"Hey, do you think Winston's going to be okay?" Ruby asked her team, finally asking the question plaguing them since combat class ended.
It had been several hours since the little leader of Team RWBY rushed her fallen teammate to the doctor's office. Since then, nobody in her team or Team JNPR talked about what happened to Winston and it was hard to blame them. Everything had been going fine at the time, most of them were excited to see Pyrrha going all out against someone who was able to keep up with her without any backup, and everyone seemed to be getting along for the most part. None of them expected to watch one of their fellow students have his arm ripped off in front of them and they were all more than a little shaken from witnessing it.
Pyrrha's reaction had been the most tragic. The once cheerful redhead froze up in shock at what she had accidentally done and looked absolutely haunted when they checked up on her before bed, when it became clear Winston wouldn't be returning before the end of the day. Weiss, despite being… Weiss, had a similar reaction to Pyrrha but managed to keep attention off of herself and how she had been practically baying for her injured teammate's blood moments before disaster struck. As for the others, they remained surprisingly calm given the circumstances.
…okay, so they were relatively calm given how they had only just watched someone lose a limb. Aside from Jaune nearly living up to the nickname 'vomit boy' once again, Blake dropping her book after hearing Winston's arm and lasgun clatter to the ground a few feet in front of him, and Nora who was making promises to reattach his arm herself until Ren helped her realize how she would do more harm than help in doing so, Ruby thought they handled the situation fairly well. Ren and Nora raced to bring Glynda over to see if there was anything she could do to help, Jaune made sure Pyrrha wasn't harmed, and the ladies of Team RWBY checked to make sure Winston wasn't dead despite his broken appearance.
Their initial relief upon the discovery that Winston's severed arm was in fact a prosthetic and not a real arm allowed them to think far more clearly once they knew their newest teammate wasn't in immediate danger of bleeding out or already dead. After they were certain he was still alive and as Glynda started to organize the two teams into helping their respective teammates however they could, Team JNPR doing their best to calm down Pyrrha who was having a panic attack and Team RWBY collecting most of Winston's scattered equipment and carrying him over to Dr. Schwarzer so he could monitor their teammate's condition and assist his recovery. Ruby was the natural choice for moving Winston as she not only was used to lifting weapons heavier than her crippled teammate, but possessed a semblance that allowed her to practically warp wherever she wanted to in record speeds.
It took some time to explain what had happened to the scary looking Faunus doctor. Dr. Schwarzer failed to understand a single word of the panicking motormouth girl until he saw the obvious problem his prospective patient was suffering from before promising to handle everything and sending her on her way. From there, nothing much really happened. There had been no updates on Winston's condition, Pyrrha was still not her usual cheerful self knowing she had crippled someone, and a melancholy air settled around both teams throughout the rest of the day.
All of them knew why, but until Ruby finally asked her team the question she had been dreading to ask as they all prepared to finish off one hell of a first day of classes, none of them had been willing to speak of it.
"He's alive. Isn't that enough?" Weiss coldly remarked, to no one's surprise.
"We all know he is going to be okay." Blake said more delicately, sending a pointed glare to Weiss from her bunk on the other side of the room. "He's probably being kept somewhere on campus until they find someone who can reattach his arm."
"Yeah, I'm sure he'll be fine." Yang said, doing her best to bring up the mood, "Although we might need to give the tough guy a hand when he gets back."
An uncomfortable silence passed between the girls as they realized what Yang had said.
"You didn't." Her partner eventually groaned as the rest of her team soon followed suit.
"Okay, maybe it's a little too soon to be making jokes about what happened," Yang admitted, "but we can't let one little accident ruin our week. Besides, he'll probably be fine. It isn't like we watched him get chewed on by a Boarbatusk earlier today. Weiss got thrown around by one and she's perfectly fine!"
"Hey!" The Schnee heiress quickly huffed.
A moment of realization hit Ruby and she spoke up.. "I wonder if what happened in Port's class had anything to do with Winston's arm… you know…" She explained, growing increasingly uncomfortable as she continued until her voice failed her entirely.
"If so, then that's what he gets for showing off." Weiss remarked, immediately regretting her venomous barb.
At that moment, Ruby wished she would have stayed silent. The young leader did her best to ignore the brewing argument that was about to unfold as she tucked her head beneath the covers of her bed and waited for the others to finish with another one of the 'talks' they have been having with each other for the past few hours.
