No Man's Land

by Kerberos314

"What you're telling me is like a fairytale. A world of monsters and hunters, gods and magic." "Yet you're willing to bet your life on this 'War to End all Wars?" "You know what they say, when something sounds too good to be true…" Team RWBY experiences the Great War. This is not a kid's show. (No established pairings... yet?)

12. My Time Again

Holy cannoli- we made it everyone! New year!

Ah, but we are far from done. We have to work to make it a good year.

In that respect, I want to work on myself. But I need help. If you want this story to continue, improve, or whatnot, I would greatly benefit from input. Even if it's just to tell me 'good job' or 'I hope you're charged on a war crime for this piece of s**t you've written' (no one has insulted me yet, but if you are considering it, it would be nice if it were entertaining).

But really, you guys have been awesome and I appreciate all of you.

Right you lot, now git yer hands out o' yet pockets and feck off!

---

December 1st , 1917

Approximately 6 months after translocation.

This was it.

Before, she'd been blindsided by the responsibility. The heady elation at having survived what had, until then, been one of the hardest trials of her young life was almost immediately superseded by the nigh-insurmountable responsibility of managing three people who were older and presumably more experienced than herself- that one was her sister notwithstanding.

Seeing this latest development coming like a cavalry charge across the horizon, knowing it was all but inevitable didn't make it any easier.

One-hundred-seventy-six: People whom she didn't know nearly as intimately, who were as much strangers as Blake had been, as potentially standoffish as Weiss and as… rough around the edges as her sister. Who were they? Why were they here? And most importantly, what made them want to stand by her?

-To consider dying next to her?

And just as before, she wasn't ready. She wasn't- oh Gods was she not prepared for this. As far as she'd come, as much as she'd seen, she'd never really be ready.

But come Hell or High Water, she would try.

It was a murky day, clouds bristling with precipitation. The ground had already been soaked by snow and rain on and off for weeks as Winter refused to make up its mind. Melting and then freezing again, the only constant was mud so tenacious that one could never be completely rid of it. Like party glitter it lined the pockets of her brand-new uniform; she grimaced as her fingers brushed up against the soggy crumbs while she attempted to keep her hands warm.

What she wouldn't give to have a nice, steaming mug of cocoa or fresh-baked cookie… sadly, nothing that she could afford to live without. She'd even learned to tolerate coffee without sugar if only for the warmth it provided on those mornings where she really, really did not want to get up.

Of course, she would anyway, regardless. She owed it to those assiduous soldiers who were supposedly under her protection, but who made to dote on her as if she were the finickiest of houseplants. Somehow they managed to scrounge up little treats for her out of what seemed like thin air, always managing to bring her fresh milk so that she didn't have to endure their brutish coffee unadulterated, even if they hadn't seen a cow or resupply for days. If ever she found a can condensed milk waiting by her cot, she would have no choice but to believe that an alternative wasn't possible.

And if they could do so much with so little, surely she could bear a little hardship. Surely, she ought to be able to accomplish the impossible.

Granted, it wasn't all that cold at the moment. If there were sun, it would actually be a pretty nice day, especially with the silk-lined wool of her dress uniform blocking most of the chilly breeze that tipped the scales ever so slightly against bearable.

But if the sun were out, they wouldn't have had to be standing here like some Holiday display for almost an hour now. The photographer kept making them wait; everything had to be perfect for their official Company portrait- not like their team picture which Ruby had been able to poach during a rare moment when her teammates were both together and unaware.

Ah, how she missed that- both the framed picture which hopefully still sat somewhere near her bedside, as well as the peacefulness they shared in Remnant.

Funny. She hadn't actually thought about "home" for a while now- the word itself feeling more conceptual since Beacon had been her 'home' for only a scant few weeks before the subsequent number of barns, barracks and flop houses. Home had become a province of the mind, more than a state or building. Not that she'd given up hope of returning, just that… other things had become important as well.

Things Ruby never would have pictured herself doing were now all but necessary for her to adhere to; Right now she had to remain controlled and dignified- and not just because it would cause them indeterminable trouble from their military sponsors if she were to 'bollox' this up. If not them, then Lt. Daguerre whose constantly runny nose and perpetually harried nerves stood as a reminder just a few paces from her right shoulder.

Because, really, this picture wasn't just for them, but for them: the numerous officers and other ranks posted dutifully on the stone steps behind her, each representing a dozen or so average soldiers who needed something more substantial than a vague understanding of moral righteousness or arbitrary command from on high. They needed a tangible symbol. They needed… something.

Only the cameraman would be able to see her bite her lip as Ruby stood uncomfortably in the front row. And he was erstwhile focused on the clouds, hoping for a break.

Ruby wasn't sure if she could be their something. She wasn't an archangel, hadn't even been a full-fledged huntress by the time she'd been taken away from Beacon, from the place that was supposed to give her the tools so that someday she might have been ready.

'… but, ultimately, it is up to you, to take the first step.'

This… this was it, wasn't it?

With a huff of impatience- mostly towards herself- Ruby began to shift back and forth, rock up on the balls of her feet and back to her heels to try and get some blood moving. It was all she could do with her partner and Lt. Daguerre at her elbows, preventing her from pacing by reminding her how it would be viewed as unseemly and discouraging. Also, tromping around in the wet dirt would also ruin the buff of her thigh-high, pebbled leather boots which she rather liked. The footwear had been a gift from her 'fellow' officers and a true godsend for the mud.

On the other hand, she was becoming less enamored with her battle-skirt. Sure, she had all but requested it from the military tailor who had refused to make anything shorter than knee-height. But she had since discovered that it still did not do much for the wind which snuck its icy fingers between its hem and the top of her boots- a most uncomfortable sensation in every way.

The hands which enshrouded her shoulders from behind were nothing short of relief. Heavy and familiar- most importantly warm- Ruby had to withhold a sigh of contentment and keep herself from burrowing into the mantel which was wrapped around her like a mother's papoose. It felt as if a missing part had been returned at long last-

Her cloak had been something else she'd not actively thought about for a while now, resigned to this world of khakis and gunmetal grey. And for a while that had been alright; she'd dealt with its absence.

But now that her energy no longer being siphoned off into keeping her warm, she was free to wonder how she ever lived without it. How easy it would be to simply disappear into it like a kangaroo pouch.

No, this wasn't her cloak- at least, she didn't think it was. Maybe it was the gloomy atmosphere, but the color seemed to her even more brilliant than the one she'd arrived in, a royal crimson as opposed to a true, deep ruby. It also had a different feel- well, maybe not feel but… texture? Scent? She didn't know; there was some intrinsic quality to the wool that she didn't have the vocabulary to describe (something to do with violins [1a]?), like how her partner insisted on that illusive quality in food called 'savory' which Ruby just lumped into the category of not-sweet.

That all begged the question though: where did this new cloak come from?

Ruby turned to look at the step above, blinking and wiping away tears from the dry cold.

"H-how- where-?"

"An acquaintance in the Spahis [1]," came the explanation, a shrug which jingled Christmas-colored epaulets [1b]. This was a face she had become acquainted with over the past months, enough to tell the difference between a blush and the pink scar tissue. "I… thought you might appreciate it."

She did. Oh, how she did. She also appreciated the trouble which must have been undertaken to get it. (Trouble which, as the superior officer, she probably shouldn't know about, but which would doubtless make an entertaining story if she managed to coax it out of him).

What probably went over Ruby's head, however, was how much she- what those four huntresses had done for him and for everyone else standing out there in the cold. They had been given something even more rare than the satisfied expression which he now tried to hide as he reached up to his snow-capped kepi.

"Hey now, what did I tell you about putting the moves on my little sis?"

A 'good-natured' elbow to his side shoved him into the 'man' to his left, nearly bringing down the whole row if it had not been for Weiss's glyph sticking them to the steps. Merely bending like seagrass, it took a good deal of shuffling and support from Bella- Blake- he had to remind himself- to stand back up straight.

"Xiao-Long, how many times do I have to remind you not to abuse my patient?" Weiss bristled down near Ruby, glaring up at the commotion which caused the hussar's brocade across her chest to not lay flat (and pretending not to hear Yang tell her it wasn't an issue for someone with her body type).

"Ah, don't be so serious; he's not made of glace- eh, eh [2]?" She tried, but the only thing Yang got from her partner and the man next to her were mirrored flat looks. "Jeez, can't anyone take a joke? Come on, back me up here."

"I swear, the only reason you learned any French was to make puns…" Weiss grumbled.

