It hadn't been long since Ruby and Winston left the lockers behind, yet the young leader of Team RWBY already had dozens of things she wanted to ask her teammate after having spent only a little time with him.
What was life like in Krieg? How old was he? What did he look like under his armor? Was he really a soldier? Was he a human or a faunus? Why did he look so lost? Why was he being so formal? Was he limping because he was hurt? Did he really carry everything he owned with him? Why didn't he like people touching him? Why did it look like he was apologizing to his locker? Was he really a he underneath all his armor?
There were so many things that she wanted to ask him, but she couldn't think of a way to even begin getting to know anything about her teammate fearing that he might hate her for it afterwards. Weiss and Winston had barely spent more than a few minutes together and even she could tell that he and the heiress clearly did not get along. As both a leader and a potential friend to her new teammate, the first one she would have made since enrolling at Beacon, Ruby didn't want to do anything that would possibly alienate the battered-looking soldier marching behind her as they silently made their way to Beacon's workshop.
The silence was tough to endure, but not knowing what was going through her new teammate's head was even worse. The mask he wore muffled his voice just enough to make it impossible for Ruby to tell if he was angry, sad, or feeling anything at all, to say nothing of how its lifeless eyes seemed to pierce straight through her, aura and all. Even she couldn't find anything nice to say about the creepy mask that stared back at her everytime she checked to make sure Winston was following her, yet she wouldn't dare say anything about it to her new teammate.
There were some questions you could ask a friend and some you definitely couldn't. Ruby was a firm believer that anything that had to do with someone's clothes or sense of fashion firmly fell into the latter category, especially given how she had been bullied a few times on account of her own unusual tastes.
With that said, Ruby had to at least ask Winston something while they walked through the halls of Beacon. The silence was agonizing for her and there were so many things she wanted to know about her teammate before classes started tomorrow but so little time to ask him about himself. She had to think carefully about how to speak to him. Being too casual might make him brush her off like he did with Weiss, but asking him something too personal might make him shut her out completely.
There were dozens, no, hundreds of things she wanted to ask him, but she had to pick the right question to start out with carefully since it could be the very thing that defined how they spoke to each other for the rest of the time they were attending Beacon. She had to be careful and not ask about anything obvious; like why his armor looks so creepy and worn, or why he was covered in so many bandages, or why Ozpin seemed so concerned for him, or why he carried everything he owned with him, or maybe why-
"The only things I own are the only things I need. Having so few of them leaves me more room for spare ration bars." Winston answered what Ruby thought was an unspoken question, paralyzing her with guilt.
"D-did I say that out loud?" The little red leader of Team RWBY sputtered as she felt an embarrassed blush flare up on her cheeks.
"Yes, Commander Rose, you did." He answered, either not realizing or caring about Ruby's embarrassment from both her own mistake and title he kept on giving her.
"Oops. I'm so sorry for asking you that." She said, offering him an apologetic smile in return.
"Why would you be sorry?" Winston questioned. "You're my commander. A good leader should know what tools their squad possesses at all times."
"Oh, that's… nice to know." Ruby offered, unable to think of anything else to say in return.
Well, since it did sound like he wanted her to ask him about what else he had with him besides the pistol, shovel, and the sci-fi looking rifle he took from his locker and they had a little longer to go before they reached the workshop…
"Hey Winston, do you mind telling me what you've got in your backpack?" Ruby asked, hurriedly throwing out her question before she could talk herself out of it.
"Do I mind?" Winston repeated, cocking his head at Ruby as if trying to discern some hidden meaning behind the phrase.
The young woman quickly tried to wave the question away with her hands thinking she had offended her new teammate. "I'm sorry for asking! You don't have to tell me if you don't want to!" She quickly shouted at him.
Winston gave her a long and incredibly uncomfortable look at her response. "I don't care. If you want to know, Commander Rose, I will tell you." He said matter-of-factly.
"Really?" Ruby asked, giving him a chance to change his mind.
"So long as we can talk while we walk, you can ask me anything you like and I will answer you to the best of my abilities." He told her.
