Hello, sorry for the delay. Life got away from me and I really lost the motivation to write for a while. But holy crap I had no idea it had been over a year! I hope, as always, that my work was worth the wait. Your follows and comments are always a great reminder to me how a writer should finish what they have started.
I do hope that you enjoy this humble little adventure and have a wonderful summer.
Kachunk kachunk kachunk. Pain echoed through her skull, kachunk kachunk kachunk, a punishing rhythm seemingly without end. Her head resting uncomfortably on something metal, something cold: cold and unforgiving. Slowly, painfully, she stirred and lifted herself barely an inch off the ground before falling again, kachunk kachunk kachunk, Weiss's vision was blurry, unrefined, swirled, like the whole world was teetering off a cliff.
Kachunk kachunk kachunk, something was moving towards her, something big, big and angry. The blur lifted something above its head and growled: "Now! Schnee! You're done!"
The giant huffed and puffed, waiting for her to say something, but she couldn't focus, the rhythm just wouldn't stop.
"What's the matter, Schnee?!" he roared, "Nothing to say?"
"I-i-" she started, her voice shaking from the pounding she had just gotten, her mind still feeling the effects of what had to be a serious concussion. What could she say? What was there to say to a man whose life her family had ruined to the point he'd willingly kill a child out of sheer rage? "I'm sorry." she whispered.
The giant paused.
Weiss gasped for breath as the swirling clouds of color that were her vision slowly solidified. "I'm so, so sorry." She said, the shapes coming together to form something she could hit. "Whatever we did… I'm sorry."
Kachunk kachunk kachunk.
A gruff exhale sounded from the giant white fang operative as he raised his weapon. The engine revved, the rusted teeth turning with the speed of a tempest. "Worthless Schnee!" He roared in disgust, bringing down his blade along with his judgment.
Weiss closed her eyes for the inevitable.
It never came.
She cracked one eye open when a wet squelch met her ears, it's cause fell before her vision. She looked up at the now headless faunus, the body collapsed to the side revealing her golden savior. The friendly warrior swiped his spear to clear it of blood. He knelt to her level with an offered hand and spoke with surprising gentleness.
"Are you alright, miss Schnee?"
"Y-yes." She answered, hesitantly taking the alien's offered hand to stand. She gripped her aching head, stumbling on uncertain legs. Only to trip on her own feet and dive straight into the floor.
"Whoa there Weiss-y," a familiar voice said, catching the smallest Schnee in her strong arms. "No need to fall for me, eh?"
She offered only an annoyed groan in response, her Aura was much too low to deal with her right now. Worse, she knew she had a retort ready for such an occasion, she was just too tired to use it. 'Eh I'll get her next time.' Weiss thought, relieved in the knowledge that thanks to Ruby's new friend there would be one.
A scream of metal announced the end to her musings as the giant spearman forced open the next carriage door. With a billow of his cape and a flash of steel the custodes entered the train car, his sheer mass dominating the space. His muscles tensed beneath the golden armor, his ancient eyes pierced every atom of the room, a mind as ancient as an empire anticipating every possibility and impossibility that he might encounter.
Only to find- all his caution woefully unnecessary, at least to any present threat.
He entered the carriage and was greeted by the sight of the effeminate rebel leader, hogtied beneath the lady Blake with her weapon. Ruby was doing her best at intimidating the man while the professor uselessly flailed about at the damaged and obviously useless train controls.
"Oooh that doesn't look good." The blonde boxer unhelpfully offered.
"How do we stop the train!" The red caped leader screamed at her captive.
The flamboyant thief merely chuckled at the girl's failed attempt at intimidation. "You just don't get it do you Red?" he asked mockingly. "You can't stop this, you can't stop anything!"
WHACK
An unceremonious right hook from the lady Blake knocked the criminal unconscious, ending his mad rant. The custodes feeling rather glad for the silence.
"Uh, so good news and bad news children." The professor cut in, a piece of broken machinery still in his hand. "We're all going to die."
"Okaaaay so what's the good news?" Yang asked, breaking the stunned silence of the group.
"Given our current rate of travel our ends will be quick as we are sure to reach the end of the line momentarily."
Panic and confusion gripped the young lady Rose, the kind of panic Kitten had read about, and seen, and felt himself, in a soldier newly minted to his responsibilities. Her head turned in frantic tune with all the might of her boundless imagination trying desperately to imagine some way to get her team out of danger. "That's not good, that's not good…" She mumbled incoherently.
Seeing no other recourse either, the ancient custodes picked up the six cowering mortals within his great custodian cape.
"W-what are you doing?" The lady Weiss asked as he raised his staff and prepared to strike.
"BRACE FOR IMPACT!" He roared, raising his spear high.
