It would take virtually no effort for the engineer to connect the communication systems of Rwby's suits to Remnants communications network, even given they were on another planet. Considering he already needed to build equipment to link up with the mind's he'd sent through before.
The fighting in the 'dark lands' or grimmlands or whatever edgy name the culture's of remment came up with was steadily intensifying. Older and stronger grimm appearing that could actually contest tanks in both durability and power, while exceeding them in mobility, that and the sheer chaff of the weaker grimm.
Thankfully turrets were very good at mowing through things that couldn't just shrug off bullets, and while his tanks were optimized for slower firing large guns in order to actually damage insects he still had turrets with absurdly high fire rates, and a veritable sheet of metal met any grimm even thinking about approaching the rapidly growing walls.
Only the larger grimm didn't just melt when a stream of bullets was turned on them, actually holding out for a few seconds as the fire actually drilled into their flesh in the same manner a water cutter functined. Which had been the original intent with the absurd fire rate.
The Maker could see how the humans had struggled with this blight, enough that he had to wonder why there were any humans left.
Before the industrial revolution large scale farming would have to be done by hand, which would mean a large number of people living outside of safe fortified towns in order to actually farm a considerable area, and well that didn't seem particularly feasible. And without ready access to large quantities of arable land, towns would have been smaller and more vulnerable to disease. How do you keep livestock as well?
Obviously the entire planet didn't have this many grimm, but in the age before guns without Aura a normal human would struggle against even a single weak grimm. Something to look for in the history books. Maybe they had some novel solutions to the problem.
It also wasn't particularly relevant to the current situation, but the situation wasn't exactly urgent and the engineer felt like he could have a few errant thoughts.
Large grimm, with a wide variety of forms were tearing into his tanks, but well if the engineer was understanding things currently the larger and spiker the grimm the older it was, while he could just make more tanks. Not exactly a losing exchange, especially given he was already beginning work on a second layer of walls and an underground tunnel network.
Well it wouldn't have been a problem if he actually had a significant number of tanks on the battlefield, he'd entered the fight with two hundred tanks, and was already down to one hundred and twenty, not to mention the five spidertrons he'd lost. Which hurt almost as much as the eighty lost tanks.
It'd just be embarrassing to lose a command tank in this fight, so Balistraia had them pulled within the walls along with damaged but not destroyed tanks to serve as artillery.
Air travel wasn't currently possible, but not many grimm moved around VIA digging tunnels, and there wasn't really a reason factories needed to be above ground. It'd just take a few hours longer to get to the sites.
Not that he imagined the surface would remain a problem for much longer, using nukes against the bugs was a poor idea given their adaptive nature, but that really only meant the engineer had a surplus of nukes he really wanted to use. And an entire continent no one would care if he glassed.
Really having the Grimm group up to try and destroy the tanks just grouped them up for ease of destruction. To the point he didn't really need to use nukes to do it, but that was no reason to not use them.
And soon suns began to bloom on the ground as the missiles or suicide drones began to target large groupings of grimm, which given the location was essentially just carpet bombing. The relatively clean bombs did not even leave much radiation behind, and soon the terrain around the portal began to resemble that of Nauvis's, soil blasted away and stone melted like wax. Only without the plants that grew on said stone like it was still dirt.
He had to suppress a grin as everyone on team Rwby stopped their anticipation of the long overdue phone calls to stare in awe at the scene of pure devastation, the constant explosions rendering the time of day moot, day or night didn't matter when it was just so bright.
It did cause a few of the tunnels he was digging to collapse, but those were just the ones Labyrinthine hadn't reinforced and that mind was nothing if not efficient in getting them cleared back out. Underground rail networks were already being prepared, along with more Martially focused efforts, tunnels that only drones could fit through and strongpoints outside of the main battlefield.
More and more it was looking like drone swarms would be the optimal method of extermination. And already plans for specific anti-grimm drones were being crafted in the Engineers mind with input from Labyrinthine and Balistraia, if the plan was to purge all the grimm, and that was looking increasingly likely, then he needed to find a cost efficient method to do it.
Balistraia was more than capable of handling the battle though, and as he watched the construction drones assemble the radio equipment the Maker pulled his attention away from the plans and awaited the moment the connection formed. The quality would be low due to the exotic energies and nukes going off nearby, but still of a higher quality than the Human's of remnant would be used to with their odd tower system.
