest and shook Ruby down to the core with fear.

Ruby was in shock at the sheer strength of the massive machine. The single flap of its wings was enough to cause a massive gust which almost made her stumble. After she regained her balance she looked back up at him, and sure enough he was already flying straight for her. His claws were extended out, poised to get the kill.

Ruby fired a few shots at Clockwerk to see if it could do any damage and much to her surprise the bullets had done almost nothing to his armour. She transformed Crescent Rose back to its scythe form and waited for the right moment as the massive bird approached her. She pulled to trigger, launched herself forward towards Clockwerk's left wing and aimed to slice through it. Clockwerk laughed at Ruby when Crescent Rose recoiled off the armour, leaving only a few scratches. As Ruby landed safely she turned to look at where she had been standing. The bird had ripped a shallow trench into the ground with its claws before it flew back up.

Ruby caught a glimpse of a few fast moving objects in the sky. It seemed as if they were following the bird. Atlesian ships?


In one of the Atlesian dropships above, Ironwood was eyeing Clockwerk from behind the pilot's seat. He clicked the comms to life. "All dropships diverge."

Clockwerk had just leveled and turned around to see the three dropships. He simply laughed at them as he readied himself. The three ships slowly surrounded him, guns at the ready.

This is for you falcon team. "All ships, light him up."

Each of the dropships' twin mini gun cannons spun up and tore the still air apart with a thunderous flurry of bullets. The storm of bullets proved somewhat effective against the massive machine bird. Some ricocheted off the thick armour, some ripped right through the weaker parts of the armour.

Clockwerk had underestimated his opponent. The sudden damage from the constant bullet stream made Clockwerk lose air control, which he tried tediously to regain as the bullets kept raining down on him. Bit by bit he regained his control.

Ironwood saw that the constant bullet storm was working for now, but it won't for long. "Dropships 2 and 3, keep the bird distracted. Make your survival top priority and suppressing that thing second. I'll evac the target."


Ruby watched as the three ships opened fire on Clockwerk. She was in awe at the pure firepower of the three ships. Her moment of awe was interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Ruby, are you alright?" Sly and the gang had shown up without her noticing.

"Sly! I'm alright but I was attacked by that huge robot bird."

Sly hadn't heard her, for he had gazed up at the bird in the sky. Ruby saw genuine fear in Sly's eyes. It was as if he were face to face with death itself.

Sly suddenly snapped out of it and looked at Ruby. "C'mon, we need to get out of here." He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her as he started to run.

Sly was shouting something into his comms watch, but Ruby's mind had been too preoccupied to hear it. Why was Sly afraid of the bird? What happened to make him fear it that much? Ruby decided to keep her questions for later and focus on the matter at hand. She ran up beside Sly and tugged at his hand.

"Everything will be alright!" she shouted.

Sly seemed reassured, but worried. "I'll make sure about it". Up ahead the Cooper team van pulled up with the back doors open. Bentley waited for them inside as they jumped in. "Murray, punch it!" Murray complied with Bentley and accelerated the van forward.

Just as Sly began to relax the scroll he had borrowed began vibrating. He pulled it out and read the caller as Yang. "Hey, it's for you." He held out the scroll to the redhead.

Ruby almost gulped when she saw the contact. She had snuck out of Beacon without telling anyone. She abandoned her team simply because she didn't want them getting in trouble for breaking curfew. Ruby answered the scroll as she put it to her ear. "Yang?"

"Ruby! Thank dust you're alright!"

"Yeah... I guess I have a lot of explaining to do."

"We can worry about that later. Listen, we're with General Ironwood in his dropship. We need to get out of here as soon as we can. Where are you in the forest? We should be able to pick you up."

"I'm with Sly, Murray and Bentley, in their van."

"Okay maybe we could…" Yang's voice suddenly sounded distant, as if she spoke to someone else. "Talk to her? Sure."

Ruby could hear the scroll being passed over to someone else. "Miss Rose, this is the General. I need your exact location so I can evac you."

"I'm on the move right now, in a van with some… friends of mine." Ruby knew that the General would eventually see Sly and his gang, but she wanted to keep their identity secret for now.

"I see, tell the driver to head for the North cliff wall, from there the van would be able to drive up into the cargo bay of the ship. It'll be slightly cramped but it's all we've got on this short notice."

"Okay, I'll let him know, thanks General."

"Ironwood out." The call ended with that. Ruby passed the scroll back to Sly. She leaned forward towards Bentley and Murray in the front seats. "Murray, we need to drive north, towards the cliff wall."

"You got it pal!" Murray turned the van sharply, almost making it lift one side of the van. He then accelerated forward towards the cliff wall in the distance. Bentley looked over at Ruby. "I'm assuming you have a plan?"