"That's not true!" Yang leaned over her shoulder to yell, missing her partner and the former Legionnaire conspiring in amusement. "I also know donnez-moi dubonnet garçon, and voulez-vous coucher avec mo- [3]"

"Á moi!" All eyes snapped towards the front as Ruby threw aside the tails of her cloak, allowing them to drape behind her and for the shiny new captain's bars on her sleeves to sparkle in the fresh rays of sun. "Atten-tion!"

"Look alive, Dead Man," Yang whispered to him cheekily before falling into line with the rest.

A shuffling of feet like a chain being pulled taut across a deck, the mass of uniformed huntresses and soldiers became one rigid body. The only movement became the cameraman who scrambled to position himself behind his instrument just as the sun tore open the curtain of clouds.

"A- au compt de trois…"

A hand emerged from behind the camera's sunshade to give the count. A single finger lifted into the air to raise chins and straighten coats, a second finger stiffened backs and pulled the corners of mouths into serious expressions.

Before the third, Yang broke ranks and threw an arm around the man next to her. And for this occasion, Seraphim let her coax a mild smile from him as she held up her own two-finger salute to the future.

This was it.

"Say Cheese!"

This was War.

*FLASH*

For real, this time.

---

Two months earlier,

September 17th, 1917

"I'll start off by saying… you were lucky."

The notion of luck hung on him like a badge of honor, pin jabbing deep into his flesh. No subtle pinch to awaken him from the dream, Weiss's accusation stuck fingers into the gunshot wounds in his chest and twisted.

"You were lucky." She insisted pointedly, "Two out of the five soldiers on your firing squad intentionally aimed high, while the third must have either lost his nerve at the last moment or else was a really, really bad shot."

Irony as dull as the off-white plaster ceiling, this could be nothing but reality. He should have known better than to expect Hell to be like something from Alighieri or the Bible. After all, putting too much stock in books is what got them here in the first place, wasn't it?

"…And that still leaves me with two holes in my chest," Seph concluded, rubbing his left shoulder where the third bullet had bitten off a chunk of his deltoid. He was like Humpty-Dumpty, constantly shattered only to be put back together again- why? What the hell did he do to warrant all the King's horses and all the kings… women?

"Two holes through your chest." Weiss smiled wryly before settling back in her chair, her lips returning to a dissatisfied purse. "But that's where things get weird. See, the entry and exit wounds don't match up. So, as near as I can guess, your Aura deflected the rounds inside your body and made them miss all of your vital organs. The thing is, I've never even heard of someone doing something as… unorthodox, before."

What Seph heard was another word for 'stupid', recalling someone else bestowing him this label. But the memory of who was reluctant to come back, like soldiers at the end of leave.

"I did say before that you're pretty good when it comes to manually manipulating your Aura, especially for someone so… inexperienced. But the thing is, that's not how it's supposed to work. At all. It's supposed to be an autonomic defense to stop things before they get through, not change the bullets' trajectory inside your body!" Weiss threw her hands into the air, narrowly avoiding upending the little card table she had brought next to his bedside, the glass of water and open book juddering as her palms came down flat upon it. "I mean, really, who does something so- so irresponsible?! You obviously didn't know you were doing it, so it's just like… your body decided to take care of you whether you want it or not! Like it's another person!"

The silence afterwards lasted for as long as Seph could pretend that Weiss's final statement hadn't struck a chord within him- prodded that other deep inside to open its eyes and peer out from the two new gaps in his body.

"Devil's luck…" He whispered as if afraid to call it by name.

"You know, I don't think Ruby would very much appreciate that attitude," A sleepless glare showed that she wasn't the only one, Weiss's voice as ruffled as the fancy dress she wore for a party that was long since over. "She went through a heck of a lot of trouble to secure you a pardon."

"… Need not have bothered…" He mumbled, before he could be bothered to think about how that would sound.

"No, probably not," Weiss agreed offhandedly, crossing her legs and resting her elbow on the table as she stared out the window. "I really did have better things to do for the last thirty-six hours than make sure you were still breathing. It would have made everything so much simpler if I had just let Yang murder you after she found Ruby absolutely drenched in your blood- which was a pain to clean, by the way."

The beautifully morbid image this conjured up did not warrant an apology, like the many depictions of Christ on the cross which had been brandished at him when he was a child. He wasn't there and should feel no regrets.

"… She really is too kind for this world," Facing away, he allowed himself a brief smile before it became too hard to maintain, the guilty reflection in the window making him turn back to Weiss. "And why are you here?"

"Believe it or not, most people actually appreciate seeing a familiar face when they wake up in a hospital." Weiss huffed diffidently, only to have him shake his head.

It wasn't that he was disagreeing with her but… Why was she there? Why was she there? Why was she [still] there when he had done his best to burn all bridges? Was he arrogant for thinking he could? -Moreover, why couldn't he just express himself, damnit (express what, though)? Too many questioned buoyed to the surface of his thawing mind, and his jaw snapped only frugally.

"Well, then, perhaps I should leave-"

"No-!" Mind ignoring the pain and his body ignoring its commands, Seph ended up cross-wired and tangled in the sheets. His arm collapsed as he tried to push himself out of bed and he spilled like a sandbag at Weiss's feet, cursing and whimpering. Among which Weiss might have heard the magic word, "Please…"

"Oh, for the love of-"

After helping put him back where he belonged, Weiss reached over him and opened up the adjacent window (he wondered if she was the one who always secured him such choice placements, or if there could be a world where they all got open windows). The brisk Fall air which flowed in had been leavened by the morning sun so that it was comfortably warm. He tried calming himself, listening to the birds. Closing his eyes, he heard her heel chirp as she turned around and sat herself back down in the chair.

"…We're not always going to be here to bail you out, you know?" Even though he knew she wasn't about to disappear, Weiss sounded faded, tired. What had been a complex braid on her head now resembled a wilted sea urchin; absently she tried taming a few of the cobwebs but soon gave up in futility. "You're going to have to learn to take care of yourself."

Seph said nothing, already knowing that nothing good could pass through his teeth with indignant pain, so he lay there and listened.

"…You should know we'll be leaving in a few days." She divulged, hands wringing. "Not for good- at least, not yet. Before we can, we have to take care of Adam. More than being in our way, he's our responsibility. I'm sure you can understand that."

What he understood was that this argument wasn't meant for him; the decision had already been made, and the rest was simply to justify it to herself. The best thing he could do would be to lie there like a sounding board, mute and insensible.

"We've… made an arrangement with the military. By allying himself with the Germans, Adam hasn't given us all the much choice, and we'd rather work with the French and British then around or against them. Obviously, it isn't our war, and taking out Adam is our top priority, but I still feel like we might be able to do some good apart from that.

"I'm sure it's better this way; we won't have to worry about hiding who we are any longer, won't have to always be concerned about who's watching. We'll be supplied by the army too, so I won't always be the one stuck being responsible about where our next meal is going to come from or where we can find a discreet place to spend the night."

With a bark of self-depreciating laughter Weiss let her chin drop into her hands, watching half-lidded the soldier hold back all the memories of cold, hungry nights spent under nothing but the cover of a tarp and the false daylight of the enemy's flares.

"But then, I can see us getting lost in all of it. Either that, or we're forced to stand center stage. And I'm not sure which would be worse. I don't think they appreciate what we're fully capable of… so what if they expect too much? Personally, I'd think I'd almost prefer that they underestimate us- I'd like to see them try to hold us back from confronting Adam."

Not even hiding beneath the sheets would have done much to keep Weiss's scorn from migrating towards him; these were thoughts and feelings which had been festering while he'd been unconscious, probably before that.

"You've seen what we've done, and yet you still probably think we're nothing but silly little girls too, don't you? That we're fools for thinking we stand a chance at actually changing anything." Seeing his face twisted in strain, Weiss had her answer. "You're probably right. Just because we've got Aura doesn't mean that we're invulnerable. Sure, we've got more training than a lot of others, but none of that experience can really account for… this. So why…"

"We're all fools," Nearly a whisper, yet Seph seemed to surprise Weiss with the fact that he was still there, still listening. "When I was young, it was expected that I would inherit the farm from my father and that if I worked hard, it would take care of all my needs. In seminary, the priest taught us about reciprocity, sin, told us that it was against God to murder our fellow man. When I enlisted, my instructor told us that if we took to our lessons, we would be invincible. Our generals told us that if we fought hard enough, the war would be over by Christmas."

Looking at her sidelong, he carved a smile out of his pursed lips.

"Men are idiots and God has lost control of the world… Perhaps what we need right now is a woman's touch."