And then the separate pieces of the factory slammed together with a flood of information. So as to limit issues with diverging thought patterns due to differing experiences each mind lived through their counterparts' short separation over the course of seconds, experiencing it as if the instance of Bulwark that left had been the Bulwark that stayed. Discrepancy still arose, some actions would have been different if one instance was there instead of another, but on the whole the instances returned to parity, and then once again merged into one being.
The Maker reviewed the information, which transmitted far slower than he wished, and learned of just what his minds had been up to. Making a series of outposts was well within expectations though production was far slower than he would have liked due to lack of resources. Contact with locals had been made, of a sort. And the beginnings of a fledgling navy were being constructed. Which drew an involuntary shudder from him as he watched the sensors peering into the murky depths which, much like Navuis, were filled with monsters.
At least these ones were less viscous.
It was the first contact that kept the Maker's attention however, saying Balistraia had opened contact would be generous, really she'd just left notes of what she wanted on a table in an empty room in a virtual empty outpost. Exchanging information Via a written medium rather than opening direct dialogue to ensure she couldn't mess up and keeping their nature significantly more ambiguous.
And it had worked, she'd gotten information, weapons, and material samples simply by asking for them and saying she'd guard fishing vessels or towns for a few days once the materials were delivered, with new requests given with every delivery. Eventually that shifted to her receiving requests to hunt down specific grimm, which expanded further to her making an app to request grimm termination.
Which the engineer believed partially negated the whole 'hiding her nature behind written notes' by operating online, but he wasn't the diplomatic mind and didn't much care regardless.
Still what were the odds that her main contact was the genetic ano… Blake, they had names.
--
Ruby anxiously sat, her excitement having been forcibly cooled when she'd seen just where the portal went. It was hard to imagine making it home through a place like that, even with the engineer's help. She'd seen how he'd killed tens of thousands of grimm but it didn't seem to have done anything, if anything more were coming now than before.
Ruby wasn't even sure she could take most of the larger grimm even in her armor, she'd only heard about grimm dragons in stories and those weren't even rare in the fight. Goliaths that had to be four stories tall throwing boulders the size of airships, flocks of nevermore dense enough to bloat out the sun, enough beowolfs to … she couldn't even think of a metaphor, it was just too many.
Even as she heard the ringing in her helmet as Yang called their dad her thoughts stayed on the fight outside. She'd wanted to save everyone, kill all the grimm, to be a hero… but against that? She shook herself, shaking out the pessimistic thoughts. It wasn't like those grimm were winning, if anything the fact they were coming faster only meant they died faster.
Instead her attention turned towards the turrets stopping the grimm in their tracks, not even the goliaths or dragons could withstand them for long, she'd seen the turrets work on the bugs but seeing it against the grimm was different. More … familiar and satisfying. Each one was firing one hundred and twenty rounds as large as her Crescent Rose's every second. It practically turned the grimm to paste.
The sound of her fathers groggy voice captured her attention immediately, as she just realized they were calling fairly late at night. The guilt she felt instantly snuffed out by the joy of hearing his voice again. "Who.. is this?" Ruby Immediately noticed just how exhausted he sounded. Still she spoke in as chipper a tone as she could manage, which was very given she was finally talking to her dad again. "It's us Dad! I don't know how much you know but another portal opened and we got back through!" She saw Yang nod in her armor. "Yeah, and we've certainly got a story for ya"
Taiyang redacted within seconds, his exhaustion fading like it had never been. "Where are you?! Are you okay?! Do I need to come get you!?" and Ruby rushed to calm him down "dad! We're fine, no one got hurt" Yang added onto that "If anything we've just been painfully bored" Ruby swore she could feel the tension leave her father as he took in a deep breath. "Then… Ozpin only told me you had gone through a portal and that they were waiting for another one to open… where are you?"
Yang let out a nervous chuckle at that, and Ruby couldn't help but follow. Yang hesitantly spoke "...Yeah about that" A deep breath before she continued. "The Portal opened to the grimm lands" Ruby winced at Taiyang's resulting shout "Your where! And you said you were safe?!" Ruby shook her head at that, even though her dad couldn't see. "We aren't in the grimm lands, we're still on the other side of the portal and… relatively safe" if one ignored the sea's worth of grimm still trying to get at them, and the bugs large enough to be geological features.
She couldn't help the sliver of guilt she felt at his stress, it was her fault they'd even gone through the portal and worried him so much.
