Chapter 27
The five students standing in the office before her made Glynda want to reach for something, anything, to calm her nerves. Yelling might help, maybe a stern glance, maybe a novel on her scroll later. Something, anything, to help with the headache of this mess.
Unruffled and unphased the Headmaster of Beacon sat behind his desk, sipping his coffee, not breaking the silence as the five teens stewed. It was a normal tactic, see who talks first, to offer proper explanation. They could have separated them for individual talking too, but given the circumstances they didn't think that Team RWBY would want to see their teammate go alone.
Glynda glanced down at her scroll and the message on the screen. It was a short message from their guest. One she'd seen and reacted to as fast as she could, meaningless as it had been because by the time the bullhead had arrived it was already over. Then there was the students in front of them. The students slowly cracking under the silence.
It was Miss Rose who cracked first.
"Professor, what happened at the docks…"
"It was my fault." Belladonna interrupted her.
"Don't be silly, it was the White Fang's fault, you were only stopping a crime in progress." Miss Schnee countered.
"It wouldn't have come to a fight if I hadn't…"
"But they would have gotten away with the dust and they can't be doing anything good with it." Miss Schnee cut her off.
"Yeah, isn't it our jobs to stop bad guys if we see them?" Miss Rose said.
"More than qualified for it, got almost everyone too. The police rounded them up nice and neat." Miss Xiao Long added.
"But Torchwick got away." Blake countered.
"Yeah" Yang grit her teeth and put her fist in her hand. "When I catch that slippery basta…"
"It isn't unexpected that Roman Torchwick made his escape. He is a well known criminal and considered a master of his trade." Ozpin broke the argument with his interjection, team RWBY almost forgetting he was there with their own conversation. "As for the issue of the White Fang, the police are currently processing and interrogating them. Under the circumstances the five of you performed admirably in action."
The sudden compliment silenced the students as Glynda sighed. Great, Ozpin was encouraging this, that would add a whole list of things in the future.
"However, there were a few complications in the execution. One such complication was caused by the actions of Mr. Arc." The fifth and quietest student so far shuffled awkwardly under the headmaster's gaze.
Jaune Arc was an anomaly among his classmates in his lacking of a considerable amount of combat skill. He was thankfully well aware of this failing and was at least working hard and steadily improving over the semester. He had yet to win a fight with a classmate, but he had been known to get up early and stay up late doing physical and practical training to increase his skills slowly over time. Other than that, he wasn't anything other than a normal student. Not a trouble maker or a risk taker, which made his actions more surprising.
"Mr. Arc, earlier today your locker was launched from the school grounds. Said locker was found in pieces, at the scene of today's incident. Considering the fact that the class auditor disappeared from school grounds at that time and her scroll showed her moving at a fast rate towards that area, do you have anything to share?"
Mr. Arc hesitated under the direct attention and spoke.
"Well um, you see, Ume she…" He spoke more quickly this time. "She just grabbed me and bolted to the room, and put in the coordinates herself. She said that they were in trouble and that someone could die if I didn't. I didn't really know what to do, but she seemed so…"
"Yes, and you believed her." Ozpin looked at him to continue.
"She's strong, she's really strong and really fast. Casually so, but not just that." He rubbed his shoulder. "She seems, I don't know, experienced with this sort of thing. Way beyond me, way beyond any of the students. So when she said that, yeah, I, I did."
"How did you come to this conclusion?" Ozpin prompted again.
"Well, I mean, just look at her, the way she acts. Nothing ever surprises her, nothing even phases her in the least."
"That's not true, Penny really surprised her." Miss Rose added.
Ozpin and Mr. Arc turned to Miss Rose who took that moment to move in on herself.
"Penny?" Jaune asked.
"Oh, she's a girl we met the other day, and talked about engines with, and this really isn't related at all, is it."
Ruby shrunk into herself at the sudden attention this line of conversation brought her.
"That is probably correct, Miss Rose. Mr. Arc, are you saying you find Miss Ume unusual?" Ozpin continued, though he probably was noting this for later, he always did.
"Unusual, unnerving, a bit intimidating." He looked down. "I'm not sure what she would have done, but she didn't seem like she would have just stopped if I hadn't helped her, helped her…"
"Launch herself in a rocket locker." Ozpin said.
