Chapter Nine
Diagnostics
Yang bundled Artemis into a heat-reflective blanket and sat her on the cargo netting in the fuselage of her ship. She glared at her new ally as best as she could through the constant shivering cold her impromptu river bath caused. Zoë wasn't any help, ushering her sisters into the rather cramped compartment with vibrating energy. They whined and complained, unable to get within the team's military mindset as they found places within the cargo area to store their many minimized camping supplies.
The magic of the Hunt's supplies came from the Blacksmith God's Forge, embedded with runes carved in their language and tied to the Moon Goddess. With it came a magical supply of food from the Hearth's Cornucopia and the ability to flat pack furniture better than some place they called Ikea, shrinking everything down into easily carryable backpacks without the real weight.
They packed every Hunter into every confine of the ship, including throwing a few onto their bunks as an act of sacrilege that had Weiss ready to spawn a Railgun on them for daring to touch Ruby's bed. Blake stood guard over the ration packs tucked near the cockpit, hissing at anyone that dared come near her dried jerky and muesli and sending them scattering away with a swipe of her claws. She practically rebounded off the ceiling when Yang scratched her ears with a kind smile, disappearing through the door.
A very indecisive smile broke across her face, twitching into place one facial tick at a time with her more animalistic instincts fighting to twist it into a snarl. Weiss hid her own smile behind her hand, snickering quietly at Blake rediscovering the long-lost emotions Ruby repressed to keep her war machine rolling. A throwing knife bouncing off the metal wall behind her dissuaded her amusement and she stepped through the girl minefield of limbs to the cockpit.
Blake reached over to the other compartment and ripped Zoë from fussing over her mistress, catching the goddess sneezing and wondering just what exactly separated them other than their blood color. She might've been the goddess of the moon and several other domains but she wasn't called Pestilence for nothing, making death, espionage, and despair her domains. Idly she mused about the being that held these domains under their grasp, vowing to see how she stood up against a literal deity.
Zoë's protests at the manhandling faded when Blake plopped her down on the co-pilot's seat and booted Yang from her seat. Yang challenged her non-verbally with attack eyebrows, the coming storm rolling just over the horizon of her irides. She conceded after a brief tousle against Blake, giving up her right to fly the ship she had nearly a century with and letting her play with her masterpiece. She'd just have to keep a cold goddess company and avoid all the arrows pointed in her direction.
Artemis attempted to disembowel her with a glare, her demeanor falling apart with yet another sneeze. She took pity on the sick goddess and wrapped her in a hug, engaging her again with tales of her team sans the morbid body count, questionably legal missions, and rise to totalitarian power. Not entirely drunk again, she could focus slightly more on how Yang waxed about her teammates while quelling the golden blush rising at practically molesting the pair of her teammates in her inhibited state. This wasn't her default response to new Hunters and she was only glad Apollo wasn't around to witness her blunder but Yang was an easy person to talk to, physically older than her Hunters, and came at her with no preconceptions like the others in the pantheon.
She had a certain... warmth about her.
She didn't have the same expectations everyone else seemed to have with her and just talked about anything she wanted, perfectly willing to hear her troubles in return. She was… another Zoë but without the constant mother-daughter relationship getting in the way. Not that she didn't love her more or less than her other Hunters but they'd been together so long that they could and frequently would clash about the state of their Hunt.
Immortal-mortal divide and all that.
Zoë tended to treat her sisters as soldiers, separating her personal life as a former Hesperide to their camp while commanding them on the field when she was away dealing with Olympian bureaucracy. On the other hand, while she used the Hunt in the way Zeus wanted her to, she created her group as a haven for girls looking to escape from trouble, not as a frontline special forces sent to hunt Olympus's enemies. And yes, she greatly enjoyed the attention and tribute they all offered her as every deity did.
Right now, however, Zoë was a child in a candy shop given a hundred Lien and told to go crazy and take whatever she wanted off the shelves. The many blinking buttons taunted her, screaming to be pressed and cause malfunction upon malfunction. Expecting this, Blake activated the training button, but instead of deactivating Zoë's side of the cockpit, she sent everything into a security lockdown.
