Ten. Twenty. Fifty. One hundred. Two hundred.
No matter how many targets sprung up before the lone soldier, they were all swiftly struck down with practiced ease. The guardsman ignored the idle chattering that had cropped up from the budding crowd behind him as best he could, similarly to how he dismissed the praise his leader had started to give him after he quickly surpassed her score and his teammates' bickering amongst each other. To Winston, the distant noises of the academy around him were as far away as the world of endless war he had come from, and he treated both with the same callous indifference the Death Korps were infamous for.
His focus was solely on the enemy and although they were only mobile metal sheets possessing no ability to fight back against him, he faced them with all the seriousness he would show any foe unfortunate enough to find themselves in his way. The sight of a seemingly endless horde bearing down on him threatened to dredge up memories of the past and all the horrors contained within, but thankfully he was far too exhausted to give them much thought and much too focused to register them as anything more than a distraction he couldn't be bothered to entertain. He had been tempted to duck behind the counter separating him from the target range for cover and swap power packs upon noticing his current one was running low on charge after having grown used to mentally keeping track of his shots but kept on firing away anyways. Having learned to make the most of what limited supplies he had access to and seeing so many of his brethren fall when failing to anticipate how even a single lasbolt's worth of charge could be life saving, he did not intend to let any of the remaining charge in his current power pack go to waste should he find the need for their ammunition later.
Even then, with as quickly as the targets were popping up after having taken down at least a quarter of a thousand of them, he could hardly waste time with something so trivial as reloading when he was about to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and speed of his opponents. Although his perceived enemy was relentless in their imagined assault against him, the Korpsman was determined to match their tenacity with a savage ferocity of his own.
At the start of his assault against the mobile training targets, there had been a noticeable degree of discipline and control guiding the rapid fire shots he directed towards them. Unfamiliarity had been the cause of his poor marksmanship at the start of his trial, as the laspistol that once belonged to one of his regiment's quartermasters before being left in his care had never been used by its new owner until necessity demanded that memento mori see service once again upon arriving on Remnant. Urgency became the new cause of his inaccuracy once he became more accustomed to how the laspistol functioned, and although no one watching him at present would dare say his aim was lacking given how he had yet to miss a single target at the frantic pace he was taking down them down, the guardsman himself knew he could, no, needed to do better.
And so he pushed himself as hard as he could, fighting as if he was making his last stand against an army without end, until his power pack finally ran dry and the last lasbolt left the end of the smoking barrel of his laspistol. Acting purely on instinct and a trifling amount of prior experience with scavenged sidearms, Winston quickly ejected the spent power pack with one hand without care as to what happened to it afterwards as he reached for one of the fresh ones strapped to his chest with his other hand, only to remember as his other arm came into view that he was missing a sizable portion of his upper arm and everything beyond it.
The scant few moments it took him to realize his mistake had been enough for him to know he had nothing else to throw at his enemies, save for the obvious one he already had in his hand. Without any of the reverence he had shown the last known remains of one of his comrades, the guardsman reared his remaining arm back and attempted to hurl his laspistol at the closest of the targets. Before his laspistol left his grip, his time and number of targets hit appeared in a hologram in front of him, not that he was in any position to take any notice of what it read.
His sidearm flew out of his hand and struck the hologram, which turned out to be made of hard light much to his immediate surprise. His thrown weapon bounced back with the same speed he threw it and nearly smacked him in the face before he managed to duck underneath it, earning a sharp yelp of pain as it struck one of his teammates behind him.
"Hey!" Weiss shouted back at him, her angry rebuttal to the unintentional assault earning her a few chuckles from those around her.
"I guess that's karma for you." Yang told her, offering a disgustingly sweet smile to the heiress who couldn't disagree with her teammate.
Winston himself hardly cared about what the others behind him were saying or the results of his performance displayed out in front of him. As his mind and body calmed down now that he had no enemy to wage war against, even one that was largely of his own making, he quickly darted over to where his laspistol landed and picked it off of the ground. He gave it a quick inspection and, upon seeing that no visible damage had been sustained to its external parts and hoping an internal inspection conducted later would reveal the same, stowed it back into the holster secured to his waist before turning back to face his team.
Although the guardsman himself didn't feel as if anything he did was worthy of any praise, at least one member of Team RWBY couldn't help but to be amazed by his performance and voice her thoughts.
"That was awesome!" Ruby cheered before changing her focus onto what really caught her attention.
