Almost forgot about this update, I'm very busy with my current classes. Thank god I took Karma's advice and made a stockpile, otherwise these chapters would be spaced a good month apart. Anyway, as I forgot to put in a soundtrack for the last chapter, I put in five. Listen to them. Or not. Up to you. At any rate, I hope you enjoy my work. From here on out, the chapters are going to get longer - I'm aiming for somewhere between six to eight thousand words per chapter, though that is subject to change as I try to find a place to stop where it feels natural and not worry about word count.
Anyway, thank you for the responses, guys. I have to be honest, I know this is only the fourth chapter, but I never expected five reviews in the first two. Chock it up to being an attention-hungry nerd.
Thank you Dgreen20, WolfKieth, and UNSC Inferno for giving my little story a whirl, and everyone else who saw fit to keep an eye out for it by faving.
Peace out.
#1
Ruby was drooling.
Yang wore a shit eating grin.
Blake blinked and tilted her head to the side.
Weiss was outraged.
Jaune was in shock, mouth agape.
Pyrrha was confused, but interested.
Ren was impassive.
And Nora was blowing raspberries.
Why?
No one knew.
All seven of them stared at the massive screen, transfixed by the machine leisurely drifting between the trees and heading deeper into the forest. When they had seen the pilot they were put off by the intimidating helmet – it was hard to believe there was actually a person behind that mask! More than anything, however, her words before dropping off the cliff had been disconcerting. This was even more so for Blake who was still shaken to her core, though she hid it well.
In the case of Ruby however, her excitement pushed aside any uncomfortable thoughts. "Holy crap, did you see that?! It just drove off the cliff!"
"It was impossible to miss," Blake said flatly, masking her discomfort.
"Okay," Yang said, hands on her hips. "I have no idea what happened or how it did it, but that was freaking cool."
Jaune gulped and chuckled nervously. "Um… th-that thing's going to be… here? In Beacon?"
"Of course, you dunce! Ozpin just announced it to the whole bloody school!" Weiss snapped, her eyes glacial, emitting an aura that could freeze hell over. Jaune yelped and dove behind Pyrrha, fearfully peeking over her shoulder at the irate heiress.
"Whoa there, Ice Queen. Crank up the heat a bit," Yang said with a grin.
Weiss looked like she'd been slapped. "What the- Why does everyone keep calling me Ice Queen?!"
"Because you are."
Yang's teasing was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Fuming, Weiss was only barely held back from freezing Yang by Ruby, who had wrapped both arms around her waist. "Weiss, let it go!" she yelled.
"Ugh! Release me this instant! You blaggard!"
It took several moments of Weiss squirming in Ruby's iron grip – Ruby praying that her partner wouldn't kill her – and heckles of people watching them before Weiss calmed down enough that she wouldn't go straight for Myrtenaster. Even still, she crossed her arms angrily, her shoulders hunched as she fumed. "Doesn't anyone else see an issue with this?!" she griped.
At this, Yang, Ruby, and Blake had to tear their gazes from the screen, while only Jaune and Pyrrha spared any attention for her. Though, in Ren's defense, he was too busy looking for a suddenly-wayward Nora.
Pyrrha frowned in confusion. "How so?" she said distractedly.
Weiss huffed, annoyed that she only had partial attention. "This!" she snapped, waving a hand at the tank. "This is a school for hunters, not a playground for some backstreet hooligan in an artillery piece! I'm surprised those shells haven't exploded on their own, yet!"
Ruby let out an indignant scoff. "The M7A6 doesn't even use shells, Weiss!" she objected. "It fires concentrated Dust!"
Meanwhile, everyone else watched the tank as it hovered along an old game trail, cameras pivoting, constantly on high alert.
"It doesn't matter, Ruby! This is a school to train Hunters, not some rabble picked up off the street."
"I was picked up off the street!" Ruby shouted indignantly.
Surprisingly, Weiss' icy glare and voice softened at the hurt in her partner's voice. "You're different, Ruby," she said comfortingly. "You use Aura. This… monstrosity just fires a big bullet!"
"I wouldn't be so quick to assume that," Pyrrha said, her tone grave. "Having a big bullet is just as effective in some cases."
