Chapter 4

Shopping and a Show

Coco wasn't entirely certain how she had been roped into this. Velvet was her responsibility as team leader of Team CFVY. Helping the Faunus girl build up some self-confidence was something that she had to do. If not simply because it was her responsibility then due to how it would look if her own teammate were constantly cowering in a corner every time someone made a smart remark about her ears. That her team's gun bunny was cute didn't hurt either.

One Summer Dawn was most assuredly not her responsibility, though. Sure, the girl had lightened the load the day they had found her by taking out the Ursa that had managed to flank her team. Her team had reciprocated that by pulling her out of the ruined village and getting her to Beacon where she had gotten medical care and more. As far as Coco was concerned, Summer had already been repaid for her good dead.

So how was it that she, Coco Adel, leader of Team CFVY and Mistress of Fashion had somehow ended up having to lead around the very same Summer Dawn to every single clothing store in Vale?

It wasn't that Coco was against a good old-fashioned shopping spree. Particularly when said shopping spree involved the most fashionable of fashions in Vale. Summer was admittedly a good shopper as well, finding the best deals on a wide range of civilian clothing. She was also a power shopper, her spree as Coco led her from store to store already running on 6 hours with only a brief break for lunch earlier in the day. Coco wasn't sure how the younger teen was still going without the endurance-boosting effects of aura but knew she shouldn't be surprised. Not after that fight with Velvet.

Coco was honest enough with herself that the spar had pissed her off. Not only had a girl with no unlocked aura stood toe to toe with her gun bunny, but she had also won. That she had won with a submission hold that had dislocated Velvet's shoulder was an insult. Not just to Velvet, who had kept the fight rather straightforward, but to Coco herself as leader of Team CFVY. It said that she hadn't prepared her teammate well enough to handle a single girl with no unlocked aura in hand-to-hand combat, an area her teammate excelled in thanks to her semblance.

Lowering her omnipresent shades, Coco pinched the bridge of her nose. Now here she was with Summer Dawn, newly a pain in Coco's rear end, and the girl was quickly out doing Coco in shopping. It was something of a point of pride that she had always known the best shops and gotten the best deals on the best fashions. She had grown up in Vale and had taken the time to get to know the shop keepers, the designers, the fashion scene itself. She had worked to excel in this area because she wouldn't be seen in anything but the best. Yet here was Summer Dawn, newly come to Vale with no more a clue to its various districts and shops, quickly showing herself to be Coco's equal in shopping.

It was stupid. It was petty. It was outright infuriating.

"Coco, I wanted to ask, why do you and Velvet wear the same outfits so often?"

Coco had to actually stop and think about the question for a moment simply due to the tone it was asked in. All-day Summer had been nothing less than completely confident. From store to store as she bought up a brand new wardrobe using the funds that Professor Ozpin had provided her she hadn't shown any hesitancy. She knew what she wanted and she had gone for it. Now she was showing a hesitancy that stood out like a beacon.

Coco had to stop and think about it for a moment, looking down at her outfit. It was her usual combat outfit that she was immensely proud of. Tailored and perfectly cut, the entire outfit had set her back a significant amount of lien.

For a moment, Coco was on the edge of getting angry. Summer had insinuated that perhaps she was poor and couldn't afford more clothes, something far from the truth. Perhaps worse was the insinuation that Coco didn't know fashion well enough to own more styles, again an idiotic idea to the fashionista.

Then a calm washed over Coco as she realized Summer hadn't realized just what she was looking at. A Huntress's outfit wasn't merely a fashion statement. It wasn't only a uniform that helped her stand apart from the pedestrian civilians. It was also a line of defense, support, and in some cases part of her offense. It was a one-of-a-kind outfit. Hand-tailored and custom-crafted to assist the Huntress in her duties. A combat outfit was so far above simple fashion. It was a statement about how seriously she took her job.

A statement like that cost lien.