"I didn't know your weapon was capable of firing so many shots. Is it something you made yourself? How does it work? Is there any chance you can show me how to make a weapon that fires lasers so I can make a couple of improvements to Crescent Rose?" She gushed without showing any signs of slowing down any time soon. "Oh, or what about…"
Winston started to slowly back away from the little leader's tirade of questions and visibly shrunk in on himself before Yang noticed her new teammate's unease and stepped in for him. "I think you might want to slow down a little bit, sis. You're scaring the new guy." She interrupted, placing a hand on her sibling's shoulder to help bring her out of her own thoughts.
"Oh, uhh… sorry?" Ruby nervously laughed as she realized what she had done.
Seeing that the Korpsman's performance was at an end and fearing that it wouldn't be long until Professor Goodwitch returned and caught all of them slacking off while she was away, the crowd that had gathered around Team RWBY's area dispersed while they still could. The other members of the team took the opportunity to gather with the rest of their team.
"How did you learn how to shoot like that?" Blake asked Winston, showing an unusual interest in her teammate for a change as she raised an eyebrow at the score he managed to rack up.
"Experience." He dutifully droned in response.
"What, do you go out and start picking fights with the largest packs of Grimm you can find?" Yang playfully asked.
"No. I usually had to wait for my enemies to come for me." Winston bluntly answered.
With siege warfare being a specialty of the Death Korps of Krieg, something that few other regiments could ever hope to match them in, they had plenty of experience holding the line against the innumerable hordes of heretics, xenos, and other horrors running towards the Imperium controlled trenches in an attempt to slaughter everyone inside. The Death Korps insistence of serving in the bloodiest and most dangerous of battles was a testament to their prowess and resilience in defending against the assaulting armies in their attempts to stand defiant against such hopeless odds. Their continued survival in the face of such hostility left more than a few of their numbers capable of matching the elites of the Imperial Guard, even if most of them served as Grenadiers and were much too willing to make the next suicide mission they were assigned to their last.
The blonde brawler let out a laugh at his confident answer, believing it to be as lighthearted of a response of her own. "Well, it's no wonder you were able to make it into Beacon without going through the initiation test, Tough Guy. Maybe I should join you sometime so I can steal some of your moves."
The guardsman gave her a shrug, not particularly caring if she did or didn't go through with her declaration. Instead, he turned back to collect the spent power pack he dropped on the ground while he observed the end result of his attempt to prove he was not nearly as worthless as his team believed him to be in his current state. The first thing to catch his attention was not the neon white hologram displaying his score surprisingly enough, but the targets that had remained standing when he ran out of time to strike them down. All of them bore scorch marks from where his lasbolts had struck with a few targets bearing a smoldering hole punched through them where he managed to rally a few shots in the same area, something not even Ruby's Crescent Rose, a supposedly high caliber sniper rifle, could achieve. Whether it was a testament to the power the hellgun power pack he had been using or the poor quality of the alloys the targets were made of was impossible to tell, but it left damning proof of what Winston's arsenal was capable of nonetheless.
In case the damaged targets weren't proof enough of his weaponry's abilities, the score that still stood proudly in front of the range left little doubt as to how deadly both it and its wielder were. Two hundred and eighty seven targets hit in three minutes and thirteen seconds. It wasn't going to set any records, especially given how anyone with a Semblance capable of enhancing their speed could easily surpass it, but coming from a one armed student who never had the chance to reload his weapon of choice? That was almost as impressive as his practice matches the previous day when he had all of his limbs to work with.
But despite the guardsman's remarkable results, he couldn't take any pride in his achievement. He knew he could do better, just like he knew his lack of precision and inability to reload his laspistol quickly with a single hand could easily be the death of him if he hadn't been in a training exercise. He had seen what happened when either were lacking in his fallen brethren all too many times.
Far, far too many visceral and agonizing times…
The Korpsman froze still as images from past battlegrounds started to flash in front of his eyes, his sudden change in demeanor catching his leader's attention before long. "Hey, Winston, is something wrong?" She asked, slightly unsure whether she should be worried or if this was another one of her teammate's many oddities.
The guardsman quickly snapped out of his stupor once he realized his superior was speaking to him, pausing only for a moment to recall what she had asked him.
"I'm fine." He droned on with that same disinterested tone he always used.
