Chapter Text
Ironwood idly scrolled through the reports he had been receiving while waiting for Winter to return from her latest mission. Nothing concrete yet, his investigators hadn’t been at work long enough to gather any evidence that would definitively decide things one way or the other, but what information had been sent to him was not exactly good news.
A much higher than normal number of huntsmen weren’t responding when reached out to. Now, that’s not to say that they were dead. A huntsmen not being able to respond was a somewhat regular occurrence, actually. Whether that be because their scroll had been broken, or even just ran out of battery, while out in the field, or because the area they were operating in just couldn’t get a strong enough signal to patch the call through. The test of whether or not these people were still alive came down to how long they went without being able to establish contact. No mission lasted forever after all, and they would be visiting the city of Mistral proper, or at least some place with a connection, once their job was complete. How long that took depended on the details of the mission, but typically no more than a few weeks at a maximum. Only time could tell what the actual numbers were, even if waiting was painful.
The worrying factor was that Leonardo’s behavior wasn’t giving them much hope. On the outside, he was the same as he had always been. A good man, one who could be trusted with the future of Mistral and its huntsmen, as well as the secrets Ozpin had shared with them. However, through methods of questionable legality, it had been discovered that behind closed doors he dropped that facade. The short analysis the investigative team had sent painted the faunus as paranoid. Hiding away as often as he could, acting like he was afraid someone would jump out of the shadows at him.
This didn’t confirm that he had some terrible secret, like had been suggested by Arc and his semblance. It could be that in his old age, the pressure of being headmaster was getting to him. Not everyone had years of experience in military leadership, or past lives and memories that they could rely on in times of hardship after all. It would be quite unfortunate, and might suggest the need to remove him from his position regardless, but at least in that case he wouldn’t be a traitor to humanity.
But the rest of this report would have to wait. A message had just come through that Winter would be arriving in a moment. The notes were put away, replaced with those pertaining to both the Paladin situation and Jaune Arc as a knock sounded out through the room.
“Sir, Specialist Schnee, reporting.”
“Enter.” As Winter walked in the door, his eyes went to her face, trying to glimpse how her mission had gone. A mission like the Lionheart investigation left no choice but to communicate digitally, even if that was not the most secure method of reporting in, simply because of the distance. But when a covert operation was being conducted on foreign grounds and he could have the report made directly to him with no paper trail? It would be foolish to take a risk when it wasn’t necessary. “Give it to me straight, Specialist, this isn’t a time to stand on ceremony.”
The woman before him allowed a strained smile to slip through her reserved demeanor. “The Paladin has been recovered sir. It took us longer than we hoped to find the exact warehouse it was being stored in, but it was guarded surprisingly lightly. Only six White Fang on the premises, all of them apprehended and currently awaiting interrogation.”
Ironwood allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. That was one of their major problems taken care of, and it had even been discrete. The best outcome they could ask for, really. “Good. That’s good…” It also opened a huge can of worms. “The reports on the other investigation have come in. Nothing conclusive, but it’s not looking good.”
They both knew what that meant. How it painted a boy and his semblance in a much more flattering light. “How do you want to proceed from here, Sir?”
It took the General a moment to gather his thoughts. “Suppose we take what we’ve been told about his semblance at face value. I do not think the level of suspicion that Ozpin gives is warranted, but I also don’t think we can take the word of Second Thoughts to be infallible. The boy has said as much himself. It wouldn’t hurt to get what information we can out of the… pair of them, but it would be best to treat it the same as any other informant’s word. Any tip offs that we’re given should be thoroughly looked into before any other action is taken, barring that which is on a time crunch. And even then, for someone who claims to know the future to give information that needs to be acted on immediately is suspect behavior.”
“Of course, Sir. On the topic of Arc and trust… there is also his friendship with Penny to consider.”
“...I don’t think there’s a need to take any action on that front. Interacting with other students is good for her, and we’ve not been given any reason to interfere so far. That could change in the future of course, but for now… we’ve got other things to be worried about.”
