Qrow wasn't too interested in doing Ironwood's job, but it did give him the opportunity to look around for anything interesting, or untoward. He didn't expect untoward. He trusted James. But with his luck, it was always a good idea to keep your eyes and ears open. As such, he'd spent a lot of his spare time going through the general's files. He had access to them, and he'd always wanted to know what secret projects Ironwood had going on, so he was availing himself of any file he could access that sounded unfamiliar to him. Probably the most interesting thing he had found so far was some project involving fossil fuels as a replacement for Dust. That sounded strange, but he could see how it would be a good idea. It was far from exciting, however, and fossil fuels were much more limited than Dust anyway.

There was also the bit about the Winter Maiden, and how Winter Schnee was tending to the elderly woman so that, the moment she passed, her powers would transfer to Winter. That had seemed like a rather cynical move, but after he read the included opinion pieces by Ironwood, Winter, and the old woman herself, he felt better about it. None of them were ultimately happy about it, but they all understood that it was not something they could leave to chance. Of course, Ironwood had told him the bare minimum about it, but Qrow was already aware that Winter was taking care of the woman and was the only person allowed to interact with her. What was news to him was that they'd taken the woman along on their trip up north. The cryogenic freezer she was staying asleep inside whenever Winter was away from her had been loaded up onto the big land vehicle, and once an outpost was established, she would be set up in a small medical facility. It was one of the most remote places she could be, which seemed wise on some level, but Qrow still had to feel bad for the elderly woman who was destined to die with practically no one to remember her.

Other than those two things, it was all pretty boring. Just stuff he didn't know because, frankly, Ironwood had determined Qrow wouldn't care to know about it. Which was mostly correct. It was a lot of numbers, stocks, trade numbers, energy consumption, reports of fluctuations in power grids, access logs, students' grades, and so on. Since some of it had deadlines that would pass before Ironwood was scheduled to return, Qrow had to deal with them before they lapsed. He'd spent hours going over grades, reading the reports and test results, and making judgements based on what he saw. Of course he gave Ruby an A+ as any good uncle would. It helped that Ruby had actually done well. He did find, once he looked into the students he didn't know, that there were some very promising young Huntsmen and Huntresses in Atlas. He reserved the A+ mark for anyone truly exceptional, which turned out to be only two others, but he was feeling pretty generous with handing out good grades so long as the student wasn't abysmal. Of course, it was only after handing out those top marks that he realized he'd given one of the A+ marks to another member of Ruby's team. That was an oversight, sure, but he figured the girl deserved it, considering how well she'd done on the written tests.

Once he was done with that, he started looking through the next file. What he found there was the list of students Ironwood was planning on making into fully fledged Huntsmen and Huntresses. It would happen as soon as he returned, practically, and RWBY were all listed. So were their friends, which was nice to see, and the final year of regular students as well. It seemed Ironwood didn't consider Ruby and her friends as 'regular'. Qrow could understand why, and there was apparently a separate celebration planned for them. If Ironwood never returned, Qrow would be expected to carry that celebration out, as well as with the appropriate funerals. Good thing Qrow expected Ironwood to be punctual in his return. It had been long enough. Some time in the day, they would be back. He hoped he hadn't ruined anything important in the short time he'd been in charge.

On such thing that he thought could be considered 'ruining something' was the woman sitting across the desk from him. It was Ironwood's desk, but Qrow was happy to use it as his own. He'd never been one for desks, really, but the chair was surprisingly comfortable. Putting that aside, Robyn Hill had been a thorn in Ironwood's side for a while now. Not someone he wanted rid of, by any means. No, Ironwood wasn't that kind of person. From what Qrow had gathered, the general was struggling with Hill's interference because he didn't know if he could trust her intentions. If he thought that she could be trusted, and that she would assist his efforts, he would bring her into his inner circle. It actually looked like he wanted to do that, but didn't know if it was wise. So Qrow took the initiative. He invited her to meet with him, and she'd agreed, primarily because he wasn't Ironwood. He understood that entirely. Once they'd settled the matter, however, she was much more helpful.

