Night's terrors gave way to day's tiredness. Memories of the old Russian Steppes and the Mountains of Dagestan still flew around in his head after he had woken up. The sights of blasted BTRs, the dead piled high, the drone of a helicopter rotor as a Hind bearing the Republic's emblems flew overhead. The roar of gunfire and the screams of the dead, the blood-soaked mountain faces. His dead brothers and sisters-in-arms. He had barely slept. Did a checkup of his kit and found his old GoPro, too. Spent some time editing that collage... He had taken the SD Card with him. Just in case someone pestered him about his past...
"Farewell, o' mountains... You've witnessed who we were in your lands. Let us not be judged one-sidedly, by a dirty clergyman..." He sang quietly to himself as he arranged his combat uniform. He had elected to leave his LMG, vest and helmet inside, leaving the place with only his 9mm pistol strapped to his thigh in its holster. He also wore his sunglasses, shielding both them from the glare of a sun still high in the sky and the locals from the sight of a tired young man.
He'd also plucked up his khaki beanie from his backpack, hiding the greying hairs. He scratched his chin and felt the cloth part of the gloves hitch on short hairs, then sighed to himself. Of course, he'd get some of the fuzz growing back. He'd half-hoped the gas had done it in. Shit was an annoyance to shave continuously. He might as well have let it grow. His unit was still in Russia, not here with him, so it meant no grooming standard.
Pulling out his Scroll, he activated the local Beacon map to guide himself to the mess hall. He might've been tired as shit, but he still needed to eat something. Marching into the place as breakfast was still being served, the man soon realized he'd caught the eyes of several students, some of which stared at him, surprised and a little terrified. The other students present were team RWBY themselves, all of whom smiled as soon as they recognized him. Well, save for Weiss. She seemed worried, more than anything.
Ruby waved him over, still smiling, but he showed her to wait, walking up to the line to grab a bite to eat. A bulky kid with ginger hair and blue eyes stared down at him, seemingly stupefied. He tilted his head and said, "Hey, gramps, I don't think they let bums in here to eat," as his friends, a bunch of punks, chuckled behind him. Vic ignored them, simply piling his plate with protein-rich stuff, anything he could really get out of a school breakfast. The boy tried to annoy him again, "Hey! I'm talking to ya!"
"I don't care..." Vic replied as he picked up his tray. A hand landed on his chest, before crumpling up into a fist and pushing into him, spinning him around to face... The retard. Vic took his sunglasses off as the asshole started barking at him. He looked down at the boy's hand, then hummed. With one hit to the arm, he dislocated the shoulder with a gross pop, then drew his pistol and put it underneath the boy's chin, cold steel and polymer stunning the boy in pain and causing him to yelp like a little girl. Victor glared at him, clicked his tongue, then said, "I said I don't care, buddy. I just wanna fucking eat in peace and I already have a short enough fuse without assholes like you around trying to make it shorter."
He clicked the safety of the pistol back to on, holstered it and said, "You can reset your elbow. I didn't break it..." as he carried his food tray over toward the shocked members of team RWBY, past several students that all seemed surprised. Yang grinned as she watched him sit down, while the team sat opposite them all gazed upon the soldier with a little awe in their eyes. Especially the ginger with blue eyes.
"You just spooked Cardin Winchester," Yang chuckled, "Not a lot of people can do that..."
"School bully, I assume..." He murmured as he pulled apart the plastic wrap around his fork and knife. Yang nodded, to which he stated, "Don't care for the type. They gotta learn there's bigger fish in the water than them. Though, I do expect Ozpin to drag my ass back over to his or Goodwitch's office because I just dislocated a kid's arm.." and he started eating.
Ruby hummed, "I mean, yeah, probably..."
"Very likely," Weiss commented, "Need I remind you there's some rules in this place?"
"I'm local security now," He stated, which got several jaws to drop across the table. Chewing on a piece of steak, the man spoke, "So I may be even worse off for misallocated use of force than a random kid putting the hurt on tards like him..." and continued eating, eyes locked on his plate. All four girls could see the fact that he wasn't really all there, probably.
