By mid-afternoon the next day, Face could probably dissect most known species of Grimm mid-strike, and name all their organs and muscles as the parts hit the floor. Their pancreas', hearts, and brains contained weak poisons that could be cancelled out by cooking the meat and differed with every single Grimm they came from. One Beowolf might have had a highly effective short-term aphrodisiac in its pancreas, while another Beowolf might have had the poison equivalent to napalm stored in its body. Either way, cooking all retrieved organs for over thirty minutes on an open fire was compulsory, as Face had figured out. Learning the anatomy of the creatures wasn't too hard: Diagrams and images had shown him that they were, as he had been told, just larger and more sinister versions of normal animals, often with tougher hide, massively increased strength and speed, plus little to no sense of self-preservation.
He was fully capable of performing a normal skinning, too: The books mentioned where their skin was at its weakest and where he could stab for an instant kill. With many of them, he noted, the position for a killing stab combined with their forward momentum should have allowed him to rip them open whilst they were moving, peeling their skin away as they slowed down, before finally completely dropping their skin and dying instantly. And besides, Grimm hide could go for quite a bit on Earth's black markets, which could make Face a very rich man should he manage to get home.
But at that point in time, he was about done for the day.
He cleared his throat and closed the book he was reading, raised his hat, and scratched the top of his head briefly, before quickly returning his hat onto his head before somebody realized that he didn't wear his hat all the time. Then, he stacked the books he had been studying, picked them up, and began putting them in their respective places on shelves. It was a fairly new thing for Face to have been studying: He had never gone to college or university, instead immediately signing up for the military once he came of age. And as he so vividly remembered, the bloke came in two days before graduation to tell him that he had been laid off, and Face replied by stabbing him in the head with a shard of the plate he'd been eating off, then got employed again moments after leaving the barracks for someone to find the body. And simply reading books was a rarity as a Mercenary: Any attempt would normally result in mass panic.
He remembered Halloween the year before.
"Look out! He's got a book! He's going to READ!" Soldier cried. Both RED and BLU were sent into a mass panic and ran around screaming as Face attempted to finish the latest chapter of How to Love your Gun.
Face shuddered. He'd rather not have to put up with that shit again.
Finally placing Grimm Study back onto the shelf, he grabbed the barrel of his rifle, threw it up slightly, and took a hold of the foregrip so he could carry it parallel to the ground. Ensuring he hadn't forgotten anything else, he began to make his way back to the staff accommodation. A few students that regularly visited the library now recognized him as 'The Alright Substitute Teacher' and gave small nods to him, which Face returned, and Nora often gave him a grin as he walked by, which he returned by waving slightly. As soon as he'd left the large room, though, his Scroll buzzed. Raising a brow, he pulled it out, turned it on, and checked the message.
Your first class is at 9:00 AM tomorrow. Be there for 8:00 AM.
- Ozpin
Face rolled his eyes. Ozpin hadn't really needed to put his name. There was an image of him next to the message. As he studied this photo and wondered if they'd got his photo for other people to see, he walked straight past Ruby. Again. This time, however, she was ready: She snapped a picture of him with her Scroll, before quickly running back to the dorm to prove it to Blake.
The quick footsteps behind him alerted Face, and he looked back. "Spy?" he murmured. "No, couldn't be." He shook his head, continued for a second, then paused again. "Although the footsteps were running away. The French like doing that, unless I'm mistaken." Shrugging, he slipped his Scroll away and continued on down the corridor. Had he not been in an environment full of deadly assassins and gunmen for the previous fifteen years of his life, he might not have particularly cared that somebody had been sneaking around behind him. But, he had been in said location for fifteen years, so he did feel naturally unnerved by the unknown follower. Taking another quick glance over his shoulder, Face felt certain that the person was gone, and began to make his way back to his room.
He didn't mind the walking there, either: He'd walked longer distances in scorching Badlands and through bustling cities, both with the added threat of being killed or being detected by the enemy. He couldn't exactly say who the enemy was when it came to missions involving a city, but considering how many times he'd been pinned down behind a crate by Thompson fire, he assumed it was gangsters. Quite a lot of gangsters, in fact: He almost wondered if the entire city was run by the Mafia. Most of the cars he saw were black sedans, a lot of the people he saw were wearing black trench coats and black fedoras, all of them seemed to be musicians (if he was going by the amount of violin cases that people carried around), and most of the guys he'd spoken to/been interrogated by had really thick AmerItalian accents.