"Wow." Yang said, letting out a low whistle, "I can already tell the two of you are going to be the best of friends, Snowflake."
"Oh, hah hah hah. Let's see if you would feel the same way after getting your arm burnt." The white haired girl fired back, pointing at the bandaged shoulder her pajama top left exposed, "I can't imagine any of you would have anything kind to say about someone who nearly took your arm off!"
"Stop exaggerating princess, I doubt his little laser pointer is that strong." The blonde replied, looking very unsure of herself as she did.
"He used his pistol to melt a wall of ice." Her partner replied, reluctantly supporting the unruly heiress no matter how much she hated it, "Fire dust rounds aren't that strong."
"He shot through a wall of ice on top of dragging me through it like some sort of human sized Grimm!" Weiss corrected. "I'm lucky I didn't lose an arm too."
"You know, I have a feeling Winston would have a lot to say about since he actually did lose an arm. I can only imagine how he is going to react the next time he sees Pyrrha." Yang fired back and instantly wished she could take back her words.
"Not that uhh… I think it was on purpose or anything." She quickly backpedaled. "Accidents happen all the time even if they aren't nearly that bad or-"
"We know what you meant, so please stop before you dig yourself any deeper." Blake suggested as Yang graciously took the out she was offered.
"Yeah, I guess we will have to wait and see what happens in the morning. Hopefully everything will turn out alright." Ruby chimed in, hoping her team wouldn't start bickering amongst each other again.
Thankfully it seemed to be enough. Satisfied that order had been restored for the time being, Ruby quickly flicked off the lights and tried her best to fall asleep, as did the rest of her team. Sleep did not come easy to any of them, but eventually they were all able to drift off into a fitful slumber that was only lightly plagued by visions of severed arms and other nightmares. There had been a minor disturbance when someone started knocking at their door in the middle of the night, but the noise was only loud enough to wake up Yang before she put an end to it with a few quick words before she or anyone else was awake enough to consider who would be paying their room a late night visit, simply writing it off as some idiot trying to play a prank on them.
Winston stalked through the halls of Beacon like a ghost once more, although without the cover of darkness to shield him from any prying eyes, his return to Team RWBY's room did not go unnoticed. Lacking one arm, visibly carrying more weapons than some teams of professional huntsmen, and with the ghastly visage of the Death Korps signature mask greeting any onlookers unfortunate enough to wake up early enough to catch a glimpse of him, the guardsman made for a haunting figure. At least one legend of a humanoid Grimm that roamed the academy's halls was born from students who fled at the very sight of him, too scared to check what they saw was truly man or beast.
If the source of these rumors would have cared about the image his current appearance left him with, he would have taken their terror as a compliment. During his time within the Imperial Guard, he had seen a great many horrors that no mere mortal was meant to witness, let alone be tasked to fight against. To be considered no less terrifying than the likes of fallen demigods and living extinction was the highest praise he could have received, even if his peers didn't know such existential threats lusted after them.
Such trivial matters were beneath him of course, and even if they weren't, Winston did not allow the few glimpses he took of retreating students to turn his gaze. He had more important things to worry about, after all, namely reaching his team and informing them he was discharged by Beacon's medicae the previous night.
He wasn't quite sure what they thought about him or if they even cared whether or not he returned. Civilians were something he could never quite understand even after serving with some for the better part of six months. Unlike the Death Korps, they rarely said what was on their mind and were always contradicting themselves. Although he had not known them for long, Team RWBY did not appear any different. Whether or not they would be as forgiving of his failures as the conscripts he once led, he could only wait and see.
When he reached the door to his team's room Winston wondered if his team even wanted to see him again. Whoever answered him last night certainly didn't sound as if they were in any mood to welcome him back and he could understand why they wouldn't want to associate with someone who suffered such a humiliating defeat. Had he still been with the Death Korps, his squad would have left him for dead without a second thought.
They actually did leave him for dead a few times, not that he blamed them. His late brethren were trained to leave dead weight behind, not take it with them. They were also supposed to strip him of all his weapons, ammo, and rations before abandoning his corpse. Thankfully they never had enough time to do more than just leave him behind, not that it saved any of them in the end.