If one paid enough attention, anyway, they could tell Victor was still stuck in his own thoughts, of home, of friends long lost and of the war he'd fought in. The young man's mind kept replaying images of the past in front of his eyes as he ate. Noticeable was a second set of dog tags hanging out of his pocket. Yang elbowed him, which took him out of his spiral, before she pointed down and said, "Uh, dude. Tags?"
He looked down and hummed, then stuffed them back in his pocket and said, "Thanks..." as he continued eating.
"No prob," Yang gave a thumbs up, "So! I know we just met and this is like... The second day we're around each-other, but I gotta ask ya, man. What even got you into the state you're in? You look like Atlas's soldiers if they actually decided to follow the camo idea that a Colonel had put down ages ago..." And she looked back at the surprised Weiss. Yang shrugged, "Ruby basically shoved the magazine in my face. Said she wanted a uniform like it."
"Of course..." Weiss sighed, then chuckled. She looked at Vic as he still ate, focused on his plate, before noting, "How about we first complete introductions before you interrogate him, Yang... I know you already know our names, corporal, but not our full names. Weiss Schnee's mine. A pleasure to meet you, as we said. We hope you'll find Beacon a fitting place to rest at."
"Yang Xiao-Long. How's it... Yangin'?" The girl greeted with a smirk and a mock salute, which garnered a snort out of the boy. He covered his mouth... While Yang felt her heart flutter for a moment. Did he actually just laugh? Yang's smirk actually turned into a smile as she stared at the boy, who was merely rubbing his eyes at this point and waiting for the others to continue.
"Ruby Rose! I'm Yang's half-sis." Ruby, of course, remained a warm beacon of light. Probably trying to ignore that little pun.
"Blake Belladonna. Hello, corporal Toma." Blake acted as mysterious as ever, also ignoring Yang's pun.
"And these are our friends in front of us," Yang smirked, motioning to the four ahead, "Team JNPR. Guys, this is Victor, or Vic."
"The stray they picked up," The Romanian half-joked, though with the stone-cold face he wore, you couldn't really tell. Yang let out a short chuckle, then quietened down.
"Hey. Jaune Arc's the name. I'm the team leader... I guess..." The blonde sat right in front of Vic, a young man with a clear puppy heart, waved, smiling. Vic nodded in greeting, offering him a salute, before turning to the others. There was the average ginger, an Asian-looking guy with a ponytail and a pink strand of hair and a beauty of a redhead with emerald eyes and the features of a Greek Amazon from the tales of old.
The Ginger greeted, "Yo! I'm Nora Valkyrie! Nice to meet'cha, Vic! It true that you were barfing your guts out when they found ya?" before the Asian boy next to her elbowed her gently in the shoulder, while Vic had a moment of pause. Sure, the team must've told'em how they found him. And it wasn't exactly a fucking secret anyway, the guy did die from a gas attack. He gave Nora a nod and she smirked, "You good?"
"Fine," He nodded, then turned to the Asian.
"Hello, Corporal. I'm Lie Ren. Feel free to call me Ren..." He greeted in the calmest tone possible. Nora pounced on him and wrapped her arms around his neck, which garnered a smile out of the boy. Vic forced down a frown, keeping his face impassive at the sight of a little lovey-dovey action like that. He averted his gaze and looked to the last girl.
She offered a friendly smile and said, "My name is Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos. A pleasure, corporal Toma."
"Good to meet you, everyone," He nodded, then sighed and turned back to his food. He still felt the eyes of the four of team RWBY locked on him. Of course, they'd want to know. He sighed and finished up his food quickly, before standing up and stating, "I'm done. Xiao-Long, open your hand..." as he pulled the SD Card out of his pocket. Yang opened her palm, slightly confused, before he dropped it in her hand and said, "I tested if it works with your computers and it does... Luckily. Watch the footage if you really want to know the fuck I went through and don't ask any more about it. Best that you know ahead of time, though... It's fucked... Not your average 'trip' out to kill monsters..."
"Oh. Thanks," Yang started, "Ya gonna watch it wi-" She paused as she saw him leave. Frowning, she looked at the small plastic item in her hand, then murmured to herself, "Jesus, dude, is it that bad?" as she looked over to team JNPR and her own. She hummed, then smirked and asked, "Y'all wanna tag along and watch it with us, too? Could be pretty cool!"
