The next morning, the Misfits all gathered up at the main house. The entire small company of soldiers sat together, looking at the gathered evidence of enemy presence within the confines of this new world. Sammy began, her gaze impassive, face a stone mask, "At Oh-thirteen hundred, yesterday, our little operational corps deployed and secured these items off a supposed Dust sale, now known to be a gun sale, to the White Fang. Accounted for in the packages are approximately four AK-12 and AK-15 rifles, three AK-103 rifles and one RPK-16, the latter weapons found on the corpses of the hostile troops."
"Added upon them were twelve bricks of plastic explosives manufactured within a Russian chemical concern that the UN and NATO had no record of and, trust me, I've looked into this shit to know what the Division I was serving with was gonna take from Siberia while we were fighting off our failed little puppet. Added upon that," Sam hefted the tube of a rocket launcher and three very familiar rockets, "Was an RPO-A 'Shmel', or, for those of us less initiated in Soviet denominators, a Bumblebee handheld, rocket-propelled infantry flame thrower with two rounds."
"Jesus fucking Christ," Murmured Dushman, "They were arming up for a fucking war..."
"How the fuck did Russian kit wind up on Remnant beyond our friends over here?" Alexi inquired, looking over the two AK-74s also sat next to the table. To answer his question, Sammy slapped down the patch discovered with them. Alexi blanked, staring at it, while the Russians in the room all seemed to glare at it, Nikolai, the Soviet BMP and Platoon Commander, included.
"... Chernaya Liga forces are currently on Remnant," She replied to them, which caused several frowns and multiple glares to appear among her friends' ranks. "Their equipment, size and strength are unknown, though. Could be stragglers, could be the dead coming back to life like the rest of us, or, and this is the least likely explanation, they could be forward outposts of the Federation, set up on Remnant somehow..." which got a few murmurs out of her friends. She told them, "All speculation for now. Unless we can capture a League officer alive," She put emphasis on the word, glaring at Paul and Katja, "We're dead in terms of Intel... Speaking of, Commander," She looked over to Nikolai now.
"... I will prepare and send one of my girls to keep an eye on the Russian PMC unit serving under Atlas, comrade Lieutenant. The less we risk, the better prepared we shall be when we have to kick the door in..." The man told them, puffing from the cigar between his lips, "I don't like this, though," And he tapped the emblem, "It reminds me too much of the shit you'd hear about Russian Fascists back in the day."
"Honestly, sir," Vic told him, then quipped, "Much as I hate commies, I'd rather you guys than Fash bastards like the League." which garnered a few laughs from the Russian women in the room and the rest of the gang as well.
"Much appreciated, corporal," The man replied jokingly, then turned to and waved one of his troopers over. A black-haired Tatar girl stepped up, Kalash in hand. She saluted, to which Nikolai told her in Russian, "We'll prepare you to go meet the PMC. Tell them you're our liaison to them. They'll understand one of their own coming by to keep tabs on them, eh?"
"Da, tavarish Kommandir." She saluted.
"The rest of you, move it out back to the dorm, talk to the Romanians and French and prepare. If we need to do work, we'll probably be called upon... Anya," He looked to the radiowoman, who jumped and saluted. He nodded to her, "Keep that radio at the ready. Give us a ring the moment our comrades need out help in combat, okay?" to which she nodded, holding the radio pack close. He nodded, then looked to Sammy, before the two saluted each-other. The old man then departed, rifle in hand, with the rest of his platoon.
"Well, this should be interesting..." Paul sighed, rubbing his eyes, "I'm gonna fuckin' have a field day with shooting these shitboots..."
"Keep it for when we meet them in combat," Sam noted, setting the weapons aside. She tossed the Shmel to Dushman and told him, "You get to keep that shit. You and Lita will be our heavy anti-infantry. Meanwhile, everyone else is free to do as they please. Dismissed. Except for you, Victor," She then turned to the Romanian. He nodded and stepped up to her, to which he told her, "I'm gonna need Vesna and you to come with me later today for a package pickup. I managed to get in contact with an ammo manufacturer and told him the specs of our weapons... Should ease some of Hass's back pain."