And to think how many times he'd been driven out into the desert and told 'walk over there, buddy', before being shot in the back and having to pretend to die, he felt slightly relieved to be able to take a walk around the school without the ever-present threat of a revolver round to the back. Deciding to take the longer route back to the staff accommodation, Face exited the large set of doors leading into the yard outside the corridor that went to the library, and the immediate rays of sun shone onto his exposed skin. Supposedly, it was the middle of summer in that part of Remnant, but with Face's experience with the sun, it was nought but a cold winter. A couple of students gave small waves as they went by, but Face only acknowledged them with a nod.
It wasn't necessary for him to be a friendly teacher. He could help students with things, sort out fights and other problems, but as mentioned, he wasn't being paid to make good with students. He got on well with the other teachers (not counting Glynda); They enjoyed his stories of Mercenary work, he enjoyed their stories of Hunstman work; He made coffee sometimes, and other times Oobleck would end up making a lot of coffee; And most importantly, he answered their questions, they answered his. It was a form of friendship between Face and the other members of staff. He was right about there being more than one hundred and fifty staff members: Occasionally, the staff room would have over twenty teachers, teaching assistants, visitors, and all other kinds of people in it, lounging about and drinking coffee and sharing notes and stories.
As he passed by the fountain in the center of the west courtyard, he noticed a group of students sitting on a grassy knoll adjacent to the Dust storage building. As with all the other students he'd seen, they were an odd group: One of them was a blonde kid, only about seventeen, and he was wearing a hoodie with plates of armour positioned over the top plus a pair of jeans and trainers. He was lying with his hands behind his head and legs crossed next to a girl with vibrant red hair that looked a bit like a Greek warrior. She was wearing a pair of metal greaves with a red piece of fabric to cover her lower body, and a brown piece of what looked to be leather armour over her body. She also wore a golden headband, echoing back to the time when the Greeks had goddesses that would jump out of their sky chariots with bloody great swords and kill absolutely everything they could whilst wearing a toga. She was lying in a similar position to the lad next to her, and he looked to be pretty deep in the friend zone with her, bringing Face to almost pity him. Next to her, there was Nora, the girl from the library. In size comparison to them, she looked to be a child, but nonetheless she remained with them, smiling all the while as she lay in front of another boy. This one was sitting cross-legged and polishing a shiny green pistol with a large knife blade built into it. He seemed to have taken inspiration from the Chinese; Relatively baggy white trousers, a green and gold detailed shirt, plus a single lock of pink hair in his black mop.
They seemed to be enjoying the sunshine beneath a rather large tree, with Nora playfully rolling around as the Chinese kid hardly acknowledged her. She seemed happy enough, so he was probably like her boyfriend or something. The other two simply lay next to each other and seemed to be talking, so Face didn't see any reason to go over and interrupt. However, his chosen path back to the staff room went by that tree, and if he didn't go past them then he wouldn't be able to identify new sniping perches on the way, so that meant he had to go past them, and that would most likely get Nora's attention, and if she was as child-like as she seemed, then she'd probably call him over. Sighing, he pulled his rifle strap slightly tighter and began making his way down the hexagonally-patterned pavement (which he thought was pretty cool in itself).
He had barely passed the group when he heard a shout.
"Hi, Professor Face!"
He sighed.
'Bollocks, almost made it,' he thought. Regardless of his own mind, he forced a smile and turned to see Nora waving over as the rest of her friends looked to him out of curiosity. "G'day," he called back. The response seemed to be the group discussing something. Through the absolutely tiny amount of lipreading he knew, Face could read their conversation.
"You know him, Nora?" asked the Chinese boy.
"Yeah, he's the substitute teacher I was telling you about!" Nora replied.
"And so you just call over to him when he's nearby?" Blonde-boy replied.
"It's not the best idea to delay a teacher," said the Greek girl, "I'm sure he has somewhere important to be."
"No, he doesn't look like he does, he's still standing there. Look." Nora smiled, pointing back to him. As soon as Face had registered this sentence, he realised that he really had, in fact, been standing there and watching them. Nora raised a hand to her mouth. "PROFESSOR!" she yelled. "WHY'RE YOU FOCUSING ON US?"
Shit. Formulate a response.