As he lost himself thinking about his fallen regiment, the door in front of him burst open and narrowly missed him as he instinct honed by one too many surprise attacks allowed him to quickly leap onto his back to avoid injury, leaving a very surprised Ruby looking down at him as the rest of Team RWBY followed suit behind her. The girls stayed frozen in place as they watched their newest teammate start to stagger back up onto his feet without a word, save for a single wet cough that escaped his lungs.
"I am SO, SO sorry Winston!" Ruby hurriedly apologized, as she walked over to help him up "I didn't know you were behind the door and I-"
"Don't touch me." The guardsman quickly spat at her as she reached out a hand to him.
"Oh… right, I almost forgot. Sorry" The little leader sheepishly replied as she backed off to where the rest of her team was standing, their expressions a mixture of awe and horror as they noticed he looked just as battered as when they last saw him, missing arm and all.
"Why are you apologising?" Winston asked as he finally stood back up on his own, repressing the shudder that ran down his spine seeing a commander act so remorseful towards him of all people.
"Uhm… the door that kinda knocked you on your butt there?" Yang supplied, her smile starting to falter ever so slightly.
Weiss, worried for her teammate just like the rest of Team RWBY, took a far less tactful approach to the subject. "The one that hit you in the head when Ruby kicked our door open?" She inquired.
"It didn't hit me." The guardsman calmly replied. "I'm fine."
"Fine?" Weiss said in disbelief, ignoring the glares from the girls behind her. "You call missing an arm and nearly getting knocked out by a door 'fine'?"
"I'm fine." He repeated. "And my arm isn't missing."
"Your arm isn't missing?" Blake gently asked, hoping Winston had only misheard Weiss and he wasn't suffering from a concussion or worse.
"Yes, my arm is back in my locker, exactly where I left it." He droned on.
His oblivious response earned a chuckle from Yang, a chuckle that was quickly silenced by the groans coming from the rest of her team.
"Oh come on, that was a good one!" She snickered.
"You are unbelievable." Weiss grumbled, before storming away and shouting, "The rest of you can do whatever you want, I'm headed to the cafeteria. I am not missing breakfast for two days in a row."
As Yang and Blake made a few snide remarks to each other about the heiress' abrupt departure, Ruby decided it would be better to check up on her injured- no, not injured, disarmed teammate. Her guilt at nearly sending him back to the nurse's office only played a teensy tiny part of why she wanted to speak to him a little bit and could absolutely be ignored because she absolutely did not nearly knock him out mere moments ago. He even said so!
"So… how're you feeling?" She shyly asked, unsure of what else to say without addressing the obvious.
"I'm fine." He bluntly answered.
"Oh." The little leader's spirit wavered at Winston's apparent dismissal, but she did not allow herself to grow sullen so quickly. "Well, I'm glad to see you're alright."
"Thank you for your concern, Commander Rose. I will not to allow my injuries to affect my performance." He informed her.
"Okay…" She said, unsure of what else to say to that. "Well, Weiss has already gone ahead without us, but we were about to go ahead and grab something to eat before classes started. Would you like to join us?"
"Yes, Commander Rose." The guardsman replied.
"Great, just follow us and…" Ruby stopped as a sudden thought struck her. "Wait, do you know where the cafeteria is?"
"No, Commander Rose."
"Hold on a moment. I thought you said you already showed him around Beacon, Rubes?" Yang interrupted.
"Uhm, hah hah, yeah, about that…"
"I insisted it was more important that I get my equipment in working order before surveying the facilities." Winston said, coming to Ruby's rescue much to her relief. "She did not have time to show me anywhere other than the weapon workshop, lockers, and where our beds were."
"Oh, so you wanted to have the new guy all to yourself, huh?" Yang teased her younger sister.
"NONONONONONONO! IT'S NOT LIKE THAT I SWEAR!" Ruby yelled, desperately trying to disprove anything her sister was implying.
"Hmm… I don't know whether I should believe you or not…" The older sister continued, only relenting when she saw the teary eyed, pleading face of her sibling staring back at her.
"Aww, come on Rubes, I'm just messing with you." She said, ruffling her sister's hair as she laughed.
Neither Blake nor Winston said a word as they watched the two sisters have their moment. The former simply watched with a hint of sorrow escaping from the edges of her lips while the other's face was still covered by the expressionless mask he still hadn't bothered to remove, both of them unable to look away from the heartwarming scene before them.
