The light of day was quickly fading away as dusk turned to night. Winston marched through the hallways of Beacon a little faster with every minute that passed as the assurance of safety Remnant's natural illumination brought with it started to vanish at an ever increasing pace. By the time he had reached the floor his team's dorm room was on he was running at a dead sprint, the entirety of his kitbag rattling behind him as he attempted to gain what little peace of mind he could by being in close proximity to people he felt reasonably sure he could trust with his life.
Given a choice, the guardsman would never have picked four teenage girls as the people he served alongside while attending Beacon. Then again, what he wanted didn't matter. Still, it could have been worse. Rather than being stuck with a bunch of juves who were about as inexperienced as a freshly indoctrinated cadet on Krieg but could compensate for their glaring faults with the astounding strength and speed of an Astartes, he could have been given far worse squadmates to look after. He could have been stuck with Cardin, or even worse, Jaune.
How that incompetent fool ever managed to find himself attending a schola attended by the supposedly 'best of the best' huntsmen-in-training Remnant had to offer was something Winston couldn't even begin to fathom, but he wasn't nearly stupid enough to question an Inquisitor's judgment on the matter. With that said, he was at least clever enough to not disclose his suspicions to anyone who might report back to Ozpin, his own team included.
Something in his chest ached at how he couldn't bring himself to treat his team as equals quite yet, but maybe-
*HAAA-ACK*
… maybe that was just the latest mouthful of blood and lubricant waiting to be coughed up.
Winston took a moment to glance around the empty hallways he was in and, pleased to discover no one was nearby and could look at him, he quickly removed his mask and wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand before putting his real face back where it belonged. A quick inspection of his glove revealed an even mixture of black and red, a good sign that the internal damage to his body was healing normally but not nearly at the rate he would have preferred his lungs to repair themselves. Apparently the accelerated healing his aura was meant to give him didn't affect his prosthetics. It would likely take no less than a full week for the bloody discharges to cease, but at least the quantity of bodily and machine fluids that escaped his lungs would be soon decreasing with every cough.
Or rather, his coughing should start getting better soon if his lungs weren't completely frakked up beyond all recovery.
If they persisted or even worsened then, without a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus to cure the weakness of his flesh and damaged bionics, there was little he could do about it except make the most of his remaining time. Should his lungs truly be FUBAR, then he had choice between dying an ignoble death by choking on his own blood as his broken body failed him with painstaking slowness or finding the largest horde of Grimm he could and make a final stand against them to earn the Emperor's forgiveness before being overwhelmed by the daemonic beasts. Given how the former option would hardly earn him the forgiveness he so desperately desired, it wouldn't that hard of a decision for Winston to make if the worst truly did come to pass.
But he could think about the best place and way to die when he had no future to look forward to and every reason to start looking for them. Until then, he needed to do everything he could to earn Ozpin's approval to rejoin the Imperial Guard and redeem his regiment by slaying the enemies of mankind in both their name and the Emperor's. To do that, he needed some modicum of rest before starting the next day and all that stood in between him and an early morning was the door that separated him from his team's dorm.
Remembering the last reception he received upon trying to return to Team RWBY's quarters the previous night, the Korpsman was tempted to forget about resting amongst the safety that numbers would provide him and instead find himself an easily fortifiable position he could slumber in like he was accustomed to. Of course, without any of the explosives he left behind in the saviour pod, scrounging up enough spare supplies laying around Beacon to create some IEDs to let him rest easily would be more trouble than a good night's rest was worth. That wasn't to say he wouldn't do it if it was his last resort, but if given the choice, he'd rather not have to rely on the same defenses he was forced to employ upon endless hordes of plague zombies and even worse horrors that dwelled within the dark.
Winston raised his hand to knock against the door, quickly wiped the back of his bloodstained glove off on the inside of his trench coat to avoid staining the entrance to his team's quarters, and then lightly rapped on the wood to announce his presence to those inside. He waited one moment, then another, and was about to see what kinds of improvised explosives he could manufacture with whatever local resources he could scavenge before the door finally opened with Yang standing behind it with an uncertain look.
The guardsman flinched at the sight of the taller girl, her nightwear looking more like glorified lingerie in the eyes of someone who was accustomed to wearing their full uniform at all hours of the day. His mind raced back to the unpleasant encounters he had with Slaaneshi cultists in the past, but he quickly reigned in his impulse to attack her and stopped himself from reaching for his laspistol or bayonets. Thankfully, Yang didn't seem to notice the slight flicker of movement towards his weaponry or general unease at her relaxed attire.
