I'm sorry, due to technical difficulties this chapter took a lot longer than originally intended.

Special thanks to PotatoGod69, I intend on taking your advice it helped a lot.

Any reviews (even angry, strongly worded) are welcome.

As always RWBY and 40K belong to there respective owners (RoosterTeeth and Games workshop)

————

His head hurt like hell. He found he was lying on the floor, completely drenched and freezing. His vision was blurred and his nose was bleeding. He pinched his nose to try and stop it.

"You dead?" Yang asked.

Ruby, Yang and Pyrrha were all gathered around him. Ruby was holding an empty bucket over his head.

"What in damnation happened?" He said, trying to get to his feet.

"Well, we tried to unlock your aura and to test it Yang hit you." Ruby said, "Like, really hard."

Estrus touched his nose carefully, probing for damage still trying to keep it pinched shut. Eventually, he concluded that his nose was unbroken but still bleeding and swollen.

"Good hit, perhaps if I face you in combat you will be a worthy opponent." The words sounding strange due to his blocked nose.

"Thanks?" Yang said scratching the back of her head. When you punch people they generally don't compliment you.

"My guess is it didn't work"

"Pardon?" Said Pyrrha as Estrus found his way to his feet, picking up his helmet on the way up.

"I don't have an aura, do I" Deep down some part of him was relieved.

A "Manifestation of the soul."

The more he repeated it in his head, the more it sounded like the grox shit a heretical cult would say. He was no psyker so this warpshitery wouldn't work for him.

"Does this mean you don't have a soul?" Ruby asked with genuine curiosity.

"My soul belongs to the Emperor and him alone." The statement was returned with mystified looks and he found himself cursing at the local's lack of knowledge.

For all Pyrrha new remnant was the only planet with humans.

"You want to try again?" Pyrrha asked.

"No." He replied firmly indicating that there was no convincing him otherwise.

Ruby looked at Estrus, concern on her face. "Are you sure? We have a combat class tomorrow."

Estrus nodded as he put his helmet on. "If the Emperor has sent me here I doubt he wants me dead yet." Ruby looked back to the two others in hopes of support.

Pyrrha sported a face of confusion while Yang shrugged. She understood that words wouldn't be swayed his opinion anytime soon.

"Well, Ok then."

"Now if you'll excuse me I have armour to attend to. It took quite a beating" Estrus turned sharply and walked out.

The three watched the man clad in metal armour left, his armour plates rattling as they hit each other.

"He's… Strange" Pyrrha said as she mentally when over the events that just transpired. "Why does he wear that mask."

"Because he hides his eyes, apparently he hates his silver eyes and calls them a taint." Ruby answered.

"Doesn't that bother you?"

————

Estrus stepped out of the forge and headed towards his dorm. His armour was now fixed of the holes the Beowulf had made. Now he greedy chomped on one of the corpse ration bars he had as he held his helmet under his arm.

He looked out one of the huge windows of Beacons many hallways. It was coming up 1400 hour. He turned the bend to his dorm to see a note stuck to the door.

"In order to get used to working with your new teammates, you have been moved to the same dorm as them. I appreciate your cooperation. -Ozpin"

Nope, Estrus thought as he tore down the note and waved the scroll in front of the door. It remained locked.

He tried again and grew frustrated. Estrus took a step back and rammed his shoulder into the door. Nothing.

A few students gave him some odd looks as he nursed his shoulder.

Frack. No way was he sharing a room with them. He didn't think poorly of them, they were still unknown factors and quite frankly there Auras still spooked him. Ally's by necessity, he reminded himself.

He carefully considered his options. An idea formed in his head and he checked his bag to look for a very specific item. A smile spread across his face.

He turned and walked down the hallway. He was so happy he thought he was going to whistle. A way to separate himself from the strangers he was paired with and stick a finger to Ozpin.

He made his way to the front of the school and started looking around its grounds. He saw exactly what he was looking for. A small spot up against the wall of the building and between two trees.

He gripped his entrenching tool and started digging.

————

A few students stopped to watch as Estrus dug a foxhole. It was now shoulder height and was wide enough to comfortably fit 2 to 3 people. He got out of the hole and sat down for a break. The students watching promptly left when they realized the action was over.

Estrus sat on the mound of moved dirt and removed his helmet. He grabbed for his canteen and greedily drank it all. He squinted as he looked towards the setting sun.

He softly smiled at the foxhole admiring his handiwork. It was a simple hole in the ground with a chunk taken out of the wall to sleep on.

He decided to use a canvas in his backpack to waterproof the foxhole and keep the rain out. Useful but unnecessary. The next proper step would be to implement wooden shoring to stop the walls crumbling in.