"Oh, uh, right. Sorry about that." The dark redhead said as she resumed leading her new teammate to their destination.
"So, is that really everything you own?" She asked, turning around to point at the backpack Winston carried with him, unable to hold back her curiosity any longer than she already had.
"Yes." He bluntly answered, quickly adding. "But all of my equipment is technically regulation-issued equipment from the Departmento Munitorum, not mine."
"Oh, that's…" Ruby said, struggling to think of something polite to say.
"...interesting?" She eventually settled on, still unsure of what to make of what she was hearing.
Winston, intrigued by what Ruby was implying, decided to ask her a question of his own.
"Do the Huntsmen of Remnant-" He paused to correct himself. "-Vale, do the Huntsmen of Vale do things differently?"
"Uhh… yes, yes we do." Ruby replied as she felt a pang of pity for her new teammate.
"That is… interesting." Winston muttered.
For a moment, Ruby felt like asking why exactly something that should be normal would sound interesting to him but immediately thought better of it. She could have asked, though even if Winston was willing to give her an answer, she wasn't sure she wanted to hear it.
"So, what do you have in your backpack?" Ruby asked in an attempt to change the subject.
"Eight spare power packs for my guns, two photon flash grenades, three phials of holy water, a depleted medkit, genescanner, four bayonets, three ration bars, a few modifications for my lasgun, and the rest of my memento moris." He informed her.
"Wow, that's a lot of stuff you're carrying." She replied. "Do you want to stop by our room so you can drop some of your things off or-"
"I would rather give up my left arm than give up my moris." Winston interrupted, his usual monotone becoming even more cold and callous than usual.
"You don't have to do it if you don't want to." She said, fearing she had said something she shouldn't have.
"I will follow whatever orders you give me, Commander Rose." Winston answered dutifully, returning back to his usual dispassionate self as if nothing happened. "I have no choice but to accept whatever you tell me to do."
"Woah, woah, woah! I don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to do, Winston!" Ruby shouted as she turned to face him.
"You're my leader, Commander Rose. Your orders are absolute. What I want does not matter." Winston droned on impassionately.
"That's… no, that's not what a leader should do. I will not make you do anything you don't want to do, or boss you around!" Ruby declared.
Winston looked at her for any signs of deception, carefully scrutinizing her every movement as she squirmed uncomfortably from underneath the gaze of his faceless helmet, before finally responding. "You're different from most commanders I've served under, Commander Rose."
"Oh, really?" She said with a bashful laugh. "Is that a bad thing?"
"Permission to speak freely, Commander Rose?" He asked her after taking a moment to shuffle his feet.
"Uhm, yes? I mean… yes, of course you can!" Ruby answered. "You don't ever have to ask me permission to do anything, Winston! And just because I'm the leader of Team RWBY doesn't mean you have to do everything I say either."
"I see…" Winston muttered to himself.
"I like you." Winston bluntly told Ruby, who quickly turned away from him as her cheeks turned the same color as her name.
"W-what?" She stammered out in shock.
"You remind me of my commissar." He explained, his voice growing a touch somber. "She is… she was…"
"You can just say you don't want to talk about it if it's too hard for you." Ruby told him, recalling what Ozpin told her team about the fate of the guardsman's fellow soldiers.
Winston once again shuffled his feet for a moment before answering. "I'm fine, but I don't want to talk about it?"
His response came out as a question rather than a statement, every word of it feeling disgusting to him as he spoke them. The Korpsman shuddered at how wrong it felt to act so freely, part of him still wondering if this was all an elaborate trap his new commander had laid out for him. He was pleasantly surprised to see her give him a small smile instead of threatening him with insubordination or even heresy for what he had done.
"See, how hard was that?" Ruby asked him.
"Harder than killing a plague zombie." He replied without a hint of sarcasm.
Ruby had expected her new teammate to say a lot of things, but that was certainly not one of them. "Huh… that's really specific." She commented, trying not to think too hard about what Winston had told her and failing miserably.