Coco lit up with a smile. It might not get her anything directly, but still, it would be a salve on her wounded pride. "Summer, you have so much to learn about Huntress fashion. First, I see a coffee shop and I'm going to need a drink for this. Come on, let's not delay, we've already wasted the morning on your civilian clothes. It's time to get to the important things."

Coco took her to a small shop that was out of the way. This was the sort of place that Summer knew only someone intimately familiar with the city streets would know about. A tourist was unlikely to just wander down the small ally that led to the street. A small sign on the door named the shop Midnight Sonata.

Coco led the way, pushing open the door with a smirk on her lips as she looked over her shoulder at Summer. The scent of fresh leather and fabric filled the air, accentuated by the smell of spice. All about them on the walls were various fabrics as well as ready-made dresses, coats, shirts, and pants of various cuts and styles. The center of the small shop was dominated by a slightly raised platform that had a table on it with dozens of tools that Summer had no clue about.

Amongst the fabrics were dozens of vials of colored powder. Summer questioned the purpose of the powders for a few moments then realized what they were, Dust. Raising an eyebrow she glanced at Coco who just smiled enigmatically. Turning to look at the various display items, Summer realized exactly why a clothing shop would have such a wide array of Dust. Several of the display items had embroidered designs sewn into them that matched the brilliant colors of the often volatile powder. The wisdom of this escaped Summer but she imagined it must serve some sort of purpose other than to blow up the wearer.

"Yes, yes, hold on one minute," an elderly voice called out from the back. A moment later a woman came out. She was short, barely up to Summer's own chest which amazed the Faunus. She was barely five feet tall, though she could remember being a few inches taller. This woman was even shorter than she was. Her grey hair was done in a high bun held in place by knitting needles of all things. As she came out, she put on a pair of glasses that had been hanging from a chain around her neck.

"What do you want?" The woman asked in a rather rude fashion. "We're closed. Didn't you see the sign?"

Both girls turned to look at one another. Summer turned back to glance at the door which was completely bereft of any sign indicating the shop was open or closed. Coco looked even more confused. "Apologies, Mrs. Gray," she started to say before being cut off.

"No apologies. Just get. I'm closed and I don't need any youngins hanging around my shop," the now-named Mrs. Gray said as she started to push both girls towards the door. "Come back tomorrow, I'm closed." Before either girl could blink, they found themselves standing in the street, staring at a closed and locked door.

Summer glanced at Coco with a raised eyebrow. "Now that wasn't suspicious at all," she said, tapping one finger on her arm while her tail swished back and forth behind her in agitation.

Coco's own eyes were narrowed as she attempted to stare a hole through the door. "Something is wrong," she finally said. "Mrs. Gray is a sweet old lady that always offers cookies and milk to the students that come here for their outfits and has never turned me away like that. Not even the time I had to come for emergency repairs in the middle of the night."

Summer looked up to the roof of the two-story building, her mind flipping through possible reasons for the rude greeting. "Well, we have two options. Assume that whatever is going on is just a personal issue and keep our noses out of it," she said as she looked back and forth between the ally walls.

"Or assume something is wrong and stick our noses in the deep end before we know what," Coco said, finishing Summer's thought. "I was never one for ignoring the blatantly obvious."

Summer nodded in agreement. "Neither was I. Let's get some altitude," she said, putting words to action as she lept up grabbing the lip of a 2nd story window in the building across from Mrs. Gray's shop. From there she pushed off, twisting in the air to the land on Mrs. Gray's second-story window. Luck was with Summer, the window not only unlocked but open partway. Sliding it open as quietly as she could, she slipped inside and found herself in what appeared to be Mrs. Gray's bedroom.

A moment later, Coco was through the window herself and both girls crept through the room and into the hallway beyond. A quick search upstairs revealed it was empty, but voices from below had caught Summer's attention. She held up one hand as she listened closely to the voices. One was Mrs. Gray's but the other was a man. After only a few sentences, Summer knew what was going on and turned to her impromptu partner.

