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Blood and Rust

"Hunter, you don't look stable," Viper said. "Are you alright?"

"I just killed one of my best friends and you're  asking if I'm alright?" I sighed. "My heart hurts, literally and metaphorically." I opened Scavenger's hatch and removed my helmet to spit out blood. I injected 40 CCs of Stim, helping the physical pain a little.

"After that fight, you've gotta be tired. Need to rest a little?" Kane asked.

"Nope. At this point, I'm running on pure adrenaline and a drive to find my friends."

We destroyed every door we came across, Viper's pulse blades helping slightly. Ash came on through our helmets again. "Well done, Pilots. However, I'm afraid it is too late. Come to the very end of this corridor. It should be at a slight incline. Ash out."

"You heard her. Forward." Forward we went, the Titans' thundering footsteps causing cracks in the stone ground. Reaching the end of the hall, we moved out of the way for Scorch, who used a Flame Core to destroy the door. Scavenger kicked what was left of the door off the hinges and the three Titans entered the room, guns blazing. What we encountered in the room is something I never thought I would see: my team bound and behind bars with spectres standing guard and Ash shaking hands with... Roman Torchwick? Before we had a chance to do anything. Roman entered his Bullhead and flew away.

"Well done reaching this place, Pilots. Follow me to the dome." Ash embarked her Ronin and phase dashed through us, remaining in the phase dimension as she made her way to the dome.

I disembarked Scavenger and pulled my Mozambiques on the spectres. They collapsed as a pile of spare parts around my team. Holstering my Mozambiques, I approached the cell. It had a simple code lock on the door. I unsheathed a data pick and hacked the lock quickly. The door slid open and I cut the ropes from around my teams' wrists, freeing them. The blades on my pick collapsed against the shaft and the shaft retracted, allowing my to sheath the weapon. As soon as I did, I pulled my team into a hug, shedding silent tears.

I let them go and removed my helmet. "Are you guys alright?" I asked with genuine concern in my voice.

"We're fine now," Ilia reassured.

"Then what happened?"

Emerald spoke first. "We were captured on our way to the kingdom by that psycho."

"Ash is her name. She's no doubt done everything in her power to find out everything about this planet and us through the database. What happened next?"

"She held us hostage... and team RWBY. How we're still alive is beyond me. When we were captured, only Mercury and Yang had weapons to fight back with. Even then, there were just too many of those robots," Ilia explained.

"Those robots are spectres. Where is team RWBY now?"

"I dunno. We saw Torchwick paying Ash for them and loading them onto his ship," Mercury said.

"He's gonna kill them. Here's the plan. Kane, you and Scorch will take my team back to Beacon. Explain everything to Ozpin. We all know I hate telling him things, but this is something too important that I can't keep him in the dark about."

Scorch gave me a thumbs up.

"Viper," I started. "You and Northstar are going after Torchwick. Ground his ship but don't fire on it. We can't hurt team RWBY more than Ash already has."

"HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO TRACK HIM?" Northstar asked.

"Follow the contrails and hope for the best. Ash is mine."

"Understood." Viper picked up his soldier persona, embarked Northstar, and flew out the door to the open. My teammates climbed on Scorch's hull and Kane and I started running in our Titans. We split off when I got the training dome. "You're gonna have to make your own exit, Kane."