"Eh, I dunno," Jaune shrugged, "We still have some stuff to attend to. Training and the likes..." And he looked to Pyrrha. Yang's grin grew and she nodded in understanding, before standing up. She waved goodbye to team JNPR, then dragged her team along, out of the place. Sure, she'd made sure they'd finished eating first, but she still chose to drag'em along.
"Yang, settle down," Weiss started, "Are you really that interested in seeing it?"
"Hey, he gave it to us to make us shut up. Do you really wanna start pestering him about it, or do you just want visible, tangible answers to every little question we got when we first met him? Plus, it's just a video. How bad can it be?" Yang chuckled, lifting the SD Card between her index and middle fingers, smiling. "He wants us to see the stuff, after all."
"That's what I'm concerned by. A man doesn't turn into that kind of tired husk from something simple, Yang... And if he has footage to back up his state?" Weiss explained as they walked toward their dorm, "It cannot be anything that we can handle, at least not as we are currently. There must be something in there, something that turned him into what he is..."
"He seems like a normal guy with depression, honestly," Yang noted, a bit stunned by the Heiress's little outburst.
"You don't get grey hair from depression alone, Yang," Blake replied, crossing her arms to her chest, "You get it due to either old age, or incredible amounts of stress being put on your body and mind..." and checking for Yang's reaction as they walked. Ruby seemed a bit more on the fence for now, at least, with even Yang seemingly hesitating for a picosecond... Before her smirk returned.
"Might as well know... We could potentially help the guy," She offered, "Least I could do for someone who actually laughed at one of my puns."
Weiss rolled her eyes, "One of the stupidest reasons to want to help someone and she finds it... Let's go..." and led the way to their dorm. Once back inside the room on the seventh floor of Beacon, Weiss set up the holo-vision device while Yang looked over the connection ports to find a spot to slot it in. Once she did and Weiss had set the device up, turning it on, they slid the card into the slot and sat themselves down as the video started to play, Yang still wearing her grin.
... A title appeared...
WAR MEMOIRS:PEACEKEEPING OP 'UNRUS'
Edited by:Vic
"A memory of the lads and ladies I served with, and of the thrashing Death of Russia, the Old Bitch. Godspeed..."
The image switched from the title screen to the sight of an advancing patrol of soldiers. Around them, wide fields and small hills covered by grass and, in front and behind, a battered dirt road down which a convoy rolled. Armored vehicles of various types, bearing the black letters 'UN' on the side, but keeping their camouflage, proceeded between two lines, hundreds of soldiers long on each flank. On the vehicles rode infantry. Some of the vehicles were much more heavily armored than the others, too, tinted green.
In front of the cameraman, Victor himself, lay some of his boys, advancing in a staggered column. A Romanian rifleman turned back toward Victor and spoke to him in a language the girls couldn't understand. "Hei, Victore. Cum o duci, omule? Te văd cam distras în momentul de față..." Although, thankfully, there were subtitles down below. (Hey, Victor! How're ya doing, man? You look a little distracted right now...)
"I'm fine, Ștefan," Victor replied absentmindedly, the translation running still, "Can't believe this shit's happening, is all... It's been fucking centuries since this shithole country has existed. Now? Now, of all times, it decides to double down on collapsing? Don't get me fucking wrong, I'm glad it is, it's just... Christ almighty, I served with some of the people we're trying to find and sack the weapons off of."
"I know, I know, man, relax," Smirked the Romanian soldier as a helicopter's rotor blades roared overhead, "We'll find'em and that girl you kept talking about back at the FOB."
Vic scoffed...
And Yang paused.
"Girl?" Weiss and Ruby raised a brow.
"Let's keep watching..." Blake suggested, surprised, too, while Yang processed it.
"... I doubt our chances, Ștefan. Honestly... Russia was a big place even before its collapse," He replied with a hint of dismay in his voice, "And I dread what happened to Vesna if we do find her. This place may be the Motherland, but she's anything but forgiving, considering the tales she and her comrades told me," and, before long, the boy's phone pinged. He lifted it out of his right-side top pocket from his pants and looked at it.
