This alludes to the most recent episode
Blood and gore (descriptive warning)
Enjoy!
Akaia turned around to see a Atlas Soldier lying on the ground, shaken up by the ordeal. He didn't look injured at all, although his weapon was a few feet from him.
He tried to move away as Akaia approached, her steps cracked the derbies and bones under her mechanical form. The bullets from the gun barely scratched the thick ceramite platings of her armor, much less annoy her.
"You're not going anywhere." Akaia chuckled, grabbing the barrel of the gun, twisting it until it looked like a half pretzel. The soldier turned and try to crawl as fast as he can from her. Her clawed hand grabbed his leg, dragging the smaller human and pulled him up to eye level. Her retinal scanners doing quick work of her target.
Her gray eyes narrowed as she noticed a soft red blink on the soldier's helmet.
"I know this recorder is working," She ignored the cries of the man as she crushed whatever is grasped in her hand. In this case, it's his leg, she can feel the bone and metal slowly being crunched under her mechanical grip. "But watch your back, because the shadows will move when you're not looking."
She slammed him back onto the concrete ground, knowing he is still alive. She didn't care that the camera is still recording. She ignored his screams and pleads as the sounds of cracking armor, breaking bones and ripping flesh fill the air like an daemonic mantra.
With a jerk of her arm, she pulled his head off his shoulders with a sickening crunch.
"Your move, Fall." She said calmly even though her armor is painted scarlet now. She clenched her fist, the helmet bursted in her hand, bits of the remains of the skull and its contents dripped from her hand.
It's been too long since she has been able to enjoy something like this. She hears the footsteps of her teammates and brother walking up behind her.
"Always favoring the fear tactics I see." Cyres commented, walking up to the blood soaked armor. "Ugh, you need to wash that blood off, it'll ruin the polish I put on."
"Three seconds in and she's already hounding you about your armor sanitary level." Mel giggled, smacking Rio's shoulder with enough force to stagger the five hundred pound armored shadow prince.
"Or should I say your body ~" Mel winked at them. "Or her nice, big mechanical-"
And found herself pinned to the wall by six ice lances. She gave off a nervous chuckle as she looks up to see a very amused Akaia- and a very angry Cyres.
"Melanie, I swear to my throne if you finish that sentence. So help me that I don't impale you with my sword."Cyres's flushed face is glaring daggers into Mel's soul, eyes glowing and Akaia is staring in amusement of the situation.
Mel turned to Rio with a sheepish grin.
"Hey Rio-"
"No, I'm not helping you."
Cindy and the others looked around the camp, watching as the formidable armored warriors of the shadows walk through the Grimm horde, never suffering a blow or fail a repeated fighting pattern of slice, shoot or kick away.
"Do you think they can take care of this by themselves?" Jay looked to her for her opinion as the warrior with a sword sliced off a Goliath's head.
"Oh, we're more than capable." A more whispy voice came behind them all, scaring them. Jay jumped into Kelly's arms as a garbling mess and Diane shot up faster than she would in a firefight. "... my apologies."
They turned around to see the familiar thin person that appeared with Mordred the first they met. Unlike the rest of the armored warriors, his armor seemed more elegant, clad in black and silver armor over a rune etched gray robe. The armor is more of plates covered vital areas instead of all encasing the wearer in all thick metal, but it looks different from what Cyres wears over her robes. His hands held a halberd or spear hybrid of some sort. There are runic carvings running along the edge of the weapon while the halberd glowed a soft white.
Diane is the first to recover from her shock and straighten her shirt of wrinkles and clear her throat.
"R-right, you guys are more advanced and prepared than us." She looked at the smooth surface of Argus's helmet- assuming that's where his eyes are.
He simply lifts a hand in a gesture for understanding.
"Old but not obsolete." He turns around slightly to stab his spear in a Beowulf's head that came unnoticed behind them. "Observe as I take down the Nevermore."
"What Never-" Kelly started before a screech filled the gunshot filled air. "Oh."
"Oh indeed Kelly…" As he predicted a Nevermore of great size flew into the sky above them. Argus looked at the larger foe, his runic carvings on his armor and weapons glowed white and energies condensed around his free hand.
The Nevermore descended towards the band of armored warriors behind them over the ridge.
