Ears were ringing. Ears were ringing awfully loud, too. He didn't recall how or why they were ringing at this very moment, he just knew he felt the weight of most of his equipment on himself. With a heave, the man drew a breath that tasted recycled. Sighing in relief and thus exhaling all of the air out of his lungs, he heard the puff of the rebreather on his armor.
His Heads-Up Display began to boot, a series of azure screens, numbers, letters and the likes playing across his eyes before finally settling in to a series of non-invasive diagnostics and a display of Armor Integrity on the top right. A HUD-related tracker activated to the bottom left, followed by an ammo counter and two weapons silhouettes appearing on the bottom right.
Slowly standing to his feet, to the semi-silent whirr of the motors in his armor suit, the man dusted himself off and activated the wrist-mounted holographic display, checking his surroundings with one eye and keeping tabs on said holo-display with the other. He spoke, his accent heavily Prussian German, "Central, Net Two, this is Commander Carl, attempting direct contact with orbiting Federation ships... Does anyone copy?"
He saw the fluctuations of transmission on the holographic display, but did not get a handshake back from any known source. No replies, no welcome, no callbacks, nothing. He sighed and repeated the sentence, his voice a murmur this time. He looked up at the sky, noting that the world around him was, in fact, not on fire. Rather, it was calm and serene, with birds chirping in the crowns of the trees around him and the blue, unblemished sky up above shining with the light of a freshly-risen sun.
With confusion, the man grabbed at the weapon off his back. A sophisticated laser weapon that resembled a rather intricate rifle in its design, the weapon was anything but a simple firearm and the eerie lilac glow of its side radiator slits told as much. A self-recharging firearm that drew on the energies of the world around it and from a more obscure, vile dimension's ebbing tides, the Empyrean Rifle, Warp Rifle, or the Magnetically-Contained, Self-Recharging Empyrean Assault Weapon Type 1 in more technical terms, was the most dangerous infantry weapon available to the Federation. It could tear a being apart and outright burn it out of reality in one shot, depending on power level.
Clipped to his belt and turned off was his secondary weapon:A Type 22 Plasma Pistol. Refined from the much earlier and more volatile prototype plasma pistols of the early and middle periods of space exploration, the Type-22 was the apex of plasma weapons design. Self-contained with very capable heat-sinks and able to be fired rapidly without fear of cooking both itself and the user alive like a grenade, it had a power level more akin to early plasma rifles.
He checked both weapons, activating their inner coolant systems, reactors and power drawing methods, before looking over the pistol and humming. He gave a nod of approval, then checked his Power Armor suit once more, this time with an outer examination. Layers of various materials separated him from an early death, these materials being hardened to withstand everything from plasma to, perhaps, even a shot from his main weapon. Below the silver plates lay a body-suit specifically designed to allow ease of mobility while providing protection. Below the top layer of the bodysuit lay hundreds of other micro-layers of crystals, gels and materiel meant to withstand damage and provide comfort to the wearer, like a glove.
He checked every system, then nodded and re-holstered his pistol, preparing his rifle instead and shouldering it. He tried sending a spectrum-wide ping across all possible communications channels. Waiting two seconds to see if any reply would come and finding none, he prepared. His motion tracker kicked on and gave him a warning beep as it detected an incoming. Then another.
And another.
And then a hundred more.
He swore to himself as he swiveled about and murmured, "Damned Eldar won't let me go easy, will they...?"
WARNING:EMPYREAN ANOMALIES DETECTED ON FAST APPROACH
The warning that blared in his suit chilled the blood in his veins. He shifted his weapon and turned its power level to the second setting, watching their approach vector:Directly North-West of him. He kept his weapon trained, HUD displaying a targeting arc which would provide the best course to intercept the targets. Taking a knee and shouldering the weapon, he gently caressed the trigger with his index...
When the first creature appeared, Fritz Carl, Commander in the Federation Armed Forces Black Ops Corps, squeezed the trigger just as he saw them. Black-maned, with eyes of a burning scarlet and bone plates for armor, the first of the creatures to be vaporized by the round made of pure Warp energy being a lanky, tall, wolf-like creature. The round struck, igniting the beast ablaze in a lilac fire for a moment, before its form disappeared into nothingness, its screams still echoing amongst its brethren.
He shifted his aim as the rest of the horde poured in and switched to level 3 on the power output level, before opening up. Bursts of Empyrean-fueled hatred struck through the creatures' hides, piercing them and spewing forth more warp-lit fire around them, encasing their comrades in the bursts of hellish energy. The beasts all disintegrated or lost limbs to the hits, vanishing before their corpses could so much as touch the forest floor.