"Chin up, man," Ștefan smirked and patted him on the shoulder, before retaking his place in the formation. He spoke again, jovial, "We'll find her. I'm sure of it. And then you two can have your sweet little wedding and retire to a village back home to raise sheep or whatever..." as they strode forward. A faint song echoed over the radio, a sad guitar tune in another unrecognizable language.
Footage skipped forward a bit as the platoon advanced into a village. Civilians, old men and women looked at the advancing unit with confusion. Among the ranks were now soldiers clad in different green outfits, bearing a flag with a blue stripe down the middle and carrying rifles similar to, if a little more modern than those of Victor's countrymen, having replaced the wood with polymer.
"Davai, davai," One of the men waved off a pair of kids that were smiling at them, his next words translated as well, "Go to your parents..." and he turned back, revealing a face uncovered, of an old man. Officer's rank pins lay on his uniform's collars as he looked back. He then spoke in clear-cut English, "This way, Romanian. We move quick." While a longer armored vehicle with a forward-mounted turret, carrying wounded on its back, rolled past them.
"Yeah, yeah..." Victor replied, looking around at the desolation of the village. A tire burned on the left, next to the husk of a destroyed vehicle of similar pedigree to the one that had just rolled past them. Its side had a hole about the size of a human head and the turret looked like it'd been split in half by a hammer, the small gun inside it bent and burned. Corpses lay, covered by tarps, with female medical staff tending to the few wounded, most of which were burned.
... Yang felt the bitter taste of bile in the back of her throat. She swallowed and murmured, "Jeez..." She covered her mouth and Ruby's eyes. Ruby didn't protest... She'd caught a glance...
"Fuck are we even looking for in here, Ivan?" He asked as the rest of his squad appeared on the right, rifles in hand. Two of the UN member state soldiers pushed forward enemy troops with red armbands, before putting them on their knees. Victor had turned to look at them, the camera angle catching their boys handle the enemy troopers roughly, pinning them to the floor.
"Keep following," He replied, leading him to the back of a house where a pair of Romanian troopers were already stood guard alongside a pair of these soldiers with white and blue flags. The man popped open the cellar doors and led Vic down the stairs, turning on a flashlight. Inside, they found a cache of enemy supplies, khaki boxes filled with munitions, rifles and other heavy weaponry.
Vic whistled, "Christ, it's enough to arm a Brigade Combat Team..."
"Or a really well-oiled Rebellion," The 'Ivan' that had lead him down here hinted, then added calmly, "The weapons are UN property now."
"I'll tell the Lieutenant to ring up an Engineer company. Take this shit as far out back and blow it up. Why doesn't the Republic want it?" He asked, looking at him. The Ivan shook his head and patted him on the shoulder, before lighting a cigarette and climbing out of the cellar. Vic started looking through the weaponry itself. He found a few personal effects among the items there, including a necklace with a cross, which he recognized.
"... Ves..." He whispered, then folded the necklace and slid it into his pocket. Climbing out, he said to the Ivan with a hurried voice, "Sergeant Korolev... Do we know where the unit these weapons belonged to is? Or the personal effects inside..."
"The weapons were ripped out of the hands of remnants of the First Guards' Tank Army when they drove here... The unit those personal effects belong to, meanwhile, was searched at the entrance back into the country through Ukraine, near the Rostov Oblast. They were allowed to keep their weapons, but some valuables have been stripped from them..." The Russian officer replied, then pointed at the cross necklace, "Like that little trinket you have there... The last word these supposed 'New Soviet Soldiers' we took with this village knew was that they were heading farther East, past Moskva."
"Intel checks out," Ștefan said, "SAT Footage from a few months ago, after the Collapse, caught this retreating unit entering Nijni Novgorod and moving past it."
"Latest news?" Vic asked, a hint more hopeful.
"Possibly past Moscow by now, nearing Siberia. Our unit's being tasked as a spearhead. Lots of nukes going missing in that area, apparently. Nukes the UN wants back for the decommissioning operation..." The boy replied. Vic nodded, then checked his phone as it pinged again. Visible in the reflection for a split second was him smiling. He opened the phone and started typing...
"Some hope..." Weiss smiled, though she shifted uneasily, a bit paler than before.
