Once again, so sorry for the delay, had an unexpected PC switch and couldn't really find the time to write. But regardless of my excuses, Merry Christmas!
A Guest asked if the Wastelanders will be mentors/teachers. The answer is maybe, but that isn't really planned out yet.
Chapter 8: The Selfish Survivor
"God fucking dammit!" Six's voice echoed through the hallway as he bellowed in anger from inside him and his companions' dorm room, "Why the fuck did we leave our weapons here!? What the fuck were we thinking!?"
The courier's fist collided with the wall, surfacing a light crack on the solid white wall. His hand lapped up one of Joshua Graham's spare 45. Pistols on a nearby table and his feet marched with anger towards the wooden door. He checked the magazine and felt contempt to see a fully loaded clip ready to go.
His foot found the door and violently awoke the entrance, sending the door flying off its hinges and clattering against the floor of the hallways. He soon found the dorm he was looking for, thanking himself for discreetly following Yang earlier in the morning when they had meant to part ways.
This door seemed to have a stronger will than the other, and instead took an extra three boots to send it off its hinges, though the satisfaction of being able to physically demolish a door. Why hadn't he kicked down any other locked door that crossed his path? Actually, come to think of it, he had always felt some kind of overwhelming hindrance whenever he tried to pass through a door by any 'unconventional' means. And every door in the Mojave Wasteland seemed to be resistant to just about anything other than crappy bobby pins for some inexplicable reason.
But that wasn't his concern right now. His concern was regaining his weapon and killing the suspected thief. He had compiled the limited amount of evidence in his head and concluded that the only possible culprit was Ruby Rose. She apparently had something 'really important' to do, as Yang had explained, when she saw the Wastelanders without their weapons and far from their current domain.
He started to enact his wrathful vengeance by firing three stray shots into the room, hitting nothing but concrete and glass, a distinct shattering noise to verify he had hit the latter material. His feet were quick through the doorway and his armed hands scanned the room, trailing the pistol every which way, ready to act at the first sign of movement. That first sign of movement came very quickly.
During his angered outburst, he had been oblivious to the good and bad possibilities and the chance that rushing blindly into a room of four people could turn sour, especially if he was only armed with a pistol. But he could use his fists, they had just as much experience as any of his guns had.
He was quickly rushed by a yellow blur, but his body was quick to react, firing off two bullets and halting the blonde girl, dropping her to her knees. His next two bullets were aimed at a shoddily supported bunk bed to his left, sending the top bunk toppling to the floor and eliciting a scream from the bunk underneath.
His senses flickered strongly and the world slowed as Six engaged his V.A.T.S to locate his targets through the chaos of the current situation.
Time paused and V.A.T.S highlighted Yang as the one he had just shot twice, Blake was jumping into action and Weiss was most probably in a state of shock as she had raised her arms to protect herself as she lay on her bed, just avoiding the weight of Ruby's bunk when it toppled over. Ruby was nowhere to be seen, so Six hoped on the fact she was just in the bathroom.
He targeted Blake's leg, firing three bullets. Two hit, one missed, and she went down like a sack of bricks. Time caught back up to itself and resumed as it normally would, Yang recovering from the two bullets she had taken.
Six cursed himself when he remembered a key term, 'Aura'. It was no wonder these kids could take a few more bullets than the ordinary man.
His pistol trailed back to Yang and h pulled the trigger once more, frustrated to hear the distinct clicking of an empty gun. He dropped the pistol and ducked to avoid a stray punch from the blonde, delivering an elbow to the back of her head when he rose. As she stumbled, the courier threw his own punch at the blonde, only to hit a wall and recoil his fist in anger more than pain.
He would get his gun back and he would be damned if he didn't. Damn thief would get what was coming to her.
He swung his arm left, spinning around to face the entirety of the room once more, and felt satisfied to feel a short-term resistance against his arm that faded just as it had appeared. Satisfied that he had taken one of the three possible threats down, he ran at the only other door he could see, hoping to find a certain red-hooded girl and, hopefully, his Plasma Rifle.