His rifle began to overheat. Thumbing the button for the heat sinks to be washed by coolant, the man let the steam of the weapon push out of the 'barrel' through its sides as he drew his plasma pistol, his HUD updating to the weapon's conformation and providing accurate targeting data. A cocktail of combat drugs enhanced his reaction time almost two-hundred fold. He felt his augmented muscles tense, then relax and then adapt, his bones hardening beneath them, his nerves firing on overdrive, reinforced.
He moved like a blur, plasma pistol screaming. Bolts as blue as the sky coalesced within the maw of the weapon and left it rapidly, the man adjusting his aim and keeping one eye on his motion tracker and another on the weapon's overheat meter, which was on the back and already glowing yellow, halfway heated. A tree was torn asunder in the rear of the swarm of beasts as plasma struck it, exploding outward as the gas expanded.
The man activated the coolants in his pistol, holstering it and his rifle and cracking his knuckles. One cocked-back fist was thrown forward and the head of one of the beasts cracked wide open. The second hit split a second creature at the seams before the man crossed his arms in front of his face and blocked another beast's strike. And block it, he did, his speed allowing him to immediately counter, pounding the beast into the flor with one punch and snapping its neck.
The massacre continued like a thundering artillery barrage until the beasts' numbers were exhausted and the man was allowed a brief respite. He felt a chill in his veins as the counter to the cocktail of combat drugs he had taken was being slotted in. Breathing a sigh of relief, he was thankful he hadn't even broken a sweat, simply glaring down at the dissipating corpses of the beasts around.
Sighing deeply, relieved, he arranged his equipment and looked over the charge times for his Empyrean Rifle. It was nearly fully recharged, so, with that in mind, he drew it and set it to level 2, making sure that he could keep firing it for longer should he meet a wide horde. Sure, he hadn't expended the full charge, but he still didn't wanna get caught with his pants down.
He perked up as the thunder of a gunshot was brought by the winds to him. He activated a tracking module in his armor and listened for a second shot, only to hear it moments later, followed by a third, fourth and fifth. He boosted himself off the ground, taking off in a sprint toward the sounds of gunfire. He had a few thoughts running through his mind, including 'why was someone using a slug thrower' and 'why were they fighting Empyrean Anomalies with it'.
Skidding to a halt next to the clearing where the shooting had come from, all of his questions seemed to have been answered. A person, clad in a primitive set of equipment ranging from a flak vest with steel plating on top. He watched with somewhat muted awe as the person utilized a crude power blade and an eight-chamber rotary shotgun, possibly six-gauge, as she cut down the beasts. It was also then that the man realized this was a woman, going by the huffs and puffs coming out of her.
One charged her from the left. She swiped its head off with the sword. Another came in from the right and bit into the barrel of the shotgun. It roared and its head didn't exist anymore. A third struck at her stomach with its wide-open teeth. She stomped it down in one move, before holstering the shotgun and focusing on battling with her power sword, cutting through the beasts with a brutalist grace the likes of which he'd seen on some of their duelists.
The blade crackled and sparked with energy as she cut down the beasts. Another, this one bipedal, charged her. She cut it in half as it pounced to try and bite at her neck, her huffs of exertion echoing even through the muffling, ancient Gas mask she wore. Each slice, each stab, each attack took another beast down. She even managed to punch a couple away before gutting them with a sideswipe.
The horde once more thinned, probably after having split in two by going for both of them at once, only for the last beasts that would try to strike at them to die out by the hand of the woman, sans one. He saw it, a massive porcupine-like bear, approaching from behind the figure and, in a flash, he drew his rifle and called out, "Look out!" snapping off a shot that missed her head by inches and killed the beast in one decapitating hit.
The girl turned toward him, seemingly stunned... Before sheathing her power sword and drawing a Lasgun, an ancient pattern of it, too, from the looks. He raised his hands and said, "Easy, easy! I just saved your life-" before he cut himself off as bolts of laser fire at maximum power struck the armor plates. She squeezed the trigger repeatedly, aiming for center-mass.
Thankfully, his armor could tank civilian-grade weapons. He sighed, then utilized the Armor's boosters to charge forward and, in three moves, disarm her, tossing her rifle to the floor and pinning her to the tree. She started struggling, trying to kick him off as he started, "Listen! Settle down! I don't know what the hell those things were, but I just saved your life from one of'em. I'm a human, like you!"
She paused, a hint confused, obviously. The glass panes covering her eyes, even though they were opaque, showed her eyes perfectly, that slight bit of confusion obvious if he looked properly. He nodded to her and told her, "Yeah, look," before tapping a button on the side of his helmet. It propped open and slid apart, retreating into the collar to reveal the face of a handsome young man with raven hair and azure eyes, as blue as hers. He had some scars on his face, though the looks were obviously not the woman's main focus right now.
From struggling, the girl somewhat relaxed, breathing a sigh. He asked, "Are we good now? You won't waste anymore lasbolts trying to shoot my armor, right?" to which she nodded. With that little confirmation, the man let her go and activated his helmet again, watching as she went back to pick up her weapon. Both tensed, Fritz considering a way to stun her while she looked at her Lasgun, in thought.
