Qrow waited at the back of the ship, looking out into the ocean. He couldn't see much at this time of night, but Clark had given him a heads up that he was on his way back.

Any second n-

"Bad news," Clark said beside him.

Qrow had spent enough time with Clark to get used to the sudden appearances. Even so, he had to admit that the sight down below was impressive. The water had parted at Clark's arrival, although not as much as one would expect from someone zooming across it as fast as he could. And it was still falling back down.

"Is Lionheart a traitor?" Qrow asked.

Clark nodded. "He keeps a Seer Grimm in a room with a hidden entrance in his office. They can see and talk to each other with it like a crystal ball."

"Shit." Qrow spat out the word and his hand tightened on the railing. "I was hoping that we were just being paranoid."

Lionheart had been one of Ozpin's most trusted allies. Until Cinder's cover had been blown, Ozpin faith in him hadn't broken for years. Years in which Qrow had made regular visits to Haven and shared new findings. He hadn't had any deep connection with Lionheart, but it still pissed him off how the headmaster had fooled them all.

How long had the bastard been working for Salem? How long had he been feeding her information? If he'd been involved in any way with Summer's death, Qrow would kill him with his bare hands.

Clark interrupted his thoughts with an even voice. "Qrow, calm down, we need to think about how we're going to deal with this."

"Right, right." Qrow let out a breath and waited for his heartbeat to slow down. "Okay, so first, what did he talk about with Salem?"

"He told them that we were on our way to Haven and what we're looking for. He's not going to give us any details on Cinder, but he's supposed to delay us and keep us there. Then- Clark paused. "Then he's supposed to deliver information on me to her or her servants."

That caught Qrow's attention. "You? Damn, then that probably means she wants you out of the way."

"Yeah," Clark said. His lips bunched into a narrow line.

Qrow narrowed his eyes. "Hey, you alright?"

"Well, I'm worried," Clark admitted. "The phantom is hard enough to deal with alone, but he also has kryptonite and allies with magic. He could kill me."

"Hey, don't focus on that. Think about how we're gonna trick Lionheart and make it hell for them when the moment's right." Qrow promised and patted him on the back. "We'll have to be careful though. You're sure there wasn't any lead around?"

"A hundred percent, I looked everywhere."

Qrow considered it. "Then that probably means your double still hasn't told them about your X-ray vision or super ears. I can't see how it would be worth it for them to reveal that Lionheart's working for Salem, not even to give you false information, but we can't ignore that it's possible."

"I could tell that he was telling the truth when he spoke with her, but I guess she could be keeping him in the dark about it." Clark tapped his chin with a finger. "It shouldn't be too hard for me to check that she's giving him genuine information. They're bound to mention something that would be too important for them to leak."

"Or they could be trying to trap you."

"I guess, but I could check it from miles away during the day and leave. Then not even the phantom would be able to chase me down." Clark said.

"Maybe, but we'll need to judge case-by-case if it's too risky. Anyway, we need to discuss how we're going to deal with Lionheart."

Over the next while, the two came to a number of decisions. Whether or not they'd stay at Haven. What countermeasures they'd need to make sure that Lionheart didn't spy on them, or if that wasn't an option, what measures they'd need to put in place for him to spy on them when they wanted him to. What they'd do in a number of situations, such as whether Salem actually gave Lionheart false information to trick them or how they'd avoid traps set up for them without tipping them off.

"You sure you're up for this?" Qrow asked. "We're gonna need to lie to his face. You're not exactly the best at that."

"I can lie if I need to."

Qrow snorted.

"I kept a lot of my abilities secret from you guys."

Alright, Clark got credit for that at least, but it wasn't much. "Not as well as you think you did. Sure, we had no idea about the laser eyes, but we were already wondering if you had some extra sense for finding criminals. Didn't think it was super-hearing though."

"What gave me away?"

"The tracker, remember?"

"Oh." Clark said, and he seemed resigned as a realization came to him. "And if Lionheart hides one in something he gives me, I guess I'll have to let him."