"Oh, hey there Tough Guy." The blonde said, her expression relaxing a little upon seeing it was him. "You know you could have knocked on the door a little louder, right? We almost didn't hear you."
"I didn't want to cause a disturbance." The guardsman told her, doing everything he could to look at her face instead of her clothes, or rather what he would have described as a glaring lack thereof.
A smile crept onto the taller girl's face as she noticed how her teammate struggled to match her gaze, believing the reason he was distracted to be far more benign than it truly was. "Sure, sure. Anyways, do you like what you see?" She teasingly asked, hoping to get a reaction out of him.
"Absolutely not." He coldly answered, giving her quite the reaction but not the one she had been expecting. Not in the slightest.
"Uhh… yeah." Yang absent mindedly replied, caught off guard by how Winston seemed to be trying not to look at her altogether now, apparently finding the floor to be more worthy of his attention.
He was acting weird. Very weird, yet not any weirder than usual. So far, weird seemed to be the standard when it came to her new teammate. His general weirdness made it all too easy for the blonde to quickly shrug off the unease that had only started to come over her as she chalked up the guardsman's reaction as yet another one of his many oddities.
"Hey, who are you talking to out there?" Weiss yelled at the duo, putting a quick end to the awkward direction their conversation had gone down.
"Chill out, Ice Queen, it's just Winston. Tough Guy finally decided he wanted to hang out with us for a change." Yang said as she reached for the guardsman in an attempt to pull him into their room.
Winston quickly stepped away from her grasp and reached for his entrenchment tool, making it all too obvious what her next attempt to lay a hand on him in her current state would end with. "Do. Not. Touch. Me." He spat out at her.
"Geeze, I'm sorry. Lighten up a little bit, Tough Guy." The blonde said as she stepped aside and raised her hands up placatingly, "You almost sound as stuck up as Weiss."
"Hey! I do not sound anything like that!" The heiress rebuked as Winston cautiously entered the room, never once turning away from Yang in case she tried to reach for him again.
"You're right." Blake chimed in, lowering the book she was reading from atop her bunk, "You're much worse."
The heiress let out an indignant huff but did not press the matter any further, knowing a lost cause when she saw it. Even if her team wasn't hopelessly uncultured without her presence, educating them about the error of their ways wouldn't have even been worth the effort.
Winston didn't pay much mind to his team's bickering aside from disapproving at how the girls all seemed to be more inclined to fight amongst each other than anything else. He did spare them a glance but, upon noticing they were no longer in their academy uniforms and wearing similar attire to Yang albeit with a little more modesty, did his best to block the image he was left with out of his head. He expected the one who dressed like a joy girl when wearing casual attire to own such revealing nightwear, but not the others. Was this a tradition that was only native to Remnant or did every planet other than Krieg insist on wearing nothing but glorified underwear to bed? It was disgusting, whichever it was, that much was certain.
"Where's Commander Rose?" Winston asked after taking a quick glance around the room and failing to see his leader anywhere, secretly hoping she at least had the common sense to wear something reasonable to bed in an effort to help preserve his sanity.
"Uhh… Commander Rose?" Yang questioned back, slightly off put by the way he was referring to her sister, "You mean Ruby, right?"
"Is that not her name?" Winston flatly replied.
"Yeah, it's her last name. Why are you calling her commander though?" The blonde continued her line of questioning, big sister instincts kicking in as she fixed a more scrutinizing glare on the guardsman.
"Is she not the commander of this team?" He responded, his simple replies sounding almost condescending for some inexplicable reason.
"Only because Ozpin decided for us." Weiss grumbled, earning a well deserved scowl from Yang.
"Yes, she is our leader." Blake corrected.
"Commander Rose is the commander of our team and I will address her with the respect her position demands." The Korpsman bluntly explained, "Anything less would be insulting, Cadet Yang."
"Oh, and I'm a cadet?" The brawler asked, dropping all prior hostility and adopting a more playful tone as she was fairly certain Winston wasn't lying to her.
"Let me guess, it's because I'm just a student like these two?" She asked as she pointed to Weiss and Blake on the beds beside her.
"Yes. You are all cadets and will be addressed as such until you prove yourselves." Winston droned on.
"Oh, and what are you then? Some sort of sergeant?" Weiss scoffed at her teammate's apparent dismissal of her.