Whether or not Ruby was convinced was impossible to tell as her sister quickly inserted herself between the duo. "Alright, that's enough flirting, you two." Yang teasingly poked at them as she barged her way in between them, earning a nervous denial from her sibling.
"Mama Yang wants to have a turn and show you what these guns can do." She continued, striking a pose and flexing her arms as the bracelets around her wrists changed into gauntlets with two gun barrels almost as thick as her arm attached to each.
Weiss and Blake couldn't help but to stare in embarrassment at the performance the blonde was putting on.
"Oh my Brothers." Weiss muttered. "Did she really just-"
"Yes, she did." Blake groaned with shame as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "That's my partner for you."
"And I thought having a hyperactive child as one was bad." The heiress sighed.
"It could always be worse." Blake wryly replied as she glanced at the white haired huntress.
It took all of Blake's self-restraint not to let out a laugh at how Weiss nodded her head in agreement as the sarcasm completely flew over her.
Winston did his best to ignore whatever conversations or impending arguments were going on between his team as they took turns on their section of firing range. Instead he spent the remainder of the class attempting to insert and remove a single power pack into his laspistol with the goal of being able to complete the process in a respectable time that wouldn't get him killed in an actual fight. He doubted he would ever be put in a situation where he would need to do so, but it was better to be prepared in the unlikely event it did happen than to be killed for neglecting to hone a potentially life saving talent. A tense moment passed when Goodwitch spotted the damaged targets upon her return, her gaze instantly turning to Winston who made his best attempt to act casual and continue what he was doing in the hopes of escaping punishment but otherwise he spent the entire hour and a half of the remaining time refining what most people would consider a simple action hardly worth practicing.
Of course, he thought differently. Being one of the few people in Beacon to have endured a firefight without the protection of aura, Winston knew exactly how every moment wasted fumbling with his gear was one his enemies could easily use to slaughter him while his primary means of defending himself were out of commission. Having seen a similar fate fall upon dozens of allies and enemies alike across multiple worlds, he wanted to make sure when his death finally did arrive, it wasn't because he dropped his power pack before his foe sauntered up to him and shot him in the head thanks to a careless slip on his part. Heretics, Orks, and other filthy xenos were supposed to die like that, not trained guardsmen.
His team made an attempt to give him another turn on the firing range, but he quietly declined every time they offered. The guardsman's stubbornness and refusal to abandon his self imposed task proved to be stronger than most of his teammates could bear and they soon stopped asking him, save for Ruby, but her insistence faltered upon noticing how determined he was to adjust to both his weapon and newfound limitations.
"Is he still playing with his pistol?" Weiss asked her team, unloading the last phial of dust in her rapier to unleash a final fireball at a target as Goodwitch signaled the end of the class.
The class had lasted a little over two hours overall with much of the students waiting for a turn on the firing range talking amongst each other, watching their own teammates and other teams attempt to match the show Winston put on earlier with little success, or inspecting their weapons for any damage the volatile dust rounds they used might have caused. Team RWBY was no exception, although they had another thing to keep themselves entertained in the form of the Korpsman slowly repeating the same simple motions required to reload his laspistol over and over again without end. His apparent mindless devotion to his task was a little humorous at first, but slowly grew to be concerning before long.
"We probably shouldn't bother him while he's busy…" Yang suggested as she walked past her new teammate who didn't bother to show any signs of hearing her.
Blake and Weiss followed the brawler without another word, neither one of them bothering to spare their newest teammate a glance before focusing on more pressing matters that needed their attention, like studying for their classes tomorrow. Ruby had plans of her own, but wanted to at least say a few parting words as she felt a good leader should.
"I guess we'll see you back in our room once you're finished doing… whatever it is you're doing." She sheepishly said, trying not to draw attention to the awkwardness of the situation and failing.
The little leader started to walk away before remembering what happened last night and called out to the guardsman, "Oh, and don't forget to knock on our door to let us know you need to be let in this time! Later!"
The young girl gave her teammate a wave as she departed, leaving him and Goodwitch as the last two occupants of the training room. The professor noticed how unresponsive Beacon's most recent attendee was and thought to walk over and check to make sure there wasn't anything wrong, but upon seeing the guardsman check ot make sure no other students were present before taking a few steps to the counter in front of the firing range, thought it was best to see what he was going to do first. Oblivious to the headmistress watching over him, or perhaps simply uncaring, Winston made sure the power pack he snapped into his laspistol's charging port was securely attached, flipped off the safety, and brought the butt of his sidearm down onto the button to start one last trial on the firing range. The guardsman waited a brief moment for the barrier separating his section of the range to rise fully and the first target to spring up before making his move.
