I hate to sound like a broken record, but I need to apologize to you all once again. (If you don't want to hear my whining, go ahead and skip a paragraph.) I know I said I had faced my issues before, but that wasn't quite true. I struggled with depression (if you couldn't tell there was something wrong with my head from the tone of the story, 1) wow, just wow and 2) now you know why), and at one point during my time away lost my fight with it. But now, with the help of some of my family, a doctor, and some medicine, I am almost a fully functioning member of society.

Anyway, I've decided that, come hell or high water, I'm finishing this story. I'm sorry if it's going to seemed rush over the next chapter or two, but I'm not allowing myself to abandon this story. It's my first published bit of writing and although it's not the best, it's mine. For those who read my other story, don't worry, I'm working on that one two, but since that one will go on longer than this one, it's going to get more effort therefore more time.

That's all I have to say for now, so welcome back, and enjoy.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

It was truly impressive the sheer number of motions filed in the next week at the courthouse in downtown Vale over the week. What was even more impressive was that for every two submitted from the entirety of the population of Vale, one came from Carran Winchester. It was even said that the courthouse was forced to pay overtime every day to their administrative assistants and staff just to sort through the growing pile of beaurocratic bullshittry Winchester's legal team presented.

Motion to declare Cardin Winchester of unsound mind, thus returning his guardianship to Carran Winchester?

Denied

Motion to declare the will of Cardin and Velvet Whey annulled due to the length of time since they died?

Denied

Motion to remove Ozpin from his position at Beacon Academy for "improper management of his students"?

Denied

Unfortunately, not quite every attempt of the Councilman's was foiled. The Board of Directors at Winchester Arms voted within a day to block Cardin from from deciding policy for the company, and one of his Vale properties had been taken from him due to "Improper Management". The fact that Cardin was unaware of the properties existence three days before the hearing, and that the tenets were trusted and long time friends of the Winchester family, oddly enough didn't come up either.

But, today, none of that mattered to Cardin. Today was the first day of the Vytal Festival Tournament. It was true that he wasn't allowed to participate, being the fifth member of his team, but he was cheering his heart out. In all honesty, the team his was fighting were a joke. A group of four Atlesians who truly excelled in teamwork had managed to hold their own, fighting on the craigy terrain that had appeared on their side. The problem was their individual abilities weren't up to snuff. So, while Coco was slowly wearing down the bullet by bullet, and Yatsuhashi was being loud, big, and mostly distracting, both Velvet and Fox had worked their way behind the group and double teamed each of them. Right now, only the squads leader was left, and was doing an admirable job running for his life. Sadly, it wasn't meant to last. The Atlesian was so focused on the two relentless chasers behind him, he forgot about the large, sword wielding foe in front of him. With a large, baseball-like swing, the nearly seven foot blade crashed into their last opponent, who was neatly folded over it and hurled his lunch over the stadium floor. Doctor Oobleck's and Professor Port's commentary was practically drowned out over the raucous cheers and disgusted ewws of the crowd. Cardin was out of his seat and nearly to the entrance to the locker rooms before the noise faded.

Velvet, Fox, and Yatsu met him in fairly short order, and the four of them had a grand time talking about the fight while a) letting the adrenaline die out and b) waiting for the twenty additional minutes it took their leader to get ready. Oum forbid if anyone saw Coco in a state that wasn't fabulous. When she was out, the group headed out to the lunch of Yatsuhashi's choice, as he had been the one to get the last elimination.

… … … … … … …

After the meal, Coco brought the table to order. "Okay, loyal subordinates," she said, ignoring the round of snorts, "It has come to the attention of your fabulous leader, that we need to pic to people for the next round." At this, the table sobered up. True, they had been discussing the possibilities since the tournament had been announced, but due to their studies and the business with Cardin in particular, no actual decisions had been made. "When we last had this talk, we had decided on Yatsu and me, and i'm not going to bother rehashing the arguments. What I do want to hear is, is there a reason to change anything?"

Velvet managed to pipe up first, "I just want to say again, that my weapon really isn't ready yet, the copies won't last more than a minute, and my hand to hand isn't quite on par for this level of combat."