The weapon struck true, straight through the bottom of the carriage and into the rushing ground below. His arm strained, metal screamed, and the lights flickered, for an aching eternity he stood there shielding these little warriors and their pet. He strained against the force of the train, fought the rushing pull of its momentum, and the terrible consequence it carried them towards. For a time he thought his plan to slow the train might actually be working- Then in an instant the world lacked gravity and all was terrible, silent and still.
…
Impact.
Kitten awoke once more to a new and unfamiliar sight. His limbs ached and his armor felt broken even with its internal systems assuring him it wasn't. All around him dust settled onto metal and stone debris and a faint burning smell hung upon air. "Is everyone alright?" He called out.
A chorus of moans and groans answered and the custodes breathed a sigh of relief that his prayer to the Emperor had been heard. Unfortunately so did the screams.
Using his gilded spear he wrenched the doors from their shattered hinges and the eclectic band found themselves in a nightmare. The train had crashed, obviously, but not underground. They were now on the surface in what looked to be some manner of city, they were in a wide open space. A shattered monument lay in the center of what the custodes now recognized as a city square of sorts. No doubt a monument to some long past war or other. Beyond it was a great flat water pool not dissimilar to what he had seen before in the pleasure palaces of Terran nobles. Jets of water arcing into the sky and central ostentatious fountain included. But the most striking feature of the place was the piece that had not been designed to be there: the giant gaping hole in the ground with monsters pouring out of it.
"Oh my Gods!" The doctor cried. "Children hurry! The Grimm!" Oobleck's frenzied words needed no further context for the students beneath his charge. The girls, still on uncertain legs and with soot choked breath, lept to action.
It was a noble gesture to be sure, doomed though it was. Through all the fighting he had forgotten for a moment that for all their apparent wizardry and skill these children were still only that: children. Still mostly untrained and unused to the rigors of prolonged conflict, and it showed. In their quaking knees and dust filled eyes he saw that they were not yet ready.
"Miss Yang." He said in a calm tone, pulling the blonde boxers attention to him.
"Huh?"
"Hold my Deer." He said depositing the still unconscious and living terrorist from the folds of his cape and into her waiting arms. "And hold this position."
"What wait, what w-what?!" The girl sputtered
"Hold this position." The Captain General of the Adeptus Custodes repeated. "Doctor, I shall entrust the raising of the city's defenders to you."
"Wait," Oobleck sputtered, "y-you can't possibly-"
And just like that he was off. The blade of his spear flashing like lightning to the nearest beast, tearing its head from its hairy shoulders before the not-daemon could touch the civilian it had been reaching for. He started around the edge of the square, slaughtering the beastly attackers from behind as they tried to spread themselves within the city. After the initial mob of dark beasts had been gleaned he moved to the nearest vantage point: the roof of a low level local Scola or a local administration hub, he knew not which.
Once more he called forth his superhuman senses, eyes scanning, nose scenting, and muscles tensed. In this way he could take in the whole of the battlefield and prepare his own strategy of defense. Fortunately for the immortal guardian the square only had four major roads leading from its corners. Unfortunately this gave the captain general four separate choke points to cover, three if he discounted the one team RWBY and their professor had set themselves up in. Their magic user shielding them within a barricade of ice from which they could safely shoot at the enemy from a distance.
'A standard guardsmen tactic,' Kitten thought, 'but a sensible one, given their injuries.'
So far the situation appeared perilous but not untenable. The square was a relatively isolated location now that the civilians had fled, and the limited number of exit routes would provide good choke points for the city's defenders to exploit once they arrived. Even with more of the black hound-things emerging from the breach along their more squad fellows, the Custodes remained confident.
'It should be a rather easy fight, all things considered.' He thought, his mind turning to his previous battle on the surface of mars. 'Nothing like the sheer scale of combat I am typically used to. At least it will be a simple matter to keep the citizens safe."
The world beneath him rumbled. In a flurry of motion strange enough to shock him from his heightened processing an enormous shape emerged from the hole and shot itself high into the sky above the area. A bird, a great crow-like bird, just as stark black and ornamented in the quasi-natural armor of the rest of the not-daemons, had emerged from the breach! The quaking earth quickly showed it wasn't alone, as several scorpion beasts and even a two headed snake emerged behind it. The beastial forces of the Grimm rallied with renewed strength and once more began to spread themselves through the square.
"Well, shit…"
And there you have it. I was hoping to have this entire plot point done in one chapter, the crash, the fight and the aftermath, all in one go. Hopefully pick up the story's pace a bit. but no matter how much I reworked it it just felt wrong cramming everything in at once and some of the dialog for certain sections was just taking forever. Besides with the current draft being over seventeen hundred words I figured going any further would just bloat the thing.