Previously…
"I talked about it with someone."
Now…
"Talk about it?" Hansel tested the idea with his tongue, "Talk about it. You want me to tell you how my sister died?"
Ruby failed to meet his masks synthetic eyes as her cheeks began to flush, "If you can. I mean if it's too hard for you to do I understand."
To any other person this would've been interpreted as a respect for one's past, however for Hansel it was her questioning his strength.
"You don't think I'm strong enough to talk about it?" He asked with a spike of aggression.
"Nonono! I was just saying if it's too personal you don't have to talk about it!"
The Kriegan boy narrowed his eyes trying to weed out any lies in Ruby's apology. It was strange to him that she was always so honest with him; honesty in the Imperial Guard was a very uncommon trait from what he learned about other regiments, which was one of the reasons why Hansel got along with Julius so well on Armageddon. The young tank ace had no problems being honest.
"I will tell you about it, but I want your word that it stays between us." Hansel removed his mask and stared into her eyes, "I mean it."
Ruby met his stare with determination, "I promise Hansel."
It was refreshing to see her look serious for once, although he didn't mind her usual antics.
He sighed leaning his elbows against his knees, "Growing up on Krieg was painful; we were constantly reminded about our ancestor's sins with the withered husk of our planet's surface. The cities that used to house billions became our training grounds; we are beaten to feel no pain, mentally tortured so that we can become stronger. There is little to no room for emotion."
Hansel looks up to the stars, "People cower whenever we are present, to them we are emotionless and heartless. To them we are monsters. But to Gretel, I was her brother." Slowly he hugs the book close to his heart, "During our training we were able to brave the will breaking training, and together we preserved what little humanity we could afford, look out for each other. Find a reason to live."
"To say we are not human is false; we have to have some sort of humanity to love the Emperor of Mankind, through sheer will power we were still able to care about one another. We were willing to die like the others but we made a promise, that no matter what we would never leave the other to die alone."
"Gretel and I made a good sniping team; she was my spotter for long range targets and also supplied extra battery packs for the lasrifle to fire. One day on a campaign against the Ruinous Powers I had found myself fighting a Psyker, a grenade went off making my ears ring like bells."
"The explosion distracted me long enough for the Psyker to get a clear shot at me. I would've been able to accept my fate and die by the Psyker's lightning bolt, but Gretel had other plans." Hansel stops to wipe his eyes and steel his nerves, "She pushed me out of the way and received a devastating glancing blow from the Warp energy."
Ruby blinks several tears away, her lip trembled as she squeezed Hansel's hand tighter trying to comfort him, "As soon as my body could respond I beat that Psyker to death with a brick, I didn't stop until his head was a mere stain on the floor. The wounds Gretel received were too severe; even if I could get her to a Quartermaster they would not have been able to do anything for her or would do anything to save her, there were just too many casualties from the fight, it got to the point where the Quartermasters were giving the Emperor's Blessing to almost all of our wounded. So I cradled her in my arms and sang Sonnenlicht to her as she faded out of the Materium and into the Emperor's light, to the blessed promised world of Terranis, where she would be rewarded for her sacrifice in the Emperor's name. Her sacrifice prevented a Daemon from being summoned."
By the Emperor did Hansel want to cry, but Regentropfen was not being played so he could not allow himself to cry. He took a moment to compose himself, swallow his sadness and steel his nerves before his emotions could get the better of him.
Ruby however was unable to do that, "That was the saddest story I've ever heard!" She cried pulling him into a tight hug, "I'm sososo sorry!"
"Why are you crying?"
"Because *sniff* I know t-that y-y-you're not going too! S-s-so I'll do it f-for you!" Ruby cried with her face buried in the crook of Hansel's neck.
'Cry for me?' Never in his life has anybody cried for him, never has anybody cared this much and was not his sister. Hansel blinked several times utterly stunned. Slowly he wrapped his arms around Ruby's waist like she had done to him before, "Thank you, Rosenrot."
"You're welcome." Her muffled reply came, slowly with a few sniffles Ruby removed her face from his shoulder, wiping a few tears away with her sleeve, "What does 'rosenrot' mean?"
"Rose so red."
"Oh," A large blush came over her face, "I-uh like the nickname."
"It suits you well. You're right; I do feel better after talking about it, thank you."
The broken moon's light shown done across the flower garden, the light itself glistened off of the water and dew drops that accumulated on the multi colored plants; though Hansel didn't take particular notice of the scene he did take notice on how close he and Ruby were, closer than arm's length away in fact she was more or less curled around him.
At such a close distance Hansel was tempted to do something that wouldn't have crossed his mind a couple of days ago… but he was not ready to cross that line yet, the more logical Imperial part wanted him to hurt her, but the part of him that was still alive or 'human' wanted no harm to ever come to Ruby and that he'd spend whatever time he had left by her side.