Both relaxed when she stowed the weapon onto her backpack, then turned and gave him a nod. He chuckled awkwardly and admitted, "I don't know if that's thanks for saving me or just confirming that you won't try killing me anymore, but, well, I'll take the first and say you're welcome..." to which she seemed to roll her eyes. She started walking, him following behind and stating, "We're gonna need each-other's help if we're gonna survive out here. I have a nasty feeling there's a lot more of those creatures around, whatever creations of the Empyrean they are..." thus making the young woman tense again. He told her, "Relax... They're easy enough to kill, I guess. We're fine..."
She hummed, looking at the corpses that still disappeared into the wind, as if they were paper turned wet by rain, disintegrating. Continuing to walk together, the two humans held close their weapons once more, their tense alliance still in place. Neither knew how long until the other would try killing them. Then again, Fritz was never gonna harm a fellow human again, not after what the Aeldari did, and the traitor Men of Iron before.
"Sooo..." He had decided to try and do his best to start this off on the right foot, "My name is Fritz. Fritz Carl..."
She nodded to him, acknowledging it. He quirked a brow up at her as he retracted his helmet again, then asked, "You're not very talkative, are you...?"
She shrugged, still keeping an eye on the road ahead, her lasgun close and at the ready. He hummed, let out a deep sigh and stated, "Y'know, I do have to ask about your gear. It's... Archaic," as they walked. She cast a sole, burning glance back his way which made him add, "A Lasgun back in the day was a good weapon, but Civilians use it right now, mostly... So, what, are you trying to play up being some 1900s soldier modified to fit M25?"
The woman stopped dead in her tracks and turned toward him, lasgun lowered, but at the ready. Even past the semi-opaque visors of her ancient, tattered gas mask, the man could see the stunned surprise in her eyes. She took a step toward him and made a hand signal for him to repeat it. He nodded, "M25, yeah. You seem a little surprised to hear about the current date, considering..."
She shook her head, seemingly showing surprise for the first time in her life. She hummed, huffed audibly through her mask, then continued leading the way, seemingly not content with letting this off as it was. He furrowed his brows and followed, keeping his Empyrean rifle at the ready as he spoke, "Take it you're from somewhere else. Past or future?"
She cast another glance back at him, less hostile and more wary.
"Future?" He asked. She nodded. He felt his heart drop for a moment as he walked with her, his voice now low, "How far ahead...?" but he couldn't get an answer before she lifted her hand and showed him to wait. Taking a knee and shouldering her lasgun, she tensed as she aimed forward, with the man joining with her and activating his helmet. It once more formed around his head as his HUD activated. His Motion Tracker picked up a target, dead ahead. Non-Empyrean and seemingly non-hostile.
Three more then winked on. The man hummed and pushed her lasgun down, causing her to turn toward him as he, too, lowered his rifle and stood up. Just then, through the shrubs, a young, silver-eyed woman emerged, her color palette and attire very weird. Red and black. She stared at them, dumbfound, before turning back and calling out, "Girls! I think I found what got rid of that Grimm horde!"
"Hey! Lemme see it!" A more boisterous female voice called out, a blonde appearing moments later dressed a rather tad more skimpily than your average. She paused as she saw the two, then smirked, "Well, hello. A robot and a... Whatever she is...?" She locked eyes with the Krieger. She only paused when the man retracted his helmet again. With a blush and a grin, she clarified, "Ooh. My bad~. Hot guy in a robot suit~." And that got Fritz to blush, too, while the soldier beside him stared on, dumbfound, as she stood to her feet.
"Yang," The white-haired one that came next scoffed. She poked her head through and said, "Well. Interesting outfits... One resembles an Atlesian experimental armor set I've seen once in my life and the other looks like a soldier from the Great War..." which got the two soldiers from the Future to look at one-another, confused, then back at the girls. The fourth member of the team, a black-haired girl with a strange outfit and a bow on her head appeared next.
"Weiss was spot-on with the description..." The black-haired girl commented.
"Right, well..." The Red one chuckled, "Hi?"
"Hello," Fritz answered, "Good to see more humans here..."
"Agreed. Didn't expect to see you folks with your gear, though. That's some interesting stuff," The girl smiled, seemingly giddy. The blonde, 'Yang', gave her a gentle tap on the shoulder. She turned to her, "What?" before Yang pointed at them and she seemed to have an epiphany, "Oh, Right... Hi! I'm Ruby! Ruby Rose. Don't worry, me and my team are friends!"
"Ruby, huh?" The man hummed, "Nice meeting you." He nodded.
"Yep. This is my team, by the way."