Taiyang spoke again "Thats… Thats good. But will you be okay to wait for another portal in a safer area? I don't think we could get a group large enough to safely get to the grimm lands, much less find a portal somewhere there before it closes." Ruby and Yang thought about staying on this planet for another few weeks or even months and then looked back to the utter devastation being rained upon the grimm outside. And it was Yang that voiced what they were both thinking. "Actually.. I'm pretty sure we could make it back to the beacon fine. We found ..people? Here and they seem to be handling the grimm just fine." Ruby nodded at that. "Yeah, a few more days and then it should be safe-ish to get back."
As she said that a timer popped up on her visor's screen reading 'eta to finished railway two days and one hour' and Ruby nodded at that "it should only be like two days before we have a safe tunnel dug out to…" Another blurb popped up "the ocean"
Taiyang sounded confused and relieved in equal measure. "And they'll take you back home? What do they want?" uhhh Ruby didn't actually know, usually you'd have to pay for a boat trip, but she didn't actually have any money on her. Maybe she'd see if Weiss had some? Yang shook her from her wandering thoughts as she spoke "I don't think they'll want anything aside from maybe talking to Ozpin or the Council." Ruby felt Taiyang's hesitant nod through the phone "..thats good.. You said you had a story for me?"
--
Weiss had thought about contacting her father, or even just her sister or mother but… she didn't want to. Her sister would only want to know about what kind of threat the engineer was, while her mother and father…
Instead she contended herself with looking at what she'd missed while she'd be gone, skimming through tabloids and news sites with practiced skill and she found that not much had changed. The world had spun on exactly as it would have if she had been there.
Her mind raced however, thoughts of what she'd seen and learned within the factory filling her mind. Ways to mine dust without exploiting the Fanus, automated machines to keep settlements safe and fight off the grimm, the sheer quantity of consumer goods the factory could make if it shifted its focus from war, or even just built a single facility.
They could out produce the Schnee corporation and were already well ahead on the research and development front. But.. she could use that, even a single factory built by the engineer or his machines and she could use it to get control of the company and save her family's legacy and name. Show the board there was a better way.
She'd just have to.. Convince the engineer to help her. That couldn't be too hard right?
--
Blake let out a short sigh, her mind barely able to focus on the view of the battle outside through the turmoil of her thoughts. She … hadn't exactly left her mother and father on the best of terms, and hadn't spoken to them for far longer than her trip to Nauvis.
They didn't even know she was going to Beacon, as much of a surprise it had been to her that she'd even been accepted. Last they knew she was still with the fang, and given how bad the fang had been when she left and the virtual certainty that it'd gotten worse…. They might not want anything to do with her.
Couldn't have a known member of the white fang seen with the chieftain of Menagerie, it'd only make it harder to get trade and immigration going. It might be for the best if she just … didn't show up just yet. Wait until she becomes a full fledged huntress and gets a new reputation, then she could go back. Not as Blake the terrorist, but as Blake the huntress.
A voice in her ear drew Blakes attention Balistraia speaking with a clear tone "it seems there's a development that concerns you. Your parents made contact with the Mind instances on Menagerie. They'd even asked me to find you as a favor." Blake took in a sharp breath at that "..did you tell them where I was?" Balistraia let out a faint chuckle "No, that'd involve explaining things I wasn't keen to explain at the time, though given you haven't called them yet I figured I should ask, do you even want to talk to them?"
Blake sat in silence for a few moments before speaking "Yeah, yeah I do" if anyone would be impartial to what she'd done it'd be the mind. "It's just, before Beacon I'd done things I'm not proud of, got mixed up with some people before they went bad, and it took awhile before I realized that they had. And I don't want to go back before I've… done more good than bad." The mind let out a thoughtful but comforting hum at that, speaking up a few moments later. "Well take as long as you need, I can let them know your safe if you'd like? They seemed very worried."
A sigh of relief left Blake at that and a smile graced her face "that'd be nice, thank you."
AN-
the character motivations in Rwby are bad and there are way to many plot holes. I spent the last half of this chapter wondering "why exactly did Blake and Weiss even go to Beacon" and the answers I got sucked. Weiss kind of had a reason, but Blake? and how did Blake even get into the school? she didn't go to a school? did she fake documents like Jaune? another exception from ozpin?
Likes and Comments are great, is a thing.