Forges of Remnant [RWBY x Adeptus Mechanicus]

Chapter Seven: Malfunctioning

Speech Syntaxes:
     +Speech+ Lingua-Technis
     "Speech" English
     'Speech' Thoughts

     Team RWBY jumped to the next train car without breaking a sweat. They spared a moment to watch the bombed car decouple before exploding, but this explosion brought something different. A ear-piercing static screech from the hole the crater the bomb had made, followed by the railroads between the two breaches in the tunnel collapsing. Ruby was frozen in shock before she spotted two faint blue lights watching her from the rubble before powering off. The railroad continued to cave in upon itself, but the train was thankfully fast enough to avoid the rapidly deteriorating ground. Yang cried out to the grimm hoard filling up the collapsed portion of the tunnel, "This doesn't make any sense!"

     "Get the humans!" shouted an unknown voice. Team RWBY turned around to find ten unarmed White Fang grunts on the roof of the train with them, with more members - some even armed - joining their brothers and sister. The students of Beacon rushed forward to defend themselves. An unlucky grunt charged the blonde brawler with a highly telegraphed and sloppy kick. Yang easily countered with her own kick before going in low with a sweep. She proceeded to send the faunus into the train car below with an explosive round from Ember Celica. Blake dashed through the crowd with a storm of swipes from Gambol Shroud, sending multiple grunts off of the train and to their eventual death. With an upper slash from Myrtenaster and dust, a tidal wave of ice took over the roofs of the train cars in Weiss' path; the White Fang members stumbled before joining their comrades in the growing path of rubble behind the train, none having long in this world. Ruby stalled behind with Doctor Oobleck, sniping any faunus that were seriously armed before they could harm her teammates.

     The professor turned his attention away from the fight to watch as another train car exploded, tearing a hole into the roof and floor of the tunnel. A hoard of beowolves, creeps, and ursai falling from the surface into the tunnel. "Oh, dear." Oobleck watched as the faunus members running from the new tidal wave of annihilation were crushed by a giant king taijitu. Those unlucky few spared from the oversize snake became chew toys for the lesser grimm. The doctor called out to the team under his supervision over the roaring wind. "He's leading the grimm to the city!" Ruby was clearly confused at his statement. "It's the cars! They detach and explode, creating openings for the grimm!"

     Upon the horizon, slightly covered by the harsh desert winds, sat the city of Vacuo. Hardin would have been able to be at the sietch by now if the machine spirit within his mount had not thrown a fit about getting sand within its servo-joints. 'Does it know how hard it is to clean out the sand while we are still in the desert! It may look like a horse, but it acts more like a stubborn dog.' Ali shook his head while a tired sigh escaped through his scarf. The adept spared one last glance upon the surface dweller's city. The only visible architecture at this distance reminded him of the sietches, but of course he knows that there is more hidden behind the buildings and the walls. Such is the nature of the surface dwellers. 'Wait, I spend more time on the surface than at the forge. Wouldn't that make me a surface dweller?'

     Before he could answer to his own hypocrisy, Hardin spotted a small sand cloud billowing towards him. 'Fraking bandits.' He slowed to a halt as he unholstered his radium jezzail. Ali allowed instincts to take over as he steadied himself. Through the scope he found four bandits upon desert motorcycles with their only similar features being the dirty rags covering their face and the scrap metal they call amour. Hardin's lungs slowly expelled all the air, but did not refill. Radium tainted liquid dust traveled through the barrel of his rifle before continuing through the scorching Vacuan air. The weapon jerked up thirty degrees from the sheer amount of unregulated recoil. Once his scope focused back on the bandits there were only three. Hardin slung his sniper rifle across his back before kicking his mount into action.