Greywing44: Ok gotta ask, Vermincide...Sounds familiar. Is it a reference to Goblin Slayer? And if so, did you get insperation for the chapter from it? And maybe a little from Witcher?
Also I never imagined Ruby would use little party favors like pipe bombs and grenades. But it makes sense with their monster hunting style. Brings me back to such games like, God Eater, Monster Hunter, and so on. You think Traps are also going to be a thing as well?
Re: "Verminociter" is another Cinder Spires reference, just like the construction of Airships in Chapter 19: World of Remnant: Airships. While Goblin Slayer IS one of my favorite LNs, I can't really introduce "Goblins" in the same context, so it'll either be meta-fiction, or not included at-all in this story. Of course, I may make Cameos, but no Crossovers. Haven't played Witcher, though the role of a Hunter is comparable to what a Witcher does, only with more gunpowder and gunpowder expys.
Well, she does have a friend who's from a bomb-making family; think the Bomb Shops in Legend of Zelda. She's bound to have some "party favors" other than her sniper rifle, just little chance to use them. And yes, for hunting "monsters", which the Grimm are equivalent to in context, it pays to have some high-power toss-and-forget weapons in the arsenal. As for games like God Eater and Monster Hunter, I played a little God Eater but didn't get too into it, indirectly played with the GE cast in Project X Zone and Project X Zone 2, and while I haven't played Monster Hunter, I do plan on some Cameos and Crossovers, though given the context, it'll be a sub-crossover with Toriko that's been blended into the "World of Remnant" fabric.
Blaze1992: If their reacting this bad to rats wonder what their reaction would be to the graboids from tremors movies.
Re: Well, to be fair… Their initial reaction to the "Plague" of Vermin was bad because they were trapped in an enclosed space with them; think Xenomorph levels of horror only there's thousands of them and they're the size of big rats. As for the latter reaction, other than having to see Vermin literally skeletonize people like a school of monkey-eating pirhanas, one of them was the size of a large building hence the Pacific Rim music (which really got the creative juices pumping; it helps more than you'd think).
In a one-on-one basis Rats are adorable; I had two of the "Fancy Rat" breed and I loved them with all my heart. However, when there's enough to blanket a building… That's when it starts to get creepy. Especially, ESPECIALLY, if it happens to you.
As for the Graboids… Never saw Tremors, but I imagine if they saw someone get taken it'd be a stock horror movie reaction; whereas in-comparison Jack would be a horror movie "connoisseur". Hell, half the stuff he did in the White Fang was like stuff from a horror flick… only he was the axe-wielding psycho-killer, though that's a different point entirely.
skinnnydude: This was a good chapter, I thoroughly enjoyed team RWBY's actions in dealing with Vermin Grimm and it was pretty funny (especially the part with Blake being in the reverse situation of a Cat vs Mouse chase). Ruby certainly is growing as a leader to know when it's time to call in for backup and help.
I feel like you missed the perfect opportunity to throw in a Rick and Morty reference in the killing of those rat grimm. Basically think the Pickle Rick episode and you can understand what I meant by that.
Re: Yeah, I had fun writing in Blake being chased by a rat, as a cat; the irony was quite delicious. As for Ruby knowing it was time to call for backup, that was because there were lives on-the-line at that exact moment; any form of "showboating" would only occur by someone very narcissistic, or if there were a "buffer" to anyone's lives being in danger. But yes, RWBY being thrust into responsibility they weren't ready for is a good impetus to write in character growth.
As for "Pickle Rick"… Don't really see how that could be worked in, if that's* what you meant by that last comment. Biggest problem of-course is that Grimm "evaporate" upon death, and also the fact that the Vermin Lord is basically a "low-end Kaiju" and none of RWBY would be capable of wearing something that large if it were made into "rat power armor".
*NEW WORLD*
Metal Man, Wood Man, and Tomahawk Man, had once again been reprogrammed for wicked ends.
The key difference between this and past instances however, was that all vestiges of their original selves had been completely suppressed.
In place of the original vibrant personalities that made them seem almost human despite their metallic composition, the three of them were now the soulless machines that most saw machine-based life as; if entities of data, and circuits, and metal could be called "living".
For reasons they were incapable of showing concern about they had been ordered to attack the Jakobs-owned lumberyard and kill "anything that moves".
Normally a well-programmed robot would be incapable of such actions, due to the nature of Roboethics, but these robots were well-programmed no longer; some would even argue they weren't well-programmed to begin with.
Back in Giga City, that the Robot Masters possessed complete and total autonomy wasn't much of an issue as far as human life was concerned because all the areas that got taken over had been properly evacuated once the Robot Masters had begun slaving the nearby labor robots to their own programming.
Now however that wasn't the case if the dead bodies scattered about had anything to say about it.
The Jakobs corporation believed that a man was entitled to the sweat of his brow; hence, the only jobs they relegated to robots were the ones impossible for ordinary humans to carry out, such as carrying whole-fell trees to the cutting stations. Apart from that, everything else was done by Human and Faunus hands.
As such, there weren't that many robots for the Robot Masters to hijack, barely half a dozen, whereas the human employees numbered in the dozens, and had put up a hell of a fight as brothers and sisters of the Jakobs family fought tooth and nail to protect one another.
Only one, the youngest out of all of them, had managed to escape through an opening the others had made, and he'd been able to hold on long-enough to send a message back to Jakobs that they were being attacked by rogue robots.
Of course, to the Robot Masters, as they were, they were incapable of recognizing the kind of sacrifices that had been made. Instead, all they saw were their directive, and the obstacles that got in their way.
All efforts to make man and machine comrades had been completely subverted, and no amount of goodwill could ever change the sentiment that machines weren't deserving of autonomy if this was what they chose to do with it; even though choice was the last thing on their hard drives.
The three Robot Masters and their thralls encircling the lumberyard with single-minded determination as they awaited their human masters and further orders, the cluster of machines remained blissfully unaware that they were under attack until a large neon green energy blast shore through two of the large tree-carrying robots. The robots' attention turning inward, another tree-carrying machine had its CPU utterly annihilated by an overhead axe strike, whereas another received a sword thrust into its main power source.
The Robot Masters, scattered around the lumberyard in a radial formation, turned their attention towards the new obstacles that had presented themselves; two Faunus, and one combat android.
The Robot Masters attempted to interface with what they recognized as a fellow machine, but for some reason they were unable to do so.
Believing it to be a fault in their own hardware, the Robot Masters attempted to do so again, only to no avail. It was as though whatever this robot was, its Bluebox had been completely walled-in, with no backdoors or ports to exploit of any kind.
The three intruders suddenly breaking away from one another, taking out whatever robots got in their way as the Robot Masters were approached, Metal Man, Wood Man, and Tomahawk Man's attack protocols were initiated.
*NEW WORLD*
"Get out of my way!" Arthur shouted as he used his superior agility to slash at the power couplings of every labor robot in his path, robots large and small felled in his wake like the trees that had once stood around him as he made his way to the southeastern quadrant.
The tree-moving robots, not built for combat, were easily felled as were the tool-carrying models.
The same however could not be said for the Robot Master controlling them. Though they may've been out-of-date, they were far from "obsolete", and even without an Aura protecting them like Penny had, these machines were not to be taken lightly.