Weiss snorted, while Ruby edged towards the veteran and asked, "What do you mean?"
Pyrrha smiled cryptically. "Watch."
-O-O-O-
#2
Connie was tense, her hands gripping the yokes so hard the tough plastic creaked. There was nothing registering on her sensors – no Grimm, no birds, not even a speck of dust. There was nothing on audio either, not even a breath of wind. She felt a presence pressing down on her, choking her from within the protective hull of Grendel as her search became more frantic. She made best speed to the north, but in trying to keep her own presence to a minimum her progress was even slower. Even if it was to just break the tension, she was tempted to open the throttle and rush down the narrow game trail she was on.
Looking at the forest around her through the eyes of her tank, Connie couldn't even imagine that hordes of Grimm infested it. She'd been travelling for a good twenty minutes now, and having come across nothing so far, it was natural that she would be tense. Still, something felt strange – something in the back of her mind screamed that something was wrong.
But there wasn't anything wrong. Despite the silence everything was calm, and the sun shone through the leaves with an ethereal, green light. It was perfect, with no sign of danger.
"Run active scan," Connie said.
A low hum came from within Grendel as her sensors were pushed to the max. Active sonar worked to map a ghost image of the forest, while Aura sensors worked in tandem to find any anomalies. The process took less than a second, and Grendel gave a low, negative bleep.
"No readings detected," the on-board intoned, the voice having a slight feminine tone.
Connie sighed, hoping it was just her imagination. She urged the tank forward-
A black shadow burst from the trees, bounding straight for Grendel. Connie simply reacted, her right hand twitching to bring the barrel on target before pulling the trigger.
The effect was instantaneous. The blast of supercharged Dust exploded against the thing and sent it flying back into a tree, and if the shot hadn't killed it, being wrapped around the tree trunk backwards did. As it fell to the ground in a lifeless heap, Connie could see that it was a Beowolf.
Or rather, what was left of it. Now that it was dead, the shock of its sudden appearance made her shudder. She needed to work quickly – the explosion would have been heard for miles around.
With Grendel still rocking from the recoil, Connie tapped a button and a keyboard extended from a side panel. She typed in commands, running several higher level scans that she normally didn't use because of the power drain. In this case it was necessary, but she was still concerned when Grendel's screens flickered and an ominous, strained hum emanated from deep within.
Seconds later they finished. "Warning – multiple contacts detected," Grendel stated. Nearly a dozen blips appeared on her radar as Connie cursed under her breath.
Now she had a choice to make, and she didn't like either option she was presented with. She could keep going at this speed, letting the Grimm think that they hadn't been discovered and make her way to the objective. This would also give any Grimm in the surrounding areas the opportunity to catch up with her and pounce all at once. On the other hand, she could cut loose and get to the objective in record time, and give the Grimm surrounding her an opportunity to attack right now, and give herself some leeway until the main bulk arrived.
"Screw it," Connie muttered, opening the throttle. She forced Grendel to move even before the turbine had a chance to spool up, grinding the tank's belly along the ground before the jets caught and lifted her. The acceleration shoved Connie back in her seat and the trees rushed by at a speed that made it seem like she was in a long, green tunnel.
The furious howls chased after her, urging her to go faster and outrun the black shapes on her heels.
-O-O-O-
"YEAH! Break his legs!" Nora shouted, pumping her fists in excitement from her perch on Ren's shoulders.
Ren, struggling to keep his balance from his partner's antics, sighed. "It was shot, Nora."
Yang snorted. "Big bullets," she said, sniggering.
"Your partner is so juvenile," Weiss said to Blake, holding her pained head.
Blake raised an eyebrow. "So is yours," she shot back.
Weiss smirked. "Touché."
-O-O-O-
Grendel screamed down the trail. Connie could barely control her, her hands barely twitching as her tank slalomed from one side of the trail to the other. If there was one thing she absolutely hated about hovertanks, it was that they were extremely sensitive – with so much power and so little resistance to the ground, it hardly took anything to get moving. When that included simple maneuvering it all but threw precision out the window. Muttering an apology, Connie banked along a slow turn in the path, scraping Grendel's belly against the thick brush.