She might have said something sarcastic or even given him a smack for such a bone-headed statement, but Seph interrupted her thoughts with a fit of coughing. This time she was prepared with a glass of water at the ready. She fed him metered sips, glanced at his bandages to make sure they weren't leaking. As she lay him back down, Seph closed his eyes and she considered just letting him rest after listening to her grumbling. However…

"Hey… Seph?" Not hearing a verbal response, she saw his eyes twitch behind their lids and knew he was listening nonetheless. "After we leave, you're not going to…" Her open-ended question hung there, wavering like a noose. "Are you?"

For her own peace of mind, Weiss considered pretending that his unresponsiveness was because he hadn't heard. She could tell herself that he was asleep as she quietly stood and began to leave.

"If God does not have a plan for us," he cracked an eye and looked at her as she stopped by the doorway. "I suppose we have no choice but to find our own way forward."

Weiss nodded, despite having no spiritual understanding of what this meant to him, she herself believed that it was more than they could otherwise hope for.

"The others are still getting things ready but should be done in a few hours; they'll probably want to say bye as well before we leave."

"No need," With a grimace, Seph reached up and adjusted his pillow, turning on his side away from the huntress. "This is not goodbye. Not yet, right?"

Weiss was the one who chose not to immediately respond this time. The rest of the conversation was carried on in assumptions which left them both feeling otherwise satisfied, with her telling him to get some sleep, to take care of himself and believing he would.

Not that he would be given much choice, Seph mused as she left him otherwise 'alone' and staring at the back of his eyelids.

After all, that thing inside of him once awake, wasn't liable to go back to sleep.

The hand over his stomach moved upwards to his chest, his every movement feeling like it was being watched.

"Best of luck to us fools, then."

---

October 1st, 1917

"Idiot!"

Weiss wasn't used to criticism.

No, that wasn't true at all. She wasn't used to believing it.

Among her legions of tutors and instructors in everything from diction to defense, there had scarcely been a single one who hadn't attempted to verbally break her down at some point. Their words hadn't meant much because she'd quickly correct her mistakes- actions based on ignorance, which was soon rectified. In learning to fight, pain was also a good motivator and she'd never let the same move be used against her twice. As for that old crone Beaumont, Weiss made sure that she never had a reason to disapprove; she'd become as quick a study in a foreign language as she was the commands given in it.

Sure, it hurt that she could never seem to gain her father's acceptance, but eventually she'd discovered that it was pointless to even try; being in his good graces meant that she'd personally failed, betrayed her family's legacy and the path cleared out for her by her sister- someone who's opinion she respected far more.

Thinking on her sibling though made it all the worse. What would she say, if she could see Weiss now?

"What good is your magic if you don't even know the basics?" For all her prowess, Weiss couldn't stop the pudgy little nurse from shoving her aside and injecting herself between the huntress and the patient. "Didn't your mother ever teach you how to sew? Never mind, I'll do it!"

Backing off, Weiss couldn't even bring herself to be angry at the woman (after all, how could she know that Weiss's mother died when she was but an infant?); she was just doing her job and unlike that hag Beaumont was actually decent at it.

Unlike the hospital where she'd first gotten a job under false pretenses, here there was no faking it; there were men dying by the clock and she hadn't any idea on what to do.

Their blood was draining before her eyes and there was no time to learn.

"Hey, over here! Someone give me a hand with him!"

Inside the field station was constant motion, and the one takeover from being a huntress was that the worst thing she could do was stand still. Moving to the other side of the tent, she had to slip around another wounded man who was being carried through the narrow walkway without a stretcher. Two of his comrades shambled in with the casualty suspended between them like a hammock, something corded and wet dragging in the ground behind.

Weiss didn't give it much attention- don't think being the order of the day, and all she could do was follow commands to the best of her ability.

"Hold him down for me!"

The nurse who'd called her over was entirely too pretty to be working in such a ghastly place, a pale blonde beauty with full lips that made a scowl seem like a coquettish pout, even as she struggled to keep a wailing 'Tommy' from ripping out the piece of shrapnel imbedded in his spleen. It was clear that she wasn't nearly strong enough to do so on her own, and Weiss wondered what the hell this movie-star wannabe thought she was doing.

-Except that she was an angle beyond reproach. Weiss had personally seen how the woman could tell a soldier who'd lost half his face to a grenade that 'she was jealous of his wife for landing so handsome a man' and give him a kiss on the cheek.

The least Weiss could do was summon a glyph to keep the poor injured boy from flailing about and hitting the nurse while she plucked the piece of metal like one of her lashes. After that she closed his wound faster than a zipper- which was something they apparently hadn't invented yet.

No quick-clot, no self-tensioning bandages, no anesthetic, scarcely any disinfectant- either these thing hadn't been invented, or else they simply didn't have them in enough quantity as again Weiss was forced to spend endless hours, elbow-deep in ice-cold water washing soiled dressings so that they could be used again, and again, and again until they fell apart (or she did). Then, when these ran out, some of the more industrious and ingenious personal had gathered up moss, which actually proved to be a rather effective replacement for gauze. She could see it was at least sanitary, unlike-

"Maggots?!"

Cleaning out another soldier's wounded leg, she had made the horrifying discovery that he had been left out in the battlefield long enough for the larva to take up residence in his calf. She only barely managed to hold back her lunch (it was dinnertime then, and she'd had a difficult enough time stomaching the rations the first time around), only to realize that she'd already touched the infested wound with the same hand that was now clamped over her mouth.

Doubling over, she let out what little was left onto the dirt where it would no doubt disappear before too long. Carefully wiping her mouth with her sleeve, she blindly grabbed a scalpel without even bothering to check if it was clean- nothing was clean anymore, the part of her sleeve near the shoulder only the least stained.

And despite everything, she hesitated. Hand with instrument wavered just above the open gash while the nasty little creatures inside writhed, as ignorant to what she was doing as the soldier who continued to mumble delusions about being back home with his family. With a deep breath, she told herself it was no different that the many Grimm which had tried to slobber all over her. That it was simply another test of will she had to overcome. She plunged-

"Wait," Someone grabbed her wrist. "Just leave them in; they eat the dead flesh."

There was only a single doctor left at their field station (and none of the female nurses, no matter how skilled, would be considered for that authority). Weiss had been told that the other three surgeons had all perished, killed by an artillery round which just happened to land near their private tents a few nights before she arrived. They were supposed to be far enough back that artillery wouldn't reach them, but apparently, these things happened.

It seemed that the only thing stronger than fate was irony, as the only full-fledged physician to survive was also the oldest. He had confessed to Weiss that he'd only been spared because of his bladder which had him leaving his tent at 3:00 am to use the loo.

He was an enduring septuagenarian with a face that was brown and wrinkled as a walnut. He'd already defied the odds so far; before the war he'd lived in British India where he'd healed and taught medicine to the locals, often for free. This must have also been what gave him his saintly patience, a perpetual calm that meant he had been one of the few to teach Weiss anything thus far, as all around them people screamed in varying degrees of urgency.

"We'll take care of him later; come, I need someone with good eyes and a steady hand."

It was for all these reason that she followed him to the 'operating table'- a literal dining table someone had brought in from a nearby town, upon which lay a man whose uniform had already been peeled away. His flesh was so torn and covered in dark blood it would have been impossible to tell if he was African or Eurasian.

The old physician walked her through the procedure, the both of them working at opposite ends to remove the pox of shrapnel which blanketed the man from head to toe. All two-hundred thirty pieces.

Only after the last piece dropped into the collection pan, tolling midnight on the dot, did anyone bother to check the man's pulse. He had died less than an hour before, soon after they had started.

They left the corpse there on the table; there weren't any other casualties who were not out of their hands one way or another. Soon, those that could be transported would be moved further back, eventually to a hospital such as the one where Weiss had first encountered the Legionnaire. It made her all the more impressed that the man had survived.

She thought she had been tired back then- she hadn't known what tired was. The Pudgy nurse, the Movie Star and her all sat on various crates around the floor of the operating tent. The doctor had been given the only chair, out of respect more than consideration.

"Good job today, everyone."

Not knowing how he could say such a thing with a straight face, Weiss looked away from the western bodhisattva- which meant that she stared right at 'Pudgy' whose cheeks were puffed like a greedy squirrel. With a scowl as if she could hear Weiss's mental comparison, she… nodded gratefully to the huntress, who would have felt surprised, if she could feel anything right then.

Weiss should have gotten up to at least wash her hands, have something to eat and maybe regain enough energy to trudge on back to her luxuriously private tent. There she could grab her spare apron, perhaps if there was time, scrub out the clothes she was currently wearing which were so crusted and filthy that they ought to be able to stand up on their own.