"Assessment, Nora!" Face quickly called back. "I'm teaching a class about Grimm, I need to be able to assess how well people fare against the things! Not too sure how you'd all fare: I'm yet to see that."
"Does this mean you're teaching us at some point?" she called back.
"Maybe, depends on your year."
"First!"
"Then maybe."
Face didn't say anything else, instead offering a brief wave before they could ask any more questions that he couldn't be arsed to answer and made his way back to the staff building.
A whole day passes by...
Blake was even more awake for the first lesson of the day, and her team knew why. As they all sat at their desk in Professor Port's room, Blake was fidgeting with her Scroll and rapidly typing up a recount of the night where the mysterious gunman had knocked her out. She still felt a jolt of terror when somebody held her shoulder if she couldn't see them, her mind flashing back to her vision of turning around only to receive a fist to the eye.
Her eye still stung, occasionally.
Maybe once every two or three days.
But the black mark was gone, and as the black eye went away, so did the enquiries from fellow students as to how she got it. Training accident, she'd tell them.
But today, if the conditions were right, she might tell them the truth.
Could Ruby be right? She wouldn't stop asking herself that question as she thought over the night's events all those weeks ago and typed it up as quickly as she could. After all, Ruby may have been naïve as any other girl her age, but she was also one of the best team leaders of Beacon's first year students. It would be almost unheard of for her to have made a mistake in identifying...him: She was there when the man took a punch from Yang and just laughed it off. Something like that would never be able to leave anybody's mind, especially knowing that Yang was more than capable of bringing down larger Grimm creatures in one or two strikes.
But none of the other students around the lavish wooden room cared: They were just aware that Professor Port was out catching Grimm for the school. Most of team CRDL sat at the back of the room, idly chatting away, JNPR was doing their usual and going over notes, and RWBY...
Blake looked to her team and sighed briefly, watching Weiss attempting to retrieve her pen from Ruby, the latter balancing it on her nose and dodging Weiss' lunges towards it. Yang, meanwhile, was leaned back and texting with a slightly amused expression gracing her cheerful features. Blake rolled her eyes, and continued tapping feverishly away on her Scroll. She had almost gotten everything noted down, when the door to the back of the classroom slowly creaked open.
The room dropped into a dead silence: Chatting stopped, laughing stopped, play fighting stopped. Anything that might have been considered misbehaviour stopped. From where they were, team RWBY couldn't see who had arrived. Briefly, Yang leaned over to Blake. "Blake," she whispered, "You think this is our guy?"
"Let's hope so." Blake kept a steadfast frown as heavy footsteps against oak flooring finally shattered the silence. They were deliberate, paced, and generally quite menacing. And at the beginning of each step, a barely audible metallic tink of metal against floor became gradually more apparent as the new entrant made their way to the front of the room. Blake's heart beat faster every second.
Deep down she already knew who it was.
And then, after a few moments, the man she wished she'd never have to see again stepped into the center of the room, bristling with weapons. Every step he took was weighed down by a heavy-looking set of leather boots with metal heels, adding an almost pendulum-like weight to the end of his rather long legs. He was wearing a black and red leather jacket with the sleeves rolled up, revealing a slightly scarred left forearm. And atop his head was the same, dirty brown hat with the red tooth band that she had been getting nightmares about for weeks. Slung over his back, there was a dated-looking rifle, presumably the same one he'd managed to hit her in the head with a few weeks earlier. Clipped to the left of his belt was a small grey pistol with a large magazine, and to his right was a holster with a large revolver tucked into it. And placed into a sheath onto his back, she could see the handle of a large knife.
Undoubtedly, this man was a hunter.
A killer.
A Mercenary.
She held back every feeling of rage as he made his way to Professor Port's desk, calmly took the rifle from his shoulder, and leaned it against the side of the table. Then, he turned back to look over the students, resting his weight onto his right hand as he leaned onto the desk. He had a pointed face with eyes obscured by a pair of aviation sunglasses, complimented by a thick black beard over his jaw. Blake could already see more than a few scars that had set in over his face, and as far as she was concerned he might end up with a few more by the end of his time at Beacon.