He dropped his backpack into the hole and headed towards the Beacons canteen. Filling his water bottle and filling his stomach where the next priority.

————

The Canteen was relatively empty with just a few students scattered throughout the room.

He picked up a piece of chicken and an unfamiliar long yellow fruit. He made his way to one of the tables that were pressed up against the wall.

He had very little knowledge of the people that inhabited this planet and tried to avoid people he didn't already know.

He started tucking into his meal, enjoying every bite. He wondered, as he started to consume the chicken, how an organization such as a Schola was able to have such nice food and so much of it.

He took a bite bit of the yellow fruit before deciding it wasn't exactly his taste and left it on his plate. Estrus tore the remaining chicken meat off the bone and ate it.

Because he couldn't get his hands on any wood, the next priority was to set up the tarp and any appropriate early warning mechanism. Even though Remnant wasn't a war zone, he didn't want anyone seeking up on him while sleeping.

Unsure with what to do with the used tray, he left it on the table and set off for his foxhole once more, as there was still much work to do.

A minute or two after Estrus left Ruby, Yang and Blake entered the Cafeteria to have some dinner.

"I wonder if Estrus is here?", Yang asked for no-one in particular.

"He was,'' Blake replied.

"How can you tell?"

Blake pointed to an empty table on the other side of the room. On it was a tray with a thoroughly chewed chicken bone and an unpeeled banana with a bite taken out of it.

"Name one person you know who doesn't know how to eat a banana." Blake replied.

————

Estrus peered out of his foxhole. He had used the spare dirt to weigh down the grey and green tarp and made mounds of dirt so the tarp sat just above the hole.

Some landscaping and some "borrowed" plants let the hole blend in quite well with the rest of its surroundings. To someone not looking for it it just looked like a pile of overgrown dirt.

Estrus looked to the sky to see unfamiliar stars, but then again when weren't they? A new planet, a new sky.

He reaches into his bag for Hugo. As a medic, he was allowed a servo-skull to aid him in surgery and first aid. Hugo had been his best friend and putting him down was one of the hardest decisions Estrus had ever made.

He hit the activation button and the machine sparked to life a dull light appearing in its cybernetic eye. Hugo had been equipped with a Vox, surgical tools that looked like they belonged in a dentist and various mechadendrites for small tasks.

"Guard" He firmly told it. It said something in the dialect of the machines and hovered, silently watching. It was a one-way relationship.

Estrus unrolled his sleeping mat and put it on the cavity in the wall. He removed his helmet and placed it on the floor before laying on the bed.

He lay there and was asleep within minutes.

————

"Something on your mind?" Yang asked. She had noticed Ruby sitting on her bed and blankly looking out the window.

"Estrus is supposed to be sharing a dorm with us, " Ruby replied before turning to look at her sister, "And to be honest, he doesn't seem like a person who would have second thoughts about sleeping on the floor."

"No offence to him, but he does act really strange." Ruby continued.

"I'm sure that wherever he's decided to spend the night, he'll be fine." replied Yang.

Ruby was still unsatisfied with the answer and continued to stare out the window. Yang, seeing she probably could change her mind, left her to sit on her bed.

————

So they managed to screw up the honour of combat, but most weren't even paying attention to the fight. They were instead staring at the skull automaton that hovers around him, one of its mechadendrites drooped lazily over his shoulder.

He thought as he watched to boys fight in front of him. They were the only people in the class who wore any armour that looked like it could stop a sword.

Everyone in the class relied more on dodging the hit that taking it and continuing fighting. He for one knew the strategy worked.

His hand dropped down to the left side of his chest cavity. Estrus had gotten a bionic replacement for the parts the fleshborer had chewed through.

So how would they react when they found an opponent they couldn't dodge, he thought silently to himself.

"This is the part where you lose." The larger of the two yelled.

"Over my dead-" He started before taking a knee to the gut. A buzzer sounded signalling the end of the match.

"Time to shine, " Estrus muttered under his breath glancing down at his laspistol, still resting in its holster. The servo-skull beeped a few times as if in agreement.

"Students, as you see, Mr Arc's Aura has now dropped into the red. In a tournament style duel, this would indicate that Jaune is no longer fit for battle and the officials may call the match. Goodwitch said before grilling Jaune on the fact that he wasn't using his "scroll."

Estrus had no intention of taking that advice either. "We have just enough time for one last fight" Goodwitch continued "Any volunteers?"

Estrus stood up attacking a few more stares than the hovering skull already had.

"I have a challenge to issue. I wish to fight the fastest one amongst you."