A faint dusting of pink brushed her cheeks and she deactivated the lockdown, hearing the faint laugh of Yang through the thick sheets of metal. She turned on the central console, a piece of the Ruby Yang kept through the changes she made to the ship, and pulled up the manual. Her new co-pilot tried to fiddle with a few buttons but Blake slapped her hands down while memorizing the layout. Pressing a few more buttons, she pulled up her pre-flight checklist and dimmed the lights, the distant chatter of the Hunt dying down.
The engines didn't whine anymore, Yang removing the vertical fans in the wings for a double pair of bi-directional maneuvering thrusters. She kept the dual joysticks instead of a flight column, pulling back on them and raising the vertical throttle to clear the treeline easily. This newer system was much more responsive, no longer reliant on the spinning of a fan and focusing on controlling the thrust output with a gimbal and aperture. The transition to horizontal flight didn't jerk like in a bullhead while the engines rotated or stutter as the main engines took over, the entire ensemble working in unison.
Zoë gripped the chair arms tightly, whooping in joy as Blake accelerated them at a brisk pace. A compass, one of their only ways of orienting themselves in this new world, still functioned and Zoë gave her a cardinal direction, zooming them in an east by northeast heading. She slowed them from a breakneck pace, feeling out the vertical thrusters keeping them airborne. A few more swipes on the intuitive UI Yang designed decoupled the forward thrusters and she swiped them aside to her co-pilot.
The joysticks control our direction and roll. Just don't invert us. Blake typed into their shared HUD and focused on keeping them way above the treeline. The radar/lidar system kept her notified of any other craft passing in their near vicinity as she had no idea what the flight corridors of this world were… not that she adhered to them anyways. Zoë dared touch her controls after they slowed to a crawl, jerking back when a slight touch moved them a fair distance forward. She grabbed them with a fair bit more confidence when Blake nodded at her, relieved she didn't have a snowball's chance in the Underworld of crashing with an experienced pilot by her side.
The terrified yells of their passengers reached her ears and she tightened her harness, wondering if letting the closet adrenaline junkie pilot a craft that could accelerate to and maintain flight at Mach 2 before Yang modified it into this slightly larger and quicker ship capable of space flight with the extremely minimized delta wings. Frankly, she didn't quite know how it maintained atmospheric flight with only these small thrusters and she almost feared how powerful the main rear one was in comparison.
She did have to wrest control back from her giddy co-pilot when she banked a little too hard, expecting them to turn into a nosedive but again, Yang's innovative decoupled system kept them coasting at an even altitude. While the cargo area had some harnesses to strap into, there were nowhere near enough to secure the twenty or so Hunters sprawled back there. Zoë did her best to avoid her gaze but she locked the RCS and attitude indicator to 15 degrees and let her go.
The tall mountainous and forested region bled away into destitute rocky fields sparsely planted with hardy vegetation. It reminded her of the eastern section of Anima but even that region was higher and populated with darker stone. This region was a first for her and, much like the desert she disliked and then hated after Prune, she wished to avoid it. She preferred the dense foliage of the Forever Falls and even the arctic tundra of Solitas to the sandy and sweltering desert.
Ramping up their speed, Zoë jumped at the sonic boom they made. Thankfully, the Ruby was built with stealth in mind (almost), and nothing passed into their radar detection range. Not that they could hide the boom from any detection system anyways. Their speed, however, kept any of this world's military craft from trailing after them as long as they masked their direction with a few angle changes.
They left the arid desert behind and barreled onward over yet more forests, interspersed with long stretches of grassland. A few residential districts dotted the horizon amongst all the green, showing signs of the modern society Zoë alluded to with her comments on living through the development of aircraft. Glass skyscrapers created a skyline similar to Mantle and she grimaced as they shot right over them, knowing the usual regulations forbade passing over residential areas at their speeds. Not that she particularly cared about the broken glass but it gave any potential pursuers an easier time of trailing them.