Both sides gave compelling arguments, but deep down he knew that no matter what he says he'd never physically hurt her, it would just be impossible.
"We should go, it's getting late." Hansel said loosening his arms around Ruby, returning to his cold voice and blank face.
She frowned with disappointment, "Oh, yeah. We probably should."
Before Ruby could leave Hansel grabbed her hand, "I'm s-s-sorry for yelling at you." The words 'I'm sorry' has never and will never sound right coming from him, Hansel usually never had to utter those words of defeat.
Ruby smiled giving him a final hug, "You don't have to apologize; I should've gone looking through your stuff in the first place, but thank you anyways."
Gently Ruby grabbed Hansel's hand and tugged him alongside her, surprisingly he made no protests about her touching him, instead he squeezed her hand back.
Score one for Ruby, Universe zero.
"Not a word of this to anyone." Hansel whispered very closely behind her ear, sending a chill down her spine.
"I'm not, besides, my sister would punch you across the school if she found out about you holding my hand!"
Unknown to them however two people saw and heard what was said; a concerned but very nosy Headmaster who took great interest in the lives of his students and was impressed to see another hostile situation diffuse and possibly evolve into something better for the both of his students.
The second was a raven haired Faunus in hiding that felt concerned for her leader/friend that was alone with a dangerous angry racist boy from another world. She hoped that Ruby might be able to slowly but surely change Hansel's attitude.
But both spies could not help but shed a few tears from the sad tale that the boy from Krieg spun, so much pain for one soul yet he was still able to function the best way that he could. It was one thing for a loved one to die, but to have someone so close die your arms after saving you? They couldn't imagine a worse hell to live in.
Vale…
Under the pale light of the moon and the holographic lamps could you see the empty streets of the city filled with rich and diverse culture, the occasional car would pass by to where ever the occupants needed to go at such a time. Lights from apartment houses flickered off one by one as the hour became late.
In the poorer run down part of the city where the impoverished lived and the poor would often wander trying to find a barrel of flames to light their hands under.
To them it was hell, to others, it was an opportunity.
In the darkest of alleyways did a spark of purple light appear without any means of power, it was only visible from the front, from behind nothing could be seen. This light itself began to expand into a flurry of clouds that centered themselves around this light as it grew wider.
Five shadows appear behind the light, they stepped out with their weapons primed ready to slaughter whatever came in their path.
Four of the beings that appeared had the armor that the Vraskian traitors once wore, they the Remnants of Vraks. The fifth member of their party that came last was none other than Montresor, the Sorcerer of Tzeentch.
The robes that adorned his armor billowed in the soft breeze that blew through the streets, his Daemon skull themed mask gave off a deadly grin as he and the scouts stalked through the alleyway.
He lead the Vraksian scouts into an abandoned warehouse and brought up a map of Vale, "We make camp in one of these buildings, then after my spell is complete will we begin influencing these pathetic beings into joining us."
The traitor guardsmen grunted and growled to acknowledge the Sorcerer albeit with irritation, "But, I will allow you four to pick off some of the weak around here. Just don't get caught or cocky and no battle cries either. Not yet at least."
That seemed to earn him some points with the militiamen as they began to chuckle, "You are most generous Sorcerer." Said the Vraksian Enforcer of the group. (Chaos Commissar for Vraks)
"I know how much you Khornates enjoy killing, nobody should miss the people you kill out here, just make sure to be tactical about it." Montresor said patting the Enforcer's shoulder, "Just bring me one or two of them, I'd like to strengthen the spell with fresh blood."
"As you wish." The Enforcer replied with a bow.
The four Vraksian scouts left the warehouse with knives and chains in hand, leaving Montresor to make the warehouse suitable for Chaos worship and sacrifice.
On the streets…
Three homeless Faunus men wandered down an alleyway that used to belong to a shoe making factory long since gone out of business, while the place was empty and cold it was a thousand times better than actually being out on the streets where cars would splash water into their huddled sleeping forms.
They were all former employees to a company that made dust infused clothing, but alas the company was bought out by a larger company and had subsequently laid off all lower level employees, they've been wandering the streets for three months now and have been using this abandoned building for housing.
One of the unemployed Faunus, a bear Faunus separated from the small group to go where they had designated the smoking area of the factory. Bad habits die hard and since Faunas folk have a better sense of smell the very presence of cigarettes bothered them unless they were addicted to the cancer sticks.
Finding the right spot to light his smokes the bear eared man took a long drag of his cigarette, finding the little pleasure but substantial warmth the cigarette provided he let out a large cloud as he sighed.