"To be fair, she did help when she got there." It was Ruby who spoke up again this time.
"Yes, that situation. Would you care to elaborate on that, Miss Rose?"
"Um, well." Ruby once again shrunk at the attention. "She was helping us before, when we were looking around the city, I mean. So, she knew something was wrong when it happened. She gave us the comms so we could keep track of each other. She must have been really worried when I said there were bullheads. So I guess she came to help with them? I saw her get hit with one before she disappeared."
"She got hit with a bullhead?"
"Well, I think she landed on it feet first. I couldn't tell, it went down not long after. Then the other bullheads started turning their attention away. I would have gone to help but I couldn't pierce the hulls, so I ran when they were distracted to get to Blake, because she was hurt. I didn't see her again until the third bullhead went down. I think she cut the tail off it."
Glynda put a hand on her face. If this was true, then this was a larger headache. Miss Ume, the supposed class auditor, was very much an unknown quantity with unknown capabilities. They knew she was fast from the initiation. They knew she had training in combat from her excursion with Port and the incidents with Team CRDL, they also knew she could assume the forms of others and store a near limitless amount of things on her person at any given time. Adding in cutting through large vehicles and grounding them, that made her a more dangerous headache.
"I see." Ozpin summed it up with very little words. "Well, if that is all you know, we may simply have to wait until she awakens to get a full report."
That was another anomaly. The unusual periods she had of passing out. After the initiation it seemed like a one time thing, now it seemed more like a recurring condition. Which was terrifying in and of itself. There was one thing with her being a risk, there was another with her being at risk. While an unknown quantity with unknown abilities, she was still a child and still in their care.
There wasn't much use in being skilled if you continually blacked out in the field.
"Is she going to be alright?" That was Miss Schnee.
"It looks like simple exhaustion as well as some minor scrapes and bruises. You are free to visit her in the infirmary in the meantime."
"She'll probably be hungry enough to eat an Ursa when she wakes up." Miss Xiao Long added in.
The others looked at her.
"What? You guys see how much she puts away, if this wasn't a hunter school she'd have probably cleaned out the cafeteria by now."
"Regardless, if that is all the five of you are dismissed. You will need to fill out reports to hand to Miss Goodwitch, but otherwise you aren't in any trouble." Ozpin paused to pick up his cup and sip. "Though I suggest you be more careful in the future. The actions you took today, while serving the good, also put a target on you for this organization. Do not be fearful, as you are safe here at Beacon, but be wary. Stay together when you can manage when you leave grounds, for your own safety."
The five of them nodded and headed to the elevator, though there was a pause by Miss Belladonna. She waved the others ahead but looked at Ozpin.
"Is there something you want to add?"
She seemed to think about it before shaking her head and heading to the elevator. As it closed behind her Glynda walked over to Ozpin and stared at him.
"We can't let this go on."
"What exactly?"
"You know what. Whoever she is, whatever her intentions are, we need a better grasp of the situation. We need something, anything, to gauge the scale of her abilities."
"And how do you suppose we go about that? Threaten to throw her out if she doesn't show us?" Ozpin set his mug down.
"No, of course not." Unknown a quantity as she was, being one where they could see her was better. "But if this continues on we need to know the extent of her strengths and her failings. For everyone's sakes, but especially hers."
"She, whether it is justified or not, does not seem to trust us with the full extent of her abilities. I don't know if it is fear or simple pragmatism but I doubt she will show us everything even if we asked for a demonstration."
That was a good point, but it didn't invalidate her concern. The longer she stayed the more people would notice. Team RWBY and JNPR already did, but that wouldn't stay the case forever even if they were sworn to secrecy. This wouldn't stay buried unless they could convince the girl herself to bury it.
"We need to do something."
"We need to show some patience. But if we need a response, I have someone I can ask."
He leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee and Glynda cursed the crypticness of the message. But then, if she wanted a more straightforward job she'd have stayed a huntress. You rarely have to question your methods when dealing with the grimm.
The smell woke me, as did the rumble in my stomach when it pushed me to my senses. It was a good smell mixed with a bad smell, something savory mixed with, cleaner. When I blinked my weariness away I turned my head to see a grilled cheese sandwich sitting on a plate next to a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Over the bowl of chicken noodle soup was Danny, who had his head dunked into it as he lapped up the broth.