Their energy footprint, indicated by a convenient HUD indicator on the sapphire screen, decreased when she throttled the energy output to their weapons and shielding. Any thermal imaging camera pointed in their general area would immediately spot them, however. Still, very few aircraft could keep up with them in the first place.
They passed through many little settlements dotted about, the grassland turning into more forests as they continued until they moved into another mountainous range. Zoë helpfully supplied the information that this was one entire country, the United States of America, and she had to reassess a few things. When asked about the population, she stifled her shock at learning the planet supported approximately 6.5 billion people with this many forested areas, grassland, and farming areas not in use.
And then she learned that every single piece of land on this planet was claimed and she sat back in a stupor, keeping them aloft as they reached the coast and Zoë turned them north to race along the coastline. The five kingdoms on Remnant had an agreement with each other since the Great War, keeping their expansionist tendencies down to avoid the ire of the greater Grimm nests and hordes prowling their borders and staking claims on the Vacuoan deserts, the Solitas mountains, and the Anima grasslands. They kept to the chunks of lands they claimed and rarely dared venture beyond those borders unless heavily fortified by either armored train or convoy, or escorted by a naval patrol.
Mountain Glenn notwithstanding as it took four S-ranks to clean after a near decade of silence. Trade between the five countries only worked with extensive Hunter escorts from those left that weren't patrolling the borders or combing the inner districts.
Still, to have 6.5 billion people spread across the entire globe and not sequestered into five little pockets of civilization left much more open areas that weren't just designated farmland or woodland within their borders. And with the assumption all of their Grimm equivalents were sequestered to their hidden Greek world, humanity didn't have a common enemy to rally against, letting their population grow unfettered. Was this what Remnant was like before the Atomic Wars, populations vying for scarce resources without an outside force to keep them in check?
No wonder Ozpin preserved those records deep within the Vault.
Zoë meanwhile slowed them down after her massive speeding, leaning forward to judge where she had dragged them along this coast. She pressed futilely against the terrain imaging the craft's sonar displayed on the central console, huffing impatiently when it didn't provide the greater view of their location. If this was Remnant, she could accurately guess where they were given the foliage, terrain, and normal vector of the coast, but she was flying blind and doing her best to trust her as their navigator.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose in agitation, wondering if she shouldn't just take this Lieutenant hostage for flying them to the middle of nowhere with scant nothing except for a positively ancient stone castle perched precariously on a snowy cliff.
Snow, she just realized, had not been present in their original location. Seriously, how damn big was this continent? Sanus might've spread out across the east-west direction but it didn't experience snow save for on the island of Vytal. Solitas, on the other hand, was perpetually snowed in with the cold winds from the north blowing it onto the northern section of Anima. This continent seemed to stretch more north-south than Sanus, leading to the disparity in climate, with just over 2500 kms registered on the flight computer.
Before she could further contemplate politely massacring the Huntress, she gestured for her to set them down onto a clearing a ways away from the dark castle. At least Schnee Castle looked the part with towering turrets capped with piercing roofs into the bright blue sky. This one was just sad compared to that, low turrets dotted along a curtain wall encircling a lower stone hall. Normally, she'd leave a clone to pilot the Ruby down while they free fell in but her continued inability to materialize one, and a foreign agent in the cockpit with her, that wasn't an option.
With the same ease as their takeoff, the ship settled onto a snowy clearing with barely an alert on the crash safety system. Plumes of untouched powder blew away from the craft as the thrusters powered down and, much to her surprise, the craft used only about a tenth of its fuel for the journey. The same journey with fire Dust would've taken a quarter and was exponentially more dangerous than this substitute.
"Olympus has tasked us with assisting a group of demigods tracking down a pair of unclaimed demigods with a strong scent." Zoë watched in incredulity as Blake pressed about a hundred buttons, referencing a book pulled up on a side screen, shutting down the engines in a particular order. "Will your group assist us?"
