52 Preparation

|Important Note|

The next day…

Ruby had skipped school, with many risks of getting apprehended by the professors. There was a complication in trying to convince Glynda that the team was not acting suspiciously in any way.

They already caught the attention of the headmaster so they thought it would be far-fetched that they could get away.

But they did get away with it. Somehow, or so Ruby had told Hanns.

Metal tools rattled on top tables as Ruby tosses back one she used recently. Merlot from another side of the cordoned-off area finishes up his own work.

They glance at each other's work with narrowed eyes. Their bombs had been made and they were confident in the work they had put in.

A moment later they drag their prototypes from their workspace and transfer them to a trolly, specially made to carry bombs of a large variety. The 1000 kg bomb variety.

It was still early in the day so they would finish their final designs by the end of the day. They only created a smaller version of what they planned on making, which they would show Hanns.

The bomb trolley rolled along the floor, and the heavy-duty equipment supporting both Merlot's and Ruby's bombs made its way to Hanns.

Merlot holds on to the handle with a relaxed grip. "Not too late to give up, let me burden myself with designing the tech and you may go back to troubling yourself with cookies and milk."

Ruby didn't flinch, her determined look steeling her willpower enough to ignore the taunt.

Hanns turned his turret to see the both of them with a model of their designs. It was their prototypes that were made to the specifications that Hanns wanted.

Hanns gestures for Merlot to take the stand and present his idea. With a smirk, he shows his creation.

"Hanns, this is a small twist on my already existing nerve agent that I used on my island. "

"It's quick and effective, the gas spreads out in a large area. A single breath and a normal person would start feeling lightheaded, soon enough another breath would render the muscles strain and struggle."

"The next step would be the complete disconnection of motor functions to voluntary movements. I needed to modify my formula for a while, so it wouldn't kill them by stopping the heart."

He reaches for his creation and opens the latch he prepared beforehand. It would be absent on the actual bomb but he needed it to show Hanns the specifics.

"For the bomb itself. Once the timer inside reaches a few seconds it would split the bomb apart. Inside it will have these."

Merlot holds up a steel ball the size of his hand, it was hefty despite being a scaled-down size.

"Each of these has the nerve agent inside them. They all detonate on impact and release the gas inside. It will cluster around an entire area and cover everything in gas."

Hanns was intrigued, it was a cluster bomb that had gas instead of explosives. A small modification but Hanns had concerns.

The mechanisms inside would make it expensive since additional parts that were inside the bomb would have complicated moving sections.

Each of the steel balls inside would also take more money out of his account. Not like he was worried about it for now. The 10x price multiplier for restocking will be painful.

The DI-APCBC he had was decently priced since it was not complicated. Ruby just added dust to it so it didn't cost to lob out tons of ammunition.

Merlot's bomb looked like a wonder of engineering but it would come with a price.

Ruby was up next for her turn to show Hanns her design. She peeks an eye at Merlot and grins with confidence.

"Heh, Merlot! Have you forgotten that Mountain Glenn has one quality as a city? It has two layers, the upper and lower layer."

She opens ur own bomb with an extravagant display. "Ehem, I present to you my masterpiece. Tada!"

Hanns looked at the insides of the bomb and was surprised to see a coincidental sight. 'Isn't that a thicker-looking APFSDS? Either it's just a big coincidence or my system is affecting them in a big way.'

"When this drops and stabilizes, it will travel through the air at high speeds. It will pierce into the top layer and go through the ground."

"The moment the tungsten tip hits the ground, the softer metal around the bomb will deform and secure the hollowed core inside."

"The fuse will trigger the moment it hits the ground and starts leaking out gas. It's the same as Melot's gas but I used win dust at the back to make it spread out faster rather than letting it settle."

"There is no complicated machinery in this since it is designed to release gas like your shells, Hanns. So no misfires can happen while it goes through the air until it could hit something hard enough to resist it."

