"Okay, so what's the plan, Ruby?" Blake asked once their team gathered together in the arena.
The little redhead was about to answer, but was quickly cut off by her sister before she could say anything.
"Plan? Come on, it's just a practice match." Yang dismissively told her partner, "It's not like we're doing anything worse than like we did back during our initiation."
"Did you forget that we're going against Pyrrha Nikos? The four time consecutive champion of the Mistral Regional Tournament?" Weiss chastised the brawler.
"Yeah. But hey, compared to that giant Nevermore and Deathstalker, this'll be easy. Right?" Yang laughed as she reminded the team of the last time they worked together to defeat a greater foe.
No one, not even her own sister, could look Yang in the eye as she looked to them for reassurance as her confidence quickly faded.
"Woah, don't tell me you don't think we have a chance against her? Did you forget that Tough Guy almost beat her on his own?" The brawler reminded her teammates, "It's not like she's completely unbeatable."
"Yeah, you're right. It's not like we're fighting against one of the best huntresses-in-training in our lifetime or anything. I'm sure if we all try hard enough, we will only get our arms ripped off like that jerk." Weiss snarked back.
"Yikes. I uhh… think it's still a little too soon to be making jokes about that." Yang nervously replied.
"I don't think that was a joke." Blake said as she glared at the heiress.
Ruby quickly jumped in before her teammates could pounce on Weiss together once again, "H-hey, where is Winston anyways?" She asked as she pointed out the glaring absence of their newest member.
"Ruby, he's missing an arm." Yang stated, "Why do you think he would want to be here with us when he can't even fight?"
"O-oh, right." She nervously chuckled, "I kinda forgot."
"How could you forget something like that!?" Weiss exclaimed.
"He hasn't really let it stop him from doing anything with the rest of us yet, so I thought, maybe…." The little leader let her words linger, feeling too embarrassed to explain why she felt Winston wouldn't let something like a missing limb slow him down from the little time they had spent as a team so far.
"He did try to join us before Glynda stopped him." Blake pointed out, "I heard her tell him to watch the rest of us in the stands."
"Really? I must not have been close enough to hear her say that." Yang muttered in disbelief, "Now that you mention it, I can totally see our Tough Guy trying something like that."
"Ahem, shouldn't we be focusing on something more important?" Weiss said in an attempt to get the others back on topic.
"I hope you're prepared, teams." Glynda called out to Team RWBY and JNPR, "You may start in five…"
"Weiss is right." Ruby said, giving her partner a grateful nod which she accepted with no small amount of smugness. "Yang, Blake, try to-"
"Four…"
"Like I said, sis, relax. We've got this." Yang said as she loosened her shoulders in preparation for the approaching brawl.
"Three…"
"Just follow me and we're guaranteed to win." Weiss confidently announced, "I'll be sure to lead us to victory."
"Two…"
"But… but…" Ruby stammered, trying her best to at least discuss some sort of strategy before facing off against Team JNPR.
"One…"
The little leader's shoulders slumped at seeing how no one seemed to be interested in taking their match seriously. Ruby then looked to Blake, her last hope to have someone on her team work together instead of going off on their own.
"I've got your back if you've got mine?" She asked the quiet huntress, fixing her with a pleading look.
"Sure." Blake replied, unable to say no to the almost teary eyed expresion the girl was giving her.
Ruby gave her teammate a small nod, thankful she at least had one person willing to listen to her.
"Begin!" Goodwitch shouted.
Winston didn't know what to expect from his teammates given how they were all just a bunch of children and not the hardened Guardsmen he was used to working with, nor the desperate untrained civilians fighting for both their lives and home world with everything they could muster.
With that said, what little expectations he did have were soon shattered the moment Goodwitch started their match. He made sure to alter his initially lofty goals he set for both teams quickly as he could tell exactly how the fight would play out just by looking at the way they approached one another. Even so, it hardly made what he witnessed any easier to watch.