"Praise be..." The Malaysian-American jokingly murmured as he began checking his rifle. Jim, meanwhile, stepped outside, as did several others, with Dushman and Sofiya grinning as they hauled the Shmel away toward somewhere safe, with the thermobaric missiles. Lita sighed, shook her head, then stepped outside. She clapped a hand on Vesna's shoulder and got a smile out of the blonde that did not seem strained, or afraid.
Vic, Sammy and Vesna saw Katja take Paul's hand. They then smirked at the duo, with the blonde Polak already blushing when she noticed this. Paul himself became a little awkward, rubbing the back of his neck, before dragging his girlfriend away. Vesna and Vic high-fived, then stepped out as well, probably going off to help Vic's teammates with stuff.
Sammy looked over to see Alexi sat in a corner, smoking a cigarette with a distant look in his eyes. He stared at Ayesha as she approached Hassan and wrapped her arms around him, causing the Malaysian to blush and let out a short laugh. Alexi averted his gaze and took a puff of his cigarette again, then licked his lips and looked around, only to see Anja(The Finnish medic) with Alex(the Pararescueman medic, in case one was to forget).
Saila, meanwhile, was also sat there, happily bobbing her head as she listened to music while laying on the couch. The Chinese Lieutenant hummed, then stepped up to the man while Whiskey was just sitting and watching TV, then asked him, "You good, Stoyanov?" as she sat down next to him. Alexi looked to her with a raised brow, then hummed and nodded.
"Yeah. I'm alright," He replied with half a mouth and a low voice. He took another puff of the cigarette, then grabbed an empty candy wrapper and flicked the ash into it. Turning back to Sam with one of his usual smiles, he asked her, "Something lookin' like I ain't doing too hot, Lieutenant...?" but Sam could see the strain in the guy's eyes. She sighed and rubbed her face.
"Just don't go getting yourself killed..." She murmured, then gave him a light tap with her hand. Standing up, the young woman stepped out herself. She'd honestly thought of starting to smoke, but not really much she could do with that beyond get lung cancer from cheap shit Chinese cigarettes. Her QBZ worked decently enough, though she considered switching to one of the barbie'd out AKs they'd stolen from the League weapons deal. She scoffed, sighed and walked off.
Alexi, meanwhile, stood to his feet and stepped outside, sitting down by the side of the house to smoke what little stub was left of his cigarette. He honestly felt like he'd gotten off the lightest out of all the Misfits, to the point his idea of a normal life was still settled into his brain without all the extraneous trauma of seeing the shit people like Vic had seen, which included his lover's untimely death.
"Hey, Al," Alex Ryan asked, causing the guy to turn his head toward him. He then asked, "I don't think anyone got to ask ya how you passed."
Anja and Saila both looked at him expectantly and holy fuck could Alexi see that they looked alike. They'd come outside to do something, so they must've just spotted him. He took the cigarette from between his lips and said, "Shot by a Neo-Soviet near Staryi Sokol. He was an agent trying to disrupt a HUMAID mission nearby, so... I kinda got off lighter than most of y'all... You?"
"Nuked by the League, heh," Alex smiled sheepishly at his Bulgarian friend as he, Anja and Saila sat down. He elbowed the Bulgarian lightly in the shoulder and asked him, "You a'ight, man? You seem a little... Off..."
He shrugged, "Both you and Sammy asked me that," and he slid the cig between his lips, "Guess I'm not particularly fond of some things, but, hey, I died doing something good, right...?" before noting a hint of concern in Doc's look. He waved it off and said, "I'm alright, Ryan," before standing up and walking away, "I'll be alright..." and Alex blinked. Anja took a knee beside him.
She whispered worriedly, "He's definitely not alright..."
"Yeah, no shit..." Alex replied, rubbing his face, "Am I not a good shrink?"