"Warning, hostiles detected."
Apparently her rush was for nothing. The Grimm were catching up.
"Activate point defense."
As she leveled out, a panel on top of the turret lifted. The dome-like piece of armor barely lifted an inch, but it was enough to reveal a pair of gun barrels recessed in the metal. The turret swiveled around to point behind the tank and it twitched as it searched for a target.
It wasn't a moment too soon, as another Beowolf came bounding out the forest on her starboard side. The turret immediately panned and thundered out a pair of shells, peppering the beast with buckshot – while it wasn't enough to kill it, the wall of lead was enough knock it out of the air and leave it howling on the ground.
Connie eased a little more speed out of Grendel. That howling would no doubt attract even more Grimm.
-O-O-O-
Amongst the murmuring that rippled through the auditorium, Weiss found herself standing on her toes in an attempt to get a better view. The monstrosity that her partner was currently gushing over was loud, ridiculous, and impractical… and yet if she was truly honest, mildly entertaining. It still irked her to no end that Ozpin would even think that the pilot of that thing would prove beneficial in any way to their development as Hunters, but it was… attention-grabbing.
In a very, very bad way.
She was tired of trying to peer over some Hunter's shoulder to see, and with a scowl grabbed a spare chair lining the wall. As a second Beowolf leapt from the brush, only to be cut down like the first, Weiss grinned smugly as she stood atop the chair. For an all-too brief moment, she reveled in the feeling of being a head taller than everyone else.
"Pfft. Um, Weiss? What're you – heh heh – doing?"
Ignoring her partner's poorly-hidden chortles, Weiss crossed her arms and settled her weight on one leg, somehow managing to look haughty as she said, "I, Ruby, am being resourceful."
"…So you're standing on a chair?"
"Oh, get up here, you dunce," Weiss snarked, rolling her eyes as she extended a hand to her partner. "It's easier to see."
Ruby grinned and nodded, clambering up to join her partner. Much to Weiss' displeasure, they had to stand uncomfortably close to one another to keep from falling off. It was made worse when Ruby grabbed her arm, pulling her close – and though the heiress knew it was to keep the both of them from toppling off and making a scene, they were making even more of a scene now. The feeling of her partner's side pressing up against hers made her stiffen.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Yang open her mouth-
"Don't you say a word," Weiss hissed, leveling her iciest glare.
Jaune, who had been watching out of the corner of his eye, grimaced. "Oh god, here it comes…"
Yang smirked and planted her fists on her hips. "Geez, I knew you were close, but I didn't know the two of you were attached at the hip, too. Should I give you two the talk? Oh! Or am I gonna be an aunt soon?" she said teasingly.
While Weiss simply glowered, Ruby was mortified, her face turning as bright as her name as she screeched, "YANG!"
-O-O-O-
#3
Grendel was a snapping, snarling beast, lunging into her turns as hot jets of flame blasted from every port, looking very much like an enraged demon of old. The defense turret snapped to the left and then to the right, blasting back Beowolves that dared to get too close. Still, like before, they survived and were back in the chase moments later.
If nothing else, they were persistent.
Connie spared a glance in her headlong dash to her objective, looking to a monitor dedicated to showing a map of the area. According to it, she was only a few minutes away from the ruins. She only hoped she could beat the Grimm back enough to get out, get the package, and get back to the Cliffs. It might have just been her stubbornness or pride… but she did not want to fail this.
The sharp, thudding report of the shot cannon reverberated through Grendel's chassis, causing her to glance at the ammunition readout on her left before she cursed. There were only a few shots left in her Close-In Weapon System, valuable shots that she'd need in order to make her way back. Luckily, the reactor could run for days under a normal load, but she wished she could have avoided detection just a little longer.
The situation was taken out of her hands when the game trail opened up into a massive clearing. Hitting a switch, the CIWS retracted and Connie opened the throttle as far as it would go, leaving the Beowolves to snap on open air. Despite her training insisting that she be professional at all times, the danger and the sheer force of being slammed in her seat was exhilarating. She simply couldn't give it up for the sake of pleasing her superiors, even back in Ironwood.