He shoots his hand out, palm open. Eldrich powers shoots out of his fingertips towards the bird. The moment the white bolts hit the black feathers the Nevermore halted, quickly torn apart by the energies of lost time.
"As I was saying." He turned to look at their gawking faces.
"Oh, before I forget, Mordred needs your attention at Mount Glenn." He speaks softly, handing them each a palm sized white stone with a single rune etched into the smooth surface. "Also you may want to clear a path there. It will be heavily overrun by the Grimm going to the source of fear which you know by now."
"Right…" Cindy enunciated, pocketing the tune in her pocket. "How do we find him or it again?"
"Look for a giant hammer wielding machine that will be throwing snakes in the air as if he is bench pressing them or sitting on a throne of mangled bodies." He replied curtly, his spear impaling a Creep through its open mouth before exploding in a flash of white energy. "Now carry on for my lord's patience is on edge."
Cindy nodded and turned to her team.
"To Glenn I guess." She looked at the Grimm-torn hill before them.
Looking briefly at each of them, she inserted a larger clip into Mourning Dawn. Diane shifted Bleak Dusk into a favorable melee from. Jay, for the sake of being able to kill things decided to shift Falling Sky into its true, double chained from. Kelly reloaded her dust revolver and Diane help to insert a drum magazine into Ripple Corruption's gun slot.
"Let's go get EBNY."
A nearly good hour, spent ammo and cuts everywhere later…
As Argus said, it is not too hard to spot Mordred lounging on top of a throne made of undecayed Grimm's of all sizes. His mythical hammer is grasped tightly in his hand as his retuine of six stands before them, including Argus.
But the farseer and Mordred were deep in conversation with hushed voices.
"...its for the best we don't tell them." The old commander spoke, looking briefly at his hand.
"You know I can predict fates Mordred, but we can't send them out- spare them the tears Mord-" Argus looked guilty for a brief second before noticing their arrival. "Oh, you've finally arrived."
"How did you get here so fast?" Diane sucked in deep breaths, exhausted from the tiring battle to the meeting place. She cradled her bleeding arm, which is still leaking some blood.
"Got caught in some hinderance I presume?" Argus looked at each of them closely. He looked a second longer at Kelly, who seemed to fare better than the rest.
"Quiet you." Cindy muttered, wiping blood from her eye. "Why did you want us to meet here anyways?"
Mordred and Argus stayed silent for a moment as if waiting for a response from someone.
"For variety of reasons, mainly because we would need to forge an alliance if we were to face a common threat." A mechanical voice came behind them followed by heavy footsteps. Akaia, Rio, Mel and Cyres followed closely. I her clawed hands held a still dripping severed head of an Atlas soldier.
"About time you joined us Akaia." Mordred stood from his throne of corpses, slowly walking down to meet the mechanical younger leader. Akaia kneeled down before him. "What do you report?"
"Worse situation than we thought, my lord." Akaia stood again, presenting him the grim trophy. "It's unfortunate that Cinder do have some of her powers, but something is amiss in the lights of this."
Mordred and Argus briefly glanced at one another.
"So I've witnessed it beforehand." Another voice came behind them, one of Mordred's advisors. He had a rusty red armor as opposed to the others, except one pauldron bared their legion's heraldry while the other had a mechanical gear that had half a mechanical skull and the other is a menacing grinning skull. His hand grasped a tall halberd that the blade looked like the half gear on his pauldron.
"What do you mean Forgemaster Gaheris?" Rio asked, looking at the red armored crafter who just shook his armored head.
"I met her a couple years back, she wandered into the Fortress where I was busy upkeep Prometheus and our other war machines from their long slumber. Argus messaged me a few months of their predicted awakening." Gaheris motioned towards Mordred and the rest of the retuine around them.
"But Ozpin told us that the Order was only resurrected a few years back." Brenda interrupted Gaheris, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "But you sound like you've awaken a long time before."
"About that…" Mel gives a guilty giggle. "We kinda distorted time a little when we jumped out of the quantum molecular warp."
"Quantum what?" Diane looked at the legendary team before them, all standing and adverting their glances at them. None of them willing to answer her questions.
"Interdimensional travel." Gaheris' extra arms on his back whirred around him as he crossed his arms over his thick armored chest. "I built one of them about a hundred years back."