The first in a long series of disasters to unfold for Team RWBY came when Weiss and Yang each broke off from the rest of their team to challenge Team JNPR as the enemy team waited to intercept the two girls. It wasn't the boisterous brawler who was the first one to rush head first into the middle of the opposing team much to his surprise, but Weiss thanks to the help of her glyphs increasing her speed. Yang wasn't trailing behind her by much, yet the distance between them was more than enough for Nora and Ren to step in between her and the heiress, leaving the foolhardy brat alone to challenge the best huntress in their class, and her partner.
To her credit, Weiss lasted far longer than the Korpsman thought she would. Even so, she was eliminated not long after making the fatal mistake of leaving her team behind her in order to prove her own superiority over them. At least, that is what Winston presumed was running through the heiress' head before the reality of the situation she willingly entered slapped her in the face in the most literal sense.
The white haired huntress' opening thrust with her rapier was batted aside by Pyrrha's shield in a way not dissimilar to how Winston had deflected her needle thin blade with his prosthetic, showing how little the heiress learned from her last fight against a fellow student. Having overcommitted to her attack, Weiss was left completely open as she stumbled to keep a hold of her weapon without falling on top of it, leaving her at Jaune's mercy as he approached after his partner gave him the perfect opportunity to capitalize on.
Before he had a chance to attack her, his partner quickly intervened by tripping Weiss from behind with the tip of her javelin, sending her crashing to the ground as Jaune scurried out of his partner's way. From there, Pyrrha swiftly smacked the flat head of her weapon against Weiss' forehead with her full might as the heiress tried to recover from her fall, removing enough of the overconfident girl's aura in a single hit and making the aristocrat the first member of Team RWBY to be eliminated.
The Mistralian Champion's takedown of the heiress was swift and, while not nearly as clean as his own two days prior, quick enough to earn the guardsman's approval. The same could not be said for her lack of teamwork, as she went out of her way to prevent her partner from contributing to the lightning fast fight against Weiss.
Given how pathetic Jaune's performance was when Winston beat him into submission with his bare fists, perhaps she was wise to not depend on her teammate after all.
In the short time it took for Pyrrha and Jaune to eliminate Weiss, Nora and Ren were doing their best to keep Yang busy as she tried to help out her teammate. Or at least, that is what Winston presumed she was doing. It was hard to tell, given how quickly Yang's attempts to go around the bubbly and stoic duo's defense devolved into an all out brawl between them.
Amazingly the brawler was holding her own surprisingly well against two opponents, being able to swap between defending against their attacks and launching her own short flurry retaliatory strikes that left the Korpsman mildly impressed with the blonde's performance. Apparently Blake wasn't the only member of Team RWBY with any practical experience in a real fight, if Yang's ability to hold her own was anything to go by.
Admiration quickly turned into concern as Winston noticed Yang's fighting style turn from calculating and defensive to frantic and needlessly reckless with her punches becoming wilder and wilder with every blow she took. The almost manic, bloodthirsty glimmer in the brawler's eyes brought back memories of heretics who had pledged themselves to the Blood God himself, as did his teammate's actions and growing disregard for how much damage her aura was taking. Her increasingly brash attempts to take down her opponents only made it easier for them to control the blonde berserker as she aimlessly lashed out in response to every hit she took, reminding the guardsman once again of his own experiences with the Blood God's barbaric followers.
At first, it seemed as if Nora and Ren might not be enough to hold Yang back once she started to speed up her assault against the duo. Nora had initially tried to match her opponent's ferocity with the same bravery he would expect from one of the Sisters of Battle that her actions and overall fighting style echoed, but she was slowly getting overwhelmed until Ren helped her take control of the situation. Acting as the brains to her equally impressive brawn, the lithe gunman danced around the two girls as they traded hits and took advantage of every opening his partner left him to either fire a few bullets into Yang, or intercept blows for her when she needed a break before diving back into the fray.
The duo's teamwork was nice to see and a far cry from the braindead tactics, or more accurately the lack of tactics and stratagems in general, Winston had seen from his peers so far. It was obvious that the two were more than familiar with taking advantage of each other's strengths and compensating for their respective weaknesses in battle, especially in the few instances when one of them was knocked aside for a moment and the other struggled to keep up with Yang until both of them were able to engage her together again.