"What exactly do you mean by 'plague zombie'? Is that some sort of Grimm you hunted on Krieg, or-"
"Is this the workshop, Commander Rose?" Winston interrupted, snapping Ruby out of her growing worries for a brief moment.
The leader of Team RWBY looked to see where he was trying to direct her attention to and, surely enough, they had managed to reach the weapons workshop without realizing it. In fact, if Winston hadn't pointed it out, Ruby wasn't sure if she would have noticed before making an entire loop around Beacon, not that she could be blamed of course.
"Oh, you're right." She murmured to herself, briefly pausing to put on her best tour guide act once more. "Here we are, Beacon's weapon workshop!"
The young woman turned around hoping to see her new teammate looking amazed, impressed, or at least giving some sort of reaction since had been so determined to reach this place. Instead, she had barely enough time to move out of Winston's way before he brushed past her and entered the workshop without her.
"Oh… why am I not surprised?" She sighed, before returning to her previously worrying train of thought.
"Wait, what do you mean by zombies? Winston? Winston!" She called out as she ran in behind him.
Winston knew his equipment had seen better days, but even he was surprised by how many repairs he needed to make once he finally was able to pry open the plasteel plates guarding his lasgun's internal wiring. Scorch marks from the failing internal coolant system, frayed wires ready to short circuit and turn the weapon into an impromptu krak grenade at any second, several deep indentations on the stock from when he was forced to use it as a bludgeon, and many more problems had greeted him when he first surveyed the damage his weapon had suffered since the start of his most recent campaign. Still, despite the various issues he needed to fix, his lasgun looked far better than those used by his comrades.
...his former comrades.
Winston shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. The past could not be changed, and yet he was still trapped within it.
That was unacceptable.
There was no point in mourning, not when there was work to be done. Especially not when his new commander was looking over his shoulder as he finished inspecting his weapon.
"Uh, hey? Are you okay Winston?" Ruby asked as she set down the tool box he asked her to retrieve for him.
And there it was again, that needless concern she had for him. Winston could not yet understand why she appeared to care so much about a disposable soldier like himself, nor did he care to find out. He had better things to do than figure out what the cadet acting as his commander thought about him. Instead, he simply wanted to give her a passable answer so he could start working on his lasgun in peace.
"I'm fine, Commander Rose. I was surprised by how many repairs I needed to make." He told her.
"Well, it's a good thing I'm here to help you out!" The girl shouted triumphantly. "We'll get your stuff fixed in no time!"
"Thank you for your assistance, Commander Rose, but I can do this on my own." Winston insisted as he opened up the toolbox in preparation for the lengthy process of servicing his weapon and the machine spirit housed within.
He was impressed by what he found inside of it. The complete toolset within the toolbox would ordinarily have been the pride and joy of any high ranking tech priest, yet here it was laying around unattended inside of a workshop for anyone to use. It appeared that Inquisitor Ozpin's extravagant spending did not just stop at the needlessly large complex he used to maintain his cover. What a pleasant surprise.
Perhaps working under an Inquisitor wouldn't be nearly as bad if they were at least this competent. If only they were all at least able to do this much…
"Oh? Oh." Ruby sighed, seemingly depressed for reasons Winston couldn't even begin to fathom. "Are you sure you don't need any help? I know a lot about guns and bullets."
"Have you worked on a lasgun before?" He asked her as he pulled a fistful of wires out of his lasrifle, only having done so because he knew where and how to replace each one of them by heart.
"N-no… but maybe if I watch you now I could help you out sometime in the future?" Ruby suggested.
Winston looked at her for a few moments, carefully considering his options. One on hand, he could have indebted himself further to his temporary commander in order to make her feel that much more confident in herself, because confidence was one thing that she was clearly lacking. On the other hand, he could just tell her to leave so he could work on his weapon in peace since he did not need nor want her help. Ruby also probably had better things to do, which was all the more reason why he felt it would be best to tell her to leave him alone. Of course, there was always the answer every Kriegsman could settle for whenever they were unsure of what to do…
"I'll follow your orders, regardless of what you want me to do, Commander Rose." He said, deciding it would be best to let his commander decide.