Combat Androids, by-default, were capable of "thinking at the speed of light". The only things to really slow them down were the Platforms the AI was loaded onto, and of course the competency of whoever was programming them.
All robots, be they Domestic or Military in application, were supposed to be programmed with the Three Laws of Robotics in mind. "Supposed to" being the operative words, since if the rogue Robot Masters hadn't been "jailbroken" as they were, the Jakobs employees would still be alive.
The Robot Masters of-course had been given complete Autonomy in the past, but at least their original masters had restrained them enough so the gutters of Giga City wouldn't run red with Human and Faunus blood.
Now, however, that wasn't the case. Any trace of their original personalities had either been suppressed or completely erased, reducing the Robot Masters to mindless killing machines like in the movies; and Arthur was going to be fighting one of them…
True, he'd gotten a confidence-boost from finally getting his feelings across to Ruby and coming under the tutelage of an older Faunus from an esteemed bloodline, but he was still a Rabbit Faunus, and his bloodline were skittish and fearful by nature.
What separated him from the animals that Humans thought Faunus were, was that Faunus could act against their deep-seeded nature; something that ultimately made them "people" on equal standing with Humans even if they wanted to deny it tooth-and-nail.
Shaking all unnecessary thoughts loose, Arthur's ears, dancing atop his head and picking up every odd sound, ruled out that all the other robots in his general vicinity had either been taken down, or were going after the others, leaving only himself and Metal Man.
'It's almost fitting, that the next Robot Master I fight would be the functional evolution of Cut Man,' Arthur hummed as he gave the RM a once-over.
Where Cut Man looked comical, Metal Man looked equallly deadly. Colored predominantly red with yellow accents and blue trim, Metal Man had serrated buzzsaw blades emblazoned on his forehead and shoulders, and slots in his palms where compressed Ceratanium buzzsaw blades could be discharged.
The blueprints by themselves gave a pretty clear-cut idea to what Metal Man's specifications were.
Of course, considering someone went through all the trouble of stealing and reprogramming them, it wouldn't surprise Arthur if the Limiters had been tampered with in some fashion.
While removing such limiters would compromise the inner workings and reduce longevity, most who used robots in the short-term had no problem "voiding the warranty" as it were.
For that reason, Arthur readied himself for anything as Metal Man regarded him coldly with glowing red optics, all emotion drained from its human-like visage.
"Target Lock."
"Let's do this thing."
Cue Mega Man 2 OST Metal Man Stage [New Remix]
Metal Man throwing out an opening volley of blades, Arthur dodged to the side, his ears picking up the sound of them sinking deep into the felled trees behind him. His stomach proceeded to lurch as the sound of metal meeting flesh met his ears next.
It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out one of the bodies had just been desecrated.
His blood boiling in his veins, Arthur rushed at Metal Man as fast as his legs could carry him, the Robot Master lunging backwards and launching another volley. Dodging the first two and bringing up his sword to intercept the third, the Faunus teen's weapon was wrenched from his grasp as the projectile bit deep into his weapon, pain exploding up his wrist as it was sent flying into the air.
'SHIT!' Arthur swore as he ran in the opposite direction, realizing Dr. Wily's alloying technique for Ceratanium must've been far superior to that of Dr. Light's if the Ceratanium cladding he'd applied to his own weapons had been trumped so-easily. 'Okay, so swordplay's a bust? Now what?' he asked as he ran, his ears allowing him to dodge the thrown projectiles aimed at his blind spot as he bound gracefully across the field; far faster and with greater agility than any Human.
And Humans wondered why Faunus considered themselves superior.
'Needtofindaweapon needtofindaweapon needtofindaweapon-THERE!' Arthur gasped as he locked eyes with one of the prefab buildings; the lodge of the Jakobs gunsmiths who made some off the highest-powered firearms on the designer market.
With no door on the side of the building he was approaching however, urgency crawling up his spine as Metal Man threw "curveballs", Arthur kicked up a stone before sending it flying with his other foot, the window gaining a large crack before Arthur dove through it at full clip.
It wouldn't do to dive in with too little force, after all.
Shards of glass tinkling around him as his sleeves were torn to shreds, Arthur rolled to the side as Metal Man's projectiles easily cut through the wall at his back, sailed across the workshop, and bit into the wall opposite the window he just came through.
Blood pumping as he took everything in, the first sensation that assailed his nostrils was the scent of sandalwood. Next was metal shavings, and gun oil after that, with blood, sweat, and tears both literal and metaphorical tinging the air as well.
Most of the weapons were still in an incomplete or disassembled state, and Arthur wasn't a skilled-enough gunsmith like Ruby to assemble a weapon on the fly, but by the time Metal Man had retrieved his blades from the far wall and kicked in the door in pursuit, Arthur's mad scramble for a functioning weapon had borne fruit, the loud *BLAM!* of a Jakob's shotgun cracking the air like a whip as the Robot Master was thrown back, a sizeable number of fresh dents in its chest plate, plumes of smoke rising from the double-barrel Jakobs shotgun now resting in Arthur's hands.
Most would've aimed for the head, but when it came to shotguns, unless you were literally standing at point-blank range, the best bet was to aim for center mass, and with how-easily Metal Man's projectiles cut through… everything…! . . . it was a sure bet that trying for a point-blank shot wasn't going to do him much good.
Grabbing a canister of gunpowder from the nearby loading bench and giving it a hurl, the tin container clanged against Metal Man's left foot before Arthur loosed another shot, a loud *BA-BOOOM!* shaking the earth as Metal Man was consumed in a fiery explosion, the Rabbit Faunus fleeing as his ears rang and his arms trembled.
Diving into a trench that used to be a river, Arthur rolled back against the nearby wall only to retch as the scent of rotting flesh and buzzing flies assailed his senses, the teen shoulder-to-shoulder with not one but two Jakobs corpses.
The sound of mismatched footsteps sounding from above him, Arthur tucked his ears back and used the reflective surface of his sword like a mirror. In the reflection, Metal Man was limping in his general direction, most of the armor on its left foot stripped away revealing the charred endoskeleton within.
The Robot Master spotting the glint of his weapon, Metal Man holstered another blade before throwing it underhand, followed by two others in a spread-shot pattern. To both Arthur's amazement and horror, the blade began to roll across the ground, losing absolutely zero of its cutting power as they headed towards him. Leaping away from the earthen wall and planting his sword at an incline, flat-side-forward, the first-thrown blade followed the sharp incline of the wall before coming right towards him, riding up the flat of his blade before flying up into the air, the corpses he'd been shoulder-to-shoulder with a moment before split in two down the middle causing a fresh wave of nausea to roll over him.
Metal Man cresting the hill with metal blades at the ready, a loud rooting tooting *CHWOONG-CHWOONG!* sounded as the projectiles were thrown from his hands, his target holding up a pair of Jakobs revolvers, the Faunus's lips drawn into a thin line and tears welling up in his eyes as the scent of viscera washed over him.
Ten more rounds assaulting the Robot Master's body, staggering it backwards violently with each direct hit, Arthur vaulted up the hill, sword drawn to cleave the android's bad leg off at the ankle and turn the tide of the fight irrevocably in his favor.
