Weiss's outfit has changed for this story. I've gone back and edited the scenes where it's mentioned, and you can find art of the new design on my RWBY blog if you care about that sorta thing. The changes are purely aesthetic and have no impact on the plot.

Please pay no mind to how incredibly late this chapter is.

Chapter 13: Marionette(s)

Though the sabyr's residue would leave Wilt on its own, Adam spared a moment to wipe the blade clean. It was habit more than anything. The metal was warm to the touch even in the frigid midnight air and through the fabric of the loose cloth and his gloves, a side effect of the fire Dust imbued in its blade when it was forged.

Tracing the length of the blade, he found that his hands were finally steady, his breath even, and his heart beating strong and true in his chest. All day he had tried to burn off his restlessness to no avail. Come night, sleep had likewise eluded him; visions of his child self clawing at his hands from the dark and Blake's lies in Argus threw him violently out of it time after time. He had thought peace lost to him—but then, as he wandered the streets in search of release, these Grimm had all but delivered themselves unto his blade, as though fate itself wanted him calm. Who was he to deny it?

Splashed with the red of the Grimm alarm lights, the disintegrating sabyr horde around him almost looked like it was still suffering his semblance's effects. Amused at the thought, Adam neatly shook out and pocketed the cloth, then flourished and sheathed Wilt. The blade clicked back into place in the same instant the alarms shut off and the lights reset, leaving Mantle's abandoned streets blanketed in sudden and unnatural silence.

He let his eyes slip shut and took a breath deep enough to make his lungs ache, then let it out slowly.

His pocket buzzed. Blowing out the rest of his exhale through a scowl, Adam pulled out Watts's annoying little pager and held it up by his ear.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Catching the curtains moving in a nearby building's windows, Adam headed into the alleyways. "Taking a walk."

"I thought I made it clear that venturing out during a Grimm attack was too dangerous. If the oh-so-vaunted Protector of Mantle sees you, it's over. I can't erase you from the footage she captures. You are supposed to remain. Hidden."

He was so upset that Adam wasn't heeding his every command. Perhaps his comparison to Cinder had been too hasty; Watts was far more of a control freak. Besides: "Protector of Mantle?" he scoffed. "I haven't seen any sign of a protector here." That wasn't entirely true. There had been plenty of destroyed drones littering the intersection through which the sabyrs had come roaring. "If you mean the general's toys—"

"Not those toys," he scoffed. "His pet project. His apparent 'masterpiece.'"

Adam paused in his stride, a suspicion grabbing at his focus. "What does this 'masterpiece' look like?"

"A small white girl with ginger hair. Make no mistake, it is a weapon, crafted to—"

"I've dealt with that problem already." A smirk graced his lips at Watts's stunned silence.

"You…what? You destroyed it?"

"If she's not dead, she's under repair. Last I saw, she had lost an arm and leg, was leaking fluid, and was about to get pulled up one of the chutes to Atlas." The other end of the line was silent. Adam frowned, then realized there was indeed a sound coming through, albiet one that was distant, muffled, and filled with static.

Abruptly it transitioned into unmistakable laughter as though Watts had held his speaker in a closed fist only to open his hand once more. His amusement went on for quite some time, the entirety of which Adam spent feeling his newfound inner peace unspooling. He had better things to do with his time than listen to this.

"Oh, he must have been devastated," Watts all but wheezed. "The look on his face! Ah, it's what he deserves for pushing such an asinine idea through the general's skull. His life's work, taken out twice."

Adam had expected Watts's usual smug amusement at the destruction of Atlesian property, but his sheer glee at the damage to that robot in particular—the robot that he apparently knew personally in some capacity—plucked at uncomfortable chords in Adam's chest. He ignored the feeling.

After a couple audible deep breaths, Watts spoke with considerably less delight in his voice. "So, you removed some of her limbs. Did you destroy her head?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I had an escape to finish."

"Then she'll be back, but if she isn't on patrol tonight…Excuse me."