Blake shrugged and completely killed the main power save for the auxiliary battery, gesturing for her to follow out of the cockpit. They squeezed through the living quarters, the Hunters stretching and groaning away the kinks in their muscles from their cramped quarters. The sight of the bundled goddess in Yang's lap, not shivering anymore and with auburn hair air-dried but with a golden blush spread across most of her face made her wheeze in laughter. Yang evidently hadn't let her escape her hold, Weiss softly smirking from her place by her leg and stealing a hand to pet her.
Her unique form of expression caught everyone's attention, Weiss perking up from her place on the floor and blowing a raspberry in her direction. Zoë frowned at the attention given to the smaller girl but whether it was due to jealousy or the inappropriate location she didn't know. Or perhaps it was envy at the black ball of shadows in her grip? Or it was the fact her mistress sat in someone else's lap and not her own, though the goddess didn't seem to mind. She certainly had the strength to at least contest her hold.
Snowing outside with a temperature just under freezing. Blake informed her teammates, catching the crucial information on the HUD before the shutdown. Yang affirmed the information, tapping Artemis on the shoulder and finally letting her stand from her convenient prison. She rummaged about the upper storage racks, efficiently navigating between them until she pulled down an entire rack of winter gear for those occasions a fireteam needed to completely suppress their Aura in a foreign environment.
Zoë ordered her sisters out of the craft before Yang could to avoid a conflicting command order, more than aware of the increasing lack of space as Blake and Weiss geared up, strapping down the thick gear with a variety of pouches and then slipping into their weapons with familiar ease. Their weapons were much more modern, Blake's sword sliding into a width sheath she couldn't identify the purpose of and Weiss fidgeting with the revolver barrel held within a rapier of all things. How they differed compared to their Greek versions escaped her.
"With your Semblances blocked due to your injuries, I only authorize protection detail on Zoë and her fireteam. I will handle the defense for the rest of the Hunt and engage any threats capable of overwhelming them." They did not like those orders but did not raise any concerns or complain about them. She didn't know what injuries plagued them beyond Blake's inability to speak but she was curious what sort of injuries mortals on her lady's level could sustain. Even speaking that line of thought didn't sit right with her, unable to wrap her head around Lady Artemis fighting to a draw against one in the first place.
What was next? This mysterious dead leader was actually a protogenos?
"I don't have a team." She lamely responded, feeling like she was intruding on Yang's moment of handing out orders. Their looks of curiosity matched hers at realizing their leader wasn't dressing in the same winter gears as her subordinates. The Hunt just didn't operate at the three or four man squad level they were used to, keeping their numbers together to stave off the hordes of monsters roaming the wilds. "I lead the Hunt entirely and act as milady's right hand."
Yang grumped but made no comment, leading her team out of the craft to where the Hunters set up and donned their cold gear. While not as extensive and thick as their mortal equivalents, the Forge God's magic kept them warm, dry, and protected from the biting winds. Each Hunter carried what they could in magical backpacks designed to shrink and make their camping gear weightless. Yang strode through the snow yet her teammates didn't follow, sticking to their orders and flanking her. She stepped forward once to see if they would shadow her directly and got a pair of deadpan looks in response, expecting her little test.
After repacking their gear and moving out into the trees separating them from their objective, Yang ordered them to halt much to Zoë chagrin and Artemis's ire. "You're entering potentially hostile territory with cumbersome gear you don't need. Leave it on the ship." They all looked to their two leaders after her suggestion, waiting on them to affirm or deny her when they shouldn't have even reacted. Yang didn't fit in their hierarchy but she certainly made an impact with them after throwing their mistress into a river and walking away without any repercussions.
It didn't help Artemis still had a goofy tipsy smile plastered on her face, clinging to the taller woman for stability. The cold and the river water greatly shocked her system from her unusual morning drinking but Dionysus's work didn't leave the body easily. She still devolved into giggles at random moments due to something funny her inebriated mind construed, teleporting to Zoë and wrapping her in a hug for another reason.