With the same surprisingly quick reflexes she had already seen show off in yesterday's sparring matches before his tragic accident against Pyrrha, Goodwitch watched him plant a lasbolt through the target he managed to hit and unintentionally confirmed her suspicions as to who was responsible for damaging the others. She was going to need to have a word with Ozpin about this before her unnerving student managed to hurt someone or damage some more of the academy's equipment with his weapons.
The professor was about to raise her voice and reprimand Winston before he could destroy anything else, but surprisingly he did not attempt to set a new high score on the practice range for today. Instead, she watched as the Korpsman reached into his trench coat with his one hand still gripping onto his laspistol as he retrieved more of the unique ammunition his weapon used. From there, she watched him manage to eject the power pack currently inserted into his weapon and replace it with the other he was holding onto with a surprising amount of speed for someone who didn't appear to be familiar with reloading his weapon with one hand at the start of the day. It seemed ignoring the task he was meant to accomplish paid off, not that she was the kind of teacher to reprimand an injured student for knowing their limits and taking it easy on themself. Of course, that implied Winston's marksmanship needed any refinement. From what the results of his performance showed, something she unfortunately missed while reprimanding a few students with a death wish, he could already match the skills of a licensed huntsmen and surpassed a few she knew personally.
As the headmistress walked over to check up on her lingering student, she couldn't help but to feel as if he wasn't as satisfied with his performance as she was. There was something in the way he glowered at the power pack he dropped at his feet as if it had personally offended him somehow that made her feel as if Winston thought he failed the task he had set out to accomplish, whatever it might be. Then again, perhaps it was something else as it was hard to tell what the guardsman was feeling with that gas mask he constantly wore obscuring his face. Either way, it was moments like these when Goodwitch knew a kind word had more of an effect on a student than a reprimand or reminder of their shortcomings.
"Well done, Mr Votoyski." She said, causing the guardsman to flinch a little as soon as she spoke. "I'm sure Dr. Schwarzer will be pleased to hear about the results I sent him from your attempt at the practice course when you visit him."
"Headmistress Goodwitch." Winston saluted her as Glynda fought back the urge to tell him to save such behavior for when and if he transferred over to Atlas Academy.
Given Atlas' militaristic inclinations and the history the student before her had with such an institution as Ozpin alluded to upon his initial arrival, she had a feeling that it wouldn't be long if given the choice. She also had a feeling this wasn't the only reason why the headmaster would never give him that chance to make that decision and hoped to never find out whatever it was that made Winston seem so off to her.
"I apologize about the damages I've caused. I can reforge the targets or weld patches onto them if you provide me with the materials I need to make the repairs." Her student offered after finishing with his greeting.
"No, no that won't be necessary." Goodwitch told him despite appreciating the offer. "I have a certain someone in mind who deserves a fitting punishment for endangering someone's life by unleashing a pack of Boarbatusk on them."
Winston shuffled around nervously before responding. "Was Professor Port not supposed to do that?" He asked with only the faintest hint of uncertainty tainting his otherwise steady voice.
The headmistress couldn't help but to cock an eyebrow at her student's question. "Yes, he wasn't." She said, "How did you know I was talking about Port?"
The guardsman shuffled around with his hands in his pockets a little more before she came to the obvious conclusion. "You're the student who he almost killed with a pack of Boarbatusk, weren't you?" She asked as she pinched the bridge of her nose in an attempt to reign in her anger upon learning whose life the portly professor had endangered.
"I was not in any danger, ma'am." Winston quickly replied. "I let one of them bite me on purpose so I could-."
"I think it would be best if you go visit the doctor NOW." She sternly interrupted as she pulled out her scroll and started dialing Professor Port's number. "I need to have a very long chat with that longwinded oaf and I don't want you to be here when I start."
"Understood, ma'am." Winston hastily replied as he checked to make sure the safety of his laspistol was turned on and bolted towards the exit as fast as he could.
He had only seen the furious aura currently radiating from Goodwitch a scant few times before. The only time he saw it come from a mortal human had been when his regiment's commissar slapped a member of the Inquisition in full view of an Astartes before learning he wholly approved of her actions. He had no wish to see what Warpish fury another rightfully angered authority worthy of respect would unleash when wielding such potent anger and made sure he would be far away from any potential fallout that came from it.
