The next day, when Glynda sat opposite him for breakfast, Face couldn't help but notice that she seemed troubled. She was resting her head on her left hand, which she was using to prop her head up whilst she stared thoughtfully ahead. Swallowing his burned piece of toast with no butter, Face raised a brow at her. "You alright there, Professor?" he asked. As though his voice had snapped her back to reality, the woman shook her head slightly, looked at him, then smiled slightly.
"Uh, yes, of course. Sorry if I seem a little far away," Glynda replied, rubbing her forehead. "I'm just concerned." Face looked up slightly, thinking.
"Concerned?" he repeated, mulling the word over. "About?" Glynda shot him a deadpan look.
"You didn't hear about Professor Port's teaching assistant that was meant to be coming back tomorrow?" Face frowned, and shook his head, leaning forward.
"Uh, no," he said, "No, I didn't. What happened?" Glynda paused, looked around, then leaned forward to whisper to Face.
"Allegedly, he was on his way here, and someone stabbed him in the back whilst he waited for a bus. Thankfully, his Aura blocked most of it, but he's in critical condition in Vale's hospital. An absolutely pathetic attack." Face frowned, nodding in understanding.
'Wonder who could've done that.'
"Christ, no kidding," he sighed, shaking his head. "Takes a really cowardly wanker to just carry out something like that. You gonna let the students know?" Professor Goodwytch shook her head, sipping her coffee.
"We can't," she replied miserably, "If we told the students, they'd be devastated. Mr. Sauvignon may have had an alcohol problem, but the students loved him for the way he helped during Port's lectures."
"How'd he do that?" Face asked.
"He'd normally be intoxicated, and Port would call him in to play the role of 'inexperienced fighter' whenever he was displaying something." Glynda sighed again, chuckling to herself. "It was surprising how long he could actually fend off Port whilst his thought process was saturated with booze..." Face smirked, leaning back.
"Oh, you haven't seen alcoholism 'til you've seen one of my old teammates," he said, adjusting his hat brow slightly. A few students turned to listen in on another of his stories. "This guy had one eye, and that eye had two focuses; Blowing things up, and booze. Most of the times he was in battle, he was absolutely wankered, and just ran around smashing people's heads in with a glass bottle. The other times, he had a grenade launcher, and set about turning the BLU guys into wallpaper paste. The rest of the times, he was a scary motherfucker. Some idiot gave him a shield and a haunted sword and it was fucking terrifying."
"Oh, please, Professor!" Glynda scoffed, folding her arms with a doubtful smirk. "I've heard you say some things, but this takes the cake. A haunted sword?"
"Trust me, I didn't believe it at first, either," Face retorted, raising a finger as Glynda shook her head, smiling. "Massive greatsword. Sort of glowed green most of the time. Apparently, it was made back in the time where England was invading Scotland, and the sword was slow-forged in the bowels of captured English knights."
His co-worker frowned at the thought, whistling through her teeth. "That doesn't sound good..."
"Damn right, it wasn't good. Whenever Demo had this sword out, he said he could hear it calling to him. It was speaking to him, demanding something in particular that the spirit inside the sword absolutely craved." Glynda stared at Face for a moment.
"...and that thing was?"
"Heads."
Glynda swallowed.
"It was a weird partnership between the two. Most days, Demo was plastered, and left the sword at home with his Mum. I met his Mum once when I got invited to Demo's house to watch the football back in England. His Mum hated me, the sword, and the fact Demo had time to invite anyone over." Glynda tilted her head side to side.
"She couldn't have been that bad. Surely she was just going by appearances?"
"She's blind, she called me 'an ugly bastard', and told me to 'shove what little pride I had in my terrible life up my arse', so let's leave it at that." A group of students nearby broke out laughing as Glynda concealed chuckles. The elderly certainly had a way with words where Face was from. "Anyway, on other days, Demo was sober, and was charging through streams of flames, explosions, and gunfire with this sword over his head, decapitating anyone who came near him that wasn't wearing red." Face paused, scratching his chin.
"Don't get me wrong, he was a great bloke and all, but there's something really alarming about watching an angry Scotsman cutting the head from the shoulders of a giant Russian guy with a minigun. Equally so, the same goes for watching that same Scotsman going to everyone on your team and hugging them because they're his 'best mate', and all that."