Such efficient teamwork was a pleasant change from the failed individual 'heroics' he had observed from the others. Winston could only hope that their reliance was only just that, and not a crippling dependency that could be taken advantage of should one of them fall.
Ruby and Blake weren't idly watching the rest of their team get tossed around by Team JNPR, although there was little the two of them could do to help Weiss as she had already been defeated by the time they reached her. Having been unable to witness them spar with anyone long enough to get a feel for how they fought, Winston watched their actions intently so he knew what to expect of them in the future. He especially wanted to see Ruby do something other than wield her weapon like a malformed axe as he had previously.
To his complete lack of surprise, it was the little leader who was the first one to try to take on Pyrrha. Ruby's massive scythe looked far lighter than its enormous size would suggest with the way she swung it around like a plastic training sword, but Winston quickly brushed such notions aside when he witnessed the blade bury itself halfway through the solid stone floor after the young woman tried and failed to hit Pyrrha with an overhead strike. The Mistralian Champion tried to retaliate against the younger girl as she pulled her weapon free from the ground, but was forced to take a step back and hide behind her shield when Blake provided Ruby with some suppressive fire until her weapon was freed.
Together, with Ruby acting as the vanguard against Pyrrha while Blake tried to take advantage of any opening the champion left her, which were always few and expertly defended against before any damage could be done to her aura, the three of them entered a dance that was not unlike the one the other members of their respective teams were engaged in a short distance away. Unlike the battle between Yang, Nora, and Ren, there was another member present to help even out the numbers which proved to be Team RWBY's undoing.
Jaune, who had been largely forgotten by Ruby and Blake as they focused on the much more immediate threat Pyrrha posed, struggled to get involved in the ongoing fight the three ladies were engaged in as he waited from the sidelines. At first, Winston thought it was cowardice that stayed the blonde's hand and prevented him from intervening. The guardsman was proven delightfully wrong when Jaune, seeing Blake take one step too close to him as she focused on his partner, stepped in to relieve some of the pressure off of her.
Jaune let out a loud warcry as he swung his sword at the black haired huntress that would have been comical if it wasn't so sad to watch. His form was absolutely terrible, he made the baffling decision to try and hit the assassin-like huntress with the flat of his blade rather than the edge, and seemed to struggle to control his own weapon as if he were unused to its weight, making his overall attempt to assault his opponent appear quite pathetic. This was of course ignoring how his almost terrified sounding yell as he approached Blake threw away the element of surprise he had possessed until that point, but if distracting the agile girl had been his end goal, then his actions had more than achieved it.
Blake flung herself out of the way in a panic as Jaune charged at her, leaping farther from the boy than necessary before she focused on him now that he had gained her full attention. To call what followed next a fight would have been generous, as Jaune barely had enough time to raise his shield to protect his face before his opponent swung her blade around his defenses via its ribbon and connected her attack with the side of his head, throwing him off balance as he stumbled from the unexpected blow.
From there, it was a simple matter of beating the boy down until his aura ran low enough for Goodwitch to declare him eliminated. Blake deftly worked her blade around the shield Jaune tried and failed to defend himself with, sometimes choosing to alternate her attacks by converting her weapon into a firearm to catch him off guard, before returning it to its original form to resume hacking away at him. In less than a minute, Jaune had been thoroughly beaten to the ground. Although he still had some aura left before he should have been considered defeated, it appeared as if the headmistress had some mercy on him and declared him unable to continue leaving Blake free to go back to assisting Ruby with Pyrrha.
That is what she would have done if the little leader hadn't been thrown into the quiet huntress at that exact moment, breaking Ruby's aura in the process. Winston hadn't been paying too much attention to his leader as she struggled to stand up to Pyrrha, but given how much she had struggled to keep up with the more experienced girl with Blake's help, he was not surprised to hear that she too had been eliminated thanks to Jaune's attempted martyrdom.
