Richter.

Manfred Richter had been a few things. He had been a soldier, fought against terrorists and dictators. He had been a pilot, one of the better ones even. He had been a mercenary, a husband and he had been a father.

Primarily though, he was dead right now.

Jack Cooper had accepted Richter's challenge on some far away planet, while the war between the Frontier Militia and the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation had met one of it's climaxes.

They had fought and Cooper had won, leaving Richter dead in his Tone-class Titan.

Jonathan Richter didn't feel any resentment against Cooper, though. So he was responsible for his father's death, what now? His father had chosen this life himself, Cooper hadn't forced him to fight. He died as a soldier, something that he had been his entire life.

After his wife, Trishka had died from an inoperable brain tumor, Richter had become a cold man. He devoted his life to only two things, fighting and raising his son. Manfred may have been cold, ruthless and detached at times, but he had also been fair, honest and a man of thought, things that he learned through mistakes and tragedy and taught his son, so he may avoid these troubles.

Jonathan Richter would have made his father proud, had he been alive to see him graduate from highschool and then university with a degree in mechanical engineering. He had taken his fathers teachings by heart and he had grown up to become the man that Manfred had always wanted to be, but could never become, a man at peace.

Having received an offer at a prestigious prosthetics company, Jonathan Richter had moved to Hephaistos, a green agricultural world not too far from the Typhos system. It was peaceful, it was also there that he met his first love, Rachel. A wonderful girl from his living compound whom he met numerous times in the hallways and at the food distribution centers. She was always up for a joke, shared his passion for movies and fantasy stories and it was very hard to make her upset over almost anything. It was such a stark contrast from the regimen that his father had put him through, waking up next to her warm body, her smell, to bury his face in her hair while her breasts rose gently with every breath she took. He was truly at peace.

It was still an IMC controlled planet and with the militia slowly but surely pushing them out of the system, it was just a question of time until they would arrive on Hephaistos. Rachel had asked him numerous tines to go with her to another system, out of reach of the war, but Jonathan couldn't leave his work. He would just need one or two years until he would have accumulated a decent financial cushion to sustain them over a couple of years on another planet, until both of them had found stable employment again.

How did he even get here?

Richter was peering through the scope on his rifle, while humming a birthday tune to himself. Twenty two. How time flies sometimes.

The IFFR in his helmet, told him of several hostile elements just below his current position, which he knew, he would have to pass through if he wanted to leave this place in one piece.

"Command, this is Richter." He whispered into his comm, not that anyone could hear him outside of the sealed helmet.

"Richter, this is command. Line is secure, go on."

"Command, there are multiple IMC contacts near my position and my team is cut off from me. Requesting orders, now that I'm here."

"Richter, you are to return to the Deimos ASAP. Your team is to pull back as well. We dont have any titans in the racks anymore, so you'll have to stick to pilot tactics."

"Understood command. Did you receive the images?"

"Affirmative. Intel is crystal clear. Good job, Richter."

"Understood. Richter Out."

Jonathan despised killing, but he was good at it, so most of the time during his military career, he didn't really have a choice. Sometimes, the taking of a life was a tragic necessity.

He'd try to keep casualties as minimal as possible, but when pushing came to shoving, he didn't show any remorse. Mercy got people killed. Shows of power got people killed. Ambitious plans got people killed. He didn't have any of those. Ironic, he thought that he had landed on the complete opposite side of this war. The IMC would have kissed his hand, had he decided to side with them, as he did, but he couldn't stay with them, even though they had sustained him and sent him through university. He would never forgive them.

The grunts down below however, they weren't responsible. They were just like any other soldier. Dutiful and brave, on a battlefield that was as lethal as being thrown in a gigantic lawn mower. Even without his titan, Richter was a well oiled killing machine.

Shutting out any thoughts other than destroying the enemy, he descended upon them. His speed was his shield and his precision was his sword. Without a sound, he landed behind his unsuspecting victims and accelerated to a wild sprint. Nearly invisible to the human eye due to the cloak his armor provided, he closed in on the soldiers, while drawing his sidearm.

One of the troopers went down without the chance to utter a single word of surprise. His face split open as the squadron of .45's caved their way through his skull. The other three turned around, bewildered at the sudden death of their team member.

Three left.

Dropping to the floor and sliding the rest of the way, he acquired his next target. The red band around his biceps marked him as the team's leader, a position that he probably didn't hold for too long, as it was a typical beginner's mistake to make oneself perceivable as an officer.

He pulled the trigger, while still in motion and unleashed a torrent of bullets into the man's torso. The last projectile hit his throat and severed his spine on the other side. He was dead immediately.

