I hope the fact that I was gone for a while didn't intimidate any of you into staying away from this story. Maybe y'all are just tired of me and my stories and want me try more mainstream ideas? Yes? Well whatever the reason is I hope this chapter finds you in good company.
So look... let's be real for a moment... I did try to do what I set out to do with the whole military thing. And I didn't make it... I joined with the heart and mind of a hero but my body wasn't in there with me. I was medically separated for my knees.
But don't worry this won't stop or hold back this hero in the slightest. I made a vow to help people, to save people, to defend people and I'm still going do just that. I just might do it a different way.
Also despite the jokes we make about AI art and how difficult it is to make something with it. It actually works pretty well most of the time for me. Reason I say that is because all of the art for the story cover is done by that AI. So now I can actually add some illustration to what the characters look like. So the first one you'll see will be of the Director RWBYfied. (Warning: The Art Makes Thirst Traps of EVERYTHING!) Like seriously, I didn't include handsome anywhere in the description and I saw what was created and thought, "Oh NO! He's HOT!" So there's that.
[Weiss]
As the cargo ship flies over Lake Matsu, Weiss Schnee, still somber over being unable to help the Mistralian cargo pilots, suddenly notices to her right a series of landmasses floating in the bright blue, partly cloudy sky, with what appears to be black crystals jutting out from the bottom of the rock formations. Puzzled, she then decides to head into the pilot's cabin. The doors open.
Weiss looks out the cockpit window at the horizon, "Where are we?"
"Nowhere good. Passing by some of Lake Matsu's floating islands. The gravity Dust that forms in these things is giving us a little turbulence. Nothing I can't handle, but the islands sometimes hide some nasty Grimm." The pilot answered as Weiss walked toward his seat, "I'm just betting on our friends in distress keeping them preoccupied."
Weiss noticed to her right the approach of a heavily damaged airships charging right for them, "Look out!"
The airship comes barreling from their right, narrowly hitting their cargo ship and forcing the pilot to pull upward to avoid it. The doomed craft, bearing a white symbol for Mistral on its sail, proceeds to collide into one of the floating islands.
"You've got to be kidding me!" The pilot exclaimed, then decided to switch back to the radio, listening in for nearby transmissions.
The Mistral pilots cried over the radio, "By the gods, we've lost Percy! Help!" Another Mistralian airship, pursued by a swarm of wasp-like Grimm, is suddenly hooked from multiple directions by their extendable stingers, which leaves them trapped and unable to move.
"We're hooked! We're hooked!" As the pilot makes a frantic call, the wood on the ship's exterior begins to crack, as the insects grappling on the ship pull very tightly, "Everyone, abandon ship!"
Capitalizing on their fear, one of the Grimm somersaults into the air and dive-bombs into the top of the ship, as the pilot and everyone on board perishes in the ensuing explosion. The rest of the Grimm following this turn their attention to and pursue Weiss' airship.
"Lancers, freaking Lancers! Alright buckle up-- Huh?" The pilot turned to speak to Weiss, only to see her jump down a hatch into the cargo hold, as she is determined to stop the swarm. Now speaking over an intercom, the pilot continued communicating with Weiss, "What are you doing?"
"What we should've done in the first place! You're carrying Dust, right?" Weiss interrogated the pilot.
"Officially, no. Actually, yes." The pilot revealed the truth.
Weiss opens a large container of vials of powdered Dust and loads her weapon Myrtenaster with six of them, "Then when I tell you, open the rear door!"
"Better make it quick!" The pilot makes multiple evasive maneuvers, but the Lancers gain on the ship and begin to shoot their stingers at it. "Kid, we're cutting it close!"
Weiss Summons a black glyph underneath her to keep her stuck to the ship as she readies her sword in front of her, "Ready!"
The cargo doors open and the battle begins. Using glyphs and Dust, Weiss succeeds in eliminating one of the Grimm.
"Haha! Hold on!" The Pilot warned Weiss as she eliminated five more while the pilot continues to do evasive maneuvers.
