Welcome back everyone for another interlude! As always this chapters are odd and I try to experiment a little to keep things interesting. So, bear with me because this is all dialogue.

As always I'd like to thank everyone for leaving a review last chapter!

Hellbreaker, Nordlending,Sturm and Drang and last but not least Baoh joestar! Thank you all for leaving your thoughts and comments it good to be back and also half the fun of writing Russel is putting him through all sorts of pain so you know, 'tis to be expected.

Well anyways, I've jabbered enough, more notes down below!

The Interview

"I'm so glad you could take a minute to speak with us, it means a lot."

"Not every day a big shot like Lisa Lavender shows up in Venezier and so adamantly demands a meeting."

"Oh, so that's what this is about."

"Don't jerk me around. I know you're not here to discuss current affairs in Venezier."

"So, what do you think I'm asking about?"

"You're asking about him, of course."

"Russel Thrush. Venezier was his first sanctioned mission as a Huntsman. I was hoping you could give us some insight, to be better help the people understand what made him the man he was."

"And to explain his actions in Vale, no doubt."

"I'm not trying to come across as offensive, Mr. Iron-Knife, but the people want to know the story, the whole story, and anything you can give us about his actions here years ago might just help our viewers understand why things happened the way they did."

"So you claim, but I've seen that crap you've churned out. Twenty-four seven across all major syndicated news networks and all the talking heads say the same thing. You've already formed an opinion on the matter and now you're just sniffing out evidence to support your conclusions."

"People are dead, Mr. Iron-Knife. Regardless of your feelings on the matter, we have a lot to answer for and people want answers. So please, tell us, how did Russel Thrush come to be the man we know today?"

"…I can't comment on the decisions he made beyond his brief time in Venezier, but I can speak of this. One of the perks of living in a tourism hotspot, everyone's got a great attitude that keeps the Grimm away. So in my life, however long or however brief, I've known only a few Huntsmen and even fewer on a personal level, which brings me to Russel."

"How exactly did you meet him anyways?"

"I met him while the Blimey Cocks were keeping me locked up in the old Sheriff's office, always handy to have a doctor on call, that sort of thing. But then they'd thrown him in there with another guy. Wound up trading stories and comparing notes, I got busted out of there when the others eventually came, then I took them to the only place I knew where I could take them, my old buddy's shoreline cabin."

"What would you say was your immediate impression of him?"

"When he told me he was a Huntsman, I couldn't believe it, he was a kid. I thought he was pulling my leg. But he was also bright, figuring out why they would bother keeping an old coot like myself around while others were being worked to death doing Oum knows what out in Old Venezier. But, yeah, my first impression was he was in over his head."

"Then what happened?"

"Well, they were Huntsmen and they had a mission, so they left me be and headed off to Kruger's Camp. You should have seen it, back when we were rebuilding I had to go out there and gather dead. One tent was filled with bodies, all of them mutilated, the stuff of nightmares. Then there were the living conditions, god awful, people being chained to their beds if they weren't being forced to work and the people I'd look over were so malnourished, I could barely believe it myself."

"When you say people, do you mean Faunus?"

"No, I mean people. I don't give a rat's ass about whatever politics are being flung around in Vale right now, what I saw were the terrible echoes of an overthrown regime, however brief their grasp was over this town it has forever stained the back of my mind. And that was only after everyone had gone free. Russel and his pals went there while the camp was operational."

"Do you think seeing the Faunus being worked to death had some sort of influence over his rationale?"

"No, I think whatever they were doing to the people here was secondary. He had a mission, retrieve another of theirs who'd been captured. I never met him, but he must've been a lot of trouble over cause when Russel came back to the cabin they were only two of them then and the poor kid was a bloody mess."

"A bloody mess? You're being quite literal, aren't you?"

"I'm a doctor, I do my best to heal the sick with medicines and patch wounds with specialized tools. I've seen a lot of bad scrapes, from fixing bones to sewing up cuts, but I've always had the ability and means to save a life. When Russel was brought back to me, I didn't have any of those things, I'd never been on so much pressure and feel so powerless. But I managed, I fixed him up and the kid was lucky enough to survive. But he didn't get a break, he didn't get a reprieve from the action."

"What do you mean?"

"They came for them, followed them all the way out to the coast and threatened to kill us all. But he picked himself up and just marched out the cabin door and faced them."

"He wasn't scared?"

"Hell yeah he was, so were we, but we were facing life and death, and he wouldn't let it go. So he got them to back off, snagged something important off Kruger and threatened to burn it. Negotiated a trade for later in the evening then walked back inside looking like a haggard corpse."

"It's said in the local history that it was then that the Blimey Cock Massacre occurred, that Russel led a bloody revolt against them."

"Yeah, just about then. But it wasn't so much as a revolt, more like a liberation."

"Whatever the language, Russel deemed it appropriate to take the lives of several men and women that day."

"To my knowledge, he only killed two that day. And if you ask me? Remnant's a better place without them."

"But he still killed people."

"…I told him to leave, to run away and save himself, but he didn't listen to me. He said he couldn't. You see, he was a Huntsman, he couldn't just walk away from it, he had to face them. I didn't understand it at time, but it clicked in the end. Being a Huntsman, it's not about the fame and glory our leaders would want us to believe, that just by stepping up to kill some Grimm you can be a 'Hero'."

"Are you telling me Russel Thrush saw himself as a hero for his actions?"

"No, he saw himself as a man facing impossible odds with limited resources and options. All of which resulted in a lot of people getting killed."

"So, he chose to slaughter the Blimey Cocks?"

"I would like to remind you that it was the people of Venezier who purged the Blimey Cocks from this world. No one man made that decision."

"But isn't that the decision Russel arrived to?"

"How do you go about deciding the fate of one man let alone a hundred? It's not easy, I know, because I was there when he thought it over. The look on his face was so…filled with discontent."

"And yet he did so anyways?"

"What I'm saying is he didn't have a choice in the matter. There'd been too many deaths, his only say in the matter was deciding who else would be dying that night."

"Do you think he regretted it? Even for a moment?"

"No."

"One last question then?"

"Shoot."

"You've mentioned the talking heads, you're obviously informed of world affairs. Given what you know and your experiences with Russel, can you tell us, were you surprised? To hear that he'd done all the things he's now accused of? Could you see the young man you met that day killing all those people?"

"…It takes a lot to take a life, you just don't flip a switch and then you're a cold-hearted killer. This goes the same for the Blimey Cocks, it's a process, left alone to your own devices one might find themselves drawn to their own conclusions and act upon them. The young man I met that day exuded a moral courage I could never have fathomed, to give whatever it took to stop Kruger and his men, even if it meant the possibility of dying out in the streets."

"You still haven't answered my question, could you picture him being a murderer?"

"…No, but I could picture him being a Huntsman."

When I started the last arc last year I intended to follow up the story with an Interlude about Sky and see what he was up to in the future, but then all the delays happened. So, I changed up the formula of things and this time following Redhorse keeping the substance of the interlude I originally wanted to tell while also keeping it connected to the events of the last couple chapters. It even aloud me to sneak in a couple peeks at future story events.

So, yes, next time you see an update from this story it will be following the schedule I've set for myself. Estimated Time? However long it takes me to write five chapters and an interlude.

Until next time dear readers! Later Days!