Considering how easily Pyrrha had been evading Ruby's strikes, the massive bulk of the young girl's weapon proving to be more of a hindrance than help in a close quarters fight against the champion's spear and shield, it was only going to be a matter of time until Ruby had been worn down against Pyrrha's unrelenting assault. Given how easily the Mistralian Champion had eliminated two members of Team RWBY on her own, it appeared that Blake would certainly suffer a similar fate.
The quiet huntress appeared to come to the same conclusion as she pushed Ruby off of her and, rather than choose to fight a hopeless battle against the best unaugmented human melee combatant Winston ever had the pleasure to witness in action, chose to flee to where her partner was in order to try and salvage the situation with Yang's help. Pyrrha, immediately seeing what her opponent was planning, flung her shield at Blake and hit her directly in the back after managing to curve her shield mid-flight.
If it hadn't been for his own match against the redheaded huntress, Winston would have been impressed with her feat. Knowing that she possessed some sort of Semblance that was capable of moving metal objects from a distance, her act was far less impressive but no less effective because of it.
Even though Pyrrha landed a direct hit on Blake's back, the nimble huntress did not go down with the impressive force of the blow. Instead, what appeared to be a statue of Blake immediately took the girl's place the instant the shield connected and absorbed the blow for her while the huntress herself ran away from her lifelike decoy. As clever as the trick was, it came with the unintended side effect of showering the fleeing girl in a blast of stone shrapnel as the statue exploded out towards its maker when struck while the shield ricocheted back to its owner as she pursued her opponent. Or perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that her shield had been guided back into her waiting hands to not waste any time collecting it off of the ground before approaching her downed opponent.
The Mistralian Champion would have finished her final challenger off if it hadn't been for Ren noticing what Blake had been up to before she could assist Yang. The young man was apparently feeling more merciful than Pyrrha or any of the other cadets so far, choosing to press the bladed ends of his twin autopistols against her neck to force her surrender, instead of dumping however many shots it took until Goodwitch came to her rescue in a similar manner to Jaune.
Winston was disappointed to see that Blake took the coward's way out and surrendered rather than try to make a valiant last stand by punishing her opponents for showing her mercy. He certainly would have attempted to if he had a Semblance that allowed him to swap places with a decoy of himself, but did not fault her for her choice. She was only a juve, and a civilian at that.
With Blake's elimination, Yang was the final member of Team RWBY still standing. Unlike her partner, the blonde brawler did not go down without a fight. She put up a valiant effort, yet it was still not enough to take out even a single member of Team JNPR. If anything, her reckless refusal to take a more cautious approach to dealing with her opponents led to her undoing more so than any singular action the opposing team took. Having already fallen into a steady rhythm before Pyrrha's arrival, Nora and Ren took turns baiting Yang's attention between each other while the other took advantage of every moment their enemy chose to lash out in retaliation against their combined assault.
Pyrrha struggled to find her own place within the steady dance going on between the original three combatants, narrowly avoiding tripping up her own teammates in her attempts to dive in towards Yang, but did her best to adjust once it was clear she wouldn't be able to participate in the fight without matching her movements with theirs. Soon enough her patience was rewarded when the others were able to provide her the opportunity to drive a powerful blow with the butt of her spear into the brawler's chest that left her on her knees gasping for air and her aura wavering but not quite broken, unlike Ruby's, finally putting an end to the fight between the two best teams amongst the first years.
"That's enough." Goodwitch declared, her words mirroring Winston's own thoughts on the battle he watched his own team participate in without him.
Had the fight carried on any longer, he wouldn't have been able to watch. Everything he had just witnessed defied all of the common sense he had learned back on Krieg during boot camp, although it did give him a deeper understanding of why the so-called 'best of the best' amongst huntsmen-in-training lacked many of the basic skills the cadets of his own home planet had learned before they had seen their tenth ascension day.
