30 Meet the Team
Blake was currently taking down notes during class. Weiss insisted that everyone on the team should be able to take down their own notes rather than just asking her for them. Blake didn't mind since she finally fixed her sleeping schedule last week.
Ruby and Yang on the other hand were now dying from the nonsensical and over-the-top stories that their professor, Peter Port, was telling. Blake admits that whenever he spoke, it just had an area of effect attack that made anyone weak enough to suddenly feel sleepy.
As she was scribbling down, a voice suddenly entered her head.
"You know the place." A familiar voice spoke.
'Hanns? It's been a week!'
Simple words were spoken, she knew who was speaking and what that meant. She could finally get another secret off her mind. Blake planned to bring the team over during lunch and introduce them to Hanns.
Blake turned to the teammates sitting nearby. Ruby was already doodling instead of taking down notes while Yang was playing with her hair and stared at anywhere but the professor in front. Weiss was diligently taking down the story their professor was telling, an irritated look on her face presumably because of Ruby and Yang.
Blake nudged Ruby to get her attention and coughed lightly at the rest. The team takes notice and listen closely to what she was going to say.
"Stay at the hall after this class, I have something important to tell."
Blake turns back to the lecture happening while the rest of team RWBY looked at each other and shrugged at the request. Blake was always the quiet type in public so they just accepted the fact that Blake didn't elaborate further.
The class finally ends and the students race out of the room, thankful that they survived their professor's long lecture while team RWBY meets up in the hallway.
"Explain." Weiss urged Blake to get to the point.
"We're going to meet the friend I told you guys about last week. He said to meet up at Forever Fall, you can all just follow me when we take a bullhead there." Blake was the only one who knew of the spot between her teammates which meant that she had to lead the team after leaving the bullhead.
"Can't we wait until our free days? We have combat class and I don't want to miss lunch over this." Weiss complained. Using up aura and fighting took a lot of energy, so it was important that students would eat their fill during lunch.
"Don't be a downer, Weiss. I'm sure a lot of us want to meet this mysterious friend of Blake." Yang winks. Misunderstanding why Blake couldn't introduce Hanns normally. Blake only sighs at Yang.
"Hmph, hardly. We still have classes so why don't you postpone it until later down the line?" Weiss said.
"Why don't we put it to a vote then?" Blake suggests.
All of team RWBY raise their hands except for Weiss. Weiss visibly gets bothered by the obvious intention to make her follow the group.
"Argh! You know how unfair that is to me!" She grumbles.
Yang smiles at the defeated Weiss.
"I love democracy."
"So it's settled then. We take a bullhead to Forever Fall and skip lunch to formally meet my friend." Everyone nods with Weiss doing the same but in a more reluctant manner.
"But! Please… don't die on me." Blake locks eyes with Ruby.
"What?" Ruby was confused at what Blake said.
"Just do your best to stay conscious."
Blake urges the rest of the team to head towards their next class while Ruby stayed behind to contemplate the warning.
The ominous statement just made Ruby scrunch up her face in response.
Lunch arrives and team RWBY head on towards the school's bullheads. After they take one headed for Forever Fall they depart and travel through the familiar red landscape.
"So are you actually going to explain or keep being mysterious and all?" Yang was curious about her partner's way of talking about the friend she had.
"No, I just can't explain it without me sounding like I came from an insane asylum," Blake explained.
It was reasonable to think that. Who knows how people would react if you told them you had a vehicle as a friend that you called by name? As well as that vehicle is the same one demolishing an entire area within the city and destroying a part of Atlas' military. Not to mention that it can transform and all the other supernatural-sounding abilities it had.
The rest of team RWBY only looked at each other and questioned what Blake meant. It was getting way too suspicious but it also piqued their interest.
"We're here." A large clearing in the forest was to be where they would meet Hanns.
"So, where is he?" There was no one in sight, so Yang had to ask if this was where they actually needed to meet.
"Do you hear that?" Ruby asks the team. It was a noise that she recognized like a car idling nearby.
"What is it, Rubes?" Yang asks.
