When I was just a young boy - only seven years old - I was playing by the creek near our shack. I found a sparrow under a tree that had a red stripe down the nape of its neck I had never seen before. It was so tiny, only barely fitting on my palm, and its wing had been broken. In all honesty, I could just have left it back there. Momma told me never to mess with wild animals, especially birds.
The old crows in our area were said to have a good memory and held grudges that would never die against even the smallest slights. An entire black lineage may harass a man for his entire life and perch at his death bed, cackling all the way to the end. As a result, we had accepted them as a dark omen, bringing with them decay and bad luck.
There on that day as I held that little sparrow I saw sitting above on the branch of an oak tree a black raven watching me. Feathers as black as night with razor talons gripping tight on its perch. It had beady little eyes that had a hue of red that I can't quite describe in any other word than 'deep and eternal,' if that makes any sense. Probably doesn't.
Anyway, as I said earlier I knew that I should fear the crows and I got a strange little feeling there that I've never been able to ever explain. It was the raven that was talking to me, despite its sharp beak never moving and being quite incapable of speech. It was telling me to leave the sparrow behind.
Leave the poor thing to die alone for some mistake it made.
My young self found that quite unacceptable. Here I was in a position to help the sparrow, save its life or at the very least let it die in comfort. I didn't quite care about some silly curse from a silly-looking bird. Even if I did get a hex of some sort placed on my head, it would be quite worth a little bit of misluck for this sparrow.
I couldn't just stand by when I could have done something.
Looking back now, that's probably where it all started.
So, back to it, cradling the sparrow close to my chest and taking care not to drop it. I brought it to momma, telling her how I found it. I left out the raven of course. At the time I wasn't sure if she would have helped me if I told her about it. She took out an old shoebox and padded it with cloth. We fed it and she said that we should let it rest until its wing healed. Once that was done we would let it back loose into the wild.
I spent half of that night at its side, I didn't even sleep for a moment. I was constantly worried as I kneeled over the little thing. Eventually, Momma picked me up and I, despite my fruitless struggle, was tucked into bed. She brushed through my hair with her soft hands and whispered to me that I shouldn't need to worry. She would be there. She would protect both the bird, me, and anyone that ever needed help.
As I slept I tossed and turned, nightmares churning in my mind the entire night. For some reason, I had it in my little pea-brain that the bird would die when I got out of bed. Of course, I wasn't a baby anymore at the time. I knew that nightmares are silly things that went away when you woke up. Still, after such a stressful day I was convinced it was real. I spent what was left of the night just staring at the ceiling.
It took until ten in the morning until I had the courage to sit up. Rubbing the bag under my eyes, I stepped out into the kitchen and the first thing that hit me was the smell of pancakes, with syrup no less.
I knew right there something was wrong. She never liked pancakes as breakfast, too starchy, too sweet.
She sat me down with a sad look in her eyes.
Despite my best efforts, it died.
It died.
Though he was practically deaf in his right ear, the bark of the gunshot slammed against it like a sledgehammer.
The slug punched a black hole between Beowolf's eyes the size of a penny. The fire in its eyes disappeared as if a switch had been flicked off. It stood there, shivering on its four legs, trying to figure out what had just happened; if it should be dead or not.
Then the round's delayed charge blew.
Anything above its lower torso was reduced to a puff of liquidized tissue and splinters of bones. What was left slumped over and collapsed in a smoldering heap, black smoke emanating from it as it slowly dissolved, ridding the world of one more of its heinous kind.
Verdant turned to see where the shot had come from. A single red dot sat in the darkness, burning like the last coal in a dying hearth, more menacing than the Beowulf had ever been. It came closer, footsteps crunching on the muddy ground, close enough to the light of the flames of Verdant to see its source.
The man was stocky, not as heavy-set as Mostyn but taller. He radiated a certain aura that commanded total authority to his comrades, and dread to his foes. He wore a long imposing dark-blue officer's storm coat decorated with golden epaulets on his shoulder and a bronze badge with the insignia of a rearing boar on his right breast. A black scabbard hung around his waist that clattered softly with each step he made.
Under the brim of a tall peaked cap adorned with a silver badge in the middle, what had once been sharp, well-defined, and even handsome was now a gaunt ruin. Canyons of scars were carved across his gnarled face, the trophies of a thousand battles from three decades of constant wars. Where his left eye should have been was a red cybernetic orb that whirred in its socket, focussing its gaze on Verdant. His face was contorted and his teeth bared.
Verdant braced, expecting the worst.
But the man didn't pay any attention to the boy sprawled on the floor and strode past. In his hand was something more terrifying than anything Verdant had ever seen before.