Two left.

Richter snapped around, strafing one of the remaining two with the rest of his magazine, to which the soldier dropped to the ground, wheezing for a short while as his life left him.

One left.

The IMC-grunt let his gun clatter to the ground and held his arms into the air, in surrender. His face was that of a trembling child and Jonathan had no doubt that the man had pissed himself.

He opened his mouth, but no words came out, just a small croak as the pilot slowly reloaded his firearm and closed the distance.

Without another word, Richter delivered a measured punch to the grunt's head, knocking him out on the spot. He fell hard on the concrete and lay still. The possibility of him being dead from the punch were very much real, hitting someone with strength enhancing augmentation and armored fists tended to have that effect. Richter however hoped that the grunt would recover after he was gone. The more known his reputation was, the smaller the number of enemies that tried to actually fight him.

"Oslo, this is actual, do you read me?"

"Affirmative, Oslo actual, this is Oslo one. We're reading you loud and clear."

"Oslo, I need a distraction at the back door. Be sure to make lots of noise. I'm going to break through from behind."

"Orders confirmed, Oslo actual. We'll give 'em a good scare. Should we play the Ride of the Valkyries for you?"

"Oh, I'm feeling not that megalomanic at the moment. Give me Ready to Die. I'll be out in four."

"Yes sir, classic coming up in two."

Richter had already broken into a sprint again, his parcour training and the jump kit relentlessly cutting down on his time of arrival.

Jumping, sliding and wall running, he reached the inner perimeter of the compound just as the shooting started.

This is your time to pay-

A duo of IMC soldiers rounded the corner in front of him, visibly shaken and confused at the voice of Andrew W. K.. He sped right into them and punched one of them into his chestplate, shattering it and sending him flying several meters. The other raised his rifle which was quickly swatted aside turned against him as the stock rammed forcefully into his forehead, putting him out.

This is your judgement day-

Jonathan could now see the yellow tracers streaking over the defensive wall. IMC personnel, civilian and military were running around like headless chickens and posed little to no threat to the speeding pilot.

We made a sacrifice and now we get to take your life-

He emptied the magazine of the rifle into an oncoming IMC squadron, who dropped to the ground in a storm of blood and pained cries.

After the charging handle locked back, signalling the emptiness of his gun, he threw it aside and continued. Richter never gave much thought to the weapons he used, except that he preferred long range rifles. Even though a firearm was an expendable tool as much as he was concerned, a piece of metal that could be thrown away when it lost it's immediate use.

The only exception for him was his trusty sidearm, an old RE-45 SF.

The SF in the name was commonly interpreted as an aberration for "Special Forces" and made the variation of the gun a sought after item. It actually just meant "Select Fire", a modification that could, with the right tools, be easily done in less than thirty minutes.

You better get ready to die!

Opening the buckle on the bandolier over his torso, he ripped the belt of demolition charges off his body. With practiced motions he armed each of the plastic explosives and pulled the protective paper off the adhesive surfaces.

You better get ready to kill!

Two kilograms of Composite-6 had the destructive power of a bunker buster, only less directed. Still, to cover his and his team's escape, it would more than suffice.

You better get ready to run, 'cause here we-

The explosion engulfed the whole portion of the wall in a bright white fireball, followed quickly by a sphere of thick black smoke that quickly faded up into the sky. The shock wave threw chunks of concrete and bigger pieces of debris in Richter's direction.

The gunfire from the wall ended abruptly and was replaced with the screams of injured and dying people. Jonathan racked the slide on his pistol and made to move through the newly made gap in the defensive structure.

As he ran past the staircases that lead up the wall, he wasn't able to ignore the soldiers and workers who lay on the ground or trudged, a dazed look on their faces and blood running out of their ears and wounds.

An IMC grunt who had been lucky enough to wear the ear protection, as well as the HUD-goggles that were fastened on his helmet, tried to help a young woman in a workers overall from the ground. She was just a little worse for wear. From her ears and nose, blood ran down her pretty face and a piece of rebar stuck from her shoulder. Both froze as they spotted the pilot getting closer.

Richter eyed the soldier with a wary look. The gun in his hands was trained directly at the grunts face, the finger hovering a millimeter over the trigger, as he examined the man's reactions.

The soldier looked nervously at the pilot. He still tried to prop the young woman up with his left shoulder, while his right hand hovered over the drop-leg-holster on his right thigh where a P2016 was sitting idly, for now.

Slowly, Richter lowered his gun to a semi-ready position, still aimed in the soldier's general direction, as he took another step forward.

"Don't!"

