"Hey man, you think I could get an STD from the chicks out here?"
"What?"
"Dude, when we were doing that soft knock like a few weeks ago, and going through that village, there was definitely a guy that wanted to marry his daughter off to me, and I was thinking about it but then I was like, wait, what if she's diseased…"
"Vogels if you don't shut the fuck right now I will literally fucking destroy you." Cobin said.
"Yeah, right. You don't have the balls," Vogels retorted.
Vogels and Cobin laid next to each other on their stomachs, looking out into the desert. The platoon had set up a perimeter around the convoy while the medics patched people up and the LT slowly pulled his head from his ass and figured out how to proceed with the mission. But that could take a while, so all there was to do was stare down the barrel of his rifle into the nothingness of the desert and listen to Vogels mouth off.
"Do you know who got hit?" Vogels asked.
"Vogels I've literally been next to you this whole damn time, how the fuck would I know more than you? Sergeant said it was Groth and his squad up at the front, that's all I know."
"Yeah, but, who?"
"Holy fuck Vogels, shut up. Shut. The. Fuck. Up."
"Holy shit fine," Vogels muttered, "Fuckin' asshole."
Cobin ignored it and just focused on watching his sector of fire. He was curious himself who had taken the hit, but he tried not to dwell on it at that time, he had a job to do. They had been IED'd once before, but it was defective and most of the explosives didn't actually go off. Cobin had gotten to see the truck that had been hit up close, how even the relatively small amount of explosives had ripped it apart. The guys who had been inside were banged up, but they all lived. Something told him that this time it had been worse.
The overwhelming noise of a helicopter filled their space as the MEDEVAC bird touched down somewhere behind them, probably near the front of the convoy. It only took them a minute or so to load up, and then the bird lifted off again and left, post-haste. I hope they got everyone out, Cobin thought to himself.
"Hey, it looks like everyone's heading back to their trucks," Vogels said. And sure enough, on either side of them their fellow soldiers in the platoon were breaking off from the perimeter and heading back to the convoy.
"Okay, let's go," Cobin said. And so they stood, rifles still raised toward the horizon, and headed back to their HMMWV, where Sergeant Pinkerton was already inside waiting for them. "What's the news, boss?" Cobin asked as he got in.
Pinkerton looked a little bit lost in space, staring out the window at the truck in front of them. It took him a couple of seconds to answer. "We're headed back. Gonna turn around and call it a day."
"Sounds good to me!" Vogels said.
Pinkerton nodded, "They got the trigger man."
"No shit?" Cobin asked, a bit amazed.
"Yeah, no shit. Stupid bastard was in a hole in the ground less than a hundred yards away from the detonation site, guy apparently thought he was going to have some friends to come back him up after he set the IED off. But nope." Pinkerton shook his head, "Fucking asshole."
"What's the damage, boss?" Cobin asked.
Pinkerton got quiet, the look on his face was strained, constipated almost. "Groth's whole squad," He said finally, "Every single one of them."
The inside of the truck became like a vacuum, it seemed. Nobody even noticed the constant noise of the big diesel engine anymore. They just sat silently, unsure of what to do with this information. Finally, Cobin spoke again, "Groth too?" he asked.
Pinkerton shook his head, "Tough son of a bitch is fine, he wasn't even on the bird."
"Damn," Cobin said, "Every soldier he had, really?"
Pinkerton nodded again. "Lets get the fuck out of here," He said, releasing the truck's handbrake.
"God may hate both of us, but the devil welcomes only me…"
…
Cobin sat straight up in bed, shocked awake and sweating. There was this incessant beeping noise coming from somewhere and in his disoriented and tired state it was really starting to piss him off. His head jerked back and forth as he looked around, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. Finally he located the source, which happened to be his scroll laying on a pile of his clothes right next to the cot. He leaned over and snatched the device, pressing the flashing diamond in the center in an attempt to shut it up. The beeping stopped, but the device opened and automatically began playing a message…
"Good morning, Sergeant Cobin," The voice of Professor Goodwitch flowed out of the device, "Please come to my office as soon as you are able this morning. I have something I have to discuss with you. I will be in my office until lunch but the earlier we can get this done the better."
