Chapter 14: From Dust to Dust
It was in the middle of the night in Vale, the city quiets down and those in the criminal profession were enacting their dubious deeds. The cover the night provided made it possible for criminals to avoid the authorities; someone like a certain criminal mastermind, Roman Torchwick, who was currently in an unnamed warehouse somewhere in the industrial district.
He checks the case after giving out pay to the White Fang grunt who brought it to him. He checks the contents and scoffs.
"We're gonna need more men."
He had been forced to work by his employer to rob the city of every single dust it could produce and carry. It was not his day today but nevertheless, he did what he does best. If only the White Fang could frankly cooperate with him.
Meanwhile...
Beacon Academy and its students were already sleeping in, while some still did things like study, playing video games on their scroll, and other activities. For a certain feline friend, Blake was still reading the book she had.
Being a Faunus meant she could take advantage of her night vision and stay up late during the night. It was quiet and no pesky people were pestering her while she read a book.
At least that was true until she kept hearing a voice with no one nearby to say it. No, she wasn't crazy and her teammates were definitely asleep. She made sure after all, that reading the "plot" driven story of Ninjas of Love was risky for… various reasons.
'Blake, can you get some dust and meet me at the hill we met on?' a crisp voice resounded in her mind.
She knew who, or rather what was talking to her. The machine she met two days ago has now apparently obtained an ability that acted like telepathy.
Blake of course said no in her mind. It was in the middle of the night on a chilly day. She wasn't going to fetch dust for the machine. She thought of a reply but the message kept repeating over and over. Thinking she could only reply in verbal means, she kept saying no quietly to not wake the others.
'Blake, can you get some dust and meet me at the hill we met on?' the voice told her again.
'Fine!' She finally had enough, she couldn't focus on the contents of the book she was reading.
Getting off from her resting place, she fetched her dust supply and wore her combat clothes. She wasn't going to go out into the wild with nothing but pajamas. Taking Gambol Shroud, she walked towards the window and slowly creaked it open.
'Alright, it seems like they're still asleep.' She glanced behind to see every member of team RWBY still sleeping soundly. Blake leaped off the building and carefully made her way to the bottom of the school.
Unbeknownst to her, a certain team leader was still awake when she heard the window creak open. She had stayed up late to study and eventually try nodding off to sleep but the coffee in her hadn't worn off. She just kept her eyes closed but she suddenly heard Blake rustling around and saying no repeatedly at herself.
'Why's Blake leaving in the middle of the night?'
Blake would need a bullhead to travel to Vale but she couldn't catch one now that all the bullheads had left for the day. But if the machine is going to keep talking to her all night then she might as well climb the whole way down so she could focus on her book.
After an exhausting journey down from Beacon Academy, she could feel herself getting tired from traveling down the cliff Beacon was on.
She eventually made her way into Vale and crossed the walls before setting foot in Forever Fall. She looked around for grimm but she couldn't see anything for meters away. She took note of the slight dents in the ground that littered the hill.
'So the machine has been around here for a long time now.'
She focused on her hearing and could hear in the distance an engine running amongst the ambient night. Deciding that it would be faster to get to the machine than wait for it, she traveled through the trees.
She headed off in the direction of the light humming of an engine. She was about to reach the place before the engine noise was silenced. She landed on the ground after reaching the last known place the sound came from and looked around.
Before she could react, a loud and aggressive growl was heard from the tree line. Instinctively, she immediately fired in the direction of the growl.
"Woah, hey, hey! Sorry, I wanted to scare you but you shouldn't just shoot before seeing." Blake immediately went into a combat stance.
"Who are you!"
"Wow, I am saddened to hear that you already forgot about me after 2 days." Blake raised both of her eyebrows as she realized that the machine could now speak.
Before she could reply the growl became a roar of an engine as Hanns revealed himself to the cat Faunus. His Tiger H1 pushed down trees with its heavy weight. The roar became louder and louder as the vehicle crept up towards Blake, it was almost twice her height. Hann's track left massive patterns on the ground as the tracks he had shaken and rattled along the dirt.
She heard the deep noise of the engine humming through the air as the massive cannon revealed itself staring at her face. Hydraulics within the tanks sounded as the turret turned itself.
The colossal heavily armored vehicle has now fully shown itself. The edges of the tank glistened under the soft light of the moon. While its barrel painted an intimidating figure. She couldn't imagine how strong that thing could be, she wanted to find out but it would probably wake half the city.
"Umm, hello Blake?" the crisp-sounding voice spoke again.
"Huh?...."
"You've been staring at me the whole time, do you have the dust?" Blake snapped out of her surprise and handed over some crystals and refined versions of dust.
She was curious as to how the vehicle ran. If it was wanting dust, how was it able to run without dust as a fuel source? Dust was basically the only used energy source in Remnant, the machine just kept getting more alien the more she interacted with it.