His advance was halted when arms wrapped around his own, restraining him, holding him back. Then all drew black.
Joshua Graham stood motionless, watching as Ulysses dragged Six's unconscious form out of the room.
Multiple more people were present now, Ozpin, Goodwitch, and multiple other professors or employees on Beacon ground at that current moment.
"-are you listening?" Joshua was jolted out of his current state of mind and the sounds of the world flowed back to him, the chatter of those around him, the angered shouts of a certain few. He turned to face Glynda Goodwitch.
"Of course. We are sorry for this inconvenience, we will try to keep things like this from happening again." He replied. Goodwitch just scoffed and went about her next order of business, walking in the direction of Ozpin. He caught the eye of a girl, Weiss, if he recalled correctly, strutting towards him, a scowl layered on her face.
"Are you going to explain this!?" She scoffed, gesturing to the room with open arms.
"I would be delighted to do so," Joshua started, leaning forward slightly, "Instinct. Instinct that tells us to do whatever necessary to survive. Trust no one, trust only those who are necessary to your survival."
He returned to a straightened posture, "That is what my mistakes have told me, what God has told me… I suggest that you find peace with God, there is a lot a person like you could learn."
"I'm not your God's plaything," She scoffed, "I can do what I want to do, and I don't want to spend my life following some old man that doesn't exist."
Joshua Graham was slightly taken back by the girl's suddenly brash retort, expecting a polite decline from a girl who looked so well-mannered.
"Tell me again, what is it you 'Hunters' and 'Huntresses' do?" He questioned amiably
"We kill Grimm, obviously." Weiss replied, ridiculing him in her words.
"And what are Grimm?"
"Creatures of destruction, the enemy of humanity." The heiress let out a long, miffed sigh, clearly becoming agitated.
"Good. Then you are doing God's work, whether you like it or not." He ran a quick hand over his bandaged face before turning to meet the man that stood behind him. Weiss marched away, as was typical of her.
Joshua turned to face the headmaster of the school, Professor Ozpin, who was first to speak.
"I have been meaning to speak to you for quite some time now, but I haven't really had the right chance to speak as of late. My apologies for delaying this conversation."
Joshua waved his apology off before replying, "I suppose you have questions then?"
Ozpin nodded, "I will start simple. Where are you from? I have never seen your type of… apparel before."
Joshua Graham found no reason to deny the man an explanation, he seemed trustworthy enough, along with his students, well, most of them anyway.
"We came from the east. Are you not familiar with any land to the east? I would expect others from our environment to have been here before, the journey was only several days."
"I'm afraid the only land to the east that I know is Mistral, and their dress code does not reflect yours in the slightest."
"Hmm." Joshua pondered some thoughts, "Perhaps anyone to discover it was killed. It would seem fitting for that to happen." It did seem very fitting to Joshua. Most people who weren't know to their tribe or faction would most likely get killed, the killers assuming them to be hostile, especially if they wore the odd clothing these people did. Of course, if the Legion got their hands on someone from here, they would most likely turn them to slavery. He didn't like to think about that though, bad memories usually accompanied thoughts of Caesar's Legion.
Joshua placed his hand on his chin in thought before continuing, "I do not mean to sound rude or objective, but I would rather hold onto my whereabouts for the time being."
"Of course," Ozpin said, "But I'm afraid I will have to continue trying to pry information from you. My curiosity seems to get the better of me at times."
"Of course, I understand such circumstances first hand."
Joshua watched Ozpin casually evacuate the scene whilst Yang steadily got to her feet, Ruby trying to help her sister up after the resulting concussion from Six's final strike. The two exchanged a few muffled words, most of which were angrily sounded and flowing out of Yang's mouth, as Ulysses re-entered the room, weaponry in hand as to avoid further complications with any possible mistaken thievery.