When any mistake in a fight, even in practice matches or training exercises, could easily result in death then much more care needed to be taken to avoid meeting an ignoble end light years away from the nearest warzone. Unsurprisingly, most cadets who endured such training tended to be well acquainted with the basics by the time they were assigned to a regiment. As for those that didn't…
Manpower was but one of the many renewable resources the Imperium had a near infinite supply of. A few million souls sacrificed in the name of ensuring the Death Korps contained only the most well trained soldiers Krieg had to offer was of no consequence. If anything, some of his fellow Korpsmen would have demanded that number be higher to ensure they truly were sending their best against the worst of the Imperium's foes.
"Team JNPR is the winner and with that, class is now over. You are all dismissed." The Headmistress told her students, watching over them as they dispersed towards the exits.
Winston, rather than attempt to rush towards the weapons workshop and make yet another attempt to repair his lasgun which would likely prove to be fruitless, or spend the rest of the day familiarizing himself with Beacon's grounds while there was still some daylight remaining, pulled his first-aid kit out of his kitbag and inspected its contents.
Satisfied that there was more than enough supplies inside to go between every member of his team and Jaune, he closed it back up and hung it from the side of his kitbag before marching down to where his team and Team JNPR were helping each other up after their match. The guardsman paused as he was about to pass by Goodwitch and fixed her with a pointed look from behind the safety of his mask before he proceeded any further.
"May I go down into the arena to be with my team now, ma'am?" He stiffly asked her, "Or do I need to get Headmaster Ozpin's approval for that too?"
The headmistress cocked an eyebrow at his request, unsure of whether he was genuinely asking for her permission or making fun of her in the most blatant way possible. His monotonous tone, complemented by the overly polite attitude she had come to expect from him, made it impossible to tell. She decided to be generous and give him the benefit this time.
"Yes, you may, Mr Voytoski." She curtly replied as she tried not to give off any hint of her annoyance, "Be sure to take better care of yourself so I won't need to hold you back again next time."
"Understood, Headmistress Goodwitch." He saluted as he dismissed himself from her presence.
Rather than take the stairs down to where his companions were slowly collecting themselves after their battle, the guardsman leapt from the edge of the seating area down into the arena, landing hard on his feet. Winston stumbled slightly after landing, but managed to keep himself upright and walk off the three meter drop onto solid cement without the assistance of his aura as if it were nothing. Sure, he did cough up a mouthful of blood and oil he was able to mostly swallow back down and his joints were a little sore afterwards, but he had more important things to worry about.
The exasperated look Glynda wore after watching him jump wasn't one of them, for now at least.
"Are you hurt, Cadet Long?" The Korpsman asked Yang as he approached her first with his first-aid kit in hand.
"Uhh… no, I'm good." Yang said after briefly being caught off guard by her teammate's unexpected question.
The guardsman remained silent as he watched her bend over and pick up Blake off of the ground from where she had still been laying, catching her breath.
"I find that hard to believe." He dryly replied, giving the quiet huntress a helping hand too, much to her surprise.
He didn't bother asking the bookish huntress if she had suffered any harm, seeing as she had conceded instead of losing through more conventional and respectable means. No point on wasting valuable resources on someone who clearly didn't need them.
"Well, you better believe it, Tough Guy. Let me be the first to tell you that I can give as good as I get, in case you couldn't tell from watching my match." The blonde bragged as they made their way over to Weiss.
"You were beaten with a hammer and shot at for over three minutes." Winston countered as he offered a hand to help the heiress up from where she was sitting against the arena wall.
"Are you hurt, Cadet Schnee?" He asked the sulking huntress as she fixed him with a venomous glare, taking his genuine question as yet another slight against her.
"Oh don't you dare give me any of that." Weiss snapped as she swatted the guardsman's hand away.
She narrowly missed as the Korpsman pulled his hand back and placed it on his waist where his laspistol was holstered underneath his trench coat, barely stopping himself from following through on his combat honed instincts in response to the Schnee girl's hostility.
"Geeze, take it easy, Snow Angel. We're only trying to help." Yang chastised the heiress as she staggered back to her feet, still suffering from the aftereffects of her reckless charge against Team JNPR.