More akin to a silver slab than anything resembling a handgun, forged from blackened steel decorated with intricate floral carvings, the revolver was massive and oozed malice. From a still-smoking muzzle to hammer, its twenty-two inches of raw power was owed to a hexagonal ammo cylinder that held five Grimmstopper rounds.
"Let all fall like this one shall fall." He said in a voice that was as rough as his appearance. He lowered the revolver and placed another shot deep into its still twitching body. What was left splattered on the trench walls in a viscous black viscera. "Disgusting bastards."
He turned around, his long coat-tails sweeping behind him, and for the first time noticed Verdant. He cringed away from the piercing stare.
"That was your flare?" He asked.
Verdant tried to respond but all that came out of his mouth was a dry wheeze.
"Answer quickly, boy, there's a war going on."
The twisted frown that formed on his face was enough to rip Verdant's voice out of his throat.
"Y-y-y-yes." He spat out as fast as he could. "That was mine."
"Speak clearly, I can barely hear you." The man took several steps forward, kneeling right next to him so close that Verdant could see every miniscule detail on his face. The left side of his face, from jaw to scalp had long ago ceased to be made of flesh now instead was garish and cold steel that appeared to have been haphazardly grafted on without a single care for looks. His single remaining organic eye was just as fearsome, if not more, than his artificial one. There was something in its depths that Verdant dared not stare any deeper lest he discover something never meant to be unearthed.
Verdant would have run for his life away from this beast in human skin but he had lost all feeling from his legs. In fact, he couldn't really feel anything but a radiating numbness throughout his whole body. "Yeah, that flare was mine, s-s-sir… Captain Sommel."
The Captain's features softened slightly, barely. "Good. Now get on your feet, trooper. The war's just begun."
He didn't have a chance to respond to Sommel before the man reached down and grabbed Verdant's hand. The grasp sent shocks up Verdant's arm, too cold to be flesh. Old squealing hydraulics had little trouble lifting him.
Verdant could barely stand. His legs were weak and felt that they would collapse at any moment. Only a mix of fear and awe kept him upright.
"Your weapon." He picked the Galesburg rifle off the ground and shoved it right into Verdant's trembling hands.
Verdant fiddled with the weapon, trying to fix the jam that had almost ended his life while knowing that he was under the gaze of a being that would make him sorry that he had survived.
"What's the matter, I thought you were trained on basic maintenance."
"I'm… I'm sorry, sir." He struggled to control his stutter. "I think there's mud in the chamber or… something. I can't tell."
Sommel snatched the weapon from the boy, ejected the magazine, and pulled back the oiled bolt so that the chamber was open and the firing pins exposed. His gloved finger dug around until he extracted a small clump of muck. He hacked and spat into the open chamber before he slammed it shut with a clack. After a vigorous shake, he bashed the magazine back into its slot.
He tossed the weapon to Verdant who only just caught it.
"Does it work, soldier?"
"It does. At least I think it does."
"Don't tell me what you 'think.' I want you to tell me if it works or not. No 'maybe's,' 'possibly's,' or 'perhaps'. You're in the meat grinder, I want absolute yes's or no's." He jabbed Verdant in the chest with his metal finger. "I want you to be sure. Anything less means something's gone wrong. When something goes wrong, someone's gonna die. When someone's gonna die, you're next in line. You should already know all of this. Who the hell taught you Basic back at Solace?"
"I think it was drill sergeant… uh… Kardus." He stammered
"Kardus, huh? Trust him to churn out Greenies in a worse state than when they arrived. I'd take actual untrained children over his recruits any time. Remind me if you somehow don't die tonight to shoot him, or at the very least try to."
"I'll try my best, sir."
A small throaty sound came from the Captain, slowly rising in tempo. It took a while for Verdant to realize it should be laughter, though it didn't sound like a proper one. "You amuse me, private. Your name? Apologies but I have many men under my command and not all of their names are known to me."
"Uh, Volkov Verdant, sir."
Sommel shrugged. He walked back to the Grimm carcass, now almost totally gone as the winds scattered away the last wisps. "Well, private Volkov, I am sure that you are aware that the fact that a Grimm got this deep, in the midst of the thickest bombardment I've seen since Glenn no less, means only one thing."
"What?"
"Take a guess, boy. Take that grey matter of yours on a small jog."
"It's an infiltration behavior they use. They sow chaos and discord in our lines so that…" He trailed off.
"Come on, you almost had it. One more step."
Verdant gulped. It really was happening.
"So that their main offensive has a higher chance of actually penetrating our lines."