Yang had a gut feeling, though. And not just because she felt like she was about to throw up.
"Yeah..." Blake seemed to share her skepticism, while Ruby watched on, smiling now.
The footage skipped forward once more. One would normally feel some degree of hope right now, that their supposed beloved girl was alive. And yet, when the footage stopped, all the gang could see was Vic, crouched in front of a white tarp stained with red. Boots poked out from underneath it. Vic had covered his mouth, pale as bone and tired, his LMG hanging off of his shoulder, stock in the mud. One hand was between his legs and chest, fiddling with a pouch. His helmet was on his head, but the camera was now in someone's hand.
"... Fuck..." Vic spoke, murmured, his voice cracking. He rubbed his face, wiping away muck and dirt, then screamed, "FUCK!" as he stood to his feet and turned around, marching out of sight, grabbing at his own head. The camera turned to the face of Ștefan, Vic's comrade, his face impassive and pale. He stood to his feet, too, revealing a hundred more similar tarps laid out in front of a massive hole that had just been dug up by the troops here.
Corpses...
"Welcome to Mother Russia... Her children greet you..." Ștefan murmured, out of sight of the camera, his own voice cracking. Above, the sky was filled with thinning clouds...
He panned around, showing Victor's and his unit unit working on unveiling more of the dead, then panning to Victor himself as he sat by a green bivouac, trying to figure his shit out...
He turned toward Ștefan and stormed up to him with a primal fury in his eyes, then pulled the camera out of his hand and filmed the corpses, the dead around, furious and yelling, "Let this fucking shit go on record! If I fucking die and anyone finds my camera with me, take this shit to the UN! Take this shit to command, to anyone who's willing to understand and to all the leftover Dictators in the world! THIS is what happens after you Tyrants fail! This is what happens after a fucker with too much power bites off more than he can chew and chokes to death on it! GOOD PEOPLE FUCKING DIE! THIS ENTIRE UNIT WAS MADE UP OF THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST YOUTHS IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY! They were UN Peacekeepers, dedicated to maintaining the fragile peace one of you fuckers shattered and forced to partake in the nightmare by your two-bit officers...!"
He slammed the camera into Ștefan's hand. The boy started, his voice subdued... "Vic... I'm sorry..." as he watched the man sit himself down in front of the first corpse, covered by the tarp. He took his helmet off and tossed it to the side, leaning his head in his hands. He walked up beside the boy, filming the first tarp-covered corpse to be dragged out of the pile. Clearly a female shape, but... Wrong. Something was missing where blood met the white cloth. Not the head. Faint facial features were visible beneath the tarp.
"She was here..." Vic murmured to himself, his voice cracking, tears plopping down onto the mud as he was looking at the tarp, "She was right fucking here... I nearly made it..."
Ștefan said nothing. He knew there was nothing he could say. Vic once again ran his gloved hands over his face, then whispered, clearly stifling tears, "I failed you, Vesna... I'm... So sorry..." as he pulled out the chain with a cross on it and placed it on the middle point of the tarp. A voice barked in Romanian, the words remaining untranslated as the two men scrambled to their feet, Victor grabbing his helmet off the floor and standing at attention.
The leader of the military unit appeared, then looked to Victor and Ștefan and said, "At ease, gents... We're moving on, soon..."
"Sir...?" Vic started, eyes wide.
"Command's tasked a Russian Republic force to bury the dead here. They want us on the move, to hunt for the local chemical weapons laboratory one of the surrendering Ruski Generals confessed about while under interrogation from the CIA," The man stated.
"Sir, we need to give these people proper burials-" Vic started.
"I know you lost friends here, Corporal," The man said solemnly, eyes locked on the dead woman in front of them, "... But I'm afraid her burial will have to go to her family for now. We're needed on the front. If it interests you," he turned toward the boy, face made of stone, not a wrinkle in his mustache, "We may have an idea of who did this and why."
"Sir...?" Both soldiers said.
"A Chechen SOF unit was known to operate in this area. Supposedly, their orders before the Collapse and the subsequent Civil War were to secure the laboratory in the Urals where a new strand of Gas was being made. These Chechen soldiers have, according to SAT photos, met the Third Separated Mechanized Infantry Brigade's dismounts here... The ensuing firefight, as you can tell, ended here. Presumably? The President's old goons put the blame on these men and women and gunned them down. We've seen that happen even in cities like Yekaterinburg."