"Hey, you said you don't know where the cafeteria is, right?" Blake finally asked Winston once she snapped back to reality.
"Yes, Cadet Belladonna." He droned in response.
"Cadet?" The dark haired girl asked before shaking her head, deciding she had better things to do than figure out what he was talking about.
"Oh, forget it. Have you eaten anything since you joined our team?" She inquired, her gaze turning concerned and her tone following suit as she studied the guardsman closely as the other two members of her team close enough to hear her did the same.
"No." Winston asked, unsure whether or not he should have given her the true answer or not. "Is that a problem?"
"That was two days ago." Yang reminded him, expecting this explanation alone would be enough to get her point across.
It was not.
"I've gone longer without rations before. Much longer." He told her.
The three girls shared a worried look and quickly escorted their teammate to the cafeteria without speaking a single word, making a small detour to their lockers so Winston could store his lasgun away first. Each one of them had plenty of questions they wanted to ask him, but none of them wanted to let him starve just so they could satisfy their curiosity. As for the Korpsman himself, he couldn't have cared less, not that he told them. He simply let them do as they wished without a care for anything else around him.
Back on Krieg, food had always been in short supply. As with every world run primarily by the Adeptus Mechanicus, only the bare minimal supplies required to ensure continual production were used, and just because Krieg produced soldiers rather than weapons or tools did not mean it was an exception. Of course, to the men and women who would one day leave their long dead world to fight amongst the distant stars, they never knew how deprived they were. If anything, they would often find that Krieg was quite generous with their rations when food and water supplies commonly ran low during long campaigns on the battlefield.
Winston was no different. Even though he heard stories of the comparatively bountiful feasts that ordinary citizens took part in daily and the wide variety of delicacies available to them, he had always struggled to imagine what they would have looked like. Even as he looked at the hundreds of different foodstuffs available within Beacon's cafeteria, he still struggled to believe that a bunch of cadets were free to take whatever they liked from it.
"Hey, are you sure you don't need to rest for a moment?" Ruby asked him, snapping Winston out of his thoughts.
"I'm fine." He answered, still not able to look away from the wide variety of food and drink before him.
"Can't decide what you want to get first?" Yang guessed, passing by him as she started to grab things that the guardsman couldn't even begin to name. "I'd personally recommend going for the biscuits first. They are absolutely amazing.
"I've…" He paused, trying to think of what he wanted to say. "I've never seen anything like this in my life."
"What do you mean by that?" Ruby inquired.
"I've heard about some of the food normal people ate. I've never seen any of it before." Winston bluntly told them, his voice barely a whisper as he continued. "I've never seen so much in one place either."
His teammates nearby gave him an odd look at his comment, but dropped the matter almost as quickly. When compared to losing an arm, carrying honest to goodness laser weapons, and wearing a mask at all times, hearing him talk about 'food normal people ate' hardly registered with them. They might have batted an eye after they saw him fill up his kitbag with as many granola bars as he could fit inside it, but once again, it was hardly the strangest thing they had seen him do.
Satisfied with his replenished rations and unwilling to try anything he couldn't put a name to, one the off chance whatever he picked up might be a local delicacy that could kill any outsider with ease, Winston joined his team and Team JNPR at the table they claimed for themselves. A wave of shock washed over the other team upon seeing him, Pyrrha nearly falling to the floor after seeing the guardsman was still lacking his right arm. None of them dared to say anything about it, and he didn't feel a need to address it either. Wanting to finish off his previous rations before moving on to his newly acquired stockpile, he retrieved the final ration bar he had been saving since his arrival on Remnant from one of the pouches on his kitbag.
As he tore open the thin yet sturdy wrapping revealing the chalky gray and questionably edible substance underneath, everyone nearby him recoiled away from the smell he had unleashed upon them. A foul odor similar to that of rotting garbage left out in a damp basement radiated from the disgusting looking bar, not that Winston noticed the stench or any of his peers' reactions. After having eaten mostly Imperial Guard standard issue ration bars since he was old enough to hold a lasgun, he had grown used to the smell amongst other disgusting aromas that could be found throughout a battlefield.
"What the hell is that!?" Weiss gagged as Blake tried not to pass out beside her.
"A ration bar." He answered as he removed the armored gorget hidden underneath his trench coat and untucked his gas mask just enough to have access to his mouth without exposing the skin underneath to any prying eyes.