"(I can't take you anywhere, can I?)"
He didn't even raise his head. I tried to move my right arm to pick him up when a shot of pain rewarded me for the action. Gah!
I pushed a surge of chakra through it to numb the pain. As I jolted up and moved it to look at it I found two things, a full arm brace and an IV. Fuck, had I broken my arm again?
I tried to move chakra through my wraps to do a diagnostic but found that they were gone. I'd been stripped again. I leaned back and pushed my head back, squinting my eyes. I could do diagnosis on myself without using the cloth as a medium, but it was less precise without a point of contact. Healing blind was a bad idea unless you were an expert and I was far from that. Especially since if I wanted to heal it properly I'd have to do it slowly. I could do jump start healing but it would leave scar tissue on the bone, which would degrade it over time and the only way to fix that was to rebreak it and heal it properly.
I didn't want to have go through that a second time.
My stomach growled again and I groaned as I leaned back. Fucking hell, why did they even bother putting me in here? I was better at doing it than they were, as inexperienced as I as it was the one thing at home that beat this place down pat.
I looked down at the brace and started scanning the room. Thankfully they at least learned their lesson in that my clothes were not that far away, though there was movement. Leaning down I grasped the IV with my teeth and started to tear at it when a door opened.
I turned the cord in my teeth as I saw Blake looking at me strangely.
"What are you doing?"
I relaxed my face and let the cord fall out.
"Can you hand me my clothes?"
"The nurse said you needed to rest. Why were you pulling out your IV? It has pain medicine in it for your injuries."
I rolled my eyes. It was a good thing I could numb myself with chakra, because I doubted they'd risk anything actually strong enough to break my stride, let alone have anything that could actually numb the pain in my arms. The amount of sedation I'd had in this relatively short lifetime, both self administered and not, made normal medicine as effective as pumping water into my veins for all the good it did. The plants necessary for anything useful didn't grow in this country or anywhere that was locally harvested. That didn't mean that they didn't exist, just that no one thought to use them at a commercial scale I could access them.
Yeah, because that justification was better than the alternative.
"I could take care of it if I had my clothes. Besides, how am I supposed to eat like this?"
I moved my left arm up to show the point as the still wrapped sword waved up.
"Oh."
It was all Blake said, but I could feel the embarrassment come off her in a slight wave that turned to another set of roiling emotions. Confusion, guilt, curiosity and the like. She started walking, then paused.
"What do you need your clothes for?"
"I don't, not really, I just need my wraps."
"Do you have something in them that'll help?" The curiousness continued.
"Not exactly, can you just get this thing off of me? It's not helping any and I feel more comfortable in my wraps anyway."
She still hesitated but nodded and brought the wraps over. She looked at the arm and brace.
"You really shouldn't take it off, they said it's cracked."
"A crack? Is that it? Thank god." No wonder I didn't notice when I was fighting. "Anyway, just take it off and wrap it up. You can put it back when you're done if it concerns you that much."
"What are you gonna do?"
"Heal myself."
I said it frankly and she went from surprise to realization pretty quickly. Though it didn't show on her face, her ribbon did flicker just a bit.
"Is that what you did at the docks? You healed me?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"It was just a boost, your aura was doing it anyway."
"You're a healer then."
"I'm a lot of things. Mostly, I'm just hungry, so if you could..."
She looked at my arm for a few seconds before she removed the brace and wrapped the wrap around my arm.
Doing the diagnostic jutsu I could see the problem more clearly in my mind. The crack was near my wrist, I started the visualization process and the slow healing to make sure I did. Medical jutsu was like all jutsu, something that required heavy focus and visualization. You had to know where things went, how they were supposed to look, what to do and command to do when something went wrong to fill in the gaps. It took years to build up that kind of knowledge to the point where you would be considered field ready.
I was more sometimes assistance ready. I was probably lower than the average nurse in terms of actual medical knowledge. I couldn't fix delicate areas of soft tissue, places like complicated areas of nerve damage, organ damage or the like. Mostly I could stop the bleeding and mend bones, because it was easier to visualize and had less moving parts. I was better at telling what was wrong, and prescribing more mundane treatments, I wouldn't be cleared or actually considered anything near a real shinobi medic until I buckled down and really focused on learning the material.
Which I suppose I could do here, I had the time after all. Though I couldn't do practical application on anyone but myself.
When I opened my eyes I was done and Blake was still there, looking at me. Though she had sat down. Moving my arm up I clenched my fingers and rotated my wrist. It didn't hurt, which was a good thing as I grabbed the bowl causing Danny to jump down to the bed as I moved the tray to my lap to eat. I started into the sandwich while Blake watched before I dipped it in the remaining broth. In a previous life I'd be a little more wary sharing with the cat who had been lapping it up but that, along with a lot of other inhibitions, didn't bother me enough to stop.
"You're very strange."
The words came from Blake as I bit more into my sandwich. The confusion and curiosity was there again.
I swallowed before replying.
"Guilty, but then all interesting people are. You're plenty interesting yourself."
The wave of regret, guilt and resignation almost made me lose my appetite. Okay, probably shouldn't have brought that up.
"I'm, sorry about what happened."
"About what?" I said as I took another slower bite.
"The docks, about the fight, you coming there. You really shouldn't have gone there and gotten hurt like you did and do…" There was confusion and some fear.
I actually had to pause and think about that when she looked at me and back to the memory of the last bullhead. She had spoken out, oh.
"It's okay, I was just a little startled. I wouldn't have actually hit you."
I mean I knew she wasn't going to hurt me, I was just so focused on the bullhead I was startled when I felt her there.
"That's not..." She clenched her jaw and her hands made fists in her lap. "Why did you, how did you, there's just…"
"How did I take down the bullheads? That's easy, I cut them. I use a sword, is it so unusual that I would be adept at cutting things?"
"There's cutting things, then there's…" She trailed off again, lost in her thoughts. "There were no casualties."
She let out a breath.
"Injuries, but not casualties. I saw you land with the white fang, after you took out the bullhead. You saved them."
"I severely doubt they see it that way. Besides, dead man tells no tale. No point in bringing in corpses to the police."
Killing in a society as organized and cautious as this was something that wouldn't go unnoticed or be dismissed. At home shinobi killed in their line of work as a default so there were no courts, no press or media. It was something that was known but not acknowledged, life was cheap. If you went against a shinobi it was because you did something wrong and deserved it anyway. That was the mindset, it wasn't a great mindset, didn't account for grey areas or the fact that some shinobi were absolute sociopaths but if it was in the line of duty there wasn't usually much blowback from it.
It might have weighed less heavily on me if there was at least some sort of punishment for it.
"I guess, but why did you go there? Why risk yourself, then save them afterwards?"
"Because I promised Ruby I would help."
There was a pause as the confusion set in, but the guilt was still there.
"Is it really that simple?"
"Does it have to be complicated? I like Ruby, she's a nice girl. She was so torn up about what this was doing to the team that she confided in me. I offered to help, so I set them up with the ear pieces and helped coordinate the effort." It seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time.
The guilt came in greater waves.
"But then the docks, you launched yourself in a locker, for, for..." She looked down. "I don't even know you that well."
"So?"
The response caught her off guard and it showed on her face.
"What?"
"So what if you don't know me that well. I know you well enough, don't I?" I turned to face her.
There was apprehension.
"What in the world are you talking about, we've barely spoken."
"You're the girl who helped me when I passed out in the library, you could have left me behind but you stopped to help me. Also I'd help regardless cause I know exactly who you are, you're the girl behind the book." I smiled this time.
"The girl who smiles a little to herself when she thinks no one's watching, the girl who despite not having to, goes to every meal with her team, tags along with activities even if you don't take part or only offer your input as slight snark on the rare occasion. You trail behind people and hide behind your book but you feel like you're there all the same because it's comfortable enough that they just let you be. That you don't have to put up a front to make them accept you and in your own way you've accepted them, loud, bossy, energetic and immature you love your team even if you don't talk about it much."
There was surprise there of course and confusion, and embarrassment. She avoided my gaze like I was looking at her too closely, but I guess I was cheating. Not that I needed to.
In my last life I had been the same way. Not behind a book always, sometimes behind a phone. Especially when I was a teenager.
The silence went on as I continued my meal and she stewed over what I said. There was a bit of a negative loop of emotion before she got the nerve to speak again.
"But to go so far, to get hurt. Especially after you figured out that…"
I let out a sigh as I finished my sandwich and moved the brace to my teeth. It clipped over my palm and I undid the button to slide it down so I could do the hand sign.
"(Wind Release: Air Bubble)"
She reacted immediately to the bubble of air. Reaching for a weapon that wasn't there then turning to me.
"What did you…"
"It's an air bubble. You can use it to breath underwater for a short time, but it also muffles sound so if there is anyone listening they wouldn't understand what we are saying."
I let out a sigh as her shoulders dropped.
"Why did you..."
"Because you're here, and if you're really guilty about this all, if you really are sorry then maybe you should tell me a bit more about how you got into this mess. This mess with the White Fang."
The words at the end made her wince.
"I, I'm not…"
"If you don't trust me enough to tell me that's fine. You can just leave. But I will say right now I don't think there's much you can tell me that'll make me turn against you." I said, laying back.
"But there was so much, so many things that happened, so many people got hurt, not directly, but I condoned it."
"Be hypocritical for me to judge you."
"What?" She said, confusion whirled as she looked at me, her eyes wide.
Wait, had I said that out loud? Whelp might as well roll through.
"Take what you want from that. If you don't want to tell me though, as I said, you can leave."
She looked towards the door and considered it. Anticipation and anxiety building along with her guilt. She stood and started walking towards it. Moving out of the bubble and going to the handle. She almost grabbed it, though Danny stopped her.
The cat meowed at her, or some similar sound. I couldn't tell, it worked both ways with sound going in just as muffled as it went out. He just looked at her for a moment and after a whirl of emotions she settled herself and picked him up.
With him in her hands she entered the bubble of air and sat down. Her eyes darted around the room as she let out a deep breath and spoke.
"I was born into the White Fang, it was as normal a part of my life as anything else. We'd go to protests, hold the signs, advocating equality, but it seemed no one would listen. No one would acknowledge us, nothing changed. Until we turned to violence."
She let out a breath.
"I didn't join at first, but when nothing else worked when we finally got recognition, respect, something, I joined the movement." She put a hand on her face.
"Raiding ships, stealing dust, freeing people from camps, it seemed to be working but when it was all said and done, when everything came down to it it became clear it wasn't what we thought it was. We were feared and because of that fear things were getting worse than ever. I heard more stories of faunus being hurt and attacked because of the White Fang. Some of them did nothing and because of the attacks turned to us for their protection. We did it, but every time we fought back it got worse. I kept trying to justify it to myself, to try and say that we just needed to push a little longer. I blinded myself to what was happening, how people who never did a violent thing in their life were shooting weapons in the street, how we were causing panics to draw grimm. Then there was…"
She looked down again.
"I had a friend in the Fang, they changed the most. I used to respect them, they were so strong but as things got more violent, as we did more things... He stopped looking at anybody in our way as anything but obstacles, and then some people not in the way." She closed her eyes.
"I can see how that happened, yeah." I scratched my nose. "Some people try to say the ends justify the means, that in the end doing something bad to accomplish something good somehow absolves the bad things."
She looked up, bow flickering in recognition, she'd probably heard that a lot.
I continued as I waved my hand.
"Which is kind of bullshit in my opinion, how you do something is almost if not more important than the results. But desperation can stop people from thinking that way, people without hope, people like the faunus."
"We had hope, it's just…"
"You put faith in the wrong methods. Yeah, that happens a lot. I've been guilty of being heavy handed when a light touch would have sufficed."
Given, they had a larger handicap. I had tried to look up past White Fang protests in fact, and much like the books I couldn't find much of anything on the Codex. They had probably been censored or pushed under the rug of social media. A way to prevent mass discontent maybe, or more likely to prevent the message they were sending from making an impact beyond the local level so certain laws could stay in place without contest.
"Regardless, I guess it just boils down to the fact that you can't fight darkness with darkness, only light can do that. You can't fight hatred with hatred, only love can do that."
"There's not much love for faunus."
