RWBY||Defender of Remnant

Chapter 31: Brunswick Farms

3rd Person POV

Argus

"Are you sure it's safe to be flying in weather like this?" Maria Calavera asked, the elderly woman eying the inside of Sincline's vessel with a mixture of wariness and curiosity. After Sincline had introduced himself, he had checked the elderly woman for any injuries using his scanners (much to Maria's protest). Luckily, there were none, but a massive blizzard had rolled in, forcing them to take cover in Sincline's primary ship.

Sincline shrugged, glancing back at her. "My ship was able to fly through the surface of a sun, and the inside only heated up 20 degrees," he assured. "We'll be fine. Trust me."

"If you say so, but for the life of me, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that aliens are actually real," Maria commented and poked his shoulder with her staff. "Are you sure you aren't here to take over the world?"

Sincline's eye twitched as he replied for the ninth time that he wasn't there to conquer Remnant, enslave the Faunus, search for a Cube, hunt humans, phone home, terraform Remnant by igniting all their volcanoes, lay eggs in someone's chest, or attack all the famous cities and landmarks with oversized discs. It's official. People on Remnant watch WAY too many alien movies, he thought, a shiver running down his spine as he recalled how many times Yang had brought up that last one after he and the rest of Team RWBY went to the theaters to watch Independence Day. Now that I think about it, why can't humans and Faunus get along like they did in the movie? he wondered. They both have a common enemy, so why can't they just set apart their differences and—

An alert flashed, catching his attention, and Sincline turned his gaze to where one of his screens was flashing red. What in the...? Frowning, Sincline tapped the screen, causing the alert to die down as he read its contents.

"What is it?" Maria asked, her goggles clicking to adjust as she followed Sincline's gaze to the report passed down by his ship's scanners.

"I'm picking up human readings fifty clicks north of Argus," Sincline replied, his ship slowing to a halt as he enlarged the screen for Maria to see. "They're coming from a village known as Brunswick Farms."

"Well, people usually live in villages, so what's so strange about that?" Maria asked, not really seeing the problem.

"There shouldn't be anything strange about it," Sincline agreed. "But the signatures are... well, they're barely there. And they're decreasing."

"Hmm... maybe your sensors are faulty," Maria proposed.

Sincline shook his head. "I already ran 156 diagnostics. The readings are—" He blinked, staring at the screen in confusion. "Wait a minute...."

"I was right!" Maria proclaimed.

"That's not it!" Sincline snapped, closing his eyes as he finally realized why Blake and Weiss might find Yang... annoying at times. How the Quiznak—Know what? Never mind. Shaking his head, he reprojected the screen so that it was hovering above his open palm. "The human signatures are still decreasing, but I just picked up a flicker of something else... something Grimm."

At that, both he and Maria fell silent. Encountering Grimm outside the Kingdom's borders wasn't surprising. But twice in a row within minutes of each other?

"We should check it out," Maria decided, tapping her cane on the floor of Sincline's vessel with a tone of 'I have spoken.' "I may be a little older than I used to be, but rest assured, I still know how to carve a Grimm seven ways from Sunday!" she proclaimed.