"No. I am only a private, Cadet Schnee." He bluntly informed her, getting an angry muttering in response from the heiress.
"Do you have the medals or pins to prove your rank?" Blake asked him, quickly latching onto the unexpected avenue into Winston's past that opened up.
"Yes." He dutifully replied, "It would be against regulations to not keep them on my person at all times."
"Oh, can we see some of them?" Yang jumped in, quickly figuring out what her partner was trying to do and attempting to help out.
"I'm afraid I cannot do that." The guardsman told her as he walked over to an empty corner of the room beside Weiss and Ruby's bunks and slowly sat down against it as he slung his kitbag onto the ground in between his legs.
"And… why not?" Yang asked.
Rather than answer her with words, Winston simply waved the stump at the end of what remained of his right arm to show her the reason. He bit back a hiss of pain that threatened to escape his lips as the fabric of his tattered sleeve brushed up against the active artificial nervous system his prosthetic was meant to interface with, and thankfully none of them noticed his moment of weakness.
Yang's cheeks quickly flushed with embarrassment at being shown the obvious answer to her question. "Ohh… shoot. I uhh… I guess it might be kinda hard to look for them with only one arm, huh?" She said with a nervous laugh.
"I'd prefer not to risk damaging anything inside my kitbag while searching for them like this." He told her, looking to the teammates whose opinions he cared for what they wanted from him, "But if you need me to, I can attempt to find them, Cadet Yang, Cadet Blake."
"That… won't be necessary." Blake answered for her teammate.
She silently wondered why he couldn't just let them search for whatever was used to identify his rank and give them the first concrete piece of evidence they could find to determine who he was, but decided against saying anything. Winston wasn't the only one carrying some baggage with him, after all, although hers was far more metaphorical than his. She could understand why he might not want anyone snooping around in his belongings, although she at least had the foresight not to bring any compromising evidence with her.
"Is there anything else you want me to do for you?" Winston asked no one in particular.
None of the Team RWBY members present said anything, and although Weiss did make an attempt she was quickly silenced when Yang covered her mouth before she could say anything they would all regret. Knowing the heiress and how poorly those two got along, it couldn't have been anything good.
"Nope, nothing at all." Yang said despite Weiss' continued muffling. Only when the white haired huntress-in-training relented did the brawler release her.
"Very well." Winston said as he pulled his kitbag into his chest and between his legs so his head could rest on top of it, "You never answered my question about where our leader currently is, Cadet Yang."
"Oh yeah, sorry about that." Yang sheepishly apologized, "My sis said she wanted to go to the library to look for a few books, probably to help her prepare for classes tomorrow. Did you need her for something?"
"No. I didn't see Commander Rose here and wanted to know if we knew where to find her." Winston told her.
Should something happen and Team RWBY need to assemble in order to combat a potential threat, knowing where to find all of their members and come to their aid would be vital to ensure their survival. Although they weren't guardsmen like him, it didn't mean he didn't care what happened to them. Quite the opposite in fact.
They were still just children, after all. Children who might be able to stand on even footing with a wounded Astartes if they fought one as a team, a feat not even a full squad of guardsman could hope to achieve, but children nonetheless.
Yang did her best to ignore how that sounded exactly like something a stalker would say as she decided Winston's unique response was his general weirdness on full display once again. "Well, now you know." She shrugged.
"Anyways, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to call it a night so we can get up on time for Port's tomorrow. He let us off easy for being late on the first day and I don't want to push my luck twice in a row." Yang said as she turned off the lights to their room and hopped into her bunk bed underneath Blake's.
The bow-wearing huntress closed her book and rolled her eyes at her partner's statement. "Whatever punishment he can think of can't be any worse than listening to him brag about himself for half of the class again." She said as she pulled her covers over herself.
"I don't know about that. Who knows how many Grimm he'll throw at us if we're late again." Weiss said as she turned in for the night, the memory of how she had been humiliated by a Boarbatusk and further shamed by her teammate triumphing over three of them still as fresh as the wound to her pride.
"Afraid of getting thrown around in the middle of class again, Snowflake?" Yang teased.
"Oh shut up, and stop calling me that!" Weiss snapped as she threw one of her pillows over her head to drown out any further insults thrown her way.
Both Yang and Blake let out a quiet little chuckle at the heiress' display and quickly fell asleep, leaving Winston as the last one of them awake. The guardsman wanted to resist the urge to drift off for as long as possible but, feeling the mounting exhaustion from the previous few days, ultimately decided he could allow himself to catch a little slumber until Ruby returned, thinking of better times as he finally nodded off.
{ \"GET_UP;
THERE_IS_STILL_WORK_TO_BE_DONE,_GUARDSMAN\"; }
Private WSTN did as the harsh, yet not unkind, voice commanded him. Using both of his hands to lift him up and one of the workbenches he had fallen asleep as a brace, the lowly guardsman rose up to greet the tech priest looming over him.
The red robed figure gazing down at him was enormous, far taller than any ordinary human and even able to look down upon an Astartes thanks to his massive bulk. Rather than a face so heavily augmented that one might doubt the robed Mechanicus agent was truly human, a luminous blue visor covered the entirety of his head like a helmet, the very same orb of light that shone down upon the private he had grown used to treating as his personal assistant during Warp jumps as they traveled between warzones. Whenever a more human touch was required for one of Bluey's numerous projects and the massively augmented transhuman could not trust one of his many servitors with his work, it was always WSTN who found himself working under the careful instruction of the eccentric tech priest.
This time, the tech priest had no task he required the private to complete on his behalf. Instead, what Bluey required was something even one as detached from humanity as himself found hard to stomach, something that not even he could fully hide from the private.
{ \"YOU_HAVE_RESTED_LONG_ENOUGH;
THE_NEW_BIONICS_I_HAVE_INSTALLED_SHOULD_BE_FULLY_FUNCTIONING_NOW;
I_NEED_TO_MAKE_SURE_YOU_HAVE_FULL_FEELING_IN_ALL_OF_THEM_AS_THE_COMMISSAR_REQUESTED_BEFORE_YOU_CAN_BE_CLEARED_FOR_ACTIVE_SERVICE_AGAIN\";} The tech priest informed his assistant.
A half dozen thin, spindly arms emerged from the center folds of the priest's robes where the transhuman's chest should have been, each one of them carrying out a tool that wouldn't have looked out of place in either his workshop or an Inquisitor's torture chamber. Neither he nor the guardsman wanted to do what needed to be done, yet they had no choice but to carry out the Commissar's orders unless they both wanted to be reprimanded for their insubordination.
"Of course, Magos Bluey." WSTN replied as he extended his left hand for the tech priest to carry out the necessary ministrations to clear him for duty.
{\"DO_NOT_MOVE;
I_WILL_TRY_TO_MAKE_THIS_AS_QUICK_AS_POSSIBLE,_OMNISSIASH_WILLING\";} Bluey prayed, pulling out a necklace with a cogwheel pendant dangling from its chain as he uttered the name of the Emperor's aspect of the Machine God.
The tech priest's mechanical appendages quickly started their work once his prayer was finished, removing the glove covering the guardsman's hand to reveal the recently forged prosthetic fingers he had installed on the private several hours ago and starting the grisly duty he was tasked with. The materials and, most importantly, the neural sensors installed in each bionic implant were tested with agonizing thoroughness. Tensile strength, temperature resistance, resilience against blunt force trauma, and endurance against bladed weapons were all tested in rapid succession one after another, the guardsman remaining silent as a new wave of pain raced up through his synthetic fingers and through the rest of his body with each test. WSTN did not so much as flinch as he remembered how the pain of losing his original fingers was incomparable to the half-hearted disciplinary measure the tech priest inflicted upon him. If anything, he found the pain to be almost pleasant to the oppressive numbness he had been feeling in them until that point.
{\"I\'M_FAILING_TO_DETECT_A_PHYSCIAL_RESPONSE_TO_MY_TESTS\";} The tech priest rumbled with something almost resembling concern in his altered voice,
{\"CAN_YOU_FEEL_WHAT_I_AM_DOING_TO_YOU?\";}
"Yes, sir." WSTN monotonously answered.
Bluey fixed the guardsman he dwarfed with all the brightness he could conjure up from behind his radiant blue visor
{\"THEN_WHY_AREN\'T_YOU_REACTING_TO_WHAT_I_AM_DOING_TO_YOU?\";} He asked in obvious annoyance.
"I've been hurt worse than this." The private replied, "It hurts, but it's barely worth acknowledging."
A soft, metallic screech reverberated from underneath the tech priest's robes as he processed his assistant's words for a moment.