Anja chuckled and gently gave him a tap on the shoulder, "Give him a break... He'll talk when he wants to." before starting to whistle some Finnish polka song as she and her totally-not-sister stepped back inside. Alexi, meanwhile, walked over toward the Mess, to see what he could get with the consideration that it was the students' lunchtime. He saw several of the Valkyrie PMC members lounging around. Some turned to him and whistled and catcalled, others simply gave the zero fucks stare to him and a few seemed disgusted.
He glared right back at the disgusted ones, resisting the urge not to flip the bird at the shitheads and start an international incident. Entering the mess hall at the peak of lunchtime, the soldier stepped on toward the buffet, rifle dangling off his shoulder. He set it up so it stopped doing that, then pulled a tray up and started picking out food. Mashed potatoes, some chicken nuggets and ketchup.
He felt a hand clap onto his back and turned about to see a blonde with lilac eyes, kind of like Katja, smirking at him. "Yo!" She greeted with a quite jaunty tune to her smooth, friendly voice, more of a singsong, "You're one of Vic's pals, ain't'cha? We haven't much seen ya outside, dude. Heck, I don't think we actually got introduced to one-another."
"Right," He nodded, then smirked, "You're that chick Paul mentioned. You have a crush on Vic, don't'cha?" to which the blonde blushed. He snorted and shook his head, then murmured, "Lucky fucker..." as he took his tray. He told her, "Name's Alexi Stoyanov. Call me Alexi... And no, I'm not Russian. I'm Bulgarian. Which is even worse, to some degree, heh..."
"Noted..." Yang sighed deeply, then chuckled, "My team kinda wanted to talk to you folks, actually. Heck, Ruby's been meaning to come by and say hi for a while..."
"Well, you'll have a bunch more new faces to say hi to, considering the amount of us that suddenly decided to appear out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Even some units that didn't originally belong to us," He replied as they walked. Team RWBY. Alexi had been told about them by the rest of the gang, as had pretty much everyone else. Them and team JNPR, who were suspiciously absent today, made up the bulk of the friendliest people to the Misfits.
Ruby, Weiss and Blake, as he knew them from the gang's fairly vivid descriptions of the young Huntresses, greeted him with waves, smiles and not much noise considering they were eating. Alexi sat himself down as Weiss commented, "He certainly seems a tad more cheerful than the Misfits usually are, so that is interesting. Greetings, soldier from another world."
"Mornin'," The man nodded, setting his Kalash aside and arranging his uniform jacket, "Take it I'm a bit of a talk of the town, huh?"
"Nah," Ruby spoke with her mouth full, before swallowing the food and letting out a happy sigh. She told him next, "Kidding, yeah, you kind of are. You're another of Vic's friends, right?" and she got a nod. She smiled at him and told him, "Sure is a lot of people dropping in... Just yesterday, I saw another tank of you guys' when I went by the dorms Vic's Romanian squadmates are stationed at."
"Seen a lot of'em lately, too. The MRAP, the VAB and the BMP..." He commented as he started going to town on his food. He added, "You're probably talkin' about the BMP-2. That's come with a squad of Soviets, weirdly enough..." and that got a couple weird stares. He waved it off and told'em, "Relax. They're friendly, surprisingly enough. Chunk of'em are not even really Russian..." And he then let out a quick, "Shit, this is good food..." after taking a bite of one of his nuggets.
"Swear jar..." Ruby whispered. She and Yang giggled, while Blake snorted and Weiss rolled her eyes.
Alexi chuckled and told them, "Oh, relax, I'm gonna fill that fucker up really quick..."
"What's your name?" Weiss asked to get them off the track of talking about that.
"Alexi Stoyanov. Corporal. Was with the Bulgarian Army's 5th ID before I wound up with the Misfits, then back with the ID, then died and wound up here, kind of like everyone else," He told them the full tale. Yang looked to him and motioned for him to go on about how he died, he presumed. He shrugged and said, "Got shot by a NeoSov agent while taking care of a Humanitarian Aid station near Strayi Sokol, a small shithole in the quite literal middle of nowhere..."