"Five more comin' in!" The civilian ambulance driver yelled from somewhere outside- the civilians were always more excitable, inconsiderate of procedure. "Huns dropped one right on da lads' 'eads as dey was sleepin'. Bastards!"

As the driver appeared at the tent flaps, Weiss took one look at the casualty he dragged in by the scruff of his tattered uniform. There were no arms for him to grab on to, and the soldier hung as limp as rug.

Her face fell, and she looked at the other nurses to see if they had the same thoughts. But the other women were already pushing themselves off their roosts with tireless fortitude, the doctor scrubbing his hands with a splash of water from a metal canteen that was half ice.

She sighed before doing the same.

What was the point?

[4]

---

October 1st, 1917, 1000 hours.

"There! Fixed!"

Again.

At this point, the engine was more patches and quick fixes than production parts. Though considering it all looked to be hand-fitted at the factory, her field repairs might have actually been an improvement. There were certainly a lot of parallels between it and a teething babe.

To be fair, it wasn't even the motor's fault this time. A stray bullet had somehow pierced their radiator, the shot coming from so far away that they hadn't even known about it until the steam started to rise from underneath the "bonnet"- funny name to call the hood, but whatever.

Yang just wanted to know the word for 'duct-tape', as that would at least make this Sisyphean task go quicker.

"You really are a miracle-worker, aren't you, Love?" The freckled grin beamed down at her from the driver's cabin, brighter than the truck's pathetic excuse for headlamps and twice as reliable. "Five minutes, forty-two seconds. Gotta be a record."

"Nah, that's nothing!" Firmly closing the bonnet, Yang didn't bother doing much cleanup besides giving her hands a quick wipe to make sure they didn't slip when trying to strongarm the manual steering wheel. "Compared to Bumblebee, there's plenty of room to work around, and the whole thing is dead simple."

"Bumblebee?"

"Oh yeah, sorry," Yang grinned as she spun the starter like she was merely flicking a pinwheel and the finicky old ambulance truck sputtered to life. Afterwards she swung herself into the driver's seat, sliding on the leather upholstered sofa next to her co-pilot, Victoria "Vic" Strawbridge. "My motorcycle back home. Black and yellow paint scheme, hence "Bumblebee". God do I miss her, though I'll you what, she was even more fussy than this mule."

Giving the piece of metal that served as the "dash" a faithful pat, Yang cranked their wheels back onto dirt road, falling into her place in the ambulance train when she heard a chuckle from the woman next to her. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Victoria shook her head and looked out to the evergreens which enclosed them tighter than the semi-open cabin. "Just… well, when you first showed up, my first thought was 'god, this girl is so gorgeous she must be more useless than a chocolate teapot!' But now I'm just worried that all the men will fall head over heels for you and the rest of us will all be left high and dry!"

"Hey, hey, don't go selling yourself short," Taking her eyes off the road to give the woman a wink, Yang was even more pleased when she earned both a laugh and a friendly punch to the arm. The diminutive Vic was her kind of gal: didn't take things too seriously (which was incredible given the things she'd seen so far), was a bit of a tomboy, and knew how to appreciate a good joke even if it was at her expense. The redhead reminded her of Nora but with elven features, a button nose and just slightly more self-preservation instincts. "Besides, most guys are intimidated as soon as you start talking mechanics better than they can. Helps weed out the losers."

"Hey now, you know these boys can't help themselves," Gesturing backwards, she recalled the two casualties who lay in the rear of their ambulance. Two literal boys- soldiers barely out of their teens- who ignored gut wounds just so that they could sit up and gibber at the two women for as long as possible. "'Sides, what man wouldn't fall instantly in love with you if you just gave a little bit of effort? Why, I bet with just a wink and a kiss you'd have half the German army throwing their weapons at your feet. Bam! War would be over, and then we really would be home by Christma- Christ! Brake, brake!"

Which was easier said than done as Yang nearly stomped the pedal through the floor before she remembered how useless the brakes were and downshifted. The recently revived engine wailed in protest and fear as she juked them around the parked rear end of the truck in front of them.

"Grrr…! What now?!"

Before they even came to a complete stop, Yang had thrown herself out of the driver's seat and was marching up to the front of the caravan, leaving behind Vic who was blindsided and blocked in by the other ambulance parked alongside.

"Yang- wait up!"

"I swear-!"

"-What the hell do you think you are doing?!"

Swift and excitable as she was, Yang had to defer to the argument already being waged. She slowed her approach, not even the first one on scene as several other dismounted personnel milled about, bemused and discomfited as their respective officers had it out in a verbal boxing match in the middle of the road.

"We had the right of way!"

"Your driver was slow on the uptake; of course my man was going to go ahead and cross!"

"This is an ambulance train!" The face of Yang's superior officer was as red as the crosses painted on the side of their vehicles, twice as tall and bearing down on the supply sergeant who looked like one of those little dogs that sat in the laps of ladies in waiting and were always growling at anything else that came near their personal sphere of influence. "You expect us to be racecar drivers when we're carrying wounded men in unstable condition?"

While she wasn't the one being yelled at (this time), Yang had to admit that perhaps the pompous medical officer had a point: Behind the argument was an even nastier accident which probably could have been avoided had either party been a bit more cautious- to say nothing of communication; two English speakers should have been able to coordinate, but had by now devolved to hand-gestures.

Stepping halfway around the spectacular quarrel, Yang saw the situation and very quickly inferred what had happened.

A stone bridge was up ahead, as ubiquitous a feature of this landscape as the green, rolling hills they connected like islands. And it was likely just as old, built before the concept of automobiles and even two-way traffic. Of course, the opposite parties met at this chokepoint in a head-on collision which left one of the opposing convoy's trucks climbing over the front of their lead ambulance, both now irreparably wedged between each other and the ancient stone caps.

"My driver was already crossing when you decided to simply barrel ahead-"

"I've orders to get this ammunition to the artillery at the front before nightfall!"

"Excuse me?! Are shells more important than our men's lives-"

"And if the attack goes off without the preliminary artillery, how many more of our soldiers will you lot of shirkers and cowards be ferrying back?"

"Cowards-?!"

Rare as it was that she saw eye to eye with the noble-born officer in charge of their ambulance unit, Yang wasn't going to just stand around and watch- or, worse, try to get involved in the shouting match, no matter how much she was sure to win.

First, she checked to see that the casualties they'd been transporting weren't any more beat up than necessary. Then she saw their ambulance driver sitting on the bridge's wings, nursing a bloody nose that was flowing as lively as the brook below. The man who'd been a bus driver in his former life didn't notice her approach until her shadow eclipsed the sun through the trees.

"Don't tilt your head back like that," She corrected gently, tipping his head forward. "Trust me. I've had more than my share of broken noses."

Rubbing a finger on her upper lip, with a grin the huntress turned to see what she could do to fix the rest.

There wasn't actually all that much broken, at least on their ambulance. For as much as she derided the vehicles' crudeness, its overly-heavy frame, even the lack of windshield had worked in their favor. Their driver probably appreciated not having broken glass shoved in his face when the other 'lorry' drove up and onto his cabin.

Checking it over best she could 'in situ', Yang determined that while some of the metal was dented and jamming parts of the engine, it could easily be removed and function just fine. They did have a busted wheel from where their driver had tried to swerve and avoid the collision at the last second, smashing into the bridge's parapet. But neither the axel nor the frame was bent, so they could theoretically just swap it out and drive away.

Although, there was the matter of the other truck on top.

Moving around the backside to get a complete picture, Yang perhaps got more than she bargained for as she saw a few of the crates spilled out on the walkway. From her prior 'work experience', she knew without having to pick them up that the boxes didn't contain artillery shells like had been claimed.

Good. That would make this easier, not to mention more satisfying.

"Hey Missy, you shouldn't be messing around with-"

"Oh, good timing. Here, hold this," Liberating the other truck's spare wheel, she shoved it into the soldier's arms as he came to accost her. "This too, if you don't mind."

The man squawked as she tossed her wax-impregnated driver's coat over his head, the action more than the sound stealing attention away from the officer's squabble. Quite a crowd had gathered already, much as she had, to see what the holdup was.

Now their attention was on her as she stretched her arms over her head, loosened up with some squats before she positioned herself underneath the lorry's cabin. She smirked, feeling their leers and knowing that as long as their attention was focused on the two long slits up the side of her skirt, no one would think to stop her.

No one would believe she could do what she was about to, but that was beside the point. Vic had been right: men just couldn't help themselves.

"Hurrr-aaagh!"

With a perfectly executed deadlift, she threw the other lorry off the side of the bridge.