Goodwitch was as brief and to-the-point as always, and Cobin actually appreciated that. He tossed the scroll back down onto the pile of clothes on the floor and rubbed his eyes. He felt a lot better than he had the previous morning; Ruby had stayed late enough to make it inconvenient for him to have any drinks, so he didn't have to deal with the after affects. He smiled as he thought about the previous night, how they had chatted a bit here and there but mostly had just listened to music and hung out. He wondered briefly if she had made it back alright, and then realized just how ridiculous a thought that was. He felt legitimately bad for anyone who had the gall to try and mess with the girl and that wicked scythe of hers.
He got up and went about his morning routine as usual, chuckling to himself slightly about how it had already become a routine. Normally, people wouldn't think that a week was enough time for everything that he had experienced since he got here, that it was too much life, too much change to pack into a few days. Time, he reasoned, is just a perception, like anything else. It wasn't important that only seven days had passed, but that those seven days had felt like a lifetime.
Once he was dressed and ready to go he lowered the car down off of the rack and brought it out of the shop. He parked it in the driveway and stuck the keys up in the sun visor, figuring that the kid would be smart enough to find them when he came to pick the car up. Normally, he'd want them to be more secure, but a closed campus on a mountain filled with valiant warriors in training seemed like an alright place to leave your keys in your car. Once he was finished with that, he closed the door to the shop and made his way down the street. In her message that morning, Goodwitch had provided an attachment that contained directions to her office in the primary administrative building, labeled on the map as "The Beacon Clocktower."
On his way over there, he stopped at the staff cafeteria to grab something to go, and when he stepped up to the counter, his good friend Manny was waiting there for him.
"Hey Boss," Manny said, "Our mutual friend The Good Doctor left you some prime merch here. Want me to box it up for you now?"
Cobin shook his head, "No thanks, I'm on my way to see the brass. Gotta be professional-like," he said, grabbing some fruit from the top of the counter.
"Ahhhh, gotcha," Manny said, "Come back and pick it up anytime."
"Will do," Cobin said, stepping away from the counter.
He exited the cafeteria munching on a banana and wondered to himself how bananas seemed to persist across the fabric of space and time. But there were a lot of things here like that, such as coffee, automobiles, cheap beer… the list sort of went on and on. He shook his head, pushing the thought away, knowing it would probably give him a headache after none too long. He kept walking in the general direction of the clocktower, the extremely large and looming building that marked the campus. When he actually got to its base, he paused for a minute just to take in how massive it was. He remembered that the attachment to the message from Goodwitch said her office was near the top floor, and he hoped to god that there was a working elevator.
…
Glynda Goodwitch's office was absolutely nothing like Ozpin's. As much as she respected her only real superior at the academy, she had to admit that he had a bit of a flare for showmanship. But that was to be expected at his position; the headmasters of the major combat schools were effectively as influential and powerful as General Officers in the military or the head ministers of the various departments of the government, and Ozpin needed an appropriate space to host his equals whenever they came to him for visit or counsel. But Goodwitch was not the headmaster, she was unpolitical, crass, and realistic. She believed that space should only be functional, and one only needed enough space to perform one's various functions, so even when Ozpin had offered her the other major office directly below his own, she had refused and elected for a more normal sized one a couple floors down. It was still a significant amount of space, with a very large desk as well as a conference table surrounded by chairs where she could hold meetings between herself and the other staff members. But it was also lined with thick filing cabinets, and only really provided enough floor space necessary for one to move between the various functional points in the room. Not a single square inch was wasted. To some it may have seemed cluttered, but Goodwitch's entire life was often 'cluttered,' so she really never noticed.