"Speed. Gear."
Blue energy exploding out of Metal Man's body before coiling around him, to Arthur's shock the Robot Master literally ran a circle around him, far faster than anything in his blueprints had implied was mechanically possible of such an outdated frame.
The Robot Master now at Arthur's back, the red-colored robot a veritable blur until it'd stopped, metal blades flew through the air forcing Arthur to dodge frantically. To equal parts amazement and horror, Metal Man ran another circle around him, actually intersecting its own blades before letting them fly again, the circles of death screaming through the air at breakneck speeds.
If it weren't for his years of keeping track of Ruby's movements as she trained her Semblance, he'd have been turned into sandwich meat within the first seconds of the one-bot phalanxing maneuver; let alone the whole three minutes of non-stop firing.
Sweat beginning to sting at Arthur's eyes, his limbs burning and the revolver ammo he couldn't even use turning more and more leaden in his pockets with every passing second, as the noose slowly tightened around his neck, the Faunus' blood began to pump faster, and faster, and FASTER! So fast it threatened to burst through his veins like a ruptured pipe!
His heart slamming against his ribcage like a jackhammer to the point that it hurt, life flashing before his eyes as Metal Man's blades began to nick at his body, each cut growing deeper and deeper, tears spilling out as thoughts of never being able to see Ruby, his everything ever again, raced across his grey matter, all at once the collective will of thirty trillion cells expressed themselves!
Cue No Game No Life OST - IZUNA
"BLOOD DESTRUCTION!" Arthur-nay, his entire body roARED, THE SPACE AROUND HIM GROWING IMPOSSIBLY BRIGHT AND METAL MAN'S BLADES IMPOSSIBLY SLOW AND HIS RUINED COAT FLARING OUT BEHIND HIM AS HIS HAIR STOOD ON-END!
THE FAUNUS' SKIN STAINING RED AS CAPILLARIES BURST AND RUPTURED! CRIMSON EYES GROWING WIDE AND MANIC AND HIS INCISORS SHARPENING! BLOOD COURSING THROUGH HIS VEINS LIKE A MIGHTY RIVER! THE FAUNUS SCATTERED THE CONTENTS OF HIS POCKETS INTO THE AIR! REVOLVER CYLINDERS TRACING INTRICATE SILVER LINES THROUGH THE AIR AS ARTHUR WOVE AROUND METAL MAN'S BLADES! BOTH CYLINDERS SNAPPING SHUT! ARTHUR FIRED TEN SHOTS DEAD-CENTER AT METAL MAN'S CHEST! BEFORE FLIPPING BACK AND FIRING ANOTHER TWO AT THE EXACT CENTER OF THE METAL BLADES SENDING THEM SCREAMING BACKWARD!
BULLETS STRIKING WITH A *DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING!* ARTHUR THRUST HIS REMAINING BLADE THROUGH THE WEAKENED METAL BEFORE SLIDING UNDER THE ROBOT MASTER'S LEGS! A MOMENT LATER METAL MAN'S OWN BLADES BIT INTO HIS WAIST AND NECK! THE METAL BITING DEEP INTO THE WAIST WHILE THE HEAD CAME CLEAN OFF!
AND THEN! SUDDenly…! As THouGH a swITch haD bEEn fLIppED…
It was over.
OST END
Dropping to his knees and gasping for an impossibly-large amount of air as Metal Man literally went to pieces behind him, Arthur's eyes went every which way, trying in vain to process what happened as the inexplainable haze that came over him evaporated.
The *Thud*Thud*Thud* of metal hitting dirt sounding from behind him, Arthur whirled around to see Metal Man in pieces on the ground behind him.
"Did I…? Did I do that…?" Arthur gawped as the red tribal markings scattered across his body vanished beneath his notice as he tried to come to terms with the destruction before him, his involvement in it as-evident as his remaining blade impaled through Metal Man's power core.
A moment later the Faunus dropped to his hands and knees, cheeks bulging before blood burst out of his mouth onto the ground beneath him in a torrent, a pain unlike any he'd ever felt before ravaging his body, the edges of his vision darkening…!
"N… NO…!" Arthur gasped out as blood continued to dribble past his lips, the taste of copper overwhelming everything else as he fought back the blackness. "I… will not lose… to this…! I… will not… say goodbye…!" he told-ordered himself, thoughts of Ruby's smiling face dulling the pain in his body like cold water as he forced himself to his feet. "I won…! And I won't let… some mindless machine… take that from me…!"
*NEW WORLD*
Elsewhile…
"I'm still reeling from that fight with the sky pirates," Jack muttered to himself, his right arm tingling as he skillfully decapitated worker robots with his off-hand. "For the time being, I can't rely on brute strength. I'll have to be a bit more tactical in my approach," he thought as he rolled to a stop behind a felled tree, a log thrown heavily through the space he'd once occupied before he vaulted from cover and once more stormed toward the northern quadrant of the lumberyard. Leaping atop the robot that'd thrown the log his way, the Faunus jumped upward before swinging his axe down, letting gravity do the work for him.
The Faunus riding the robot as it was felled, his eyes snapped to and fro before locking onto his quarry: DWN-016: Wood Man.
"You know, I'm sure there was an advantage to building a fat robot made of wood, but for the life of me… I just don't see it," Jack hummed as he appraised the Robot Master before him, its crimson-colored optics regarding him emotionlessly. "But I'm curious… Can you feel fear?"
"Scanning… Processing…" *Bzz-bzzt* "Results inconclusive."
"Let's fix that, shall we?" Jack asked as he wrenched his shotgun/axe free, the Robot Master's red-lit eyes widening in what was presumably fear.
That or it was programmed to think it was a tree and have an instinctual fear of wood-cutting implements.
Cue Mega Man 2 OST - Wood Man Stage [New Remix]
Wood Man deploying his Orbitars, aka "Leaf Shield", around him, Jack noted the metallic glint to the leaf-like weapons; Ceratanium as the blueprints Penny provided revealed.
Deciding to give the innocuous-looking shields their day in court, Jack snapped up his shotgun and fired, one of the Leaf Shields intercepting the shot, the heavy 12-gauge slug bouncing off after flattening as-ineffectually as a BB, the Leaf Shield hardly wavering in its orbit around Wood Man's front flank.
"Huh, guess that Leaf Shield's the real deal, huh?" Jack hummed aloud, Wood Man sweeping out his arm and sending the Leaf Shield flying at him in a ring a moment later. The Faunus combat rolling to the side and firing another shot, the 12-gauge slug struck Wood Man's armored chest, wooden splinters scattering revealing another pit of his metal interior. The sound of metal cutting through air sounding from his rear, the Faunus backflipped through the ring on its return trip, Wood Man's stance completely neutral since his inner shell hadn't been breached. "Damn, wish I had some Fire Dust, otherwise I could've made a lovely bonfire outta your ass!"
The reprogrammed Robot Master seeming to take offense to that, his Leaf Shield whirled around himself once more before flinging the blades upward. The Leaf Shield fragments zipping back and forth as they fell like falling leaves, Jack leapt to the side of where the leaves were going to fall, only for Wood Man to rush him and deliver a lariat.
