Through a series of contrived events the engineer has wound up on remnant with the minds and a few androids (9S, 2B, 32D). They can still get to Earth and Nauvis, but by and large they are alone on the planet.
For tax and legal reasons the weapon manufacturing and private security firm the minds are running needs to have a squad of huntsmen in charge of it, and so the team (the androids and the engineer) are sent to beacon to train to become huntsmen.
Beacon may not survive.
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Renovations
My first reaction on seeing the dorm rooms we were assigned was that they were cramped. Not enough room for most of my armor's maintenance equipment, nor anything I'd need to maintain the androids or manufacture more weapons or parts.
And the walls, so thin. Only some drywall and brick. I had already gotten out a few slabs of armor plating to start reinforcing them when the rest of my 'team' walked through the doorway. We had managed to stay a group by signing up as 'transfer' students. Which also neatly let us get around the fact we had no formal education on this planet, or at all.
My partner for this, 2B, was the first one into the room after me. Followed soon after by 32D and 9S, I ignored them as they set up around the beds and instead turned my attention towards installing armor plating over the absurdly vulnerable windows.
Who just allows line of sight towards the place you sleep? And the door, only a simple mechanical lock? Anyone with enhanced strength, which is everyone in this academy, can just break it by twisting it. Thats getting fixed, and the door is gonna be metal.
If I increase the structural integrity of the roof I can mount turrets to the ceiling, the floors and walls need reinforced. And we need an auxiliary power generator, not to mention places to charge the androids.
I turned my gaze to the beds 9S and 32D were bouncing on, they would be my first victims. We didn't actually need more than one bed, I slept just fine standing or on the floor, and the androids only needed to sleep for the occasional maintenance cycle. No It would be much more space efficient to install a few chairs and desks with only one bed they use on rotation.
That'd free up enough space for a small fabricator. So we could manufacture ammunition and parts on site rather than waiting for deliveries from the minds. And I could add a small power generator for a laser grid defense system and some shield generators.
Yes, this dorm room would become great.
I started towards the beds with violent intent evident in my gaze.
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Teams Rwby and Jnpr paused outside the dorm room of the new transfer students. Ruby herself posed with her hand just about to knock on the wooden door frame when the sound of something that could only be a wood chipper started. Followed by a few muted explosions and the sounds of welding and the clang of a hammer on metal.
It sounded like they were busy.
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Maintenance
2B had just finished thoroughly kicking the ass of the last idiot that challenged her to a spar, this time at least not breaking any of their bones which was a great improvement from her first few fights. Restraint not being something well known to either YoRHa androids or me. And she was heading up the stairs towards our seats, I pretended not to notice 9S blatantly staring at her from under his blindfold, and ignored the fact I could somehow tell he was staring.
A thought occurred to me, the last time 2B had broken someone's arm had been when they had catcalled her before the fight, and the incident with the leg was after that same person had insulted 9S's combat prowess, assumedly on the basis of him being small, regardless of the fact that I was the single lease skilled fighter on the team.
Was 2B just beating up people that were rude? Were the injuries intentional? I shelved those questions for later as 2B finally got back to our group and sat down between 9S and I. She had a faint smile on her face as she listened to 9S complimenting her, I saw 32D roll her eyes at this before smirking at me and making a hand gesture that could only be interpreted as 'just kiss already' before she turned her attention back to the arena where a new pair of fighters were shooting at each other.
9S and 2B must have finished their mutual oblivious flirting as she turned towards me, deciding I probably needed to start paying attention to language again. I stopped my passive monitoring of my newly installed surveillance system just in time for 2B to start talking. Her relatively monotone voice reached me "my left arm has been responding at a 3 percent slower rate today, can you take a look at it later?" I gave a nod and 2B nodded in return, we had such lovely conversations, before she turned her attention towards scanning the classroom for any threats and I did the same via my turrets, drones, and hidden cameras.
The amount of hijinks I saw on a daily basis from people who thought no one was watching was astounding.
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Maintenance on the androids was fairly simple, 9S was kicked out of the room, 2B took off her shirt and skirt while I opened up her synthetic skin to take a look at the metal muscles underneath. At least it was normally fairly simple, this time however we were interrupted.