"I hate this city." He muttered tapping away the burned parts of his cancer stick away. Usually he'd stay up here for hours puffing and sneering at the financial district but tonight would be his last.
With his back turned and sense of smell occupied by the nicotine smoke he failed to smell the dry iron aroma of blood slowly stalking its way towards him, his ears were tuned to the howling wind instead of the light steps of leather boots.
As the man lit his second cigarette a hand clasped around his mouth and a sharp blade slid across his throat, he didn't have the time to scream or struggle as the blade found its way into the back of his neck at the base of his skull, ending his life in mere seconds.
The Vraksian scout lifted his hand from the dead Faunus man's mouth with the cigarette between his fingers; he stuffed the thing behind his ear for future indulgence.
On the other side of the factory the remaining Faunus men had no idea that their friend was dead, they were in the process of organizing several cans of beans they had to steal. Both were completely unaware of the black full face skull masked figure that was standing in the doorway with a meat cleaver in his right hand and a billhook in the other.
A crash from the outside drew their attentions giving the Enforcer the time he needed to sneak up on the Faunus men; with a quick fluent flurry of motion the Enforcer imbedded the meat cleaver through the skull of the man with the cat ears and decapitated the one with wolf ears just as he turned his head to see his friends head get split in two.
They both died within a second. Giving off a low chuckle the Enforcer kicked the cat eared man's body to release his cleaver, "Looks like we got ourselves quite a feast planned out for us boys, beans and meats."
He motioned the Vraksian sniper of the group to gather the bag while his shotgunner carried the cat and bear Faunus bodies with him, the Enforcer himself took the wolf eared man's head as a trophy and bound it to his belt, he had a thing for wolves.
"Let's be scarce now." He commanded motioning back towards their hideout.
Beacon…
As soon as the two got to the dorm door the hand holding stopped much to Ruby's disappointment, but she at least make a break through with Hansel.
Yang was in her bed listening to some music and Weiss was lying down on her bed studying.
Hansel found his usual spot in the middle of the room and sat himself down; he'd pray later when the others weren't awake to disturb him with their questions about why he was praying and to whom.
Before Ruby closed the door Blake grabbed her hand and pulled her outside, "Bl-"
"Shh!" The raven haired girl peaked back into the room, seeing that nobody noticed her snatch Ruby out of the room she removed her hand from Ruby's mouth, "I heard what you guys were talking about out in the garden."
An absolute look of horror crossed Ruby's face, "Are you kidding me Blake?! How did you even- I don't care but never ever tell anybody about what you heard!" She whispered yelled at Blake.
"I know Ruby-"
"Blake he will kill you if he found out you heard all of that! I'm not joking around I think he would seriously kill you."
"I know Ruby... I just wanted to tell you to always be there for Hansel, no matter how difficult he can be I think you should always be there for him." Blake sighed glancing through a crack in the door watching the guardsman in question lying on his sleeping bag, "I didn't think much of him before; in fact he made my skin crawl whenever I was around him… After hearing that story though, I can see plainly see he needs you to help him and wants you too but doesn't know how to ask for help. Can you help him Ruby?"
A large smile crossed Ruby's face, "You can bet on it Blake, I'm not giving up on him now or ever."
Blake nodded with a small smile, "If you ever need any help I'll be there."
Both girls entered the room; nobody had even noticed the two entered in the first place so they weren't trying to be sneaky in the slightest. When Blake passed by Hansel she gave him a friendly wave, a wave he didn't return but acknowledged her with a nod.
At least he responded with something.
Ruby did have a way of cheering people up, it wasn't anything special she was just being her usual innocent childlike self. That was a trait Blake thought at first as a liability, but now after being around her energetic leader she could see that it was more than that, Ruby could be very adult like but keep that same likeable childlike aura around her to lighten tensions and ease nerves.
She was certain that Ruby would eventually get through to Hansel, it would take some time but she was fairly confident in her leader's abilities to change the situation.
Later on at night when everyone had gone to sleep in their respective bunks Hansel found himself kneeling on his bed silently praying to the Emperor, however tonight was different because in his usual prayers he included Ruby into them; he had hope that someday he'd be able to convince her to convert to the Imperial Creed, but for the time being he'd include her in his nightly prayers.
But he too was not aware of what the future would bring; he was most certainly unaware of the five Warp portals that would be opening up in the Emerald Forest in the coming hours and just whom or what those portals might bring into the world of bloody evolution.
And blam! There you have it, this ship has set sail! Chaos is up to no good at all, killing defenseless poor people in such brutal ways... and what could possibly spawn from those portals? Daemons? Traitor Marines? Twinkies? Who knows? I know! Till next time, see ya later!