"She's being robbed," she said in a whisper. "They're in the back of the store and shaking her down for all her Dust."

The anger the flew into Coco's eyes was immediate and matched only by the fury in Summer's. With a hand wave, Summer took point and slipped down the stairs and back onto the first floor. The stairwell led to the back of the shop's storage room where they clearly saw a redheaded man in a bowler hat and white suit standing in front of Mrs. Gray. He was idly rolling a cane between his hands as his three thugs gathered up the jars of Dust and loaded them into a crate.

Summer looked back at Coco and held a finger to her lips. Standing up straight and walking out from the shadows Summer plastered a smile on her face. "Grandma! We're out of milk. Do you have any down here? You know I just can't drink my coffee without it," she said as she walked towards the group, keeping her eyes on Mrs. Gray the entire time and ignoring the redhead and his minions.

The reaction was everything Summer had been hoping for. The group of robbers were frozen in place just staring as the petite blonde strolled in. Mrs. Gray answered back without any sign anything was up, "No dear, I'm afraid we're all out. You should go out to the store and get some, sweetie. Here, let me give you some lien to run to the store."

The redheaded ringleader was starting to get his wits back. His reaction told Summer that he hadn't known anyone else was in the building and likely hadn't bothered asking. As Mrs. Gray turned to pick up her purse, Buffy turned around and finally deigned to take notice of the thugs trying to rob the sweet old lady.

"Oh, hello," she said sweetly, running a finger down the front of his shirt. "Now who might you be a cutie," Summer asked sweetly as she stepped into the redhead's space.

To his credit, the redhead recovered quickly enough, a sly smile on his lips quickly overtaking his look of befuddlement. "Roman, and you are?" He asked as he took Summer's hand in his and bent over in greeting, hanging his cane on his arm.

Summer took the opportunity to grip Roman's hand with her full Slayer strength. It was so sudden that his Aura didn't have a chance to form up and protect him as she yanked him in close. "You can call me Slayer," she whispered in his ear before head butting him.

Coco took that as her sign and came flying into the backroom. Wielding her handbag as a lethal weapon, she clocked the first thug she met in the head, sending him spinning to the ground unconscious. She spun and dropped into a crouch, quickly avoiding the swing of a sword from Thug Number 2 before rising back up, her handbag catching him under the chin and flipping him backward to the floor.

Summer didn't let up on Roman. She knew dangerous and had pegged Roman as such already. She slammed him in the chest with an open hand, still gripping his now broken right hand with her own. He staggered back a few steps, his aura flaring brightly as it protected against the palm strike. That was fine for Summer. She wasn't intending for the strike to take him out, just put him in position. She had learned Aura users could take some serious punishment but it wasn't infallible. Joints had to bend and that meant she could make them bend the wrong way. In a flash, her left palm struck the outside of Roman's now straightened arm, dislocating it at the elbow.

The scream of pain echoed through the building and suddenly four more thugs came running inside from a back door that neither Summer nor Coco had spotted. Not wanting to lose momentum, Summer lifted up the now injured headmaster of thuggery and threw him at his minions. Scrambling as they were to get in, they never saw him coming. Roman hit them square on while they were still in the doorway and bounced them back out of the door in a pile of limbs.

She turned to see Coco finishing with the last of the thugs that had been inside. Mrs. Gray was holding the two that Coco had already knocked senseless at gunpoint, a large caliber revolver in her hands. "Go get'em girls, I've got these punks covered," the elderly seamstress called out. Summer and Coco both nodded, scrambling towards the back door.

Before they could get out, bullets started to come in. The two took up positions on either side, waiting for the stream of lead to abate. Once it had, the two rushed out only to find the back lot empty. The only sign the robbers had been present was a white cane sitting on the concrete. "Damn it, they got away," Summer groused as she looked around hoping to spot their quarry.

Coco grunted, then turned to go inside. "Doesn't matter, we got these three. The cops can have fun with them," she said, pausing at the door. After a moment she looked back at Summer and gave her a genuine smile. "And good job, rookie."