"Fuck..." Vic murmured, renewed fury behind his gaze, then demanded, "... We going after them, sir? Securing the lab and then the Gas?"
"Yes, Corporal..." He replied, "You'll get your revenge."
... Vic nodded, "... I'm ready whenever, sir... Let's go fry these Haji fucks." As he slid his helmet onto his head and racked the bolt of his LMG.
As the scenes skipped yet again, silence fell upon the room. Yang had managed to cover Ruby's eyes just in time on this one, she hoped, though one would assume hearing Vic's yelling made her tense. Yang, Blake and Weiss, meanwhile, were paler than bone, with Yang staring at the frozen image of the dead on the floor in the back of her mind. Yang gagged and scrambled to the bathroom, while Weiss felt her cheek. A single tear.
"... Good god..." Blake murmured, covering her trembling mouth with her hand. She looked away from the holographic screen for a moment, while Weiss processed what she was seeing. Such brutality had not been seen since the Great War itself, the closest mankind had come to killing each-other off, during the cataclysmic global conflict which had burned a great deal of the world.
Weiss blinked away tears, wiping her eyes, then said, "I can't believe this... Why would...?"
"Why would we do things like that to ourselves?" Blake asked, looking at Weiss. She breathed in, then out, to steady herself. Then, she looked to Ruby and asked, "You okay, Team Lead?"
Ruby shook her head, pallid, too. "Yang wasn't quick enough... Poor Vic..."
The blonde stumbled out of the bathroom, holding a towel in one hand and sweating profusely. She sat herself down in front of the holovision, then bowed her head and said, "That ain't normal... For any human to do. Not to each-other, not to anyone else..." her voice quivering. She looked up at her team, then said, "Sorry... I... I actually didn't think it'd be this bad..."
"We should've convinced you," Weiss sighed, "But... Yeah... Poor Victor..."
"There doesn't seem to be any Grimm..." Blake observed, tugging at her own collar, "Where Victor was fighting. No Grimm might mean no unifying threat..."
"And wars aplenty..." Weiss murmured.
"... Damn," Yang murmured.
The footage finally started playing again, a last sobering note for the battle. The Convoy has been engaged. Gunfire rang out and Vic's point of view could be seen, the young man engaging, firing bursts with his Light Machine Gun toward a mountain face from behind a broken concrete separator on a destroyed highway. To his left, a 25mm auto-cannon thundered in short, half-second intervals.
Snipers were positioned to Vic's left as the man ducked to reload, calling out to his mates that he was doing so, before slamming a fresh box of ammunition into the weapon, putting the belt in and closing the top cover, before racking the bolt of the gun to feed a round in. Ștefan ran in beside him, dropping two more cans of ammo and stating, "Lots of'em on that hill! Pissed-off Caucasus Hajis!"
"I see that!" Vic replied, a hint of that previous fury in his voice as he lifted his LMG and opened up again. The boy beside him shouldered his own AK and opened fire as bullets whizzed by their heads, one snapping inches too close for comfort. He returned fire, bursts of 7,62mm rounds leaving the barrel, flashes of the muzzle filling the screen in half-second intervals.
Ștefan ducked again as a bullet snapped over his head, then swore in Romanian. Behind them, a grenadier fired a 40mm shot from his underbarrel attachment. The grenade detonated in a flash in the distance, near by a ditch and a ruined house. The 25mm cannon continued firing while infantry ran behind them and took positions. A tank's shell screamed past them.
Victor stumbled and his helmet was flung off his head as a bullet struck its side, making the girls gasp. The helmet clattered to the side, falling upside down onto the pavement, the camera still rolling, its protective glass case broken. Vic ducked, visibly feeling his head and murmuring, "Jesus fucking Christ... Enemy sniper nearly took my head off..."
Ștefan laughed, then said, "You lucky motherfucker!"
"Sure as shit feel like it," Vic audibly murmured as he continued firing. As one would feel relief about Victor being okay, the unthinkable happened...