"We are from a time where Cinder went through with her plans and well… Remnant is forever lost in eternal war and suffering." Rio began, removing his helmet. "We with whatever was left of the hunters and huntress' formed a coup d'état."
"Did you guys win?" Nicole asked the prince, who only shook his head sadly.
"No, we had to bail, we went through the warp just as it closed and," he motioned his arm around. "We're here where you still exist and Cinder in in the middle of it. And kinda altered time a little"
"And I'm afraid to say that it is repeating itself." Cyres concluded.
The two teams stayed silent, letting that sink in while Mordred turns to his bodyguards and gives them orders to thin the Grimm and help the others back at the camp.
"Anyways, this young lady asked me for some 'mechanical help' as in trying to get the STC for the standard Mark X armor patterns."
"STC?" Ying asked, tapping things onto her scroll.
"Standard Template Construct or blueprints." He explained pulling one out, the small plate displayed a holographic diagram of Akaia's armor and body structure. "And the is of course, Akaia's reconstructed body."
The diagram exploded into individual components, naming parts and mini models of what the movements would look like if it were to move. He sighed and closed the holograph, slipping it back into his armored belt pouch.
"So this Cinder girl just stole one of your templates," Jay crossed her arms and leaned on her sword. "Sounds like shitty security to me."
"Jay…" Cindy muttered, nudging her foot.
The four warriors stood silent, not affected by the insult one bit, but turned to Mordred.
"I wish it was that." Mordred sighs slightly. Gaheris gives a small nod and a portal opening up behind him, courtesy of Argus. "I fear of using Prometheus on this world."
"Prometheus?" Cindy asked, looking at the lord briefly before Mordred turned towards the portal.
"Our war titan of unfathomable size and power," He explained. "As old as our legion is, her spirit harbours the essence of our primordial founder, the Harbinger of Shadows."
He watches as the portal expands to accommodate their group size.
The room behind the portal looked like one massive forge, giant bellows set on the sides, servitors moved around hauling large crates and polishing the armor of the machines on the sides. Great fires would spurt from the white coals occasionally as the mechanical arms worked with sheets of metal.
They eight stared in amazement at the sight of the gigantic forge behind the portal, not noticing that ROCK, Argus and Mordred has already walked through.
"Come." Gaheris beckoned with his free hand. "I will recount the loss of one of the STC by her."
Several Years Back
Hammer struck thick unnatural metal, sending sparks into the air around the rusted metal armor. He watched with great patience as he struck the metal, watching and feeling the metal bend into shape for the gun barrel of one of the war machine's six-barrel gun arm. He whispered in the lost tongues as he struck the metal until it looked perfected, taking up a total of three days for this one piece. A skull floated near him with chittering clicks, making him pause is whispers and hammer as he gently placed the forged metal into the finished pile, hammer placed on the stone rim as he reached to pull his large pistol from his back, his other hand grasping his prized halberd.
"Is there someone in my domain?" He speaks loudly, turning around with a scanning helmet for anything out of the ordinary. He locks eyes with a golden-eyed woman much shorter than he is, with twin blades crossed on her lower back wearing a backless red blouse.
"State your presence and reason before the Forgemaster, human." He orders, his servant skulls picking up two more human presence in the room, but hidden from his range. His screen flickers for a second as a display pops up with him commanding two of the war droids to wake up Lycanus, who guards the STC room and the other sleeping turrets and combat servitors to deal with the two intruders.
"I am not here to be your enemy Forgemaster." The woman raised both her arms into the air to show that she is showing now tricks. "I just want to ask about what is all this since I've accidentally stumbled into this while fleeing from Grimm."
Gaheris stayed silent for a minute before shifting weight. His armor's spirit screams liar as he himself thinks as well.
"Liar." He fires a round at her, who dodges it deftly, quickly unsheathing her twin blades. "This Fortress is surrounded by rocks and overlooks the world, and my Skulls see two others of your 'fleeing party' in my rooms."
She says nothing as Gaheris lunges in quickly with a powerful swipe of his halberd, the force is enough to create a crevice in the ground. But to his amazement- she blocked it where a mere man would be sheared in half by it.
"So you've figured us out then." She replies by sliding under him, stabbing the blades into the thick ironclad armor, just going through it's first layer.