Connie saw something to her left. When she glanced back there was nothing but the ruins of what Ozpin must have been talking about, the remains of what once must have been a magnificent domed rotunda. It had long since decayed into a lone wall and half-collapsed pillars.
Yet, it still held a small sense of awe.
Wait…
Eyes narrowing, Connie zoomed in to the middle of the ruin and reeled back in shock.
"What the hell?"
-O-O-O-
"Ugh, Ah'm bored…." the hunter groaned, a thick brogue rolling off his tongue as he twirled a long glaive over his head. It was more of a lance, really – its thick shaft certainly counted for one, and the blade at the end added another foot. However, it was harder to explain the purpose of the watermelon-sized block of metal just behind the blade, though the four barrels jutting out of it shed some light as to what it did.
He was Patrick O'Brien, part of Team PSFN and wielder of his prized Gatling Lance. Dressed in a blue armored cardigan and jeans with unruly mud-brown hair, he seemed like he would be more at home in a normal college – however, the three-year veteran of Beacon was perfectly at ease in the Grimm infested forest.
There was no professionalism to be found as he whined, "Why 'kin Ah not just go an' have a lil fun, Nelly? I'll not be long."
By his side was a girl dressed in full armor and helmet, painted red. Unlike her partner's disheveled appearance, she was utterly professional as she glanced around the forest, a massive round shield strapped to her right arm and ready to bash Grimm into nonexistence. A smaller buckler was on her left arm, though it was square and had the ability to unfold into a short sword. Her name was Nina Keller, leader of the team, though she was formally known by her apt nickname.
The Shield.
Nina sighed. "Patrick, for the millionth time, it's Nina. And no, you can't."
"But why not?!"
She sighed again. "Because we aren't here to sightsee. We need to be ready for when that new student arrives."
"If she arrives," Patrick corrected. "Ay, if it turns out that bird an' that fancy lil tank o' hers went arseways, ya bet yer arse I'mma gettin' pissed tonight. My entire mornin', gone!"
"No, you aren't getting 'pissed.' We have a test tomorrow."
Patrick went back to grumbling under his breath. He casually leveled his glaive one-handed at a bush and pulled the trigger, sending a torrent of bullets into it. A shredded Beowolf promptly toppled out of it, looking more like Swiss cheese than the fearsome predator it was.
Nina was about to snap at her idiotic partner about wasting ammo when the tank burst from the trees. It angled towards them and sped up as Patrick grinned and waved the tank down.
"Oi, see?! Ah told ye the birdy would make it!"
Nina rolled her eyes. Moments later, a horde of Grimm burst from the trees behind the tank. The ground trembled and the air filled with inhuman howls that reverberated deep within their souls. It would have struck terror into any normal human.
Then again, Patrick and Nina weren't normal humans.
They simply grinned at each other as they readied their weapons, watching as the tank sped towards them.
-O-O-O-
Connie's surprise at the pair of hunters quickly died and she paled at the readings her radar was giving her. First it was twenty, then forty, eighty… the number of blips soon became too many to count, a mass of red directly behind her.
She steeled her nerves, trying – and failing – to ignore the pit of ice growing in her stomach.
A twist of the wrist jerked Grendel to the side, putting the tank into a powerslide as her starboard thrusters struggled to bring her to a stop. The hunters weren't even perturbed when the machine came to a halt not even five feet away from them, close enough that the heat blasted into their faces.
"Get on, I'll clear a path through," Connie said over the loudspeakers, her voice slightly altered. The hunters stared at Grendel, and looked to each other.
"Ah think we kin handle ourselves, thanks," the one with the glaive called out
"Alert! Proximity warning!"
At Grendel's insistent tone Connie began to turn to face the horde, only for one far ahead of the pack to leap and slam into the side of her tank. She yelled as she was smacked around in her seat, actually tearing through the shoulder restraint and smashing her side into the sharp corner of the armrest – a dull crunch brought blinding pain and tears to her eyes, and she struggled to keep her tank upright. It wobbled precariously as the Beowolf howled and vengefully tore its claws into Grendel's armor. It was the first victim that had fallen to her shot cannon, bloodied and eyes glowing with rage as it stood atop the turret.