{\"KARKING_KRIEGSMEN_AND_THEIR_KARKING_PAIN_TOLERANCE\";} He creaked in exasperation, having forgotten one of the more pleasant traits of the regiment he worked with possessed which made replacing lost limbs and organs a relatively simple process since he didn't need to bother administering any anesthetics to them, unlike most other humans,
{\"I_AM_CONSIDERING_THIS_PART_OF_THE_EXAMINATION_A_SUCCESS;
IF_ALEXA_WANTS_BETTER_RESULTS,_THEN_SHE_CAN_BE_THE_ONE_TO_ADMINISTER_THE_NECESSARY_TESTS_NEXT_TIME\";}
"I'll inform the Commissar of your news, Magos Bluey." WSTN bowed to the tech priest as he started to make his way towards the exit of Bluey's workshop.
Before the guardsman could leave, a loud skittering noise came from behind him as the flowing red robes of the tech priest appeared, blocking his escape. The magos' innumerable insectoid limbs that composed most of the mass of his lower body had escaped from the confines of his robes, fully exposing the three meter long segment of inhuman looking prosthetics and tail they were all connected to. As odd of a choice as the Magos' selected mechadendrites were, they assisted him in both his locomotion and carving apart the enemies of mankind in the rare few instances he left his workshop with far greater ease than his human limbs ever did. Each of his dozens, if not hundreds, of elegantly crafted bionics trailing behind him like a tail were tipped with razor sharp talons that could easily slice through flesh and flak armor if the tech priest desired it. Both Bluey and WSTN were well aware of this fact, especially the private given how the priest had purposely wrapped a few coils of his tail and the limbs attached to it around the guardsman's feet to discourage any further attempts to flee.
{\"YOU_HAVE_NOT_BEEN_DIMISSED_YET,_PRIVATE_WSTN\";} The tech priest warned, another pair of mechanical arms emerging from where the other six had previously appeared and firmly clamped onto the Korpsman's arms and legs to prevent him from resisting what would come next,
{\"I_STILL_NEED_TO_EXAMINE_YOUR_OTHER_ARM\";}
Before the guardsman could utter a protest or question why the magos' actions were necessary, Bluey started to work on WSTN's right arm without bothering to remove the trench coat his assistant was still wearing. The tech priest conducted his test in the same order as before and moved just as swiftly as he loathed what he needed to do as much as his assistant. None of it was necessary for ensuring the proper functioning of the private's prosthetic right arm, as he was the one who constructed and installed it and knew for a fact it worked flawlessly, but rather to make sure the guardsman could feel all the suffering he was tasked with inflicting upon him. Bluey did not enjoy causing pain, nor did he go out of his way to avoid doing so, but even he couldn't help to feel disgusted as he proceeded with the last inspections necessary to clear WSTN for active duty and regain his unofficial assistant's services until they arrived at their next destination.
The first test was meant to examine the tensile strength of the arm, or more precisely, how much force was required when trying to pull the arm off or to compress it into itself until the guardsman could feel something other than a general numbness in his limbs. Unlike before, he couldn't get away with a few half-hearted inspections and equally lacking excuse as the private's bionic arm had not been built on short notice in a matter of minutes. The arm was a 'custom' job, one he could not afford to let any other member of the Mechanicus know about. If he did let any of his nominal colleagues assigned to their transport's crew make the inspections, then his 'innovative' ways and true reason for serving a random regiment of guardsmen would be at risk of being exposed as opposed to being merely rumored without any basis beyond a vocal support of Cawl's works.
As expected, the moment Bluey applied enough force to start compromising the integrity of the ring keeping the guardsman's augmetics attached to the neural implant they were meant to interface with, the private gave the magos one of the many reactions he was hoping to achieve. Unfortunately, said success came in the form of the horrendous scream that escaped from the confines of his assistant's mask, causing him to accidentally drop the private on his arm in surprise. Having grown used to the stoicism the Death Korps were infamous for, he had not been expecting that reaction. With that said, he did find it pleasing to know the modifications he made to WSTN's prosthetic arm were functioning to a much higher standard than those he installed in the fingers.
As much as the magos wanted to bask in the satisfaction of how his unorthodox use of 'superior materials' in the arm's construction more than justified their use, Magos Juris' restrictions be damned, he still had work to do even if he hardly wanted to continue. Looking down at the guardsman as he writhed in pain on the floor, bleeding from at least one wound inflicted upon him after falling awkwardly on one of the talons attached to the tech priest's insectoid 'feet', something a little bit of haemocoagulant could easily fix, he decided that he likely had already accomplished the blunt force trauma test and could spare his assistant at least a little more pain as he picked the Korpsman up and resumed his inspection of the guardsman's prosthetic arm.