"Yeah, but look on the bright side, you'll know about it and we'll be able to use it to trick him." Qrow pointed out. "Now let's go back and fill the kids in on what to do when we get there."

\\\\\

Mistral had looked completely awesome. Houses and shops with exotic sloped roofs built into cliffsides, with lots of vines growing off the edges. Waterfalls giving the air a nice, cool feeling even though it was summer. There were markets down below too with pretty much anything you wanted, and Yang had spotted Ruby's excitement at the weapon stalls.

It sucked that they had to rush by all of it though. They had to go to the top first, where Haven academy was. After that, they had Qrow's permission to explore as much as they wanted.

So they made their way up the trail to the summit, with fewer people as they went higher up. That meant Pyrrha had the chance to go a bit easy on her disguise. Taking off her hood but keeping the shades and tied-up hair.

Good thing Yang wasn't famous. No way she'd have done that to her own hair to hide from annoying fans.

By the time they got up to the academy, Pyrrha was able to let her disguise go fully. Losing the shades and dropping her hair into the familiar ponytail. That led to one of the employees of the school recognizing her, but he was polite about it. The guy guided them to a room where they could keep their luggage while they talked to the headmaster.

The headmaster. According to Uncle Qrow and Clark, Leonardo Lionheart worked for Salem. He'd helped Cinder and her team sneak into Beacon.

Yang's fist tightened at the thought, but she reminded herself to keep calm. They had to pretend that they didn't know, that they thought he was still on their side.

The employee offered to lead them to the headmaster's office, but Qrow already knew the way.

"It seems pretty quiet around here," Qrow said once the guy left. "Clark?"

"There are other employees around," he answered. Honestly, if Yang hadn't known that he could see through walls, she would have thought he was just looking around with interest like the rest of them. "Janitors, cooks, office workers, and there are a couple teachers in their offices too. Hardly any students though."

"Classes aren't in session now, but still, only a couple teachers?" Qrow snorted. "Guess I'll have to bring that up, even if Leo might be doing it under Salem's orders."

And with that comment, they headed up to the headmaster's office. Qrow knocked on the door, and a man came out and greeted them.

To be honest, he wasn't what Yang had been expecting. Lionheart was an older man who looked like he'd spent too long at a desk job. There was some flab on his figure, not as much as Professor Port, but it was there. Yang put his age in the late fifties or early sixties, based on his gray hair and long beard.

"Ah, Qrow and the students! Welcome to Haven, come in." He said with a genuine-looking smile.

When he turned around, a furry tail came out from a hole in the back of his coat. He was a faunus. A faunus who'd managed to become the headmaster of one of the four primary huntsman academies in the world.

Yang briefly wondered what Blake would have thought of that.

Lionheart sat down at his desk and moved some books and files to the side. "Now, I'm already acquainted with Qrow and recognize Ms. Nikos. Most of you also seem to be familiar faces from the Vytal tournament, but I cannot recall your names. Would you mind introducing yourselves?"

The six of them gave him their names and what teams they were part of. Luckily, nobody seemed to have any trouble acting natural.

Although Ruby's eyes widened a bit in concern when Lionheart showed interest at Clark's name.

"Ah, yes," Lionheart nodded and smiled. "You're the one Ozpin mentioned."

"Yep, and since Oz isn't here anymore, I guess I'll have to tell you." Qrow walked up and patted Clark's shoulder. "He's the Dart. Strong, fast, tough, and he can do a lot of other stuff that we'll cover later."

Ruby frowned slightly, which Yang could understand. It made sense that Lionheart would already know because he was in contact with Cinder's group, but it still felt wrong to just tell him.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Truly?" Lionheart asked and cleared his throat. "Well, I've heard much about your speed. If you don't mind, may I have a demonstration of it?"

"Sure." Clark took a step forward, his arms at his sides, empty palms facing forward.

Then his hands were in front of his chest, and between his fingers was a red book.

Clark continued walking forward and placed the book on the desk. "This is yours."