"That thing smells like something died." Yang said as she leaned away from him.
"No, corpses smell nothing like a ration bar." Winston replied a little too quickly, tearing off a chunk of the ration bar and slipping it underneath his mask without exposing his face with practiced ease.
"Uhm… how do you know what a dead body smells like?" Jaune asked, unable to stop himself.
"It's not something you can ever forget once you know what it is." The guardsman informed him, leaving the boy wishing he had never bothered asking.
"Okay, that… didn't answer my question." Jaune stammered in a mix of shock and relief.
"Would you like an answer?" Winston pressed further.
"You know what? I think I'm good." The blonde boy told him.
"Then don't ask." Winston sharply responded.
"Can we please stop talking about dead bodies while we're eating?" Weiss spoke up, glaring daggers at the Korpsman.
He might not have been the best at reading people, but knowing when to shut up was one of the rare few things Winston could pick up on and did as the bratty heiress requested. An odd quiet fell between the teams as they all waited for their appetites to return after learning more about the guardsman than any of them would have liked to, the horrendous stench paling in comparison.
"Where did you learn to fight like that?." Ren spoke up after a moment, maintaining his usual stoic façade as he broke the silence that surrounded both teams.
"Like what?" Winston asked, unsure of what the boy was trying to ask him.
"Like someone who could take on the strongest huntress-in-training in the world!" Nora excitedly exclaimed, a hollow smile flickering on said huntress-in-training's lips for a brief moment .
"She's the strongest cadet Remnant has to offer?" He dryly inquired, his innocent question coming off unintentionally harsh due to his flat tone.
"Yeah, duh silly." Nora playfully fired back. "And you came out of nowhere and almost beat her before your arm popped off!"
Pyrrha flinched at the reminder of yesterday's events. No one paid much attention to the fiery redhead's subtle reaction, save for the guardsman who was all too aware of why she was acting so reserved.
"It didn't hurt, did it?" Jaune asked, his curiosity getting the better of him once again.
"No." Winston lied. "It's not the first time it has happened either."
Pyrrha immediately perked up and let out a sigh of relief at his comment.
"Yeesh, is this something that happens often?" Yang chimed in, quickly piggybacking onto the conversation now that it had traveled in a less horrifying direction.
"No." He shortly answered.
"But you just said this isn't the first time you lost an arm?" Blake asked him, taking a brief break from her book to join the conversation.
The guardsman gave the black haired girl an uncomfortably long stare before asking her, "How do you think I originally earned my augmetic arm?"
A look of horrified understanding crossed the faces of most members of both teams, save for Nora who told him, "I thought you had your real arm replaced with a robot arm so you could be a super cool cyborg!"
"Cyborg?" He repeated in a moment of dread, his fear thankfully obscured by the way his mask muffled his voice as he wondered if Servitors existed on Remnant and if he might be so injured he might be at risk to become one.
"Yeah, you know, half robot people from movies and comics and those sorts of awesome things to help people." The bubbly girl explained.
"Skitarii." Winston sighed in relief. "You're talking about the Skitarii."
At least, he hoped she was. Between ending his life unfulfilled as a Servitor and becoming no different than those arrogant metal pricks, it was an obvious choice of which he would rather become. With his current injuries, he was an idea candidate to become one or the other.
"Woah, woah, woah. Hold on a moment. There's actual robot people where you're from?" Yang interrupted, unable to believe what she was hearing.
"I mean, they do have laser guns where he comes from, so why not cyborgs too?" Ruby argued.
"Oh please, I'm sure whatever prosthetics these 'robot people' have are nothing compared to what Atlas makes." Weiss said dismissively.
"They're called Skitarii, not 'robot people'. What you are calling them could be considered blasphemy." Winston chided, not that he particularly cared about the distinction or felt inclined to defend those subhuman snobs, but the Mechanicus and Inquisition certainly did.
"Blasphemy?" The heiress muttered in disbelief. "What, do people from Krieg worship computers or something?"
"No. Not computers." Winston told her, pausing as he considered how much he could say without sharing any information Ozpin requested him to keep hidden from his team.
The old Inquisitor only mentioned the Emperor by name, not his aspect as the Omnissiah. He was tempted to explain further to his team and their friends, but ultimately decided it wouldn't be worth risking Ozpin's wrath.