Next was the compression test, an examination that acquired the same agonized screaming from before as an audible crack came from the small piece of metal attaching the prosthetic to the rest of the guardsman's body. Feeling he could kill two heretics with one lasbolt, Bluey then decided to perform the temperature resistance test on the broken piece using a plasma pistol broken beyond repair which served as a surprisingly effective, if equally unstable, blow torch to weld it back into a functioning state while also seeing if the guardsman could feel heat. WSTN let out a small whimper, nothing nearly like what the magos had been expecting but a clear sign that he at least felt something. While Bluey could have seen that as a reason to make a few modifications to the newly installed sensors in the guardsman's bionic arm, he didn't see any benefits to knowing how painful the difference between the heat of one thousand Kelvin and one hundred thousand Kelvin felt since both would melt the flesh off of his bones long before the augmetic failed. His decision had nothing to do with any sympathy or compassion felt towards his assistant, nor was there anything Commissar Alexa could do to make him admit to such an emotionally charged decision.
With the guardsman's arm repaired and his assistant still conscious, he then proceeded to see if WSTN could feel pain from bladed weapons and possibly distinguish a difference between stabbing, slicing, and cleaving blows. Each test was performed with the mechanical limbs attached to his tail, and although the guardsman made it very clear that he felt everything the tech priest did to him, it didn't appear as if the Korpsman could distinguish between the different kinds of attacks he was subjected to when questioned. Bluey was largely unsure if this was because of some fault in the sensors or the guardsman being too overwhelmed by pain to tell the difference between what form of torture was being inflicted upon him, but ultimately decided it didn't matter. The Commissar said she wanted the private to feel pain in his recently attached prosthetics, not what kind.
Sure, it was a technicality, but those were what he dealt with on a regular basis. The Commissar's poor phrasing was the reason why he hadn't made any modifications to the guardsman's left foot, eye, or chest cavity, after all. It was probably why she chose her words so carefully when handing out the guardsman's punishment.
With the tests concluded without any errors worth correcting, Bluey gently let go of WSTN and watched the guardsman collapse to the ground without making even a token attempt to stop himself from falling. A subsequent inspection of the guardsman's body led the magos to discover that he had not passed out as the tech priest initially suspected, but was simply in too much pain to move or even stand up on his own. Seeing this and not wanting to accidentally trip over his assistant, the magos used his two humanoid arms to lift the guardsman up and carry him over to the small area the private had sequestered for himself to sleep at instead of making the long march to the barracks he was supposed to sleep in.
{\"REST,_WINSTON\";} The tech priest told his assistant as he injected the private with a syringe containing a mixture of sedatives and haemocoagulant to stop the guardsman's bleeding or from worsening his wounds until the pain passed,
{\"YOU_HAVE_MORE_THAN_EARNED_IT;
I_WILL_CALL_FOR_YOU_ONCE_I_REQUIRE_YOUR_ASSISTANCE\";}
The tech priest looked around for a servitor and, upon spotting one that was perfect for acting as a messenger, a ratling that had been sent to him after being accused of murder and being supplied alcohol despite being banned from such drinks for previous disciplinary infractions, tasked it with delivering a status update about the private's condition to the Commissar. He knew she found servitors she had met before their 'repurposing' to be unnerving and figured sending one to her to make his report on the private was a just punishment for making him harm the poor lad. It was also incredibly petty and far beneath what behavior was expected from a magos of his standing, but Bluey couldn't find it in himself to care. Besides, the Commissar wouldn't dare do anything about it in fear of 'accidentally' being sent an apology from another face she used to know like the last time she brought thought to complain about his antics.
As Private WSTN laid on the floor watching the familiar looking servitor scamper off with the same dexterity ratlings were famous for, even after being converted into a hollow husk of its former self, he continued to watch Bluey work as the pain coursing through his body started to fade. He tried to resist against the growing darkness slowly falling upon him, but was powerless to fight against it until the world around him faded into a numb, shadowy blur.
