Sometimes to tell the best lies, you have to believe in them just a little bit.
Today Kei was a conductor. A master of tickets, a local of the locomotive, and a champion of steam. Wait. Trains didn’t run on steam nowadays. Or did they ever? It’s hard to tell when studying different things for a role. Well, as long as nobody asked, Kei was a conductor, and a darned handsome one at that.
Donning her signature faux moustache and a pretty small sized uniform to fit her light frame, Kei neatly placed the hat on her slickly combed hair and proceeded out to collecting tickets for the day. That’s what conductors did, didn’t they? Except...there were no real passengers on board except for typical train staff and some oddly militarized robots. Well, there were the students and the professor but maybe they already got covered. Damn this job was tricky.
Instead of going ahead to the on passenger cart on the dust filled train, Kei just made her way out to the corridor connections and rested her back across the door in between the trains, staring out into the red leafy mess that was Forever Fall. Taking a moment to appreciate the view, Kei silently judged the streets of her memories to the mellow cascade of leaves that painted the forest red. From barely functional streets, to hard concrete jungles, and then one lair to another,and then finally a school, she had made quite a ruckus in every place she was ever in and nobody even knew who she was. A bittersweet smile arose on her lips, past the bushy moustache, and she sneezed as the prickly hairs tickled her nose and sent the thing flying off past the car.
That was fine, she guessed, she wasn’t going to miss it anyways. Besides, why can’t a girl be a conductor for once? What name should she go for? Red? Ruby? Crimson? Damned these leaves she couldn’t think of anything but red...Fine. Red it is. Red…Bark...Not exactly a good name, a rather dumb one at that, but it was probably not gonna be much of a problem since nobody asked conductors for names. Though why she was on a train was another story all together, something she had yet to confirm before acting.
"Ali, just what are you planning this time..."
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In the passenger car of the Crimson Express, Professor William Nox, Illustrious dust genius extraordinaire, was busy giving tweaks to one of his many odd bots, that he so conveniently named 0ddB0ts, while four other students were promptly sitting across him as well. Next to him were several machines and gadgets that even he didn’t need at the time, but there were so many that they practically filled his side of the train. Unlike the passenger dedicated ones, the car he was currently on had no dedicated rooms and all seats were in the same open space with a bit of walking space in between. On his side he pretty much hogged them all with one set of seats holding his massive wrench, while the others hand whirring machines that seemed like they might fall apart at any moment.
The train just arrived in forever fall not too long ago and he was tasked to chaperone four huntsmen-in-training from Beacon and Atlas. Given his previous dabbles in the latter Academy, and the fact that saying no would just get people up in airs and ruin his precious work time, he agreed to taking in no more than 4 students from both schools.
The students weren’t really given a briefing though save for the rather generic message on their scrolls reading:
Mission XXXXXXXX
Escort
Task: Guard Porter Train Crimson Express to its Destination
Date: XX_XX_XX
Several smaller details were listed below the message with the train name and destination, the cargo, that being dust and some weapons of sorts, and local possible grimm types they might encounter. Nothing seemed to out of the ordinary for a plain escort mission for their year levels though couldn’t they have relied on their defenses for that? Perhaps they were just being paranoid or maybe they had some info they weren’t sharing. Whatever it was Professor Nox didn’t seem to care and continued tweaking his odd spider-shaped robot as a single propeller drone ran itself into a corner.
“Biscuits, I need to fix the depth sensors on that one.” he groaned, dropping a screw and then scrambling after it with an extendable doohickey. He blabbered on to himself regarding sensors and screws and all sorts of incoherent technobabble which even the most advanced dust and mechanic student would have trouble comprehending before dropping the spider bot to the floor and walking over to the dead drone.
“But first...coffee.”
Wrenching his...well, wrench off the seat beside him, he plopped the thing rightside up and began dispensing some rich dark liquid from a small compartment on the side. One sip. Ugh, too greasy, but it should do. And then he downed the thing in one go, going back to working on the oddbot on the ground.