She was just finishing typing out her normal morning email to the staff and faculty when the direct line on her desk began buzzing. She hit the "Accept Call" key and quickly stated "Professor Goodwitch speaking, how may I help you?"
"That guy you've been waiting for, Cobin, is here," the voice of her secretary said through the speaker.
"Good, send him up," Goodwitch said.
"Right away, ma'am," the secretary said.
Goodwitch hit the "End" button. She very rarely bothered with proper goodbyes when it came to calls and messages that were not face-to-face. She gave her mass email a once-over for errors before hitting the send button, and then turned and watched the door at the other end of the room, waiting patiently for the soldier to come through. After a few seconds, she heard a knock on the door, which surprised her as she half expected the man to simply plow through it, maybe tripping over himself as he did so. "Come in," she said.
Cobin came through the door and closed it behind himself. "Good morning," He said, nodding to Goodwitch.
"To you as well, Sergeant," Goodwitch said. "Please, come have a seat," she said, beckoning him forward.
Cobin made his way around the conference table and pulled one of the chairs from it as he did so, bringing it up to the desk so that he could sit across from Goodwitch. When he sat, he sat up straight, and looked her in the eye. Goodwitch liked that.
"So, what seems to be the problem?" Cobin asked.
"Nothing," Goodwitch said, "It's been a week, hasn't it?"
"Yep," Cobin said, nodding, "It's been a long week, though."
"I can imagine," Goodwitch said. "I'll be blunt, the fact of the matter is, is that we can't exactly evaluate what stresses you might be going through, seeming to have been ripped from one world to the next, nor can we really evaluate what makes our world different from yours. We can't point to case studies or research papers or past events that might indicate to us your psychological state, despite the fact that you appear very stable. Me and some of the other top staff here at the academy that know of your exact situation have come the conclusion that you should submit to counseling in order assist you in coping with your new life here, as well as to evaluate whether or not you pose a threat to the education of our students. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Cobin said, without hesitation, "I understand and I will submit to counseling. I'm not exactly in any position to protest and I can't really think of a reason I would, so why not."
"That's very good to hear," Goodwithch said, "As I'm sure you can understand, while this institution is interested in your well being, our primary mission will always be to educate and train our students. If we can't care for you and continue on with our mission, then I'm sorry to say that you will find yourself in a very difficult position, Sergeant."
Cobin nodded, "I understand completely. Who will be counseling me?" he asked.
"I have elected to do that myself," Goodwitch said, "I'm one of the only top staff here at the school with experience in counseling, I know you better than all of the other staff thus far, and it keeps the number of people who have knowledge about your true origin at a bare minimum." Goodwitch pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Do you have any concerns or complaints at this time?" she asked.
"No," Cobin said, "When do we get started?"
"Right now," Goodwitch reached down below her desk and pulled up several sheets of paper, laying them out in front of her, "The first thing I've decided needs to be evaluated is the loss that you might have felt due to coming here," she said, "It's reasonable to assume that any family you may have had back on your home world probably feel deceased to you now, as it is reasonable to assume that you may never see those people again. Is there anyone that comes to mind?" she asked.
Cobin leaned back in his chair, "Not really," he said, "Parents have been gone for several years, they were both heavy smokers. I have sisters I was close to but I hadn't really seen in quite a long time. No spouse to speak of."
"Any children?" Goodwitch asked.
Cobin paused, and looked down and to the side before saying simply, "No."
Goodwitch sighed and leaned onto her desk, looking hard at him, "Sergeant Cobin I assure you that I'm just as adept at detecting lies as you are."
Cobin brought his gaze back up and met her eyes, "Look, I don't have any kids. Really, I don't have… fuck," he said shaking his head. "Okay, fine. I had a daughter," he said.
Goodwitch nodded. "Had? Sergeant Cobin?"
"Yeah," he said, looking at the ceiling. "It's a complicated situation."
"Well, now is the time to explain it." Goodwitch said, not having any of Cobin's bullshit.
Cobin suddenly looked very uncomfortable, and shifted a bit in his chair, but after a second or so he began to speak again. "I got married and had a kid really young," he said, "My wife was two months pregnant when I went off to basic training for the army, less than three months after I graduated from high school. I wasn't even eighteen yet, almost, but not quite." Cobin pinched the bridge of his nose momentarily before continuing. "She had the kid, a little girl that we named Ival, several months after I was out of training. I had ten months with her, just us and our big happy family, or so I thought. Ten months after she was born I got deployed for the first time. It was long, and it was hard, maybe even more so for her in some ways. When I finally got back there wasn't even a conversation, she wanted a divorce." He looked up at Goodwitch, "Is the picture coming together yet?" he asked.
Goodwitch nodded, "Yes," she said, "but please, finish the story."
"Okay," Cobin said, "Well, because I was young, and I was dumb, and I didn't know anything about law or how the court system worked, I ended up losing all of my visitation rights in the divorce. I wasn't legally permitted to see my own daughter, and my ex wife didn't want me too." Cobin closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the sad times, "Less than a year after the divorce was finalized she was married the guy that she had been cheating on me with while I was deployed, and ever since, he's raised Ival." Cobin gave Goodwitch a sheepish half-smile. "So you see, when you ask me if I have children, it's a difficult question for me to answer. Is there a child wandering around somewhere back in my world with half of my DNA? Yes. Do I have a daughter? No, not really." He said.
"I'm very sorry," Goodwitch said, "That must have been very difficult for you."
"Yeah, well. It was almost ten years ago. Time might not heal all wounds but it certainly numbs you to them."
Goodwitch nodded, "Agreed," she said. She took a moment to look at her papers and organize them on her desk, "Are you okay with moving on to another topic?" she asked after several seconds.
"Definitely," Cobin said.
"Alright then," Goodwitch started, "So, the next thing I think we need to do is really evaluate the fundamental differences between our world and yours. There are some that are obviously already well-established, but what have you noticed or discovered so far in your time here?"
"Well, the whole thing Auras and Semblances is very different from anything we have where I'm from. On earth the notion of a 'soul,' is exactly that, a notion, more of a concept than something real and physical in any way. And no extra powers either, people are pretty much just boring old people." He looked up at the ceiling again, thinking, "Dust is also something that we don't have."
"Really?" Goodwitch asked, curious.
"Yeah, I mean, my understanding is that Dust is more or less a group of highly reactive elements or chemical compounds that can be harnessed as weapons or sources of energy, and we have things sort of like that, like radioactive or nuclear materials, but nothing so usable and efficient on a small scale like your Dust seems to be." Cobin said.
"Very interesting," Goodwitch said, "Anything else that comes to mind?"
"Yeah," Cobin said, "Everyone keeps mentioning something about 'Grimm' to me, but nobody seems to have been willing to explain it. So what is Grimm?" he asked.
Goodwitch paused, and just stared at Cobin for a minute. "Grimm," she said, turning to her computer, "Is a sort of slang, or half-speak term for 'The Creatures of Grimm,' which are the very reason all of the students you see here at this school train so hard everyday, and have been doing so for most of their lives. They are the reason why we live in fear, and are unable to expand our borders." Goodwitch turned her computer toward Cobin, and there, displayed on the screen was a depiction of a giant, bear-like creature, all black with a white mask-like face.
"What in the hell is that thing?" Cobin asked.
"A very basic type of Grimm," Goodwitch said, "They don't sleep, they don't even eat. They appear to exist only to destroy us, and have been here for as long as we have, perhaps longer. They fill our entire world outside the borders of the four kingdoms, and attack us constantly. They are drawn to us by our own fear, anger, and other negative emotions. They can literally smell them, so even if you can successfully repel one, your fear and hatred will only bring more to you." Goodwitch turned her computer back toward her, and then looked at Cobin, "Is there anything like that in your world?" she asked him.