Though the Faunus raised his shotgun/axe to block, the Robot Master's pneumatically-driven strength was enough to send him flying backward, the sharpened edges of Wood Man's Leaf Shield biting into his Aura and skin, the Faunus clicking his tongue in annoyance as he fired round after round into Wood Man's chest where the power core would be, splinters flying with each jarring hit as Wood Man was staggered until a patch of metal was exposed underneath.
"Ah, there you are…!" Jack smirked as he loaded his shotgun before firing again, the loud *CLANG!* of metal on metal sounding as Wood Man's metal shell was struck, the rogue Robot Master registering the hit to its exposed body as it redoubled its assault on Jack, sending Leaf Shields up and forward, the Faunus using the open space around him to dodge those and the follow-up melee attacks with ease.
Seeing that the Leaf Shields lingered on the ground for a scant few moments before returning to Wood Man, Jack grabbed a nearby log before giving it a mighty heave, embedding a couple of them into the ground under their weight and stopping the recall.
Wood Man seeming to register this, redoubled his efforts only to no avail as Jack continued to aim for center mass. Even if he wasn't actually breaching it, having its interior rattled by 12-gauge slug gunfire was bound to do damage in its own way; as was evident by Wood Man's movements becoming rudimentary and sluggish. This was hardly helped by the fact that Jack had begun to pin the Leaf Shield bits under heavy pieces of timber, lessening the Robot Master's defenses with each volley.
"Ha! Looks like this is the end!"
Only it wasn't.
"Power. Gear."
Red energy exploding outward before coiling around Wood Man, the Robot Master suddenly flew at him with explosive force, bodily striking him with a punch like a runaway bus that sent the Faunus pinwheeling through the air, tumbling across the ground before an axe head bit into the dirt and halted his flight.
"The fuck?" the Faunus gaped as Wood Man's feet left deep furrows in the earth.
Even more-shocking was when the Robot Master hefted a tree heavier than himself above his head before hurling it into the air. It was an easy matter to dodge it, but when a pair of red-tinged Leaf Shield bits struck the ends and sent the whole thing pinwheeling through the air like a baton, Jack's eyes went wide before he crossed his arms to block.
"Gah!" the Faunus swore as pain raced up his arm. To make matters worse, the Leaf Shield bits that had once been pinned under felled timber lifted back up into the air, a plethora of wooden logs hovering around Wood Man as though by psychokinesis numbering six. "Fucking fake psychics."
Wood Man's enormous wooden spears raining down at the Faunus from above as though fired from a nail gun, Jack backpedaled around each and every attack, twirling his axe in his hands and gaining momentum as he spun until- "TIMBERRRR!" -his axe blade bit into the last one, wood splinters flying out in all directions as the log was split in a single, crude hit.
"Ahhh…" Jack sighed contentedly. "Nothin' quite like the sweat of your brow, eh, robot?" he said wiping his arm across his brow as the final wooden spear in the volley pinwheeled out of control.
In response, Wood Man let the flailing half-baton fall before levitating up the remaining five.
"Oh… Right," Jack wilted. "SHIT!" he swore as he leapt back from one coming straight down, leaping over one sweeping low, kicking into the air above two trying to scissor him in, only to get struck by an overhead swing pinning him to the ground between a log and a not-so-hard place. "Agh…! Fuck…!" the Faunus swore as the other four levitating logs rose up into the air, poised to come down on him like pegs.
Wood Man throwing both arms down, a loud *THOOM!* sounded through the camp as an enormous cloud of dirt and vegetation was kicked up by the falling logs.
The next moment, the heavy blade of a shotgun/axe bit deeply into Wood Man's chest from out of the dust cloud, causing Wood Man to stagger. A moment after that, Jack burst out of the ground a couple meters away, covered in dirt but otherwise unharmed.
"Whew. Almost bit the dust there for a second," the Faunus chuckled as Wood Man recovered his bearings, wrenching the weapon lodged in its chest and discarding it before raising the Orbitar-assisted logs once more above the Faunus' head. "Nnnnope," the Faunus chirped as he ducked back down into his hole moments before the log came down atop his head.
The Faunus popping up another couple meters away, gave the Robot Master the raspberries, directly antagonizing it eliciting another log-borne attack. The Faunus bursting from the ground another three times in different locations after unsuccessful attacks, with ample heckling and taunting that quadrant of the lumberyard turned into an over-grown game of whack-a-mole.
After a couple minutes of this, Wood Man raised up all five Orbitar-assisted logs and brought them down on the burrows simultaneously, another cloud of dirt kicked up.
Optics scanning the area around itself, by the time Wood Man's tactile sensors recognized the ground shifting at its feet, a pair of clawed hands had already grabbed onto its legs before it was hauled down into a hollow in the earth, dragged down until only its torso up to the armpits remained above-ground.
The Robot Master planting its palms on the ground in an attempt to push itself free, all it succeeded in doing with its augmented power was getting its arms buried as well, ineffectually flailing its head as it protruded from the ground like a stump.
"You know… I think this is the first time a tree's fought back like this," Jack hummed as he dug himself up from the ground once again, taking up his axe in his hands and patting the butt on his palm. "Well, when you're in a lumber yard, do as the lumber jacks do," the Faunus said with a manic grin as he drew his arms back, the bit of his axe glinting ominously before he brought it down at Wood Man's fat neck.
*NEW WORLD*
"Greetings, fellow robot!" Penny greeted enthusiastically, the labor robots behind her messily felled by pinpoint laser fire.
Tomahawk Man, built purposely for the first-annual Robot Tournament, regarded her with a flat stare, optics of red meeting those of neon green.
"Please surrender, for I have no wish to expire your warranty," Penny stated chipperly.
Tomahawk Man's response was to hurl his signature weapon through the air, silver metal glinting in the morning light as it arced through the air before returning to the combat android's hand.
"Very well then. Your response to my request has been received," Penny said with a narrowing of her eyes as one of her Floating Array made its way into her hand, transforming into a laser pistol which she held in both hands.
Cue Mega Man 6 OST – Tomahawk Man Stage (Remix)
Spreading her feet and opening fire, Tomahawk Man dove left to avoid Penny's volley before whipping his headdress around. Bladed feathers flying her way, Penny dodged in kind, the two running parallel and firing across the field at one another. Gun/Blade and Tomahawk whipping up in the space between them, lasers and bladed feathers were deflected away, the space before and behind them pock-marked by the deflected shots.
Tomahawk Man stopping and digging in his heel, suddenly lunged Penny's way, tomahawk poised to split her head in half like a ripe melon before the robot girl whipped out two blades. Those two blades crossed above her head, the ground beneath Penny's feet cratered as she caught the blade, sparks dancing between them before the robot girl hurled Tomahawk Man away, his headdress whipping mid-flip sending another volley of feather blades at her, the robot girl leaping right as they stabbed into the ground.
The tomahawk attached to his arm detaching once more, Tomahawk Man threw it out in an arc, poised to split Penny in two. Tiny backpack opening down the middle, two of her blades shot out, the near-invisible wires attached hauling her back moments before Tomahawk Man's blade could split her in half. Ginger-haired girl soaring through the air, the moment her feet touched down she took a knee, arms held forward as the rest of her Floating Array came forward, whirling in a barrel-like shape.