She gets knocked off balance when the cargo ship rocks, "Ah! What was that?!"
Just above them, the upper level of the cargo ship has Lancer stingers sticking in through the ceiling.
"We're hooked!" The Pilot spotted through one of the cameras from up top.
The outside of the airship has two Lancers firmly planted on top of it before the rest of the swarm gains on the cargo ship once more, with some of the Grimm flying alongside it.
Weiss had another trick up her sleeve, "I got an idea! Hold on! Literally!"
The pilot accelerated the ship toward one of the floating islands, waiting until the last possible moment before suddenly diving and using the remaining forward momentum to throw the Lancers on the ship off into the side of the rock formation. The Pilot couldn't help but celebrate his victory, "Ha ha! Yeah!"
"Can you find a pair of islands we can fit between?" Weiss questioned.
The cargo ship is turned and traveled toward a pair of closely adjacent, interconnected islands, "Kid, you are reading my mind!"
As the cargo ship narrowly avoids the close islands walls and the attacking Lancers, Weiss fires three fireballs from her glyphs to destroy an overhanging rock formation. The attack causes debris that kills the attacking Grimm, but also awakens an something that shouldn't have been awoken.
"Yeah! Great going, kid! We are in the clear!"
Immediately after Weiss exhaled in relief, a Lancer significantly larger than the rest suddenly appears outside the cargo doors, "It's a Queen Lancer!" Weiss exclaimed.
"What?!" The pilot cried as the Queen Lancer attacks and Weiss is unable to stop it, "Do something!"
Weiss used most of the Dust crates to explode against the creature, but it survives unscathed.
"I can see the shoreline! Gods, we're not gonna make it!" The Pilot prayed.
Regaining her composure, Weiss Summoned her Arma Gigas.
"Pull up, now!" Weiss demanded.
The pilot causes the cargo ship to pull up and ascend further into the air, before maneuvering to have the vehicle upside down. During this, the Arma Gigas leaves the vehicle and dives toward the Queen Lancer. As the two forces begin to rush each other, both the summoned knight and the insectoid Grimm came close to colliding. Before meeting, the knight seemingly dispersed in the air only to reappear behind the Queen and deliver a plethora of powerful packed slices across the Grimm. During the flury of cuts the Lancer Queen was able to fire off its stinger at the aircraft.
The Arma Gigas, controlled by Weiss, manages to kill the Grimm. However, the cargo ship has taken too much damage and descends. Weiss tries to use her Semblance to slow the ship's trajectory down, but it's not enough to prevent it from crash landing.
[Director]
The Director sat through what felt like a dozen meetings today. One at his home, two on his scroll during the ride to his office, followed by another few more all before lunch. So much in the Kingdom was going on after the incident that faithful day. With the Embargo affecting import and export businesses a lot of people were going to suffer some rough times up ahead.
His office and his lab were both filled with either paperwork or whiteboards filled with equations, schematics and so forth. His position as Director of the Mother of Intervention and founder of Project: Freelancer gave him two seats on the council just like General Ironwood. Especially since it's startup, the goal of Project Freelancer was create the perfect soldiers to aid in the defense against the never ending creatures of Grimm. Assisted with the best tech, training, and the newest pride and joy of Atlas, the MJOLNIR Armor. The idea was made real in the region of Chorus located at the southern pole of the world, opposite from Atlas which rested at the northern pole.
The MJOLNIR Armor wasn't like any others, not only were the suits dust compatible, and enhanced the user's physical abilities, but they also had what could best be described as an artificial semblance. For example, North had keen eyesight, capabilities of spotting a needle in a haystack a mile away, the suit granted him a personal forcefield. Or take Washington, He has the ability to control small objects, roughly the size of combat knife. The suit allows him to shut off what in near him in a close vicinity, not just machines, but auras and semblances.
Now he was working on trying to create a new artificial semblance that could be effective for the future. But between dealing with the Embargo, the fact the Atlas military had drafted some of the Director's Freelancers, finally the fact that he's having to go up against another council member just to keep his spot on the council.