"Get off my tank!" Connie screamed, enraged and in pain, before activating her CIWS and taking manual control. Now slaved to her turret controls, the little dome panned around and shot the beasts legs out from under it, once more in the face that utterly mutilated its skull, and one last time to blow the broken corpse off Grendel, with the shots firing fast enough that it didn't even have time to yelp. She stopped it before it did any major damage, but that didn't soothe away the cuts that had been gouged into Grendel's armor, showing the delicate circuitry and hydraulics within.
Panting with spent rage, Connie looked to the stunned Hunters. "Fine... kill'em."
Nina watched the tank, but without any way to see the pilot she had no way of gauging their emotions.
"Kill'em, stick their heads on a pike and flambé them," she growled. She didn't notice the pair's confusion at her rather extreme reaction.
Much to the armored girl's horror, Patrick cackled and twirled his Gatling Lance. "Eh, why not? Ah feel like acting a maggot, might be fun!"
Rolling her eyes, Nina addressed the tank and said, "Cover us."
"Yes ma'am."
As the pair strode towards the horde, Connie jabbed in commands that would divert most of the reactor's energy to her cannon, hopefully without blowing her up in the process. Grendel sunk to the ground, hovering on half her power while the charge in her capacitors jumped.
Connie smiled, though it was more of a pained grimace as her side throbbed angrily.
She fired twice in quick succession, blowing back several Grimm that thought they would be smart and flank the hunters. Two more shots went into the throng and sent bloody chunks flying. The hunters jumped into the fray, the spear wielder alternating between slashing Grimm and mowing down any out of his reach with bullets, while the walking fortress of a girl simply ran headlong into the fray and sent the monsters flying, mere bowling pins before her.
Snapping herself out of her awe, Connie fired again and again and again, teeth rattling and side throbbing from the recoil but taking out several Grimm with every shot. Their howls filled the clearing, some with pain and most with fury, but it was all simply chaos. Connie fell into an easy rhythm – left flank, fire, charge the next shot. Right flank, fire, charge the next shot. Rinse and repeat. At first it was easy to keep the Beowolves funneled into the meat grinder that was the hunters, who felled them with hardly a thought. More and more of the beasts began to pour in, making it harder for Connie to keep them from encircling her objectives.
A sharp beep from the radar drew her attention, and with a scowl she noted that the Grimm had smartened up and began circling from the trees. If they rushed in at all sides…
Connie shook her head. "Change of plans."
-O-O-O-
#4
Sweat dripped down Patrick's forehead as he cleaved the upper half of a Beowolf's head from its body. Leaving it to slump to the ground, he ducked under the swipe of another and blocked its snapping teeth with the grip of his lance. He spun and plunged the blade into its gut and pulled the trigger, screaming into the howling beast's face as bullets tore through the soft flesh. Kicking it away, he spun again and bisected one coming from behind as he shouted, "Well, this is a craicin' time, now ain't it!?"
Nina effortlessly batted a Beowolf away with her shield and carved her short, blocky blade through the gut of another. "We must retreat!" she said, bashing in the head of an unlucky wolf.
Patrick grinned. "Aight, one distraction, comin' up!"
He spun his lance before yelling and slammed the butt end of it into the ground, sending a rolling shockwave through the battlefield. Dozens of Beowolves howled as they were launched into the air, leaving the pair suddenly with enough space to breath without a beast trying to bite their heads off. Disoriented, they took a moment to breathe and were about to turn and run back to the tank when it suddenly sped by, cannon firing and blasting a gory path through the Grimm.
The machine banked to a stop and settled on its footpads, letting its vector jets die, confusing the hunters before it emitted a sharp screech.
Cannon glowing, it spat shot after shot of white-hot fury at the lines of Grimm, becoming more of a massive machine gun as it utterly leveled the Beowolves. The cannon swept back and forth, spreading the shots out as much as possible, and while a fair few managed to limp away the majority of the wolves were simply torn apart. The carnage lasted for over half a minute, but when it was finally over, all that remained of the beasts were the massive pools of gore staining the grass and the nauseating stench.