A luminous emerald orb gathering before them as they all transformed into laser blades, the robot girl drew her arms back before thrusting two fists forward, the swirling of blades ceasing as a massive emerald beam shot out. Trenches dug in the earth as a cluster of energy blasts shot out, hills and trees and fallen robots alike were split in half, edges glowing molten yellow as a burning acrid smell filled the air.
Before the death lasers could reach Tomahawk Man however-
"Double. Gear."
Whirling coronas of red and blue energy spiraling around his frame, much to Penny's shock, Tomahawk Man proceeded to swat away the cutting energy beams screaming towards him, the forest in the distance behind him exploding in brilliant mushroom-shaped plumes.
"What…?" Penny gawped with wide eyes, the ground beneath Tomahawk Man exploding as the Robot Master shot at her with the speed of a Formula One racer, trails of red and blue energy whipping through the air behind him.
A glint of silver catching Penny's eye as Tomahawk Man raised his weapon overhead mere feet from her, Penny threw herself to the side moments before the blade came down, the bottom of her shoe getting shaved away as a massive fissure was carved into the earth where she'd once stood.
Scrambling to her feet as-quickly as she was able, Penny drew two Gun/Blades as Tomahawk Man swung his headdress at her once again. This time however, before she could raise them up to block, the robot girl had already been struck by impossibly-fast blades, a plethora of cuts biting into cloth and artificial skin as she tumbled backwards, her exposed metal epidermis glinting under the sun overhead.
"No way…" Penny gasped, arcs of electricity leaping from the cuts across her body. "He's… He's so strong…" she panted as she scrambled back, Tomahawk Man's undamaged frame looking more and more imposing before the ruined lumberyard left in his wake.
Tomahawk raised up once more like an executioner's axe, artificial muscle inside Penny's frame protested as she scrambled away once again, a blade of dust kicked up as another fissure was formed.
Whipping up a laser pistol, Penny was only able to get three shots off before her weapon was swatted from her hand, each blast of energy batted aside effortlessly by Tomahawk Man's Ceratanium-coated blade.
Try as she might to call out for help as two more Gun/Blades were lost to her, her voice box seized up at every turn, a pitiful squeak passing her lips with each try.
As her life flashed before her eyes, words she'd never head before but instinctually knew sounded in her ears.
With this installed, any robot can instantly become a hero!
"He…ro…?" Penny muttered confusedly, feeling something welling up in her chest, some unknown compulsion telling her to rise to her feet once more.
Tomahawk Man turning to her one more time, tomahawk poised to take her head clean off, before Jack and Arthur -having dealt with their own Robot Masters- could intervene, Penny's head rose up to match Tomahawk Man's blood-red optics, two words passing her lips.
"Double… Gear…!"
Cue Mega Man 11 OST – Main Title
Raw power suddenly exploding off of Penny's body, Tomahawk Man thrown back, as vibrant streams of red and blue energy coalesced around her, her backpack suddenly split down the middle and unfurled into a winged flight pack, a number of her floating array affixing themselves to the underside of each wing like a mounted payload, rocket-shaped turbines mounted on the end of each wing and just above the small of her back.
Aforementioned rockets spooling quickly, Penny was off like a gunshot, the sound barrier briefly broken as the two machines collided with a deafening *BOOOM!*, dirt and wood chips scattered in all directions as tomahawk and gun/blade clashed. The two robots struggling for dominance as the ground cratered beneath them and stumps were wrenched from the ground, their two similar auxiliary systems overclocking them to new heights of mechanical power, sparks danced off not only their weapons, but the colliding energy fields as well, optics of baleful crimson and emotional green locked.
"I won't… let you hurt… ANYONE ELSE!" Penny roared out as her optics suddenly changed color, red for the right and blue for the left, her pupils becoming gear-shaped.
Wing-mounted gun/blades angling themselves at an exposed torso, Tomahawk Man threw himself backwards as a number of energy beams criss-crossed the space his torso once occupied, the beams continuing on and felling the trees in the far-off distance, the scent of burning wood filling the air.
"The tides have turned, Tomahawk Man!" Penny said striking a dynamic pose before she leapt into the air. Rocket-shaped turbines spinning around, Penny shot down in a flying rocket-powered kick, right foot extended and left leg drawn up as she cried- "DYNAMIC ENTRY!"
Tomahawk Man leaping back as the ground before him exploded in a vibrant green mushroom cloud, the next moment he received a taste of his own medicine as Penny's Floating Array shot out of the cloud with machinegun-like speeds, their pointed ends stabbing into Tomahawk Man's frame before he was reeled in like a fish. A split-second later, the ginger gynoid stepped out of the cloud and extended her right arm, the Robot Master's neck caught in the crook of her elbow as she hit him with a flying lariat, the Robot Master pinwheeling through the air heels over head, charred ground churned up in Tomahawk Man's passing.
Tomahawk biting into the ground, the Robot Master righted itself a moment later. Head drawn back to whip his headdress forward, Penny held out one hand as the pommels of her Floating Array linked together. The pinwheel blade whirring like a buzz saw, feather-shaped blades were carved into harmless shavings as they shot at her, baleful optics going wide as the last of his feather blades were exhausted, headdress now bare.
Teeth gritting as its true competitive nature came to the surface, its arm drawn back, Tomahawk Man threw his signature weapon forward with explosive force. The hydraulics in its arm bursting as the Silver Tomahawk let out a deafening squeal through the air, Penny's name was called out as the weapon hit, an enormous plume of dust cutting across the ground, forest leaves whipping in a maddeningly-loud cacophony of sound that sent birds for miles in all directions scattering.
The corner of the Robot Master's lips quirking into a smirk, Tomahawk Man turned too the two Faunus on the overlooking hill before it double-took. A flash of orange appearing amidst the dust cloud in the distance, baleful optics went wide as it spied two foot-dug furrows bit into the ground, connecting the spot Penny had stood to where she was now, Silver Tomahawk held in hand and a pair of longer trenches arranged in a V cut into the ground behind her.
"No… Way…"
A stoic look on the robot girl's face, Penny regarded him for a moment before blurting out- "CHEW ON THIS!" -, returning the Robot Master's Silver Tomahawk with her Double Gear-enhanced strength, the bladed weapon biting into the Robot Master's power core before it could dodge, its optics glancing down to the axe before looking back up at her optics flickering before they went blank, Tomahawk Man falling to the ground like a felled tree moments later.
OST END
"Hey guys… I won…!" Penny said with a strained smile on her face, whirls of red and blue energy spiraling around Penny before she fell to her knees, Arthur calling out as he and Jack ran down the hill towards her.
By the time they got to her side, the ground around her was already getting baked, the smell of burning foliage filling the air around her as Penny panted raggedly, her skin gaining a reddish tint as steam spilled out of her lips, her orange hair actually glowing.
"Quick! Get her up!" Arthur cried, the two Faunus lunging to help her to her feet.
"Ah! Fuck! That's hot!" Jack winced as he drew his hand away.
"Don't touch her with your bare hands you idiot, she's overheating!" Arthur cried as he shed his coat before swaddling the gynoid like an infant.
A pained hiss leaving his lips as he lifted the overheating robot girl from the ground, the Faunus' eyes darted across the yard before spotting his target.
