The time seemed to pass by for the rest of the school day because before they knew it lunch time came around and as per usual the two teams RWBY and JNPR would sit together at lunch to trade tales of misadventures during the school day, they had even accommodated Hansel with an extra chair.
However that chair has been empty for the last several minutes.
"Anyone see where Hansel went?" Yang asked looking over to the lunch lines believing she'd spot the gas mask clad boy there getting lunch.
Ruby opened up her scroll and started seeing if she could lock on to it, "I found his scroll signature… he's out in the garden."
"Shouldn't he be eating with us? We are supposedly a team after all." Weiss said in the snarkiest way humanly possible.
Nora slurped a few noodles from her spaghetti and gave a small belch, "S'cuse me, maybe he's off communicating with the dead with otherworldly powers!" She made an ominous ooing noise waving her arms around.
Ren nod his head, "Nora I don't think he can do that."
"If anything he'd kill somebody for being able to do that, because, 'that would be heresy.'" Ruby said mimicking Hansel's serious monotone voice the best she could with a practiced frown, only to break out into a small giggle.
Yang snickered, "That's so cute, but does your little boyfriend know you do that behind his back?" She said snickering even more as Ruby froze with an uncomfortable smile on her face.
"Boyfriend?" The collective of JNPR asked looking dumbfounded.
The heiress herself chimed in, "Oh yeah, Hansel and Ruby sitting in a tree…"
"…K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" Yang finished pulling Ruby's reddening cheeks.
"Are you serious?" Jaune asked covering his mouth.
"We-we are not! We haven't been! H-he's just a friend!" She tried defending albeit very poorly; the bashfulness on her face betrayed her greatly as she looked like a ripe tomato ready to be picked. Ruby glared at her partner and Yang as the fiendish teasing duo had to lean against each other from laughing too hard, even Blake had her hand over her mouth to keep the chuckles from coming out.
"What's so funny!?" She demands puffing her cheeks out crossing her arms.
Yang wipes a tear away pulling Ruby into a one armed hug, "Don't take it to heart Rubes, we're just messing with you is all."
This doesn't improve Ruby's mood at all as she continues glaring at her sister with a scowl. She flings some applesauce from her spoon right in between Yang's eyes, the blonde shuts her eyes to wipe her face off with some steam coming out of her ears, "Okay, maybe I deserved that. None got in my hair right?"
"No Yang." Blake said flicking off some sauce that actually landed in Yang's hair into Jaune's face, getting an annoyed frown from the blonde boy, "Besides, it doesn't matter if Ruby likes him, do you even know if Hansel can understand the concept of love in the first place?"
"Well… he has that romance novel, doesn't that count?"
Blake shook her head, "No that doesn't count, he may have the book but does he understand the message in the text? It's one thing to read a book; it's another to understand it properly."
Ruby frowned setting her chin on her hands propped up on the table, "I don't know if he does understand."
The blonde brawler patted her sister's back, "It's okay Rubes, besides you're too young to have a boyfriend anyhow."
Ruby jumped to her feet sticking a finger in her sister's gut, "You had three at my age!"
Yang scratched the back of her head smiling bashfully, "That doesn't mean anything Ruby, besides, none of them were scary trench coat wearing killers either. I don't think our Dad or Uncle Qrow would like him very much."
Ruby simmered back down into her chair and began shifting her food around with a fork, "Gee, I think Uncle Qrow would have a stroke if he found out that I like Hansel."
"Oooohhhh you admitted it!" Yang cheered pulling Ruby's cheeks.
"Yang!"
In the garden…
The flowers were a refreshing sight for the Kriegan boy, all doubts and worries seemed to just disappear whenever he came here, the only place where he can enjoy being alone and where he can eat a small lunch in peace. It was an almost perfect time of hour for him.
That was until he saw the filthy abhuman with the rabbit ears walking by; the very sight of the abomination sent an angry chill through his body, every nerve was screaming for him to rip her ears off and strangle her with them and burn her with a flamer so that there was no evidence of her existence excluding a scorch mark with ash around it.
For now though he'll settle with a cold glare and malicious plans for the abhuman as she walked past him going about her business.
"Abomination…" Hansel mutters going back to his sketching; he had nearly copied the flower of his choice, a red rose, all he had to do now was apply some shading, then find a colored pencil to add value to the petals and stem.
Absentmindedly he pulled his scroll from his coat and starting searching for the school store on campus, with a little bit of the money that he got as allowance from Ozpin Hansel figured he might as well purchase something he could use; before he could leave the courtyard however a small ding emitted from his scroll.
Pulling it out and curiously opening up the inbox he found a message from Ruby: "Class in five minutes don't be late! We missed you at lunch by the way!" It read with a little smiley face emote winking at him.
"Strange device." He muttered eyeing the endless winking emote, his text back reads: "On my way to destination."
In the lunchroom…
"Oh I'm getting a reply!" Ruby squealed.
"What's it say?" Blake asked looking over her shoulder.
"On my way to destination. At least he acknowledged it." Ruby said with a sigh and lowered shoulders, "I thought he would've… I don't know, sent something like, 'Sorry for totally ignoring you and everybody at lunch.'"