Finally, he gave a small smirk. "So," he began, his voice carrying a slight air of mockery in it as he spoke. "From what I hear, you horrible little mongrels are supposed to be my students for the next week! And from what I can see?" He paused. "You don't look too different from normal teenagers." A few students huffed at this accusation. "But while I'm here to be teaching you how to survive using nothing but the corpses of your fallen enemies, you'll be teaching me just how wrong that statement is, right?" He was met by silence. "Right." He quickly pushed himself into a walking position, pulling out the knife from his back sheath and twirling it idly around. "Now, it'd probably be in my best interests to tell you who I am." He paused, flicking the knife behind him, over his head, and finally catching it by the handle and examining it. "My name is Professor Face. You may refer to me as Mr. Face, Face, or, as I'm certain most of you are already muttering under your breath..." He slammed the knife into Port's desk, an act that students had seen their regular teacher do countless times with his axe if the class remained unsettled.
"...asshole." A few students chuckled at this, prompting Face to smile and gesture to the snickering team CRDL. "Ahhh, we have some live ones! Excellent: I was certain for a moment I'd walked into a morgue full of children, and I'd rather not live that escapade again." As students swallowed hard in shock at how nonchalantly he said that statement, Face grimaced and shook his head. "Fuckin' drug cartels..." Suddenly, his features brightened up to his old cocky self. "Now then!" He quickly approached the board, grabbing a piece of chalk from nearby and leaping onto a nearby chair to write on it.
'EXTREME SURVIVAL 101: AUSTRALIA STYLE'
Most students present in the room raised a brow. A young Faunus girl with rabbit ears cautiously raised a hand. "Um, Mr. Face?" she called out almost timidly. Face span on one foot on his chair, giving a small wave as he turned.
"That's me, yes?" he replied casually.
"Well," Velvet began, "We were told that we'd normally be given enough supplies to survive should we go on a mission."
"Well, isn't that lovely for you?" Face smiled in an almost predatory way, causing Velevet's ears to droop in a slightly adorable way. "Last time somebody told me 'all you'll need is here', I ended up being hunted down by several crime gangs, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and a gang of angry hippies, before finally ending up in a small building in the desert where my total killcount exceeded two hundred after not eating for three days! Aren't you lucky to have such a lovely school supply department?" Velvet opted to just remain silent and nod. "Good girl. Now, without further delay, I bring you today's lesson."
After almost prancing his way over the room, Face grabbed a large blue platform on wheels with a blue sheet covering something on it. After moving it to the center of the room, he whipped away the sheet to the disgusted reactions of those present. Lying on the trolley was the limp corpse of a Beowulf, bearing a large laceration across its face and a comically large hole in its chest. Across its body, ragged holes pointed to a repeated attack with a gun, the final blow being either the devastating shot to the chest or the cut to the face that split its head in two. The smell of blood rapidly filled the room, and at least one student vomited somewhere. Face, being a teacher, opted to completely ignore this and stand right next to the mangled body. Then, without changing his suddenly flat expression, he gestured to it. "Which one of you can tell me what you're looking at?" He was met by silence: Of course the students knew what it was. But not why it was so brutalized. Normally they'd hit it with one shot, then leave it. That was normally enough. But Mr. Face had just completely and utterly mangled it; Gone above and beyond what was necessary to kill a Beowulf. Nobody raised a hand, and Face rolled his eyes, folding his arms and drumming his fingers.
"Bloody hell, not even been five minutes and you've all died again." He sighed, and went back over to his desk, dislodging his knife from the wooden surface. Then, he promptly began to pace around behind the body, twirling the steel blade between his fingers with his free hand behind his back. "Listen, the lesson can't progress unless somebody tells me what they can se-"
A hand shot up. Face smiled, and flicked the knife straight down and embedding it into the dead Grimm with a chilling thud. Then, he span to his left and pointed at the small, white-haired girl in the front row with her arm up in the air and a grimace on her face. Face made his way over with his finger pointed at her. "Excellent! Somebody respawned! What's your name, Shiela?"
"Schnee," she replied sharply, "Weiss Schnee."
"Alright then, Mrs. Schnee," Face nodded, gesturing back to the corpse. "Can you tell us what this is?"
"That's a dead Beowulf."
"Correct! Anything else about it?"
"It's been completely destroyed."
