Winter considered herself lucky.
She had fully expected that annoying drunkard to accost her as soon as she landed. Perhaps even drag her into a “friendly spar” for all of the students to see. Yet she found herself able to easily walk through the grounds of Beacon, many students making way for her as soon as they recognized who she was. Of course, it was hard to tell at times whether that was due to their respect for her, having reached her position through merit, or whether it was due to her last name.
But it mattered not. She had duties to attend to, and the thoughts and opinions of huntsmen in training ranked far lower in importance.
It was odd though, for General Ironwood to have requested her presence already. Surely his discussion with Headmaster Ozpin couldn’t have gone that poorly… right?
She cast any doubts aside as she knocked on the door to the General’s temporary office. If there was a problem at hand, she would face it as she would any other. “Sir, Specialist Schnee, reporting.”
“Enter.” With permission granted, she opened to the door to the sight of General Ironwood methodically searching through files, his brow furrowed. Never a good sign. Closing the door behind her, she marched up to his desk, standing at attention.
The man finally looked up at her, rolling his eyes. “At ease, Specialist.”
He could roll his eyes all he liked, she was not going to slack off just because the two of them were alone. “You requested my presence, Sir?”
“There’s been a development. A few developments, really, but they’re all centered around one person.” He pulled up a picture of a Beacon student, as indicated by the school uniform, who on the whole looked unremarkable. “Jaune Arc, first year student, leader of team JNPR. He decided to interrupt my meeting with Ozpin so that he could ‘speak to me about some security concerns’. He claims that his semblance, referred to as Second Thoughts, is both sapient and capable of telling the future to a limited extent.”
Her thoughts on such a claim must have been clear on her face because the General quirked an eyebrow at her. “My thoughts exactly. A sapient semblance, with an entirely separate personality and set of memories, while unheard of, is something I could begrudgingly believe. The same for the future vision aspect. But both of them at once? I suppose we don’t truly know the limits of semblances, but it is a hard pill to swallow.”
Indeed it was. Perhaps a cover story for a semblance of a more sinister nature? Her musings were interrupted when the General continued. “The problem is that Ozpin is vouching for his claim. It seems he doesn’t entirely trust the boy, but the claims so far have proven true. Supposedly, the knowledge gleaned from his semblance is how they managed to capture Torchwick. Speaking of which, remind me to make accommodations to hold him prisoner. It seems Vale is playing politics and the man is being held on school grounds.”
“I’ll see to it right away, Sir.” Not a surprising development, but a disappointing one nonetheless. She only hoped that transferring custody of the criminal into their hands would not be as annoying as it usually was. “Should I also have our team begin research into Arc’s background?”
“Of course, best to play it safe.” But as those words left his mouth, his face seemed to age. The look of a man having to deal with too much. “And if we are to play it safe… we should also investigate the information that this supposed ‘Second Thoughts’ decided to share with me.”
“Sir?” It was not often that Ironwood allowed the weight of his position to show, even when it was just the two of them.
“He alleges that Headmaster Lionheart is knowingly sending huntsmen to their deaths.”
You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed.
“That is… a rather serious accusation Sir. What do you plan to do about it?” Such a thing was unthinkable, really. A headmaster throwing away the lives of those who protect humanity? Preposterous.
“I’m going to have him monitored. I would like to be able to laugh such an accusation off, but… on the off chance that there is even a shred of truth to it, I cannot simply ignore it. It is my hope that nothing will be found, and I can safely call everything else that the boy has to say delusions, but the truth of the world is rarely so kind.”
Before Winter could even properly process that, the General continued. “And then there is another matter that the boy mentioned. He claims to know where our missing Paladin went. Or at least, where it should be? He mentioned the butterfly effect and didn’t give any specifics at the time, but I think one of us will need to sit down and pour over the details with him. An opportunity to recapture our technology and prevent criminals from using it should be something we leap at.”
“Of course, Sir. But… if he is able to help us recover the Paladin, wouldn’t that point towards him being truthful? That would mean there’s merit to what he says about Headmaster Lionheart.”
Ironwood gave a long sigh. “Yes, yes it would.”
----------------------------------------
Something odd was going on.
She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, or who was behind it, but when Cinder found out? She was going to enjoy burning the source of her recent problems to ashes. How did the saying go? Once is chance, twice a coincidence, thrice a pattern?
Cinder didn’t believe in coincidences.
Roman being captured was one thing. The man enjoyed flaunting his exploits out in the open, and he wasn’t particularly skilled. It was an inevitability that he would be apprehended at some point, so she had chalked it up as simply a failure on his part.
But when Emerald and Mercury returned from their first attempt at cleaning up Roman’s mess, only to tell her that the loose end had escaped their grasp? That was twice now that her plans were interfered with by an outside source.
It wasn’t that she particularly trusted either of her henchmen to be reliable, but even they should have been able to kill some worthless White Fang runaway.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
And so as she walked through the halls of Beacon, two members of her “team” at her side, she found herself inspecting every person they passed. Subtly, of course, she wasn’t some amateur. It was tiring, having to spend so much time pretending to be some schoolgirl, looking for signs of deception among other schoolgirls, but it was only natural to assume that the pest ruining her plans would be somewhere around here. Not many people would be able to get Beacon staff involved in Roman’s arrest, after all.
They passed the corridor holding Roman. Walking directly past his room would arouse suspicion, and with multiple guards they couldn’t rely on Emerald’s semblance, so they were stuck with quick glances as they went through the intersection of the halls.
