The Dauntless (a male reader soldier x RWBY story)

(New) Chapter 21: Trial by Fire

     It had been a few days since Lucia and her friends had last seen (Y/N), causing worry to spread amongst them. Although, it would have been worse if (Y/N) didn't send texts once a day, letting them know where he was.

       The wolf girl sighed and poked at her food slowly, oblivious to the looks of concern that Ruby and her friends were giving her.

       "Lucia," Yang spoke up softly, uncharacteristic of the normally loudspoken blonde, "are you alright?"

       "Not really," she replied setting her fork down and turning to face her friends, "although (Y/N) has been consistently texting to let me know that he's still alive, I'm worried about him."

       "At least he has the decency to let you know that he's still around," Weiss added, sighing as she finished her food, "although... I do worry for his mental state. Aside from the time during Initiation, I have never seen (Y/N) snap and shout like that. However, due to the subject, I can understand why."

       "Yeah," Ruby spoke up, "I know that you told us that he lost his arm, Lucia. But I didn't expect him to have to explode and just... drop the news on us that his entire family's dead. Did he ever tell you about it, Lucia?"

       The wolf faunus shook her head.

       "No," she began sadly, "he has only ever expressed interest in learning about my family, but whenever I ask about his... well, he goes silent and stares off into space for a few moments before switching the subject. Only thing that I know about them was what was shown on a picture that he carries all the time. And even then, it's old, battered, creased and faded. It's clear that he's held that picture for a long time. I just... never put two and two together."

       Throughout the entire exchange, Blake remained quiet. After all, what did she have to say? She was the reason why (Y/N) snapped in the first place. Her selfish desire to hunt down Roman no matter the cost went against (Y/N)'s desire to protect those that he cared about. He had lost enough loved ones and wanted to ensure that none of them would perish prematurely.

       "I wish I could apologize to him face to face," Blake finally spoke up, prompting the other girls to face her, "It's my fault for pushing him to capture Torchwick when all he wanted to do was ensure our safety."

       "Well," Yang cut in, "you were right to bring up the fact that we could protect ourselves. We are more than capable of taking down a robot like that. All (Y/N) did was deal with it quicker and ensure that the civilian casualties didn't go up, while also ensuring that we weren't added to the list of those injured. The Paladin was still a military-grade weapon after all."

       "Wish (Y/N) learned to keep the casualties to a minimum when he deals with the White Fang though," Blake added.

       "Outright massacres are something to be talked about with him, but when people are shooting rockets and lightweight armor piercing rounds to ensure the kill on anything other than Grimm, then his violent retaliatory actions are more acceptable," Lucia jumped in, nodding in agreement, "But now that I think of it, (Y/N) off-handedly mentioned that his weapons were solely meant to kill. The rounds that he uses are... armor-piercing incendiary high-explosive rounds in .50 caliber."

      "And he uses those rounds... on unarmored targets??" Ruby spoke up in disbelief.

      "Whenever he has to," Lucia said as she nodded, "but given what he has done in the past few weeks, I'm not surprised that he chose to use ammunition like that in order to complete his missions."

       "I thought that only second year students and above go on missions," Weiss cut in, looking at Lucia with a furrowed brow.

      "I thought the same, but the Headmaster occasionally sends direct messages to (Y/N) asking him to do something," Lucia explained, taking a sip of water, "That's why (Y/N) sometimes doesn't attend class."