The young woman half cried, half pleaded. If she was talking to him or the soldier, Richter didn't know, but he saw the blood on her face mix with salt water from her eyes.

He had almost passed the duo as the shooting resumed. Apparently the guards on the wall had recollected themselves and had started to open fire at Oslo Team again.

Dropping a smoke grenade behind him, Richter just nodded at the IMC soldier and the woman.

He and the grunt had an understanding, a reciprocrative resolution, not to kill each other. It wouldn't make a difference anyway.

That sentiment in mind, he vanished into the yellow smoke and raced towards his dropship.

1181391492119

The captured Goblin shot over the scarred landscape. Making the jump off planet to the Deimos required a certain distance from IMC sensory equipment, so they weren't tracked and the locations of the Militia carriers weren't unnecessarily disclosed.

Richter had taken off his helmet and sat in the back of the cargo hold, where seats lined the walls which were currently occupied by his team, a group of fifteen soldiers, the pilots not included. One of which sat next to him, going over images on his tablet.

"Man, those look like art. You got an eye, mate." The militiaman said as he scrolled through the intel Richter had collected.

"Maybe when this is over and the IMC is in shambles, you can sell those. To historians maybe."

"They're not mine, man. These pictures are in possession of the Militia."

Richter stood up and faced the cockpit, where the team's two pilots sat.

"Yo Holly, how long until we can jump?"

The female pilot turned her head, a patient smile on her face.

"About ten minutes, sir. We need to get out of IMC-ran-"

A tremor ran through the aircraft and Richter whipped around just in time to see two soldiers being sucked out of a gaping hole in the cargo hold of the ship.

"FUCK, FLAK BELOW US!"

Holly screamed just as the plumes of smoke started to explode all around the Goblin.

"GET US OUT OF HERE!"

Richter answered as he bounded to one of the stationary guns that stuck out from both sides of the dropship.

"MAN THE FUCKING GUNS, ALL OTHERS, HOLD THE FUCK ON!"

He aimed the 20mm-minigun at the approximate area from where the fire seemed to come and depressed the firing studs. A stream of green tracers erupted from the barrels and vanished into the forest below them. Just a second later, two women from the ground team copied his actions, tripling the destructive output of the small craft. Richter only stopped the firing after he saw a huge explosion erupt from between the trees and the FLAK-fire suddenly stopped.

"KEEP HER ARMED! I DON'T KNOW IF THERE ARE MORE IN FRONT OF US!"

Holly yelled from the cockpit into the cargo hold, just as another explosive round punched through the hull, splattering the whole upper half of a militiaman aginst the opposite wall.

"I'M GOING TO JUMP INTO ORBIT! NO FUCKING USE OF- JUST KEEP FIRING AT THEM!"

She screamed again, the ship rocking back and forth as Holly tried to make them as difficult a target as possible.

Another round shot through the hatch and missed Richter's head by mere centimeters. The projectile bounced uselessly through the cargo hold before coming to a stop in the far corner of a room.

"EVERYONE! UP FROM YOUR SEATS! I'M GOING TO SEAL US UP!" All did as she said and stepped a bit into the middle. Sealed plates shot from the ceiling.

"JUMP IN THREE, TWO, ON-"

Farther she didn't get, as a final FLAK-round crashed through her side of the cockpit, shattering her instruments and killing her instantly. Richter had just put his helmet back on and opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off as the ship accelerated to near lightspeed, before disintegrating and leaving the corporeal realm for just a theoretical moment.

1181391492119

Richter awoke with his face in grass and his limbs spread wide from his body. He rolled on his back, still dazed from what must have been a crash landing, that catapulted him out of the dropship. Luckily, the PMI-Armor accounted for being slung around the battlefield and was strengthened and padded in the relevant places. Still, being sent flying hurt like hell, well the landing did to be precise.

He got up, carefully avoiding any sudden movements in case something was broken. Thankfully, he seemed to be fine, safe for numerous bruises and concussions all over his body. The last thing he needed was a damaged spine or a punctured lung.

However, what he saw was not just the peaceful and lush forest around him, but also the battered skeleton of the goblin that lay, burned out, just a hundred meters from his position. Scattered all over the clearing that the ship had carved into the trees, lay the broken and mangled bodies of his fourteen remaining team members. Richter had spent a good year with this team and since he had received his pilot certificate, he had received nearly zero losses over his numerous operations. He knew their names by heart, he knew their stories and hopes and now, they were all dead.

So much wasted potential.

Richter involuntarily thought about the dozens of lives he had taken while serving with both, the IMC and the Militia. How many of those had families or a shining future ahead of them?

No use in straining his brain over something like that. Ignorance was the best therapy after all.