Gaheris growls as he swings around, only for the intruder to roll away a good distance from him. He raised his arm to deflect an arrow, only for another one to stick itself onto his breastplate and detonate in a shower of dust, knocking him to the ground from the unexpected force.
He quickly rolled to his feet for another swing at her, only to see one of her eyes glowing as an invisible blast sends him soaring into the pillar a few yards away. Groaning in pain, he reached to grab his halberd in a vice, his mind clouding with anger already.
He was outraged, bested by a mere human with aura. He stands back onto his feet, beginning to chant in his ancient, forgotten tongue. His halberd glowed like the coals in his forge. His body seemed to have firelicking the armor plates..
Giving a roar he lunged again.
Presently
The forge room is massive, the entire forge and the fires easily fills up the size of one of Beacon's lecture halls while the rows upon rows of war machines lined behind the massive room, half human servitors going about polishing or making upgrades to the archaic designs. Other than that, the heat is almost unbearable.
"So I lost in the end when an explosion detonated on my head. I was knocked out for a good hour and when I came to be, Lycanus and my skulls told me that they escaped and took a binding STC with them." He recounted as they walked in front of the very same fused corpse Kelly and Jay killed about three weeks back. But this time it laid on the table, dead and useless.
"Isn't that the thing I killed?" Jay shivered at the horrid sight of fused metal and flesh. "and almost killed Cindy?"
"It is all but of the STC that was stolen." Gaheris frowns under his helmet. "It was the blueprint they tried to replicate, but couldn't decipher to make it-"
He motions to the mess on the table.
"And with the Tome stolen as well, this is what happened."
Three servitors gathered around the table as Gaheris made a head motion and they leaned back slightly.
They stayed silent as Gaheris lifted his halberd high above his head and brought it down, the ax head cleanly severed each limb where the metal end, soon leaving nothing but the mangled body as the servitors removed the broken metal before setting the body down- or what is left of it.
"I take that this is not supposed to happen?" Emily spoke up as soon as the body is lain on the table.
"No, you can't use a live person mix with dust and something that uses a AI spirit to power in the same host. The AI spirit will reject the host and produce this when the corruption seeps in with the Tome that was used." He shook his head as he steps away from the table towards the grand double doors. "HLTP has been located and is brought here."
They continued walking down the giant brass gilded halls towards their destination with other teams as they were notified that ROCK has brought in HLTP after finding them in the forest.
"Why are the halls so tall?" Jay looked around with childish eyes as the tall warriors walked by them, paying no mind to them.
"It's to fit our much larger war machines- titans when we need to deploy them." Gaheris replies shortly as they walk by golden double doors motioning inside to see a brief of one two-story sized bipedal machine with guns instead of arms. "And that is our smallest titan yet. Prometheus is the largest- but we can't reveal her just yet."
"Aww." Jay pouted, Gaheris just gives a chuckle under his helmet as they walked through an armory of some kind.
Argus, Mordred and ROCK
The six stood on the balcony, Mordred turned to the mid-day sky, Argus pacing deep in thought, Cyres inspecting her sword hilt, Mel lounging on the railing in the sun, Rio looking over the target book and Akaia had her armor being recalibrated by servitors.
"Mordred, as I saw earlier today with what happens with their upcoming confrontation." Argus looks at Mordred's back. "It is very odd."
"What did you see this time?" Cyres looked up from her inspection of Icentooth. "Besides concerning EBNY and CTDK."
Mordred only huffed in response, his parts creaked and groaned as he shifted slightly.
"How odd is it?"
Argus hesitates slightly before answering.
"I am seeing three outcomes, which never happened before." Argus explained. ROCK's attention instantly turned to him, curious of what he will say. Mordred stiffened for a second and turned to face him.
"Three?" Mordred repeated.
"Three, they all have the same outcome- one's untimely death or just barely making it, but replaced with different members every time I look into it- a gamble."
Silence fell over them all for the longest time in their history of meetings. Even Mel, who is known for her breaking the silence said nothing. Akaia looks to the ground.
"Just what are you planning Cinder Fall?"
A/N: I'm sorry this was late- Winter break turned into working break with practices and well... gaming? Oops.
The real chapter would happen after the episode though.
So be warned- it will go a bit dark as we would touch based with the past details.
Also yes I do like Warhammer 40K so there will be a lot of refs.