Only when he felt he was a reasonable distance away from the impending fallout did the guardsman slow his pace down to a steady march as he made his way to Schwarzer's office. He was tempted to run back to his Team to see if he could request one of them join him, but decided against it after noticing Beacon still had some signs of life active within its halls. There were only a scarce few students wandering about so late in the day, but their presence alone was enough to set Winston's mind at ease.
A lone guardsman was as good as dead, and unlike the previous night, Winston saw no reason to travel solely by shadows or away from prying eyes when there were many nearby who would come to assist him if needed. It was a favor he would return all too eagerly if he was in a position to do so. Sure, most everyone he passed made a point to give the menacingly dressed soldier a wide berth upon spotting him, but aside from the attention their actions drew to him, he didn't let his thoughts about their actions show.
They were still juves, after all. Why should he care what a bunch of children who didn't know what horrors lied beyond their isolated world thought about him? So long as they did not dare disrespect the Emperor he lived to serve and the regiment who had perished without him, he would allow them to enjoy their ignorance for as long as they could.
A quick series of knocks rapped against the door to Doctor Schwarzer's office as the faunus busily toiled away at his desk which was tucked away in a corner surrounded by mountains of paperwork he had yet to have the opportunity to look through yet. The heaping piles of medical documents, immunization records, past medical records kept by medical staff from other huntsmen academies, and more were strewn about haphazardly across the room a safe distance away from the area he set aside and kept meticulously clean for the incredibly unlikely circumstances when a student required his immediate services. Yawning in a roar of hard fought triumph, the exhausted doctor finished compiling yet another first year student's medical information into an easy to read digital format, as opposed to three binders and a shoe box's worth of haphazardly organized papers, and eased back in his chair to bask for a moment while it lasted.
The man had been laboring away at his desk since six o'clock in the morning that day and evidence of his commitment to his job could be clearly seen scattered across his desk. Several empty mugs were littered about haphazardly across his desk alongside an assortment of microwavable meals that were similarly empty of their contents, all of them kept a respectable distance away from anything they could be spilled on. His eyes were lined with bags underneath them, although they were barely visible in the low lighting the doctor preferred to maintain for his workspace when he was alone, and the clean white coat wrapped around his body looked almost as disheveled as the tangled mess of hair bundled up between his curled horns.
Schwarzer let out a deep sigh and silently lamented the lack of help he had in ensuring the health and safety of Beacon's students, an issue he could easily solve by breaking down and approving of a potential hire Ozpin brought to him, but not one he was willing to compromise on quite yet given how most of the ones he personally rejected all voiced displeasure at the idea of working with both humans and faunus.
Stupid Atlesian pricks. They were almost as bad as the self righteous zealots running the White Fang straight into the ground after their original leadership resigned.
The doctor rubbed both of his temples in an attempt to keep his mind from wandering too far down that rabbit hole again, back when he had hope that things could change for the better without the use of violence. Oh, how young and naive he was back in the good old days…
Another set of knocks echoed from the door to his office, this time loud enough for the doctor's weary ears to pick up over the curses he muttered underneath his breath knowing how much work he was looking at in this load alone. He already had a week's worth of documents to sort through with their contents still needing to be electronically filed so as to be more easily accessible, with no less than three times the amount in front of him still waiting for him in storage in all of its disorganized glory. That wasn't even accounting for all of those records he was still waiting to arrive by Bullhead. Maybe if he was lucky, he'd be able to finish managing the first years' records in less than two months this year if he continued to put in more than twelve hours of work every day.
Then he'd be able to start updating all the changes he needed to make to the second and third years and maybe finish that mess before winter was over if he was really lucky.
The knocking at his door increased in both volume and frequency this time and the doctor let out a grunt of discomfort as he staggered out of the office chair he had been resting in and made his way to greet whoever wanted to see him at this hour.
"Could've sworn I left the door unlocked after I finished up my chat with Ozpin this morning." The doctor grumbled as he fumbled around in his pockets in search of the key he was looking for.
It took him a brief few moments to find it, the pounding on the door now loud and close enough to hammer into the faunus' aching and sleep deprived skull, before inserting it into the door and unlocking it. To say he was disappointed to discover the door had never been unlocked in the first place would be an understatement.