"And where there is smoke, there is fire." Sommel proclaimed. Almost on cue, gunshots began to bark in the distance, sounding like bundles of twigs being snapped. Sporadic, but Verdant doubted that it would stay that way for much longer. "There she blows, or so the saying goes."
He glanced over his shoulder, his red cybernetic eye burning brighter than ever before.
"Tell me, soldier, are you quite ready for another scrap? You've more than proved yourself tonight dragging Guardsman Arc all the way back here with that wound, don't worry he still had a beating heart the last I saw and sent him on his way. He'll be okay. Last thing I need in a battle is a trooper at wit's end. So, what say you?"
Verdant was too afraid to say no. He just nodded vigorously again.
Sommel waved Verdant to follow after as he set down the trench. "Come on. We have yet to irrigate this land with Grimm blood. I've heard it makes a wonderful fertilizer."
Verdant quickly scampered after. He could barely keep up with the Captain, who strode swiftly with his coat-tails trailing behind him, his boots splashing mud up and kicking broken plankboards out of the way. Any faster and the man would have broken into a run. Nothing, it seemed, would stand in his way. Even if a brick war had been built in his path he would have smashed it down.
Though Verdant had only ever seen his Company Commander once or twice, always at a distance, he had heard plenty enough in the rumor mills that ran at mess hall lines. Some bordering on absurd, like the time trooper Kenny claimed that Sommel had killed ten thousand Grimm or that he had once laid low a Goliath in single combat. Verdant didn't doubt that Sommel had accomplished many things in his forty years of service, but he could tell that the tall tales that circulated were either great exaggerations or flat-out lies.
Yet, now they all seemed possible because of one thing that Verdant still couldn't believe:
The man was eager to fight the Grimm.
He actually wanted to as if it was his dearest dream.
"Maidens, protect me," Verdant whispered under his breath. He should have said no.
There was no time for take backs as he heard the sounds of artillery again. For a dreadful second, he thought it was the Grimm beginning a second barrage. But it was their own, scattered gun-pits that had somehow survived the pounding were beginning to send shells blindly into no-man's-land in the hopes of hitting the foe as they approached.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Sommel suddenly said when they turned what seemed like the hundredth corner in this Brother-forsaken maze. Looking over his shoulder he realized with apprehension that he had been here before. The smoke that had curled around the crater was long gone, possibly revealing death in its most literal form.
It could barely have been less than a few minutes ago but it felt like a lifetime had passed since he and Arc nearly met their maker.
"Interesting, I've only ever seen one of these before. And that was almost thirty years ago." Sommel noted as they approached it. He clearly had little worry being so close to a shell, while inert, could possibly at any moment detonate with enough power to atomize both of them as well as three hundred meters of the trench in all directions. Verdant was far less brave, staying a good distance away.
"At Glenn, sir?" Verdant guessed.
"Yes. Though I suppose when you fire over fifty to sixty hundred million shells at one city without respite for ten months, chances are at least one or two's going to be a dud." He said. "Take a look at this. Come closer. I said, come closer, soldier. If it hasn't gone off yet, it won't go off until the very stars themselves die off."
Verdant had to decide which he would rather die at the hands of. It was quite an easy choice to choose being blown to bloody bits over the alternative.
Cylindrically shaped with a conical tip, it resembled the artillery shells that humanity churned out in their hundreds of thousands every day for the eternal war effort. But something about it struck Verdant as wrong. Part of its black casing had broken and revealed a crystal inside that constantly changed hues like a chameleon.
"What is that?" Verdant muttered, enraptured by the shifting colors. How could something so terrible and feared be so alluring beneath the skin?
"Pure dust. If I had to take a guess, it's mostly fire-dust mixed in with a little whatever else you can imagine. Quite a volatile concoction. The Grimm doesn't have any factories, at least that we know of, so they have their worker forms dive deep into the ground and extract what dust they can find. They then feed it to the bombard constructs which somehow process the dust into this."
What little Verdant had learned at both his pre-enlistment education and the crash course given during Basic on what little was known about the Grimm confirmed what Sommel was saying. Still, it was a hard thing to believe: intelligent enough to create such weapons that man envied yet still possess such a feral and unpredictable behavior on the battlefield that had confounded generations or researchers.
Sommel reached for his lapel where a small compact radio box had been fixed and thumbed it on. "Captain Sommel here. Halcyon, I've got something here that might interest you."