As soon as he noticed the slight pursing of her lips and sharp breath she took after he had finished speaking, Winston wished he could have taken back what he had said. For a moment, he forgot he was working with cadets and not soldiers, and he would pay the price for that dearly.
"Do you mean that you won't let me even watch you if I don't ask you to?" Ruby asked with a hint of annoyance.
"I prefer to work alone." The Korpsman answered in an attempt to placate her as he started rewiring his lasgun after retrieving a few wires from the toolbox beside him. "It helps me stay practiced should I be forced to make any repairs away from any allies or tech priests."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense." She conceded, seemingly satisfied with his answer, much to Winston's relief. "I can still watch you work though, right?"
"Is that an order?" He asked her.
"No, and I already said I don't want to be bossing you around! We're supposed to be teammates and help each other when we need it, not bossing each other around because we can." She told him.
That had been unexpected. He had never met a leader that wasn't eager for him to do everything they told him to do. Even his commissar, as overly generous to dregs like him and his brethren as she had been, wouldn't have turned him down like that. Winston stopped what he was doing and stared at Ruby for what felt like an eternity to both of them before finally giving her his answer.
"I do not need your help." Winston informed her.
"Oh, I guess you're fine on your own then." Ruby sulked.
Winston watched her leave her chair and start to leave the room and felt oddly content now that he was able to work in peace. Without anyone else watching over him, he was finally free to do as he pleased in the dark, unguarded room that Ruby was about to leave him in. He would be able to- no, need to focus solely on repairing his weapon and spare no heed for his surroundings… or anything that could possibly be lurking just out of sight. There would be no one to protect him should an enemy sneak up on him while he was distracted, have no guide to show him the rest of Beacon while he was finished, and worst of all… be left alone once more.
All because he couldn't stand letting Ruby watch over him or tolerate her annoying attempts to familiarize herself with him. Was being alone really worth the few hours of peace it would bring him?
"...Commander Rose, wait." Winston called out to her just as she reached the door.
The girl looked back at her new teammate with hopeful eyes, but didn't try to force herself on him in the fear that he might not want her around after all. So, instead of trying to change his mind, she waited to see what he would have to say for a change.
"I was wrong." Winston admitted. "I do need you here after all."
"Really?!" She shouted, rushing over to the Korpsman with childish glee as she reclaimed the seat beside him.
"Yes…" Winston hesitated as he briefly reconsidered his decision before ultimately deciding to take whatever help he could get.
"You said you had never seen a lasgun before. Is that correct, Commander Rose?" He asked her, hoping to get a feel for how much he would need to explain to her.
"Yep." Ruby curtly answered.
"That's good." He told her, immediately beginning his lecture before she could reclaim her seat. "My regiment's tech priest made some improvements to my lasgun. It'll be easier to explain how it works to someone who has never seen one before instead of explaining all the changes he made to the standard Lucius Pattern Number 98…"
Six hours.
That was how long it took Winston to make all the necessary repairs to his lasgun and laspistol, as well as polish his bayonets, and Ruby sat beside him watching him work the entire time. Despite how little he spoke while he worked and how it sometimes seemed like he was giving her the cold shoulder, Ruby could tell that Winston was trying to include her in what he was doing despite having his own reservations in doing so. It was clear to her that Winston treasured each and every one of his weapons, and as a fellow weapon aficionado, she could absolutely understand where he was coming from. There was no way she would let anyone other than herself and maybe her Uncle Qrow work on her beloved Crescent Rose. Even so, she couldn't help but to feel a little left out every now and then while she watched her new teammate work.
For as distant as he looked and uncaring as he acted, Ruby was pleasantly surprised to find that Winston tried to include her in his work as much as possible. She mostly helped out by handing him the proper tools he asked for and, after figuring out what he was referring to (who called a screwdriver the 'Microscepter of Arch Magos Phillip' anyways?) time passed by surprisingly quickly. In fact, they had only just finished making the last few repairs on Winston's lasgun when he muttered what sounded like another prayer under his breath. She never would have thought of him being very religious, but neither would she have thought he was as nice as he was from looks alone. If only the same could be said about how strict and overly polite he was…
"I want to make sure you know how to rewire a lasgun one more time before we head back to the barracks." Winston said. "Start from the power pack and go on from there."