"Gotta tell command to give ya a fuckin' award for lu-!" Ștefan started. Just as a round had pierced his neck, sending the boy tumbling to the floor. Vic kept firing, reaching for a can of ammo, before he paused, ducked and looked to the left. He seemed to take a moment to process the sight of the young man that choked on his own blood. He started hyperventilating...
"... Ștefan!" He cried, his voice filled with shock. His words filled with fury, "Fuck! YOU MOTHER-" He ducked as another round scraped his cover, before standing up and firing his LMG on full-auto until the barrel started to glow. He screamed various profanities in Romanian, before turning to the right and screaming out-loud in clear-cut English, "CORPSMAN! CORPSMAN, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!"
A young woman rushed forward, carrying a black rifle with a scope and strange attachments on it. She slid in next to the dying soldier, before stating, "Jesus fucking Christ...! Shot just severed his carotid!" as she started trying to work on it. Vic continued firing, his spent casings piling to the side. Vic looked back at her, fear and fury mixing on his face. She held pressure onto the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Before long, however, she slumped forward and swore, "Fuck... I'm sorry, Victor! Time... 3:42 PM, local."
"Enemy's retreating! We got CAS incoming..." The JTAC of the unit reported, taking cover behind the armored troop transport with the 25mm cannon. Above, a Jet's drone, followed by several explosions to the right, rocked the place. Victor fell onto his ass, LMG still leaning against the broken concrete barricade. He simply stared at the corpse of his comrade, putting a hand on his armor plate, before shaking his head.
"One more for Dagestan..." He murmured, "Rest easy, brother..."
He turned toward the camera, tired, then slowly crawled forward to pick it up. He shut it off...
On that somber note, team RWBY watched the shimmering light of the Holo-TV shut off. Yang held her hands over her mouth, while Ruby had looked away when the shot rang out. Weiss had curled up into a ball, eyes hidden behind her knees, while Blake simply held hers closed. Ruby herself had wrapped herself around Yang, having avoided casting a glance from just before Victor's comrade died.
"Poor bastard..." Yang whimpered, then wrapped an arm around Ruby and patted her on the back as she silently wept.
"Try to convince you over and over and over and..." Weiss sighed, leaning her head forward, "We told you, Yang... We shouldn't... This wasn't something we needed to see right now..."
"He gave it to us..." Blake replied, rubbing her own eyes, "Wanted us to watch it. Probably to leave him alone before we all started asking questions..."
"And look where it got us. Poor Ruby's..." Weiss bit back her own tears, then continued, "None of us are going to be normal in any way after this. He knew this and told us specifically that the footage was, if you'll pardon my Vacuoan, fucked... Did we really expect anything out of a soldier who looks like he woke up on the wrong side of his foxhole for two days in a row, even at breakfast?"
Yang frowned, then her face turned to steel, "He's here, now."
"And what can we do to help?" Blake asked, "That's not something we can ask him. And we're not Psychiatrists, Yang, we're teenagers with our own problems."
"Act like he's got some new friends, at least... He told us his past, sure, maybe because he wanted to be rid of us sooner, but we can't just..." Yang scoffed, then sighed and shook her head, "We can't just leave him alone in that mess. He should've expected that, at least, we'd think about wanting to help. Hell, Ruby, back me up over here, sis..." and she patted Ruby on hers.
Ruby blinked as she slowly pulled back, then turned to Blake and Weiss, wiping away her own tears. Her voice shaky, she said, "Yang's right... We gotta try, at least."
Weiss shook her head, leaning onto her hand as she looked at her team leader and her half-sister, "You two terrify the life out of me with your desire to help people. Though, I guess I cannot exactly deny I... Want to do the same. We're idealistic kids to him, though. Most he'll see us as is an annoyance if we try to... I don't know, talk to him about it in any way beside in passing."
"So, we'll do just that..." Blake sighed, "Worth a shot, I'd say."
Yang smiled, then looked to her sister, who smiled as well. If it was the four of them, Yang had no real doubts they could do anything they set their minds on. Even something as monumental as giving a broken Army trooper like Victor somewhere he could call home. They could pull it off together, but only together. But they'd need some time to process all of this, first.
A new mission was a-go... Helping Victor.