"So uh? How do I hand it over to you?" Blake asked.
Hanns metaphorically slapped himself in the face as he realized that he didn't know how to use the dust. Checking his hud he went to the help page to use up his question for the moderator.
'Hey moderator, how do I use dust in my tank?'
'You can't directly use it until you put it inside yourself in the form you want to. For your shells, you have to get someone to make a round and modify it with dust. After it gets loaded and fired, you then unlock it as a shell choice. Though, you need dust to enter your storage in the tank itself for it to replenish. Basically, after loading a single round, you need dust to enter you to create more rounds. This is true for any kind of shell you want outside war thunder.' the moderator replied.
To be able to do all that he needed someone to make a dust-infused round with his shell. He couldn't just enter the city and ask some smith to make it for him, could he?
After confirming what he planned on doing he returned to Blake who was still offering him the dust she brought.
"Do you happen to know someone good with weapons?" Hanns asked as if he didn't know Ruby. It would be weird if he knew her despite not meeting or hearing about her after all.
Blake immediately had an answer that popped into her head. A certain cookie-loving and weapon-enthusiastic team leader of hers.
"Yes, I assume you want me to make dust-infused bullets?" A vehicle of mass destruction was asking her if she knew someone who could tinker with weapons. She dreaded to know how much more power the machine could have if it gained access to it. It was obvious what the machine wanted, she was a bit concerned, but if it only hunted grimm down then it's probably fine.
"Glad to know you already had someone in mind. But before you go you have to enter me." Blake stared at the machine that suggested she enter it.
"....What?"
"Come inside me."
A few seconds of silence followed Hanns' statement before Blake reluctantly gave in.
"...I'm not even going to ask anymore."
Blake gave up on trying to understand, she was just going to accept anything the machine said and did. She clambered onto the tank and reached what looked like a hatch for her to enter in. Hanns let the hatch unlock for her as she lifted it and went inside.
"So what do I do in here?"
"Test everything inside if you can use it."
Blake acknowledges the request and tries the sights present. She could see through it just fine, the magnified zoom of the gunner worked as expected and the rest can be used normally.
Next, she tried using the controls in the driver's seat. She didn't know how to drive it so she just randomly touched the stuff.
Hanns could weirdly feel what Blake was doing inside the tank. She couldn't feel Blake's presence herself but he could feel his inner workings move from her actions. Hanns suddenly moved forward, followed by using each of the tracks.
'So I function like a regular tank but I can still override the actions of someone controlling me. That's important to know.'
Blake next tried the gunner side of the tank, she saw a shell already loaded in and asked Hanns about it.
"Should I try firing the gun?"
"Yeah, hold on, I'll turn towards somewhere away from the city."
Blake was slightly excited at the prospect of firing the gun, the shells that were on the sides and tucked away in the storage were large in diameter and their caliber already reached way beyond what she had ever seen before.
After driving to a safe location, Hanns notified Blake and she began to aim through the sights.
She fired the gun as she felt the entire vessel shake from the recoil. The gun sounded through the night as the explosion rang out from the walls over to Vale. The shell traveled to an empty spot far away and impacted a rock that she aimed at.
The rock was obliterated as the shell easily tore through the tough stone. A mushroom cloud was produced from the kicked-up earth around it and tossed towards the air. The explosion itself sent an insane amount of shrapnel everywhere and the orange color illuminated the dark surroundings where the rock was at.
Blake was amazed at the display.
'So this was what Atlas faced. No wonder they lost so many spider droids.'
"Looks like everything still works, now could you carry those shells and make every type of infused ammo?"
Blake was taken aback by the request. Did it really expect to lug around a shell to school without the authorities questioning why she was carrying around an oversized bullet? Her thoughts were interrupted by Hanns.
"Also, call me Hanns, Hanns Flammenwerfer. I can't hold a conversation when I don't hear my name." Hanns was probably tired of being called 'you' or 'it' by people all the time.
"Alright Hanns, I'll bring the infused shell tomorrow." Blake left the tank while lifting the shell from her arms. It was heavy but she could manage. Though trekking towards Beacon was probably going to take all night.
"See you, oh, and please don't use that telepathic communication over and over again." Blake was starting to wonder why she was helping Hanns, maybe because it wasn't actually a person. Was it because it wrecked Atlas? Or maybe she was just getting used to the crazy things happening when he was with her.
Hanns stared at the cat faunus running towards the city, slowing down regularly to adjust her hold on the shell she was cradling in her arms.
'Alright dust rounds secured. Now for me to just secure the dust part of the dust round.'
Hanns could now unlock dust rounds but he had a problem. He needed dust, a monumental amount of it if he was going to plan on using loads of it.
'Hmmm, I don't think I can steal from the public. Though people wouldn't care if I stole from someone, someone like… Torchwick perhaps?'
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone