RWBYbomb21: yes and yes, though not neccesarily in this chapter. It should, however, that Ruby is not neccesarily central in what happened with Romero. I think this chapter should clear some things up.
A flying tomato: I have some awesome things planned for the Volume 2 arcs :)
ACCESS REQUEST: ███████ date set: 4 years and 2 months ago.
Subject: Catalyst implantation
Password: SummerRose
ACCESS GRANTED
"This is it, sir. The culmination of my life's work. They will not only enable Blackwood, Greystone and Mantis to wear the ACE's, but they will also bring about the next step in human evolution. Never again need we fear the Grimm. It is so simple."
"I get the message, you can go ahead with… Greene? What's this file you're sending me?"
"That's Procedure 042-Vytal, sir."
"No. No way. Not going to happen. Operation Wallstorm is one thing, but this is a completely different thing. We are supposed to protect innocent civilians. Get your mind right."
"Are you prepared to do whatever it takes to win, Eventide? I do. That is how I know that, deep down, you have already agreed to this. It's either this, or total extinction for our race. Remember Onyx's motto. The Themeluesi already agreed. This is just me, letting you know."
"And you are certain ACE won't work without this…this 042-Vytal?"
"Yes. Remember the North. Remember the wars. Isn't this worth it?"
"It is…oh God, it is. May the heavens have mercy on our souls."
"May they have mercy on THEIR souls, sir. Only the Themeluesi can judge ours."
Open attachment Alpha: "Because of the total control the implant will have, the pool must be A: limited to civilians and students and B: be validated by several extensive psych-profiles. 2 of the test-subjects self-terminated and the third one had the carrier jump off a building.
Open attachment Beta: "I am pretty certain that both Blackwood as Greystone are eligible. See Incident-Report Su-Ro and Incident Report Ja-Se. Surgery for Operation Wallstorm MUST be scheduled at the same time as the implantation."
…
WE SEE YOU SEEING US
Mistral -Onyx training facility Goldenrod
The glass was stained, dirty and thick, yet none of that inhibited Frost's ability to see the fight underneath the observation post. The arena was roughly spherical, where a lone combatant was currently facing off against a large group of AK-200 androids, with a brutality he had witnessed only a few times before. The stone floor was slick with ruined parts and droplets of blood and the sounds of metal clashing against metal, limbs gripping limbs, was audible all the way up to his little office.
"Faster! Do you think Operative Mantis is going to get hit by that?"
Below him, the arena was large enough to accommodate multiple airships. It was a repurposed cave, with metal railings and weapon-caches. The Onyx trooper watched the soldier go at it with a ferocity he had only seen in the most ravenous of Grimm. With wrist-mounted blades, the lone figure obliterated the platoon of Atlesian knights. Cutting through limbs, rifles and chassis with impunity, the jerky and feverish movements only stopped whenever the enemy returned fire. Rounds bit into armour and clothes and at one point, the smaller soldier got hit by a concentrated attack, breaching her chest-plate at more places.
But she didn't stop. Instead, it only served to increase her ferocity. Her blades were laser-sharpened to a lethal edge, enabling them to cut through the army of robots like miniguns tore through Beowolves. It was her only form of armament for this assignment, as the desperation and futility would press her to step over her boundaries even more. Limits were only mental, after all.
"Harder! Do you think Blackwood will go down with a few shallow cuts?"
At one point, the soldier stepped closer to one of the droids, which promptly slashed at her with its own blades. The soldier brought her hands together and in front of her chest and then pushed them outwards, deflecting the twin-strikes with impunity. She then delivered a crushing headbutt to the offending robot, crushing its head. After that, she tackled it to the ground and ripped it in half, using only one of the blades.
And above the sounds of destruction rose the ever-familiar screaming. The mindless screaming of a conditioned animal releasing its hatred and rage upon the world. A berserker-rage to tear their enemies asunder.
The trainee then jumped at one of the Knights and sliced its head in half, before jumping to the next one and ripping its arm off. Blood was pouring from breaches in the black armour, yet there was no sign of exhaustion or pain.
"You're taking bullets! If you can't approach Greystone, how will you fight him?"
The fight grew increasingly violent and desperate, until at last the only remaining Atlesian Knight was torn in half at its waist by the lone soldier. Before she could break out of control, Field Agent Granit stepped in and shot the combatants with a fast-acting stun-agent. After that, her struggles gradually grew slower and slower until she toppled over. At that point, Granit jumped at her stumbling form and wrestled her to the ground, pinning her down long enough for the stun to fully set in.
With the soldier finally down, a squad of medics rushed into take care of her wounds. Next-generation regenerative tissue-foam would seal the holes up, stop any internal bleeding and limit their movements to their pain only.
So no limitation at all.
Frost left the observation post and followed the team of medics to an isolated room, where they placed the small; combatant down on a bed, before quickly leaving again. He sat down in a small, wooden chair and watched her. Her armour was torn and sticky with blood, burnt at some places and crumbled in others. She looked peaceful, resting like this with her arms folded over her chest. Given her life-style, it was reasonable that she was only at peace when she wasn't conscious. And even then, she was plagued by nightmares of violence and pain.
He knew that, because he was always there when she trained. And when she rested. And when she trained. He knew that, because he was the only friend she had. She, like the rest of Fireteam Sable, existed purely to serve as a frontline shock-trooper and nothing else.
The only indication of her being alive was the subtle, calm rising and falling of her chest as she slept away the drugs that kept her calm. They could keep a ravenous Ursa down for the better part of a day, so she would probably wake up in a few hours. He suspected that, had she not been taken out like she was, she would have torn him apart the moment she spotted him.
But that didn't matter to Frost. He had seen what Sable could do to concentrated masses of Grimm; he had seen individual members tear Ursae and Nevermores apart using nothing but their simplest melee-weapons and they did it with ease. She was just another soldier doing her job, even though her job required the most ultimate sacrifice one could bring for their duty.
It always went like this. They trained and talked and ate together, enjoying the calm peace and sanity that came with being a soldier stationed at a base. But once every two days, she was recalled to this section of the base to "train". At that point, his friend was separated from him, whereupon she would slip into her Battle trance to prepare for training. And later, when it was safe for others to approach her again, their schedule would continue as planned. They were going to grab an airship and travel to Vale, where they would hunt down and capture Operative Blackwood.
Why Onyx wanted that traitor alive and not dead was beyond Frost. Orders were orders and if Eventide wanted the Operative alive, they would bring him in alive.
"How is she?" said a voice behind him.
"Close to hypovolemic shock…severe tissue damage…primal state of mind…the usual." Frost didn't need to look away from his friend to know that Agent Granit had followed him. "She'll be combat-ready in under a day."
"You sound like her medic," the Field Agent told him with that deep, rumbling voice. "You don't need to read every report she gets after training."
"I know. But I feel like I should."
"Why?"
Frost shrugged. "I dunno."
"That's simple. You ready for the op?"
"Taking down Blackwood? Sure. Keeping an eye on Amber? No."
The Agent chuckled and Frost turned around in his chair. "That sound funny to you?"
"Man, it does. I still can't believe that you two are friends. That's like, the least probably pair ever."
Frost looked back at the unconscious body of his friend. He hadn't even removed her helmet yet. "Don't think about it too hard. I don't; she would bite my throat out she ever saw me during her fights." He paused, before reaching to the soldier's helmet. He gently undid the seal and pulled it off, taking care not to ruffle her fluffy ears too much.
"She's the meanest collection of hate I've ever seen," declared Granit. "But if you see her like this…it makes you wonder exactly how she tore up that Atlas Strike force."
Frost shrugged. "She was with three other members of Sable. Of course Atlas got torn up."
"As long as Eventide doesn't lose control over them again, we'll be fine. Besides; Amber trusts you."
"I hope she does. We won't last long if she doesn't." He fell silent again and watched the girl take a shuddering breath. "Do you think she can defeat Blackwood?"
The Agent shrugged. "Frost, a group of three dozen Atlesian Knights just turned her internal organs into mush, as per daily training. And she's sleeping it off with a few hours. If she won't be able to take that SOB down, nobody is."
Frost grunted ambiguously. Each and every time the young Faunus went off to train, he felt like less and less of her was returning. He had seen some bad stuff in the years he had been fighting on the front-lines of Remnant, but Sable had to be the worst unit in existence. He dreaded the day when she returned from duty and her eyes would be as empty and broken as those of the rest. The day when she wouldn't recognize him anymore.
"How are her vocal cords?" Granit asked, crossing his arms over his chest in an impatient gesture.
"Still intact. She can scream, snarl and growl all she wants." The soldier gently padded Amber's forehead and ran an armoured thumb through her short hair, flicking a brown curl out of her eye. She would bite his hand off if she spotted him doing it, but that thought only seemed to amuse him.
"Ready for Beacon then?" asked the Agent.
"Yeah," replied Frost, no small amount of sarcasm present in his voice. "Seeing Weiss Schnee again. Great."
"Suck it up kid." Granit slapped a sharp-fingered gauntlet on his shoulder. "She probably won't recognize you."
"Let's keep it that way," said Frost. "Think of the fuss the family would cause."
"They won't dare cross Eventide, much less the Themeluesi."
"Their arrogance has no match, Granit. We might well have to kill her if she recognizes me."
The agent chuckled again. "Keep your helmet on then. Remember; most Schnees have a zero-tolerance regarding Faunus, so you might want to keep her hidden as well."
"The Schnee family can go walk in a minefield if they whine about Amber's presence," Frost replied with an amount of passion he had rarely felt since he had enlisted. "Or yours, for that manner."
"Right. Except that she's Sable, and she will messily murder anyone she hears talking shit about her and I don't. So keep her on a short leash, unless you want two Blackwoods running around."
"Yeah yeah," muttered Frost. "You oversaw her training today, so be honest with me. Do we stand a chance?"
"I dunno," Granit said, mimicking his words. "But that's what Beacon will do for us, right? Give us the answers."
"Guess so," replied Frost. "I hope we won't have to push too much.
"Don't worry. When push comes to shove, we can always use blackmail with their personal files."
"Let's hope it doesn't have to come to that."
Day 74 -13:56- the day before the second semester – Beacon Academy
Standing by the open window, Ruby Rose took a deep breath of the outside air and smiled. The sweet scent of flowers and grass reminded her of the freedom that they were all enjoying by living in a prospering Kingdom. It was a bright, warm day, further accentuated by sight of the occasional airship that sore through the sky. The sun was shining and their last lesson of the day had officially ended, marking the end of their first semester. It had taken her days to get used to the climate of Vale, after having spent all that time in the North. It might be where she was born, but it wasn't where her heart lay
That would be Vale, home to everyone she held dear.
"Freedom at last," Yang sighed as she flexed her arms. "Man, I thought that lesson was never going to end."
"Professor Port is not one to vary his lessons a lot," replied Weiss. In a way, the loveable Heiress was right; though teams RWBY, JNPR and LACG had missed out on many lessons during their long expedition, the professor had not changed his way of teaching one bit. He still rambled on about things he did and things the Grimm did and, after having witnessed both the Mental Grimm as the Juggernaut, his stories weren't that amazing anymore.
"He doesn't," Ruby said with a snicker. "But Will did."
Weiss crossed her arms and looked out the window, where another airship was slowly floating by. Despite her stern appearance, Ruby could see that she was trying to suppress a smile. "Oh please. It was just a demonstration of a clear lack of education and common sense."
It really wasn't. They had been back at Beacon for some time now, during which both Alessa as Will had managed to open up to others around them. While Alessa still remained stoic whenever she was outside of Grace's company, Will even managed to get along quite well with JNPR as well.
"Come on Weiss, it was funny! " Ruby laughed. "Even Professor Port had to laugh." During the college, the moustached man had told them that they needed to play out of their skin in order to beat the more advanced Grimm they had encountered, because they would fail otherwise. Will, understandably, had asked why they would be playing with their skin in the first place during a fight with the Grimm. The fun had started when Port had huffed and asked if the boy was "pulling his leg". The young soldier had, in all seriousness, informed Port that he was in fact not pulling his leg because he was sitting in his seat.
And the whole dramatic tension had disappeared in a moment of laughter.
"I guess it was amusing to some," the girl said. "Where did he even go?"
"I told him to meet us in the dining hall," replied Yang. "Speaking about that, shouldn't we be there too? LACG and JNPR are waiting for us."
"You guys go on ahead," Ruby replied. She had spent the past lesson thinking and reflecting on past events and she had come to some interesting conclusions that needed to be shared with the team. "I've got something to do. I'll meet you there."
"Don't take too long," Weiss told her. "We're not starting the second semester off without you."
Ruby smiled and ruffled her hair, much to her faked annoyance. "Don't worry Weiss; I'll be swift."
With that, she took off, hoping to spend as little time as possible on her own. Because of the busy works of school, they hadn't had much time to think about everything that had happened. Day after day they trained, worked and learned. On the few occasions that they had had time to spent together, their talks had been shallow and meant to pass time only.
She had been thinking about the emotional things that had happened in the North, starting with when things went down completely and utterly: with the appearance of Operative Blackwood. The monstrous, unstoppable psycho with the ability to induce primal fear within a seemingly-random amount of people. The brutal way Pyrrha Nikos dispatched of him...the unshakeable feeling that he had somehow survived…she didn't know how to deal with that. She had faced down so many different enemies that could have killed her…Torchwick's goons, Grimm in the Emerald forest, White Fang troopers and even the Mental Grimm…none of them held a candle to the fear that Blackwood made her feel.
Perhaps it was because he had nearly killed her sister, whom she had thought invulnerable. She had felt terror when Yang went down, which had turned into gratitude unlike she had felt in a very long time when she found out that Will had managed to save her with Jaune's help. After that, the Juggernaut Grimm and the scarred Yellowknife…Will's angry attack on said Yellowknife, followed by his suicidal exclamation...and the entire thing with doctor Romero and the way he had experimented with children, one of whom was Alessa. She just couldn't deal with all of that. Not yet, anyway.
And she wasn't the only one. Yang had taken her near-death experience very seriously, Pyrrha had been honestly scared that Will had almost shot her, Jaune had been pissed off that Will had almost shot her and in the end, Weiss had nearly died as well. Blake had been used as a punching bag by her own emotions with the whole Yellowknife-thing and what Grace and Alessa had been through couldn't have been less than traumatizing. They had done so much good things, but it had been hard.
And that was why she, Ruby, was going to personally make everything better again with a series of awesome and heartwarming events. She had been planning it ever since they had come back with the Onyx ship. Professors Adamant and Ozpin had caught her making notes, but they hadn't commented on it, which she took as a total green light to proceed. She had it all bound together in a cute little binder that she had "procured" from her partner. There were going to be parties, dances and everything that would people all happy again!
She was already halfway back to the dining hall when her scroll vibrated with a received message. She grumbled, putting the heavy collection of papers down on the ground. Duty called, as she knew it would. It was only a matter of time before Ozpin would criticize her report on the expedition.
"Ruby, I need to talk to you. It is very important. Meet me in in the interrogation office stat."
Why would Ozpin want to talk with her? He claimed that it was very important, but…why hadn't he asked her sooner? They had been back at the Academy for over a week now…unless something important had come up in the past few days, this had to be something new.
Ruby made her way to the Headmaster's office and hesitantly knocked.
"It's open," a familiar voice quietly said.
She stepped inside of the dark office and looked around. She had been in this room before. It was where she had been questioned after her fight with Roman Torchwick, the day she had been allowed to partake into Beacon. It seemed like so far away now…
Headmaster Ozpin was there, as well as mister Yale. Because of all the harm that one Onyx facility had caused to her friends, seeing him of all people was not something she was very happy with. But she would act with the appropriate manners and show the man what being a Beacon student was all about.
"Headmaster Ozpin," she said, "Commander Yale."
"Hello Ruby," said Yale. He was wearing what appeared to be a military tuxedo; it had buttons and a shiny insignia, but no medals or ribbons. He looked nice though. Completely different from his military outfit, in which he looked grumpier and meaner than ever. He almost had a compassionate streak going on.
"Mister Yale wanted to talk to you," said the Headmaster. He turned to the Commander. "I take it this will not take very long?"
"Not at all, Ozpin," said the military man.
"Very well. I'll leave you two to it then. Do not take too long…we have things to discuss."
Yale nodded and, when Ozpin left, sat down on a nearby chair and sighed.
"Operative Blackwood," he said, looking weary.
Ruby did not know what he meant, but she remained quiet. There was probably more he wanted to say.
And there was. "You know, I used to know your mother."
Her heart leapt and she stepped forwards, eager to know more. "My mom? Do you know what happened to her? How she…?"
Yale shook his head. "I am sorry. I do not know how Summer died. When we met, it was years and years back. She was…the kindest woman I had ever known. Always and always thinking about the welfare of others, never once judging people before she knew them…and she never gave up on anyone, no matter how wicked they might be."
Something like this? Ruby was not ready for it. She had never expected Yale of all people to have known her mother. The sudden change of subject had pulled at her heart, but the memories weighed heavily on her mind and she couldn't help but feel this man had not earned the right to talk about her deceased mother like that.
The Commander looked more depressed than he had ever looked before. "When I met her…it was during one of the more…unpleasant hours of my life. Even though she was as different from me as the moon was from the sun, she showed me a kindness long since lost to me." He chuckled, seemingly lost in his memories. "In a way, I owe her more than she realized."
"Mister Yale?" she asked. "Why are you talking about my mother? Is that why you asked me here?"
"In a way, yes. You encountered Operative Blackwood…your report covered the conflict quite nicely. You know he's not dead."
Ruby sighed and shook her head. Despite everything that her teammates had told her, she hadn't dared to believe that that monster had been killed during their encounter. Still, to hear an official verify it made it so much worse. "I didn't want to believe that anyone could survive that, but… I guess Operatives don't die that easily."
Yale didn't smile. "Were it so easy. I need to tell you something, Ruby. Something I should have told you a while ago."
Everything about this situation was screaming "wrong" and "trap", but she was too curious to what this Onyx commander had to say to be suspicious of him. She was in Beacon, he was here to help. Cal trusted him, so she would as well. "What?"
"We…some people at Onyx made a mistake, four years ago. So many things happen every year…at the time, it seemed like the most reasonable choice we could have made. Hell, considering the extreme success we experienced, it still was. But it was also an atrocity."
"Commander, what are you talking about? Is this about what happened in the North?"
"That…was a part of it. You see Romero, as out of control and immoral as he was, still operated with Humanity's best in mind. It was all a part of a…a greater plan to beat the Grimm. The North was Onyx's greatest failure; we could not protect mankind when it needed us the most. Cyan Romero could not stomach the responsibility and he turned to deeds no man should ever commit and he got punished because of it. Don't ever doubt yourself there; you stopped a psychopath that day. But…" he sighed once again and sat down. He looked rather conflicted. "Did you know Operative Blackwood once met your mother?"
Ruby gasped and stepped back, a horrible theory slowly forming in her mind. "He…he did?"
Yale nodded. "Of course, it was a long time ago. He was still very young, before we…before he fully became the creature you now know. He was wounded after an ambush and as fate wanted it, he took refuge in the exact same wooden shack your mother was sleeping in."
She didn't dare breathe, lest she somehow scare Yale off and ruin his information-telling. To hear someone from Onyx talk about her mother was...something she had never expected. She knew that they had an extensive information network, but to actually see it in action?
"You must imagine how it was, for both of them. He was young, younger than you are now. If I am correct, he was already suffering from his psychosis at that point. He would have seen her as just another victim…had it not been for something about her that calmed him down. She stayed there longer than her mission required her to, nursing him back to health. It was that event that inspired…hell, I shouldn't be talking about that. The point is, you have the exact same eyes your mother had. In the scenario that you face Blackwood…he should hesitate upon making eye-contact with you. "
She kept quiet. This was either a trap to get her to talk about things that she was not supposed to know, or Yale had genuinely known her mother. And Ruby could see in his eyes that he spoke the truth; the way his jaw clenched, the way his irises sparked when he mentioned Summer…the way he smiled when he talked about the past. He was being honest, that much she knew. But he was also keeping himself very carefully controlled; each time he was about to reveal something and each time, he stopped himself. There was one thing he wanted to say more than anything, but he couldn't. Was it classified, or was it personal?
Yale straightened his back. "But enough about that. I know you heard that Professor Adamant rescued Alessa Noctis from the hands of Cyan Romero, four years ago,"
Ruby's stomach jumped with panic and she scrambled to deny that Alessa had ever been involved, seeking to shelter her friend from more Onyx interference, but Yale held up his hand and she fell silent again.
"Yes, I know that it was Alessa. Just as I know that Blake used to be with the White Fang. Don't worry; your friends won't suffer from Onyx again. I protected Alessa and Matt Adamant once and I will continue to do so now that Romero is in jail. As for Miss Belladonna…Ozpin trusts you, so shall I."
"Wait, you protected Alessa and Matt? How?" Ruby exclaimed.
"When the Adamant snatched her away from that village, it was during the operation to remove Romero from his position. But she was still a vital subject with the capacity to protect mankind against its enemies. Some individuals wanted her back, others wanted Matt dead and gone for his repeated antics during sensitive operations. I covered their tracks and kept the higher-ups from doing what they wanted to do. Now…I wanted to warn you."
"Warn me?" Ruby replied, too flabbergasted to say anything else. "About what?"
"Multiple things, actually." He blinked a few times and then looked at her with an expression that she could not immediately translate into an emotion or feeling. "Keep a lookout for pride and arrogance, keep your eyes open for a slippage of sanity and keep watch for an unholy and corrupted soul-bond. If you do this, you and your friends will have a higher chance of staying unhurt."
"Unhurt? Yale, what are you talking about? What is going on?"
The Commander did not listen to her. He checked his scroll and walked to the door. "I already said too much, Rose. You should go back to your teammates."
The young Ruby watched the Onyx Commander leave, her mind trying to process everything that had just been said and done. Had he been mocking her, or had he actually been helping her? Was he threatening her and Alessa, or was he on their side? And what was that thing about him having aided Alessa's escape? Was that true? Were they really safe as long as he stayed quiet?
…wait a minute. Ruby's mother died nine years ago. Blackwood is twenty. He must have been eleven when the two of them met. What was an eleven-year-old child doing on some mission, hurt and lost? Was Blackwood a child-soldier? Did that explain his so-called psychosis?
Today was a good day for Arnold Braunschweiger. It was his first day as the new canteen-lady and he was thrilled to be working as an official person for Beacon Academy. Here, he had the perfect spot to watch all the brilliant and gifted students as they kicked back and enjoyed his meals. It was the perfect job! It paid well, the health-benefits were great and he got to work with Remnant's best. What more could a man like him possibly want? He had no idea why his predecessor had left. Headmaster Ozpin had said something about "stress" and "unreasonable demands", but he had yet to see if any of that made sense.
For now, he could work on his Braunschweiger-special. The stew-soup was boiling nicely in the special cauldron he had ordered for it. The four-foot-wide piece of equipment could hold enough dinner to feed the entirety of Beacon. There was just one problem with it though; for some reason, wooden spoons and metal spoons didn't last very long when he used them in combination with the cauldron. It had to be some chemical reaction…he just hoped that it wouldn't ruin his stew-soup. The students had to be hungry after such a long day.
The Arnold sighed happily and wiped his hands on the pink piece of clothing that served to catch splatters of food and fat. The dining hall, which reminded him of the mess hall during his days in the military, was filling up nicely. He could spot the young Adamant's teams, that nice mister Arc's team and even some of their friends.
He chuckled as he reached for his large, plastic spoon. The device was as large as his leg, but it had to be that size to be able to stir the stew-soup in its large cauldron. He dumped a few pieces of chicken into the stew-soup and then added a handful of salt and pepper. Good stew-soup was filled with proteins for hard-working students, but it had to be tasty as well.
Little Ruby Rose's team entered the hall and Braunschweiger was surprised to see that the little Ruby Rose herself was not with them. Had she misbehaved during one of the lessons? No, impossible. She had to be busy with some sort of busy-leader task. He had hidden away a couple of packs of chocolate-cookies in one of the stashes and he was certain that she could use some of them. He'd save her a few.
Satisfied with the nose-burning scent of his stew-soup, Braunschweiger walked towards the new package of supplies and looked through its contents. Every few days, the kitchen-staff (him) would get a new load of food-items and the like, enabling said staff (him) to build all new kinds of dinner. But right now, there seemed to be something amiss.
"Pumpkin?" he wondered aloud as he took the first item in his hands. The piece of vegetable was half the size of his cauldron and weighed a lot, but he didn't know any recipes that contained pumpkin. "Very bad, I can't work with pumpkin."
He put the pumpkin aside and grabbed the next item, which seemed even more useless. "Swordfish?" Bah! Swordfish is useless."
Swordfish went sword-first into counter and the Arnold searched around some more. There were a dozen melons, some baguettes and a lot of new coffee. Coffee was always welcome; with the new ice-machine that dispensed bullet-shaped pieces of ice, he could make ice-coffee. Miss Coco always liked it when he did that. It was a shame she wasn't here; she always gave him excellent fashion advice and he wondered what she would think of his pink apron.
Miss Valkyrie got apples, mister Trush got stick-shaped lettuce of which he did not know the name and mister Winchester got turkey. After that, young Adamant received the pumpkin and Mister Mauve received some cans of soda. All was well. Outside, the sun shone like gold.
Eventually, Miss Rose wandered inside. She was carrying a large bundle of papers, making her look like she could use something to make her strong. He should give her some milk.
The girl walked up to the counter as Braunschweiger stuffed the baguettes into the oven. "Good afternoon. Could I have some milk and a few cookies, please?"
Always so polite.
"Good day too, Miss Rose," Arnold grinned as he reached for a pack of milk.
The young student's surprise was big. "Braunschweiger?" she asked with pleasant surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I am the new canteen-lady," he replied with a proud smile.
The girl snickered, probably partaking in his joy to be present. "Don't you mean canteen-worker?"
"Nao. The contract specifically said "canteen-lady". Why?"
She blinked a few times. "Nothing."
"Good girl. Here you have milk and cookies. Milk make you big and strong, like me."
"Thanks mister Braunschweiger."
Yes, to say that he was content was an understatement. He was very content. Ruby sat doawn next to her teammates, a bench away from Arc's team. Next to the strong blonde sister sat a boy who he had not seen before. He had weird, small scars in left side of his face, unlike Miss Schnee, who had one large scar on her face. He was reading a book though, so he had to be Miss Belladonna's friend. Perhaps even her boyfriend? She needed to change position with blonde sister if that was the case.
Behind him, something burst with a violent gurgling sound and he turned around just in time for his green stew-soup to form a large bubble, which then popped and sprayed him with its burning goodness.
"Good apron," the Braunschweiger chuckled as his clothes nearly burned away. "Always cover me." He grabbed his giant spoon and started rummaging around in the soup, fishing the flavor-givers out. Large bone, piece of steel, another large bone, all gave stew-soup a good taste, but none were edible. Not without new cooking, at least.
Lately, more and more students from Academies at other Kingdoms were arriving and he was thrilled to serve them as well. He would not play favorites, though he knew that the good Beacon students appreciated his cooking the most.
He saw Miss Valkyrie throw some fruits at Miss Xiao Long, who ate them out of the air. That was impressive. He was so proud to be the one to feed these awesome kids!
Braunschweiger winked away a little silver tear and then smelled a burning scent, bringing him back to cooking-reality. That could either be his turkey or his apple-pie.
Only it was neither; the baguettes were still in the oven, which he had set to five-hundred degrees in order to quickly bake them. Only they were now on fire and that was bad.
"Stupid," he muttered as he pulled them out of the oven with bare hands. He placed them on a large platter and placed that on the counter. Miss Valkyrie requested pie, Mister Ren requested stick-lettuce as well and Miss Belladonna requested tuna. Her little funny bow almost made her look like a cat-Faunus.
He watched Miss Xiao Long start a conversation with the boy he had not seen before –the one with the book- and laughed heartily as Miss Schnee received pie to her face. It was a good shot, though a bit of a waste of good dinner. But hey! As long as stew-soup was still alright, he would not complain.
But now, it was time for serious business. It was time to get to dah choppah. It was big slicing machine in which he could throw lots of fruits and vegetables and shred them to delicious smoothie. Students needed good vitamins and minerals to not die in the field and he was responsible for that.
Dah choppah was standing in the back of the kitchen in all of its slicey glory and he couldn't help but be touched by its shiny appearance. It was big enough to fit melons and small Boarbatusk. Not that he would be foolish enough to try that; Grimm tasted horrible and caused indigestion. Totally not personal experience or anything.
Arnold Braunschweiger cracked his knuckles and went to work. He dumped a dozen different fruits and vegetables into the machine and inserted the lid, after which he activated dah choppah. It made a magnificent noise, equal to his favorite real-life namesake vehicle, the choppah. The noise made the floor vibrate and the walls rumble and a few cooking materials fell to the ground, but he did not care.
He turned around to see if anyone needed him, saw that the entire dining hall had been rebuilt and turned back again. When his brain processed what had happened, he whirled around again and entered panic-mode. His hands went to his short hair and he uttered a small, manly cry that went unheard.
His choppah had somehow caused all the tables to be remade into an awesome fort, on which team JNPR was now standing with a victorious pose. Poor Miss Auburn and Miss Noctis were stuck underneath the big-ass fort and they had to sabotage their way out by sawing through crucial places. How horrible!
"I'm the queen of the castle!" screamed Miss Valkyrie as almost everybody fled the scene.
Braunschweiger deactivated his choppah and was surprised to see that everything went not back to normal, as he had initially thought. This was not his fault –it was not. JNPR had built a fort and the brave RWBY was going to oppose them. LACG was stuck in the middle and unknown boy was…still reading his book, it appeared.
"Justice will be served!" Young Ruby Rose shouted with her pack of milk still in her hand. "Justice will be swift! It will be…delicious!"
The milk-carton exploded with sheer awesomeness as the rest of team RWBY joined in a manly war-cry, but that was interrupted as the entire castle went crashing down with JNPR still on top of it.
"Damnit Alessa, I told you to save the fort for us!"
"It's not her fault Lisa; that fort was too evil to continue existing."
Little saboteurs on a daring mission to destroy enemy fortresses. Impressive.
Where were his melons?
"Off with their heads!" Nora demanded as she emerged from the pile of tables that had once been her proud castle. Ren joined her with an armful of large, heavy watermelons, which Braunschweiger could have sworn looked familiar to him.
And then the JNPR's initiated hostilities with RWBY and LACG. As they launched his watermelons like pieces of artillery at the poor team RWBY, LACG armed itself for war.
"I should do something," Arnold muttered to himself as the students attacked each other with lethal force. Yang Xia Long punched the watermelons straight out of the air, a feat which would break a lesser man's hands, before jumping out of the way of several others. Pyrrha and Jaune opened fire on LACG, still hiding in their ruined fort, but LACG's return-fire was too powerful to overcome.
"Grenapples, out!" Grace Auburn shouted as she threw several items at the entrenched Jaune and Pyrrha. Braunschweiger saw that they were the forks that had been missing from his kitchen, stabbed through apples and into real grenades.
The deadly items impacted on the poor team JNPR and blasted them straight out of their cover, into the waiting arms of team RWBY. And at that moment, the dining all descended into utter chaos.
Arnold grabbed a piece of ruined pie and stuffed it into his mouth as he watched Yang wield a pair of turkeys like box-gloves, punching through another hail of projectiles with impunity. It was impressive to see a girl like her brawl her way through food-items solid enough to brain a Beowolf.
But Lie Ren had armed himself with the lettuce-sticks and he was going to fight her in desperate close-combat. Meanwhile, Lisa wielded a piece of table underhanded and attacked Blake Belladonna with it. But the dark-haired girl was too fast for her to hit and, wielding the two burnt baguettes, started beating the Adamant from all directions, jumping back and forth and up and down like a little ninja.
But the Adamant would not be denied her prey. She whirled around with the piece of table and hit the girl in mid-air, who miraculously managed to land on all fours like a lithe cat, before disappearing suddenly.
Lisa was then nailed in the back by a well-aimed watermelon courtesy of Nora, who smiled mischievously.
"Oh you didn't," the blonde exclaimed and grabbed a broken piece of chair. "It's on!"
In the middle of the chaos, the book-reading boy seemed unfazed by the death and misery going on around him. He dramatically turned a page and dodged a tomato that went flying his way.
Lie Ren charged a backpedaling Ruby, but before he could reach her, Weiss Schnee appeared with a large bottle of ketchup. She smeared the floor like a pro and sent the young student crashing into a wall.
Alessa and Jaune faced off in a frenzied close-combat, the former holding a wide assortment of spoons and forks and the latter armed with the lid of a bucket and a large bottle of water. But it didn't last too long, because the girl played a very dirty trick by slicing off the top part of the bottle and spraying water in Jaune's face.
"My eyes!" he screamed.
Then she gently pushed him and he fell backwards, where he reached for a napkin.
Pyrrha Nikos was making a beeline straight for Weiss, but the girl didn't see it because she was currently using the claw of a lobster to avoid an attack by Jason Mauve Cho, who was wielding a dinner-plate in an attempt to beat her into submission.
"Swordfish, go!" Braunschweiger exclaimed as he threw the large fish at the young Schnee. She managed to catch it, drill a hole in Mauve's plate and then whirl around to block Pyrrha's thrust, which she performed with one of the overdone baguettes. It was a mighty weapon, but would it be a match for the swordfish
Fresh proved to be stronger than strongly burnt and Weiss knocked Pyrrha back with the swordfish, before performing a lunge of her own that seemed to defy physics.
But Arnold had long ago given up on understanding how it was that these people were so awesome. They just were and that mattered.
As Weiss delivered a powerful strike at Pyrrha, her partner joined the fray by using a literal fray to slide over the table, cover herself against projectiles and then slam into the gifted Nikos.
At the same moment, Grace and Alessa snuck up behind the reading boy with the collection of small scars and lifted the pumpkin.
And Braunschweiger winced in sympathy as the large piece of nonfood found its mark. With his head completely enveloped by the pumpkin, the boy could no longer read. And the two evil girls high-fived each other without even looking and then they were driven off by Yang, who had just finished beating the Lie out of Ren. She had spotted them performing that successful mission behind the lines and now, radiating flames and laughing in joy, she drove them off with an almost-explosive shockwave.
Arnold wanted to take a sip of the special stew-soup, but his oversized spoon was gone.
"Oh no!" he said. "It dissolved as well! Stew-soup needs more cream!"
But that proved to be a presumptuous avowal, as he soon spotted the enormous device in Grace's hands. She was currently attempting to beat Blake back with it, wielding it with lethality and precision only seen in the most badass chefs in Remnant.
Meanwhile, Yang pulled the pumpkin off of the boy's head and laughed as he shook the pieces out of his gray-blonde hair. "Come on," she said, handing him a baguette, "make yourself useful."
How many breads had Braunschweiger even baked?
As the boy searched for a likely target, Jason Cho wielded a series of soda-cans with absolute control. With the tiniest holes punched into the sides, he was spraying everyone away that dared to come close. Like an officer pepper-spraying the living nose out of a suspect, the Mauve chased off Pyrrha Nikos and Weiss Schnee simultaneously. The two cans fell empty though, giving Nora a chance to bludgeon him to death with an improvised hammer, made out of a watermelon attached to a steel bar that must have come out of nowhere.