"Not completely." Face noted. "Good try, though." Stepping back, he approached the body once again and pulled the knife out of its ribs. He used this to point at the hole in its chest cavity. "If you note that this hole allows you to see inside the Grimm, then you might also note that the organs are intact." Forcing the knife against the damaged flesh, Face used the flat edge to peel away the skin, much to the disgust of more than a few of the Huntsmen and Huntresses present. Then, to further this, he reached a hand forward and put it inside the body, moving it about inside and forcing a blonde boy on the front row to hold back vomit. After a moment of disgusting squelches, Face left the knife in the body and let go of the knife, pushing his now free hand against the shoulder of the Grimm and using it as a lever to rip out the Grimm's heart in one brutal movement. Blood spurted in more than a few directions, mostly going over the class' nonchalant teacher, and the blonde boy could no longer hold back the contents of his stomach. Face, meanwhile, was standing with the Grimm's bloodied-grey heart in his hand and a grin that nobody else had ever seen somebody wearing after killing a Grimm. "Like this heart!" he grinned, raising it slightly and beginning to pace in front of the incredibly unnerved class. "This is the heart of an adult male Beowulf, undamaged by gunfire. Now then;" Face paused, looking over the students. He smiled as he recognized a face. "Nora! Haven't seen you doing much yet!"
The ginger girl smiled. "Hi, Professor Face!"
"Alright, Mrs. Valkyrie, now what can you tell me that's prominent about this heart?" Nora cleared her throat.
"Well, from what I know about human and Faunus hearts, it's not the same colour as a normal heart, since I remember those being reddish-pink. And there's red veins all over it..."
"Precisely!" Face smiled, interrupting her and turning back to the class. "Does anybody know why it's grey?" When nobody responded, he rolled his eyes and randomly pointed at a student in the back of the room. He was a big lad with brown hair, giving Face the impression of him being a bit of a Jock. "That guy. You. Back of the room. Lazy one lying down texting the kid next to him." The boy sat up from his reclined position, almost seemingly surprised at being seen as he slipped his Scroll away. The boy with the mohawk sat next to him darted his eyes as he slipped the phone away.
"Uh, y-yes Professor?" he stuttered out quickly, rapidly trying to look like he'd been busy with his paperwork. Face's expression stayed flat and he raised a brow.
"You really weren't bloody paying attention?" he asked. The boy glared back.
"I was!" he snapped.
"Well then." Face smirked, raising his sunglasses slightly. "Let's test that theory. Catch." He stooped slightly to perform an underarm throw of the heart in his hands towards the boy up at the top of the room. He scrambled to catch it, blood spattering on his hands and a panicked expression on his face as his classmates laughed at his expense. Once he finally had a grip on it, Face began pacing in front of the room. "So then, Mr...?"
"Winchester." The boy kept a glare at his new teacher.
"Good. So, what do you hold in your hands?"
"A heart."
"What kind of heart?"
"A Beowulf heart."
"Age and gender?"
"Adult male."
"Good so far. Do you know why it's grey?"
"Because...Beowulves are wolves corrupted by unfiltered darkness?"
"Incorrect."
"What?" Mr. Winchester blinked. "That's what Professor Port told us-"
"Am I Professor Port?" Face asked. The boy paused, and shook his head. "Am I the one who mutilated this body?" The boy nodded. "And have I also done this to one of every species of known animal on the planet?" No response. "Well, I have. So, for now, you listen, alright?" The boy glared.
"Yes, Asshole." Almost everybody in the class oooh'd through their teeth at the outrageous insult. Even Blake found herself covering a smile. Face kept his flat expression.
'You little son of a bitch. I like you.'
Deciding not to let it slide so easily, Face gestured for his new student to throw the heart back to him, which he did. Whilst it was in the air, quick as a flash Face had drawn his revolver and held it at his hip. He moved the hammer back as it came to bear, and he aimed it dead at the heart in mid-air. Then, without a single pause, he pulled the trigger, putting a neat hole straight through the heart. The bullet passed through in mid-flight, ricocheting from the back wall, off the ceiling, and then back down to hit the heart again just before it landed in Face's waiting hand. The room was, once again, sent into stunned silence as the sopping piece of meat landed in Face's already bloody hand. "Good lad. And if you want my comeback?" He briefly span his revolver, slipping it away into his holster, and then dropping the deflated organ back into the body with a wet slap. "You'll be needing to scrape it off your mum's teeth."