The issue with my door was that it was always locked, and it would only unlock when an authorized person tried to open it. This was an issue as it prevented the thought of locking the door for anyone the androids may have authorized from occurring. And 9S and Ruby, were friends. On account of them both being team captains and young looking, I think, I didn't really pay much attention.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
This meant that Ruby had been authorized by 9S, and that I hadn't actually locked the door. So when the door opened, Ruby saw me kneeling on the ground with my face inches from 2B's shirtless chest. I had the brief thought to be thankful 2B was faced away from the door so that her mechanical nature wasn't immediately obvious.
My metal voice box started speaking while I held 2B in place to stop her instinctive turn towards the intruder. Immediately a denial of the situation began to spring from my mouth, no one could know my team was mostly robots "This isn't what it" a thought occurred as I saw Ruby's face rapidly turn the color of her namesake, most people thought 2B was just a very pretty human girl, their first thought to her naked while another student had a hand within her chest wasn't 'they must be doing maintenance on that android' it was 'wow those two are doing lewd things', no one could find out the androids were androids and I had just been given an easy cover, so it was best to just dig this hole deeper "this is exactly what it looks like" and with that I reactivated the doors magnetic lock and it slammed back shut.
I ignored 32D as she burst out laughing, instead going back to work. How would I break the news that Ruby now most likely thought me and 2B were a couple to 9S, and why was she here in the first place?
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Tanks and Bikes
32D had developed something of a fascination with armored vehicles, Especially the tanks the engineer had given to YoRHa. Sure they couldn't do as much damage as a flight suit, and they weren't anything like as nimble. But there was something about being inside a thirty ton brick of metal with multiple cannons attached and running over massive swarms of grimm or machines at 120 mph that was just satisfying.
It was this fascination that led to her requesting their beacon vehicle to be a tank rather than the mobile troop carrier and factory they were originally going to take. The argument that the engineer was more than capable of serving as a factory in a pinch and that the tank's artillery could prove useful had won out in the end. And now she had a massive armored death machine in Beacon's garage.
It made an odd sort of sense she'd strike up friendship with Yang, both prided themselves on taking hits meant for others, both loved vehicles, and both loved blowing things up. Though that last one went for most huntsmen, in fact it went for most people.
None the less it was a fairly often that you'd see a tank and a motorcycle racing around on the roads near Beacon.
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Un-armored combat
Combat class had to be my least favorite class, not only did I have to waste ammunition I was also exposing some of my tactics and weapons to potential enemies. Sure I could get better at fighting, but killing my enemies with long range bombardment and then bombarding them some more just to make sure has always worked out. And if at any point it doesn't work out I'm not going to do more damage by booping something with a sword.
I much preferred the weapons and dust classes. Where they taught us how to make mechashift weapons and I got to mess around with all the androids swords and make them into gun swords. It being the only way to have 2B actually have a long range weapon.
I especially hated how in the combat course I wasn't allowed to use my armor, at least not anymore. Apparently there had been too much 'collateral damage' when I had fired all those missiles. And how I wasn't actually learning anything when I just had my suit use combat programing on its own to deal with hand to hand fights after I had been banned from using explosives.
I didn't make my body so durable and strong so I could fight with it, I made it so durable and strong so I could run away with it. Preferably out of the blast radius of the artillery I call in.
The only one worse than me is Jaune, and that's because he's basically a baseline human, and he's rapidly catching up to me.
So when Goodwitch called me down because some dude with a mace wanted to fight me, something about me being a purple blooded freak. I was just annoyed and irritated.
I don't feel like I can be blamed for what happened next, not really. I mean huntsmen can use their semblances in a fight, so I figured I could use my engineer magic in one.
The actual fight was fairly simple, a man with a mace tries to hit me. I use enhanced cognition and speed to dodge and watch as the strike shatters the concrete, I make note of the level of force and the relative ease he delivered the strike to make an estimate of his strength, he pivots from his previous attack and tries to swing at me again, I bend at the waist and let it fly over me. He uses his free hand to punch me in the stomach, my shield negates the blow and my muscles lock to prevent me from falling or staggering. I use my shield to grab his feet and pull, he falls onto a knee and I pour concrete from within myself while pulling up the armored floor to encase him.
That ended the fight, I didn't use explosives, I didn't just make a wall of turrets, I didn't just harden the air in his mouth so he couldn't breathe, I didn't use my shields to harden his blood, I didn't turn his weapon into a liquid, I fought relatively normally and used my ability in a fairly standard way.
Perfectly non violent way to take someone down. So what if I left him there and Goodwitch had to dig him out of 9 inches of concrete, he was rude. And I left him a few minutes of air.