"Sir, yes sir!" She saluted her new teammate, giggling as he flinched at the way she addressed him. "The power pack is connected to the fire selector and Megathoule Flux Capacitor, the latter of which sends a jolt of energy through the connected focusing crystal. The focusing crystal causes a lasbolt to fire through the barrel, which houses the heat sink, which is supposed to disperse excess heat through the internal coolant system." Ruby triumphantly repeated, despite not knowing what half of those parts even were.
"Why is it important that the fire selector, power pack, and MFC are connected?" Winston questioned.
"Because together they control the intensity of the beam and how much charge is drained from the power pack from each shot. Without them, your lasgun would not be able to fire lasbolts of different strength." She answered, smiling at the almost imperceptible nod of approval she received.
"That's correct." Winston informed her. "You now know how to make basic field repairs to both a normal lasgun and mine."
"ALL RIGHT!" Ruby shouted in glee as she stood on her chair.
Winston could only stare at what he was witnessing, but it was more than enough to embarrass his leader and convince her to sit back down.
"Okay… so was there anything else you would like to do now that we're done, Winston?" She asked.
"No, all I need to do now is sleep." Winston droned on.
"Oh, really?" Ruby asked, surprised that there wasn't anything else that he wanted to do. "We haven't even had dinner yet."
Winston responded by pulling out two small packages of food wrapped in what looked like cheap plastic, handing one over to Ruby and pocketing the other one. What he handed her looked like a granola bar of some sort, although one that was a questionable shade of green, to mention nothing of the slightly rotten smell that pierced through its wrappings. She hesitantly took it from him as she scrutinized it for any possible openings that could have let in mold, which would have gone a long way to explain the unnatural-looking color of the food bar, but couldn't find any.
"Thanks?" Ruby said as she continued to inspect it. "What is it? Some sort of granola bar?"
"A ration bar." Winston said, before explaining further upon noticing his commander's hesitant look. "A soldier should eat three a day to be able to fight at full strength, but it is possible to survive on only two if you are careful."
Well, it looked edible… for the most part…
*BZZZZT!*
Much to Ruby's relief, a sudden buzzing caught both her and Winston's attention. The leader of Team RWBY quickly pocketed her ration bar as Winston turned around in search of whatever made that noise.
"What was that?" Ruby asked, silently thanking whatever provided the distraction.
"I don't know, but I felt something shaking in my kitbag." Winston answered her as he set his backpack down and started rummaging through his recently polished bayonets and spare power packs.
He didn't spend too much time searching and pulled out the culprit, the scroll Ozpin had given him earlier, and cautiously placed it on the workshop table before him as if he was unsure of what else it could do. While the sight of the once stoic soldier looking frightened of his own scroll was somewhat comical, Ruby was able to restrain herself from laughing long enough to help out her new teammate.
"Aren't you going to see who messaged you?" She suggested as it became painfully obvious Winston wasn't familiar with his scroll yet, unlike how she mastered hers in only a few days.
"Answer it?" He asked, poking at his scroll as if he expected it to lash out at him.
As much as she wanted to see how long it would take Winston to figure out how to use his scroll, Ruby chose to help him out instead and maybe get him to feel a little more comfortable around her in the process.
"Here, let me show you how." She said as she picked up her teammate's scroll.
"You just turn it on like this, open your messages like that, and viola!" She ended her demonstration with a triumphant shout as she presented Winston's scroll to him, the Korpsman idly staring at her for a few seconds before taking back his scroll.
"Thank… you, Commander Rose." He said, although his hesitation made his thanks sounds questionable at best.
Rather than linger on yet another one of his commander's many oddities, Winston looked at his scroll to see who or what had messaged him. Much to his horror, he was greeted with a message from Ozpin.
[Come to my office as soon as you're available. There are a few things I need to personally prepare you for before classes start.]