"By the Brothers, I swear!" The doctor rumbled as he started to suspect a particular red headed menace and his lackeys were behind this latest annoyance he had to deal with "If you damn idiots think it's funny to play a prank on one of the only faunus running this place I will personally shove my boot so far up your a-"
The doctor was prepared to continue ranting at what he believed to be Team CRDL, or rather, Cardin Winchester as the boy flipped him off and ran after his teammates who had the wisdom to run away in time to preserve some plausible deniability for themselves yet again. Instead, what he was greeted with was the shrinking form of a familiar one armed trench coat wearing student who managed to give him the ability to do the job he had been originally hired to do during the first day of classes. Schwarzer didn't quite know nor want to know why his frankly unsettling patient seemed to be afraid of him and wanted an attempt to alleviate his fears before he considered making a run for it or, Brothers forbid, tell Ozpin.
"-aaahhh, it's you!" The doctor quickly corrected himself, twisting his stern expression into a forced smile, "I didn't expect you to return so soon."
Or at all, for that matter.
"I guess the message the headmistress sent earlier today must have been the results from your performance on the firing range." He rambled to himself before remembering he wasn't alone as he held the door open for Winston to enter. "Come inside, I'll take a look at your results and try to see if there is anything we'll need to look out for."
The guardsman obeyed and trailed behind the doctor from a safe distance, but not without an added stiffness to his every movement that Schwarzer tactfully chose not to address. His patient definitely had his problems. Better to tackle them one at a time so he didn't end up scaring the poor boy away.
The doctor directed his patient to take one and only seat beside his desk that wasn't currently occupied by a pile of documents he had yet to catalog, and once it became clear that Winston would be accepting none of the faunus' offered hospitality without a struggle, decided it would be better to skip any further pleasantries and move onto business. Schwarzer retrieved his scroll from his desk and struggled to find what he was looking for in his minorly sleep deprived state but managed to bring up the guardsman's score from the firing range all the same.
The doctor had to take a few seconds to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him before accepting the numbers in front of him as Winston's actual results and not merely a hallucination.
"Your semblance wouldn't happen to be related to speed in some capacity or creating some sort of projectile weaponry, would it?" The doctor inquired, failing to see any other explanation for how the guardsman had achieved the results he was seeing.
"No, sir. I have yet to discover my semblance." Winston replied.
The doctor wanted to call out his patient for what sounded like an obvious lie, but stopped himself as he remembered the Korpsman was someone Ozpin had apparently taken a special interest in as well as offering the boy a few additional protections on top of it. Odds were that Winston's weapons or abilities were as much of the reason behind his remarkably good performance given his injuries as well as why the headmaster felt it that the less people knew about him, the better.
At least, that is what the doctor presumed to avoid having another uncomfortable conversation with the person who could easily fire him whenever it was deemed necessary should he start asking too many questions like his predecessor apparently did. He was always willing to go against Ozpin's wishes and put his job on the line to ensure the health of his patients. The same couldn't be said when it came to prying into their personal matters.
"Well, by the looks of things I'd say your hand-eye coordination is flawless so I doubt your little 'incident' yesterday left you with any nerve damage we need to be worried about." Schwarzer eventually continued, "Be sure to let me know if you experience any chest pains or anything else out of the ordinary. Now, so long as there isn't anything else you would like to discuss with me, you are free to head back to your dorm room."
Winston did not hesitate to turn towards the door and leave the doctor behind before the faunus could entertain the idea of cutting him open and removing more fleshy bits than what he walked in with. Before he could leave the medicae's room however, he briefly recalled there was something he could ask the doctor for so as to not bother Inquisitor Ozpin for it instead.
"Doctor Schwarzer, may I requisition some medical supplies?" The guardsman turned to the scruffy looking doctor as he asked his question.
"Requisition what now?" The faunus repeated, unsure of what exactly that would entail.
Winston carefully slid the kitbag off of his back and onto the floor and opened up one of the zippers to retrieve a sturdy looking cloth bag with a red cross emblazoned on the drab beige material it was made of and presented it to the doctor.
"Supplies for my medkit, sir. I ran out of most of my medical supplies before coming to Vale and managed to use up the last of my bandages since then." The guardsman explained. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I would like to restock on whatever I can while I have the chance."
"O-oh, really?" The doctor gasped, unable to hide his surprise.