The line clicked dead. Like every time before, Adam quelled his aggravation at being treated like some common grunt and continued on his way. There were any number of things Watts and Tyrian could do with everyone and everything preoccupied with the Grimm attacks and no mobile eyes in the sky that Watts couldn't hack threatening to expose them. Though, now that Adam had dealt with these Grimm, that window was closing quickly.

As he had the thought, another alarm—closer than the farthest one but not an immediate concern—lit up the night. It promised another opportunity for battle, but this time, Adam let it pass him by. He was calm now, Watts's best efforts aside, and he was enjoying the crisp night air. With everyone inside and the city in lockdown from the Grimm, it was as quiet as it could get, and he could almost catch the natural crisp scent of Solitas under the lingering traces of Dust, oil, and smoke.

Plus, if he paused and tipped his head back, he could make out a handful of the brightest stars above now that many of the city lights had flipped to a relatively dim red . While he named the ones he recognized in his mind, the threads of a potential way to get to Blake without other forces interfering threatened to weave into an actual plan without committing. Nothing yet existed to tie them together, but he was content for the moment to let them be. Watts and Tyrian wouldn't make their grand move until the victorious candidate got their clearance codes after the election, which wouldn't take place for nearly two weeks.

He had time.

The hallway back to their dorm had never felt so long. Blake kept dragging one foot in front of the other through the power of the promise to herself that the moment she was inside, she was falling onto her bed and not getting up. In front of her, Yang, Weiss, and Ruby were faring no better. Though Weiss's stubbornness kept her shoulders from slouching, her stride lacked its usual grace. Yang and Ruby were leaning on each other, and with the size difference between them, their listing was almost comical.

Ruby swiped her scrolled over their room's lock just before Yang shouldered the door open with a groan.

"Yang," Ruby said, "please throw me up to my bed, I can't climb up there like this."

Yang managed a weary, "Only if you throw me to mine first," before she collapsed onto her bed. "It feels like my bones are tired," she moaned into her pillow. Ruby leaned against the ladder up to her bunk without making any move to actually haul herself up.

"I guess Clover, Vine, and Elm worked you guys hard," Ruby said.

Weiss was actually taking the time to remove her outerwear. Recognizing the wisdom—overheating would wake her up if she kept her coat on—Blake brought her aching arms up to remove her layers.

"Just Clover," Yang clarified. "Vine and Elm are taking over now that it's Jaune and Nora's shift."

"Amity has a lot of work left to be done for it," Blake said. "Even if we're planning to stop Salem here, restoring global communications is important. At the very least, if the worst were to happen and we fail, we could send out a warning to Vacuo."

Her words cast a pall over the room, and she hadn't even mentioned how there was no progress with the hunt for Adam or that, though Robyn's team was now combing through Mantle's records, they had dug up no trace of the hacker.

Weiss pursed her lips, then carefully pulled off her boot and placed it next to its partner. "Ruby, how is the planning going?"

"It's…okay. There are a lot of technological issues."

"The kind that can be solved?"

"If we have time."

A big if. They all knew the clock was ticking, but none of them knew how much time was left.

Heaving a sigh, Weiss stood straight and flipped her braid back behind her shoulder. "I'm sure a little evening nap will serve us all well. Why don't we—"

She stopped. Blake, in the middle of doing some mental math to figure out how much sleep she could get before going to the meeting with Marrow later, didn't notice until Yang sat up.

"Something wrong?" Yang asked.

Blake followed Weiss's gaze to the table—to the letter on the table. A letter bearing the Schnee family crest.

Yang spoke first. "Was that there the whole time?"

Her words roused Ruby, who sat up too and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "What's going on?"

"This wasn't here this morning," Blake said, eyeing Weiss, who had gone completely silent. "Weiss, were you expecting anything?"

She shook her head, the motion stiff.

"Maybe it's just your sister?" Ruby offered.

Weiss, voice shaking, said, "She would just call me."

They had all known since the confrontation at the mine that Jacques knew Weiss was back in Atlas. Their understanding, especially after Ironwood's intervention, was that them being formal huntresses and under Ironwood's command would keep Weiss safe from his reach.