It was a simple message, but Winston knew that whenever an Inquisitor was involved, things could never be simple as they seemed. The same could also be said for how painful it could be for him too.
"So… what's it say?" Ruby inquired as she tried leaning over her teammate's shoulder.
Winston deposited his scroll back in his kitbag and threw it back on before she could look for herself, much to his commander's visible disappointment. He then slung his recently repaired lasgun over his shoulder as he made his way to the door.
"Inq-" Winston coughed to hide his mistake as he corrected himself. "Headmaster Ozpin wants to see me in his office."
"Aww, I didn't even get to show you our room yet." Ruby lamented. "Guess I should have done that first before we came here."
"This was my mistake, Commander Rose." Winston asserted. "I was the one who requested your help, so if anyone is at fault, it is me."
Ruby was visibly crestfallen at having her fun acting as a tour cut short, so much so that even Winston noticed and added, "I'll try to ask him for directions to our beds while I'm there. We can continue the tour tomorrow, Commander Rose."
"Uh yeah, I guess we can." Ruby agreed with a nervous chuckle. "I guess I'll see you back in our room then."
Ruby waited for Winston to say something, but was instead met with a salute as he turned around and left the workshop. She let out a sigh after expecting him to do something like that, but that didn't mean she wasn't a little exasperated by her new teammate's strangeness.
Not wanting to think about said strangeness anymore out in fear of thinking bad of him, without anything else to do and her supper technically taken care of by the questionable looking food bar Winston gave her, Ruby decided to head back to her team's room and see what the rest of the girls had been up to while she was gone.
Special thanks to Tireless Traveler for beta reading this chapter!
Author's Corner:
Bit of a janky chapter, I know, but it's just a little something I felt had to be thrown in before moving onto the first day of classes at Beacon. I'd love to speed up the chapter releases, but with only one day a week to work on three different stories that is a bit difficult to achieve at the moment. Ah well, nothing to be done about constant mandatory overtime except griping about it every chance you get...
Comments:
VirtualExodus: Might be early to ask (also spoilery) but I was wondering if our Kriegy Boi is getting some aura of his own which I doubt happening as it would seem downright heretical to summon his soul to protect him (lot of convincing for that), and too early in the story as well if at all…
Don't worry, our Krieger will be unlocking his aura in the near future. His semblance will also be very fitting for him as both a member of the Imperium and the Death Korps.
Just don't be expecting sudden OC godhood, please. This is a W40K fic after all.
Doc43Sousl: Somehow a Krieger having a Valhallan second name is kinda... strange. Although there are many fics where MC-Krieger is the same, so I can't blame you. You continue to impress me with this fic, so I'll patiently expect more)
Strange? Maybe.
A deliberate choice? Absolutely.
Have I already said too much? Probably.
The Killin Fields: Enjoying this, excited for the next chapter- it will be interesting to see how far Ozpin can take impersonating an Inquisitor with his limited knowledge…
I'm not making Ozpin the omniscient demigod many stories tend to turn him into. While my knowledge of canon RWBY is limited, I feel that there is enough proof of Ozpin's failings to say that for all his apparent preparedness and confidence, he is not above making idiotic mistakes capable of ruining lives. Only time will tell how this particular scheme of his pans out.
human dragon: An amazing story thus far my friend great job :) And I do have a question. How do people know an Inquisitor is an "actual" Inquisitor and not just some crackhead from a Hive world that shanked one and stole their stuff?
Let's just say that the odds of a random schmuck shanking and impersonating an Inquisitor are about as high as a snotling beating a full squad of Custodes with its bare hands. Both are theoretically possible, but will probably never happen.
Interestingknight: I think Winston would be more or less happy for his fellow krieg's man that they died.
Death is a mercy in W40K's universe. When you remember that the drukhari, Nurgle's "Gifts", daemonculaba, Night Lords, fleshborer beetles, flayed ones, Servitors, and anything involving Slaanesh exists; a lasbolt or bolter round to the face doesn't sound like a bad way to go.
As always, thank you for reading and I hope to see you all in the future!