The response was an instantly recognizable blonde on the front row, Nora, most of the boys at the back, and quite a few other students completely breaking down with laughter, slamming their fists on the table and going red in amusement. Winchester promptly fired back the most dangerous glare that had ever been glared in the history of glares. Honestly, Face assumed that he could have out-glared a Soldier. However, since the lad could probably not even scratch him in terms of fighting, Face turned and flicked a piece of chalk into the air, catching it shortly after. Then, he made a pistol with his left hand and pointed it at his victim. "Boom."
Once the laughter had died down, he began to explain further into the anatomy of a Grimm, in science terms.
At the end of the period...
The loud beeping around the room temporarily made Face think that a Demoman had just set some sticky bombs around the place or a sentry had appeared. However, once the students began to stand and make their way out of the room, he understood that it must have been the bell to start the next period. Placing the chalk down, he moved to the side of his desk as the class' occupants left. "Alright, hope you learned something today, people!" he called out. "Remember: It's neurotoxin, not darkness, and if you talk shit, you get hit! Important life lessons, guys, so apply them in as many situations as you can!" As he turned back towards his work, he noticed a large portion of the class leaving with smiles on their faces. That meant that they'd either put a bomb under his desk, or that they'd enjoyed the lesson. If it was the latter, then he was satisfied: Regardless, he made a brief check under the desk before sitting down.
"Right...so how was it I do paperwork...?" he murmured as he looked over the sheets on his desk. As he gave his stubble a brief scratch, he noticed a set of shadows falling over his desk. He paused, and flicked his eyes up. 'Four skirts. Four girls. I knew I recognized some of those kids.' He forced his usual predatory grin and looked up. Standing before him, there was Weiss Schnee, a girl he remembered identifying as 'Red' or 'Ruby' or something similar when she'd answered a question, and to his fondest memory, the blonde that had put a thick scar on his cheek, and the catgirl that he'd knocked the fuck out a few weeks before. "Well, hello girls," he sighed. "To what do I owe for the pleasure of looking at your miserable faces?" His answer was the immediate slamming of a pair of hands on his desk as the black-haired girl lunged forward.
"You know what this is about!" she snarled. "You were working with Roman Torchwick and the White Fang at the docks!"
"That's me," Face replied, frowning. "And I'd prefer it if none of us did anything that we'll regret." Weiss snorted, folding her arms.
"That's not on topic." She smirked devilishly all of a sudden. "And if you don't want to talk, then I'm certain that Yang here has unfinished business with you for your...actions against Blake." To punctuate, the tall blonde punched a fist into her other hand in an attempt at intimidation. Face kept a raised brow for a moment, looking them all over.
"Are you threatening me?" Face narrowed his eyes, hand uncertainly reaching for his revolver.
"Not as far as anybody in the school is going to know," Weiss shot back. "And don't even think about drawing that gun. Yang beat you down once, she'll do it again."
"She hardly scratched me," Face growled, gesturing to the scar on his left cheek.
"I could always give you a matching set." Yang kept her arms folded and her magenta eyes narrowed with a sly grin on her face. "You wanna take that chance? Because we want answers." There was silence as Face removed his sunglasses, rubbed his eyes, and then slipped them back on. Then, he lowered the brow of his hat. 'Ohhh, this isn't going to end well...'
"Listen, as much as you'd like information, I'm afraid I don't have nearly as much as you want," he said flatly, adjusting his sunglasses. "All I was given was a set of orders, and a promise of payment. If you understand how a Mercenary operates, then you'll know that such a promise could easily convince me to perform any manner of violent acts. So that night at the docks was just business." The girls continued to glare. Finally, Blake made a 'pfft' sound, and leaned back from the desk.
"I'm not convinced that's all you know," she said in an almost serious tone. "Yang?" Yang began to move around Face's desk, which was just about it for Face. He slammed his fist on the desk and stood straight up, towering over the girl.
"Now you listen here, you little cunt," he snarled, jabbing a finger at her. "You might think that you're hot shit for managing to get into this academy, and that's fine. You passed through all your fucking exams in your previous school to get here. You know what I did to get where I am now? I killed men." Yang was starting to back away as their teacher began approaching the girls. And if even Yang, master of unarmed fighting, was backing away, then it was best that the other three started moving backwards, too. "I killed well over ten thousand men with the same gun over the course of fifteen years, day in, day out, with no option to leave and no guarantee that I wouldn't die in the process. And when I died, I'd just come right back and continue the same shitty cycle over again. I was feared by the enemy, respected by my team, and as a Mercenary, rejected by everyone else. And one day, I get pulled away from my own planet and sent to fucking prison with nobody explaining what it means to be 'earthborn'. So, if you four think that it's one of your divine fucking rights to walk up to me, threaten me, and then demand answers, then you go rethink that, right now." Team RWBY remained silent, with fear and anger running through them simultaneously. Their teacher, the tall man in the blood-spattered clothes, remained glaring at them in a way that none of them had ever experienced in their lives. They could see something they hadn't ever seen in anybody's eyes.