Blake frowns patting her shoulder, "I'm sure he'll explain why he left us at lunch." She tried giving Ruby a hopeful smile but it fell faster than a cardboard airplane, the little scythe wielder looked so put out from Hansel's lack of response; ever since Oobleck and Port's class's he's seemed distant, more distant than he usually was, almost like there was something bothering him.
Whatever it was it was affecting Ruby in a very negative way.
In the class…
A green hair woman with fair features tapped on a canvas with her paint brush, "Welcome back to art! For any of our new students in the class, my name is Professor Lisa Verde and I'll be your art teacher for this year." She finishes her speech with a small smile gesturing to the canvases around the room.
"All of these works of art are from a dark time in Remnant's history when struggling powers feuded over lands and civil rights, one of the things almost lost during that age were the arts. That's the reason why each of your names has some sort of reference to nature or the arts."
She then gestured out to the empty canvases, "Now I want you to express yourselves, show me a happy memory, a scene from your past that you would like to share, or just something creative! You have the whole period to paint."
Although it was strange that a combat school offered an art class of all things Hansel spared no time in finding a fresh canvas for him to use, he knew exactly what to make that should impress and humble the humans and abhumans of this world through the use of historical propaganda.
Mountain Glenn…
In the darkest regions of the endless caverns that spread through Mountain Glenn like a sick spider web a truly horrific ritual was underway. Under Montresor's possession, Aaron and his fellow possessed managed to convince their fellow Fang members that an ambush by Beowulves killed their scouting party and that they were lucky enough to survive.
Once again the lies of Tzeentch fool the weak minded, but further events with engaging the White Fang would be rare so that they don't arouse suspicion, thankfully Aaron's memories supplied Montresor with different routes into the city of Vale where he could lure the poorer underclass of the abhumans into an ambush.
For the next phase of his plans to succeed, he needed sacrifices. Lots of sacrifices.
A chorus of horrid sadistic laughter filled the cave, the Bloodpact were currently tormenting some new sacrifices, baring their filed teeth and licking blood off of the scraps from the Fang scouts they encountered before.
Montresor would admit that it seemed a tad bit cruel, if he cared, besides what the Pact members were doing was far more humane compared to what Caligularii was doing. Slaanesh cultists were always finding new ways to be disturbing even to other cultists, thus they weren't liked by anybody.
"Khan." The Khornate warrior sneered turning to face Montresor, "Bring me the one with wolf ears."
Khan grunted in response gesturing to one of his men to unshackle the wolf eared Faunus man.
"Please, please don't kill me, please don't…" He pleaded pathetically with ears pressed down against his head, tears streaming from his eyes as he tried in vain to struggle.
"Rejoice friend, rejoice!" Montresor said kneeling down to the man's eye level, "Your death shall feed our God's of Chaos and bring about a great change to this world." He grabbed his chin and stared into his eyes with his glowing eyes, "You and your kind shall be the building blocks of something great. So rejoice for the short moment of life you have left."
With an act of defiance the man reared his head back and head butted Montresor, his small act earned him a harsh choke slam onto the sacrificial table, "Now that was just rude."
Unsheathing the sacrificial knife the Sorcerer began chanting in the foul tongues of Chaos, the shadows seemed to grow larger and move about on their own free will, the growling from the Pact members grew more intense as the dark powers began to boost their bloodlust.
Bubonico's spores began to glow a bright green, "It tickles my lungs! Mwhahaha!" He chuckled with a heavy metallic tone, a side effect from wearing his re-breather.
The poor wolf eared man's breathes began to quicken, his heart felt like it was going to burst from his chest with the amount of fear he felt. He screamed in horror as the ceiling of the cave started to twist and turn as if it was moldable clay until it tore itself apart, what it revealed was too mind-numbingly horrifying that description was the last thing on his mind.
Coincidently this was also the time Montresor decided to plunge the knife through his heart, a quick twist and pull released a fountain of blood that began to spiral into the vortex bringing the Faunas man's soul into the void.
Montresor spreads his arms out bellowing with triumphed laughter, "Bring me more sacrifices! They want their blood! Their souls! For Chaos Undivided!"
Beacon…
Over the past hour the class had gone smoothly; excluding an incident where Nora tried sniffing the paint fumes lord know she doesn't need it. The class had shown some sort of artistic vision in the least; Ruby had created a yellow square creature living in a pine apple in the bottom of the sea for her canvas, Yang painted her motorcycle, Blake an open book no surprise, and Weiss making ironically making a snowflake.
Professor Verde had graded them well and even commented on how their paintings could be displayed at the Vytal festival. After reviewing JNPR's partner paintings she concluded that Jaune Arc could use some improvement in the detail department when it came to knight paintings, while Pyrrah Nikos could use some more inspiration other than a dueling court with two duelists. Lie Ren had an excellent painting of cherry blossom trees while his partner had an interesting collage of sloths eating Grimm… perhaps the girl needed a psych evaluation?
Then that brought her to the last student, Hansel, Ozpin had told her about this boy in particular out of all the rest. He asked her to keep a good eye on him and see if painting would be able to bring out a more as he put it, "Human" side.