"I don't know, it kinda sounds like an engine." Ruby cups her ears to hear the sound coming from somewhere.
"Looks like he's arriving." Blake's ears twitch and she looks towards the sky where a plane was now heading towards the clearing.
"That's a weird-looking bullhead."
"Weiss, I don't think it's a bullhead." Ruby squints at the plane getting closer.
Blake grabs a hold of the team and makes them stay clear of where Hanns would land. Making sure to get enough distance to let Hanns land without clipping someone accidentally.
A few minutes pass and the plane lands roughly in the dirt but stops and lands safely in the forest.
Blake smiles and waves towards the plane, not noticing the girl sitting in the cockpit.
"Umm, Blake?" Yang asks.
"Yes?" Blake responds.
"I didn't know you were into femboys." Yang points at Neo who was getting out of the bi-plane.
Neo at this point was disguised and left her usual Neopolitan appearance and used her semblance to have black hair tied into twin tails accompanied by green eyes and a matching set of black clothes.
"Huh?!" Blake squeals as Yang suddenly grabs Blake's shoulders and lowers her head.
"Blake, tell me, is that person your friend? You keep calling her- er him as a male friend so I think I know what's going on. I know you got extreme tastes but-"
"What? No, I don't know her! It's that!" Blake makes Yang look at the bi-plane that Neo was in.
The team looks at the unmoving bi-plane while Neo waves at Blake. Yang slowly releases her partner's shoulder and backs away slowly, thinking she'd lost her mind.
"Hanns! Don't mess with them like that."
Silence only followed as the rest of team RWBY followed Yang's example and also backed away slowly.
Hanns at this moment felt sorry for making Blake look like an insane person so he switched vehicles right in front of the team.
The sudden introduction of metal breaking made the team freeze as they looked towards the plane slowly transforming into the Tiger H1.
After a mechanical hiss exited and signaled the end of Hanns' transformation, team RWBY was completely awestruck at the machine. Yang whistles as she sees the impressive vehicle that transformed.
"So that's what you meant by not being able to explain properly."
Weiss was completely surprised, mouth agape at Hanns. Her icy exterior and serious-looking face broke in the presence of Hanns' sudden appearance.
*THUD*
Everyone looked towards the back to see Ruby on the floor with her hand clutching her heart while wheezing loudly.
"Ruby, no! Stay with me!" Yang was currently slapping her little sister to snap her out of whatever Ruby was currently experiencing.
Blake shook off her team leader's sudden trip to the afterlife and walked toward Hanns.
"Good to see you back, Hanns."
"Sup, so you patched things up with your team?" Radio chatter was heard from the tank.
"It can talk?!" Weiss screamed loud enough for the birds to be startled.
"Ruby is flat-lining!" Yang spoke in the background.
"So, are you going to introduce me to her?" Blake motions her hand towards the disguised Neo.
'Oh, so Neo hasn't met team RWBY yet.' Hanns thought.
"Right, Blake this is Neo, and Neo this is Blake, Ru-"
Hanns stopped himself, almost forgetting that this was supposed to be their first meeting and he shouldn't know who they are.
"I met her on my way to Mountain Glenn." Hanns recovered from his close slip-up.
"Hanns, Neo, these are my friends and teammates."
Each team member gave a short introduction to Neo and Hanns except for Ruby who was still unconscious and had foam forming in her mouth.
"Pardon me for asking but what exactly are you?" Weiss hadn't seen anything like Hanns was. An unusual-looking machine with the ability to talk and be sentient.
"Ghost tank " was Hanns' immediate reply.
"I find that hard to believe."
"Wanna bet?"
Weiss stares at the machine moving its turret around, hearing the gears inside turn while the radio chatter that Hanns' voice was made off echoed in her mind.
"Nevermind."
Hanns could now test out the crew and squad functions. He opened the help page to ask the moderator a question.
'Moderator, how do I assign them as a crew?'
[Set their positions and name the tank you own.]
It was relatively simple which begged Hanns to question why this wasn't on the help page.
'You should really make the help page better, moderator.' A few seconds passed before he got a response.
