So, I now had Team RWBY, Six and Mono, and a group of Vortigaunts with me...some of whom had antlions with them. And a weird looking Grimm camping outside our settlement. In addition to the Morlocks who had moved to our base.

Yeah, I was starting to get fed up with all of the new arrivals. Could they please stop?

"Fat chance."

Good point, Viv. Well, guess there was only one way to get through this - finish this ARK!

...Okay, this was getting old.

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It was not too hard to get tons of food. There were plenty of creatures to hunt, we have plenty of seeds to grow more crops, and now we had mushrooms to increase the variety of food we could eat. Still, restocking our larders were important, seeing how soon, we'd be heading down to the post-apocalyptic Earth the ARKs orbited.

We got quite a few different meats prepared, including that of seekers, reapers, and nameless. Luring in the latter two wasn't too difficult - we just had to stomp around in the right places - but getting enough charge light to bait in the seekers wasn't easy. We had to set up a whole ranch filled with bulbpups, glowtails, shinehorns, feather lights, and glowbugs to get enough charge light to lure in a seeker horde. But the meet ended up being really tasty, as some of our newest tribe members could confirm.

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Six was in Heaven. So much food to eat, and enough that she wouldn't need to worry about depleting supplies if she asked for seconds. All of it tasted really good, too!

Though, she did have to wonder how she was going to repay them for this - these people were apparently going to fight a giant monster so they could escape this place and Six...was not a fighter. Mono was, but Six still felt the need to repay them for their kindness.

Speaking of Mono, Six glanced over to a nearby chair, where Mono was eating some fruit.

Six still was sure how she felt about Mono right now. But she would figure it out. Eventually.

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In addition to food, we also needed to stock up on mounts. Namely, Reapers. Lots of Reapers.

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"You sure you want to go through with this?" Asked Vivian.

"Yes. It will hurt, but it will be worth it."

"Yeah, but there's a reason they call this the most painful thing in the world."

"For women. Men have no equivalent."

"...Touché."

For those of you unaware, I'd decided to use myself as an incubator for a reaper. Yes, I had taken precautions to endure it. No, I didn't think that was going to make things that much better.

Turning my attention away from my second-in-command for the tribe, I noticed that we had gathered a bit of a crowd, including all of the members of Team RWBY.

They probably wouldn't want to watch this. And Vivian seemed to agree.

"You girls might want to look away - what happens next is really...messy, to say the least."

"Oh really?" questioned Weiss. "Forgive me for having doubts."

"He's about to give birth to an alien parasite in an extremely bloody manner."

Blake raised an eyebrow at that, while Yang laughed, though Ruby looked a bit concerned.

Perhaps there was time to turn them away - nope. It's coming.

Wow, that felt bad. Like, really bad. As in-OHMYGODITHURTSSOMUCHMAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOPAGH!

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When the pain subsided and my vision cleared up, I found a baby reaper staring at me curiously...oh, and Team RWBY all had broken stares on their faces. And looked really green.

...Welp, it looked like Team RWBY could now be caleld Team Vomitgirl. Maybe that would give Jaune some comfort when they got back to Remnant.

Also, they would need therapy after this. Really badly.

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Finally, preparing for Rockwell entailed doing actual combat training. Got had some rather...interesting results.

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I ducked under the lightning of one vortigaunt while another released some kind of grenade, which Vivian managed to deflect before it could hit us. Nearby, a green martian dueled with a Tusken Raider while another green martian fought against Yang, using its extra set of arms to get in hits that Yang couldn't properly defend against. Others trained further way, all preparing for the coming battle with Rockwell. Some weren't quite sure what the battle would entail, but still they prepared themselves.

...I had no idea what I was going to do with them once I was done with this adventure on the ARK. I was here essentially as a cleanup man working on Celm's behalf. Did that mean I could take them with me to the hub? Or would they have to go home? Would their time here change their destinies, or would fate still be set in stone?

My mental ramblings were cut off when the sound of snarling filled my ears. Turning to its source, I found the demonic-looking grimm staring at me, somehow maintaining a neutral expression despite having a bone mask for a face.

All training seemed to have stopped when it showed up.

"What do you want?" I asked, not really expecting an answer.

The creature promptly pointed a finger at me. Then it rammed its left hand into its right palm...wait, did that mean what I think it meant? Were there Grimm that could understand people?

"Wait!"

That was Ruby. What followed was an impassioned plea by her team to convince me not to listen to the obviously evil shadow monster, which promptly responded by challenging them to a fight, which they accepted.

The fight did not go the way I was expecting - Team RWBY initially attacked it with a barrage of ranged attacks, which the creature responded to by charging. Weiss smiled and erected a glyph to block its advance, only for the creature to come to a halt before pressing its palm against the glyph. Instantly, the glyph began to fade away, until it turned into light that began traveling up the grimm's arm in what looked like veins. All the while, Weiss had gone pale, with what I could hear from her teammates telling me that her aura had apparently been drained. When the grimm finally moved to act, Weiss was too weak to dodge and got knocked out in one hit.

Ynag promptly charged the grimm, only to be caught by it and have her aura drained from the contact. This lead to Blake trying to assist her teammate, only for the grimm to catch Gambol Shroud and use it to throw Blake into Ruby, ending the fight decisively in its favor.

Okay, what the fuck did I just watch? How did a grimm have the power to drain aura? HOW?!

Said Grimm promptly made another challenge gesture toward me.

...Fuck it, time to fight something new!

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AN: Look, I've had a rough few weeks. Sorry if the chapter quality isn't the best, I just want to get back in the writing groove. Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!