"If I'd known what General Ironwood was planning, I wouldn't have caused him so much trouble." She said, sighing in annoyance with herself. "How much did I set him back?"

"Not enough." Qrow quipped. "If he had started to consider you an actual threat to Atlas, I don't think he would have hesitated to imprison you, or even have you killed if I'm being honest. He takes his duty to Atlas very seriously. Probably a bit too seriously, but he's got a good heart."

She narrowed her eyes. "He could try to have me killed, but he wouldn't succeed. I can take care of myself."

He just shrugged. "Well, I hope to just avoid that altogether. It's a question nobody needs answered. Anyway, now that you know, what do you plan to do?"

"Well, I'm still running for council." He knew that basically her only competition was Jacques Schnee. One thing they agreed on, and were sure Ironwood agreed on as well, was that Jacques on the council would at best be an endless irritation. The man was far from pleasant. Robyn was a far more agreeable alternative, even if she was headstrong. She nodded thoughtfully. "The people of Mantle need someone who will actually speak for them. But in the meantime I think my Huntresses can help out."

"Good. I've been looking over Ironwood's plans, and he was going to send some people on a mission to clear out the Schnee Dust mine. He took a lot of those people with him, though, so we've been lacking the experienced manpower. Do you think your Happy Huntresses would be willing to pitch in?" He leaned forward across the desk, awaiting her answer.

She thought it over quickly, reaching her conclusion in a few seconds. "I'll go too. We'll make sure it works out alright."

"That sounds promising." He smiled, standing up and holding out his hand for her to shake. "If all goes well, Ironwood's plan will be enacted very soon, and then things can finally start going back to normal."

She stood up as well, shaking his hand and returning his smile. "I look forward to it. Reestablishing global communications is a major victory in our pushback against the Grimm." Of course, Qrow hadn't told her about Salem, or the Maidens, or the Relics. He'd leave that for Ironwood, when the time came. When they shook hands, Qrow knew Robyn would be using her Semblance. He wasn't lying about any of this, he was just not mentioning something. It was something that wasn't even really relevant to their current mission, so it should be fine. Robyn's smile turned into a grin. "So I've been wondering..." She didn't break off the handshake. "Where is it the general has gone off to at such a critical moment? He took the Ace Ops with him too, as well as Winter Schnee. That's quite the force to remove from Atlas at such an important time."

Qrow wasn't looking to give away the farm, so a simple refusal to answer would suffice, but he'd just garnered a significant amount of trust with Hill and he wasn't about to throw that all away. "Tell you what. He should be back sometime before the mission starts. You're welcome to join me and greet them when they return, where you can ask him in person. You head out for the mission tomorrow as planned, and if he's not back by then, I'll tell you myself. Sound good?"

"Hmph." She wasn't so happy of a Huntress about that, but she agreed. "I'll hold you to that."

"I expect so. Now, you know of course that I'd rather you keep as much of the plan as possible to yourself. I'm going to trust your judgement on who to share it with, but be aware there are enemies who are trying to destroy the kingdom. We can't risk them finding out our plans."

She nodded in agreement to that as well, taking her hand back finally. "I hope you'll bring me in on who these enemies are that would want to destroy their own kind. It sounds insane, but you've been truthful to me so far."

"Ironwood trusts me. I can convince him to tell you. I'm sure of it."

"And if you can't?"

He sighed. "I don't think that's going to be a problem, but on the off chance that I can't get him to bring you in on this, I hope you'll forgive me."

She eyed him warily. "You're serious about this."

"As serious as I can be." He shook it off and started moving around the desk so he could walk her to the door, when he heard a familiar sound and an ominous red swirl appearing behind her. "Uhh... uh oh."