The vehicle's frame gave little flex, a miniscule groan as she heaved it up and over. No one else made a sound as the observers all felt their stomachs sink like the imbricated stones under their feet. But even the soft soil of the embankment couldn't prevent the shockwave from rattling their jaws, shaking the officers out of their prior engagement as everyone in earshot turned to look.

Whether or not they trusted their eyes- well, that was another story.

The man holding her coat was making choking noises as she approached him, seeming to want to run away but had backed into the hard limit of the bridge's posts. Taking her coat back, she tossed it over her shoulder along with a dismissive gesture towards their ambulance's broken wheel.

"Do us a favor and toss that on there, will you?" Smirk collapsing, she gave the man a flat expression that strafed the rest of his shell-shocked comrades. "Then get the hell out of our way."

Men scrambled to do just that as she strutted her way back across the bridge, cutting right past the indignant supply-sergeant who was shaking with either rage or fear.

"Y-you- you- you-!"

"-You're perfectly free to tell General Roberts what you think about the value of ammunition versus the lives of our men," While she didn't always see eye to eye with her commanding officer, Yang didn't need to look back to picture the man's square-jawed expression bearing down on the feckless supply-sergeant. "But our most valuable asset right now is time. And I would suggest that you use the time my subordinate has just saved you to think up an excuse for the General as to why his dinner will be a little bit late."

Yang made no other detours on her way back to her own vehicle, trusting from the sounds of revving engines and growling orders that things were well underway without her direction. Though after mounting her transport and fixing herself behind the wheel, she found her back pressed up flat against the bulkhead and a frown affixed to her lips.

"H-hey, t-that was- I mean…" Always a step behind her fellow driver, Vic found herself short of breath when she finally hauled herself back into the passenger's seat. "Wow."

"Vic,"

"Y-yeah?"

Yang turned to the 'normal' woman with a regulation smile that practically had to be nailed to either cheek.

"Would you mind taking the wheel? It might not be a good idea for me to drive right now."

"C-'course,"

Though as Yang stepped down and Vic slid over to take her place, she froze, her knuckles turning white as she felt the literal grooves in the steering wheel as deep as the depression in the leather cushion. What kind of strength-?

"Right," Yang hopped in the other side, head fixed like a side mirror as she stared out at the scenery, "Let's go."

With a nod, the woman waited only a minute or two for the truck ahead of them to pull forward. It was a good deal afterwards before either spoke again; as they pulled away, Yang didn't pay attention to the awkward silence between them or the awed looks from the supply train which had stopped to let them pass.

When they crossed the bridge, the huntress glanced down at the partly submerged truck as the rest of its contents was unloaded and piled out on the riverbank. The supply-sergeant glared back up at her with eyes wide as the dinner plates he was busy rescuing from the mud. In one of his hands was clenched a partial set of sterling silver utensils, pieces of an officer's dining kit which probably cost more than the wardrobe Weiss brought when she first came to Beacon.

Seeing her vindictive smile and the convoy in the rearview mirror, Yang sat back in the chaise bench seat with a sigh that had nothing to do with her exertion. She knew why she was upset, as much as she knew coming into this venture that some people didn't want or didn't deserve their help. What she didn't understand was why she was letting it get to her now.

However, Yang was also ignorant to the other attitudes changing around her. Or maybe she wasn't. Maybe she understood that those who looked at her with fear and inbred contempt were less troublesome than those who saw her actions with the open mindedness of possibility.

"…you really could," Vic whispered quietly to herself as she glanced at the blonde who'd since shut her eyes, "All by yourself, you could end this…"

[5]

---

October 1st, 1917, 1800 hours.

How long had he been stuck by himself out here in no man's land, in a shell hole with no one to keep him company but the stiff bodies of his platoon? An honest question rather than an existential one; he was too poor to own a watch. The corporal had one, but he wasn't about to go rob the poor man's corpse. No, it was too soon, the wound too fresh.

At the same time, he was becoming concerned with the horrid smell coming from the hole in his foot. It was somehow worse than the smell of death around him, or perhaps just different than that which was already soaked into his cloths. The skin around his ankle was turning yellow-green, like the moss under the shaded side of his town's well.

That comparison made him homesick- which in turn made him hungry, the basic need superseding revulsion. Waiting there for rescue or death, he had nothing better to do than recall the sumptuous saint's days feasts, the endemic dishes of his little valley, the staples his mother used to whip up with nothing but powdered dregs and fastidious love.

He had some dried sausage in his pocket from the last package his parents had sent him, but he was saving that for a last resort. Instead, he relied on tobacco to curb the hunger which had the dual benefit of shooing the flies away (there was nothing to do for the smell). And while he'd prefer cigarettes, the meditative action of packing the pipe his fiancé's parents had given him for Christmas last year helped kill the time. It was coming on that time again; perhaps they would get the pipe back this year.

All in all, he was surprised how accepting he was of his fate, all while hearing the bemoaned wails of his fellow casualties sprawled throughout the battlefield. Maybe it was madness. Perhaps he ought to struggle, claw his way back to friendly territory despite the conscious presence of the Bosch's machine guns and snipers waiting to pick off stragglers like him.

With a hollow chuckle he dismissed this idea. He was a cobbler, not a fighter. Although now, could he really say he was either? Even if he survived, what life was waiting for him when he returned? He'd never been all that skilled at his profession, and he was under no delusion that his foot would likely be amputated. While that would end his soldiering career, it would make him the butt of every joke:

'Did you hear the one about the cobbler with only one foot? Everything he sells is half-off.'

Was it a bad sign that he was laughing at his own joke? Perhaps sepsis was getting to him.

Death was suddenly imminent; was the sun setting, or was this it? His pipe could no longer ward off the chill, no longer take off the edge nor give it. How long had he been out there? Should he really be this tired? Should he just, close his eyes- No, no, no- not like this!

"Aidez-moi!" His shout came out just that much more vigorous than the others who had been pleading all afternoon. Perhaps that was what would save him. "Je suis içi! Aidez-moi! Help-!"

His cries were snuffed like the embers of his pipe as a cold wind flooded the shell hole. Suddenly he was awake. But did that mean he wasn't dreaming? Standing over him was a figure draped in dark shades, skin as pale as the moonlight and eyes which glistened like the first stars of that night.

"Don't worry." An angelic voice- words he didn't understand but felt caress him like the soft hands which lifted him as if he were nothing more than a babe. "You're going to be alright."

Had he grasped that sweet, sweet lie it wouldn't have made a difference in reassuring him. The way she smiled so innocently was more believable than the triptychs of Mary in the manger.

She seemed to carry him on the four winds, across the desert landscape to deliver him unto the place of his birth- friendly trenches like a cradle as she lay him down on a stretcher, the faces of his comrades crowding around him in awe- they couldn't believe he was alive- he couldn't!

Wise men all stunned as she stood up amidst the perfumed scent of rose, the promise of more gifts to come.

"I'll be back."

Again. Again. And again.

She made the pilgrimage across the killing fields thrice more in quick succession, each time bringing back another casualty from the recent skirmish. How she managed to do so without getting shot, they didn't know. She was like night itself.

By the third pass, the soldiers bearing witness to this miracle recognized their part in it, scrambling to move the wounded further back in exchange for more stretchers. They had only a rough count of how many men had been sent out on the attack compared to how many had made it back, and so they were prepared to keep this up all night if necessary.

So was Ruby. She'd never used her Semblance in such quick succession before, nor for so long a duration, but she was determined to keep going until she'd saved as many lives as she could.

However, it would always be fewer than she'd like.

Dashing back and forth, she slunk from shell hole to shell hole looking for life like checking a string of Christmas lights for those that [weren't] burnt out. It was tedious and not least frustrating, the number diminishing the longer she continued.

It was getting quieter, colder. As winter marched in, both sides of the conflict prepared for hibernation. But battles like this still happened, and the fate of the troops involved were lost among the tally like the snowflakes which now began to fall only to melt into the fetid marsh.

The bodies laying face-down in the freezing pools she could ignore right away [pretend they were just logs, inanimate objects], but there were plenty sitting upright or laying on their side that she had to look over, one by one.

"Hey," The one she approached now didn't respond to her call or the splash of her boots, and so Ruby forced herself to prod the young man without making it seem like she was picking up one of Zwei's 'droppings'.

"Hm?" Not that he would have noticed her revulsion. The wide-eyed 'Tommy' had been staring blankly into the darkness, clutching his blood-sodden sleeve to his chest when he felt her touch his shoulder. "Oh, hello."

Ruby was momentarily at a loss for words, waiting for the young man to question what she was doing there, to express relief, panic- But he didn't seem to be all that disturbed by anything short of his left hand which he was clutching tightly as if to keep it from falling off.