In his eyes, there was murderous intent; coagulated anger blocking the blood-like flow of any truly good intentions.
After a moment of glaring between the girls and the gunman, the former began to silently make their way out of the room, all of them not once looking back and heavy frowns set onto their faces as they stormed out. Once the door slammed, Face groaned, and slumped down on his desk. "Fucking hell." He moved a hand up to rub his face, scratching the bridge of his nose and thinking about the events that had just transpired. They had just walked up to him and demanded answers. If anything, he should have been demanding answers since he'd been here in Remnant. They did deserve some, but they'd immediately resorted to violence to get what they wanted. Was that what he seemed like to others? Not that he cared. He was just there because it was either Beacon, or prison.
And hell if he was going back to prison.
That'd mean he would need to join Junior's gang when he got out as a means of employment. No problems with getting into the gang, of course, since Face had already made plans to visit Junior's club at some point for a few drinks. The big guy had been in and out of jail during the time that Face was under guard, so he'd gotten to know him fairly well when he was eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Nice bloke...just a bit too 'forward' when approaching a problem, and he must have been seven foot tall, minimum.
Face now knew that he himself was a very forward person.
Just then, the door swung open, and he was quick to draw his revolver and take aim from the hip. Instead of the girls coming back in with weapons, he realized that he was currently pointing a gun at the woman who employed him. Keeping his eyes narrowed, he let a huff of air escape his nose, emitting a small grunt as he slipped it back into the holster. "I assume you're here to be snarky?" he asked with a raised brow, folding his arms as he leaned on the desk. Glynda adjusted her glasses with her usual, assessing gaze, and continued to approach him.
"I'm actually here to congratulate you," she replied, coming to a halt to Face's right and standing tall with her hands behind her back. Face flicked his eyes over.
"What, was I thorough enough?" He gave a small gesture to the completely eviscerated Grimm corpse in the centre of the room, blood staining his clothes, the rag used to display the organs, and the floor. Glynda grimaced at the sight.
"Quite thorough, Mr. Face," she continued. "According to lesson reviews by our students, it was the most entertaining lesson they'd had in months: The top reasons were 'The teacher was fun' and 'More detail about Grimm anatomy than I've ever seen'." Face raised his other brow.
"Well, alright then. Taught them something new."
"We had one student, a 'Cardin Winchester', saying 'The teacher was an asshole'."
"Oh, that kid? He got lippy, and I basically told him to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up."
"Miss Velvet Scarlatina claimed 'Language was pretty harsh.'"
"These were teenagers, I was fairly certain they could take some tough words."
"Jaune Arc claimed 'The Grimm made a noise and for some reason all the Professor said was 'Fuck, fuck, fuck' whilst shooting it and stomping on its head.'"
"Hunter's instincts."
"And we have Miss Pyrrha Nikos saying '10/10 would lesson again'."
"Huh. Alright then. So, what's this leading up to?"
"It means that Ozpin is happy with how well you performed, and is considering paying you upon the end of your time here, should you keep this up."
"Right. And that money will help me in prison, how?"
"That's something you'll have to worry about at the time." Glynda straightened up again, looking down at Face. He was pretty sure she was six foot six. He had to look up to see her face, otherwise he was staring at her boobs and that would probably get him slapped. She promptly turned and began to leave, but Face raised his hand behind her.
"Ah, question?" he called out. "Have you got something against me, Miss Goodwytch?" The blonde paused, and looked back at him slightly.
"Not you specifically," she said calmly. "I just don't deal well with crazed gunmen who have had previous connections to terrorists."
She left, leaving Face to try to figure out what that even meant. He checked his watch, surprised to see that it was only ten past eleven. Two hour lesson, time went by quickly. He cast his gaze down to the dead Grimm, and scratched his stubble.
"Best get cooking, lunch is in an hour."