The dead however, they had to be honored and so he made his way to the smoking wreckage, checking for his knife and pistol on the way.

Rummaging through the bent cargo hold, he managmanaged to salvage a shovel that had survived the crash. He then proceeded to drag the bodies out and collect them on the clearing. It was almost a meditative task he thought, as he stripped each rifle of it's ammunition and internals and refashioned a makeshift gravestone out of them by welding one of the dog tags to each stock and ramming them into the ground up to the magazine shaft, where each grave was going to be. The more tedious task was to actually dig the graves, however the ground was soft and moved easily as he stabbed the shovel into it. Even with his pilot enhancements, digging fourteen graves was still a taxing project and he was gasping for air as he was finished.

Confirming the death of each if his team members one last time he made a round before dragging them each into their respective holes. Would he have been able to think of something, he would have said a few words, however Richter was not feeling well enough at the moment to care for such sentimentalities. A couple of hours later, he had finished closing the graves and was sitting on a boulder behind his makeshift graveyard. A bottle of cheap moonshine, out of all things had survived the crash, so he used that to drink to his fallen comrades before the sun would set.

1181391492119

Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna looked in surprise upon the clearing. RWBY had not planned to spend their last free day of the week hunting for some crashed plane in the wilderness of beacon forest. They hoped however to find the survivors of said crash, as they had gone some time without a specific task and helping others was always something that lifted their spirits.

As opposed to the small graveyard that now lay before them.

Fourteen rifles stuck out of the ground behind mounds of freshly disturbed dirt. Silver plates with names, birthdays and blood types were crudely integrated into the metal. No doubt, this had been a military vessel, however even Ruby, a gun nut if there ever was one, was unable to identify the model or the manufacturer.

"Well-"

Ruby's older sister, Yang started.

"Someone buried them, so there has to be at least one survivor."

She tried to make her voice sound hopeful, however a look at her little sister made her almost cry out herself. The young girl was shocked. Tears streamed down her face, even as she tried to suppress it and the little make up she had worn, was now smeared over her cheeks. She gave her a comforting hug and her sister started sobbing into her shoulder.

"We're too late! Maybe we could have saved them if we were just faster!"

She cried, muffled from the cloth in her face.

"I'm pretty sure they've been her for a while, if someone managed to dig graves for them. Fourteen however... that's..."

Blake Belladonna tried to reason, but quickly drifted off at the sight of the spartanic gravestones.

"Ruby... we couldn't have-"

"They've all been dead immediately. Not your fault."

Weiss Schnee was cut off by a male voice further out in the clearing.

Team RWBY whipped around, Weiss and Yang quickly adopting a fighting stance. No one was to be seen, safe for a single boot that stuck out from a large stone, an empty bottle of unknown content lay on the ground next to it.

"Are you...?"

Ruby started, but had trouble to articulate any further as she was still interrupted by her own sobbing.

"Have you buried these people?"

Blake stepped in for her, moving closer to the rock, her hand on the hilt of her weapon.

"Yeah... crashed here. Sole survivor here."

The voice croaked and Blake worried for a moment that he could be wounded too, but as she rounded the boulder, it was clear that he was just wasted.

He lay on his back, his arms stretched from his torso and his legs, more or less lying on the rock. It looked like he had fallen from his spot on the stone, due to his drunken stupor and just refused to give up.

He wore a olive coloured uniform with some form of white coloured body armor above it. The vest hugged his torso tightly and a pistol in it's holster and few empty magazine pouches were fastened to its front through a system of short but sturdy looking straps. his legs were outfitted with pads and a similar system, but they carried just an unmarked pouch and a pouch marked with a red cross, a medkit presumably.

His pants were neatly tucked into a pair of vicious looking combat boots with a profile so sharp, Blake was sure she could cut herself if she just touched the sole.

A strange looking helmet sat next to him in the grass, the oddly shaped visor glowing a soft blue.

From where she was standing, Blake was unable to see his face, so she stepped forward until she was almost standing above him. The stench of alcohol and the coppery smell of blood assaulted her nostrils and she had to recoil slightly away from him.

He was young, in his early twenties perhaps and his face looked like his skin had never seen the sun. Dark bags under his eyes were evidence of sleep deprivation or immense stress. His hair was dark, almost black and stuck wildly from his head. It was at medium length and cut short at the sides where it met a lighter five o'clock shadow around his cheeks and chin.

"Hey, pretty. What's a lovely girl like you doing out here in the wild? You know what? Don't even bother about me. I'm drunk and no good company to have around."

The man slurred from his spot in the grass. He slowly raised a hand to the sky and proceeded to observe it with concentration.