Hanns nodded, 'The underground area was certainly harder for gas to spread and where Cinder would likely be.'

"I'll use them both but I will use Merlot's design as a default."

Ruby had a betrayed look in her eyes. "What! But- but… why?!"

"Not everyone is going to hide underground and with thick armor. Yours relies on the tip and fuse piercing enough material for it to activate which is perfect for Mountain Glenn but Merlot can cover a lot of areas."

"For general use, I'd prefer Merlot's although it needs to be simplified. I can commend you for making it simple in design but it's still good."

Hanns left Ruby and Merlot, turning to Torchwick who was watching the display.

"Hmph, don't let beat yourself about it Red. It's still good in certain circumstances. Now then, Hanns and I will be heading back to Vale to appropriate some materials for you both to finish the final design."

Ruby appreciated the comment on her bomb but still sulked since she was certain that Merlot was going to start laughing at her for not being chosen for the bomb.

Ruby prepared herself to receive Merlot's taunting but it didn't arrive. 'Nothing at all?'

She turns her head to see Merlot closely inspecting her bomb prototype. He fiddled with it while stroking his chin.

"I seem to have forgotten to incorporate dust in my own design. I was too focused on perfecting the mechanism that I wanted for my cluster bombs."

"Though I recommend making where the tungsten tip meets with the hollow part of the bomb into softer and malleable metal. It'll make it easier for it to snap off once it pierces something to make sure the gas releases without problems."

Merlot assessed Ruby's creation seemingly without putting down her self-esteem at failing to be picked by Hanns. Ruby took out her scroll and started taking down notes.

Merlot returns to his own bomb trolley. "I've underestimated you. Ha! Looks like you do your craft well."

Ruby felt elated at the praise. "Of course! Nothing gets in between me and making weapons, especially for Hanns."

"I can see that a brilliant mind would do best to be fostered rather than inhibited. If we are working for the perfect specimen I can see us working well, if only we could replicate this tank."

Merlot sighs, "I ran the numbers, current technologies wouldn't even move the almost 60 tonnes that Hanns weighed without breaking. I simulated it while on my capture on how the chassis would handle the strain, I found out that it breaks after traveling for only a few kilometers."

Ruby remembers Hanns giving her team plus Neo r own tank. "About that, Hanns can make tanks of his own appear out of nowhere. There is this pop-up hologram that assigns us to positions."

"At first, we didn't even know how to operate it but Hanns somehow made us experts in a moment. Mechanical breakdowns didn't occur which was amazing to me."

"When we suffered damage and reported it to Hanns, it would self-repair without any input from us. The ammunition also restocked after we beat up a bunch of grimm."

"Oh! And there is this thing where we can push our semblance through the tank itself."

Merlot claps slowly. "I knew it, we truly are entering a new age. If all that you said is true then perhaps we have a chance to move humanity into a golden age if Hanns can utilize his weaponry to eradicate the grimm at a steady pace."

"Well, ours isn't sentient but I get your point. Why are you so obsessed with Hanns anyway?"

Merlot looks at the bombs and back at Ruby. "I saw that we were never going to win our war against the grimm, so of course, the only reasonable answer was to turn the grimm into better lifeforms to control them and save remnant. Call me an idealist but it was a good plan."

"I would use the grimm to destroy the grimm."

"Those ignorant fools that rejected my idea didn't believe I can make it work. I just needed enough time and resources for more experiments and I would eventually create the serum I needed to control my mutated grimm effectively."

Ruby grimaces at the ludicrous thoughts of Merlot, he was certainly a madman to Ruby but she wanted to know more. "What made you stop?"

"The existence of Hanns, that could not break, can not feel pain, had the firepower to overwhelm grimm with ease, easily transform itself into an airborne form and perhaps much more made me change my idea."

"The answer was not of flesh and bone but of steel and machine." Merlot thought out loud.

Ruby started heading back to their workspace from earlier, bringing along her bomb prototype. She stops at her table and brings up her bomb with a crane. "Alright, let's get to work."