Malcolm Hargrove, owner of Charon Industries brought to light the fact that while the Director and his team have given way to major breakthroughs in warfare technology and artificial intelligence used in most of Atlas's tech, he's failed to bring something new in a year. The lack of any fresh result wouldn't normally be a problem but Malcolm has made it increasingly obvious to the council that the Director may be slowing down. Thus explains his current predicament trying to create an artificial semblance that allows it's user to process data at the same speed as an A.I. Unfortunately that wasn't going so well.
The perfect distraction came into the room, Counselor Price entered with his data scroll in one hand and a bag of food in another, "Good afternoon, Director. Have you eaten yet?"
"I was hoping to finish up here then eat but I guess now is a better time than ever. What's on the menu today?" The Director set down his work as he cleared a spot on his desk for the two to enjoy together.
The Counselor emptied the bags contents to reveal two bowl meals, "Beef bowls with vegetable fried rice."
The two said a little prayer before they began to consume their meal, "So I trust you didn't come just to have lunch with me?" The Director quipped before he took a bite.
The Counselor finished his mouthful of food and spoke, "Well, I have good news, team PPLS, (Peoples) have finished their recovery phase. Meanwhile, Dufranse has shown promise to become the teams medical field operator. So we can now begin preparing them for their testing phases then maybe we can use them to keep up appearances."
"I admit, they're coming along smoothly. Especially since working with our friend downstairs. How I envy his ability to work among the real people of Atlas." The Director smiled as he went in for another bite.
The Counselor hesitated on taking a bite, "May I ask you something?"
"I believe you just did?"
"Why is it you're hesitant to develop another artificial intelligence unit?" Price brought up catching the Director on his guard.
The Director sighed, "I have my reasons... while it seems effortless to make another one, in truth it'll take a great toll on myself. Instead I must settle on developing other breakthroughs."
"I see..." Counselor Price concluded while taking a sip of tea.
The Director waited for Price to pour his cup, "I trust you are more than qualified to handle PR while the team makes their debut."
"Of course. It is my specialty." Counselor Price admitted with a bow.
[Back with Weiss]
The cargo ship crashed in a forest. Weiss was lying injured on the ground with clothes dirtied as two suspicious characters approached her.
"Help... please." Weiss cried out.
The first shady character turned back to look at the boss, "What do you think?"
Raven approached from out of sight to take a position between the two bandits and directly above Weiss, "I think... we just hit the jackpot."
Weiss' face turns to one of concern as she looks up at Raven, who stomps on her face, causing her to lose consciousness.
Okay So Quick summary of Semblances Since I forgot to include it in the last story. Starting with Red, then Blue, then Anyone else I may have missed.
Sarge: Iron Will: (Similar to Ruby in terms on the molecular level) Sarge is able to swap the carbon atoms in his skin with the iron atoms in his blood. Good thing there is enough iron in his diet that it hardly effects him. Being raised on a farm has it's perks.
Grif: Glutinous Vampyr: He can absorbed the life essence of both human, faunus and Grimm. Giving him the ability to increase his strength, gain Grimm abilities temporary and heal from great wounds.
Simmons: ???: Undiscovered.
Donut: Dead Ringer: Donut is able to shed his dead cells into what is essentially a double that is already dead. Similar to Blake's Shadow.
Lopez: Interchangeable Parts: His body being mechanical can swap parts out for some other tools he keeps with him.
Church: Energy Manipulation: Church can summon energy from everything, everywhere. He can use it to shoot beams from his body, create shields, even bypass semblances and auras. However it gives him too much confidence and is no substitute for his already far more limited aura supply.
Tucker: ???: Undiscovered.
Doc: Health Nut: Doc is twice as healthy as the usual person. He gains twice as much nutrients than anyone else when eating a meal, doing activities, etc. Doesn't make him twice as strong, but he can push it further making him absorb four times as much.
Caboose: Legendary: Caboose is something to be feared as the origin and power of his ability is unknown. His limits are unknown but he is by far the strongest member of the team.
I'll include more later, until next time. Churchisalive, signing off for now.