"We know bun, and we might forgive you for it eventually," Coco said, with as much sympathy as her acting skills could muster. Alongside their Faunus teammates indignant squak, Cardin was the next to speak up.

"I don't know if it's enough to change the whole strategy or not, but aren't the two of you a little...slow?" Cardin asked sincerely. Seeing the confused looks of his teammates, he forged on. "Well, think about it like this. To really use his semblance, Yatsuhashi needs a solid connection to the ground, so he tends to move slowly, and his fighting style is based off of that. You, Coco, usually fight with your gun over your purse, right?" She agrees, a smug grin overtaking her features. "When you are firing your minigun, you can't move around and you have issues tracking anything that moves around you. That's why Velvet literally runs circles around you when we spar. She's fast enough that you can't turn fast enough to keep pointed at her." The smug grin fell remarkably quickly. "So what if you fight someone like Velvet, or that chick with the roller skates?"

Silence ruled the table for a minute as everyone gave the newest member of their team's suggestion serious thought. After a while Velvet was the one to speak up, "We hadn't considered the speed issue before because our usual strategies revolve around defense. If they were to attack first, Yatsuhashi was meant to block and counter them until Coco could bring their weapon around. Then, a solid sustained burst would push them back or out of the what if they don't attack first or you have to go after them. All the maneuvers you two practiced would be useless."

"Well," Fox's resigned voice joined in, " I can see where this is going well enough, but the next question is, whose place do I take? Yatsu is the best tank, so I wouldn't be able to cover Coco as well. But if I take her place, we lose our ranged element."

Coco frowned over the issue for a second, before coming to a decision. "You'd take Yatsu's place. With your semblance, you could dadge tank fairly well with the ADA, and anyway, thinking offensively, it would be me covering you with suppressive fire while you engage." The discussion went on for another few minutes, encompassing everything from their battle maneuvers to possible terrains to who they could face (the Pyrrha Nikos plan, they decided, would be overwhelming firepower).

As they were wrapping up and arguing over the check, a familiar, gentle voice piped up next to them. "Hello my young pupils, I heard you had an excellent match earlier and did Beacon proud. Well done." Headmaster Ozpin greeted, over his customary coffee cup. Why the restaurant they were in let him bring outside drinks into their place of business, the world may never know.

"Thank you headmaster, we did our best," Coco replied, speaking as the leader. "But, weren't you attending the matches? I mean, I thought you'd have liked to watch the students you managed do well."

"You're right, I would have," Ozpin sighed. "Unfortunately, a certain member of the Valean Council insisted that today was the perfect day for a spot inspection." This news brought the whole table to attention. "Yes, quite sad indeed. He seemed to be under the impression that our student dormitories and locker rooms were being exploited to harbor illegal materials." Ozpin gave a shake of his head before resuming. "Ah, but it is over, and I happened to be in the search of a proper lunch when I happened to spot you all, and wanted to express my support. However, it appears you are already done. Please excuse an old man's ramblings, I'll be on my way." And with that, the eccentric Headmaster of Beacon Academy, left the building. Stunned silence dominated the table after the abrupt departure.

Coco recovered first, "Well, can we all agree that wasn't just Ozpin being Ozpin?"

… … … … … … …

That evening, team CFVYC was still debating why Ozpin had decided to rant to them.

"I still maintain that he just wanted to tell us that the asshole was here," Fox said, from his bed while scraping his whetstone against one of his blades.

"But why would he tell us after the fact?" Velvet insisted, pacing the length of the room. "If he didn't want us to stumble across him, why wouldn't he tell us when he arrived?"

"Maybe Ozpin couldn't send us a message without looking suspicious?" Cardin offered from his desk. He had the unenvious task of reading through all the messages and updates Ozpin had hired on his behalf. "Like, if he was caught, then douche supreme would accuse him of texting someone to go ahead and tidy up ahead of them, therefore he could be tampering with the process."

"Since when did you say things like 'Therefore'?" Coco added. One of the read messages was crumpled up and narrowly missed her head.