"Yeah, you guys kind of shot yourself in the foot there. Honestly, if you had held out and stayed peaceful the opinion may have died in time. A lot of the anti faunus policy seems to be a relic of the wars. Such pain usually doesn't go away until those who experienced it first hand are gone from this world. Though second and third generation bigotry can be strong, it's a more distance issue because as much as a parent's opinion shapes a child, their first hand experience can overrule that."
I leaned back.
"Though I guess it probably doesn't help that Faunus are such a minority or that a good bit of them have been shoved into Menagerie. It's easier to love something if you actually know someone as a person as opposed to a group that seems distant."
Which may have been part of the reason the forceful deportation of faunus to Menagerie happened.
"Menagerie isn't such a bad place, it's just..."
"Not much usable land, I looked at some maps for it, yeah. I guess for the moment until the White Fang is actually stopped there isn't going to be much movement on that front."
There was agreement and anger in Blake as she rose.
"I can't believe they would, they would side with Torchwick. I went to the docks but it put everyone in danger, my team, Sun, just because I couldn't face the truth. Just because I couldn't accept what was in front of me."
"Well, who could blame you, it sounds like you gave up your entire childhood to this cause, most of your life until recently you fought for this cause. Why wouldn't you fight to find some good in something that went so bad? For a long time, it was probably all you knew."
"But I should have…"
Her emotions swelled and I cut her off.
"You know, it's amazing you were able to walk away."
The surprise snapped up as she looked at me.
"I mean it, some people would spend their entire lives doing the wrong thing rather than admit they are wrong, a lot of people would rather die. You probably lost so much when you left that place, but you were able to walk away from what you knew was wrong. That takes a lot of courage."
"It's not courage, I was just running away." She said in a low voice.
"So? Sometimes that's the right thing to do. If you can't fight a battle, you run away. Standing your ground against impossible odds is a good way to get yourself killed. From your place in the organization, could you really have done anything to change it?"
She shook her head.
"Then I don't see anything wrong with that. Given, yeah, running away from your team was a bit of a dick move. Well, more the not getting in contact so they knew you weren't like, dead, was a super dick move."
I shrugged my shoulders.
"But honestly you aren't as bad as you're probably thinking you are. In fact, you're kind of heroic."
"Heroic?"
"If I read a story, you'd be the person I'd want to be the hero. I like stories with flawed heroes, people who make mistakes, who stumble and fall but still find a way to do what's right. It seems more real than a hero who has never struggled or done the wrong thing, or one who just had their victories handed to them with no cost."
She stared at me, more confused than anything else. "You really are very strange."
"Again guilty, but then so are you. All the best people are, I shudder to see the day when I'm surrounded by normal people."
She let out an absent snort at that before rising again and setting Danny on my bed.
"You gonna be alright?"
"I'm still hungry actually, could you get me some more sandwiches?"
She rolled her eyes.
"Where in the world do you put it all?"
"I thought that was rather obvious, but if you need a breakdown of the digestive system I can…"
"Nevermind." She said as she headed to the door. I released the jutsu as she went. "I'll see what I can get from the cafeteria."
"Get me some tea if you can!" I yelled after her as the door closed.
She looked very young when she was asleep. It wasn't something he hadn't seen before but with more context the reminder of this as he walked into the infirmary made him smile just a bit.
Bartholomew brought up a chair as he looked at the small girl sleeping absently with the black and white tom on her stomach looking up as he examined her. You could almost forget that she was someone who could and did take down two ursa as well as several armed men in single combat. Or that according to recent reports she cut through an airship. That she had spent so much time gathering and hoarding new information from as many sources as possible like she was doing a dissertation for her doctorate in the study of everything. He knew some scholars who were less attentive to such details, which was why he had no qualms about what he was about to ask.
She was such an intelligent young lady, while very cynical despite, or maybe because of, her keen observation skills. Not knowing much other way to start this he reached out and gave her a light push on the shoulder.
The girl stirred, blinking away the sleepiness before yawning deeply, which disturbed the cat on her stomach.
"Doshite?" She said blearily.
"You're speaking Mistralian again, Miss Ume. Though I suppose it would be natural considering it is your native tongue it may startle some people because of how rare the accent of your dialect is for that particular tongue, especially as it's rarely used even in the Kingdom of Mistral."
She reached up and rubbed her eye with her palm.