"If you wanted to help me, then you should have done it at the start of our match instead of watching me get ganged up on!" She shouted at her teammates.
"We did try to help you out." Blake spoke up, "We also weren't the one who ran in without a plan and expected everyone else to do whatever we wanted."
"Yeah, there wasn't much we could do to help you from that mess you got yourself into." The brawler said as they made their way over to collect the last member of their team.
"Do you really expect me to believe that? There was obviously something you could have done to help!" Weiss angrily fired back.
"If it's that obvious, why don't you tell us then?" Yang said, smirking as she waited for the heiress' answer.
Weiss sputtered a bit at the unexpected turn, but quickly regained her composure. "I don't have to do anything to prove myself." She feebly replied.
"Well, instead of arguing about what we could have done, why don't we ask someone who was watching the whole fight go down what they thought about your performance, Ice Queen." The blonde said as she and the others looked to see what Winston had to say about their little argument.
"Only a fool can save themself from their own stupidity." Winston droned, reciting a litany he felt applied to Weiss all too well.
"Oh, you little…"
Whatever insult Weiss was going to throw at the guardsman was drowned out by the snorting laughter of Yang, who hadn't expected her straightlaced teammate to crack a joke at the heiress' expense, not that he expected to either. Not even Blake, despite her attempt to remain as aloof as usual, was able to keep herself from smiling at the way Weiss' face reddened in a mixture of anger and embarrassment.
"Hey, what're you laughing at?" Ruby said as she looked up at her team, finishing the quick inspection she was making over her much beloved Crescent Rose.
"Nothing important." Blake answered, earning another chuckle from the brawler.
"Ouch. That's a little rude." She teased as she glanced over at Weiss.
"Real mature, you two." She huffed as she turned away to storm away from her team once more, "I'm not going to put up with being treated like this by my own team."
"Bloody nobles." Winston muttered to himself as he watched her leave the arena alongside the rest of his team.
"Hey Rubes, need a hand with your baby?" Yang offered.
"No, I've been working on building up my strength to help me carry her without my aura lately." The little leader said as she struggled to lift up her weapon while rising to her feet.
"Are you hurt, Commander Rose?" Winston asked her, carefully looking at the few ruffled areas of her clothes for signs of any bruising.
"Nope. Thankfully, my aura only broke when I crashed into Blake." The little leader said, "Sorry about that, by the way."
"You're good." Blake told her.
"Say, is there a reason you're trying to check up on us?" Yang asked, finally asking the question that had been bothering her for a while now.
"It's not that we don't appreciate it, but we kinda have our aura to protect us…" She said, falling quiet as she remembered what Winston admitted earlier in one of Port's classes, "...and you're not used to watching people fight using aura yet, are you?"
"No, I'm not." The guardsman admitted. "Should I assume injuries are not something you need to worry about with your aura active?"
"Not if you're experienced using it." Ruby informed him.
"Is that why you brought a first-aid kit with you?" Blake questioned, looking a little pale as she saw just how prominently the red and white bag stood out from the Korpsman's otherwise dull appearance.
"Yes, Cadet Belladonna." He told her, "It wouldn't be the first time I've needed to tend to an injured partner's wounds."
"You know some first aid?" The bookish girl asked him, unable to hide her look of surprise from him.
"Cool, where did you learn how to do that?" Yang asked, jumping into the conversation.
"I learned most of what I know back on Krieg." He shortly answered.
"Ooh, were you taught by a doctor?" Ruby chimed in, curious to learn more about her new teammates abilities, even if it wasn't something she would have preferred like how his weapons worked.
"No, I was mostly self-taught." He droned dispassionately, "I gained a lot of experience that way before I was able to be declared competent enough to treat others. There were a few tricks I learned from my Quartermaster though."
"Huh, I never would have guessed you would know that sort of thing." Yang commented, "Anyways, I'm going back to our dorms because I'm beat."
"I think I'll join you. There's still a few notes I want to study before Oobleck's class tomorrow." Blake said as she left the arena alongside her partner.