"Yang Xiao-Long. I'm Ruby's Half-Sis. Wassup?" She grinned and waved, her voice smug, friendly and jovial as she added with a smirk, "Ya single?"
As Fritz coughed, Weiss rolled her eyes and said, "Ignore the blonde. She doesn't know how to shut up... I am Weiss Schnee. Ruby's combat partner... Battle-Buddy is what they call it in the military, I believe," her tone more regal. The man replied with a nod, then looked over to the girl beside him, who seemed even more tense than when she first saw him, though she was thankfully aware they were outnumbered and... How did he just now notice their weapons? Red was carrying a goddamned gun scythe, the snow-white girl was carrying a rapier, Blondie was carrying two shotgun gauntlets and the black-haired one was carrying a massive sword with a gun attached to it... Or two swords?
"Blake Belladonna. Yang's partner," She told them, arms crossed to her chest. "Ruby, we should move. More Grimm could swing by any moment."
"Oh, right," She nodded, then turned to Fritz and the girl and said, "We can talk more aboard the Bullhead. C'mon," before she waved them forward. The two looked to one-another, then two the girls and, this time, the first to step off with them was Fritz himself. The girl followed along from farther, bringing up the rear with her lasgun at the ready, just in case.
Entering a clearing, the pair both stared at the fat-bellied VTOL-capable flying machine ahead of them. And both were very unsure about climbing aboard it. Still, when the girls ahead did, Fritz chose to follow along. He would rather not get stuck here, to be quite honest. He wasn't sure how many more of those beasts he'd be able to fight if he suddenly ran out of charge for his rifle.
He looked back to the girl, who stood there, staring at the vehicle. According to his armor's sensors, she had a slightly elevated pulse, to which he asked her, "Fear of flying...?" making her look away. He chuckled, "Push comes to shove, I can help you out if we fall. Now, c'mon. We gotta get out of here if either of us wants to find out more about the other and where we are. Right?"
She hesitated, then sighed and walked to the vehicle with him. The two boarded it and sat down, before Ruby gave a wave to the pilot. The bird then closed its side doors and took off, leaving the hold a little 'dark' sans for the strips of blue light. Ruby then looked to the two and smiled awkwardly, "So... We didn't get to ask you guys your names... Eheh..." and rubbed the back of her head, embarrassed.
"I'm Fritz Carl. This is..." He looked over toward the girl with the Lasgun. He paused, then started murmuring to himself and only to himself, though she could obviously hear him talk about her in the third person, "Come to think of it, I don't know her either. We sort of just met. And she hasn't told me a name either..." before he started humming. Humming an old tune that was unfamiliar to everyone aboard and that caused the girls to look at him funny. He smirked as he remembered the name of the tune, then said, "Erika."
The Death Korps member blanked and stared at him as if she'd been struck. Almost like she didn't believe someone would ever dare to give her a name like that. Ruby, meanwhile, gave a light chuckle and said, "Well, talk about old vernacular names... Nice to meet'cha both, Erika, Fritz. Sorry about the slow introduction back there, but uh... Emerald Forest's kinda full of Grimm."
"Take it that's the name you folks gave to those Empyrean creatures, then," The guy hummed, before feeling the girl give him an elbow in the side of the chest... Only to seemingly flinch a little and pull her hand back onto her lap. She'd hit his armor plate, obviously, else she wouldn't have that reaction. He chuckled and said, "She seems a bit angry today, for some reason or other..." to team RWBY. He then leaned in and whispered to her, "You gave me nothing to work off of, you didn't wanna speak to me and you're pissed now. Enjoy your new name, girl..."
She scoffed and sighed, then simply chose to ignore him. Ruby, meanwhile, asked, "So, how do you two know each-other?"
Fritz replied, "We sort of just met in the Forest, I guess..." just as the girl pulled her shotgun off her back, swung it to the left to reveal the chambers of the revolving cylinder, then started to eject the spent shells and put in fresh ones. She didn't seem to want to engage in this conversation as it was, anyway, so he chose to leave good old 'Erika' alone for now. Heh. Erika. He wondered just why she reacted so viscerally, though. Aside from him selecting it without input... Or without getting her real name, had she had one.
"A real partners story," Yang quipped, grinning, "Like you two took the Beacon Admission test together."
"Take it that's how you guys got together as well...?" He inquired. Four nods confirmed it. Before anyone else could say another word, the doors propped open, revealing the outside world once more. Specifically, they revealed the intricately-constructed campus of what seemed to be a massive academy, various gardens, habitation blocks and even a central clocktower and emerald beacon of sorts shining at them as midday came. Hundreds of smaller specks, presumably students, milled about down below, clad in uniforms or carrying similar gear to the girls'. As for the tower itself, it was massive, beautiful and bore Roman numerals for hourly designations instead of normal Arabic cypher.
... It was impressive. And weirdly familiar.