Summer dropped onto her bed with a happy sigh. She and Coco had spent the entire day shopping. She now had a wide range of clothes for various functions. From casual "I'm going out with friends" to formal "It's prom but not prom" and everything in between, she was mostly set on clothes and shoes. Mostly because Summer knew there was more she wanted to get but had held back due to her budget. Significant though it might be, it was also limited and she still had one more significant expense waiting in the wings.

The first major expense was bought and paid for, though. Her combat outfit. It was strange thinking she'd have an outfit specifically designed for fighting. Foggy memories or not, she knew that since she had been called she'd not had any outfits specifically for that. She'd gone patrolling in whatever she had worn that day. The number of times she had lamented the loss of a pair of shoes or a particularly cute top had numbered in the dozens if not hundreds. Now she'd have an outfit designed to stand up to those rigors and still come out looking pristine. It brought a warm and fuzzy feeling to the displaced Slayer's heart. She just had to wait for it to be finished and delivered. Mrs. Gray had promised that it would be there well in advance of the initiation ceremony that was set to begin in two weeks.

Her other major expense was going to be on weapons. Or rather, a weapon. She had managed to get Coco talking about her own Gianduja. That the fashionable handbag she had been clocking thus with transformed into a massive rotary cannon had shocked Summer. That she had built it herself was even more impressive. Finding out that nearly all Huntress weapons served as both melee and ranged weapons, was even more surprising. Coco had told her that Huntsman and Huntresses generally held to the philosophy that everything should be a gun.

That was a topic that Summer felt she should be more against than she was. More than once while discussing the weapons that Huntresses used she had tried to work up indignation about the use of guns to fight monsters. Yet each time the only indignation that she could muster was towards her own self for not considering it sooner. It was an odd feeling, to say the least.

Reaching over, she picked up the Slayer Scythe. Ozpin had returned it to her as soon as she was mobile, overriding Professor Goodwitch's insistence that it should be kept in Summer's weapon locker when not needed. The weapon was a thing of beauty and felt so innately hers, that Summer was loath to part with it. At the same time, it was limited to only close-quarters combat. She could throw it but then she'd be disarmed and have to fall back to hand-to-hand combat. The Slayer could already see the massive flaws in that strategy. Even if most of the Creatures of Grimm were similarly limited to close-quarters fighting, not all were. There was an even higher amount that could fly, staying out of reach of her magical weapon. Then there was today. The knowledge she could end up fighting other humans, criminals whose actions could not only directly harm people but draw the Creatures of Grimm. She didn't think having a gun today would have made a difference but she couldn't be so sure about the future.

Then there was Dust. Lightning, fire, ice, gravity, air, all held inside crystals and powders. Elemental forces that should take magic to harness at the fingertips of any who had the means to purchase the supplies and the knowledge to make use of it. Huntsman weapons were designed from the ground up to make use of Dust. Older ones could be upgraded to use it if they hadn't been designed as such originally.

The Slayer Scythe couldn't be upgraded in that fashion, though. She had talked the matter over with Ozpin and both of them had come to the conclusion it was simply too dangerous. The Slayer Scythe was a magically infused weapon. The amount of magic held in it had even shaken the Headmaster. Attempting to reforge the weapon to match the combat capabilities of modern Huntsman weapons would risk damaging the enchantments on the weapon. Worse, it could cause all that magical energy inside it to be released in one burst. That wasn't something either of them would risk happening even if the Slayer Scythe could survive it.

There were two weeks left until the start of the new term. Two weeks until she started her schooling as a Huntress properly. Velvet and her team were on break for that two weeks starting tomorrow. Two weeks wasn't a lot of time to build a weapon from the ground up.

Summer blew out a breath and got up off her bed and grabbed a drafting tablet and pencils she had bought while out shopping. She wasn't the most fantastic of artists but she needed to get started. To make matters worse, she didn't know guns. She didn't understand how they operated. What she did know, though, was medieval weaponry. With that in mind, she started to draw. Tomorrow, she had a weapon to forge.