-O-O-O-
"Holy fucking shit," Yang blurted out. Most of the people around her said things similar as Ruby blushed furiously, wondering if it was possible to have a crush on a machine.
-O-O-O-
"Magnetic dampeners online. Warning, reactor efficiency at 15%."
Connie sighed, though it was a struggle to breathe through the boiling hot air that now coursed through Grendel. Her systems were struggling – that much was apparent when even her life support was overheating with so much bleeding off her superheated reactor. Even the turbine couldn't get enough air through to cool it. The inside of her suit felt slick, drenched in her own sweat. She wanted nothing more than to pop the hatch and let blessedly cool air fill her lungs.
But she couldn't. Connie ignored her pain and discomfort and spun Grendel to face the hunters, who were still dazed from the brutal display of force. "Get on," she said, "We don't have much time. They'll be back once they realize they've got numbers on their side."
It only took them a moment to scramble on and then Grendel shot into the forest once more. She was back in the green tunnel, slaloming from side to side, except that Connie was struggling to keep the tank under control now that it was weaker and responding slower than before. Cursing when she clipped a tree, Connie eked as much power as she could out of Grendel's ailing reactor in a final mad dash to the Cliffs.
-O-O-O-
Silent during the entire Initiation, Glynda had to bite her tongue to keep from saying anything rash. She had been interested with the girl's rather unconventional entry. Hell, she was downright impressed with how she handled herself through the forest, and even more so when she had laid waste to an entire horde. To take out the same number of Grimm herself would've been exhausting, possibly even suicidal.
But now that the tank was coming back with the objective - half of Team PSFN to be exact - she was concerned. The machine showed none of the same power and agility as it did before, reacting late and nearly barreling into trees several times. It was clear that whatever the girl had done to drive back the horde, she was paying the price now.
"Professor Ozpin, this is going too far," Glynda said, looking at data collected from sensors hidden away in the forest. "I realize that we aren't supposed to interfere, but in the pilot's present state I doubt she will be able to defeat the Grimm a second time, in addition to leading them straight here. With the numbers we're detecting they could overwhelm our defenses in an all-out attack."
Ozpin was silent as he drank, staring out over the emerald sea. And then, before Glynda could say anything further, he nodded. "Very well. Scramble the Bullhead pilots."
-O-O-O-
Patrick and Nina were holding on for dear life, trying to keep their grip as the tank banked into its turns. Sure, they could understand the need to hurry, but this speed was suicidal. What made it worse was that it seemed like the pilot was barely in control, narrowly avoiding several disastrous crashes. Nina, who had shifted her massive shield to her back, shot a knowing glance at Patrick.
Patrick rolled his eyes and clambered over the turret from where they were holding on to the rear brush guard, lunging forward to grab the cannon barrel and using it as a handhold all the way to the cockpit. He stomped on the hatch and shouted, "Oi, are ya banjaxed or are ya just acting a maggot, birdy? What's goin' on?!"
Oblivious to his screams, Connie wasn't doing well. A pulsing headache ripped between her ears, and every breath she took of the scorching air only made it worse. But she couldn't disconnect the breathing line, because she knew that the cockpit was hermetically sealed and she would only have enough air for a few minutes. She would prefer not to suffocate, even if it meant heat stroke. Shaking off a wave of nausea, she glanced at her radar and saw almost a dozen red blips in coming from behind.
Wait…
What were those blips again?
Connie shook her head, trying to collect her thoughts, but they just wouldn't cooperate. Dazed, she allowed Grendel to creep closer to the trees on her right side. She forgot which way was up, and gripped her pulsing head. A shiver racked her body, causing her feet to twitch and threatened to send Grendel straight into the trees.
BANG!
Snapping awake at the pounding on her cockpit hatch, Connie had a split second to react before they all careened into a tree that would surely survive the impact better than they would. She juked to the left, turning Grendel to the side before blasting all her starboard jets. Barely conscious of the fact that she nearly sent both her charges flying, she watched as the tree came closer and closer… before stopping entirely. The reactor that pulsed so powerfully in Grendel's core sputtered and died, leaving the tank to drop to the ground with a heavy boom.