"I know, I think only two or so of the students speak it. One of them can only do pretty basic conversation." Leaning forward, she yawned. "So, what's the skinny. You usually don't come to visit when I'm doing a medical stay."
Right to the point, she always did that.
"You are correct. I can inform you they will be letting you out soon as they did another X-ray and found the bone mended, as well as your bruises subsiding, but a nurse could have told you that. Instead I would like to inquire as to you what your plans for the school break are."
"The break?" She blinked a bit.
"Yes, there is a brief holiday after the midterm exams as a reprieve for the students. It's only a week's time, giving ample space for teachers to do grading as well as prepare lesson plans for the next quarter."
He had already made his lesson plans and grading was something he could take care of in an afternoon, so he wouldn't be as tied up as some of the other teachers.
"I hadn't considered that." She let out another yawn. "I suppose I could just hang around, but be pretty bored. Will the school be closed?"
"Yes and no, there will be no classes but the facilities will be open for use by the students to account for those who cannot afford to travel home for the duration or those who have no other place to go. Of course, your room will continue to be available to you during that time should you choose to stay on campus."
"That's like saying I'd have an option off campus, considering how expensive staying in Vale is."
"Yes, I understand there is a good fee for staying in the city for extended periods, but that is less what I am talking about. You see, I had some recent changes to schedule that would free up some time for me to go on an expedition I had wanted to do for quite some time. It is out of country and funding for it is a little low but I have some companions willing to help foot the bill for prep as long as things could be transported safely."
Oobleck let the words hang in the air for a few moments as he watched the girl. Predictably, it didn't take very long for her to catch on.
"You want me to be a pack mule."
"That is a rather blunt way of saying it, however your ability to carry and transport such large amounts of cargo safely and quickly would be invaluable to such an expedition. Especially since the area is well known to attract some hostile forces that would require us to move such things very quickly."
"Grimm?"
"More than just Grimm, the expedition will be taking place in Vacao, which while rich in history as a well established cohesive kingdom has in recent years fallen into a state of more loosely associated organizations rather than one central government. It has made local laws less stringent and allowed for the rise of some less than savory people."
"Desert bandits." The girl said flatly. "You're worried they'd raid your camps? Also, why not just take a bullhead?"
"It is not unheard of, some of the equipment used is very expensive scanning and excavation gear that could be repurposed or otherwise sold for a high price. Such raids have sometimes happened, leaving the people unarmed and scared enough to draw a sizable amount of grimm to the location. While I have in the past prevented it I am but one person and having the equipment locked up safely would help to safeguard it from theft that may ensue by them inducing chaos. As for a bullhead, it would make us a surefire target if the normal equipment did not, as airships would be ideal things for such raiders to have to expand their territory."
"So you want me to store stuff, and guard the camp." She said. "That's an awful lot of trust in me. What if I say no?"
"You are of course perfectly able to reject the invitation if you so wish. It can be quite a dangerous undertaking, but the risk involved is greatly outweighed by the rewards. Information about past civilizations is a priceless commodity, as it is only by knowing our past…"
"That we can be sure not to repeat it. Yeah, I can see that." She put a hand under her chin but only for a moment as the cat rubbed into her forearm, which she took as a signal to scratch him behind the ears. "I suppose I can tag along. Don't have much else going on."
Oobleck smiled.
"Excellent, I'll make the arrangements immediately. We should leave early Sunday morning on the break. I can't express in words how grateful I am that you are willing to lend your time and skills to this endeavor. I believe it would not very well be possible to convince them of its validity without your help to smooth over the transition and transport of the supplies."
"Yeah, sure." She said with a yawn. "Sounds interesting."
Laying back down she dozed back off soon and Oobleck made his leave.
He looked back at the girl and let out a breath. He didn't like that he was hiding what this was about. But he couldn't say no to Ozpin without a good reason, and he would be there the entire time.
Hopefully things wouldn't get out of hand.
Hey guys, didn't mean to take a break, but it's been hard. Been trying to get a job still, I'm working on multiple things at once, including three different POVs, the next chapter of Sugar Plums and the portraits (I'm making portraits of each of my OCs, they're on my tumblr, I've gotten two done so far). Anyway, reviews are nice.