Merlot does the same thing and an idea came to him the moment he started to let up his own creation to the table. "We should start sharing our ideas around."

Ruby felt her head jerk upward at the recommendation. "Aren't we in a competition? Giving out our ideas to one another would make it less of a competition."

Merlot was confident that he could do much better, if he had not forgotten about dust and its application then maybe he could have improved his version much better. To his mind, Hanns was right in aspects.

Merlot and his bomb were too overengineered for now and he needed to take inspiration from Ruby to make it less convoluted. His overemphasis on the mechanical parts made him narrow his ideas by a lot.

"If we give each other ideas then maybe I could make a better product. I'll make my shield better than yours, like how Hanns chose my bomb design over yours."

Ruby smiles. "Bring it."

They both bring up their scrolls and layout blank blueprints. They eye each other and pop open a marker they would use. They stare at each other for a while, a single leaf landed right in front of them as they rushed to finish their designs.

They scribbled up numbers and brainstormed ideas, using Hanns as a template to integrate a hard-light shield. There was only one generator that was acquisitioned by Hanns during his stay on Merlot's Island, so they would use that as a basis as well.

They would finish their designs for both the new bombs and hard-light shields by today and would stay up all night to create the thing. It would be on a tight schedule but since they already had the generator at hand, they only needed a few adjustments to create it.

Hanns flew back to Vale occasionally and returned to some unnamed location where Ruby and Merlot were secretly making their own designs for Hanns to use. It reached late into the night before they finished and showed the final prototypes to Hanns who was happy with it.

Eventually, both Ruby and Merlot worked on the generator without competing anymore, the time restraint would force them to work together. Arguments broke out but they led to improvements.

Hanns received everything by the end of the day and was ready. Neo already took the entire day to confirm and sneak around Mountain Glenn. It was her expertise so it didn't take long to figure out that Cinder was indeed present in Mountain Glenn.

Hanns, Torchwick, Merlot, and Ruby finished packing the finished bombs in the docking bay of Hanns' bomber. Both were heavy enough to require the creation of equipment just to carry them to the bomb bay.

As soon as they finalized the preparation, Hanns closed the entire bomber and could see the notification popping out. As the system processes the new ammunition type.

[Notice: Ammunition Modification Available]

[Apply?]

'Certainly.'

[Paralysis Inducing Payload R-series detected.]

[Paralysis Inducing Payload M-series detected.]

'Looks good, now we just wait for the rest of team RWBY to arrive after dealing with Emerald and Mercury. The message Neo sent us means we can now strike.'

The rustling of leaves made them all look toward the source of the noise. The near darkness made it hard for them all to notice if its the rest of team RWBY arriving. Eventually, they could see figures slowly walking toward them.

Only for Hanns to look in surprise at the addition of five more people. Mercury and Emerald were also present but were knocked out as Hanns wanted. What he didn't want though was someone he definitely warned them to not get the attention of.

There, right in between a mortified Weiss, Blake, and Yang was the headmaster himself. While another team was now present.

"Well, Glynda certainly didn't want me to come face to face with you. You indeed changed a lot from the last time I saw you. It's our first time officially meeting, isn't it... Hanns?"

Team JNPR stood there like they saw their lives flash before their eyes as Hanns suddenly moved closer to Ozpin. Gunbarrel pointed at them while Hanns processed the downright horrendous sight of more people witnessing him.

He turned to Weiss who Hanns assigned to be the temporary leader while Ruby was away. His gears from within sounded through the night, signaling to Weiss that she was going to die from Hanns.

"What... the fuck... happened?"

Weiss went for a dogeza and practically implanted her forehead to the ground as she started apologizing profusely. She muttered a whole paragraph that she might have been practicing on their walk of shame going to Hanns.

Hanns tuned most of it out since he was now focusing on Ozpin smiling at him. Blake interrupts Weiss' constant apologies and strides in front.

"Well...it's a long story"