Guess it fell to Zoë to lead their girls until she burned through the alcohol.
She took Yang's words to heart, ordering them to proceed with caution into the woods. Without their packs, they moved with a quiet fervor ready to pounce at anything in their vision. Zoë may have denied they worked in smaller cells but they naturally split into teams of at most six and a minimum of three. Weiss and Blake continued by her side but only the latter drew her weapon, shifting it from a sword to a gun of all things. A mortal, modern handgun if Zoë could remember the type correctly.
"Art thou aware your weapons are ineffectual against monsters?" Zoë made them aware of this crucial fact, remembering these were mortals without any knowledge of their world. "To combat monsters, you need a weapon made from Greek metal. Celestial Bronze and Imperial Gold are the most common, followed by Stygian Iron used by the Lord of the Underworld's armies and then Lunar Silver for the Hunt."
Weiss, at least, didn't look too put out by that as she never drew her rapier after stowing it across her back. Blake frowned aggressively, shifting her gun back into her sword and sheathing it. Her hands checked on the many pouches littered across her body, briefly pulling out the many knives hidden within and then discarding them right back, none of them fit for her task ahead. While not entirely defenseless, her hand-to-hand suffered without a weapon to augment her punches. Sure, she could strangle or break kneecaps with barely a flinch but that couldn't replicate the feel of a blade drawing the crimson life liquid.
Ruby copied her mannerisms, not the other way around.
They continued creeping forward, their white and gray camouflage making them indistinguishable against the snow, ice, and flurry caught in the wind. The eerie silence followed them through the thinning trees, nothing save for the occasional sound of crunching under their feet and falling snow from a branch to send Blake's ears swiveling. The midday sun did little to warm them yet Yang weathered the cold better than Artemis, a light sheen of Aura wrapping around her form and eventually settling across the goddess, much to her delight. The chill from her sudden bath faded entirely and the wind could do nothing against the buffer.
Eventually coming to a clearing splitting their trees from the castle, the Hunt drew their battle lines in the snow, digging into the shrubbery to lie in wait. Weiss and Blake followed Zoë with practiced ease, joining the lagging pair of Artemis and Yang to decide on their plan. Zoë has informed me we're here to assist another group. What is your plan of assault against this castle? Yang helpfully translated for the Hunter leaders.
"There shall be no assault. This is a school of children and the group is only meant to extract a pair of others." Zoë spoke for Artemis, leveling her best glare and nonverbally keeping her from chiming in. She did her best to look abashed, hiding behind Yang's tall figure and leeching from her warmth. "We only interfere if they run into issues with their exfiltration."
Blake took that as the start of a stakeout and leaped cleanly into the nearest tree.
About as cleanly as a paraplegic cat when her Aura failed to respond and she hovered precariously in the air for a comical second, waving her arms around before face planting into the snow. She rolled over and blew away her hair and powdered snow, a raspy growl clearing the silence. Sulking off, she flipped them a middle finger and prowled into a nearby bush, terrifying the two Hunters already bunkered down there. A pair of binoculars came from a pouch and she settled in for the long watch.
The other four of them shared looks of brief amusement before devolving into giggles. They moved together a fair distance from the bush line, Yang blasting the snow away with a ring of Aura. She sat down and closed her eyes, meditating on every sound in their vicinity. Artemis didn't sit by her side, kneeling a ways away to grab a fistful of snow and slamming her face into it. A few of her Hunters looked on in disbelief before returning to their vigil. Weiss joined the spot Artemis left open on the plane, plopping down on her lap and taking her attention for herself.
The hours passed with slow abandon, nothing save for the softly falling snow making any sort of sound. The Hunters all stationed at the treeline wiggled about in anxiety for an event that didn't have a fixed arrival time, not even knowing if the initial group had arrived yet or if they were inside completing their objective. Weiss didn't move that entire time, content with simply holding Yang's attention, with Artemis sitting by their side and playing with her bow after wiping the snow from her face.