"It's… complicated." He added, unsure of how else to explain the Adeptus Mechanicus' nebulous relationship and position within the Imperium without exposing too much about them.
"Sounds interesting. You'll have to tell us about that sometime." Yang said.
"Is… is that an order?" Winston asked, looking to Ruby to see what she had to say.
"A what?" The blonde brawler replied.
"You don't have to tell us anything if you don't want us to." Ruby gently told him, reminding him of their earlier promise.
"If you insist, Commander Rose." He droned.
"Oh come on, you can't keep something that cool to yourself! You've got to tell us about those sky kitty whatchamacallits!" Nora jumped in, nearly jumping over the table to plead her case to Winston but was stopped by Ren holding her back.
Winston quickly backed away from the table before she could get any closer to him. "I should go before I am late." He hurriedly stammered as he tried to leave both teams behind him.
"Hey, wait, where are you going?" Ruby called out to him.
"Doctor Schwarzer wanted perform a general inspection on me instead of attending class." Winston turned around to explain.
"Doctor Schwarzer?" She asked, confused.
"The medicae, Commander Rose." Winston told her, only receiving a blank look in response.
"The nurse." He tried once more, earning a gasp of understanding which he took as his permission to leave.
"Oh, okay. Good luck." The little leader waved back as her teammate finally departed.
"Thank the Brothers he's gone." Weiss groaned after watching him vanish in the crowd within the cafeteria.
"That's a little harsh." Jaune muttered, mirroring the opinions of his teammates.
"I don't care. He SHOT me." She scowled, pulling up the sleeve of her dress to reveal her bandaged shoulder.
"Yeah, and Pyrrha ripped his arm off and you don't see him being a jerk to her about it." Nora fired back as her teammate physically recoiled from being reminded of making such a dangerous mistake.
"I… I need to go." Pyrrha stammered as she darted away from the rest of her team.
"Oops."
"It's not your fault, Nora." Ren comforted his partner as the others watched the Mistralian champion run off.
"That couldn't have gone any worse." Blake mused, closing her book and leaving the table after finishing up her meal.
"I think we should probably go and see how Pyrrha is doing." Jaune said as he excused himself and the rest of his team.
"Nora has a point, Weiss." Yang said as she fought against the urge to shout at her teammate.
"Point? What point?! We're only taking that creep in because of the extra credit. You said it yourself Yang, so I don't want to hear it from you!" She huffed before storming off on her own.
"H-hey, wait. Come back, Weiss!" Ruby called out to the heiress. "I'm sure we can all just talk this out and-"
"I don't think that will be possible, sis." Yang interrupted, placing a hand on her younger sibling's shoulder. "Not right now, anyway. I'm sure we'll all look at the way we were behaving during our first week of classes and laugh about how stupid we were in a couple months from now."
"Really?" She asked, hoping everything would still turn out alright.
"Eh… probably?" Yang joked, ruffling her sister's hair as she pouted at her lackadaisical answer. "Oh cheer up, Rubes. These things happen when you're on a team. Anyways, I'm going to get ready for classes before we start running late for the second day in a row. Are you coming along?"
"Sure, I just… want to check up on a little something first." Ruby told her, looking back to where she had last seen Winston headed off to.
Yang quickly picked on where her sister's gaze was directed. "A little something or someone?" She teased.
"Yaaaaaang…" Ruby groaned. "I just want to make sure Winston's okay and… well…"
"Well what?" Yang asked a little more seriously this time.
"Well, something doesn't feel right with him." She eventually sputtered.
"Yeah, no kidding." Yang said with a mirthless laugh.
"That's not funny, Yang." Ruby told her. "You know what I mean."
The blonde brawler let out a long sigh. "Oh, after that wonderful little conversation we had, it's kinda hard not to see that there is something seriously wrong with him. I just don't think there is anything we can really do to help."
"What are you saying?" The little leader asked.
"Uhm, you see…" Yang struggled to think of how to let her sister down as gently as possible and still make her point clear. "There's some things that no matter what you do, you can never fix them. Whatever is going on with Tough Guy is definitely one of those things. Or a lot of them."
"That doesn't mean we can't try to help him though, right?" Ruby countered.
Yang wanted to tell her sister that there are some things that simply cannot be fixed and that their newest teammate was one of them. If it hadn't been for the hopeful, puppy-like gaze staring up at her, then she would have told her sister to give up before anyone got hurt. Instead, she gave in as easily as she always did and offered her younger sister the only advice that came to mind.