With the silence stretching, Blake glanced at Yang, who offered a helpless shrug. Ruby jumped down, Yang got to her feet, and they all, by some silent signal, converged on the table.

Weiss was, of course, the one to take the letter and open it.

Blake read over her shoulder. Despite the flowery script and lofty language, the actual message behind the words was crude. Jacques was ordering her to return to the Schnee mansion to prepare for a concert, since Weiss had, as he put it, "so kindly laid the foundations for her homecoming debut at Atlas Academy."

"What's he talking about with the foundations?" Ruby asked into the quiet.

"And…a concert?" Yang added. "What?"

Blake took a half-step back to give Weiss some space, and the others followed her lead. "Is he talking about what you did to get those makeup supplies?" Blake asked. "That birthday party you sang at? How did he even find out about that?"

Weiss's hands shook and, seeming to realize that herself, she hastily set down the letter and smoothed out her skirt.

"Weiss," said Ruby, "you don't have to go."

"He's my father," she said helplessly. "He's already scheduled the event, and I'm sure it will be on the news by tomorrow morning."

Blake picked the letter back up to read it in full. The details were deceptively banal: a concert one week from the next day, Weiss as the headlining event. He expected her back by the next morning for rehearsals as well as costuming and makeup sampling.

She found herself nearly in awe at how…absurd it was. "How does he think that he can just…make this happen?" she asked. Though ostensibly addressing Weiss, her question was more to give voice to her own disbelief. Realizing that her teammates had gone quiet, she glanced up at them.

"I'm just a tool for his campaign," Weiss whispered. "That's all this is. That's all I am to him: a bird in a cage, singing at his call."

Ruby set her jaw. "You're your own person, Weiss. You came to Beacon on your own, didn't you? And you ran away when he tried to force you back. Even if you're back in Atlas now, you're not here for him. You're here with us. Whatever you want to do, we'll back you one hundred percent."

"It's your choice," Yang said.

"He can't control you," Blake added, dropping the letter back onto the table. "Not anymore."

Weiss pursed her lips. "But he already…"

"That was his mistake," Ruby said while Blake found her eyes drawn back to the paper. "If you don't show up, what happens?"

"I…I suppose he would find a replacement?"

"A replacement for Weiss Schnee?" Yang put in. "I know I'm not all that into the whole singer scene, but weren't you super well known before you decided to go to Beacon? You filled whole stadiums, didn't you?"

Weiss folded in on herself. "Then—"

"Nope, not what I meant," Yang interrupted with a panicked wave of her hands. "I mean that he fucked up by setting the bar way too high. Trust me, Weiss: no one can replace you."

Both Ruby and Blake nodded their firm agreement. Red dusted Weiss's cheeks.

"So he has to scramble to find a replacement that can't match up to you," Ruby said in an unsubtle prod for Weiss to finish her thought, "which means…"

"He loses face? He does care a lot for his reputation—at least, in his own circles."

"Imagine how bad it'll look for him to get stood up by his own daughter," Blake mused with a slight grin. After a beat, a hesitant smile began to peek through the anxiety on Weiss's face.

"It would look quite bad. He was furious when I merely spoke out at a party of his."

"He's the one deciding to make everyone in this kingdom expect you to headline his concert. If you make it clear that you're refusing to do it intentionally before he has a chance to do damage control, you can control the narrative."

"Control the narrative?" Weiss repeated, peering at Blake, who shrugged.

"Wait, no, I get it," said Yang. "Strike first, control the flow of the fight, right? We can totally do that! He might have money, but we've got a direct line to the general. I bet he could help us out!"

"That's a great idea!" Ruby agreed.

Gears now turning, Weiss brought a hand to her chin. "If we go to Ironwood, we may run into the same issues with conflicts of interest that were being discussed for the meeting with Robyn Hill. Besides, between everything going on before we showed up and what's happened since, he's dealing with enough already."

"Then what about Robyn?" Ruby asked. "Blake?"