"Well, I guess I'll go to the weapons workshop to clean up my baby a little bit before going to the library tonight." Ruby said as she watched the duo disappear when they rounded a corner.
She then turned to Winston and asked him, "Do you have any plans or homework you need some help with?"
"No, Commander Rose." He told her, "But I would like to try working on my lasgun again tonight."
"Ooh, that's perfect! I wanted a little bit of company while I was back there and I don't really have that many people I talk to outside of my team yet." The young girl said excitedly.
Ruby tried to grab his arm to drag him off to the workshop with her, but Winston quickly pulled himself away from her during her attempt.
"Don't touch me." He coldly told her.
"Oh, uhhh… heh heh, sorry." The little leader sheepishly apologized, "Well, I'm ready to go when you are."
"I'll need a moment first, Commander Rose." He said as he turned to face Team JNPR while they took a moment to celebrate their victory after collecting themselves, "Feel free to go on without me."
"Hey, take your time. I can wait." She told him, happy to have someone to keep her company while she worked on her weapon since it could get a little lonely without anyone to talk to in the workshop.
Not wanting to keep his leader waiting for long, Winston quickly jogged over to where Team JNPR were enjoying the aftermath of their victory and called out to one of their members in particular..
"Whiteshield, are you hurt?" He asked, his quiet voice traveling farther and clearer than one would expect it to from his distance.
The four members of Team JNPR looked around before their eyes settled on Jaune, with the boy in question being the last to come to the conclusion that he was who Winston was trying to address with that title. He was the only one with a shield, even if it wasn't entirely white.
"I'm okay. Just a little sore." He called out to the guardsman.
Winston chose to take the boy's words at face value, not wanting to keep his leader waiting for him any longer. The Korpsman gave her a wordless nod and then they were both off to the workshop to see what maintenance they needed to perform on their respective weapons.
Ruby didn't quite know what to expect from her new teammate when she invited him to join her in the weapons workshop. In fact, she was a little shocked he accepted her offer in the first place. So far, he hadn't really given her the impression that he was much of a 'people person', kinda like her uncle in a way. Guess that showed you couldn't judge a person just by looks, no matter how unnerving they might be.
Over the course of an hour that they spent working on their respective weapons, neither Ruby nor Winston said a word to one another and she was mostly okay with it. She had her repairs and other inspections she needed to perform and he had his own to make. Judging by how often he was muttering to himself, and the small trace of venom behind every word even if they were ones she never heard before, she suspected they were not going as well as hers.
She didn't know what a 'karker' was, but considering how he only ever referred to his weapon after knocking it loose from the clamps he used to hold it in place, she assumed it couldn't be anything good. It was hard to say if it was a curse word or something she needed to ask him to stop saying, and she felt it might be best to talk to him about it once he managed to make some progress on his weapon when he was in a better mood to hear her out.
It wasn't that she was afraid of him or anything, even if he looked a little scary wearing his mask all of the time. Having made her own weapon by herself, with only the smallest bit of help from her uncle, she knew exactly how annoying it could be to run into problems when working on your gear and felt as if a chat about Winston's choice of language wouldn't help things.
As it stood though, she doubted she would have her chance to talk to him about it any time soon. In the hour it took for her to get her weapon back into pristine condition after a few days of heavy use, Ruby didn't notice Winston make any meaningful changes to his rifle or the wiring within like she had expected him to. While it was true that she hardly knew anything about his gun, something she really wanted to change considering it was a freaking gun that fired lasers, he had shown her enough on his first day at Beacon to know things were not going as well as they should just by looking at his weapon. Listening to him constantly muttering under his breath as he struggled to even keep a grip on it with his one arm only made his frustration that much more obvious.
Which is exactly why she couldn't just stand by and watch him any longer.
"Hey, Winston." She said as she eased up next to him, careful not to get close enough to make him uncomfortable, "Do you want any help-"
"No, Commander Rose." Winston declined before she could even finish asking him what she might be able to assist him with.
"Oh." She mumbled before quickly returning to her more cheerful tone, "Well, I'm going to go to the library before heading back to our dorm room for the night if you need me for anything."