Lionheart nodded stiffly. "Yes, it is." He picked it up and was about to set it to the side before he paused. There was a neat stack of books and files where before there had been a disorganized mess.

"Like I said, we'll cover Clark's abilities later." Qrow broke Lionheart out of his stupor. "First, I want to know why there are hardly any huntsmen here after what happened to Beacon. Where is everyone?"

"They're out fighting Grimm, or somewhere the Council feels they can reach them more easily," Lionheart said.

"Grimm? Where the Council can reach them?" Qrow said. "You know what Cinder was after at Beacon, and you know she would want at Haven. Why don't you have people to guard it?"

"Because I can't exactly give the Council the reasons why I need huntsmen more than they do, you realize that." Lionheart said, a little heat entering his voice.

Normally, Yang and the others probably would have been lost by their conversation, but they knew the two were talking about Haven's Relic. Qrow had told them all to act as if they didn't know anything about the Maidens, Relics, or Salem. The chances were low, but Lionheart might give something away and lower his guard around students.

He'd probably never be sloppy enough to speak about them directly, but if he ever happened to mention something important under the school, they'd know what he meant.

The headmaster continued. "Do you have any idea of the effect of what happened to Vale? People were scared, frightened after seeing the capital of a Kingdom overrun by Grimm and rogue Atlas machines. Huntsmen have been dispatched all over Mistral for the surge in Grimm attacks.

"And it's not just the people who are afraid. The Council dreads a war with Atlas and have called huntsmen to strategic locations in case they need to be defended from non-Grimm threats. They also find my close relationship with Ozpin suspect, as if it weren't hard enough to make a case to spare professional huntsmen for the academy when it's not even in session."

Qrow sighed. "Look, I didn't know all that, but you need to figure something out. We can't stick around permanently to keep Haven safe either, we need more huntsmen. "

"I'll try, but I can't make any promises now. We'll at least have more teachers when classes start up."

"Fine."

"Excuse me, headmaster?" Clark asked. "Are there any regions in imminent danger of Grimm without huntsmen able to help?"

"Oh, there are bound to be a few, but it's nothing you need to be concerned about. I'm sure Mistral will pull through this recent increase without any trouble."

"I'd still like to know about them."

"Yeah, me too." Ruby added. "We should have time to help those people if nobody else can."

"I see." It was only for a moment, but Lionheart hesitated. "Then you should ask mission dispatchers in the city, I'm certain they'll help you."

"Thank you." Ruby smiled, she was surprisingly good at this whole acting thing.

"Okay, well there's something else I need to bring up," Qrow said. "These kids personally interacted with Cinder when she infiltrated Beacon. She pretended to be their friends and fooled them, and I thought I could use their help in tracking her down. Did you dig up anything from her Haven records?"

Lionheart shook his head. "No, I'm sorry, but all attempts to investigate her team lead to dead ends."

"Then I'll guess we'll be starting from square one," Qrow decided. "Anyway, I think it'll be best if we stay at this school. Is that okay?"

"Of course, I can easily make arrangements for you to stay here. In fact, since we're prepared to accept a large influx of new students and you six were qualified to participate in the Vytal festival, you all should be able to study here during the next term after passing some basic knowledge tests."

"Really? Sweet!" Nora pumped her fist.

"Yes, let me call someone to bring you to some rooms that aren't in use right now." Lionheart pressed a button on his desk.

A few minutes later, a school employee arrived. A different one from before, this time it was a dark-haired woman in her thirties. She waited patiently for them to gather their luggage and then led them to one of the smaller buildings.

The building had a sloped tiled roof like the others, and most of the rooms were smaller. According to her, it was from an older dorm from when the school had a smaller student body and hadn't organized students into teams yet. It would fit the eight of them comfortably, and there might be another team or two joining them when the semester began.

The bathrooms were on the second floor, one for each gender. Which Yang appreciated, no more having to fight for a single bathroom in their team room. Although it wouldn't have been as much as a problem with only her and Ruby.

There was a kitchen and dining room on the first floor. They could request groceries and cooking equipment if they preferred to prepare their meals rather than eat at the cafeteria.