"There!"
Bounding across the lumber yard with precious cargo in tow, Penny's eyes lost focus as her vision faded in and out among numerous -ERROR- chevrons. Arthur felt the heat getting to him more than ever, his sweat threatening to utterly blind him, but he pushed through the pain as he came upon the prefab building labeled Showers.
Kicking in the door, Arthur dove for the nearest booth, quickly stripping Penny out of her clothing. Were there any doubts in his mind about her being a robot, any hypothetical doubts were swiftly dashed as he beheld the gynoid's unclothed form.
Of course, Arthur wasn't actively thinking on that, as the moment Penny was unclothed he'd dove for the faucet, turning the cold water to full blast before throwing himself out of the shower house like a man trying to outrun an explosion in the movies. A wall of steam billowing out of the frame behind him as he lunged for the open air, Arthur blinked away the sweat that'd threatened to blind him, bringing up his shirt to wipe his face as the veins in his ears dilated to lower his temperature now that he wasn't carrying what was essentially a teenage girl-shaped furnace.
"Sooo…" Jack hummed as he ambled up to the younger Faunus, idly eyeing the plume of steam escaping the shower house before turning his eyes back to Arthur. "Getting another girl naked in the shower~ Do I need to be worried about such deviant behavior~?" he chuckled mirthfully.
"Shut it, Jack. I've had a really rough day," Arthur bit out as he wiped a bit of blood onto the back of his hand.
"I kid, I kid," Jack said waving his hands up in surrender.
"Good."
"Sooo… Do the carpets match the drapes?"
"J-Jack!?"
"What? It was a vaginamate question… I mean a legitimate ques… whatever."
"She isn't a sex robot!"
"How do you know that?"
"Because she doesn't have anything down there! She's smooth like a doll!"
"So what, no articulated joints like a mannequin?"
"No, her skin is very lifelike; tan lines and everything."
"What, you mean like in the Annihilator franchise, where the Annihilators were covered in living tissue?"
"I guess…" Arthur shrugged. "I mean, I'd have to run an in-depth analysis to be sure, but there was definitely metal under those cuts, so I think we can conclusively say she is in fact, a robot."
"As though there were any doubt," Jack said snorted, rolling his eyes. "So… What do you think that was all about?" he asked jabbing a thumb at the shower, copious amounts of steam still billowing out, thought the sheer volume had dropped noticeably now that the water had been left running.
"I'm not sure. Maybe Penny overclocked herself by bypassing a limiter, assuming Tomahawk Man bypassed his own limiter like the Robot Master I fought did," he trailed off, "but if it were just that, why was there a cascading failure to the point she couldn't turn it off?"
"Maybe she pushed her machine body too far?"
"Once again, I'd have to open her up to speculate."
"That's what she said~"
"Oh grow up," Arthur spat. "Besides, with how-innocent that girl acts, your innuendos are making this conversation really creepy."
"Oh come on, you and I both know Atlas made her an adorable teenage girl for that sort of reason. Unassuming girls get people to let their guard down; as your girlfriend's first encounter with Torchwick proved."
"Well… All that aside, I'm just glad she's alright," Arthur sighed. "Not that I particularly care about her or anything!" he cried out with a flushed face as Jack gave him a look. "It'd just really suck if our liaison bit the dust on our first mission with her."
"Yeah… It would suck if she'd died today; especially if she could pass the Turing Test," Jack admitted.
The sound of wet feet padding on tile sounding behind them, the two looked back to the shower house to see Penny stepping out into the open, her hair sopping wet and water running down her legs, the robot girl clad in only a towel held shut around her budding bosom.
"Penny, you're alright! How are you feeling?" Arthur asked worriedly.
"I am feeling much better, thank you," Penny said with a smile before it fell from her features. "Jack… Arthur… There's something I have to confess to you," she said somberly, her eyes downcast before turning her eyes back up to them. "I'm… not a real girl," she said as she opened her towel, presenting herself to them.
"Penny! Cover yourself up!" Arthur yelped as he clamped his hands over his eyes.
"Really? Oh wow! I am both shocked and befuddled at this development!" Jack spoke with mock shock on his face.
" . . . Is this that sarcasm thing?" Penny asked him, brows knitted cutely together as she pouted in his direction.
"Why… whatever gave it away?" Jack asked after a pause.
"The choice inflection of certain words and facial expressions," Penny answered flatly.
"Penny, could you cover up please?" Arthur asked as he stepped forward and closed Penny's towel around her chest.
"Why?" she asked confusedly. "I do not have any genitalia to expose and feel shame over exposing," Penny stated frankly.
"That is hardly the point!" Arthur yelped, red in the face.
"Oh you are going to be a treat to work with~" Jack chuckled uproariously as Penny and Arthur debated whether or not the concept of nudity applied to a robot without actual genitalia.
When Arthur let the word "sexbot" slip and Penny asked what a sexbot even was, Jack almost bust a gut laughing.
*NEW WORLD*
"So… What now?" Jack asked a couple minutes later after stepping out of the shower, Penny dressing Arthur's wounds with mechanical precision.
"It will take some time before the Anti-Robot Master Taskforce arrives to collect the mechanical detritus left in the wake of mortal combat," Penny answered, completely oblivious to the blush on Arthur's face as she tended his wounds. "If anything from the battlefield were to go 'walkabouts' in the interim, I do not think anyone would notice."
"Penny… Are you telling us to start looting?" Arthur asked incredulously, tossing the tail of his coat back over the two revolvers he'd borrowed from the corpses.
"No. I am simply saying that 'if anything from the battlefield were to go 'walkabouts' in the interim, I do not think anyone would notice'," Penny repeated, her head tilted cutely.
"Oh… Okay. Just wanted to make sure," Arthur nodded awkwardly.
"A real treat~" Jack chuckled as he ruffled the robot girl's orange lochs, the gynoid pouting cutely as she ran her fingers through her hair before turning her attention back to Arthur. "There we go. All better," she nodded with a smile as she pat the last of the gauze down. "Get well soon," she beamed as she pecked the Faunus on the cheek, the boy blushing red up to his ears causing Jack to chuckle once more. "Now then!" she clapped as she hopped onto her feet. "Time to claim the spoils of war!"
The robot girl skipping off and humming a merry tune, Jack and Arthur looked toward one another before following after her.
The robot girl unconsciously leading them into a part of the lumberyard that smelled of charred wood and reeked of ionized laser discharge, the two Faunus watched as she skipped over to Tomahawk Man's battered remains. Holding up her palms and spitting on each of them in turn, a round-toed flat was planted on the Robot Master's chest as she rubbed her palms together, adorable straining grunts leaving the robot girl's lips as she grasped the weapon's handle and pulled back before comically flying away when the axe came free.
Hopping to her feet as though she hadn't tumbled, Penny raised the weapon aloft with a satisfied smile on her face, lines of code running across her vision as her onboard [Weapon Copy System] ran its analytic and predictive algorithms.
Cue Mega Man 11 OST – You Got a New Weapon!
YOU GOT A NEW WEAPON!
SILVER TOMAHAWK
Green circuit-like lines running up the handle from her palm before spreading across the flat of the blade, the same symbol on the hilt of her Floating Array burning itself into the metal, Penny chucked the blade before it returned to her hand, the gynoid girl giggling happily as it went to and fro; no strings attached.