"Uh oh?" Robyn saw where he was looking and turned to see the dark red vortex hovering just behind her. "Uh oh!" She jumped away from it, drawing her weapon. "What's going on?"

Qrow held his hand out towards her. "Don't attack! You won't win!"

"Excuse you!"

"I'm serious!"

There was no time left, as she stepped through. Raven. Her scary mask, which Qrow had always thought of as just edgy, was gone though. Her hand was not on her weapon, either. She looked over to Qrow, and they sized each other up. It didn't look like she was here for a fight, at least not right away, so he let himself relax a bit. He waved to Robyn to put her weapon away. She didn't comply, but lowered it cautiously. Raven looked at the other woman, like a bird of prey trying to decide if a smaller bird was worth trying to eat. She didn't say anything, instead just shaking her head and stepping to the side of the portal, standing just beside Qrow while others came through.

Sun Wukong was the first one after Raven, followed by the rest of his team. Then came ABRN, who Qrow wasn't quite sure how he knew them exactly, but he probably caught their name during the Vytal Festival Tournament somewhere. Finally, three women stepped through. One was Kali Belladonna, Blake's mother, and the second was Ilia, a friend of Blake's. Qrow had met the both of them rather briefly before leaving for Argus. The third was a woman who Qrow didn't know. She looked oddly familiar, but he had no idea where he might have seen her before. The portal closed behind them, and the room was suddenly rather crowded.

Robyn was quick to speak. "What just happened?"

Qrow cleared his throat, motioning to Raven. "This is my sister. Her Semblance... does that."

Raven rolled her eyes. "Okay, I have two questions for you, Qrow. Whose office is this? Where is Yang?"

"Listen, I have my own questions. Yang is fine, probably in a class right now. This is Ironwood's office. Now you tell me what you're doing here all of the sudden, and why you've brought... everyone." Qrow gestured at the gathered crowd.

Kali stepped forward. "There have been a few... developments. Your sister showed up at Haven with Taiyang. He stayed behind to keep a connection open, and my husband had to stay as well since he's the headmaster now. So he sent these dashing young heroic students along with us." She made a point of indicating Sun in particular. He laughed awkwardly.

That explained most of them. He pointed at the as yet unidentified woman. "And you are?"

"I'm Piper. Piper Braun." She held out her hand for him to shake. "Pleased to meet you."

Qrow just looked at her skeptically. "Sure..." He didn't really have anything else to say, so he introduced Robyn. "Robyn Hill, this is... My sister Raven. That's Kali Belladonna. That guy is Sun something-or-other. Ilia who I assume has a last name. You'll forgive me, I don't know who any of the rest of you are."

"We get that a lot." One of the other students said, dejectedly. His team leader put her hand on his shoulder, comforting him.

"And everyone, this is Robyn Hill. She's... a friend." Qrow added, finishing the introductions.

Raven looked Robyn over again. "Hmm... you can do better."

Qrow raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"What?" Raven shook her head and moved on. "So if this is Ironwood's office, where is Ironwood? Don't tell me you broke in."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Qrow went around the desk and sat in the general's chair again, taking a moment to let it sink it for everyone. He then explained. "General Ironwood, James, is out on an expedition. He should be back soon. Long story short, though, if he's not back by about noon tomorrow, on his orders, his position and all of its responsibilities transfer over to me." There was stunned silence from everyone, including Hill. Qrow let out a resigned sigh. "Yeah, I know. I'm not a fan of it either. But if his expedition is a success, then life for all of us might get a whole lot easier."

"Okay, so you have no idea when he'll be back?" Sun asked openly.

Qrow was about to answer that, no, he had no idea, when the computer on Ironwood's desk beeped. It was an incoming message. He pressed a button and turned on the comm. "Yes?"

"Sir." Some Atlas military officer was calling in. "We just made contact with General Ironwood. They'll be reaching the city in two hours."

"Uh... thank you." Qrow turned the comm off and looked at Sun pointedly. "I think I've got a pretty good idea, yeah."