After everyone thanked the employee for giving them a tour of their new dorm, she left and Qrow didn't miss a beat. "All clear, Clark?"

"Yeah." The whole time his eyes had been roaming every inch of the building. Everyone else had too, but he'd probably seen a lot more than the rest of them.

"You sure?"

Clark nodded. "Trust me, the worst thing here is a dirty magazine under one of the beds."

Yang snickered when her uncle slowly blinked in response.

"Okay, I guess I guess that means you were thorough," Qrow finally said. "Everyone, go up to your rooms and unpack. After that, go explore Mistral if you want. I'll be digging around, so call if you need me."

Even though they didn't have to, team JNPR decided to share a room and they got one of the bigger ones. They had to move a bed from another room though, and before Yang had gone into her and Ruby's room to unpack, she'd seen Nora riding on it and ordering the others to carry her like a queen. Based on the sounds coming from down the hall, it was precarious effort.

Once Yang turned her attention to her sister's side of the room, she groaned. "Oh God, please don't tell me you're going to put those up."

Ruby clutched the posters, Dart posters, to her chest. "No way! It'd be super embarrassing if Clark saw that, and I definitely won't put them up since I know that he didn't actually get any money from these. I always thought that he'd use his secret identity to get the money, or he had a friend in business, but these weren't even made with his permission!"

"Then why'd you even bring them?"

Ruby shuffled her feet. "I . . . might have packed them before I knew that, but it still feels wrong to throw them out. I just wasn't sure where to put them."

Yang shrugged and turned back to filling drawers with clothes. "Good luck with that."

They spent the next couple minutes unpacking, occasionally asking each other if they had seen something the other sister had replaced. Team JNPR had quieted down a bit too.

"Clark!" Ruby said suddenly and waved.

Yang couldn't see him from her angle, but she assumed he was coming down the staircase that was in Ruby's view.

"Hey." He entered the doorway and greeted them.

"You're already done unpacking?" Ruby asked.

"Yeah."

"You were pretty speedy back in Lionheart's office," Yang said. "Did it even take you a whole second?"

"Oh yeah!" Ruby nodded. "I wish I could try that too, but it's hard to build up speed in a room this small."

"Actually, I unpacked normally," he said. "I didn't actually bring that much with me."

"I should probably learn from that, since I might have brought too much," Ruby patted her suitcase with a laugh. "Are you planning to head to the city? Is there anywhere specific you want to go to?"

"Just the mission dispatchers that Lionheart mentioned. Then I'll probably come back to the school."

"Oh, that's it?" Ruby's shoulders slumped a bit. "I thought it'd be fun if everyone went together. Do you not want to?"

Clark rubbed the back of his head. "Actually, I was planning to consult some teachers for combat lessons, but I guess you're right. I can do that later and it's our first day here."

"Great!" Ruby cheered up immediately.

Yang chuckled, looked like not even Clark was impervious to Ruby's sad puppy eyes. As she watchedthe two talk, she wondered how she'd ever misinterpreted Ruby's reaction to Clark. She'd thought it was noteworthy because her little sister had only behaved that way with weapons, comic books, or video games before.

She just hadn't realized that this was actually the exact same thing. Ruby's excitement for Clark was the same as if he were a fancy weapon. Lucky for her, rather than being put off completely by her awe, he seemed to be a decent guy who happily accepted her friendship and didn't mess with her.

"Anyway, I'll be waiting in the main room for everyone," Clark said as he left.

"Okay, sounds good!" Ruby replied.

\\\\\

Clark had waited about fifteen minutes on the first floor until everyone came down.

Well, almost everyone that is.

"Is Pyrrha not coming?" Ruby asked.

Jaune shook his head with an empty expression.

"She'd like to, but it's incredibly inconvenient for her to maintain her disguise," Ren explained. "She's even more easily recognized here in Mistral, her home Kingdom."

Yang frowned. "Damn, is it really that bad?"

"Pyrrha says it is," Jaune said evenly. "And that we should all have fun and not to worry."