Finally, nearing dusk, a group of young teenagers dared approach the castle from the highway, getting dropped off by a car. Blake had to check if her binoculars weren't shattered from her trip into the afterlife. Knowing the women around them were essentially frozen young was one story, but watching three kids gear up with hidden medieval weaponry before entering the school was a completely different one. She signed over to Yang who, not even opening her eyes, blinked next to her after depositing Weiss on Artemis.
More than four hours watching the dreary castle revealed nothing from the outside, revealing it to be a closed ecosystem. They'd stick out like Grimm at a parade if they even made it through the front door and she worried at the military command of this Greek world if they sent a squad of kids into a retrieval mission with no training. None of the Hunters seemed too put off by their approach and a glance back to Artemis and Zoë spoke volumes more. Ruby would never dare send children to fight, not when she was a nigh immortal speed demon capable of tearing most things apart with a flick of a finger. Regular Remnant Hunter fireteams still had a protocol to follow, and child soldiers especially, unless they were the eccentric prodigy kind.
Another half hour passed without any sign of them, all of them watching and waiting for something to appear from the large, gray castle until finally, a quartet illuminated by old-fashioned lights on a snowy cobblestone path appeared from the wooden gates and made their way towards them. One of the original three limped and attempted to act as a shield between two others and the taller one prodding them forward.
Moving after those many hours didn't agree with many of the Hunt yet they slowly trudged from their rabbit holes to retreat deeper into the trees. The dark left Yang and Weiss almost blind, falling into their old routine of relying on Blake to lead them forward. The near full moon gave them enough light to not run into the trees and took their attention briefly, unable to imagine an uncracked moon as a finality settling over them.
They weren't on Remnant anymore.
The Hunt moved better than they did save for Blake, creeping forward without disturbing the foliage. Blake heard their conversation in the dead silence of the falling snow, catching the ending tone of a walkie-talkie. Seemed like the ban on electronics didn't extend to the OPFOR so either they had agents within their global communications network or a Semblance allowed them to track every time they used a device. She really wanted to know how they managed to accomplish that.
"By all means, Son of Poseidon. Jump!" She heard in an unknown accent from the taller figure with their back to them, keeping his prey stuck against the drop to the water far below. "There is the sea. Save yourself."
She gave the kid props for not following his taunt and doing just that. Their captor wasn't going to kill them if the incoming sound of helicopter blades meant anything and he could freely leave them, assuming he could survive the impact though the taunt would've made no sense otherwise. He stood his ground very stupidly, not trusting his other teammates to bail him from trouble. It was entirely possible, however, a breakdown in communications left them unaware of his location.
Their return response was lost in the murmur of snow and she resolved to make her bullets work after this, the fifty meter gap nothing when she attached the stock and longer barrel to her gun.
"I would kill you before you ever reached the water." The man responded and she realized how screwed this kid was. He wasn't his goal and was only keeping him alive to ensure the other two cooperated, something Yang and Weiss both concluded as well. The Hunt didn't react to that and she regretted giving the blonde the authority to make them work with this anti-male group. Artemis leveled a raised eyebrow at them, signing them the universal sign to hold and wait. "You do not realize who I am, do you?"
A tail of all things emerged from a hazy subspace behind the man and a missile nicked the injured kid in the ear.
"Unfortunately, you are wanted alive if possible. Otherwise, you would be dead." He continued monologuing.
"Who wants us?" The sole female among them demanded, almost looking brave if it wasn't for the naked fear plastered across her body language. "Because if you think you'll get a ransom, you're wrong. We don't have any family. Nico and I… We've got no one but each other."
"Aww," The man cooed creepily. "Do not worry, little brats. You will be meeting my employer soon enough. Then you will have a brand-new family."
"Luke," The injured one remarked. "You work for Luke."
"You have no idea what is happening, Perseus Jackson. I will let the General enlighten you." Zoë flinched imperceptibly at their side while Artemis's eyes widened in shock. So this was their ploy, waiting for their enemy to reveal as much information as possible before they moved in with overwhelming force. "You are going to do him a great service tonight. He is looking forward to meeting you."