Velvet stood outside the door to Summer's temporary quarters. Her new friend had been put up in a singles room that was usually reserved for visitors until she officially started her first year at the school. The door to the room didn't have the usual locking mechanism that required a scroll to operate, instead of having an old fashion key-operated lock. A lock that from the looks of it, Summer had broken.

With a sigh and a shake of her head, Velvet knocked on the door. It swung open from the force causing Velvet to giggle. It seemed Summer didn't know her own strength. Taking the open door as an invitation, Velvet stepped inside the room and called out. "Summer, are you... up?"

Velvet couldn't help but giggle again. Her friend was seated at the room's sole desk, her head down, arms stretched out, and lightly

snoring. It was adorable in its own way. Summer's cat ears were flicking back and forth while her tail was twitching as it laid against her back and over her shoulder.

Velvet stepped further into the room intending to wake Summer. When she got close enough to do so, she was stopped by the open drafting pad that lay on the desk. She had been asked by Summer yesterday to help her with forging her own weapon, something not to replace her beloved axe entirely but to supplement it when close-quarters combat was not an option. On the pad were what appeared to be several iterations of what Summer had in mind.

Gently picking it up and sliding it out from under the sleeping Faunus, Velvet started to look through the pictures. The weapon's base form was a bow that would fit on the sleeping huntress' back when not in use along with a quiver of arrows. Each of the arrows was actually a blank with a series of heads loaded into the bottom of the quiver. A mechanism could rotate the heads letting Summer choose which one she wanted for any specific shot. From the notes alongside the quiver, each head would be loaded with different types of dust allowing for flexibility in choosing what type of arrow she needed at any given point. Velvet wondered why she hadn't simply had the arrowheads already attached.

The next picture of the bow showed the idea of dust receptacles in the bow itself. Hastily written notes indicated the idea of using the bow as a blunt weapon in close combat. The receptacles were to be filled with shock dust to create a sort of shock staff that Summer could use on her enemies.

Velvet sat down on Summer's bed, pulling her own pencil out. The design wasn't bad. It avoided the primary failure point of new weapon designs in keeping things simple. It was too simple in Velvet's mind. A bow was silent but the rate of fire was far inferior to what could be produced with dust rounds. A short staff could be used for combat but wouldn't be practical with what she had learned of Summer's fighting style.

Velvet's hand moved across the page as she let her imagination flow. Her friend needed a weapon equal to her in power. A weapon that was worthy of such a fierce warrior. As she started to sketch a weapon for the sleeping cat Faunus, she smiled. No friend of hers would be found wanting of firepower.

When Summer woke up, she found Velvet sitting on her bed. It took her a few moments to realize why the bunny girl was in her room and a few more to realize what she was doing. "Velvet, why do you have my drafting tablet?"

Velvet was startled by the now awake Summer. A look at her and Velvet quickly downgraded her friend from awake to functionally dead, needs coffee now. A quick glance at her scroll let her know that the cafeteria was still serving breakfast for another 30 minutes. Flipping closed the tablet of paper, Velvet quickly ushered Summer out the door of her unlockable room, "Come on, you need coffee and food in you. Let's get you something to eat so you're more than half dead."

Pulling the cat Faunus up to her feet, Velvet started to drag her out the door to find sustenance. She was stopped by a loud crash behind her. Turning around, she found her friend staring at the lamp that had been on her desk, now on the floor, and her friend holding her tail between her hands and yelling at it to stay still. Velvet couldn't help the giggle that escaped her lips.

As the two traversed the halls of Beacon to the cafeteria, Summer kept trying to get her drafting tablet back from Velvet but the bunny girl refused to give it up, only telling her to wait until she was fully functional.