"So he was drunk constantly?" Glynda asked. Face nodded. "Then he must have had a very high tolerance for alcohol."
"Indeed he did." Face sipped his coffee. "He could drink gallons and gallons of beer and not feel a thing, whilst the rest of us were black-out drunk. Contrary to that, he took one sip of his family's whiskey, and he was absolutely pasted. The label on the bottle said it had something like 80% alcohol content, or something." A few students nearby that were more well-versed in the consumption of alcohol winced at the thought of something that was probably dangerous enough to kill on the first bottle. "I tried it once." Face mocked an expression of disgust. "Tasted like a mix of paint stripper and shit. Can't remember anything else because I passed out."
"Wow..." Glynda whistled. "You should probably tell Mr. Sauvignon about your world's whiskey if you ever meet him."
Face shrugged. "Actually, I think I've got about thirty bottles of it in my backpack." Glynda hesitated, staring at him as though he were delusional.
"...you planned to drink them?" she asked. Face shook his head, grabbing a piece of bacon and swallowing the whole thing in one go.
"Planned to beat people over the head with them," he corrected. "Full bottle of booze is surprisingly effective at killing most of the guys we used to have coming at us. And when it broke?" He smiled. "Well, then it's turned into a stabbing tool, eh?"
His blonde co-worker mulled this over for a moment.
'That's...one way of looking at it...'
"Why the look?" he asked. "You want some? I can swing by your room with a bottle later, if you want." Immediately, Goodwytch's face felt hot, and she could hear a few students laughing. Face, however, remained indifferent. What was so funny about offering alcohol? Was it rude, or something?
After a moment of Face looking blankly at her and students chuckling, Glynda cleared her throat. "That...ahem, that won't be necessary, Professor," she said finally. Face just shrugged.
"Suit yourself. Like hell if I'm drinking any of it without someone to make sure I don't get so drunk that I fall out of a window, or something."
"You've given me more reason to avoid drinking it, then."
"Eh, I tried."
The two continued their usual morning discussion for a lengthier period than normal, due to Glynda and Face having free periods with no marking to do that morning. Thus, after leaving the dining hall, they decided to go for a walk around Beacon. The sun wasn't exactly at its highest point, but it was still burning hot. Face glanced up at Ozpin's tower, and winced. "Christ..." he muttered. "Feel sorry for Professor Ozpin. Stuck up in a glass room with giant windows and a leather chair on a sunny day." Glynda raised a brow, calmly pacing alongside the Sniper and looking at him curiously.
"I thought you were used to extreme temperatures?" she noted.
"Well, I'm used to it," he sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "Running about in the Badlands can do that to you, especially when you mix it with rain, mud, and missiles. I can't be sure that Professor Ozpin's fine with the heat, though. He's got a giant window with the sun burning down on him." Glynda shrugged.
"I wouldn't worry about it," she said calmly. "If anything's going to kill him, it's definitely not going to be heat. A little bit of warmth never hurt anyone."
Face immediately had brief, vivid flashbacks to the amount of times that an enemy Pyro had coated him in napalm and watched as his flesh melted and peeled from his bones.
"I'm..." He held his tongue as Glynda looked at him with the usual raised brow she had whenever he was about to say something. "...not gonna make a comment." His companion smiled, giving a playful push to his shoulder.
"Oh, come on, you can tell me. You had something to say, and anything about your past helps us understand you more." Face shrugged as they approached a large tree, and set himself down.
"Well, I can't exactly pin this down in a simple way," he grunted, sighing as he leaned against the tree and crossed his legs. "But, sod it, I might as well give it a go." Following his example, Goodwytch, cautiously put herself down beside him in the shade. Once she was settled, he began. "So, going by what you know so far about me that's different from your world, what're the main things about me that you'd say stand out?"
Glynda thought for a moment. "Well, you specified that you're an ex-Mercenary, which already makes you stand out since Mercenary work is already a rather restricted business in Remnant." Face nodded.
"That's a given; Murder's a taboo, here. What else have I mentioned?"
"You...fought clones of yourself, every day, for fifteen or so years, and each clone had a different personality."