The injured child continued trading barbs with his captor as the helicopter's searchlight grew ever closer to their position. He continued baiting him by talking, dragging out as much time as possible while no doubt attempting to devise a way out. "... many monstrous mouths to feed. The Great Stirring is underway."
Artemis moved at that, striding across the fresh snow so softly and lightly she didn't leave any footprints. Her Hunters tensed around her movement, nocking arrows in their bows. "The worst of them," the man spoke grandly, "the most powerful, are now waking. Monsters that have not been seen in thousands of years. They will cause death and destruction the likes of which mortals have never known. And soon we shall have the most important monster of all—the one that shall bring about the downfall of Olympus!"
"Can you get him away from the children?" Artemis asked quietly, still watching and listening patiently. "My Hunters won't miss from this distance but it may startle him enough to push them off the cliff, prize or not."
"I don't need to." Yang gestured to the faintly glowing yellow glyphs on her wrist and Artemis clearly didn't understand if the adorable nose wrinkle meant anything. "Give the order to fire and I will protect them. I trust your Hunters won't hit them so trust me to do my job."
A control glyph materialized much brighter than the bracelet of ones she wore and Blake moved to crouch in front of her, parting the foliage to give Yang a clearer view of their target. Artemis hesitated for a few seconds, glancing worriedly between them and their target before deciding to trust her word, the Hunter drawing their bows back as one. Yang nodded after another second and Artemis swung her hand down, twenty arrows of silver glinting in the moonlight as they rushed at the man's unprotected back.
Artemis almost regretted trusting her new friend until a wall of amber glyphs appeared in the tight gap between their target and his victims. Their sudden appearance ruined whatever night vision the children gained and forced them to reel dangerously close to the cliff's edge until something literally invisible slammed into them and sent them sprawling into the clearing. Simultaneously, two others advanced from the trail leading to the school, one with a spear and shield and the other with a set of… pan pipes?
Alright, someone was gonna get a stern yelling about the state of their weaponry.
The young girl with the spear ran at the man without fail, shouting a battle cry and stabbing forward at his head. Faster than she expected the humanoid to react, especially with a half dozen arrows sticking from his back, he swatted it aside, his hand changing into an orange paw through the Mist that obscured his form from mortals and slamming into her shield. The force of it lifted her and sent her backward, a clumsy roll returning her to her feet.
Another volley of missiles flew at her yet a slanted shield of yellow glyphs deflected them away, Blake sprinting from the treeline as the Hunters released a return volley at him, a few more piercing through the weak spots of the armor hidden underneath the illusion. Despite not possessing the weaponry, she threw a weighted knife at his feet with a ribbon attached to test a hypothesis.
While the fabric phased through his legs ineffectively, she sent a trickle of Aura through the carbon steel in her ribbons into a partially crushed vial of fire Dust hidden within the knife's handle. A satisfying explosion knocked him from his feet this time and away from the suicidal girl rushing him yet again. She slammed her down just as another volley of arrows flew at them, not begrudging the Hunt at all as she chose to interfere in their clear line of shot.
The man roared and changed, stripping the illusion from his form and revealing a hulking form with the face of a human, the body of a Sabyr, and the tail of a Death Stalker. And about a dozen wounds seeping golden blood around the arrow shafts that made them. Blake took the chance to pick up the girl and run from the field, his attention moved to the treeline the arrows came from. Yet another volley drew a scream of primal rage from him with a wide sweep of tail thorns flying in return.
With unnerving accuracy, the Hunt's arrows shattered them through the middle.
His supporting helicopter flew in with a thunderous wail of its blades. A relic of Remnant's pre-Atomic War, she still recognized the heavy gatling guns mounted on the doors. While technically under the support classification of vehicles and primarily used for transport when compared to its Remnant equivalent missile version, 200 rounds a minute was 200 rounds a minute.