"She might be interested," Blake hedged, "but first, we'd need to have a narrative to spread."

Yang's enthusiasm dipped. "Ah, right. Uh. Any suggestions?"

Silence. As she looked over her teammates' pensive expressions, Blake finally brought into focus the vague plan she'd had ever since talking to Fiona.

"I might actually have one," she said slowly, only to hold up a hand when all eyes turned to her. "But it would put you directly against your father and maybe even your company, Weiss."

Weiss hesitated, glanced at the letter, at her team, and then set her jaw. "Tell me."

They were still in the thick of working things out forty minutes later when Marrow knocked on the door. With the encouragement of her teammates at her back, Blake joined him for the journey to a small meeting room in Atlas military headquarters.

He was out of uniform, clothed in a thick knit sweater and jeans. Blake glanced down at herself and realized that, in the heat of planning, she had forgotten to change out of her combat clothes. It was definitely too late to go back now; they were already in an elevator. Since there was nothing to be done, she wrote that problem off, took a deep breath, and turned her focus to what was to come.

"Is there anything I should expect?" she asked. "People I should know?"

Marrow rocked on his heels. "We'll do introductions at the start—there's always an icebreaker. Bruno loves icebreakers—he's one of the organizers, great guy, a little too enthusiastic sometimes. Hard to miss. The whole thing is pretty structured, and with everything that's happening, I doubt we'll stray too much." He started ticking off his list items on his fingers as he said them. "Icebreaker, going over the agenda, shoutouts, problems and discussion, proposals, progress reports on initiatives, and…that's about it. Well, if there's a lecture, that usually goes after the agenda."

"Lecture?"

"Yeah, we bring someone in, or it's one of the members. They give a presentation on a relevant topic. Last time I think it was curfew violation enforcement by Mantle sector." He sighed. "I'll give you one guess what kind of pattern emerged."

Blake pressed her lips together.

"Anyway," Marrow continued, "you really don't need to stress. It's a casual thing."

Her combat gear was the wrong kind of casual, but her worries about presentation slipped to the back of her mind when Marrow led the way into the actual meeting room. Like all of the rooms in the base, it favored a polished, minimalist design, with soft blue lights illuminating the walls between the tall windows letting in the glow of the sleepless city beyond. The floor didn't bear the symbol of Atlas, but it was still polished to a silver shine. Interrupting that shine were a few dozen folding chairs—simple and utilitarian, they were white with thin silver cushions and the promise of a sore back if sat in for too long. Beyond those, a whiteboard took up the far wall with a simple agenda written on it. Judging by the timestamps, they were due to start in about four minutes.

A few tables carrying beverages—mostly coffee, by the smell, but some tea—and simple snacks took up the wall to Blake's left. Someone had tossed a cheap tablecloth under them, and judging by the tears and stains, it was an old staple of these meetings. Some fourteen people were scattered around the room in small groups, most carrying souvenirs from the snack tables. That they were faunus was clear at a glance; all their traits were on clear display as they relaxed in casual clothes designed to accommodate them.

"We're early," Marrow noted while he meandered over to the food. After ghosting his hand over the selection, he picked out a bagel and set to opening one of the cream cheese packets. "Feel free to grab anything if you're hungry. It didn't look like you had a chance to eat dinner."

Blake put a hand over her stomach, which was stirring at the sight of the food in front of her. He was right; in the rush of planning to counter Jacques Schnee's venture, she'd been too focused to feel hunger. Now, though, there was nothing in the way of the pangs.

Like Marrow, she considered her options before making her decision. She ended up with a blueberry muffin and tea that helped calm her by smell alone. As she was savoring her first sip and feeling its warmth pool in her chest, Marrow let out a yelp. Blake coughed, recovered, and looked over the chipped rim of her mug to see Marrow fruitlessly kicking his legs while a massive man lifted him off the ground in a bear hug from behind.

"Bruno," Marrow gasped, trying and failing to tap out against the giant's arm, "I can't—breathe—"

"But you are safe!"

"Air—"

Bruno let out a hearty laugh and deposited Marrow back on the ground.