Yatsuhashi, who had been quiet up until this point, interrupted before things escalated into a proper paper war, "Why was Carran here?" He didn't even need to look up from his mat to tell his teammates were confused. "The headmaster told us, yes, but no one ever has been able to quite read his intentions, barring Ms. Goodwitch. Instead of pondering what goes on in his coffee cup, let's think about what he told us."

Cardin, who was seriously considering going to visit the Schnee for some fire dust and taking care of the paperwork that way, was the first to answer, "He said that the old bastard was here, and he looked at the dorms and lockers this morning."

Velvet paused in her pacing to look at Cardin, "Wasn't the plan with reading your parents will to force him into some kind of desperate action? Is a school inspection really desperate?"

"It's not just that he inspected," Coco added on, excitement speeding up her speech, "but he was here this morning, during our match most likely. He could have been looking at our room when none of us were here!"

Before the rest of the team began a frantic search of the room, the giant swordsman spoke up, "We have nothing in here that would interest him." Coco's interjection about her clothes was promptly ignored. "All of the deeds, account information, and titles that Cardin got from the Judge are in a safety deposit box at the bank. Even councilors can't bully their way in there."

"So it must have been about the locker rooms." Fox surmised.

Cardin suddenly shot up from his desk, his chair flew backwards into the opposite wall, "My Locker! He's after the armor! It's worth more than Vacuo!"

"Hold up!" Coco said, snagging her panicking teammate before he charged out of the room. "The headmaster was with him, it's not like he could have just walked out of the lockerroom with it under his watch."

"Then why was he there?" Cardin asked, still trying to get out of Coco's grasp. She had a pretty good hold of him, she thought, until Cardin began dragging her, and her chair, with him.

"To scope it out," Fox said, finishing up his weapon maintenance. "He couldn't take it then, but he could take a look at the security there. Where the camera's are, what kind of locker you were using. Speaking of…" Everyone knew what he was getting at, despite trailing off. Cardin had been forced to get another locker to store his armor in. Since he had to pay for it as well, Cardin had gotten a top of the line model. Climate controlled, auto-maintenance functions, and with a built in dust engine, it was great for storing and caring for Cardin's armor. The down side, however, was that it was a winchester model.

"There's a company all-access code," Cardin said, glancing at his teammates. "It's so the company can repair their products supposedly. I was given a copy of it when I gained the rights as a majority shareholder. Old pole-in-the-butt, as the president of the company, will definitely have it too."

"So," tacked on Yatsuhashi, "If he gets in unsupervised, he can just walk in, open your locker, and take it."

"And, since it's a company code," Coco said, getting up from her chair, "there's no reasonable way to say he was the one who used it."

"The better question at this point is, what can we do about it?" Fox said, joining the huddle around Cardin, who was starting to pull at his hair. The rest of the team started talking plans, but Cardin was too worried to pay attention. This greedy pig, who was responsible for the death of his sister, who had tried to do the same to him, now was going to rob him? Fury flowed through his veins like an icy river and hatred blossomed in his heart. That was, until Velvet paced by again, and Cardin saw the camera on her hip. He held up his hands, getting his team's attention, before saying.

"Guys, I have an idea."

Thank you for reading. If you like the story, please favorite. If you want to keep up with the updates, follow it. But most importantly of all, please leave a review. Not only do I like hearing what you think, I genuinely want to make the story better for you, and if you tell me what you like/dislike, I'll adjust accordingly.

I usually leave mention to an Author named Writingwithgusto and his story "Silent Pain" which was the original inspiration for this story. I was sad to find, upon my return, that he seems to have taken down the story from his profile. Still, you should definitely give his profile a look over.

Lastly, I know I asked this question already, but want do you guys think I should write about next? Grimm-born's plot is still largely a mystery (I hope), even to me (my old laptop, with the original documents for that story and this on it, died a horrible, tragic death), so there are things I can still do to it, and I might start another story entirely when this is done. Anyway, feel free to leave your ideas in a review, or pm me if you prefer.