"No," Cobin said, "Absolutely nothing that I can even compare too."
Goodwitch looked genuinely surprised. "Really?" she asked.
Cobin nodded, "Yeah, where I come from, people cover every corner of the globe that isn't water. There's nothing to stop us."
"With all do respect, Sergeant, if that's so, then why in the world would your society need a soldier of your caliber?" She asked him.
Cobin sighed, "Well, 'my society,' as you call it, is highly divided," he said, "when I say that there's nothing that compares to your Grimm from my world, I very literally mean nothing, not even on an ideological level. I'm sure that there's a very real extent to which this world's struggle against the Grimm is unifying. On my world, ever since there were two people that wanted to occupy the same space at the same time, they've been trying to kill each other. Where I'm from, there has never once been a point in human history where our race has been entirely without war, so naturally we got pretty damn good at it after a while."
"But what do you even have left to fight about after all that time?" Goodwitch asked, genuinely rather shocked by this information.
Cobin actually laughed. "Literally anything," he said, "People believe different things, they get pissed off at each other, then they go to war. There is no one singular belief held by everyone, like there is on this world, and so in a way there is no truth; nothing that unites us as a race." Cobin took in a deep breath, and let it go slowly, "Where I'm from, specifically where I'm from on my planet, there's this very real sense in which you get to go through your everyday life actively choosing what's real and what's fiction to you. You can pick a reality that you like, and box yourself into it in such a complete way that you very rarely have to come in contact with the the world at large and it's struggles, and even when you do come into contact with it, it generally feels so far away that it's like it could never really affect you."
Goodwitch stared at him like he had Grimm crawling out of his ears. "That sounds... awful," She said.
Cobin smiled, "Hey, pick your poison. Would you rather live in the constant presence of absolute struggle, or in a life completely devoid of intrinsic value and absolute purpose?" Cobin laughed again, "Where I'm from, most people would pick the latter."
Goodwitch was silent for a moment, before saying, "And what about you, Sergeant? Which world appeals to you more?"
"To be honest, it was getting a little old," Cobin said, "Life at home, even before I joined the Army, always seemed a bit like a fiction to me. And at first, when I was deployed and fighting, it felt real, like I was really doing something with myself. But as the years went on and we just kept fighting, and every time I went over there it continued to not get any better, it sort of started to feel like a fiction, too." He said, looking down, "I tried not to think about it too much, but there was a very real sense in which it felt like it didn't matter how strong I was, or how good of a soldier I was, because I existed in an entirely fictional world, and no matter what I did at war or anywhere else, none of it seemed to mean anything, really."
Goodwitch, for the first time that morning, actually offered him a half-smile, "Maybe that's why you're here," she said.
Cobin looked up and met her eyes, returning her smile, "Maybe," He said, "Maybe it is."
…
Hooah, folks. Less than two weeks later and we're ten chapters in and have just passed 40,000 words! That's right, we're officially "Novel Length."
And I still have no goddamn idea where this is going.
Somewhere in the next couple chapters there will be more exploration of Weiss, who is a character I have largely left untouched due my doubts about my ability to write her correctly. She's really the only one I have a problem getting into the head of. I think a big part of this comes from how reserved and unemotional her character already is in the show. Maybe I'll just read her wiki page a couple of times until inspiration comes to me like when the acid starts to hit.*
Other than that, I need a RWBY cannon expert to inform me on exactly how the students manage to travel so seamlessly from Beacon into Vale proper. In the first or second episode there's this scene with Ruby and Yang riding into Beacon for the first time on this big, slow-moving, wofty airship, which seems highly inconvenient when they just want to go hang out in town after school or something. Do they just hop in a car and take the touge down the mountain or something (bad inside joke for any Initial D fans who are reading)?
Catch you on the flip-side!
-Wahs.
*I don't actually do acid, don't call the police.