"Ouch," Yang winced.
Blake commented, "Color me impressed UNRUS allowed Humanitarian Aid units to come in..."
Alexi snorted and replied to the black-haired beauty snappily, "Afraid I'm gonna have to tell ya off on that one, hot stuff. It's a UN Mission. 'Course we're gonna have NGOs up our asses, too," words which got Blake to blush as he pulled out and lit another cigarette, taking a puff and setting his makeshift ashtray onto the table, too. "Sorry if the smoke bothers you, girls. Picked up a few bad habits, though I'm not the only one," he murmured, then flicked the ash into the makeshift tray, before continuing to eat.
"It's fine," Weiss told him, "At least in my point of view."
"Anything to take the edge off, I guess," Blake told him, smiling. He nodded.
"Yeah, it's cool," Yang gave a thumbs up. Ruby also nodded, which was the go-ahead from everyone, so he smoked unabated. Yang hummed as she poked at her own mashed potatoes, then asked Alexi, "Hey, Al, listen. We met a couple more of Vic's friends, too, like a good chunk of the new arrivals. You were practically the only guy we didn't see outside a lot."
He shrugged, then replied, "I didn't leave a lot, either... Wasn't out for the op where we picked up Vesna and the other girls either. I was kept back home to make sure things were going smoothly..." all while puffing from the ciggy again. Yang seemed to frown and scoff at the mention of the blonde, before covering her mouth and looking with all color drained from her face toward him. Alexi snorted, "You good, blondie?"
"Y-Ye-"
"She has a crush on Vic," Ruby chuckled.
"I know," He replied, laughing, much to Yang's chagrin and red face. He told them, "Paul told me about it while we were chatting one evening on patrol around Beacon. Told it to me all quiet-like so the Valkyrie bastards around us didn't hear us, y'know?" before he pulled another forkful of food into his mouth and murmured something to himself. The four girls looked to him.
"I've actually been meaning to speak to your unit about them," Weiss leaned forward. Alexi quirked up a brow and she motioned for him to lean forward. He did and Weiss scanned the room to make sure none of them were around. She whispered, "Their unit wore another similar patch and name before they re-branded themselves a month or so before I came to Beacon. General Ironwood hired them while they were still called their old name... That being Wagner."
Alexi's eyes shot wide open as he plopped himself back into his seat, covering his mouth. Ruby leaned over, seeing the paling man, then asked, "Take it they're bad news...?"
He nodded rapidly, then told them, "... T-They're Russian PMCs... Hell, they were practically the Russian President's private guards before they were deployed in Ukraine to fight," And those words got most of team RWBY to look at him with shock. He murmured, "Fuck me, I gotta get this to the gang, just as we were prepping to deepen our investigation into the fucking Fang..." before he stood up and grabbed his rifle. Ruby showed him to wait.
"You're looking into the White Fang, too?" Ruby asked, hopeful and smiling. He nodded, to which she said, "Great. We could use the help, since we've been looking into them as well because of Blake," and the black-haired girl gave a nod. Alexi lifted his hand up to give an approving 'thumbs up' sign, before Ruby told him, "We'll call you guys through your scrolls. Talk things out then."
"Alright..." He told them, then waved goodbye and dashed off in a full-on sprint out of the mess hall and past even some of the Valkyries. He'd never run this fast since goddamn Basic and yet here he was, making record time. He slung his rifle onto his back and kicked on the brakes, before pushing through the open door and calling out, "Sam, we have a FUCKING PROBLEM!"
Sammy looked up from a map of Beacon on which both she and Vesna were looking. The others had already luckily returned home from their smokes, patrols and whatever else, so it was gonna be easier to brief them all. Sam told him, "Come in, close the door and talk, Stoyanov..." as she straightened up. The man did as ordered in that exact order... And he told them what Weiss had told him.
"... Fucking what...?" Vic demanded, his voice low, like a growl.