"Understood." He monotonously replied.
Ruby didn't feel like wasting time saying her goodbyes, figuring that the guardsman had better things to do, something proven almost immediately. He had barely finished responding to her when the internal components of his lasgun started to emit a concerning amount of smoke before he ripped out its wiring before it suffered anything more serious than a few shorted wires. Waiting a moment to make sure he was okay, she left her teammate on his own as she went to complete the last of her unfinished business for the day.
Winston was okay with being left alone for once. Even as he packed up his weapon believing it would be best to not risk accidentally overloading it again tonight, he was okay with turning down his leader's assistance. She was his leader, and as such, he was the one meant to be helping her with these kinds of matters. Asking for and accepting for her help, or from any of the other juves on his team for that matter, would have been unthinkable.
He was not that desperate to have his precious lasgun back in working condition.
Not yet.
Special thanks to Doc43Souls & Tireless Traveler for beta reading this chapter!
Author's Corner:
After reading a few of the comments various guests and others have left behind, I feel as if I should address this story's current pacing. Credit where credit is due and criticism where criticism is due, I'll fully admit that the present pacing is nowhere close to where I want it to be and it shows. Failing to hit my initial goal of releasing two chapters every month certainly isn't helping things. With that said, I will have to contest the point about the previous chapter being filler as some have suggested. I am planning to set up A LOT of future events in these initial chapters so I have plenty of material to work with later and don't need to pull a new plot out of my ass every volume. Until things start falling into place and the building avalanche of future plot lines finally falls, take a seat back and relax while enjoying the slower moments of this Hurt/Comfort/Friendship fic for what it is worth.
Comments:
Longlongmaaan: Honestly it's kind of baffling how much information Winston says on accident.
Winston, being a private and from the Death Korps no less, isn't exactly familiar with OPSEC or knowing things that need to be kept to himself in general. He's a soldier who specializes in siege warfare and doing exactly what he is told, not nuance or secrets.
A random "Guest": I don't think Winston will have that great of a problem with Blake being a faunus, felinids are a thing after all. The problem would be that she has hidden her true nature...
I don't think Blake hiding her race, or being a faunus in general, would be something Winston would have a problem with. Her past relationship with a certain organization is a whole different story…
"james": a good chapter but one thing caught my attention this is 40k the imperial truth (no gods) is heresy for anyone from 40k did you get cult-truth mixed up?
Frak. I've been under the impression that the "Imperial Truth" had been twisted, like many things that have changed since the Emperor's ascension, into the exact opposite of what was meant to be for years. Thanks for pointing out that little blunder on my part. It has been corrected.
holandia1103: So in a past chapter when the doc was scanning Winston with his semblance he described his face like one only a mother could love…
I too am not a fan of how some 'horribly disfiguring injuries' are typically shown to have no effect on a character's beauty, if said scars don't make them somehow more attractive. With that said, I can't think of any characters who look handsome after admitting to being blown up by a landmine.
A guest called "Red Scorpion": (On Winston's Skills and other parts of the story so far)
It takes a lot to live longer than a single day in the Imperial Guard, even more so to outlive the rest of your regiment. The usual life expectancy is 15 hours on the front line, if I'm not mistaken.
Good reflexes, expert marksmanship and melee capabilities, as well as a keen eye are all necessary to survive on the front lines of a battle in the W40K universe. Being able to shrug off a severed arm isn't mandatory, but it certainly doesn't hurt either.
And don't worry, the lost limb will be reattached soon enough.
Anomim: At least we know the names of individuals with whom the guardsman was familiar. They are Commissar Alexa, Tech-Priest Magos Bluey, and Quartermaster Lorren (I can assume that his serial number will be similar to "LRRN-483?-QR"). My guess is that the next chapter of Memento Mori will be related to the other two, or maybe even the Astartes.
That's a good guess you made there, both towards my plans for future Memento Mori chapters and what my version of a Korpsman's serial number is meant to represent. Only time will tell how right you are about both.
Well, that's it for me. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all again in the future.