"Sen-sational!" Penny whooped, beaming brightly like a kid on Christmas.
"Oh god there's two of them," Arthur muttered, seeing a rather Ruby-like quality to this girl's interaction with weapons.
It wasn't that he didn't think it was cute, because it totally was… It was just weird seeing that quality in someone else.
"At least she hasn't given it a name," Jack hummed with a shrug.
"Hi ho Silver!"
"Nevermind," Jack sighed tiredly as the girl continued to play with a beaming smile on her face..
"Awayyyyy!" Penny cheered again as she let the weapon fly once more.
Were this animated, the Silver Tomahawk would've flown into the lens leading into a scene transition.
*NEW WORLD*
"Oof. What happened here?" Jack asked as he and Penny followed Arthur to the quadrant of the lumberyard he'd fought in.
"Is that blood!?" Penny gawped openly as they passed by a crimson puddle.
"Oh… uh… yeah. That was me," Arthur replied nervously, the robot girl zipping up to him and cradling his cheeks as she turned his face every which way, eyeing him intensely.
"Have your wounds not all been dressed?" she asked furtively. "Your core temperature appears to be rising," she hummed aloud as tactile sensors in her fingertips detected a rise in the Faunus' body temperature.
"I-I'm fine," Arthur said pulling away. "I healed fast. Jack taught me how."
"Using Aura to actively heal your wounds… That is a very advanced technique requiring precision control over which part of your anatomy your Aura flows. Is that level of Auric Control taught at Signal Academy?" she asked.
"N-No… But mine and my cousin's Semblance are similar, so I got some pointers from her once it manifested," Arthur answered. "I'm still working on a Hardlight Emitter I'm comfortable with, though. Velvet's model is a little… clunky for my tastes."
"Ooh! Sounds fascinating!" Penny said with wide eyes. "Are you hoping to find some military-grade components toward that purpose?"
"N-No. What I'm looking for is a little more… analogue," Arthur answered as he picked up one of Metal Man's discarded blades.
Hey, if Penny could loot the battlefield, why shouldn't he?
"Sooo… What? Are you going to make some kind of disc launcher?" Jack asked over his shoulder.
"If I can find enough of these things, maybe," Arthur answered as he filled his backpack, taking the time to wrap each one in cloth so they wouldn't slice through the bottom of the bag as he walked. "Ceratanium is crazy-strong, doubly-so against other robots, assuming the blades are sharpened well-enough. Hell, half the time they won't even lose their edge, but only if that edge is made correctly in the first place."
"May I be of assistance?" Penny asked stepping over.
"Sure… Why not?" Arthur answered, Penny beaming as she began to help.
"Well, I'll leave you guys to it," Jack said with a shrug as he walked away.
"Where are you going?" Penny asked with a tilt of her head.
"Someone needs to cover up these bodies," Jack said somberly. "Now that there aren't any robots walking around to scare off the birds, someone has to get the tarps out before mother nature decides to hold a sky burial."
"Oh…" Arthur hummed. "Yeah. The blades can wait."
"No no, you stay where you are. I've seen plenty of dead bodies in my day. I think you can hold off on that for a little while longer," Jack said, a soft smile directed his way before turning into a grin. "Besides… it's rude to leave a lady alone in the battlefield."
"I am no mere 'lady'. I am the first artificial person capable of generating her own Aura," Penny pouted cutely, her fists on her hips.
"Sure you are," Jack waved off. "Have fun you two. Just don't have too much fun~"
"What does Jack mean by that?" Penny asked turning to Arthur, the Faunus' face heating up in a blush, Jack cackling in the background.
*NEW WORLD*
It hadn't taken Jack very long to account for all the dead bodies. And not just because of "the usual dead body smell", but because they also smelled of fine wood, gun oil, and gunpowder. It did his heart good to see that they'd all gone down fighting, because it meant there were Humans out there with some actual spine, and not just the usual cowardly wastes of space he'd come to despise in humanity.
While it was tempting to pocket a weapon or two, each Jakobs weapon owned by a member of the Jakobs family was usually hand-made, and would more-often than not be buried alongside the owner. In the event they opted for cremation, the weapon would instead be passed down to next-of-kin.
Only reason he knew that was because he'd familiarized himself with the Jakobs family history when he and one of the White Fang's negotiators had been sent out to procure armaments.
Through legal channels, of course.
What better way to stick it to the Circle of Man than to use their money to buy armaments from a corporation that hated their way of life the way a carpenter hates woodrot?
By the time he'd laid the tarp over the last of the bodies, the rumbling of tires told him that his time in the field had come to an end.
A trio of APCs coming over the hill, squads of Atlesian soldiers poured out into the lumberyard and secured a perimeter. Weapons were briefly trained on the two Faunus, younger hiding behind the older, but a quick scan with facial recognizing software verified their identities. The vigilant soldiers offering a salute and their sincerest apologies, as the soldiers began to fan out and collect the Robot Master remains, a lone technician with a remote control guided a yellow spider-like robot with a saucer-shaped body a little wider than a manhole cover towards them.
The disc-shaped robot laying its belly on the ground and retracting its legs, the top of its body opened like a camera lens before a hologram emitter spooled up. Manifesting before them at 1:1 scale was a clean well-dressed man not unlike Ozpin with black hair graying at the sides, clad in a white overcoat above a gray undercoat and black sweater, a red necktie at his throat, his suit pants the same color as his overcoat and tucked into silver boots accented in gray. Set on his right hand was a white glove, the left conspicuously absent, a small strip of chromed metal set in his forehead above his right eyebrow.
In short, General James Ironwood of the Atlesian Military.
"Special Agent Polendina," the general greeted.
"Standing by and reporting for duty, sir!" she saluted.
"At ease, soldier. From what I've heard, the mission went off without a hitch."
"Yes, sir! No hitches to be had."
*Hiccup!*
"And you must be the student Ozpin sent," the general said turning his attention to Jack. "I thought you'd be… older."
"Aaand Human?" Jack groused with a roll of his eyes.
"Jack! Don't make this a race thing!" Arthur hissed from behind him.
"I'm only making it a race thing because he did."
"You know I can hear you two, right?"
"Well, considering your soldiers pointed their guns at us the moment they saw us…"
"My apologies for their conduct, then," the general said bowing at the waist. "I tried to get as many racially-neutral soldiers as-possible for the A.R.M.T., but I guess some prejudice still exists."
"Just let your toy soldiers know that the next time they pull that crap on me, they'll wind up looking like that guy," Jack huffed as he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder toward Wood Man, the tree-like Robot Master being dug out of the ground, its decapitated head already waiting on the cart.
"I'll… be sure to keep them informed," Ironwood mentioned awkwardly. "Oz never mentioned you were a Faunus."
"Was it really so important if I was one or not?"
"Jack, stop antagonizing him!" Arthur hissed.
"No, I suppose not," Ironwood said ignoring the byplay. "Penny, how bad was it when you got there."
"There… were not any survivors, sir," Penny answered sadly. "Not beyond the one man that managed to escape and call for help at least."
"I see," Ironwood said somberly. "That is most unfortunate."
