So, on the NSFW and on SB I was kicking around the idea of cyborg Whitley for Whiter Rose purposes. To reiterate here, my premise follows the idea that the White fang target the Schnee family car/limo/motorcade/convoy/whatever and Whitley suffers a near/direct impact or two from their rockets. Jacques, being himself decides to have the Atlesian taxpayers foot the bill for getting Whitley a new body that isn't 97% charred hamburger by threatening the Army/public infrastructure's Dust supply. Ironwood agrees, but he attaches a condition. Either A) Whitley works for the Atlesian army as an R&D contractor or B) completes a tour of duty. Jacques agrees to the former, thinking it will earn him inside knowledge of what goes on at Atlas DARPA.
Ironwood then goes to Pietro (or whichever other scientist that Atlas DARPA keeps on for their projects that are either questionably military or questionably ethical and tells him to cram as much crap in as he possibly can. Whitley comes out as a cross between Raiden from Metal Gear and Adam Smasher from Cyberpunk - at least in his Ice Dragon frame ("Yeah, real creative there, Count"). His non-fieldwork frame is a bit more 9S-sized. And I kind of based all of his weapons off of Adam's kit. Concealed guns in the arms, shoulder mounted missile battery, and Hagelsturm - A 4-gauge gatling autoshotgun with a modular side-mount that can take a dust cannon, AGL, or rocket launcher. And of course the whole thing mechashifts; becoming a rocket-hammer with a three-cone drill on the head in place of the solid mass like what the Crushers have in MGR:R - Yeah it is literally most of Adam's weapons put together. He can still one-hand it in his bishounen frame, it is just that said frame is only 5'3" (160cm) and the gun is 4'9" (145cm) - and that's gun form, hammer form is closer to eight feet in length. His sidearm, the thing he's more likely to carry in... well I shouldn't say that, both of his frames make Ruby lick her lips and think devious thoughts... is an HF version of the functional, real-life conversion of Fire-Emblem's Armorslayer. And of course, it mechashifts into an anti-tank revolver that fires something between 14.5x114 and 23x152mmB. Haven't decided a name for it yet. Other weapons on the Ice Dragon include superheated throwing knife holsters and maybe a chainsaw mount like Blade Wolf and a Stroheim abdominal machine gun.
Ruby, of course, finds Whitley's human frame cute and his eight foot+ tall killing machine frame with all of the hardpoints handsome. And of course, because Talon's Iron Man idea got me thinking, the Ice Dragon has thruster units in the arches of its feet (they're those high-heel/toe-claw feet Raiden has in MGR, Ruby very much approves). Nothing in the hands, but he can recoil launch himself by unhinging them and firing, maybe some shoulder thrusters like SPARTANs in Halo 5 too. He does a brief stint of field work with Clover & co. And in the run-up to the Vytal festival, Ruby unlocks his Aura. His personality is not exactly like in canon. His sense of self-assured superiority and entitlement was vaporized by the 4.5 kg OKFOL warheads. And I can see him using affected personas in training exorcises or actual combat. I picture his first meeting with Winter (a training exorcise for her and a test for him shortly after his conversion to see how a Specialist-Colonel squares up with Atlas' most advanced cyborg, it is also how Winter finds out about the attack) with a visor like Raiden's shunked over his face and giving her the LQ-84i bit. At the same time I can see him fighting the White Fang, and when they break and start to run he yells "None leave the slaughterhouse. Not alive." Whereas, off the clock he comes off as a bit more... whimsical... perhaps like not so much as a stuffier version Iron Man 1 Tony Stark (pre-borg/non-borg timelines), but a more juvenile Tony.
Of course, Whitley's prowess in company management grows exponentially, thanks to all of his additional processing power and his ability to interface directly with the SDC's electronic systems and databases.
Jacques feels the pressure as even his youngest, the one most emotionally dependent on him, slips through his fingers. Because it seems that, no matter what he does, the boy just marches ever closer to ousting him from the SDC (how much of this is in his own head I leave to your imagination). Now, where did he put Watts' scroll number?
Another prompt idea I had thanks to me being myself on the NSFW:
Either somebody cocks up with a really powerful Semblance or Ozpin and Glynda try to match Qrow drinking, and now everybody's weapons have become people. Crescent Rose is the only one thus far whose personality I've settled on, and complimenting his size, he's basically Jason Voorhees. Huge, implacable, muter than Neo, and stab-a-guy-in-the-spine-so-hard-he-closes-on-your-arm-like-a-beartrap strong, the sniper scythe has decided that the criminals of Vale look a bit too much like camp councilors for his liking. And one bit is that Ruby takes on the Pamela roll a bit too well.
Moving on.
- Neo and Cinder being part of the Fall should never have left the Spiders alive!
The only explanation that I can think of is that none of the Spiders actually knew specifically who Cinder was or what she looked like. Like they must have known somebody had commandeered Roman, but not who exactly that person was. Now that begs the question why wouldn't Neo try to signal to them that Cinder is solely responsible for tanking their Vale operation before attacking her, so she could try attacking Cinder with dozens and dozens of gangsters worth of fire support (in Cinder's weakened state I believe they'd pull her down eventually).
Honestly, Torchwick would have been trying to get out of working for Cinder constantly. He's a gentleman thief, he can't be a crime lord and boss over GRIMM, now can he? I just hate how they took his character, making him into the Joker when he was far more interesting as a long suffering debonaire criminal mastermind forced to work for terrorists.
I know there are some fanfics that have tread the path of Roman betraying Cinder, but I don't think I've found a one where exactly when he fucked her over sits well with me. A good betrayal, I think to maximize efficacy, and minimize Cinder's ability to retaliate should she live would have to take place right before the Breach. Best idea I have is that he somehow signals Ozpin or Ironwood to something unspecific by leaving a note in the wrecked paladin (they'll probably see it first) then have an "accident" handling the Dust in the tunnels and making it look like he died with the countless White Fang grunts he left buried in Mountain Glenn. Then scooping up Neo hopping the next flight to either Mantle or Argus (Vacuo would probably be where Cinder would expect him to run, if ever he had to run, and he's too well-known in Mistral).
Of course there would be the problem of re-establishing himself. And I honestly haven't thought that far ahead, so I open the floor to anyone with suggestions.
Considering the order of events being reversed, I think Glynda would be a blushing mess