Summer grumbled through the ordeal. Once they were in line and getting her food, Velvet had to hold in the giggles trying to escape as Summer loaded her tray with more force than needed. The entire time complaining about tricksy rabbits and their thieving ways. Finally loaded with breakfast goodies and more coffee than Velvet thought was legal, the two found a table and sat down.

It didn't take long for the coffee and food to make a difference in Summer, going from half manic zombie-cat that was cursing her tail earlier, to wide awake and looking at Velvet expectantly. Finishing her significantly smaller portions, Velvet pushed her tray to the side and flipped open the drafting pad to Summer's original drawings.

"Okay, so it looks like you designed this originally to be able to deliver high impact attacks at range while still having a melee option at hand," she said as she tapped Summer's design. "The problem is you'll never get the kind of firepower you'll want with a bow. The rate of fire is just too slow. You either go with a lighter pull weight for a faster draw or a higher one but slower. Even Dust can't make up for that," she said. "And the length of the staff is too short. You're strong, you need to leverage that in your melee weapon. If you hit a Grimm you want to only have to hit it once to put it down since you don't have Aura to protect you from any counter-attacks."

Summer started to pout in response to this criticism of her design. Velvet couldn't help but smile at the sight. It made the younger girl look adorable. Rather than letting her continue on with the pouting, which Velvet was certain could reach weapons-grade cute, she flipped to the next page and showed it to Summer.

What Summer found herself looking at was an elegant rifle with a bayonet running the length of the underside of the barrel. It didn't look too different from the weapons in her muddle memory. The curved butt would cradle the weapon against her shoulder. The pistol grip for the firing mechanism and a secondary grip forward gave stability to the entire thing. A pop-up reticule sight for aiming was on top just forward of the magazine which lay flat on the top of the entire assembly. To Summer it looked like the love child of at least two different rifles she had seen at some point in her murky history.

"This will be your ranged configuration. 50 round top-loaded lateral magazine with 5.7x28mm high-velocity rounds. More than enough to take out all but the strongest of Grimm with a few well-placed rounds. Selectable fire for single fire, five-round burst, or fully automatic fire. The bayonet gives you close quarters capability in case you are surprised and don't have time to shift to the close-quarter configuration," Velvet explained as she pointed out various parts of the weapon.

Flipping to the next page, Summer found a single-edged sword. She could see the parts of the gun that had shifted to allow for it to be used as such. The pistol grip and firing mechanism had folded down and slid back, filling in the hollow stock that supported the butt of the rifle. The butt itself had compressed down to about half its normal size as well by folding in on itself. The forward pistol grip had likewise folded down and the heat shielding it was attached to retracted, exposing more of the blade. The barrel itself had retracted as well to half its normal length, exposing the back of the blade to allow for blocking with it while keeping the rifled barrel safely out of harm's way.

"Now in sword mode, you have a hand and a half sword, meaning you can use it either one or two-handed. You also still can reload the weapon as the magazine well has pulled back along with the heat shielding on the top portion of the barrel. There is a secondary firing mechanism in the handle in this mode you can use as well to discharge dust rounds to enhance your close-quarter combat. That is these two buttons here and here. Both have to be pressed at the same time to fire," Velvet further explained as she pointed out the various points on the now mecha-shifted gun-blade.

"Okay, that covers battlefield control and close quarters," Summer said with a nod, "but what about if I need a long-range shot and need to be quiet about it? That was why I was thinking of going with a bow, to begin with."

Velvet gave her a return nod and smiled as she flipped back to the first picture. "This particular configuration is effective out to about 200 meters which is longer than what you would get from the bow. If you need longer range, specialized dust rounds that use gravity and air dust can double that," she said proudly. "It's not the same as a dedicated sniping system, but it is very effective for this platform."

Pointing further down on the page, Velvet gave a brilliant but devious smile. "As for silent, that's what accessories are for," as she tapped the picture of a silencer in the center of a group of a myriad of various devices related to the weapon.

Summer couldn't help but return the smile as she said, "And a girl's gotta have her accessories."