It was times like this that Bart wished Huntsmen were more organized as a group. You could never be sure of the total number in existence at any given moment, whether that be because they weren’t being trained at an official academy or because they had died and this fact not yet discovered, and while information was shared to some degree it rarely got down into the specifics unless the person you were looking into happened to be someone of note, or you were on good terms with the staff at a huntsmen school they might have gone to.
Hours upon hours of independent research had gone into searching for a green haired girl with some manner of perception manipulation. Because without the registered name of a semblance, it could be incredibly difficult to pinpoint and find it in any sort of database, not that record keeping was particularly well done in the first place when it came to these sorts of things.
Was it really illusions? What sort of illusions? Visual at the very least given the description Tukson had passed on, but did it stop there? Could this person alter your other senses as well? What if it wasn’t simply tricking your brain into sensing something that wasn’t there, but genuine reality manipulation? Or even both? Could she only affect one person at a time? Everyone within a certain range? If it included multiple people did all of the people affected see the same thing?
When you had this many questions, and the names of semblances were often vaguely referential to the actual ability, it left trying to search for a person with only a description of their semblance basically impossible.
The fact that it was someone with green hair helped, but not as much as one might hope. While Tukson might have only ever met a handful of green haired individuals, that didn’t exactly account for a large portion of the population being made up of people he had never met. A query for people with green hair had left Bart with quite the list, even when it was cut in half by the assumed gender of the perpetrator. Though perhaps he shouldn’t discount the men from his search. Many assumed Lie Ren to be a woman at first glance, after all.
He may have more luck if he just went and asked Second Thoughts for his input. But given the fact that getting information out of the semblance was a struggle on its own, along with Jaune being a first year student who really shouldn’t be worrying about these sorts of things…
Perhaps it was his pride, but Bart felt the need to accomplish this on his own. Even if it meant going through the entire list, name by name, and doing some research on them.
“I suppose I should start with the A’s then…”
Cinder was all too happy to let Emerald deal with getting information out of Neo. The tiny girl was infuriating at the best of times, and there were more important matters to attend to. Even if the execution of this investigation was just as irritating at times.
“No way, are you serious? I never would have thought…” For a master of manipulation such as herself, this was child’s play. Perhaps a bit too literally.
“Yes way! I didn’t believe it either at first, but when we did a little investigating of our own, that’s my team and I by the way, we totally saw Goodwitch giving Ironwood the look . I’d put money on them being off-again on-again lovers. Separated by their jobs at different schools and an ocean of distance, seeking each other’s embrace when they finally see each other again… it’s kind of romantic, don’t you think?”
Cinder had already forgotten the girl’s name. Clearly not worth remembering if this was the sort of information she would be getting out of her. She would have to move on to the next one, it would seem.
But in a school? Rumors were the best source of information. Any event of note would be spread like a wildfire through the student population, and perhaps even the staff. Someone who was getting audiences with the headmaster? That would be picked up on, even if for the wrong reasons.
It was just a matter of finding someone who thought that sort of thing was the juiciest sort of gossip. Outright asking about it could give her results faster, but it may also lead to rumors about her spreading around. Better to passively soak up information if she was going to be operating right under the nose of the enemy.
It had better be anyway, if she was going to suffer through any more of this.
“Yes,” she smiled to blend in with these buffoons, “but that’s nothing, have you heard about-”
Roman was starting to get worried. All this time and still no contact from the outside? Surely he hadn’t been mistaken. Cinder definitely wanted him to get captured, right?
But a night turned into a day. A day turned into a week. Time kept passing with no communication at all. Not even from Neo of all people! That was the most worrying part, truthfully. If Cinder and her little goons just happened to forget about him, honestly that wouldn’t be a bad thing. He could quietly slip away and never have his name enter her thoughts again.
But that was only possible if Neo helped him escape!