"Warning, reactor offline. Insufficient power levels detected. Dust depleted."
Letting out a shaky breath, Connie managed to collect herself as much as she could.
"Oi, are ya a'right?!" she distantly heard through the metal.
She nodded, though no one could see it. "I'm fine," she said shakily, and looked to her radar. "Grimm, left flank."
At her words a Beowolf leapt from the bushes, only to be met with a face-full of bullets when Patrick spun and fired his lance. Nina heard more rustling and jumped from the back of the tank directly into the path of another, knocking the beast aside as her fist slammed into its cheek. The wolf rolled away and got to its feet, snarling and snapping at her, only to yelp when a dull yellow line of Aura trailed from its cheek to her left hand.
Nina grinned as she wrapped the ethereal rope around her fist and spun, sending the yowling beast into another like a kind of warped flail and killing both instantly. She snapped her arm back, throwing her improvised weapon to her feet as several more Grimm howled and leapt from the bushes around them.
"Ye best hurry up, birdy!" Patrick yelled, spinning his lance as he joined his partner. "We're in a right craicin' time, out here!"
-O-O-O-
#5
As the hunters struggled to fend off the new threat, something else was happening at Beacon. While it was true that it was built on top of a mesa, most people had no idea that much of it actually existed below the school, a massive complex designed to hold back the tide of any possible Grimm onslaught before their students were ready. Hidden gun emplacements dotted the cliffs, doors ready to be pulled back or blown off at a moment's notice; however, what Ozpin was most proud of were the three Bullhead hangers secreted away in the pseudo-fortress. The doors were made to look exactly like the cliff face around it, and could swivel out and away at a moment's notice.
This was the base of the Vale Defense Force, or the VDF, and the second line of defense behind the hunters.
Hanger Three was in complete chaos as pilots scrambled to get to their machines. While there were only four to a hanger, it did nothing to lessen the pandemonium as they worked to get in the air within a minute and thirty seconds of the alarm sounding.
These weren't your typical civilian Bullheads, or even the light exploration models with chain guns strapped to their noses. No, these were military machines, with rocket pods under their wings, thick armor, and autocannons that could chew through the boney armor that all Grimm possessed. All angles and flat edges, there were none of the graceful curves that could be found on the civilian models. They were built for one purpose – to kill monsters, Grimm or otherwise.
They were the same machines that tore out of the hangars in a single-minded fury, ready to rain hell on all that threatened humanity and their fellow Armor pilots.
-O-O-O-
Connie snarled as she struggled to bring her tank back online. Overusing her reactor had led to this, she thought grimly. Her so-called 'Overcharge.' By releasing the magnetic dampeners she more than doubled its power output, but at the same time the reactor ate away at itself at an ungodly speed. Raw lighting Dust could be consumed in a matter of seconds, leaving the fuel-starved reactor to collapse on itself.
And in her anger and pain, she had released it for over half a minute.
"Stupid!" she snapped, slamming her fist in the side of the cockpit. It was an amateur mistake that would cost all three of them their lives. She barely had enough power to run her systems, let alone spark the turbines that lifted Grendel off the ground.
Well… not necessarily.
Connie pulled back a hidden lever and cranked it, slowly opening the cockpit hatch. Chaos was the only thing that met her – the armored Huntress was swung around the broken corpse of a Beowolf even as she crushed another against a tree with her shield, while the Hunter with the strange accent was laughing as he hacked, stabbed, and shot torrents of lead at their foes.
However, she could tell they were being pushed back. Poor visibility and surprise attacks from all sides were taking their toll, and she didn't need an Aura counter to tell they were tiring.
Connie disconnected the breathing hose and nearly collapsed in relief when blessedly cool air filled her lungs, leaving her wanting nothing more than to pass out right then and there, but she pushed herself out of her stupor and crawled out of her cockpit.
"What are you doing!?" The Huntress cried, slamming the edge of her shield on the neck of a Beowolf. "It's too dangerous out here!"
Her words were ignored as Connie moved, her mind blank as she drew her revolver and shot a Beowolf as it came from behind the distracted Huntress. The heavy slug punched through its skull armor and out the back in a spray of pulped meat, its cranium no match for the heavy rounds.