"I heard about how things went sideways on the mine mission," Bruno explained, "and I'm glad to see you're all right."

Even as Marrow made a show of groaning and holding his ribs, his tail was wagging, and there was a smile fighting his attempts to smother it. "You don't have to be so worried." He dragged in a breath and puffed up. "I'm a professional."

That façade was thoroughly ruined when Bruno ruffled his hair with a wide grin. "A professional you may be, but you'll always be the kid too smart for his own good nearly blowing himself up trying to make a weapon. I hear you challenged an alpha centinel with only a rookie for backup."

Marrow finally seemed to remember that Blake was there. Fixing his hair with a cough, he straightened. "Blake, this is Bruno, a retired sergeant and current engineering teacher at Atlas Academy, and one of the organizers of this group. Bruno, Blake Belladonna, the rookie who was with me in the mine."

Bruno stuck out his hand, which Blake took. Calloused and riddled with scars from burns and cuts alike, his palm scraped against her own and his hand utterly engulfed hers. Even her father couldn't compare.

"Belladonna," Bruno mused, looking her over.

"Daughter," she clarified. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise." Though he clearly had questions about what she was doing here, Bruno found his attention captured by several new arrivals. "We can talk more later, if you'd like. Marrow mentioned you have some questions."

"That would be great."

He left and Blake let out a quiet sigh of relief. Constantly being recognized before she could get a word in left her feeling like she was always on her back foot.

"You really don't need to worry about him," Marrow said. "He's open to just about anyone. I've never seen him angry, and there were a few times back in the academy when I tried."

Blake raised an eyebrow. "You were a bad student?"

Marrow let out an awkward chuckle while he led the way to some empty chairs at the front. Even more people were coming in now; judging by the general momentum, things were going to get started soon. "Not really bad, just…I liked to push boundaries. I had some things to work out. And I did. Eventually."

"And now you're with the Ace Ops."

"And now I'm with the Ace Ops."

A surge of microphone feedback had Blake and Marrow wincing. Shouted protests rose up around the room, and the older woman at the podium hastily turned off the mic and apologized. She tried again, and when the piercing shriek didn't return, Blake carefully unfolded her ears.

"Sorry about that," the woman said. She didn't have an obvious faunus trait, but Blake knew not to judge by appearances. Ilia's trait was only obvious when she wanted it to be.

"Alanna," Marrow explained in a whisper. "Another organizer. She's been here the longest." All around them, other faunus were settling into chairs, their casual conversations drawing to natural conclusions one by one.

After tapping the mic to confirm it was working, Alanna addressed the whole room. "Listen up everyone, I know a lot of you have been working overtime this week because of the security breaches and construction project, so I'll make this quick."

A few amused chuckles sounded from calling Amity a "construction project."

"Our agenda's on the board, but Kathy couldn't make it today, so we're striking out the learning opportunity." Alanna spared a moment to grab a marker and draw a squeaky line through that item on the whiteboard.

"Where's she at?" someone called.

Alanna turned her head—and only her head—a full 180 degrees to glance back at them with a frown. "Patrol? Does it matter? She's not here."

It was an unsettling effect without warning or previous exposure. Blake made a note of it in her mind, resolved to be unaffected by it, and moved on.

Alanna returned to the podium, neck back in a neutral position. "All right, icebreaker today is saying your least favorite meal from the cafeteria. With all the rationing, I know it's gonna be tough to pick, but please restrain yourselves to just one. We'll start with you. Name and meal, if you would."

The guy on the opposite side of the front row made a show of thinking before he said, rather decisively, "Stephen, and let's be honest: it's the leftovers stir fry."

A surge of assent. Alanna nodded. "They think they can disguise that the veggies and meat are from meals of the past week, and they're wrong. How about you, Tommy?"

They went on like that. Thirty-two gripes, over half of them about the stir fry, voiced and accompanied by thirty-two names. Blake caught all of them and remembered none of them. Inevitably, it was her turn. It felt like everyone was staring at her, but she knew that wasn't true; several groups were having near-silent discussions, most people had tuned out after saying their piece, and those that remained saw her as, at worst, a curiosity.

