Ozpin recovered rather quickly. “Is that your idea of a joke? I’m afraid that I don’t find it humorous.” The headmaster began walking towards them once more.
“Well, an alternative timeline, actually, though it must have deviated from this one a long time ago…” Second nervously replied.
“Would you shut up?!” Jaune hissed at his semblance. “You’re not helping!”
“Perhaps you have the answers I seek, Mr. Arc.” Ozpin's piercing gaze turned towards him. “I understand that Seconds Thoughts has a rather large degree of autonomy, so I suppose I cannot blame you for all of the actions that he takes, but you’re involved personally in this matter.”
“W-well…” Jaune stammered.
What could he say to that? He had been involved. Second may have been the one to suggest it initially, but he’d been the one to actually set things in motion here. Hiding behind Second and saying “he made me do it!” probably wouldn’t get him very far.
Should he lie and say that he misunderstood somehow? Or maybe that Roman and Neo had broken in on their own, and he and Second were here to stop them… Or maybe Roman and Neo had been the ones to coerce them into this?
Ozpin was the headmaster though. He was an old man who had been through a lot. And based on his explanation about his past with a mind inside his own, it was probably safe to say that he had something like two lifetimes of experience. Wouldn’t that make him better at spotting lies from a student? He hadn’t known about Lionheart being a traitor, but who would expect something like that…
Excuse after excuse raced through his mind as Ozpin got closer and closer to them. Second tried to take up a relaxed stance, but he could see how tense his semblance was. With Neo still recovering from the transfer process, Roman had pushed her behind him, apparently intent on shielding her from any sudden attacks. He had a white-knuckled grip on his cane.
Were things really about to come to blows? He didn’t want to fight the headmaster! They might not see eye to eye on everything, and sure he had sort of… well, no, he definitely just snuck behind the man’s back to do this, but that didn’t mean he wanted to fight!
Hoping to defuse the situation, even if just a bit, Jaune chose to go with the truth.
“I don’t want my friends to die.”
Ozpin didn’t stop walking this time, though he did slow down as he grew closer and closer to both the machine and the group. Not that it mattered much. Jaune had never seen the headmaster in a fight, but he highly doubted that an experienced huntsman would lack a ranged option. He seemed to be the only person around who did, really, since Crocea Mors was just a sword and collapsible shield…
“Understandable. But why is it that you think this would have any effect on that? If anything, I would think that this harms the odds that your friends are unharmed. You’ve just given power that you don’t understand to a violent criminal.”
“Hey! We’re classy, saying it like that lumps us in with all the common thugs on the street!” Roman argued.
“Is my description incorrect? Is she not both a criminal and quite violent?”
“You lot haven’t even seen her fight!”
“But am. I. Wrong?” Ozpin slowly drew the words out.
Roman frowned, but didn’t rebut this point any further.
Ozpin finally came to a stop mere meters away from them. “Well, Mr. Arc?”
“I might not know much… or really anything more than the bare basics about Neo,” Jaune admitted, “but the little that I do know is that Cinder is probably pretty pissed at her. She’s here instead of with Cinder, and she’s not trying to kill us after all.”
“Not being aligned with Cinder any longer does not mean that she is someone we can trust. Roman Torchwick is a notorious criminal and by all accounts she seems to be his right hand.”
Roman smirked at that, but wisely stayed silent.
“Why is her being a criminal such a big deal?” Second spoke up. “You brought Qrow and Raven into Beacon, and they were criminals. One of them still is!”
“The details are different, you can’t compare them so easily-” Ozpin began, but Second interrupted him.
“Why not?! They’re from a tribe of bandits! You took in two people who were used to a life of pillage and plunder, who lived with a mentality where the strong rule over the weak, and you put them into your star team!”
“They were children when I found them, raised in a manner such that they did not understand their actions were wrong. And I have no clue what you’re on about with this star team nonsense.”
“Am I honestly meant to believe that? You recruited Ruby years in advance because you wanted to make use of her eyes. Can you honestly say that when you found Summer that you weren’t just as eager to get her under your thumb? But you can’t just throw something so precious to the wolves, you have to set up a team around them! I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Ruby ended up with the Schnee heiress, the daughter of the founders of the White Fang, and her sister on her team. The same way that Summer ended up with the two poor souls you saved from a life of banditry. One who just so happens to have one of the most useful semblances in existence, and her brother who you turned into one of your strongest advocates. You just gave Qrow and Raven the ability to transform into birds on a whim, it definitely had nothing to do with who their team leader was!” Second’s voice had grown louder and louder as he ranted, but he took a deep breath and lowered it back down before continuing. “I’ll admit that I don’t know of any angle involving Taiyang, but that doesn’t change anything. You have a habit of finding promising students, people who you want to take over the fight in the next generation, and grooming them into the perfect pawns for you to use.”
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Neo and Roman made disgusted faces and took a step back. “We may be crooks, but if that’s what you lot get up to, we want no part of it!”
“Not like that!” Second quickly corrected. “I just mean that he pushed them down the right path for them to be good at the jobs he needed them for!”