But the boy was too fast and he pulled Weiss in the way by ensnaring her with a series of bandages that had once been a tablecloth. Arnold gasped in alarm as the poor Heiress took the full brunt, sending her flying across the room, through a pillar and into a wall.
Ruby saw it too and sped after her fallen partner, rescuing her from the falling piece of debris before it could crush her petite form.
But the attacks had taken their toll on Weiss and even as Ruby cradled her safely in her arms, Braunschweiger knew that it was too late. He grabbed his no-longer-pink apron and covered his face in grief as the girl screamed in sorrow and pain.
"Weiss! Noooooooooo!"
But the brutality continued. The boy with the baguette had reached Lisa Adamant and even though Arnold tried to warn her with a flag made out of a sandwich on a stick, she failed to notice it. And she too became a victim as the boy brutally executed her with the piece of bread, wielding it like a knife and slamming it point-first into her forehead, like a screwdriver going into a screw.
Only the baguette flattened itself against her head and the two-feet-long food item folded itself like an accordion.
The boy stared at his broken tool for a moment, before kicking Lisa in the chest and sending her face-first into a shattered melon. He glanced at Yang, who was once again locked in an epic fight with Lie Ren. That moment of distraction would be his undoing, as Grace and Cho teamed up to smash the same pumpkin on top of his head, turning him into a jack-o'-lantern.
And then Ren's lettuce-sticks were shattered before Yang's onslaught and she kicked him to the floor with all the authority and power of a goddess smiting the unworthy. Except that Ren then reached for his head and awkwardly stumbled off, before Nora Valkyrie avenged him by sending Yang through the roof with her hammer.
Cho was back on the warpath. As Blake and Pyrrha faced off in a baguette-match of ultimate destiny, the Mauve grabbed a series of cans and made his way through the battlefield, spraying all that dared to come close. Jaune went down, Nora went down screaming and clutching her face and even Blake and Pyrrha had to watch out.
But just as he had positioned himself in the middle of the two girls, his cans ran out. He shook the empty sodas and clawed at his coat, where a last emergency-can of soda had been attached.
But it wasn't there anymore!
"Sorry Cho," Lisa shouted as she discarded and empty can. "I got thirsty!"
The Cho looked like he had lost all hope in life when the two bread-wielding warriors banded together to remove him off the battlefield, sending him through a window with a combined baguette-strike. Nikos then overpowered Belladonna and she was about to finish the girl off-
Braunschweiger got distracted by a noise in the kitchen. He turned around, only to see that the ice-machine had been broken. The rack of ice was gone and the ejector mechanism as well.
And then the jack-o'-lantern was back, wielding an improvised gun made out of ice-cubes. He never missed a shot and never lost focus. Ice-bullets were poured downrange and knocked Lisa and Grace down, while Nora took a full load to send her stumbling backwards.
Arnold caught a round as well, but he caught it with his teeth and consumed the bullet with his sheer manliness. It helped that the room was growing hot and that the bullet had been made out of ice.
And all of that changed when Pyrrha Nikos unleashed her full Semblance and turned all the discarded cans –and, to Braunschweiger's horror, his choppah- into her personal tornado of death and misery.
"Nooo! Get doawn! To the groawnd!" the Arnold screamed as he hurled himself at his precious choppah. But Pyrrha's might was not to be fought against and soon, man and choppah united flew through the air as she directed the strike towards the warzone.
Hundreds of cans and a single Braunschweiger attached to his choppah went shooting through the sky, impacting on Blake and Alessa and sending them crashing into the wall.
But Arnold's body served as a cushion for his beloved machine and, though he was coated in colours of which he could not even recognize the spectrum, he was safe.
But everything changed when Ruby attacked. With her own Semblance, she turned herself into a red whirling projectile of rose-petals and destruction and created a sucking shockwave powerful enough to pull everyone in. She sped through the cavernous hall in the blink of an eye, stopped before the wall and watched as the collection of Pyrrha, Jaune, Nora, Ren, Lisa and Braunschweiger impacted on the wall.
The only one who was spared was Grace, as she somehow managed not to get sucked in by the tornado of redness that was Ruby Rose.
The next thing Arnold knew, he was lying face-first on the ground with the choppah still clutched in his hands. He was covered in goop, from head to toe, but his apron seemed to have taken the brunt. Two new boys were standing in the door-opening. One was blonde, the other had blue hair and he too was covered in goop.
"My choppah," he muttered, checking to see if the device was still intact. Thankfully, it was.
"Oh, mister Braunschweiger!" Pyrrha exclaimed, surprised at his appearance. "I did not even see you here!"
"Ehm…sorry mister Braunschweiger," Ruby quickly and desperately said. "Did not mean to pull you into this."
Lisa was aghast as well. "Arnold? What are you doing here? Are you a student too?"
"I just work here," he muttered.
The doors then opened and Professor Goodwitch entered the dining hall, clearly looking unamused.
"Children, Greystone," she said, before eyeing him too. "Braunschweiger. Do not play with your food!"
He hung his head. "Yes Professor Goodwitch. Sorry Professor Goodwitch." He saw the boy shuffling to the side, edging closer to Blake, who eyed him nervously.
The next thing he knew, a screaming Yang crashed through the roof and fell into the boy's arms. The two of them collided to the floor and after a moment of seriousness, Braunschweiger clutched his choppah and everyone started laughing.
Day 74 -Beacon Gardens- 15:04
Since the death of Clayton, Fireteam Lima had been sent from one location to another for the better part of a week. There were fronts opening up near Atlas, where an extremist organization calling itself the Ritualists was pushing the borders of some unimportant city. Mistral had insurgents threatening to overthrow the government of a major province and even Vacuo, relatively peaceful, was the epicenter of the Servants of Menagerie, the human equivalent of the White Fang. The fighting there had been the most intense; the Servants didn't shy away from total terrorism to achieve their goals. They targeted communities where Faunus and humans lived in peace, holding no regard for innocent civilians and before Fireteam Lima had been deployed, at least a hundred people had been wounded or lost in the combat.
As if that wasn't bad enough, some genius at Onyx had ordered Fireteam Sable to put down the raging terrorist movement in that sector, blatantly ignoring the fact that they weren't supposed to fight human targets, ever. The resulting bloodbath had pushed Lily into an emotional breakdown, which in turn had caused Ash to lapse right back into his fits.
Cal had been forced to choke his teammate into unconsciousness, lest the kid be court-martialed for trying to attack his superior officer. The brass had petitioned for Fireteam Lima to be pulled off of the active roster and be rescheduled for psychological counseling, but Yale had interfered and pulled them back to Beacon, as if he knew that that would be better for them.
But now, as Lily was sleeping away the nightmares that the frenzied Sable had brought her, Cal wondered what would follow their rapid approach to Post-Traumatic Stress-Disorder. They were supposed to be immune to that, with all the intense training and conditioning, but life at Beacon had shown that there was more in life than the endless slaughter of men and women. The never-ending blood and insanity of war after war. And because of that, he now knew what he was missing. And it hurt him more than anything. Ash was away to spent time with Penny and now that Lily, normally his confidant, was trying to regain her composure, he was stuck on his own.