The response that came back was chock full of interference and just sounded like a speaker blowing itself out. Verdant could still tell that whoever was on the other end was not pleased, probably because they were in the middle of a war.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Sommel somehow managed to decipher the gibberish. "Shut up for a moment and listen to what I have to offer you tonight. You Combat Pioneers are always so hungry so I've got a fine meal for the boys: an unexploded Grimm shell."
No response. Just tense silence.
"I'm at post-fifty-seven, communication pathway eighty betas, otherwise known as Ironwood's… wood. Maidens, how I hate using the slang the common mudsloggers use. So crass. Did you get that? Good, come pick it after this is done. If we last the night anyway." With that, he flicked off his radio and turned to Verdant. "Come on."
Verdant jumped as suddenly the not-so-distant gunshots suddenly got louder, more guttural, more rapid, more frantic.
"You afraid, Volkov?" Sommel asked, giving an actual earnest look. "I'll be honest here, you come with me and you'll be diving into hell. A hell that I cannot ensure that you will walk out of. Last chance. No judgment but no take backs."
He could run. He could run as far as he wanted, over the hills and far away, but he knew he would never escape it. He could never escape the guilt he knew would always be at his heels, gnawing and biting for as long as he still drew breath. He would be proving to that dark part in his mind that had been there ever since that blood-soaked night when he was barely five, that it was right to think of him like that.
He was weak and pathetic. Just some little unspecial boy destined to a boorish man with an unearned job that had been given to him because of who his mother was.
Unacceptable.
He was more than that.
He might never possess the aura to become a Huntsman as he had always dreamed, but damn it if he wasn't going to try to get as close as he could to that dream, even if it always stayed just out of reach.
Just the old heroes.
"No. Sir," Verdant said simply with a steel in his voice that even surprised Sommel. "Ready to kill some Grimm bastards."
"Good. I like my soldiers eager for a good scrap up." With that, Sommel continued on. He snapped open the cylinder of his massive revolver, letting the empty brass casings fall. He reached inside his coat pocket, taking out two cartridges. The individual rounds were bigger than the ones Verdant had for his rifle. The bullets themselves were as large as his thumb and each had an explosive core that Verdant had already seen the effectiveness of. Eighty caliber rounds, no, shells would be a better term to describe these tools of wrath.
Grimm Stopper-class rounds indeed. Awe inspiring and terrible at the same time, just like its wielder, he reflected.
He was too busy marveling over the power contained in just a single handgun, that he started when his foot caught on something and it… burped.
He froze. He swallowed back the bile. Cold sweat trailed down his forehead. Verdant couldn't help but look at what had almost tripped over.
Broken fingers splayed outwards, the broken and twisted arm lay upon the chest of its owner. His porcelain-like face looked strangely peaceful, his eyes closed and relaxed as if he had just gone to sleep. The crimson blood smeared over his looked so profane and so offensive.
He wasn't alone in death. They all had the same look.
Dozens of fresh corpses virtually formed a carpet of flesh over the entire trench floor, all twisted and wrapped under and over each other in a scene of carnage. The shell had fallen right into the trench and scorched black the walls with soot and shredded those closest to the blast into nothing bigger than a fist. So many bodies, packed in so tight, into such a space.
"What a scene," Sommel commented, far too casual for Verdant's comfort. "But there's no other way around I'm afraid, unless you want to go over the top. I fancy getting my boots a little dirty over certain death."
Sommel took the first step forward. Verdant was far more reluctant but had little choice as the captain seized his hand and jerked him along. "If it helps, I highly recommend that you keep looking forward and don't look down."
Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down.
Corpses under their feet groaned and farted as they placed pressure on them, squeezing the air out of their insides. Verdant reached his hands out to brace himself against the sides of the trenchway.
Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down.
A geyser of blood erupted out of a chest wound when Verdant put too much weight on one body. He gasped as blood coated the lower half of his uniform. It was uncomfortably warm and he desperately fought to urge not to rip his clothes off right then.
Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down.
Desperate grasping fingers suddenly grabbed onto Verdant's ankle. Someone was still alive, barely.
Don't look down. Don't look down. Don't look down.
"Help. Help me." The voice hoarsely begged. "Water. I need water. Please."
"I'm sorry, Volkov." Sommel didn't even turn his back. "She's too far gone. Come on, the main assault will begin any second, I'm sure of that, and we need to be there when it happens."
Verdant ignored his commander and kneeled down, unscrewing the cap off his water canteen. She could barely hold it with her remaining arm, caked in blood, so he held it to her lips for her. Parched lips desperately sipped the little water like it was everything she had left in the world.