"Blake, and I haven't eaten a lot of meals in this cafeteria—" she took most of them in the Academy cafeteria instead "—but I think I have to agree with the majority here."

"Can't argue with that," Alanna said. "That's the icebreaker and introductions, so let's keep this moving."

Alanna was true to her word, running a tight ship and keeping everyone on task as they moved through the shoutouts. The problems and discussion were similarly efficient; Blake got the impression that these were old topics, having been subjects at these meetings for months if not every month since the kingdom-wide lockdown and Amity resources acquisition started. Any new information came in the form of updates to old knowledge: a new breach in Mantle's wall, progress on a discrimination suit against one particular instructor, the totals from a food drive.

"Marrow," Blake whispered, poking him.

"What?" he whispered back.

"How often does this group do things to raise money? Like drives and asking for donations." Snacks weren't free, organizing charity drives wasn't free, and funding legal challenges definitely wasn't free, especially in Atlas. The lawyers here, from what Blake had overheard as a child traveling the world at her father's side, always charged more.

"Uh, I'm not usually involved in that, but at least four times a year. They collect dues from anyone who becomes a formal member, which is about three-quarters of the people here, I'd guess."

Blake nodded and withdrew. Alanna was going over some anonymous complaints about an officer, but from a quick skim, they were all too vague to force anyone opposed to justice into action.

Marrow poked her. "Why are you asking?"

"I have an idea."

He frowned at her. "You have the same face Harriet gets when she's got a plan, and I'm not usually a fan of where her plans end up."

"Trust me."

"I barely know you!"

His whisper-shout drew a few raised eyebrows. He pressed his lips together and slouched in his seat, embarrassed.

"Any questions on the updates?" Alanna asked after the last anonymous comment was read. "No? Great. We did what little discussing we had to do as we went, so…proposals."

With the way she said it, Blake got the distinct impression that there weren't many these days—probably another side effect of the resource crunch. Atlas could provide for itself, but it couldn't do so comfortably.

"Proposal to change the menu?" someone ventured.

"Noted, but I make no promises. You and every other soldier has already signed that petition. Anyone else? Preferably related to the actual mission statement of this organization?"

Blake could almost hear the crickets chirping. Marrow nudged her. "Your idea?" he mouthed.

Right. This was the time. Blake took a deep breath and then raised her hand. Alanna quirked a brow but nodded silent permission.

"Before I explain, I should reintroduce myself."

"And before she does that," Marrow said, "she should take herself up to the podium so she can talk to the whole room—don't you agree, Alanna?"

"If this is going to be a whole thing, then sure."

Alanna ceded her spot at the front. Blake set her shoulders and assumed that position, having to pull the mic a bit higher since Alanna was a good several inches shorter than she was, especially since Alanna was in sneakers and Blake was still in her combat boots.

She tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear, swallowed, and looked over the room. Almost everyone looked bored. A few were interested. Four were having silent conversation accomplished via facial expressions and loose sign language.

In a way, the inattention was reassuring.

"My full name is Blake Belladonna," she said. The boredom turned to interest; the interest turned to focus; and the conversation stopped in its tracks. "I arrived in this kingdom a few weeks ago while escorting an Atlesian citizen back to safety. With the way things are here, I chose to stay and assist rather than make the dangerous journey back to Menagerie." It was a lie, but a white one. "Now that I've spent more time here and gotten…the lay of the land, I want to do my part to help improve the way things are. I have an idea for how to aid this organization as well as Mantle—but I need your help to do it."

"Then lay it out for us," said Bruno. "What kind of help would this be?"

"Monetary. Have you ever partnered with Robyn Hill's group for charity drives, food drives, anything like that?"

"A handful of times. The paperwork was a pain. Why, what do they want to do?"

"We haven't confirmed this with them yet," or talked to Robyn about it at all, "but I'm confident she'll agree. With the cooperation of Weiss Schnee, we're planning to hold a charity concert to benefit both your organization and the Happy Huntresses."