"You're wounded; let me help you."

"Oh, no, I'm fine," He gave all the signs of being alert and cognizant, but there was something missing in his gaze the way his legs disappeared in the murky pool at the bottom of the crater. "But th' chap over there," He pushed his hands towards a man laying face up not far away he said, "I think he's harder up than I am."

Ruby didn't raise much of an argument, at this point as fatigued and numbed as any of the soldiers stuck out on that freezing battlefield. The boots she'd been issued were totally inadequate, the calf-deep water seeping in over the tops as she waded over to the man who was kept propped up by his backpack. Between splashes she heard him groan, never happier to hear such a moribund sound.

"Hey, let's get you out of here," The only issue that she could see when hooking her arms underneath the man's shoulders was a felled tree which was partly submerged across the shell hole. "I'm going to try pulling you out; let me know if it gets too painful."

There was another moan as she started to gently pull the man from the mire. But it sounded no worse than before, and whatever held the man in place didn't seem to be too heavy. In fact-

Resistance gave way suddenly like a cookie which had been soaked too long in the glass of milk and Ruby stumbled back, landing on her rear in the mud next to the other soldier who only vaguely acknowledged her presence.

Sputtering and trying blindly to find a clean patch of her cuff to wipe the dirt out of her eyes, Ruby meanwhile struggled to pry her other hand out of the mud. Suction released it with much effort and a slurp like the shucking of marrow from bone. The unexpected release again caused her to overextend and flip on to her knees, face to face with the man she'd been trying to extricate.

He'd gone stiff, his face waxy and frozen in pain, insensitive to the fact that it was now half underwater. His bottom half exposed, she could see that the reason he'd come loose so easily was that everything south of his groin was missing. Just- gone, like something had taken a bite and then tossed him away when it didn't like the taste.

She tasted the bile rising in the back of her throat but somehow managed to swallow it.

How? How had she resisted puking until now- how had she continued doing this to the point where she could ignore the scent of death? The very thought that she could become immune to such horrors was sickening in itself. It was wrong, it was the antithesis of everything she'd believed about being a huntress. Wasn't it?

No. No, it wasn't, because the man was no longer in pain. His groans had simply been the sounds of his body's decay the way a green log screams as it burns.

There were no more cries for help on that empty battlefield, but that didn't mean her job was over.

"Let's go," She turned to the other soldier remaining in that shell hole, urging him to let her act as his crutch. "I'll… I'll come back for him later."

"Oh. Okay."

If she had any energy left after retrieving all the wounded, she would return for the dead, so it wasn't really a lie. However, she also knew that with every trip back and forth she was getting slower. She was getting more tired as the night went on and she couldn't be sure how long she'd actually been at it. Minutes? Hours? Days? Even the soldiers who came to collect their casualties had lost their initial excitement and now merely awaited her return with ever increasing trepidation. Would their friends be among those rescued? At what point would she start coming back with corpses on her shoulders?

Wanting to postpone that prospect for as long as possible, Ruby continued what seemed like fruitless search for the living while knowing that she was coming up on a deadline. It wasn't safe to continue into the daytime; the Germans seemed to be using their flares sparingly these days, but the same couldn't be said for bullets. And she was less confident in the red-and-white crosses pinned on her clothing to protect her than her diminishing reserves of Aura.

She was running out of 'friendly' territory to check. The attack had only reached the second line of barbed wire before being forced to retreat, leaving behind a highwater mark of bodies. Still, she didn't hear any sounds coming from that direction other than the occasional guttural murmurs from the other side.

But, if there was someone alive among the piles of dead, would they draw attention to themselves? They could be lying there perfectly fine and yet pinned by the knowledge that the machine guns which cut down everyone around them were still out there, on the prowl for stragglers.

Acting as much like a cat- as much like Blake or Seph as she could- Ruby slunk her way closer to the man-made briar patch, her black oilskin coat making for good camouflage as well as keeping the ground from sucking out all her body heat. Mud already covered her from head to toe, hiding the red crosses which served better as a bullseye than a shield.

Never had she been more grateful to be so small a target. Her voice was quieter than a mouse- than the rats which had emerged to gorge themselves upon the dead. Hopefully, she would be able to find anyone before they had to stifle themselves as they were eaten alive.

"Hey," She whispered, the sound sharper than she imagined on that moonless night. "Hello, is anyone out there?" She cast her voice with her hand, directing it to sweep across the rise, which in the darkness she could pretend was just sandbags. "Anyone alive?" Sotto Voce, the mumblings of the earth, she almost hoped that no one could hear-

"…Allo?"

Heart sinking deep beneath the muddy battlefield- the response had come from the other side of the fence, on the reverse slope facing the German machine guns. Whoever was out there was most likely not 'one of theirs'

"Wer is…? Sanitäter?"

But did that really matter? Everything seemed so delineated when in the trenches, colors the same, language endemic, their own world, parallel lines which would never cross except with violence.

Out here… things were muddled.

-Or maybe it was just her thinking, forgetting that things ought to be as black and white as Grimm and the people they stood to harm. She was a huntress first and foremost. She helped people.

Her strain was tangible, rose petals birthed into existence only to be impaled on the fence behind her. A result of abusing her Semblance, the trailing end of her coat became snagged as she exited slipstream early and she was jerked off her feet.

But for every ounce of fatigue she had a pound of determination; Ruby did not make a sound even as she reached out to steady herself and mistakenly grabbed the barbed wire. She merely bit her lip as the metal thorn dug into the meat of her palm, the wire nonetheless slowing her slide- at least until her foot caught something else, and she was flipped around, oozing into the bottom headfirst. Disoriented, she didn't immediately realize what she had landed on until it gave a plaintiff groan.

"-Sorry!" She let slip before remembering that she was supposed to be quiet.

It hadn't been that far to fall, actually. And if it had been light, she would have been able to see over the top of the berm without resorting to her tippytoes. But the darkness distorted everything, made it feel like the safety of the Allied trenches was impossibly far away, the silence beneath her stretching on for minutes, until…

"Zat voice… I know…"

Ruby knew the other voice as well, but could recognize it as little as the outline of the person laying in that shallow depression.

"Rose… Rose, izn't it?"

"…Hans?" Suddenly the darkness was as familiar as a security blanket, the nearness of serendipity making her once again forget that there was no physical barrier between her and the indifference of the German machine guns. "What are you… what are you doing out here?"

Remembering to lower her voice with the last part, Ruby felt around to identify a head, balding, a helmet not far off that was cold to the touch, shoulders, arms which were folded protectively over something soft and damp-

Hans grunted, and she could picture his face scrunched up in pain.

"You're wounded… what happened?"

"Don't know," there was the sound of his head shaking, wispy hair brushing off memories, "I vas… sent to repair… wire… after zat…"

Wire. Fence, or telephone? Had that been what she'd snagged on? Did it matter?

"How bad?"

The night stretched on in every direction before he said anything, then, in a voice like shoveling dirt over a wood box,

"I am… glad, to haff met ju… again."

Everything being degrees of damp, Ruby might not have noticed or known about the dribbles running down her face as she bit her lip. But she could feel the severity of the situation; gut wounds were some of the worst, not much one could do even if it were possible to assess the damage in the darkness. And the length of suffering contributed nothing to the potential to survive.

"We have to get you out of here."

In this endeavor, speed was the best asset. It was something Ruby should have had in spades, but she'd gambled it all away early on without thought to making it last. She'd been determined to give each casualty the best chance at survival but in doing so had dug deep into her reserves of Aura. Now, she wasn't certain if she could make it back without pausing dangerously out in no man's land. Not with a passenger, certainly.

And she couldn't move him without the two of them being exposed; it would have been easy enough for her to slip back to Allied trenches alone, but that would have defeated the whole purpose of coming out here to begin with.

The German trenches on the other hand…

She couldn't see them, and they might have been farther away than she could guess, but they had to be out there and not too far away if Hans had come out here on his own.

"Do you think you can move, or will I have to carry you?"

"Nein!" His harsh whisper wasn't an answer but a plea, accompanied by his hands groping for her in the darkness. Such honest hands- yet all she could feel of them was how their stickiness pulled at her frown. "No, no, cannot- go."

"Don't worry, I'll take you to your comrades," She tried to smile and hoped that he could feel the confidence she imbued in it. "Trust me."

Figuring it might be better if she didn't give him a chance to doubt, Ruby slid her legs below her body and slipped her hands underneath the elderly soldier's back and legs.