Whatever he meant by that eluded her until she saw his painting. Never before had she ever been so speechless.
The skull masked boy had created a work of art that looked museum worthy with its near professional brush strokes compared to the less professionally done by the other students. The scene he depicted was also rather… spectacular.
She counted four massive armored men standing taller than any others she's ever seen. The armor they wore looked bulky and protective, adorned with black paint and skulls, their visor's eyes were a bright shade of red. All of their weapons were extremely large, some were axes and swords with chained teeth that seemed to be revving.
But these massive beings were not alone; beside them were others that had similar attire to Hansel's, they were charging alongside the massive men against horrifying monsters that had what looked like swords for arms.
"Who… who are they?" She asked, her eyes were devouring every minor detail of the painting with artistic interest.
Hansel gestured towards the side of the black armored men, "These are the Black Templar Space Marines, sons of the Emperor of Mankind, beside them are Kriegan guardsmen charging Tyranids on an agricultural world."
The Professor didn't take her eyes off of the painting, "Where did you learn to paint like this?"
"For a period of time I was tutored by a Planetary Governor that I was assigned to guard, he was a kind old man."
"Whoa, "Ruby gasped, she grabbed Hansel's shoulders, "they look so cool! What are those weapons! What are those scary looking things?"
"Tyranids." He pushes her hands off, "Reframe from touching me."
"Sorry." Ruby mumbled casting her eyes to the floor.
From behind Ruby the rest of her team and team JNPR gave Hansel disapproving looks, looks that did not faze him in the slightest for he didn't recognize the facial language. Very few people on the Kriegan portion of the Imperial Guard were able to give a disapproving look and that would be requiring them to be mask less, now if they had crossed their arms he would've understood and not cared their gestured opinions.
He just assumed they were jealous of his glorious masterpiece. Which would be understandable.
"You wouldn't mind if I display this piece for the Vytal festival at all do you Mister Hansel?" Professor Verde asked trying to contain her excitement.
"Do what you will with it, just make sure it is displayed properly, these are the Emperor of Man's sons and they need to be shown the proper respect even in a painting."
Verde nodded her head rapidly, "Oh of course, they shall displayed proudly with the other art pieces, but on a higher perch of course, since they are royalty."
"Good." He responded just as the bell began ringing.
With the class over with Hansel spared no time in grabbing his bag and march-bolting (boltmarching… he marches all the time okay?) out of the class room before his 'teammates' as they like to refer to themselves as could catch up with him.
"What's his damn problem?" Yang growled sending hateful eye daggers towards the Kriegan boy's fleeting form, "I'm going to give him a good beating."
Before Yang could do something she'd regret Blake stood in her way, "Yang stop. He's obviously in a bad mood. I think he just needs some space."
"Space?! What in the world could he possibly angry over anyhow?" Weiss spat waving her had off towards Hansel's direction.
"Well he's a soldier, and a religious fanatic that's known nothing outside of what has been given to him. He's probably confused about how actual people live." Blake tried explaining, though it struck her in a way because Hansel was a racist, excluding that she did feel sympathy for him. She herself lost her childhood to strife, but in her case she at least had a few good years as a child in the first place.
Yang frowned but sighed a second later, "He did have it rough, but he can at least try to be nice to us."
She turned to her left to talk to Ruby about what could be done to make Hansel act nicer but her younger sister wasn't there, "Where'd Ruby go?!"
Both teams looked around frantically but the young huntress in training wasn't there.
RWBY's dorm…
'Damned heretics, damned schola, damned planet full of cowards and abhuman filth! Damn it all to the Warp!' He vented throwing his coat to his bedroll, the day proved to be disappointing on too many levels. A small history with only two mentionable wars and the most recent one being a defeat to abhumans of all things proved to Hansel that these people needed more help than he could provide, Emperor forbid any actual foes appeared on this world because it would be a bloodbath.
Not that every battle he's ever been hasn't been a bloodbath or anything, but he doubted that any of them could handle the Ruinous Powers, cultist militia might even be formidable here because if what they are saying about humans being able to use their souls to fight he was sure that it would apply to users of the Warp and their minions.
That would make things marginally harder.
Thinking about that can wait, in the Imperial Guard very few relaxing or luxurious things were made available for you, the most beloved of the top ten things were showers and by the Throne it was greatly needed for his nerves. If he didn't feel the soothing hot water soon he just might beat somebody's head into a wall.
Believing he was alone for the end of the day he made no precautionary steps to hide his belongings from view. So the moment Ruby entered the dorm to try and talk to Hansel did she find his coat on the floor where the bedroll was in the middle of the room between the entrance and bunk beds.
Sticking out of his coat pocket was his journal.
Hasn't anyone ever told you not to read a Kriegan's journal/sketch book? You tend to read some very disturbing things and see horrible images, and worse, you see what they "feel" but how will said soldier react after finding out that you've been through his stuff?
Emperor help Ruby.
I also theorize that since the cultists are technically humans they might be able to access aura due to high sensitivity to the Warp and their strong evil religious discipline, but the same could be done for the guardsmen in that regard. Like/Follow/Review do whatever you do!