"A charity…concert." Alanna wasn't hostile, but she was far from enthusiastic, and she mirrored the rest of the crowd. "Why?"

"I don't think singing a song is gonna solve the lockdown," someone said.

Blake nodded. This had all come up during her team's discussion; they had tried to think up an alternative they could put together on such a tight timeline with so few people and come up short. "I know. It's not a construction project or a soup kitchen, but raising money is what lets us do those things at all."

"With Weiss Schnee?" Alanna asked. "Her father is running for a seat on the council. You want to give him more popularity?"

"No. This isn't about the politics. Weiss is going to be performing her final concert; there are people in Atlas who will pay a lot of money for in-person access to that." She took a breath. "Weiss has a lot to prove and she wants to prove it in a way that helps the people her family has hurt."

"So those rumors that she's back are true," someone said.

"Yeah, I heard that she was working with the Ace Ops."

Eyes turned to Marrow, who crossed his arms under the scrutiny. "Weiss, like the rest of her team, is undergoing huntsman training at Atlas Academy." It was a beautifully vague answer. He failed to mention that their curriculum was laser-focused on averting the approaching apocalypse.

"I, for one, am all for taking the rich humans' money," said Stephen, the one who had started the room's campaign against the stir fry. "Lien is lien. But if half this money is going to Robyn Hill and Jacque Schnee's daughter is performing, there are going to be questions about the politics involved—whether you want them asked or not."

Blake nodded. "We'll make it clear from the start that this is happening purely to support the community outreach done by your organizations, not either one of the council candidates."

"A stipulation in whatever contract we draw up that the money has to go to community programs and not campaign funds or a certain home improvement project would go a long way," Bruno pointed out.

"We can get into the nitty gritty of optics after we make a decision," Alanna said. "Blake, please explain this proposal of yours; give us the elevator pitch. Then we'll take a vote."

So Blake gave her pitch: a charity concert headlined by Weiss Schnee, whose abrupt disappearance from the singing scene after singing at her father's gala had captivated the nation for weeks, to be held eight days from now in a venue to be determined, with coveted in-person invitations sold to Atlas elites and streaming access freely available to all others. All proceeds not needed to cover the cost of holding the event would be split 50-50 between this organization and Mantle's Happy Huntresses.

"I won't pretend that this will solve the problems plaguing Atlas and Mantle," Blake finished, "but I'm hoping, by funding the groups trying to improve conditions in both, it can be a step in the right direction. Weiss will be holding this concert regardless of whether or not your group decides to sign on this, but we could really use the support of people who know how to organize and run this kind of event." She placed a hand on her chest and spoke from the heart, making eye contact with as many people as she could. "We want to help."

Bruno rubbed at his chin. "And if the Happy Huntresses don't agree, we would get one hundred percent of proceeds, yes?"

After a beat of hesitation, Blake nodded. Though finding funding to give individuals a chance of repairing damaged sections of Mantle's wall that the government was leaving to metastasize into something worse was a priority, if there was no one to accept that money, it couldn't just be thrown into the ether. At the very least, once they agreed, she could talk to the faunus here and try to work something out if Robyn refused to cooperate.

"Are there any other questions for Blake before we take a vote?" Alanna called. She surveyed the room, but no hands went up. "Right then. All in favor, hand up."

Blake's heart went into her throat as a trickle of hands went up. Then, like a second wave, tens more stuck into the air. Alanna muttered out the count as she went, then turned and wrote a squeaky twenty-three on the board—counting herself in that number.

"Well, that's already a majority, but for documentation: all against?"

Six hands. Several people were abstaining.

"And there we have it. Blake, stay after and we'll talk more details."

Marrow patted her on the back and said congratulations when she sat back down. She barely heard him, returning a distracted smile and thanks that was entirely inadequate for the man that had given her this opportunity in the first place.

The rest of the meeting passed as a blur. When it ended, Blake pulled out her scroll and fired off a single message to Weiss:

They agreed. Spread the word.

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