"Indeed. That was my social circle for fifteen years. You're on the right track."
"...you've also mentioned something called a 'respawn'." Face flicked his fingers at her in a pistol gesture, free hand behind his head.
"Bang on." He returned his hands to behind his head, and shifted against the tree. "The R.E.S.P.A.W.N system was made years before I entered the business, by the original BLU Engineer's father, back in about the 1920's or 1930's. No specific date given, but that's what I got told. Anyway, when you become a Mercenary in TF Industries, they take your DNA and mind, then kill you, and put the DNA and mind into a copy of one of the nine 'Originals'." Glynda was slightly shocked.
"So you're just a copy of someone else?" she asked, mortified. Face nodded calmly.
"Yep. My old body was slightly shorter and slightly more built. This one is a clone of the body of a New Zealander who was employed by TF Industries to work as a Sniper. When he joined, they did the same to him, but only kept the genetic copy of him. Did this with eight other Mercs, as well; All of whom had their own special skills to use in the battlefield."
Goodwytch slowly nodded, remembering what he'd said a while before. "A class-based warfare..."
"Exactly. The guy I'm based on was the original Sniper. Then you had the original Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, Engineer, Medic, and Spy. All of them got copies made of them. Whenever they...y'know, died, the R.E.S.P.A.W.N device would do...something, and reproduce a direct copy of them, alive and well, with the memories of what they were doing before they died, and put them back in their base to go out and keep fighting. Most of the time, Snipers like me would get wiped out by Spies and Scouts. It's part of the reason why I hated those arseholes the most."
Glynda's look of slight disgust worsened into absolute disgust. "You were...human cannon fodder?"
"One way of putting it." Face reclined against the tree, rubbing his nails on his shirt and checking them over. "In very bad fights, I'd die about twenty times in the space of ten or fifteen minutes. Other times, I'd only be killed once every...two or three battles." He glanced over at her, smirking. "And you don't want to get me started on how many guys I'd take out during those two or three battles." Glynda swallowed. "Of course, they'd come back just like me and the rest of my team. Sometimes, the R.E.S.P.A.W.N system would accept 'transfer Mercs', which were basically just files moved to different systems to put new Mercs in new locations."
He hesitated.
"Well...that's what we got told, anyway. There was probably more to it, but as far as I'm concerned, there was free accommodation, free food, excellent pay, and a good excuse to kill Germans, Russians, and Americans, over and over again." Glynda sat up against the tree.
"Well, how many people had this...system taken in?"
"Eh?"
"How many of you 'Mercs' were there, based on the original nine?"
"At last count before I left..." Face looked up at his hat brow in thought. "...about...twenty eight million, or so."
Glynda's jaw dropped.
"And this doesn't even slightly trouble you?" she asked, confused. Face shrugged.
"Well, I've gotten over it, haven't I?" he retorted casually. "And it's not like they'd kill me at the end of it. Mercs that retire get given a choice; If you killed over ten thousand enemies, you could choose to have all your pay taken away but get a small R.E.S.P.A.W.N terminal so that you could live forever, or to keep your pay and live comfortably." The Sniper sniffed slightly. "I didn't get to retire. I'd planned to choose the endless life and go on endless adventures, like I'd always wanted to as a kid. Instead, I got pulled here, and as far as I know...if I die here, I'm done. My life'll be all be finished, forever. I won't respawn, and I wouldn't have left my mark on the world." His female companion gave a rather sad look to him, then shifted up beside Face, saying nothing to the shorter man.
There was a silence between the two of them.
"You're wrong."
"Eh?"
Glynda looked down at him. Even sitting down, she was taller than him. "You're wrong. If you were to die today, you would have definitely left a mark in Beacon."
"Really?" Face asked, looking up at her. "How?"
"Well, for one thing, you beat me in a fight. That told me that I needed to start judging my opponents more effectively."
"Uh...I guess?"
"Then, you have a class of students that would hate to see you go. Specifically Miss Nikos and Miss Scarletina, who have both issued you 'Lad' and 'Absolute G' as ratings in regards to your lessons."
"Hmm. That's a point."
"This also doesn't bring into account the fact that when I spoke to Warden Latchkey of Vale Prison whilst I was signing your release forms, he told me that you managed to entertain crowds of inmates by telling them jokes and stories of your past, and he'd be rather sad to see you go." Face looked surprised.