Ozpin sat relaxing at his desk. It was still two weeks from the initiation ceremony for the first-year students and he had an empty slot to fill after one of the first years had dropped out due to a death in their family. He was carefully considering if he should let the Arc boy in after all. The boy had potential but so far he had wasted it all. The only initiative he had shown was to try and cheat his way into the school. For the moment, he was willing to wait. He still had two weeks and had yet to send the rejection letter that Glynda had prepared for him in regards to the boy.

At that moment, said Assistant Headmaster came flying out of the elevator leading up to his office. The look on her face was one that he had seen several times over the years since he had brought her aboard the staff at Beacon. It was her, 'the children have done something stupid,' face.

"Good morning Glynda, and which of our bright stars have chosen to shine their light on you this morning," Ozpin asked with a small smile. He was, as always, already aware of what had transpired. Summer Dawn and Coco Adel had been involved in stopping the robbery of a store that catered to Huntsman and Huntresses. They had done so in a way that was quick, efficient, and frankly brilliant. That Miss Dawn had the tenacity to simply walk up to the ringleader of the robbery and flirt with him to distract him from her opening attack was genius.

"Summer Dawn and Coco Adel," Glynda started looking up from her scroll. "They decided to involve themselves in a robbery instead of calling the authorities," she said before pausing, her eyes narrowing. "And you already know this," she said with a sigh. "Of course you do. Is there a reason I even bother bringing these matters to your attention anymore?" She asked with a sigh of exasperation.

"Of course, my dear," he said with his own smile. "I'm not all-knowing after all. But yes, I had heard of the duo's unexpected heroism."

"Heroism!" Glynda practically exploded. "They are children! Roman Torchwick is a wanted felon. That cane that was found on the scene was a Huntsman quality weapon! They had no business involving themselves in fighting someone like him! They got lucky!"

Ozpin had to chuckle. Glynda was protective of her students no matter who they were. Team CFVY was especially prone to receiving protection from Glynda thanks to how much both of the girls on the team seemed to have a bit of hero worship for the Assistant Headmaster. Her outburst was expected and even welcome. "In this instance, I don't believe it was luck, Glynda. Coco is starting her second year in only a few weeks and from what Summer has been able to tell us of her time before she came to us, she likely has far more experience than her apparent age would have us believe," he said with a smile.

Seeing Glynda still ready to object, he then let out a sigh and held up his hand. "I know Glynda, regardless of what Summer went through before she came to us, the identity we worked up for her shows her to be a 15-year-old girl. She is a 15-year-old girl for all intents and purposes regardless of her past experiences. She should get to enjoy that second childhood for as long as she can," he said softly. "Go and talk to the girls. No punishments but remind them they don't have to take the weight of the world upon their shoulders. Not yet."

Glynda blew out her own frustration and anger and nodded. "I'll do that Ozpin. They are children still despite how fast they all grow up. All too soon we'll be throwing them to the wolves in the hopes they can save just one person. I don't want to see them grow up any sooner than they must."

Ozpin nodded in agreement as his second in command left for the elevator. He stood and walked to the window that looked out over the school courtyard. It had been decades now since he had set up the Academies and still, he second-guessed himself over and over again. Was he sending children into a fight they couldn't possibly be prepared for? Perhaps. What choice did he have? By giving the military strength to individuals that were loyal only to themselves, their school, and the people they protected, he had hoped to blunt the teeth of any future war before it could get started. One Great War was more than enough for the world. The Academies removed hundreds if not thousands of would-be soldiers from the battlefield and instead placed them in the path of humanity's true enemy.

Looking out to the north, he couldn't help but think of Atlas and their academy. They had folded it into the Military in direct opposition of what he had intended the Academies to be. There was nothing to be done about it, sadly. He could only hope that his friend James would keep the politicians at bay and not let history repeat itself. They had far more dangerous enemies than one another, after all.

With a sigh, he turned back to his desk. There was always work to be done and being melancholy was a luxury he could ill afford. Beacon didn't run itself.