It was very awkward, having to sit on your own in a garden while students older than you glanced at you like you were some sort of demon. It wasn't like he was an Operative; he was the same age as the second-years! He could take his armour off and join their classes and nobody would notice! Well…they might notice. He wasn't very good at wearing clothes. They gave him away.
The Faunus took a deep breath, taking in the scent of roses and tulips. He ought to calm down; he wasn't numbed to war, but neither had it deeply traumatized him. He was still normal and he knew that he was still serving the needs of the good and the innocent. The people he killed were all unmistakably bad people. Even though the occasional Atlas soldier would glare at him as if he was a disgrace to their unit, he was still every bit a soldier as they were. Perhaps even more so, given what he had done and seen.
It was quiet without Clayton. Uncomfortably so. Had Two-two been alive, the two of them would have been laughing and joking about recent events. Now he could only sit at the white bench, scraping a pattern into the wood with his long nails. Occasionally, he remembered flashes of Faunus-executions at the hands of Servants, or fire-bombings committed by the Ritualists. The world was growing stupid. Humans were causing too much strife and with strife came Grimm. Always and ever the Grimm. At times, he could almost identify with the White Fangs no-human policy.
Team CRDL walked by and Cal tensed up. He glared at the four boys as they walked by him, silently hoping that they would notice him and pick a fight. Anything to deal with his frustration and other, more complicated feelings. But the all-boy team had turned for the better the past days. They had been sent on more assignments that led them to see the uglier side of the world, which had greatly sped up the rate at which they matured. They weren't going to pick a fight with him, as much as he wanted it.
The team disappeared as the road curved behind a thick bush and Cal focused on staring at the blank wood underneath him again. His tail, which had never bothered him again since the first few months of combat, was aching. It would have been funny, had it not been so painful and humiliating. Back at the frontlines, Clayton had often mocked them if they got nailed in embarrassing ways, such as tripping over a dead body and landing helmet-first into the mud. Or throwing up as the ship that carried them got shot down. At one point, the big guy himself had been shot in the ass with a shotgun, prompting him to claim that he had "buck in his ass" for the rest of the day. The rest of the team would laugh.
Cal had had "buck in his ass" just a day ago. Except the buck was napalm and his ass was his tail. The rest of the team would scramble to get him to somewhere safe, before the napalm spread any further. His suit had been breached due to an IED, otherwise the goo would have never burned through.
Velvet and her team were gone. They were on a long mission to some Grimm-infested area. Headmaster Ozpin had looked saddened to tell him that, as if he knew just how much Cal had longed to see her. How much he still longed to see her. She had come for him when he had sought to infiltrate the White Fang on his own, which no other person would have done. And she was so much braver than he could ever be. She walked around with the most obvious Faunus traits one could have and she still carried herself with pride. She had gone where she had never wanted to go and she had braved a feral crowd of White Fang recruits to do so.
And Cal still wore his helmet whenever he could, unable to bear looking at the world without his protecting visor. He wasn't ashamed of his heritage…he was just tired of conflicts, whatever they might be. He had sworn to never grow numb or damaged because of the death and pain around him and because of that, he was growing tired. He knew where his duty lay and he would carry out it until his death, there was no doubt about that. But he wanted to see the peace that he caused with his own eyes. Beacon was one of the few changes he had ever had and he would grasp it with both hands. And, if it was up to Yale, team Lima would have the time to enjoy the most pleasant company they had ever known since their recruitment. Well…what was left of team Lima, anyway. A broken child, a broken bird and him.
More students passed the garden. He guessed that they must have had some outdoor lesson or something like that; the Forever Fall forest was a popular place for assignments and missions. The team he really wanted to see was still a ways off. He could see them in the distance, though they did not yet see him. They had returned from an expedition to the North just a few days ago, so they didn't yet know about the death of Lima two-two. One part of him wanted to talk with them, just to get his mind off of everything. The other part wanted them to leave him alone, as they wouldn't understand him. The only person at Beacon that might understand would be Professor Johnson…and Cal didn't feel comfortable around that man. He was too much of a Sergeant for that.
RWBY came closer and Blake spotted him. Cal awkwardly fumbled with his helmet, doubting whether he should put it on and walk away or not. If they just wanted to ask him something about Onyx, or military procedures, he would be safe. Any other thing? He might not be ready to deal with that.
"Hey Cal," Yang cheerfully greeted him. They didn't keep walking; they stopped by the table and looked at him. He had chosen this particular bench because it was relatively well-hidden from other people, but that didn't seem to stop the girls from spotting him.
"You really don't look good," Ruby said and sat down on the bench. "Need some company?"
He blinked once, but he made sure that his expression did not change. How had Ruby seen that? Was it that obvious? He wasn't bad at controlling his emotions, was he?
"No," he said, but he changed his mind halfway through. "Actually, yes. I…" he hesitated. "I heard you guys took down a war-criminal in the North?"
"Yes," Ruby said with a slight frown. "We did."
"Good. Can't have ex-Onyx personnel running around where they aren't needed."
"Alright," the redheaded girl then said, "what's wrong? You're being awfully depressed. Did something happen?"
"Yeah, where's the rest of your group?" asked Yang. "I thought you guys always teamed up."
He didn't meet their eyes. How would a proper person do this? Did people just talk about this? "Ash is…under escort, in town. Lily is sleeping." He swallowed, feeling something hot and painful in his throat. "Clayton's gone."
Ruby sighed silently and looked away. Her older sister didn't get the message though. "Gone? Where to? Was he relocated?"
He growled in frustration. "Damnit, you sound just the Ash!" A second later he took a deep breath, completely helpless to control his own anger and frustration. When was the last time he had slept? Forty hours ago? Sixty? "Sorry. He's just…gone. He got sniped while moving to position."
Weiss gasped and Blake looked down.
"Shit, I'm sorry," Yang quickly said. "I didn't know."
"Don't sweat it," he replied. He wasn't mad at them; they hadn't been the ones to order him to stay behind. They hadn't forced their teammates and friends to pull back and leave him to bleed out or die in an inferno. "It happened last week. Things happen."
"Not like this," Ruby told him. "I'm sorry for your loss. Why are you sitting here all alone? Shouldn't you be with your friends?"
"Velvet's out of town," he quietly replied. "Lily is…not exactly ready for company right now." The hot feeling in his throat grew more painful and his eyes were starting to prickle. He was unfamiliar with these sensations. Was he getting angry? Or was he going to cry? "Ash…hell, he's just messed up. It grew worse these days."
"That doesn't sound like a proper way to talk about your teammate like that," said Weiss Schnee.
Yang nodded. "He might have taken it worse than you think."
Cal smiled, even though he had zero reason to do so. "You think I was insulting him? I was serious. He is messed up. Literally. Kid's never fully got used to being alive."
"Ehm…what? Care to explain that one?"
"Look, Cal, I know you're upset. But you shouldn't be talking about him in such a manner," Ruby told him. She saw fit to notify him that he was being careless.
"I don't think you're listening, Rube. Ash is different. He took a massive trauma to the mind a few years back and he never recovered. He never will."