"Bitte-no-no-no-"

He again denied her, squirming like a cat that did not want to be held despite his injury. He was disturbingly light, yet her arms were leaden, and he slipped part way out of her grasp. With his feet back on the ground, Ruby thought that discomfort might distract him enough for her to at least get him moving forwards as she yoked his arm around her neck.

"Hey, I'm trying to help, just let me-"

"Stop-halt , not zafe-"

Of course it wasn't safe, nothing about this would be considered safe, but that was in her job description. What she could do without was the resistance, every second of delay was another where their silhouette would be exposed against the horizon for anyone who cared to pop their head out of the trench.

But then, she'd never considered that it might already be too late.

*CRACK*

The reality fell on her like Hans's limp body, heaviness bringing her to her knees as she let him off her shoulder to become interminably still.

So, this was death.

How strange it was that she had stared it in the face for weeks yet not recognized it until now. It could be like how she had proudly called herself a sniper for years, yet hadn't truly known what the title meant until she was on the other side of the crosshairs.

She could hear the gunman rack their bolt, feel their hawkish stare searching for her in the darkness. It wasn't anything personal, she knew. It didn't matter if the bullet was British, French or German. She was just a target, something moving which had to be nailed down. And Hans… Hans…

What was left of him was in her hands, but he was gone. He had been a man, a teacher, a soldier- a fly-strip meant to attract targets, now used up and thrown out. The heat was fading from his body as quickly as it was building in hers, rising up through her stomach and into her chest, her throat, her eyes-

Her head snapped up. The nighttime veil lifted so that in a moment of startling clarity she could see the man taking aim as well as he could see her staring back. Her eyes a reflection of the rifle's spiral bore into him, tensing muscles on a finger that was already poised over the trigger.

"NO!"

There was a flash, silver light that illuminated the battlefield.

Then, everything became still.

---

October 1st, 1917, 2030 hours.

The remnants of a campfire. Holes from tent pegs. Wheel ruts. Cigarette butts.

It was like a still-life painting where someone had removed all the items but left a ring of dust around where everything should be. Hand brushing the indentation in the grass, she could practically feel someone laying there as if it were a ghost, the embers of a cooking fire still seeming to give off heat despite being doused and buried.

"They're really not trying too hard to hide their presence, are they?"

While she kept telling herself she wasn't really trying to disguise herself from Blake, Ilia nonetheless felt a twinge of failure as the other woman addressed her without looking up from her investigation.

"There's no reason to," no longer needing to either, Ilia stepped out from the shadows and had a look around. She guessed that a battalion-sized unit had camped there and was not long gone. It was still possible to count the number of heavy guns they dragged with them, and one could practically feel the soldier's weariness with the heel-heavy footprints leading away two by two towards the north. "This is well within their own territory, and a formation this small isn't something that needs to be concealed."

They were the interlopers here, pretending they had more influence than their numbers would suggest. It wouldn't do to underestimate their opponents- especially not him.

"You're still thinking like a rebel rather than a leader of an army," Ilia reminded herself as much as Blake, picking up an empty tin and looking it over. Other like scraps had been tossed in the fire pits. Yet there seemed to be too few for the number of mouths to feed. Were they hunting for food, or perhaps getting supplies from the nearby village? The logic eluded her.

"Alright. So where did Adam learn to lead like a general?"

Out of the corner of her eye Blake saw her friend stiffen. Even with that cloak and her continuing reluctance to show her face, Ilia was almost absurdly easy to read.

"… After you left, Adam took complete control of the Vale branch," Ilia let the can fall from her hand and wiped it off unnecessarily on her cloak; even the oil had been licked clean. "He had support from Menagerie to conduct the usual activities. But then it seemed that he was biting off more than he could chew and it was making people worried. Apparently, he was getting some outside 'help'."

"You mean… humans?" Vestiges of willful ignorance made her sound doubtful, yet Blake had since learned to not only believe what was in front of her. Mind taking logical steps, she stood and began to pace. "You think he was… coerced? Bribed somehow? How do you-?"

"I was tasked with spying on him for Sienna Kahn." Ilia interrupted with unconcealed self-loathing. "So as it turns out, this isn't anything new for me. I guess its my nature to wear different skins."

"Ilia…"

"Anyways," kicking the can away into the darkness, she relished its hollow punctuation, "I don't know the full story, but it must have been some kind of benefit to him if he'd consider working with humans again."

"Maybe it's another form of revenge. Maybe he thinks he can take advantage of them," Looking far out over the meadow, a chilly breeze tugged a strand of Blake's hair loose from underneath her beret. She tucked it back, shaking her head. "But it's just the opposite."

"I guess humans don't change much no matter where you go; they'll always try and control us."

"No. Not all of them."

Already facing away from Blake, the only way Ilia would avoid her disapproving frown would be to run away. And she couldn't do that.

"Anyway…" that argument was neither here nor there. Adam wasn't here. He'd never been there, and they hadn't found a trace of him in weeks. It was like trying to find a needle within a box full of pins. "In this case, I think we'd be lucky if someone had managed to collar him. If he really had an army at his disposal, I don't think it'd be good for anyone. Otherwise, this quiet… I don't like it. It means Adam's planning something."

"And we're not lucky."

"No," Ilia agreed, looking out over the horizon as cannons began to light up the night in some far-off corner of the conflict, little flashes like firebugs. "Part of me hopes he's somewhere far away right now. I heard the Eastern countries are cold, especially this time of year."

"Not everyone hates the cold as much as you do, you know."

With a smirk, Blake glanced at her friend who tried to hide her discomfort behind disapproval; she might have been able to play off the folded arms and stiff posture, but Blake could clearly see the bulk of thick winter clothing underneath Ilia's cloak. Her reptilian traits being a double-edged sword, perhaps they could count on the rest of the world settling in for the winter as well.

"Yeah, I'm sure the Schnee is loving this."

A sigh like a sharp gust blew away this lofty thought.

"Weiss isn't like her father," Blake insisted for what felt like the hundredth time, if only because she'd had to remind herself so often. "She can be… abrasive sometimes, but she really tries to do her best."

"I'll have to take your word for it,"

"I wish you wouldn't," Ilia whirled around, suddenly feeling Blake's insistence at her shoulder and wanting nothing more than to vanish. "I wish you would meet them in person before casting judgment. They had absolutely no reason to listen to me after I lied to them and yet… they have no obligation to help either, yet they're out there right now, doing the best they can. They're good people."

"I hope you're wrong,"

For want of a physical defense, this confession slipped out before Ilia could stop it.

"-For their own sake," Ilia amended quickly, admitting that it was perhaps for the best if Blake's comrades had already built up some callousness to this harsh world. At the same time, she felt a stab of guilt for the half-truth. If there were to be any good to come out of this nightmare, Ilia couldn't afford to lose Blake again, to anyone. "… For their own sake, it's better perhaps if they don't know I exist. You say they accept you despite your past. I wouldn't want people like that to have conflict of sympathy."

The feeling of honesty in her friend's words made them seem more of a prophecy. More than the goal of playing double-agent for Adam, Ilia seemed to be referencing a future where she and team RWBY might come into conflict.

And it wasn't yet clear which side Blake would be on.

"… I guess that's the real injustice of all this," Blake lamented, standing apart from her friend. "It's not that people are universally cruel, but that over and over again, good people are forced to fight each other."

"…Maybe," Ilia clasped her cloak tighter to try and cut the nipping cold. In doing so, her arm scrunched up against a folded piece of paper she'd tucked on the inside of her jacket and almost forgotten about. "I suppose," She grumbled, "speaking of…"

With no other explanation, the reptilian Faunus forced the distraction at Blake, quickly retreating once she had taken the piece of paper from her.

Feeling the quality stationary through her fingerless gloves, Blake turned the letter over in her hand but could see no address. With a sharp stroke of her fingernail she broke the plain wax seal that had neither initial nor family crest, opening the neat trifold and keeping it from catching wind like a sail.

She would have recognized the handwriting anywhere.

Ilia, though, had a harder time reading Blake's expression; part of her begrudged her honesty, as it would have been easier to sneak past that wax seal than wait here in unsettled patience.

Chatoyant eyes had widened but briefly, illuminating what seemed to Ilia to be simple and scant lines of text. Yet Blake took her time going over them, making her wonder.

"So…" Blake herself was unsure, hesitating between a look of threadbare amusement and bitter nostalgia, "Seph is apparently doing well, enough that he seems convinced they'll release him soon. Although, he says they want him to remain behind for a while and instruct some of the Americans who are starting to arrive, at least until he's fully recovered. After that… after that he's going to put in a request to be transferred back to frontline duty."