"That's what Weiss told me. Bastards in Valkyrie are actually goddamn Wagner... Probably rebranded themselves when they heard people like us were starting to drop in, too..." He replied. Vic looked over to Vesna, to see her grow pale. He, Ayesha and Lita went to comfort the girl, before Alexi asked, "What happened, Vic? Is Ves okay?" and looked to the guy. The Romanian once more looked to Vesna, who offered him a nod as she started trembling.
Vic sighed, then gave everyone a quick rundown of exactly what Lita had told them. Alexi covered his mouth, while the others, Whiskey included, stared on with a cold fury behind their eyes. Vic hugged his wife-to-be and held her close, trying to get her to calm down, all while Sam chewed on that thought, both literally and figuratively. She scratched her chin and told everyone, "As much as I'd like to fucking slaughter them all for that myself... I'm afraid the fucks have got immunity for now."
"You gotta be shitting me," Vic replied, almost yelling, "How the fuck did-...?" And he paused. With a scoff, the man walked up to the door, but Paul stopped him.
Sam called out, "Vic, what the hell are you doing?!"
"I'm gonna go have a talk with Ironwood," He answered angrily, shoving Paul's hand away and glaring back at Sam, "The fucking bastard needs to know who he hired..."
"Like hell you are!" Sam barked loudly. She sidestepped the table and walked up to him, then said, "Listen, I can't pretend to know what this fucking feels like for you, to hear that the bastards that nearly..." She sighed and looked to Vesna, then back at him, "I know... But we can't cause an international incident. They may be a goddamn PMC, but they're under Atlas's command, so that makes them Atlas's troops as far as Ironwood may be concerned."
"Fuck..." Vic sighed, rubbing his face, "Fucking hell, so what do we do?"
"We already have someone keeping tabs on them,' Robert told him, arms crossed to his chest, "Remember, the Soviet troop commander sent out one of his own girls to keep tabs on the bastards. There's no point getting yourself shot by the General or pissing off the Wankers, Victor. El-tee's right... Plus, if push comes to shove, we'll pick up enough dirt on them to get Ironwood on a bender, hopefully."
Vic breathed in, then sighed deeply, "Fine... Fair. Sorry..." before stepping off toward his wife and hugging her again, whispering to her quietly to calm her down.
"Vic's right, though," Paul joined in, "What do we do while we wait to see if our Soviet friends can get any dirt on them?" And he looked to Sam. The girl took a good moment to ponder the question. They couldn't shoot the fuckers openly, because that would cause an issue. They couldn't trip them up because they might've needed to cooperate with them soon enough.
Sam sighed. She told them, "We continue our investigation into the White Fang. See how they tie in with the Black League and what the hell the League's doing all the way on another planet. Afterward, we pack extra ammunition and see how much it takes to wipe the Wankers in this part of the world... Even better if we find out they and the League are some how tied together."
"Gonna make for a very convincing argument for Ironwood when his soldiers of fortune turn out to be working with nuclear terrorists," Katja grinned as she cradled her HK rifle. Her Beryl lay behind her, leaned against the wall as she jovially added, "Kurwa's going to have to understand why we wanna wipe the floor with'em, else he'll actually wind up a little collateral, that much I can tell you."
"Yeah," Vic replied absentmindedly, before kissing Ves on the forehead. She smiled, then leaned her head against his chest, slowly calming down. The entire group seemed to agree, despite Sam and Robert's desire to slap them upside the head for even speaking like that in the middle of what was basically their territory. Atlas had brought an army and a Private Army together with an Airfleet to keep the place safe. What were they even keeping it safe from to warrant such an array of Forces... "Hey, guys, has anyone been keeping tabs on those three odd Students?"
"Yeah," Sam nodded, then looked to Vic and the others, who stared at her expectantly, and added, "Had a corporal from the French keeping their eye on'em. He's been reporting in every once in a while, as per our pre-set schedule, plus he's got a battle buddy with him. I can tell you, no weird activity from those guys. Mistrali or not, they're behaving... For the most part, anyway."
Well... Huh... That was concerning, but good enough.