Winston did not jolt awake when the sound of a door opening stirred him from his slumber, nor did he have the heart to reach for his weapon and fire upon whoever was entering his team's dorm room before seeing who it was. It was the little leader of Team RWBY who emerged through the doorway, having apparently finished her business in the library with several books in tow. Ruby gave a careful glance around the room and, noticing her true teammates were asleep but failing to notice the guardsman watching her from behind the lenses of his gas mask as he lay unmoving with his back against the wall, tiptoed to the drawer beside him and slipped the books inside one of the compartments. The Korpsman said nothing as he watched her and gave no indication he was awake, still frozen in place as he tried to clutch onto the memories of one of the many people he had lost while still keeping a watchful eye on the young girl in front of him.
His gaze never left her as she prepared for bed, not when she locked the door to their room, not when she undressed before him and put on her pajamas, and not as she used her semblance to fly into her bed in a flurry of flower petals. Aside from noticing the complete lack of scars on his leader's body and appreciating that her nightwear left little skin exposed, practically begging to be torn apart by any potential enemies lurking nearby, Winston did nothing more than watch over his leader until her breathing started to soften as she finally fell asleep. There was a tense moment before then when the young girl dropped one of her covers over him for some inexplicable reason, but aside from what was most likely a misguided attempt to afford him an unnecessary luxury, nothing of note stopped his leader from getting the rest she deserved.
It was only when the guardsman was confident there would be no prying eyes able to study him did he reach down into his trench coat and retrieve the cogwheel pendant he wore around his neck. With a heavy heart, he held it against his chest and tried his best to remain silent as he reminisced about the fallen magos. He strained to remember the last words he spoke to the tech priest, but couldn't do anything more than recall the ravaged corpse and scattered mechadendrites his killers had left behind.
He had no desire to fall back asleep by the time he finally pushed that terrible image out of his head, not if it meant he would see yet another ghost of his past come back to haunt him. All he wanted to do was stay where he was and wait for the Emperor to deliver the fate he knew he deserved.
But what he wanted didn't matter.
Special thanks to Doc43Souls and Tireless Traveler for beta reading this chapter!
Author's Corner:
Memento Mori
Rough Translation (from Latin): "Remember you [have to] die."
Typically represented in the form of bones, an hourglass, coffin, or wilting flowers, a memento mori is meant to remind those who view them of the inevitability of death, regardless of whose death it may be.
Comments:
Toaster Boy: (Musings on the direction I am taking this fic)
Thanks for the praise. I honestly feel as if I am not being as descriptive as I should in some areas while explaining some things far, far too much… or rather too soon more than anything. Also, you seem to have a knack for unintentionally guessing where the story will go since this was technically a flashback chapter. Am I that predictable or is my foreshadowing that good?
Maglad: (On Winston's reaction to food and good items for him to stock up on)
The reason I didn't have Winston think much about the food is because he found the idea that there was so much of it to be too overwhelming, alongside how he didn't recognize anything but the granola bars. The sight of so much food in one place broke him for a moment.
As for necessary supplies any diligent guardsman should stock up on, I already intend to make that a chapter of its own. Maybe two depending on whether or not the people tasked with watching over him at the time are able to suggest a few additional places he should go to.
Also, I am absolutely with you on the sock thing. After enduring a couple miserable 12 hour days on campus with wet socks, I will always keep a spare pair in the center console of my car. My family thought I was crazy for the longest time until we got caught in a rain storm while taking a trip to a local marsh. After lording it over them for a two hour car ride home, they now do it too.
longlongmaaan: (On Winston's calorie intake)
To spare you a painstaking search through previous chapters, Winston has previously said he only ate three bars a day when food was plentiful, claiming to be able to survive on two for long periods of time and sometimes even one when supplies were running low. Is it any wonder he is smaller than Ruby?
DonPelayo: (On potential SDC business practices and Team RWBY's view of Winston's morality)
To answer your first question, Jacques Schnee does not appear to be a person who values long term investments over short term gains or the betterment of mankind in the slightest. The man's a short sighted, self-serving bastard and I doubt he would let his company invest in anything that wouldn't turn an immediate profit, regardless of risk and legality. This does happen far too commonly in our world, sadly enough.
As for the inevitable moment Team RWBY learns Winston not only has taken human lives but thinks nothing of it, that will certainly be an interesting conversation.
To everyone who related to or found the ramen packet moment amusing:
I felt like I had to include this joke because, let's be honest here, we all know at least one person that has done exactly this even if we are that very person. This is something we could all imagine a person exceedingly unaware of the concept of cooking their own food would do without a second thought.
That's it for me. Thanks reading and I hope to see you all again soon!