He saw that Sommel had been right. One of her pupils was a pinprick, the other badly dilated and black. Behind her ear crusted dried blood was leaking out from an ugly dent in the side of her helm. A shard of plankboard, no longer than Verdant's forearm, had impaled her in the sternum from and center. She noticed Verdant staring at it.
"I'm not going to be getting up from that, am I?"
"I'm… I'm sorry. It is." He couldn't lie.
Her eyes quickly became wet with tears. "I'm going to die ain't I?"
"Yes. Yes, you… will." He so very wishes he could bring himself to lie and tell her that everything was going to be alright. But she had the right to know the truth. It was, no… is, her life. Let her know the end, Verdant told himself. "I'm sorry. I really am."
"It doesn't hurt."
"Small blessings." He was mentally slapping himself at this point. He couldn't think of anything to say.
A hacking cough was all she could muster as a grim chuckle. "Blessings… do all of them feel like this?"
"No. I mean… maybe. The Brother gives us blessings, small and big don't really apply because we should still be thankful to receive them. Though, I'm really not sure in your case."
"Brother… you're one of those religious guys? Think there's a big man in the clouds watching over us?"
"That's one way to put it."
"I guess the fact I didn't convert's coming back to bite me in the ass." Weakly, she handed back the now empty water canteen. Verdant took it and then held her with both of his. It was the only thing he thought he could do.
"No, no, no, don't think that. It doesn't matter if you didn't convert or not. It doesn't even matter if you never believed. Our Lord loves us all despite all. Tell me, were you a good person? Were you true to yourself?"
A trail of blood began to trickle from the corner of his lips. "I… I… guess. I mean I'm here. I wanted to help others, defend others. But I never got to fire a shot, I never even got to see the enemy. And I'm just going to die here. For nothing. Is that all I amount to? Nothing?"
"You're not nothing. In the eyes of my God, you mattered. We all matter." He was back. In those dusty cloisters again, in the town's modest-sized church, a lost short boy wandered aimlessly as the funeral service came to a close. "You matter to me."
"You don't even know me."
"I don't need to."
A weak smile was all she managed. "If you had told me that line at a bar, I'd be throwing my drink in your face."
"I suppose you would."
He swallowed hard as he saw the distant look in her eyes, the light in them starting to snuff out.
"Would you mind if I gave you… last rites, to place your soul at rest and to speed it to the afterlife?" The words came out of his mouth before he could bite it back. But it was out there now. No take backs.
"You ain't no priest, I don't think."
"No, not even close. But I studied under one when I was younger and I know how it goes. So, is it okay? Do you want it?"
"Better than nothing."
Verdant took up her hand, cradling it in his, and then began to whisper softly so that only two people in the entire world could hear. "Rest now and smile knowing that our Brother is coming on swift wings to present you the prize of eternal peace we all desire. Is there anything you wish to confess to me at this late hour?"
She didn't respond. She only looked at him with dimming eyes.
"May the Brother in his grace and mercy help you with the grace of his Maidens. May our Supreme Lord who protects us from the darkness with his light, save you and raise you up. May your soul be reaped by the scythe of the Fall Mistress. May your flower bud be placed within His Garden that you may bloom when all Four unite once more and bring the end. I abjure thee so go now, rest, and prepare to awaken."
The light in her eyes fizzled out. She was no more.
"Indeed to the Brother we belong and indeed to Him we return." Verdant sadly whispered. "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
He laid her arm back to her side and gently with his thumb closed her last eyelid so that she could have a peaceful sleep.
Verdant stood back up and saw that Sommel had been watching the whole time, a passive expression on his face. Disappointment of Verdant's weak stomach, pity at her needless death, annoyance at this waste of time? But frankly? Verdant didn't really care. "I'm done, sir. I apologize for the delay."
Sommel didn't say anything, just turning and stomping away. Verdant followed close behind, never looking back again.
A/N: Sorry for the delay in this chapter, I wanted to make some last-minute edits since I wasn't really confident about some parts. I'm also working at the same for another lore post about the Guard and have come up with some weapons that match with the battle doctrine of the guard and the logical way to combat hordes of endless Grimm. It'll take a while to come out since I'm working on this at the same time. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you have any feedback, specifically for the last rites scene and some lore parts, please give it so I can learn to be better.
Masterix: It's great to hear that you enjoyed it. One of the reasons that I wrote it is that I found little tales in RWBY cannon or Fanfiction that dealt with the struggle of normal people against the eldritch terror known as the Grimm. Always loved people that know they are weak yet still struggle against the inevitable.
MidKnightMoonglow99: As far as I am aware, no, you are not crazy. Just asking, but how did you initially pick up the 40k themes in the first two chapters when you made you're first comment?