Some people looked to Ruby as Estrus walked down to the arena, the machine seaming to quiver behind him. Due to her semblance, "Rosewarp" she was by far the quickest of any of them.

She watched Estrus slap a fresh laspack into his pistol while muttering under his breath. Mentally she decided to go easy on him due to his lack of aura although the weapons his skull friend had were slightly intimidating. Her opponent found no such limitations.

Their aura levels appeared on the board. Ruby's was at full while Estrus showed up as an error. "Stay put, " Estrus said and the skull moved off to the side and hovered.

They faced each other as Estrus read a passage from the uplifting primer aloud.

"I offer my life to the Emperor.

I pray that He accepts it.

I offer my Strength to the Emperor.

I pray He redresses it.

I offer my body on the altar of the battlefield.

I pray he grants me a noble death.

I pray for His protection, As I offer all that I am."

"Begin!" Goodwitch yelled an Estrus hastily pocketed the book.

Estrus fired his laspistol twice. Ruby attempted to dodge but found that light was quite a hard thing to dodge.

She realised that Estrus was taking the fight seriously as she felt the combined heat of the two lasbolts on the side of her face. He was going for the head. Her aura protected her but it still stung.

Ruby looked up to the screen to see that about a third of her aura was gone. I can't afford to take another hit like that, she thought as she used rosewarp to try to get close enough to attack with her scythe.

Then the shots she was dreading came. Finding herself yet again unable to dodge the shots, Ruby's aura fell massively to the volley.

Estrus looked up to the screen to see how depleted her aura was and dropped the power setting on his laspistol to the point where it was a stun gun.

This time it was his turn to be taken off guard. He saw the crimson scythe fall come swinging towards him. It tore through his fatigues and cut deep into his leg, knocking him to the ground

"Sorry!" She said, starting at the gruesome cut on his leg.

"Don't…" He coughed, " apologies to the enemy."

He could see Ruby's silver eyes widen as the pistol once again aimed at her. Estrus held town the trigger. The weapon spat out more lasbolts than he cared to count.

Her Aura dropped so quickly that the buzzer of in a matter of seconds.

"End match!" Goodwitch yelled. Estrus found himself find his way to his feet nursing a wound for the third time in two days.

Ruby looked quite stunned. She hadn't expected to lose, definitely not to someone with no aura no. Ruby stared at the laspistol completely forgetting the match she just lost.

The bell rang.

"Class dismissed, " Miss Goodwitch said before turning to Estrus, "Please refrain from bleeding on everything this time."

Estrus tried to a crisp salute with a visible wince of pain. He pulled his fatigues over the wound to try and stem the bleeding.

"Come on!" he said to the skull as he beckoned it. It floated over and took a curious look at his wound only to be waived off. It made what could only be described as a sad beeping noise.

He stumbled down the hallway, too focused on his leg to notice the red girl tailing him. Hugo, on the other hand, noticed but not seeing it as a threat made no attempt to inform Estrus.

He arrived at the front of the school with Ruby in tow still staring at the pistol. He walked over to the foxhole and made his way into his new home.

Ruby was surprised by Estrus's sudden plummet into the ground. As she approached the spot of his disappearance the outline of the tarp became visible.

Ruby bent down to look under the tarp into the hole. Estrus sat there on a bedroll placed on a cavity on the wall. The hovering skull was attending to his legs wound with some needle-like implements. Noticing the sudden change in light level and looked up.

"Welcome to my humble establishment, " He said in a monotone voice as the servo-skull clicked and hummed.

"This is where you spent the night? I thought you would just sleep on the floor. Not sure if this is better or worse." Ruby replied.

"Have you just come to insult my digging skills or is there a reason you're here?" The machine finished stitching Estrus's leg and returned to its rightful place at his shoulder.

She stopped for a second deep in thought. Estrus pulled himself out of the hole and wiped the dirt off his fatigues.

"I do, but first I think you should spend the night with your team." Ruby said.

"But-"

"No buts," She interrupted.

Then the guardsman training kicked in. Technically if they were in a squad or "team" and Ruby led it, it meant that technically she was a Sargent and outranked him.

And when you disobeyed your superiors' orders, you were shot.

Ruby didn't seem like the kind of person who would do this, thank the Emperor. She seemed like the nice Sargent that you could sit down and talk with a bottle of Amasec. Not that he was inviting her to partake in alcohol.

The white one, Weiss, did. Estrus wouldn't be surprised if she had ended up on this world as he had, and she was, in fact, a member of the Officio Prefectus.

"Yes Ma'am, " Estrus said straightening his back and saluting. Ruby was surprised by his sudden change in attitude.