Yang picked up the empty bottle and brought it to her face. She grimaced immediately and dropped it back to the ground.

"Holy hell, how are you able to drink something like that? It smells like disinfectant. No, worse."

"That's only it's secondary use, female-voice-person. It's primary is to make you blind and let you forget about what happened."

Ruby, who had apparently calmed down, was next to Blake by now, kneeling down to the wasted man and started to look him over.

"Are you okay? Do you need medical assistance? We could take you back to Beacon."

"Do you have a penguin?"

"What? Uh... no? Not here, why?"

"A penguin would be nice right now. They're so clumsy... and fat. God, I want a pet penguin."

He said before he rolled on his side, so his back now faced the four girls.

Yang spoke up again.

"Ruby, I don't think we get anything useful out of him right now. We should get a pickup here and drop him at Beacons infirmary."

Her attention was pulled back to the man on the ground, by the soft sound of metal hitting together. He had pulled something from his pocket and stared intently at it. Fourteen little metal chips, each fastened to a sturdy necklace hung from his hand and glimmered in the sunlight.

"You have to understand miss, I have lost seventeen fr... comrades today. Two of which I couldn't even bury. One ripped apart so bad that I couldn't find his dog tags. If I seem confused and out of it, it is probably because I am."

"I'm... so sorry to hear that."

Ruby tried to not break out in tears again.

"I know."

He rolled back on his back and gave her a small smile. For the first time, the girls were able to properly see his eyes. Light grey and sharp, they peeked at them from behind the dark bags and conveyed a terrible tiredness. It was like his eyes were much older than his body. Still they held an edge in it, like only a fierce hunter could have.

"Who are you guys anyway?"

He asked, propping himself up with his elbows.

"I'm Yang, this is my little sister Ruby. This is Blake and this-"

"My name is Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. The biggest dust supplier on Remnant."

Weiss cut off Yang. The tone in her voice betraying a sense of superiority that Richter couldn't help but smile about.

"Big company, eh, White Snow? Don't know about that dust you're talking about... or about Remnant. But let me tell you something. I've had some very bad confrontations with megalomaniacs in my past, so you can't really impress me with something like that."

"How dare you, you imbe-"

"You however, still have a chance. I don't know anything about your Schnee Dirt, Dust-whatever, but if you're the biggest of whatever in wherever, I can't help but highly doubt that your company has a completely white vest.

When you inherit that mess, you better make it right.

But things don't work out like that, most if the time"

The last sentence was muttered in a low voice as he stowed the dog tags into a pouch in his vest. Blake couldn't help but smile slightly at the sentiment. Even if the man really didn't know of the SDC's practices, he was pretty spot on with his evaluation.

Richter knew he was harsh with the girl who he knew nothing about but her name and that she would one day lead some company, but her demeanor was downright ridiculous and his occupation during the last two years had surely roughed him up around the edges.

The IMC had no personalities in them like that. They were cold, calculating, a complex machine that regulated itself and expanded futfurther and further, swallowing everything in it's path. The leading executives of the IMC weren't evil people, it wasn't as easy as that. They didn't want others to die, but their work desensitised them to the point where they couldn't care anymore about the bodies they stepped over. They just couldn't see them anymore.

Those were the people Richter had hunted. Fathers and husbands. He infiltrated stations, bases and even homes to get to them. He broke necks, shot heads and poisoned food to take them out. Most pilots were used as front line breakers, shock troops and spearheads, he however was used in a much more subtle manner. Sure, he and his team had still packed a lot of firepower and were able to right out annihilate enemy fortifications if necessary, but his specialty lay in ambushing and slitting throats.

"We would like to take you with us to Beacon academy. Just so our doctors can take a look at you and make sure you're alright."

Blake said as the man picked himself up and made to stand on his own. She noticed a strange contraption that was fitted to his lower back, as well as the knife that sat only a centimeter above it.

"Sure, how could I say no to you?"

They weren't sure if he tried to flirt or was being sarcastic.

"Let's go to your little academy. One thing left to do for me though."

He said before he strolled over to the wreckage and climbed inside.

Richter had searched the Goblin for a way to contact the militia before, without avail. Another sweep however could not hurt.

After about five minutes of searching he had, unfortunately still found nothing. Grumbling he decided to return to the four weird girls, but not before dragging one of the guncases out and strapping the contained DMR to his back, as well as putting the magazines into their pouches.

"Alright ladies."

He said as he sauntered back over to them.

"Let's get out of this depressing place."

AN: This is another story that I'm writing, that crosses the RWBY world. Mostly doing this one because I ran into a block with my first story. Hope this one can be enjoyable.