"Hey, here's a crazy idea. How about next time you put these things in storage, you don't leave their parts in complete sets," Jack said as Metal Man's chopped-up remains were carted off. "Just a thought. I certainly know the Jakobs company would want worsefor these walking trash heaps. Now, tell me again how it is you let these things get stolen?"
"I'm afraid that's on a need-to-know basis."
"Because they've all already been stolen you mean?"
" . . . "
"I thought so," Jack shrugged. "Anywho, there's no reason for me to be here anymore, so I'm going to take my leave. Have fun with clean-up duty," he said stepping through the hologram, Arthur and Penny trailing after him.
"Are you sure you should've done that?" Arthur asked, having the delicacy to step around it.
"If he didn't even have the decency to show up in person, why should I pay respect to his hologram?"
"And you don't think that might backfire?"
"I don't work for Ironwood. I work for Ozpin," Jack said curtly. "If Ironwood wants a bunch of yes-men toy soldiers without any spine, more power to him. But, if what he wants are results…"
"He'll… put up with you?"
"Unless he wants to send more of his people here from overseas, he'll have to."
"I think you were very brave standing up to a General like that," Penny stated as she skipped up alongside them.
"You're still with us?"
"Do you not want me here?"
"It's not that. I'm just wondering why you don't ride home with them."
"Is it wrong for me to want to ride home with my combat comrades?"
"No. I suppose not," Jack shrugged as they crested the hill and made their way through the woods.
*NEW WORLD*
"Now Penny, remember what I said," Jack said a while later as he pulled up alongside a black limousine just outside of Vale.
"After today, the two of us never met," Penny replied chipperly with a swing of her arm.
"Exactly," Jack nodded. "I'm not saying you wipe the two of us from your memory banks or anything. I'm just saying, the next time we meet with civilians nearby, that will be the 'first time' you've met us," he amended.
"What do you mean by 'memory banks'?" Penny asked quizzically. "I am just a regular meat-person like you."
*Hiccup!*
"Of course you are," Jack chuckled, ruffling the girl's hair before sending her on her way. "So… How was your first mission?"
"It was… pulse-pounding," Arthur answered, looking down at his arm before turning back to the older Faunus. "Jack…"
"Hm?"
" . . . Never mind. It's not important," the younger Faunus said turning away.
"Alright. Have it your way," Jack shrugged, the aircar driving to its next destination.
*NEW WORLD*
"So, how did the mission go?" Ozpin asked once Jack had returned to Beacon.
"Pretty well, all things considered. The lumber got a little roughed up, but what can you do?"
"Indeed. Now, in regards to your correspondent…"
"You mean the fact she was a robot?"
"It was kind of obvious, wasn't it?" Ozpin hummed aloud, having briefly observed DPN-001 aka "Penny Polendina" after her activation.
Ironwood desperately wanted to sell him on the idea that she was the next step in Frontier Reclamation technology, but… he just wasn't seeing it.
If Humans by-and-large couldn't tolerate flesh-and-blood Faunus, what made the man think people would be accepting of autonomous robots? Especially with how-well that went last time such robots had been loosed upon the world.
Sure, the argument could be made that Penny had an Aura like any other Human or Faunus, but the counter-argument would always be made that since she was "manufactured" instead of "born", and thus she would become a subject of mistrust.
No matter how infectiously-adorable those freckles made her look.
"Yeah. It really was," Jack shrugged. "Maybe tell the egg-heads in Atlas if they're going to make robots that resemble little girls, they increase her 'dynamic movement' a bit to actually sell that she is 'a Human'," Jack chided. "Honestly, if that girl had gone out into the city moving all-rigid like that, they'd have gone after her with torches and pitchforks."
"I'll be sure to pass that sentiment along," Ozpin nodded. "Anyhow, Atlesian recovery crews began scouring the site after your battle, and not everything within projections could be recovered. Would you happen to know anything about that?"
"Nope," Jack lied artfully.
"Hmmm… Well, all things considered, I'm willing to put this one to bed," Ozpin hummed. He did give Jack the freedom to carry out these little side-missions in whatever manner he saw fit. If the Faunus wanted to pinch a few odds and ends, who was he to stop him? Teach Atlas to keep their shit under better lock-and-key. "Now, in regards to your payment-"
"Actually, instead of something as mundane as money, I figured you could pay me in 'favors'."
"Favors?"
"Yeah, you know. Favors. Pull a couple strings for me that money can't when I need them pulled. Get me something I can't get through conventional channels. You know, that sort of thing."
"Hmmm… Well, they do print more money every day… I guess we could settle for I.O.U.s," the man shrugged as he took out some stationary, wrote a big I.O.U. Sincerely, Ozpin Greene, and slapped his exclusive Sceau Royal on it before passing it along to Jack.
"Pleasure doing business with ya," Jack replied as he walked off.
"You too," Ozpin waved the Faunus off. As soon as the Faunus descended the elevator, the man turned his attention to his monitor, polarizing the windows before accessing a list of the stolen or otherwise unaccounted-for Robot Masters. "Well then… That's three down… scads more to go," he sighed tiredly as he looked down the rather extensive list of Robot Masters that had been created during the Wily Wars. "I wonder if I'll even be around to see the bottom of this can of worms," he lamented, finding small comfort in the fact that at least a few of the Robot Masters were either too high-profile or secure-enough that any attempt to seize them would be noticed.
Whoever had orchestrated these thefts had done so with the intent of no-one noticing the thefts until they'd already occurred, implying the involvement of a large organized group.
People could easily be evil without her involvement, but a part of his mind always wondered…
*NEW WORLD*
AN:
While it's true I could've put "Lumber Jacks PART 1" and "Lumber Jacks PART 2" back-to-back, I thought it'd be nice to interpose what Team RWBY was doing in the interim of Jack's forward team preparing for their raid on the Robot Master-controlled Jakobs lumber yard. Also, the choice of venue gave me a good opportunity to mix things up with the fight choreography once again, because what made fight choreography in Red vs Blue great when Monty Oum was working on them was that the environment was a factor.
I took great pleasure in writing out Arthur's fight choreography against Metal Man, and the music cue I put in at the end really got the creative juices flowing. For Jack, I had the opportunity to have a carry-over injury impact his fighting style; what makes him strong is his diversity as a fighter, with much more experience than the rest of the cast has at that point in the Canon. As for Penny… I mainly got the idea of using the Gear System because I picked up Mega Man 11 and the gameplay was really fun, so from a narrative perspective, having the Double Gear System installed in some of the Robot Masters will help level the playing field between "super fighting robots" and "teenagers from Hogwarts with guns".
In-game, when you use the Double Gear system, you can't really tun it off until it's run its course, and in the Overheated state you can't really use the Gear System again until you've cooled off fully, and since Penny is a "super fighting robot" in similar vein to Mega Man, having her overheat was a great way of playing with the fact that she is in fact, a robot. Were she a cyborg, use of the Double Gear system would've literally cooked any organic components, which is why you won't see the Gear System or Double Gear System used on human characters since it's too-dangerous for cyborgs; a distinction that needs to be kept very clear since Ironwood is a Cyborg with a 40-45% mechanical body, whereas Penny is a full-on robot (i.e. a Gynoid).