After a minute or so of searching, Joshua reclaimed the 'stolen' Plasma Rifle that lay stowed away under the sink in the bathroom, holding the rifle with his finger on the trigger. Before he could get a chance to speak with Ulysses, Ruby appeared in a flash of red, sputtering words like a machine gun.
"OhmygodIamsosorryIdidn'tmeantodoitIswearpleaseIamsosorryi'llneverdoitagainIswear!" The young girl's outburst of apologies went by in under a second before she ran out of breath and ceased her soon to be endless stream of apologies to refresh the air in her lungs. Joshua held up a hand, gesturing for her to stop and she did.
"Why did you steal it?" Joshua's question was straight to the point and intended to pull answers from the girl, instead pulling another massive stream of words.
"IjustwantedtohavealookandIwenttoyourdormandIlookedatthebigexplodeygunandthegreenoneandIcouldn'tpickupthebigonesoItookthesmalleroneandIjustwantedtohavealookandstudyitsoIcoulduseitformystuff!" Ruby Rose looked up into Joshua Graham's pale blue eyes, an innocent look flushing over her face. The puppy dog eyes came soon enough.
"You wanted to study our technology…" Joshua started, looking directly into the young girl's eyes, completely unaware of the innocent expression she was trying to beg him with, "So you stole one of our guns…"
A blank look crossed his eyes.
"I'm afraid I cannot see the logical decisions in that series of thoughts."
Ruby still offered no response and continued attempting to drill holes of forgiveness in his face with her inhumanly widened eyes.
"If you are looking for forgiveness, you won't find it here."
Still no response, just the same look.
"You would have to go speak with the courier about that."
The air between the two fell silent once more, lacking a response from the second speaker.
"I'm starting to see the third-world problems."
Meanwhile, Ulysses was bothering himself with a conversation between himself and Yang, the latter having initiated the conversation against his will. Although Ulysses was aware of his charismatic prowess, he was rather unnerved by the innocence and happiness of the people in this school. Unlike Joshua Graham, he was having little trouble adapting to this more civilised life that this place offered.
"Would you mind telling me what that was all about?" Yang asked for a second time after Ulysses neglected to answer when she had questioned him the first time.
"You got a life too many in you. Surprised he didn't kill you. Maybe his mind was more set on something other."
"Uh, hello? You're not answering my question here." Yang waited for the answer she wanted
"Patience is a test. Shouldn't let impatience overcome your mind."
"Uh… question?" Yang said, striking an odd pose and placing her hands on her hips.
Ulysses tilted his head, "There is a thief among you. Let's see to it that it does not happen today. We should be killing you right now."
"A thief!?" Yang gasped in horror, greatly over exaggerating the amount of surprise in her voice, "We wouldn't steal anything, right?" She looked around for someone to support her cause, but nobody was around. The only other two people in the room at the moment were Joshua and Ruby, currently locked in what seemed to be a staring contest of sorts.
"The courier does not bode well to thievery. None of us do where we walked from."
"Well, sorry to say, but you don't exactly look the part." Yang raised an eyebrow to question his appearance.
"Looks can be deceiving. Good for first impressions, could weather the storm. You, on the other hand… not much to say about you. But I suppose looks can be deceiving in different ways."
"Hey!" Yang frowned, "I appreciate my sexiness!"
"What did you do with those looks, that attitude? Killed yet?"
"I… uh…" Yang began to get nervous.
"Seen that look in your eyes before. No doubt about it."
"I…"
"Not my place to tell you what's wrong, what's right. Don't blame you for killing though, can't blame for instinctive needs." Ulysses left the conversation swiftly, leaving a confused, if not fearful Yang behind to reflect on her decisions. Joshua followed swiftly after Ulysses, closing the door as they made their exit, leaving Yang and Ruby alone, Ruby still looking for forgiveness.
Joshua looked the Plasma Rifle over once more. Was it worth the pain?