"Now, can I see that gun, " She said pointing to the laspistol, trying to make the most in his change of mind. Estrus pulled the laspistol out and held it out by the barrel so the grip was facing Ruby.

It was still on low power so if she shot someone it would only stun them. Then the questions came.

"What is it? What does it shoot? What does this do? How does it work? Why couldn't I dodge it?"

Estrus though for a second, trying to separate the questions from each other and pair them with an answer.

"An M36 Pattern Laspistol. A highly concentrated beam of light. That changes the fire rate. I don't know, ask a tech priest. Because it's light."

She continues to thoroughly inspect the weapon and accidentally drops the laspack out. The skull dips and retrieves it, slotting it into Estrus's belt

"Please be careful with it, " Estrus says in a strained voice. "The machine spirit is going to hate me after this."

Ruby pays no attention to his concern and continues to fiddle with it. Every prayer left unsaid leaves Estrus more and more uncomfortable. Until he snaps.

"Give it back, right now." he says as calmly as he could manage. "You have absolutely no right to defile that weapon."

Ruby hastily hands back the laspistol, unsure what she had done wrong. The flying machine made a low whine which represented how Ruby felt quite well.

"Can you teach me how to use it?" She asked. Estrus considered the request, she did seem competent enough to use it but she would need to be taught to respect the machine spirit.

Estrus took the uplifting primer from his pocket and handed it to the young girl.

While it was against regulations to not carry your primer, if he was going to show these people the glory of the Emperor, now was a good time to start.

"Read the chapter on laspistol maintenance and repair, as well as the litany of the machine towards the back of the book."

"Is that a yes?"

Estrus nodded. Ruby looked overjoyed.

"But if you break the book, it's off!

"Why?" Ruby queried.

"It is currently the only copy on this planet," Estrus replied.

"Space book," Ruby said. Estrus smiled beneath his mask, he found Ruby to be amusing.

————

At the table they sat at, Nora was sharing a story with the other students while Ren corrected it. Estrus was shooting some worried glances at Weiss. Yang wasn't interested in that.

She was more interested in the development with their new teammate. The skull hovering over his right shoulder was…. Strange to say the least.

"So what you're telling me, is that since about five minutes ago, he's doing exactly what you tell him to the word?" She whispered.

"More or less." The reply was whispered.

"Estrus," Ruby stated. He looked up from the bread he was eating.

"Can I have, say, 10 cookies?" She asked.

"Yes, ma'am." He got out of his seat and left towards the food leaving most at the table with a mix of amazement and confusion. He returned to the table with a large plate piled with biscuits.

He placed the plate in front of the red girl save the one he retrieved for himself. As he sat and watched the food disappeared at an alarming rate and the plate was empty within seconds.

Estrus was about to eat his own when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the puppy eyes. She didn't even have to say what she wanted, he already knew. Reluctantly he handed the treat over.

"I think she's going mad with power," Yang whispered to Blake who shrugged. "So, what's with all the skulls? There on your armour, weapon and now robot-skull."

"The skull represents the fact that even in death humans are far superior to anything else in the Galaxy."

"Dark." Yang replied.

"But correct." Estrus countered.

Estrus decides to listen in on the other's conversation to pass the time.

"Jaune, you know if you ever need help, you can ask," Pyrrha says.

"Oooooh!" Nora says and gets up, standing on the bench. "We'll break his legs!"

"Who are you referring to?" He asks.

"Cardin." Pyrrha replies.

"Guys, really, it's fine. Besides, it's not like he's just a jerk to me, he's a jerk to everyone."

"Still, I agree that immobilising him would be a…" Estrus started but the words are cut off by Cries of pain. Cardin was tormenting an abhuman with large floppy growths he could only assume where ears.

"Someone should do something about him." Pyrrha says.

"Well, then why don't you all get off your asses, do something and stop waiting for a servant of the emperor, gets sent to your world to help you with a bullying problem!" Estrus declares trying to make it clear it wasn't his problem. "You outnumber him by an acceptable ratio."

Everyone at the table is silent at his suggestion, thinking it over.

"You know what!" Yang finally says. "Let's go beat up Cardin!"

There are a few mumbled agreements of various enthusiasm and everyone gets up and walks over to Cardin and his team. Except for Estrus, Jaune and Ruby.

"I'm not sure what just happened," Ruby said bluntly.

It seems they trust me already, Estrus though the sounds of brawling. He smiled beneath his mask.

————

For some justification as I feel it may be nesseary, I wanted Estrus to think of all Ruby's requests as orders so the plot progresses and he doesn't instantly view them as friends.