He knew for a fact that she wouldn’t abandon him. She had to be plotting something. But security in this place must be impressively tight for her to not have slipped through the cracks yet. Surprising, for a school of all places, but on the other hand this was a school where they trained the students to fight and throw their lives away for the “good of humanity” or some nonsense like that…
And then something had changed. He didn’t exactly get updated on news from outside while he was being held prisoner, but obviously something must have happened if Atlas punks were escorting him through the halls today. It was the first time he had been allowed to leave the room they’d stuffed him in!
Were they shipping him off to Atlas? That didn’t make sense. All of his crimes, the publicly known ones at least, had occurred in Vale. But as he looked out a window and saw all the Atlas airships, it started to make sense. Don’t want the criminal kept in your school? Throw him in the brig!
Actually, that statement didn’t make much sense at all. Was it even called a brig if it was on an airship vs a normal seafaring one? What was his life coming to?
But that short trip was when he got his sliver of hope. As they walked him outside, and up the ramp of the airship, he caught a crowd of students watching the show. Most of them seemed like typical brats, but a few were familiar. A brat who had gotten in his way a while back, Cinder's little lackeys… and a short girl whose eyes seemed to change colors for a brief moment.
No dice on Cinder having forgotten about him then. But Neo being with her lackeys at least meant that things were going to plan.
He just hoped the smirk on his face seemed in character.
“So, friend Jaune, who will you be asking to accompany you to the dance?” Penny asked, a wide smile on her face.
“The dance?” Jaune looked up from his comic book. It was just Penny and team JNPR for the moment, with the others having been busy with planning said dance and/or keeping Blake out of trouble.
That’s not an answer, Jaune.
“I’m, uh… I don’t know.” He admitted with defeat on his face. “Who are you going with?”
“I shall be attending the dance with two Atlas soldiers!”
Team JNPR stopped to stare at the robot girl. “I’m sorry, did you say that you were going with two soldiers?” Pyrrha hesitantly asked.
“Indeed, friend Pyrrha!” Penny replied, obviously seeing nothing wrong with her declaration.
Eh. She’s a robot, that’s normal from her perspective. If she’s happy that’s all that matters.
“I’ll be going with Renny!” Nora proclaimed, despite nobody having asked. “Not that we’re together-together or anything, but I just figured since it’s a dance and all and the two of us are partners and-” She was cut off when Ren muffled her with a pillow and a sigh. Eager to get the attention off of him and his ginger “not together-together” partner, he turned the question to Pyrrha.
“And what about you? Have you been thinking about asking anyone out?” He not so subtly nodded towards the blond of the team. Not that Jaune noticed, too worried about who he should be asking himself.
“Ah…” The redhead nervously giggled, her face getting dangerously close to matching her hair, “You know how it is…”
Would you look at that? Two partners without a date to the dance. What a coincidence. If only there was a solution to the problem.
What? No way, it’s Pyrrha. She has to have all sorts of guys asking her out.
Did she say that? I certainly didn’t hear it, and you know what they say about assumptions. For all you know, nobody has asked her out.
He must have been making a face, because Penny asked “Is something wrong, friend Jaune? Oh! Perhaps friend Second Thoughts has something to say!” The girl was strangely enthusiastic about being friends with a semblance stuck in someone else’s head.
“He’s just being dumb. There’s no way that Pyrrha Nikos of all people hasn’t had anyone ask her to the dance.” He scoffed at such a ridiculous notion.
“Well, actually…” but before Pyrrha could respond herself, Penny decided to chime in.
“It is highly unlikely that anyone has asked friend Pyrrha.” She said matter of factly. “Due to her social status and title of ‘invincible girl’, along with the low self esteem of many in this age bracket, I estimate the odds to be 99% in favor of friend Pyrrha not being asked to the dance at all. People are likely to find the idea of asking her out intimidating, and irrationally conclude that she is ‘out of their league’.”
Pyrrha reluctantly agreed. “That about sums it up…”
“Oh.” To say that Jaune was surprised would be an understatement. “Well in that case…”
A brief flicker of hope flashed across the faces of the rest of team JNPR.
“...I guess we’ll both be going to the dance alone.”
Jaune, you moron.