Most huntsmen-in-training believed themself to be invincible, a mindset his usual lack of patients tended to reinforce over the years. He had stopped recommending the rare few students who visited him carry some emergency supplies over a decade ago after realizing just how pointless it was given how much trust huntsmen tended to put into their aura protecting them from all harm. To finally be given a purpose outside of distributing birth control to a bunch of horny teenagers while also single handedly keeping track of their medical records while they attended Beacon was one of the greatest things he could have asked for, aside from never having another patient dragged into his office unconscious or worse.
"If you tell me what you need, I'll be able to give you everything I have on hand since that is what most of the supplies in this room and my stockroom are meant for." Schwarzer told him, before bitterly adding underneath his breath, "Not that many students take advantage of the offer when it could easily save their lives one day. Cockly little idiots."
Winston silently nodded along with the doctor's frustration, having similar experiences in trying to treat civilians who had falsely believed a little bit of faith in the Emperor was a better cure for a lasbolt wound than a dose of morphine, trauma pad, and blood transfusion if a spare blood bag was on hand and required. Thankfully those kinds of people were the first to get themselves killed, as small of a consolation as that was.
"Spare rolls of bandages, suture thread, a couple of needles, trauma pads, a bottle of disinfectant, morphine, adrenaline, burn gel, gauze, and some adhesive strips if you have any you can spare." The guardsman monotonously listed off the supplies he required.
Tod Schwarzer quickly went about wading through the mess that was his work area in an effort to retrieve the materials Winston had asked for which he was willing to provide his patient. All but two of them were delivered to the guardsman who quickly set to work opening up his empty medkit and refilling it with the materials he was provided.
"There's most of what you asked for, although I can't exactly be giving out doses of morphine and other drugs to anyone who asks for them." The doctor said before giving his odd patient a little more thought before making another inquiry. "Unless you happen to have any medical certification you can show me so I know you won't abuse them?"
"No, I don't." Winston replied. "All of my knowledge in medicine comes from personal experience and what I managed to learn while assisting one of my regiment's quartermasters."
"Ah… I see." The doctor said as he tried his best to repress the shiver that raced down his spine the longer he thought about why the boy decided to mention his 'personal experience' separate from his apparent apprenticeship. "I suppose some people prefer a more practical means of teaching, not that there's anything wrong with that."
"Anyways, I suppose I've kept you from working on your homework and whatever else your team might need you for long enough. Make sure you keep on getting a good night's rest and eating proper meals." The doctor said as he waited for the guardsman to make his exit.
"Of course sir, I have been making sure to eat three ration bars a day." Winston said as he pulled out of the many granola bars he had taken from the cafeteria earlier that morning.
"Sure, just… one thing before you leave, Mr Votoyski?" The doctor asked as a sneaking suspicion crossed his mind, one which wouldn't have crossed his mind if he were talking to any other person.
"You do know that this isn't one of the ration bars you are used to eating back on Krieg, right?" Schwarzer asked.
"No… I did not." The guardsman replied to the doctor's immediate frustration. "Is there a difference between them?"
"How many calories do the ration bars you are used to eating contain?" Schwarzer asked, barely able to keep himself from checking to see if his patient was deliberately attempting to starve himself to death or was merely ignorant as to what he was ingesting.
"Seven hundred, sir." Winston answered, unsure of the point the doctor was trying to make.
"And can you read out loud how many calories the bar you just ate contains on its wrapper?" The faunus then instructed, carefully watching the Korpsman to see how he reacted to judge the potential innocence of his actions.
The doctor was unpleasantly surprised to see the guardsman's shoulders visibly slump as he found the information he was looking for on the wrapper. "Only a hundred calories?" Winston muttered in what might have been surprise, although it was hard to tell with how his mask muffled his soft voice.
"Alright, hold on one moment." The tired doctor told the guardsman as he waded through the mountains of paperwork surrounding his desk before pulling open several drawers and eventually retrieving what he was looking for in the disheveled mess.
Schwarzer tossed the wrapped package he found over to Winston who barely managed to catch it without crushing it in his remaining hand. Whatever was inside sounded crunchy and a quick inspection of the wrapper suggested that it was some kind of assortment of dry noodles sealed inside. Something called 'ramen' apparently. Must have been a local foodstuff native to this planet.
"There, that should be able to help you until the cafeteria opens back up in the morning. Just… maybe try and ask your team for a little bit of help if you aren't familiar with anything they are serving next time, alright? I'd rather not see one of your teammates ready to burst into tears because you passed out from hunger."
"Of course, sir." Winston responded with a salute. "May I take my leave now?"
