Chapter 5

Ruby stopped dead in her tracks, turned around and sat back down. Now she had to stay and decide. She sat and went into deep thought "he killed so many people, and destroyed an entire planet. How could she let a person like that live, it went against everything she knew. But he also had someone who loved him, and he loved, and might still be waiting for him to come back." "If you want him to explain it, I can bring him back for a little bit." The wizard asked. Ruby nodded her head in agreement, but Colin was going to have some explaining to do. The wizard leaned his staff against the bed and started chanting in a strange tongue, and a symbol that was half skull and half mechanical appeared above his chest. It slowly descended into his chest and he woke up with a jolt.

Colin

He woke up and sat up in a snap. He looked around and saw ruby on his right and a strange old hermit on his left. He looked back to ruby and then back to the hermit, then down to himself, then back to ruby. "I am alive right?" Colin asked in a very suspicious tone while looking at the hermit. "Yes, but only temporarily. While ruby decides your fate." The wizard replied seriously. Colin looked to ruby "What is he talking about?" he asked in a not to happy tone. "The wizard has given me the choice to bring you back again. Right now is your chance to explain yourself" Ruby responded looking at the floor. "What do you mean?" he asked "To help me make my choice, the wizard let me look through some of your memories. And you need to tell me that there was a reason for what you have done and it better be good." She said in the coldest tone she could use.

"What did you see." He asked "You were standing on a red planet, with millions of dead people all around, then you blew up an entire planet." She responded with the same cold tone. "That was the battle of Tehnron, I was part of the force recon team, we were meant to be scouting an enemy encampment, when we finally got where they said the camp would be, and by the looks of things we had found what they said was there. Then one of our exceptionally bright comrades thought we could 'take them' and rushed into the enemy camp. It was a trap, the entire army was cloaked about 50 feet away, when we were forced to fully engage the enemy they broke cloak and attacked. It was a massacre, for both sides. Then an entire battle started and both sides were reinforcing and the battle raged for days. I was at the front lines for the entire time, I killed about 100,000 people in that time. At the end of the battle I stood and looked out at all the death I had caused, and I can never forget what I did." He finished.

"The planet that I was ordered to use Exterminatus on was Caritas 4. It was infected with a parasite we call Tyrranid, it's a dragon of sorts and it burrows into a planet and grows and grows until it eats the entire planet, then goes off to eat other planets. I had to kill it before it grew, and yes I did kill billions. But it was for the greater good and I do not regret it, nor would I change what I did." He finished, looking back at her. "And If hadn't the creature would have gone on to destroy more planets, maybe even yours." He said staring at her. There was silence, ruby looked at the ground and contemplated what Colin had just said. She was hoping that he would have given her a tale about how he accidentally ended up on a field of bodies. Or how he had no control over blowing up a planet. But he was honest, (she hoped) and didn't change any parts of the story from what she had seen. "Ok sir, I've made my decision." Another silence. "Bring him back to the land of the living." Ruby said smiling weakly.

Ruby

Her smile was hollow, but she thought she had made the right choice. Colin smiled back at her then looked at the wizard. He put his hand on Colin's head and Colin fell back onto the bed, then the same symbol used before except it was bright white and very solid and spinning, as it neared his chest it slowed down then stopped, then slowly burned through his combat suit and burned into his chest. "He will wake up in around four hours. You might want to be around when it happens." The wizard said as he was getting up, grabbed his staff and stood up. "I will be talking to you later Ruby." He said before turning into a bright flash of light and disappearing. Ruby decided that she needed to be awake when Colin woke up, but her body decided she needed the four hours for sleep.

When she awoke it was 6:30, sleepy eyed and not thinking she didn't realize that she had about 6 minutes before Colin was going to come back to life. She tried to get out of the chair but a soft touch on her shoulder stopped her. It was the nurse from before. "Why don't you go back to sleep, I'll take over for your watch." The nurse said smiling. Ruby let herself drift back to sleep. Then just as the old wizard said and 6 minutes later the process started. At first it was slow, a small white glow emanating from him and a very faint skull and machine symbol right above the same symbol already burned into his chest. Then came a faint hum. Then they started growing stronger and louder. Ruby awoke to Colin glowing a bright white light and a hum so loud it broke the window. Then the symbol slammed into his chest and he sat straight up in an instant. He looked down at himself looked himself over raised his arms and wiggled them to see if they were real, and looked to ruby. "Hey, nice to see you." He said with a smile. The nurse dropped the snacks and water she had gotten for ruby, then proceeded to run away screaming. "HES ALIVE, THE DEAD BOYS ALIVE!" while running down the hall towards Ozpins office. "Well then" Colin said looking at ruby. "She took that about as well as she could have." He said smiling. Both he and ruby broke into a nervous laugh, "so how do you think Ozpin is going to take this?" he asked. "I hope well. But you still have some explaining to do." Ruby responded