Carefully refolding the letter, she tucked it away in an inside pocket of her coat, between a forlorn sigh and the sharp angles of the revolver. "Thank you for checking in on him."

Ilia nodded as if to say it were no problem, yet not trusting herself to say so. She wasn't certain if she trusted her newfound, tempered opinion on the young man above her initial, prudent hostility.

"I wasn't sure if I could bear to see him this soon," Blake admitted, it feeling like a slip of the tongue- but no, she had drawn a deep, deliberate breath and let it out in two tendrils of fog like an ancient, greedy dragon, "It was so much easier the last time when I thought that I'd never see him again. That I could just… close this chapter on my life; never mind that it meant his would end. What a selfish thought. Stupid, really. And of course, I'd felt this way before, with Adam. And look how well that turned out."

Ilia winced as Blake scoff ruefully, tucked her chin into her upturned collar and shoved her hands in her pockets where they balled against her shivering thighs.

"I know we are all responsible for our actions. Yet I can't help but feel more responsible than everyone else. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad Seph is alive, really, I am. Because I believe that he's a good person. But then I know that part of me still feels the same way about Adam, that despite all he's done, that maybe it was with good intentions. And maybe, I'm just looking to forgive myself, wondering at what point bad decisions make us bad people."

Even though it wasn't a question, Ilia blamed herself for not knowing what to say, she resented being unable to comfort her friend beyond a simple platitude- even if that was what Blake really wanted to hear, or if she feared the truth as someone else saw it.

---

"You're lucky,"

As an outsider she watched him pause in his writing, not knowing what he was thinking until he told her with a chuckle,

"Funny, Ms. Schnee said the exact same thing."

"That's not what I meant," She insisted with a hiss, hating the comparison and forcing him to look up at her.

Though perhaps she hated even more how easy she seemed to be to read, how his eyes could focus on some point beyond her and he smiled as if he understood all along and was waiting for her to catch on.

"Yes," He said, the hand rubbing the bandages on his chest straying left over his heart as he glanced out the window. "I know."

---

"…You know, for what it's worth," Ilia offered reluctantly, even more hesitant after she stepped up next to Blake who startled as if she forgot her friend was there. "I think you could have done worse. He's not that bad… for a human."

Ilia struggled to hold still under Blake's blush-frosted smile, freezing as her friend place a hand on her shoulder. She tried to relax in the cold stiffness, pretend that she enjoyed standing there with the thunder and lightning of the cannons like fireworks, and that they had all the time in the world.

For as long as it took her to come up with the courage for something to say, however, Ilia had already made a separate resolution, a solid plan. Actions being so much easier to implement than words, she knew what to do to help put Blake's mind at ease.

That being said, this evening had been almost fruitless and needed to come to an end soon. Yet as she motioned to tell this to Blake, she felt the hand on her shoulder become like ice, clamping down and holding her in place.

"…What's that?"

Her words seemed muted, unable to reach even at arm's length. Outside of her notice, everything had become eerily halcyon, quietly restive. The guns had stopped firing, yet the sky was still aglow with silver light like the Milky Way had been drawn down to Earth to tuck them in for the night. It hung there on the horizon as a freezing fog, cold even to the sight. The two Faunus had to look away as it suddenly felt like frostbite in their eyes.

"Some kind of flare?" Ilia ventured, tears scraping down her cheeks as she tried once again to look at the silver Aurora. "Fire?"

"No," Blake answered looking at the ground, noticing that despite the twilight glow neither of them projected a shadow. "I think… I think it's a Semblance."

As soon as a name was found though, the sight disappeared. They both stood back up without realizing they had been sent to their knees in the first place and tried to see where it had gone, yet their vision was otherwise filled with the deceitful and illusory stars that encroached upon blackness.

"It was like a false dawn," Ilia remarked as she continued to blink and strain to see nothing but night sky.

Blake chose to say nothing, knowing that any hope she could give would be just as counterfeit.

But both understood that things were going to get darker before they became light again.

---

It took her a while before she finally decided that the picture wasn't of some kind of lookalike, not a doppelganger or distant relative who bore an uncanny resemblance to Ruby. It was her, with martial clothing that perhaps suited her better than the distant look on her face- but her all the same.

Pyrrha struggled to recognize the other black and white faces however, despite how they so undeniably belonged as if the scene were assembled with an instruction manual. There was Weiss, of course, who looked so otherwise at home by Ruby's side and with a proud expression and even smarter cavalry uniform. Yang should have stuck out right away as she threw a peace-sign at the camera, her personality and energy drawing attention from the background characters even as she crowded the people next to her.

Speaking of background- for some reason, Pyrrha had overlooked the man Yang had thrown her other arm around- which must have made him important, right? Yet he just seemed to disappear in the nexus between her and the black hole who was Blake.

Details were often hard to see in that tiny black and white photo (though Ozpin seemed to be getting lost in the weeds as it were, as he poured over scan he had blown-up on his computer), but as Pyrrha squinted, she noticed that there was an odd… sheen on his face. A pattern, like water spots on the paper- or like sunlight reflecting in water.

If she squinted, Pyrrha got the feeling that she could see herself reflected off the young man's glasses. More than Ruby who seemed to stare out into the future, he seemed to be looking into the present- their present. It was… spooky. Like looking down a hall of infinite mirrors and seeing someone standing behind you.

And that was when she noticed the shadow, lurking.

---

'…I was talking to an American soldier from the state of Oklahoma who was supposed to be assigned to my 'class'. He mentioned that he had native ancestors and related to me a story that he said was well known.

'The Tale of Two Wolves,'

'He said that the belief was that there were two wolves inside of a person, one representing evil, greed, anger and the like, while the other represented goodness: generosity, joy peace.

'It only follows that the two dominant creatures would be lodged in combat for the fate of that soul. And the question which thus arises is: which wins?

'He asked me this selfsame question, his own answer clear in mind. I did not need to think, and he did not listen when he told me "the one you feed."

'To this I replied,

'"You have not met a wolf. Both are liable to bite your hand."'

---

[1a] Silly Ruby, trying to pronounce 'lanolin'- natural fats that exist in wool.

[1]- The Spahis are light cavalry that were recruited from various parts of the Maghreb (French North Africa). Part of their traditional uniform was a garment called a 'burnous', which was a wool cape with a hood. The Moroccan Spahis in particular wore a crimson cape; in the first world war they also served frequently alongside the FFL as part of the colonial army. Couldn't have worked out better for Ruby to get a new cloak.

[1b] While the Legion's uniform has changed, they retain certain traditional parts to this day which include: green epaulets with red tassels, the Kepi-blanc (obviously), as well as a blue 'cienture', a wide, wool belt that was originally used to retain core temperature in the highly variable desert climate. At the time of the First World War, the Legion for ceremonial purposes (and depending on the formation) would wear a similar black jacket to the regular army and either red or white trousers (tenue de grande garance). Infantry would have gold buttons and cavalry would have silver, but both are required to bear "Legion Etrengere" and the style hasn't changed since the Legion's inception (also, I find it an interesting coincidence that this uniform in particular includes red, white, black and gold…).

[2]- I'm sorry, but puns are supposed to be cringy. Since Yang always calls Weiss "Ice-Queen", glace, pronounced 'glass', in French means ice.

[3] Requisite French for anyone I believe…

[4] WWI medicine- As far as the US was concerned, there were few medical schools apart from the 'Big' names (Cambridge, Harvard, etc.) with a handful of exceptions. There were no nursing schools. All of this was handled by apprenticeship, and it is pretty much the same for the rest of the world. WWI was a formative time for medicine, the birth of plastic surgery. The practice of draining and debriding wounds was first tried by WWI doctors. Magots were discovered to eat the dead tissue but otherwise leave live tissue alone, and soldiers who had magots were found to not be as susceptible to infection. Since bandages and dressings were in short supply, moss was indeed used as a substitute (at least in the British and possibly French armies; the Americans refused to use it for some reason). Of course, it had to be hand-gathered and eventually even those supplies were hard to come by. In general, the rule of thumb was insufficient supplies, including trained personnel. The stats change, but at one time, it was one doctor for every 7,000 troops of the BEF.

[5] It was often said after the war, that it was the case of the French trucks besting the German trains. However, these weren't exactly the trucks we're used to today: a lot of Ford Model A's, open cabins, no powered steering and breaks that would make the Flintstone's method of stopping a viable option. Even still, they proved invaluable, and the American Ambulance corps was credited with saving a lot of lives. Coordination was often an issue, as could be predicted. Theoretically, trucks dropping off ammunition and other supplies to the front should have been returning to the rear with casualties, but this didn't always happen.