Ozpin frowned. “I would ask that you more carefully consider your phrasing in the future. You cause me quite enough problems already, I don’t need any scandals of that sort popping up on top of it all. As far as your other points go… I will maintain that your accusations are baseless, but even if they were true, all you’re doing is making an even greater case for my argument. Raven has abandoned her duties as a Huntress. She abandoned her family. She has gone back to banditry and now uses all the time we invested into her education and all the skills that we passed on into preying on the weak. Qrow has grown into a reliable man, and I trust him with many things now, but who are you to say which of these two paths Neo will follow?
It is a possibility that she will clean up her act. That she will become both a model citizen, and a model Maiden, using the powers gifted to her to bring good into the world.
But I believe it to be far more likely that she will not. I do not know her personally. I cannot speak in detail to her character. But I must assume the fact that, much like her partner in crime, her number one priority is herself and not those around her.”
Neo happily nodded along, standing a bit straighter and seemingly starting to recover from the transfer.
“What’s wrong with that?” Jaune asked.
Ozpin sighed. “Mr. Arc, I do not know how much Second has told you about the situation, but surely you can see why someone so selfish cannot possibly be considered a viable candidate for the Maiden’s power.”
Jaune’s eyes narrowed. His hands balled into fists. “You want someone selfless then. Like Pyrrha.” His voice was clipped, anger simmering beneath the surface.
“You never did deny that, did you?” Roman agreed. “I don’t see the angle, though. Isn’t the Nikos girl too much of a goody-two-shoes to be dealing with this sort of thing?”
“Well excuse me for wanting such a power to be in the hands of someone who would think of others first. I happen to believe that they are less likely to abuse the power.” Ozpin snidely remarked.
“Was she selfless?” Roman pointed to the girl still inside the machine. Amber lay still, stuck in a stasis that left her unmoving. Or perhaps dead. They hadn’t exactly had time to check before Ozpin showed up.
Ozpin’s jaw tensed. “Amber wa-” he caught himself, “is a wonderful person, and I will not hear you besmirch her name.”
Roman held his hands up in surrender. “I’m not saying that’s a bad thing! Not everyone is cut out for a life of crime, and this fucked up world would be a lot more depressing if not for the few good people in it. I’m just saying that it doesn’t make sense to have a person like that take on this power. Good people are too trusting, and if what Second told us about the girl was true, that’s how she ended up in a box. If you have a power that transfers upon death, it makes more sense to be jaded and distrusting, doesn’t it? You might not like that, but logically it makes sense. With the facts that I have, anyway…”
“Do you think that I want to force this responsibility onto a student?” Ozpin replied calmly. Jaune got the feeling that it was just an act, but it was impressive. The headmaster looked ready to invite them to afternoon tea rather than kick their asses. He must have a lot of practice with this sort of thing… “Do you think that if I had other options that I would not take them?”
“You have other options!” Jaune yelled. “Why does it have to be Pyrrha?! Why my friends?!”
“Because there are limitations to it. If she were able, Glynda would gladly take it on herself.”
“And because she can’t take it, your next choice is a first year?! We’ve only just started at this school! Do you think all of the Huntresses who have already graduated are such bad people that they can’t possibly be considered?”
“That is not what I am-”
“What about the third years? Or the second years, even? Is that really so crazy to consider?”
“Pyrrha won the Vytal festival. She has shown herself to be more than capable of defending herself. Though if you’re resorting to lengths like these, I suppose that any attempts to impart this responsibility onto your friends will be met with rather poor reactions…”
“They’re kids, Ozpin.” Second reminded him. “You’re talking about a group of seventeen year olds. Ruby is only fifteen, but I doubt you’d consider her because of her eyes…”
Ozpin just stared at them for a moment. Or maybe he stared through them. It was a bit hard to tell what was running through his mind. “I understand the point that you’re trying to make. If this is how it is… then I shall simply have to look elsewhere for candidates.”
Jaune’s body sagged with relief.
“That does not, however, mean that I am suddenly okay with what you have done here, or that I will allow her to remain a Maiden. I cannot trust her.”
Neo pouted.
He turned to Roman. “If this is what you plan to do with the limited amount of freedom granted to you, then it seems you cannot be trusted even to the limited degree that I initially believed.”
Then, towards Jaune and Second, he continued with “If you two believe that this is the right way to go about things, then you shall be dealing with Glynda until she can get it through your heads that you are incorrect.”
Finally, he turned to Neo. “And you… you will be giving up the Maiden’s power. You have already stolen it, and I am not sure what would happen to Amber if we attempted to simply reverse the process. Therefore, you will be kept under lock and key until we have found a suitable replacement for you.”
The sound of the elevator moving again drew their attention.
Ozpin put on a pleasant smile. “It would seem that my reinforcements have arrived. I will ask that you all comply,” he said pointedly towards the short sadist, “because as you have seen for yourselves, the Maiden’s power does not make you invincible.”
This hadn’t gone the way that Jaune had hoped it would, but he did get Ozpin to agree not to force the Maiden’s powers onto his friends, so…
Mission accomplished?