"What do you mean?"
It was classified. He didn't care. It was about time for past sins to emerge. "This might disturb you. A lot."
Yang placed her hands on her hips. "Fox-boy, after the things we went through in the North, I don't think it will be very surprising, to be honest."
He chuckled, again without humor. "Ash was assigned a standard mission, a couple of years ago. Find a local crime-cartel in a specific village in Vacuo, kill the leaders and burn their hardware. A standard clearing operation. Onyx had caught wind that the cartel was about to try and take control over the village by force and Ash was sent to scout the situation and call in support. When he got to the village, it was empty. There was nobody there."
"Did he have the wrong one?" asked Blake.
"He had the right one alright. He found the villagers at the far end of the village, near the edge of the forest. Dozens and dozens of corpses stacked on top of each other. It appeared that the cartel consisted out of ravenous psychopaths, who wanted to have a village for themselves. Because why not? Just murder it out and take it." He sighed and shook his head. "He was so shocked by the bodies that he didn't spot the ambush until they had already shot him in the gut with a gun. But guess what? They didn't kill him. Instead, they dragged him over to a mass-grave behind the bodies. Didn't bother strip or disarm him. They threw him in the hole, which was like eight by four by four meters." He paused when he started talking at an increasingly-rapid pace. His chest was hurting. "The fall didn't kill him either. So instead of wasting more ammo, they started dumping the bodies of the civilians into the hole. Eighty-three men, women and children, mind you?"
Team RWBY was silent. Even Blake, who had seemed like the most rational and cold type of the group, stared at him with big, wet eyes.
He could still stop this. He could still end it.
"Filled it to the top with bodies and then walked away, planning their next big drugs-haul. What they didn't know was that Ash still did not die. He somehow…dug his way out of the pile of bodies, drenching himself in what little blood remained in their bodies. Even took a pendant from the first woman that had hit him, as a reminder. Half an hour later, when Onyx reinforcements arrived, the kid had slaughtered the entire cartel. All of them dead. And he was sitting there in some corner, crying and screaming." He paused to catch his breath and found, to his surprise, that his eyes stung with tears. "It shattered his mind and regressed him to a mental age of…eleven or twelve, I believe. Sometimes he can provide covering fire like a marksman, sometimes he doesn't understand why the sky is blue, or why people die." Something was constricting his throat and his next sentences came out forced, with a higher-pitched voice that broke and trembled with every word. His face was getting warm. Why was he stuttering? "They said that he can never regain what was lost, even though a small part of him knows what it was that he lost. That the chance of recovery is lower than the chance of surviving a headshot, which Clayton didn't even get when he died. And then we catch him asking Pyrrha Nikos for an autograph, because he can't stand the thought of dying in an unknown grave again. And it makes sense to him!" His voice sounded unnatural. It was completely and utterly broken and he was sounding like he had just taken a bullet to the throat. It disgusted him and he hated it, but he was crying. For the first time since two years, he was crying. And he hated himself for it; he was disgusted with his lack of control, his disregard of privacy and his weakness. He was weak and pathetic.
For a few moments, it was quiet. Blake's eyes were wet with tears, though she had kept herself under better control than Ruby, whose entire face was covered with tears. Yang was just blankly staring at him and Weiss was somewhere in-between being shocked and breaking out in tears.
Now that it had gotten this far, Cal felt exhausted. There was an empty feeling in his chest and the heated emotions he had been feeling prior were gone. He recognized this; he had let his feelings spiral out of control and his body had taken over; his training had taken over. It was a defense mechanism to protect himself. He wished it had kicked in sooner.
At long last, Yang spoke. "How long have you been carrying this around?" her voice was soft and gentle, but Cal thought he could hear an accusing edge to it.
"Couple of years," he replied, protecting the secret. Again he didn't like how his voice sounded. "As a team, we could keep Ash in check. With Clayton dead, our cohesion died."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Blake quietly said. "I take it he has no more parents to look after him?"
Dangerous subject. Classified. Cal shook his head, still calming down.
Yang was going by a different approach. "You still did a decent job; he´s a good kid. Better than some "normal" people here."
"That's the problem," he replied. "There's no saying how normal he stays now. He once nearly beat an Atlas soldier to death simply because he touched him."
"Cal," Ruby softly said, "it's not your fault. I think you should stop blaming yourself. If you can't solve this on your own, get some friends to help you."
How did she-?
"Yeah," Yang cut in. "There's a reason you're still at Beacon, right? So take him sightseeing or just join us in the dining hall sometime. I bet Braunschweiger would be thrilled to have more people who can stomach his soup."
Weiss didn't take her eyes off of Cal. He could nearly smell her fear –and he could very much see the doubt and shock in her eyes. It appeared that she was the only sensible member of the group; the only one to realize that Lima was dangerous. Even though she didn't know the truth, there was probably something about them that gave away that they weren't normal. They didn't belong with civilians or students, no matter what Ruby or Yang might think.
On the other hand…he had had his fill of Civilian Bob's. Here he had a group of people that wasn't inherently hostile towards his team. As a person, he wanted to shoot down their offer. As a leader, he had no alternative but to accept it.
He knew that he should be ever graceful for team RWBY for showing him this compassion and kindness, but he was far too ashamed of himself that he had let it get this far. Perhaps it was a breaking point? The point that Onyx was behind them and their future was in front of them? They couldn't keep going on like this and if Yale could see that they needed some R&R, why couldn't he? Was he such a bad leader that he couldn't see an opportunity when it arose?
Well, he was the one who had ordered Clayton's body to stay behind as bombers annihilated the base, so perhaps that was his answer. He had simply failed to keep Fireteam Lima together…he might as well let someone else try for a change.
As if sensing his hesitation, Ruby dropped a bomb that numbed his thoughts and nailed him to his seat. "You people seem to have a knack for senseless self-sacrifices. Doing this alone will only bring more harm to you three. Be smart; there will come a point where there's nothing left to give. Time to take."
Ruby extended a hand. Cal observed it.
Cal wondered about its nature.
Ruby was sincere. There was a warm smile on her face and that was a universal language, not just limited to her being a student. He knew what effect a random act of kindness could bring. It was the subtle nod he gave to a civilian, or a small wave to a crying child. It could make a world of difference, but he had never actually received it.
Cal grabbed it.
"Operation Wallstorm, the first attempt to bio-engineer a bond between a Grimm and a human. It was thought that the innate ability that rare Grimm possessed could somehow be transferred, just like Semblance. The Operation was meant to do the same; transfer an ability. Subject Brimstone…was the first attempt. She was also a failure. Her mind, normal human and kind, was not abstract enough to survive the process unscathed. But her lineage was not a total failure. And we found out that a mind, already damaged and abstract, could well fit with this specific type of Grimm. The ACE's, the Catalyst Operation and Wallstorm. Properly combined, they deliver the perfect super-soldier. It is speculated that, given enough ordnance, three such Operatives could liberate the North and exterminate the Grimm.
-Doctor Karen Greene, logbook entry [REDACTED], four years ago.
Next time: a teddy-bear can make things right, an attempt to gather information can end in violence and bloodshed and a new threat rears its head. An obsession starts on more than the physical level.