[...No.]
Hanns was disappointed but he expected this from the moderator and focused on making the crew.
Meanwhile, Ruby had recovered from the shock and was holding on to Yang for support.
Hanns opened his hud and looked at the crew labeled "#1" and assigned members to it.
'Ruby as the loader, Weiss as commander, Blake as a radio operator, Yang as driver, and Neo as the gunner.' Hanns then picked Pz. IV H from his tech tree.
As soon as Hanns confirmed his choices, each member of team RWBY and Neo suddenly stared wide-eyed at the pop up that appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
"Hanns what is this?" Blake spoke up.
"Just click on it."
Everyone confirms the pop up that showed up and suddenly a bright white light bursts from the sky.
The Pz.IV H materializes and lands loudly nearby.
*THUD*
Ruby's eyes turned white and face planted as she saw the sudden appearance of another military grade armored vehicle.
"Ruby, no!"
Since Hanns already figured out how to get a crew, he would now be able to refer to the help page on the rest of what he needed to know.
The garage would keep the tanks while the crew were away. He just needed to disband the crew again.
"Could you all go inside the tank? I just need to test stuff out."
The team followed Hanns' request and went inside the hatch of their respective positions.
"Alright, hold on."
Hanns started driving away from the clearing. He reached a distance that he thought was far enough before trying to talk with Blake.
"Blake, can you hear me? Use the radio and respond if you can."
Hanns stopped to think and realized he'd forgotten the most important step, crew training
4,194,203 → 4,156,203 SL
"Could you try again?"
Blake was about to get out of the tank to tell Hanns in person that she didn't know how to use the radio before she felt something change in her mind.
She acted on muscle memory and could do the correct adjustments to the radio and could talk back to Hanns.
"Loud and clear, Hanns." Blake responds.
"Great, tell the team to drive around and shoot somewhere. Wake Ruby up before you do."
Yang felt like she had driven the tank for years and could somehow feel like she could maneuver around easily.
She didn't even have a license or drive a car before. Her motorcycle was the closest thing.
"Ruby, wake up! You're going to miss the best part!" Yang shouts at her startled little sister.
"Wuh, Yang? Where am I?"
"Enough about that, let's test this puppy out. Weiss, you're the commander, tell us where to go."
"Why'd you pick Weiss to be commander anyways?" Blake asked.
"She's good at barking orders and I think Ruby would like it better if she was the loader." Hanns explained.
"Hey!"
"He's right, you know?" Blake answered.
"Fine."
Weiss opens the commander's hatch and spots an isolated tree they could shoot down.
Weiss felt something pulling on her brain before she yelled out a command for the team to follow.
"Driver, advance and stop at my word."
Yang follows and slowly brings the tank forward before hearing another command.
"Stop."
Weiss takes another look at the tree.
"Load APCBC. Gunner, nine o'clock 400 meters ahead. Fire at my word."
Ruby suddenly snaps out of her confusion and like a machine, inserts the shell type she was asked to load in without hesitation.
Neo follows the command and turns the turret to her left and spots the isolated tree in the distance.
"Fire!"
Neo shoots the gun as the entire tank pushes backwards from the recoil. The shell hits the tree accurately and punches a hole straight through.
Hanns was satisfied with the results and went back to the group who was shocked by how they knew how to operate the whole tank without needing to learn anything.
"You all are probably confused but trust me that I'll tell you when you have the time. By the way you're going to be late for class."
Weiss looks at her watch.
"We need to get back! Drive- I mean Yang can we catch the next bullhead in this thing?" Weiss said with panic.
"Sorry girls but you need to leave it here, we don't want anyone finding a group of teenagers handling a weapon of mass destruction." Hanns warned.
Team RWBY quickly exits the tank and speeds off back towards Vale. Weiss uses her glyphs to speed up the group.
Neo calmly removes her semblance and rests herself on top of Hanns' Tiger H1.
Hanns returns the Pz. IV H and disbands the crew which makes the tank disappear. Hanns stared at the city and nodded at the knowledge he acquired in this hour.
'That was informative.'