"Yep! At some point there'll be a ship with its back end open. All we have to do is drive right on in once it's low enough. I think…" Ruby didn't think to ask the General for details on how this was going to happen.

Bentley gave Ruby a worried frown. "This isn't your plan is it?"

"Nope," Ruby said simply.

"And you have no idea for how we're going to get in that ship?"

"Nope. Sorry, the General hung up before I thought to ask."

Bentley leaned back in his wheelchair and let go of a worried groan. Sly chuckled as he saw the little interaction between the two. As he watched the two he couldn't help but think back to when Bentley and him would have this sort of back and forth over the binocucoms. Sly used to joke about risky ways to get the job done. Bentley would ramble on about the dangers of the method at hand. But no matter what the three of them faced, they always made it through. Good times. Sly's attention was brought back to the front of the van. A large dropship had just lowered its altitude and opened the cargo door in the back.

Murray started to speed up towards it. "This is it guys! This won't be smooth, so hold on tight." He accelerated towards the open cargo bay door. As the front wheels started to slowly roll up the ramp Murray eased on the gas a little so the van wouldn't suddenly jump forward inside the small cargo bay of the ship. The back wheels finally caught the ramp, making the van jerk forward then come to a sudden stop as Murray pressed on the brakes. Soon after the ramp went up and closed behind them.

"Nice one Murray, couldn't have done it better myself." Sly opened the side doors and took a step out into the now cramped cargo bay of the dropship.

"HEY!"

Sly turned to see an angry red eyed blonde. Yang had reached out to grab Sly the collar but he dodged in time and took a few steps back, which put him right up against the inside of the hull.

"Where's my little sis?" Yang spoke angrily.

Ruby appeared from the inside of the van and saw her sister. "Yang!"

Yang immediately seemed to simmer down, her eyes returning to their original lilac colour. "Rubes!" Yang ran right over and gave her little sister a painfully tight hug. "I was so worried about you."

"Yang... Please... My ribs." Ruby struggled in the blonde's crushing hug.

"Ruby Rose!" Weiss came marching in angrily. "What do you think you were doing? Leaving the campus grounds after curfew, just to hang out with these buffoons in animal costumes in the middle of the forest."

"Umm..." Ruby started to tap her indexes together. "I didn't want you three to get in trouble from the curfew."

"You had us worried sick! What if there had been a sudden Grimm attack? You would've been alone and outnumbered. Not to mention that flying... Thing!" Weiss had no mercy in her scolding.

"I'm sorry... I just didn't want to get any of you in trouble. I didn't know all this would happen."

Weiss walked over to Ruby and lightly tapped her on the top of her head. "Next time you plan to do something this risky, bring us along. We are a team after all. I'm glad you're alright."

Ruby smiled at Weiss. "Thanks Weiss."

Blake had been observing Sly from a distance and was about to ask him a question. Right at that time Bentley and Murray stepped out of the team van. Bentley was the first to speak up. "Well now that we're all good, allow us to introduce ourselves. I'm Bentley, this is Murray, and that's Sly."

"I'm Blake... Are you three by chance a rare type of Faunus?" She asked curiously while observing the three.

Murray looked over to Sly. "What's a Faunus again? I think Ruby asked us the same thing before."

"No we're not. Our situation is kind of hard to explain. But long story short we're not from around here, and neither is that thing out there."

Weiss turned to face the three cooper gang members. "Wait, let me understand this right. You brought that monstrosity here?"

Bentley looked at Weiss. "We didn't, but it followed us here." Sly gave Bentley a friendly glance. "Or rather, it followed Sly here."

"So it being here is basically your fault, can't you just send it back the using the same way it got here?"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple. We're sort of stuck as it is. But there is someone we'd like to talk to that could possibly help." Bentley pulled out Ruby's scroll and loaded up a picture, showing it to team RWBY.

Ruby recognized it instantly. "That's Professor Ozpin! He's the headmaster at Beacon."

"My research has led me to believe that if anyone can help us, it's him."


Meanwhile in the cockpit, the General approached the pilot. "Are we out of range yet?"

The pilot checked his radar on the dashboard. "All clear sir, the threat should no longer be able to reach us."

"And the other dropships?" Worry was obvious in the General's voice, but he managed to keep his excellent composure.

"...they went down no more than two minutes ago..." The pilot spoke sadly.

The General tightly balled his fists. His anger flared and risked breaking his calm composure. But he had held himself back. In tough times of war, it was his job to lead his people. One day, I'll make that damn bird pay.


As always any reviews, comments, suggestions, etc, are always welcome. I'll be aiming for chapter 10 to be done by the end of September. Hope you all had a good read.

Until next time,

-Alexi1138