"There's no reason not to help I guess, but Ruby?"
"Yang?"
"Promise me you won't hurt yourself trying to be someone else's hero?" The blonde asked her sister.
"I won't. I promise." The younger sibling said, doing her best to look serious as she clutched her hands over her chest.
Yang had to stop herself looking at how closely her sister resembled that same little girl she used to be when pretending to act like she was all grown up. "Good. Now, you might want to start going after him before it's too late. From what I've heard from some of the second and third year students, you want to be absolutely focused for Professor Oobleck's class and not worrying about anything else. Apparently he has a reputation for leaving people behind if they're thinking about something else during his lectures."
Special thanks to Tireless Traveler & Doc43Souls for beta reading this chapter!
Author's Corner:
Another short little chapter for you all. I know that the last few chapters have been a little slow, slower than even I expected or wanted them to be, but I have my reasons for doing so. Can't exactly have the characters grow from anywhere if I don't firmly define them without simply riding on general assumptions of their canon selves that plenty of authors tend to do. Don't worry, things will be moving faster in the next chapter or two. Now that our Krieger can't rely solely on himself and the grace of Him on Terra to live 'normally' by his standards, compromises will need to be made and he will have to start interacting with others as opposed to simply existing nearby them.
Comments:
Ggkcc: (speculations and a lot of good points about character interactions)
As Winston starts becoming more open towards his teammates and others he will start divulging more information about himself, including how he earned his prosthetics. How complete a story he gives will depend on how comfortable he is around people because as it stands right now, they are not only strangers but civilians to him.
To Winston, the less his team and others know about him, the better. FOR THEM. There's a reason most citizens are not told how screwed the Imperium truly is, and I doubt a lifelong soldier would feel like ruining lives by sharing such experiences after living through them firsthand. Even Ozpin was starting to get unsettled by what the Korpsman was telling him he is a very, very spoilery character in canon.
This openness and lack thereof also extends to how the story will be handling character interactions, as you have already noticed. The Teams barely know each other, let alone Winston, so I find it a little odd that they would instantly be friendly with one another despite how several of their personalities are like oil and water. This is only the second day of classes at Beacon, at most the fourth day the cast would have known each other if meeting at Beacon for the first time.
A yet to be servitized "DifferentGuest": Wait, so if Winston presumably holds a lot of mechanicus traditions close to his heart (literally, ha!), does that mean that he believes that emperor and the omnissiah to be the same person as the actual mechanicus does? That might affect any future preaching. Good chapter.
Don't worry, I have plans for how Winston rationalizes the existence of the Omnissiah despite being a faithful soldier and devotee of the Emperor. To put it simply, I will be taking a page out of GW's playbook that doesn't piss off the community and take some influence from elsewhere which will make what I am creating a blatant parody of painfully obvious.
Lushikatomikyarimimo: (A matter of perspective)
The misdirection was intentional in the previous chapter, due to the narrative perspective. As Winston, being a Krieger and all that entails, has about as many people skills as a rock. With that said, he is leagues more personable than his kinsmen given some of the previous experiences he has already stated. When the narration directly follows Winston, I fully intend for some things to be left open to interpretation, at least until other perspectives are finally revealed.
Also, maybe it is just me, but I would be pissed at ANYONE who starts banging on my door at three o'clock in the goddamn morning and wakes me up if I either don't know who it is or am too tired to care.
"MrOdd": (Wondering why Winston beat the shit out of a piece of shit)
You see, Winston comes from the universe that coined the term 'Grimdark'. As he notes several times, he is very unfamiliar with the idea of accepting a yield in combat or even stopping when his opponent is still able to fight. Next, throw in how Winston has lost everything and everyone except for what he carries with him and the new team he has been assigned. Finally, ask yourself why he might go overboard when beating up a loudmouth who has insulted him, his team, behaves like a noble, and is a living mockery of everything he stands for. If you ask me, it's a miracle Winston didn't assume Remnant would be better off without Cardin and act accordingly.
Oh, and apparently the "." in your name is so powerful it causes the site to bug out and delete you name when spelled properly. The Ordo Malleus has been notified and will respond accordingly.
As always, thanks for reading and I hope to see you all again in the future!