"I was more entertained that those guys hadn't ever experienced those kind of fights before..." he mused. "I mean, haven't they ever fought a guy who was using a fish as a bat?" Face glanced at his female companion. "You've had that, right?"
With a slightly bemused smirk on her face, Glynda slowly shook her head. "...not that I can remember..."
Face blinked. "...never fought against someone using an alien laser cannon?"
"Can't say that I have."
"Not watched a conga line break out in a battlefield?"
"No, but the thought of that does amuse me."
"You don't break out into impromptu aerobics routines with your team after a well-earned victory?"
"I don't think my team ever did."
"Haven't you ever fought a ten foot tall ghost wizard, or a flying eyeball that shoots smaller eyeballs that can blow you up?"
"...I think I would remember that."
"You haven't been attacked by a horde of teenagers that all shouted 'Bonk!' whilst smashing your brains in with baseball bats?"
"Thankfully not...I take it that happened to you?"
"Yep. But seriously, you haven't had that happen to you?" Glynda shook her head again.
"Never. The way you described it just then made it seem like your fights were almost...fun."
"What do you mean?"
"Well...the bats, laser cannons, conga lines, all the people shouting 'Bonk!', and the aerobics. It sounds...funny. As if it were some sort of comedy routine."
"It sounds like it, but it really wasn't. I mean, sure, people respawned, and sometimes people got a bit angry at the joking around, but..." Face began looking slightly upset, staring ahead almost vacantly as Glynda watched him. "...it's all fun and games, until the other guys don't get to come back." She dipped her head down slightly to see under Face's hat brow.
"Are you alright, Professor?"
Face's response was hesitant, but it showed up eventually. He perked his head up, and put on a slightly forced chuckle. "Oh? Yeah, yeah, I'm...I'm good. Just...thinking back, 's all."
Glynda slowly nodded, eyeing him with a bit of concern. She made a mental note to try and get him to divulge the information he was quite clearly withholding at a later time, and leaned back up against the tree. There was silence between the two, as they sat in the shade and observed the surprisingly vibrant wildlife of Beacon's campus. Face checked his watch. Quarter to twelve. He was due to be giving a lesson at half one. He wasn't certain about Glynda.
How long was he meant to be working for?
"Professor?" he began, eliciting a sigh from the woman beside him.
"Listen, as much as I appreciate you calling me by my title," she began, "I think we know each other well enough that I'll accept it if you refer to me as 'Glynda'." Face coughed. Shit. She was getting used to him.
"...uh...right you are...Glynda." He straightened himself up. "So...I've been wondering this for a couple of days. What'm I doing once I finish my time working here?" Glynda looked at him.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"You said it a while back, on the third or fourth day I was working here. You told me I was probably going back to prison once I was done here, and Professor Ozpin was maybe planning to pay me."
"Right."
"So what's going on? Am I going back to prison?"
Glynda looked over at him to eye him up and down. She certainly had come to see him in a different light since he'd arrived.
At first, she saw him as the low-life scum that Ozpin had pulled out of prison for some contrived reason, as per his usual, ominous ways. She'd even bet that he would be dead within a week.
But at that point, she could see Face as a good person who just got wrapped up in all the wrong things, in all the wrong places, at all the wrong times, and just had to stick with it. He had a moral compass; he enjoyed looking after his students; he had regrets; and he was more qualified than anyone to talk about how dangerous a battlefield was.
Most of all, Face knew that he wasn't the hero.
Glynda had seen so many students, teachers, and comrades alike fail due to their own mistakes: They gave a shout and brought too much attention to themselves; they tried to prove themselves against a tough opponent only to be slaughtered; they tried to create a media image for themselves but fell flat, ending their career and forcing them into an early retirement. Face could afford no such luxury: If he got into the limelight, people would try to dig up his background, and a whole burial ground of unpleasantness would be seen by all.
Glynda sighed. "I...I don't know what's going to happen," she said finally. Face looked a slight disheartened. "As far as I can gather, Ozpin is very seriously considering you as permanent staff at Beacon. What he plans for you to do, I don't know. But if he decides you can stay...it'll all be fine, yes?"