"Sure, just make sure you take my advice to heart or else I will do something about it." Schwarzer 'threatened' the Korpsman.
As far as threats went, it was incredibly pathetic. Had it been used against anyone who wasn't scarred against a middle aged faunus doctor then it probably would have gotten him laughed at. Instead, his patient merely nodded his head and bolted out the door as fast as his legs could take him.
Schwarzer decided to make his way to the door out of his office and peer outside, checking to make sure Winston hadn't tripped in his frantic attempt to avoid him. Satisfied that the guardsman wasn't laying down on the floor with a broken nose, the doctor decided that now was as good a time as any to call it a night and get as much sleep as he could since he had another long and boring day ahead of him. The last thing he needed was to fall asleep on the job again after having pushed himself too hard the last few nights.
As far as food went, the ramen pack the doctor offered him wasn't the worst thing he had ever eaten. It was a little crunchier and drier than he would have liked, but at least it had more texture to it than soylens viridians or scrape. Still better than roasted Catachan Devil, albeit barely. The little packet that came inside with the dried bread-like substance had tasted almost divine, however, so it wasn't all bad. He'd still much prefer a ration bar though, if he could ever manage to find one that was worth eating on this planet…
Special thanks to Doc43Soulsfor beta reading this chapter!
Author's Corner:
Bit of a slow chapter, but one that adds a little more to expand a little bit to some characters I've previously portrayed and show that not all 'incidents' that occur in Beacon are isolated or go unnoticed by people with the authority to do something about them.
Comments:
kingthe13: (On why Ozpin isn't interested in Winston's weaponry)
While there are a great many reasons Ozpin won't ever consider this, I'll tell you the main two.
Firstly, every firearm on Remnant uses Dust as ammunition. Ignoring how the Schnee Dust Company, which appears to control a monopoly in that industry, wouldn't take kindly to any potential rivals given the person who runs it, Remnant's infrastructure appears to be entirely Dust dependent and would likely be unwilling or unable to adapt to a new power source despite the benefits it would bring. Just look at our world for plenty of examples of bureaucratic inertia to see why a power pack's solar charging capabilities for war, industry, and commercial use would never be capitalized on in Remnant. This also presumes Remnant possesses the capability to reverse engineer and recreate lasguns and power packs with the resources native to the planet.
Secondly, notice how Ozpin not only seems to have some knowledge of the Imperium but also how Winston's training matches showed aura failing to completely nullify the power of a lasbolt from one of the weaker varieties of lasweaponry. Imagine what would happen if not only such weapons could be mass produced, but if the likes of the White Fang acquired weapons that could render a huntsman's greatest asset useless. Something tells me the powers trying to maintain peace across Remnant wouldn't want such weapons to be widely used given the potential consequences…
Kadessor: I'm not sure if this was answered but does he have a way to replenish his ammo?
I'm reasonably sure I mentioned it earlier in the fic, but if not, I'll say it again. Power packs can be charged with solar, electrical, or thermal energy, meaning ammo is potentially in infinite supply for them. Very useful knowing how badly the Munitorum can screw up the supply lines.
Toaster Boy: (Fair and exquisitely detailed praise and criticism of this fic)
I'm glad to see you appreciated my work and how many of the more subtle details I've sprinkled in there. In regards to your suggested improvements, the plot will evolve at the same pace as Winston's character development… which will be mind numbingly slow for the moment.
Caboose118: (On Winston's encounters with loyalist Astartes)
Considering he memorized their battlecry by heart, I'd say Winston has a good opinion of the Lamenters. As for his encounters with other loyalist Astartes, he has seen some. His opinions on those will be voiced in due time.
JHcola:I love this story, don't stop or please God don't abandon it. many others stop, I hope you keep on going.
The only way this story is ending prematurely is if I somehow die before it is finished, so no need to worry about it not reaching a proper conclusion. That ain't going to happen.
Well, I sure as shit hope it doesn't.
longlongmaaaan: (On appreciation of a Krieger that feels human and pointing out his suspiciously low rank)
The painful lack of stoic characters that aren't entirely dead inside or complete asshats was one of many reasons why I wanted to write a story like this. Now, in regards to why Winston is only a private… I can't explain why as it would spoil a lot of what I have planned for the future. Rest assured, there is a valid reason (by Death Korps logic) as to why he never received a promotion.
Well, that's it for me. Anyways, I hope to see you all in the future!