Two huntsmen. Young, no more than a year or two out of Beacon. Trying to take their job seriously, but bored out of their minds so their attention was lacking. Adding them to the two huntsmen patrolling the area and doing a lackluster job of keeping a low profile made for a full team. It would be easy to kill all four of them… but not while they were surrounded by people with combat training. And of course, there was no way that a single team was watching him 24/7 if the lot of them were keeping guard at once… There would need to be more investigations into the security measures. Shift changes, total number involved, when they were most lax. Roman was hardly worth the effort, but she would need to secure his freedom, or at least give the illusion of it, in order to get his little assistant to help with her plans.
Neo’s semblance really was far too useful.
Though if you knew how she ticked, the things that motivated her… you could deduce things, even if your eyes couldn’t see the truth. Neo was devoted to Roman for some odd reason. She used her semblance to change her own appearance quite often. She would be investigating Roman’s security as well, hoping to break him out and escape like the rats they were.
Cinder let herself smirk as she walked up to a short girl in the hall.
“There you are. I was beginning to think that our final teammate had run away on us. That would be just awful, wouldn’t it? It’s good to see you again.”
The girl’s true eye colors surfaced briefly as she gave up on her facade.
“Let’s catch up, shall we?”
----------------------------------------
“I’m just saying, it wouldn’t hurt to have another set of eyes on the White Fang. Torchwick was already captured and the average member in this area is going to be either a fresh recruit or someone with little experience. It’s not like we’d be in any actual danger!” Blake pleaded with her friends.
“I had thought Second’s warning to be an exaggeration, but the more I hear you speak about the White Fang, the more justified I feel in having subjected you to being Nora’s prisoner.” Ren replied with a deadpan expression.
“Prisoner?! She wasn’t my prisoner, we were just temporary besties!” Nora’s input on the matter was ignored.
“What dimwitted reasoning could you possibly have for trying to go after those criminals when you were explicitly told to stay out of it? I am not about to subject myself to Professor Goodwitch’s wrath because you felt the need to insert yourself into the situation!” Weiss berated her teammate.
“While the White Fang is currently labeled as either a criminal or terrorist organization in most jurisdictions, this was not always the case. Accounting for friend Blake’s age, it is likely that she was involved to some degree with the White Fang before they began using more violent tactics. The behavior she exhibits indicates that she feels some level of guilt for her past, and at the same time does not see the current iteration of the group as the “true White Fang”. Perhaps she wishes to clear the name of the organization, believing them to be framed for the recent incidents?” Penny suggested.
The idea sounded so outrageous that the whole group had turned to look at her, missing how Blake had frozen up.
“Penny, why do you think Blake was involved in the White Fang? There’s no way she used to be involved with them, they wouldn’t let a human join!” Ruby protested, intent on defending her teammate.
“Human? Friend Blake is clearly a faunus. She has cat ears under her bow, she shares a last name with the previous leaders of the White Fang, not to mention the physical resemblance. She must be related to them somehow, if not their daughter. It’s logical to conclude someone who grew up in that environment would be involved with the White Fang. Obviously she is not an active member, or Headmaster Ozpin would have rejected her from Beacon, but to say that she was never in any way involved would be statistically unlikely at best.”
“That’s her secret?! It’s been driving me crazy and I missed something so obvious!” Jaune’s face smashed into the table as he lamented his failure. “I’ve seen her bow move! I thought it was just the wind or something!”
I have no idea how the lot of you are this oblivious. I guarantee you that the staff knows, along with Sun. For the entirety of the Beacon student body to miss that is kind of sad really.
You knew! You could have told me!
After the reaction she had when you first revealed me to her? Are you insane?
“Secret? Oh no!” Penny looked devastated. “I am so sorry friend Blake, it was just so obvious to me that I hadn’t stopped to consider-”
She didn’t get to finish her apology. Blake was gone in an instant, clearly not having been ready for the truth to be revealed in such a fashion. Her team wasn’t far behind her though. “Blake, wait, let’s talk about this!” Ruby cried out before the last of team RWBY disappeared from view.
“Should we… go with them?” Pyrrha hesitantly asked. She clearly wanted to help, but wasn’t sure if she would be welcome right now.
Leave them be. This was bound to happen eventually, they’ll sort things out on their own even if it takes a few days. But if Penny feels like doing big reveals, now would be a decent time for her own.
“Maybe that should be a team RWBY issue. I’m sure they’ll be fine, Pyrrha.” A hand on her shoulder reassured her. “But if we’re exposing big secrets… there’s something else you guys should probably know.”
“Does it top that? Oh, wait, don’t tell me, Second is actually your twin brother, and he’s been inside you all this time, you’re actually conjoined twins!” Nora was never one to let others put a damper on her mood.
“Um, no?” Jaune looked desperately to Penny, hoping to stop Nora before she went on a tirade of crazy theories.
“The secret is mine, actually.” Penny seemed nervous, but a nod of approval from Jaune kept her going. “Pyrrha, I must ask that you do not use your semblance on me during any spars.”
“Oh! Penny is actually a robot! Top secret Atlas tech, sent to infiltrate humanity!” Nora chimed in once more.
“Nora, stop, this might be serious.” Ren chided her.
“Well, actually…” Jaune started.
“I was not sent to infiltrate humanity, per say, I was sent to learn to be more human and ensure there were no problems with my design.”
Ren and Pyrrha were struck speechless, but Nora was jumping for joy. “Aha! I was right!”
“We’re never going to hear the end of that, are we?” Jaune sighed.
Probably not.
It was then that Sun decided to join them, a blue haired guy at his side. “Hey guys, this is my buddy Neptune! I didn’t miss anything exciting, did I?”
Jaune and Ren looked resigned. Penny seemed apprehensive. Nora was… Nora. Pyrrha looked at her hands with what might be fear.
“...I totally did, didn’t I?” the monkey faunus asked his teammate.
“You totally did.”