The Huntress spun, saw the broken Grimm as it fell, and gave Connie a curt nod in thanks.
Connie nodded back and turned to her tank, crouching down as she looked for the access panel… there!
Located under the lip of the turret she could barely see the segmented panel, and would be all but invisible to those who didn't know about it. But Connie did, and she hurried as she strode over, ducked under the cannon barrel and fingered the panel, pushing it in until it popped and swung out on its own. It protected a small port that, in theory, would go straight to the reactor. In all actuality, it was merely the gas tank, but it had only ever been fed pure, processed Dust that had been ground down into fine sand.
Not entire crystals.
Connie reached into a pouch on her chest and pulled out a small Dust crystal, light blue and crackling with power that she could feel even through the gloves.
"Work. Please work," she pleaded, touching the crystal to her helmet before she opened the port and slipped it in.
There was a dull clank as the Dust fell through the tube… and then silence. Connie waited for the tremor, a pulse as the reactor absorbed the crystal and processed it into back into pure lightning to fuel itself. But there was nothing.
"Dammit, c'mon!" she screamed.
Grendel, her loyal tank, was silent.
Patrick yelled as he was thrown back into a tree, his weapon flying from his hands as a Beowolf tackled him from the side. Nina was sweating as she released her Semblance, letting her flail, now nothing more than a head, drop to the ground as she turtled behind her shield and tried her best to protect her partner. Connie brought her hand cannon up and screamed as she fired, sending four of her five shots through the head of a Beowolf before the cylinder ran dry.
Four Beowolves fell, and eight more took their place. They shuffled from the trees, their lips pulled back in triumphant snarls.
The hunters crawled even closer to one another, seeking each other's comfort.
Connie simply felt cold. Her revolver dropped from her fingers and she waited for the beasts to come.
-O-O-O-
CODEX: M7A6-H Light Battle Tank
Moving forward into the twenty-second century, military analysts found that the age-old design of tanks had begun to lose their usefulness. While the tanks themselves were sturdy, chained tracks were fragile and prone to breaking under stress, in addition to the fact that, over time, Grimm learned were the machines were weakest. They were slow, and unable to field the firepower necessary to make their maintenance worth the cost. In 2108, almost ten years after the project was first commissioned, an up-and-coming design firm called Carlisle Industries put forth their proposal.
The M7A6-H is a twenty five ton tank, just over a third of the weight of the VK-2 that was fielded in 2023. The advent of more efficient dust propulsion circumvented the need for internal combustion engines, reducing the powerplant to a single 50,000 megawatt Dust reactor, which drives a pair of turbines to provide power, propulsion, and charge the main cannon. The weight reduction allowed engineers to further reduce the size of the tank which still maintaining the armor and firepower, something which could not be possible with older generation tanks, and made the concept of a tank manned by a single pilot possible.
Equipped with an SR-44 Dust Mag-Cannon, the M7A6-H has a nearly unlimited ammunition capacity, provided that it can be supplied with Dust when needed and removing the restriction of supply lines. Its fourteen vector jets provide ample maneuvering capability, while its stern thrusters can propel the tank to over one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour over flat ground or water. It's speed, maneuverability, and low profile make the M7A6-H an excellent hit and run machine - however, to save costs, its sensor and communications suite was adopted from the Panzerkampfwagen II "Luchs," restricting the range that the tank and go from allies.
The M7A6-H was created as a working prototype, which shows with its single major flaw – its powerplant. Everything that the pilot does draws power from it, and once the reactor has a null charge the entire tank will shut down. In addition, as reactors were a relatively new technology when put in production, each tank was built around its reactor and it is impossible to replace it without destroying the entire machine. It is thought that there was meant to be an M7A7, but was put into production without the creator's consent. Nevertheless this flaw prevented it from becoming truly remarkable despite its overall success, and only five hundred machines were ever manufactured with most commissioned by the Vacuo military to replace their aging Leichter scout truck. Others have been lost to neglect and poor maintenance – outside of Vacuo, it is rare to see a functional M7A6-H.