Yang didn't give it a chance to fire, a blast echoing from her shotgun gauntlets to send a bright projectile at the enemy vehicle. It absolutely shredded through the metal shell and detonated its fuel tank, sparking a great fireball to light their clearing and leaving a smoldering wreck to crash in the middle of everything.
He didn't get a chance to react to her presence before Artemis sent a silver bolt crashing into his skull, his body exploding into gold dust rather than leaving a corpse. Yang clicked her tongue at losing her kill to the goddess. She didn't even see the arrow with the smidgen of Ruby's Semblance running through her system, something propelling it faster than a bullet without producing a shock wave. "At least you don't trade quips stupidly and finish the mission."
"I'm almost four millennia old with a group of girls to manage." She stepped from the trees, her silver eyes reflecting the moon perfectly. The pan pipes teenager with facial hair to suit an adult and the lower half of a furry unguligrade froze at her presence, falling to his knees hastily. The one with the spear, still suppressed by Blake, broke free from her hold and bowed quickly while the injured one shook off the disorientation and stared with his mouth open. "And after you took the helicopter down, I needed to one-up you."
"You're just sore you lost a drinking contest to me." Yang gestured at her teammates and they broke off from their main group without hesitation, sweeping the perimeter for any stragglers and sealing it from outside interference.
"Still trying to figure out how you're alive." She muttered to herself, keeping the foreign group of demigods at a distance. "Lieutenant." Zoë stepped in her view and bowed slightly though Yang suspected it was for their watcher's benefit than a need to hold to tradition.
"Five half-bloods and a satyr, my lady."
"Yes," Artemis responded. "Some of Chiron's campers, I see." It wasn't hard to miss the hint of ire directed at the 'campers' part. Some bad blood between her Hunt and them then, most likely stemming far back to their initial inception. With their avoidance of the male sex, that didn't surprise her. "Xiao-Long."
Yang played right along, stepping forward but not immediately responding, waiting for Blake and Weiss to finish their rounds. Weiss appeared first, her clothing making her simply appear from the dark and the snow, kneeling on the ground in front of her and speaking clearly. "East and south flanks secured. No tangos." Blake took a while to show and the demigods shifted about unsure, jumping back when she appeared from above them to kneel by Weiss's side. She ran through a set of handsigns Yang translated. "North and western flanks secured. No tangos. This was a solo operation."
"Hunters, return to the ship and make camp." The female squadron all bowed at their goddess's orders, bowing quickly and then disappearing back into the trees. "Half-bloods and satyr, come along. We can provide you a tent for the night."
"Um, excuse me," the injured brunette with sea-green eyes started, "but who are you?" The girl with the spear elbowed him hard in the stomach for his question but it was a perfectly good one. Better to ask and not let himself look foolish.
"I am Artemis," the moon deity said. "Goddess of the Hunt."
AN: October release is here along with edits for chapters 1-7. Chapter 8 edit is in the works at the moment as I juggle streaming production work across NA and EU so my time scheduling is in shambles. Follow me on twitter RoseProduces as I'll sometimes release tweets about progress here or there. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and please, drop a review if you see any massive discrepancies or if you liked the development of this arc so far. Thank you!
[RECORDS DECLASSIFIED]
[PRIORITY DELTA]
[MEDICAL RECORDS - TEAM RWBY - DESIGNATED HIGH COMMAND]
[SCENARIO EXERCISE STARTS]
Objective: secure a satchel of documents held within an OPFOR officer's quarters deep within a safe house without notice.
Yang: What's stopping me from just demolishing the place and taking it from the rubble?
Weiss: Can I just bribe them? Most people like money. Either that or I seduce some idiot to getting them for me.
Ruby: I can't be noticed if there isn't anyone alive to notice...
Blake: No response other than placing a folder on the table and leaving. Cursory examination of the documents reveal extensive [DATA REDACTED] movements within Anima.
[SCENARIO EXERCISE ENDS]
Doctor [DATA REDACTED] resigned