"Well, if that's what she wants, then I guess we shouldn't disappoint her," Clark reasoned. There was a bit of hesitation at first, their excitement to explore somewhat subdued, but they couldn't force Pyrrha to come along.

However, before they'd even left the school grounds, Clark decided to hang to the back of the group with Jaune. The blond hadn't regained his cheer like the others, which Clark knew he could change. Although it might take advantage of the admiration Jaune had for him.

"It's a bit rude that you're ignoring Pyrrha's request to not worry," Clark said, offering an easygoing smile to it was a joke.

"Y-yeah, you're right." Jaune tried to smile back in response, but it was lacking.

"Sorry, doesn't seem genuine. You are trying your best though, so I think she'd forgive you." Clark added.

"That's good. I guess."

"Pyrrha's your partner, right?"

Jaune nodded in response.

"Are you two close? Is there something more going on between you two?"

"Wh-what?!" Jaune flushed and turned his eyes aside. "No, we're just partners. Friends. Me and Pyrrha? I don't think it would work."

Clark gave an apologetic smile. "Must have guessed wrong then. Although you do have a pretty strong reaction to Pyrrha being unable to come with us. Unless I misinterpreted that too, and you'd actually behave the same way if Ren or Nora couldn't go."

"Actually . . . you didn't misinterpret that" Jaune bit his lip, then spoke. "I was kinda looking forward to going with Pyrrha. She's been here before, and she always seemed so happy whenever she'd talk about her visits to Mistral. I thought she'd enjoy it. Plus, well-" He hesitated. "I never really knew how big a deal it was for Pyrrha to go out in public and not get recognized. There were a few times during the Festival where she was swamped by fans, but she never needed to do stuff like this before. So I thought I should get to know her better, and thought this would be a perfect opportunity."

"It's too bad that she has to wear a disguise to go out into the streets."

"Yeah, and I didn't even realize. Some partner and leader I am."

"Don't talk like that. I think the fact that you want to do better makes you a great teammate," Clark said.

Jaune rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment, but he smiled. "Re-really? I'd say it's only the first step, but thanks."

"By the way, does Pyrrha know how much you'd appreciate her coming along?"

"No way, I couldn't tell her that!"

"How come?"

"It would be way too embarrassing."

Clark tilted his head. "Maybe. But you told me in a surprising show of honesty, was that not embarrassing?"

"That's different," Jaune claimed. "Besides, didn't you say you could do that super-hearing thing to make sure I'm not lying?"

"I can, that doesn't mean I always do it."

"Oh." Jaune looked aside and seemed to reconsider the wisdom of revealing so much.

Clark chuckled, he wouldn't have pried if Jaune wanted to keep it to himself. "Anyway, regarding Pyrrha, I think she'd reconsider if she knew what her company would mean to you."

"Would she?" A bit of hope lit up Jaune's face.

"I'm certain of it."

"I don't want to bother her though, it's a hassle for her if she gets recognized."

"You wouldn't be bothering her, she could still choose to stay at Haven. Or she could choose to come after all."

"Yeah." Jaune's back straightened and he stood tall. "Yeah, you're right. Hey, do you guys mind waiting for a bit?" He asked the group. "I'm gonna go ask Pyrrha again."

No one minded sticking around for a little longer. In fact, if Jaune had paid closer attention before leaving, he would have noticed the knowing smiles on their faces.

"Thank you for that," Ren said.

Clark shook his head. "No need to thank me, I'm pretty sure one of you could have done the same."

"Perhaps, but I doubt it." Agreement rang throughout the other students.

Really? Well, Clark supposed he had the unique advantage of being a sort of idol to Jaune. Although hopefully that wouldn't be the case for long.

"Even if that's true, I don't deserve all the credit," he said with a knowing grin. "The four of you played a hand in it too. I noticed you leading us in a pretty lengthy path out of the school. I'm sure that wasn't on purpose, was it?"

"Yep!" Nora answered cheerfully.

The others simply blinked in surprise before admitting the same.