Face slowly nodded, and looked back ahead of him slightly dejectedly. "If I may ask...why does this trouble you so much?" Glynda asked finally.
"I've always had a job," he sighed, rubbing his face. "When I was five, I used to tidy the house with my Mum. When I turned eight, I was doing the dishes. When I was eleven, I was doing post deliveries for my parents. When I turned fifteen, my friends would pay me to tie people's shoelaces together, or some other prank. When I turned sixteen, I joined the Army. Right out of the training, I became a Mercenary, and have been ever since. I don't remember what it's like to not have a job. And the prospect of not having income..." He hesitated, and looked up at his female companion. "...I'm not gonna cover it up. It scares the shit out of me, Glynda. I'm scared that now that I'm in this world, I won't be able to get a job with my credentials list that just says 'once kicked a man out of a skyscraper and onto a steel spike'. My worlds' money's worthless here, nobody employs killers, and I've got no specific skills that'll let me do anything that some younger Huntsman couldn't do better, and faster."
Glynda stared at him. "You're scared of becoming obsolete? That's all?"
"I've faced gunfire, fire, blades, and explosions. I've seen the 'other side' more times than I can count. I don't have anything else to fear because my work let me face everything I'd fear anyway, so the one thing I can fear is just that: Nothing. The thought of being able to do nothing, because I can do nothing that someone else can't do better." Glynda kept her worried gaze on him. He looked as if he was having a breakdown. For a moment, she gazed at his face to see what he planned next, before he suddenly blinked a few times and laughed awkwardly, rubbing his eyes and straightening up. "Wow. Look at me, right? I must be getting old: I'm having emotions! Ain't that something? Maybe it's the heat, or...or something...but I think I can keep my cool, eh?"
Glynda looked at him sadly, watching the tired warrior trying as hard as he could to compose himself so that he wouldn't just fall apart at the seams. Face was just adjusting his coat, hat, glasses, and shirt collar repeatedly, as if he didn't realise just how much he looked like he was trying to act the tough guy about the whole thing. He'd just poured out some rare emotion, specifically about what scared him the most. As far as Glynda's experience with both students and staff alike went, the one thing they'd need the most during the confusion was someone they knew to stay with them.
As far as she knew, she was the only person in Beacon who actually spoke to Face on a regular basis. Once the novelty of his other-worldly life had worn off in the staff room, the conversations returned to politics and sports, which Face didn't understand, thus excluding him from discussion. He didn't speak to his students outside of lessons. She'd only ever seen him conversing with Ozpin and Oobleck a few times, and obviously Face and Oobleck must have gotten on well if they'd commandeered the staff balcony for a barbecue, but she hadn't seen any contact between the two.
Sighing, and knowing she was probably going to regret it and everything leading up to it, Glynda shifted up next to Face and put her arm around him, pulling him closer to her. Face offered surprisingly little resistance, continuing to stare ahead at nothing, almost as if he wasn't registering the physical contact at all. Carefully, Glynda moved herself so that she was directly beside him, and held his head next to her left shoulder. "It's alright." she whispered in as calm a tone as she could muster. "I'm not judging you."
God, she felt really fucking awkward doing this.
There was a silence between the two once again.
"Glynda?" came Face's voice, muffled as it was pressed into her shoulder.
"Yes?" she said gently.
"What the bloody hell are we doing?"
More silence between the two.
"W-Well...you know...you looked like you were having a breakdown...of sorts..."
"Oh. OK. Does this help somehow?"
"Apparently so. Something to do with...ahem, 'maternal warmth'."
"Doesn't seem to be helping. Maybe it's because I didn't really like my Mum."
"R-Right..." Glynda kept a very sharp eye out for students, but could see none. God, the rumours if any of them saw what they were doing. "...shall I stop?"
There was a hesitation.
"...I don't know. When is this meant to stop feeling really, really wrong?"
"Wrong in what way?"
"Well...Glynda, you're kind of suffocating me with your boob."
Immediately, Glynda pushed him away, and the two promptly went their separate ways to their individual lectures, never to see each other until the next morning.
If they had remained a moment longer, they would have heard the loud whoosh of a decloak, accompanied by a short, British chortling.