Max was sat, scratching out notes in a book once again. There was a knock on the partially closed sliding door that had finally been installed, Max replying with a "Come in" to whoever was there. He turned around slightly in his chair as the beads rustled, eyes widening slightly at seeing a young woman with dark green hair and blue eyes. "Can I help you with something?" he asked her.
"Oh, is Mr. Winchester not here?" she asked, her voice sounding familiar. "I had a question about some of the notes this week."
Max shook his head, racking his brain. He couldn't place her face or voice right now. "Atin's out at the moment. I could take a message if you'd like." He gestured at the notepad they now left on the countertop near the door, in case students needed to see them, but no one was there. He was wondering if this was a character he'd simply forgotten about and this would be a good way to get a name.
"Oh, alright then," she said, jotting down a quick note. "Well, see you in Mr. Port's class tomorrow, Mr. Max." The girl left, closing the door behind her.
"Alright, let's see who that was." Max stood up and walked over to the notepad, taking a look. The handwriting was immediately recognizable and the name signed at the bottom was a surprise. "Jade?" There was a moment of silence as Max processed this. "Wait, what?! Fuck, are we in season two now?!" Before he could continue this train of thought, he heard the heavy pounding of footsteps outside the door.
Atin slammed the door aside, grabbing the "Do not disturb sign" they had gotten, for the off chance they didn't want people just wandering in. "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax! I see people! People that aren't plot relevant. Do you know what this means?"
"We're in season two and now have to deal with a lot more collateral than season one?"
"Well yes, but I meant that I have relearn who everyone is. Also, the student registry just got a lot more useful. Oh, and we have to get ready to actually try and stop bad things from happening now, which will be difficult, given that we are not, nor will we ever be able to actually fight them." Atin sat down the couch, staring up at the ceiling.
"Alright, points conceded. Maybe we can at least prevent the giant robot highway thing. I really don't wanna have to deal with the potential fallout from that." Max sat back down at the table, resting his head on a hand. "We can probably stop the CCT thing, at least. Gum up the works or something."
"Soooo…we are going to commit sabotage, in the hopes of preventing sabotage? I like it! How do we deal with the guards?" Atin grabbed the notepad, and began scribbling notes on it.
"We use our faculty IDs. I don't think they're going to stop us, Atin, we work for the school and at this point, I'm pretty sure Ozpin would vouch for us for damn near anything. Just, you know, don't mention that we plan to sabotage the CCT workings to stop a virus being planted."
"Okay, so we just walk past the guards, the boring way. More important question, how do we handle a pissed off Cinder? So far, burning to death is one of the things I haven't experienced, and boy would I like to keep it that way." Atin gazed at Max quizzically.
"Well, if we do it right, she wouldn't even know it was us. There's gotta be a period where the tower's empty, right? I think an hour or two would be more than long enough to get in and out before she or anyone else could actually catch us doing anything. The show made it seem like the only guards there were at the base. No one inside."
"Well except the poor bastards in the elevator. Also, how do we explain to the Winter Soldier why we sabotaged the CCT? And 'Trust us, we stopped something way worse' probably won't cut it."
Max looked at Atin, his voice turning deadly serious. "We tell him it was a stupid bet and lean on Ozpin to keep him off us."
"That is a terrible idea, however, I lack a better one. Also, how bad do we want to wreck the place? Cause if we just keep Cinder from doing it that night, what's gonna stop her from just going some other time? Like, sure it'll be harder, but I doubt that will stop her."
Max shrugged. "We can wing the Ironwood thing. But stopping her once at the CCT at least buys time. Push comes to shove, we can try the whole double agent thing, see how it works out for us."
"Okay. Do we even want to try and stop the breach from happening? I don't see how we could, without procuring an…alarming amount of explosives." Atin got up and began to pace.
"I don't know that we could stop it, but...maybe we could mitigate damage and whatnot. An impromptu trip into Vale with the teams that didn't leave campus might be something we could do. Have them closer to the action than they were in the show?"
"I mean, we can probably do that, but we are gonna have to really buddy up to them for that. Sadly, we can't just say 'Go here because we're your teachers.' Would have made this much simpler. Alas, I shall have to do one of the many things I despise. Be friendly and nice. Also, we should probably lean on Ozpin to get us a weapon. I am not gonna try fistfighting a grimm." Atin's pace accelerated, as he got caught up in planning.
Max just pulled his scroll out, waving it a bit. "Not too late to get those unused lockers hooked up to your scroll."
"That is not a solution and you know it. What happens when we leave Beacon? You can't have intercontinental rocket lockers." Atin glared at Max.
"Is that a bet? Because I asked Ozpin about the range on these things."
"Max, even if they can do that, it would be literal minutes of travel time. SO unless you're about to reveal that you're a Newtype and can see the future, that still won't work." Atin continued glaring.
"Travel time is fairly short between here and the furthest edge of Vale. The two of us could make the calculations and estimations, easily, with the program on the scroll for it. Besides, we can have them stocked with weapons or supplies. Think of them more like support units than combat units. If we actually have to fight, then everyone's probably fucked already."
"While I agree with you on the last point, it's not like we can't offer more direct support. For crying out loud, you're from the south. You have to know how to shoot. It's a jailable offense if you can't, right?" Atin went back to the couch, his excitement dulled.
"That is not true, but I do know how to shoot. It...might actually be a genetic thing. First time I went skeet shooting, took me one shot to adjust to how to actually hit targets."
"See? If nothing else, we Xcom it. Take enough low percent shots and eventually you'll kill them."
"Yes, of course, the good ol' spray and pray method. We'll need to ask for something that takes ammo boxes, then."
"I'm more than happy to ask Ozpin for the Remnant equivalent of an M60. Get some bipods, and we might actually be useful if we have prep time. And enemies that won't come looking for us." Atin jotted down a note on the pad. "Remind to burn this page later, don't want the students asking questions about 'break CCT', 'find explosives dealer' and 'get more dakka'. Even if they won't get the last one."
"Might as well burn the whole book. They might know the pencil trick."
"We don't have to burn the book, just like, 15 pages or so should be good. And even if they know the pencil trick, there is one thing they aren't prepared for. Reading my terrible handwriting, which is only made worse by me being a lefty." Atin ripped a series of pages of the book, tossing it at Max.
Max caught the book, staring at it for a moment. He then slowly looked back up at Atin. "Atin...we need to go stake out Tukson's shop. And push him into working at Beacon. We didn't do too good a job fucking the timeline for season one. Let's see how much we can do so for this season."
"Max… are you asking me to be as disruptive to the timeline as I possibly can?" Atin stared at Max, suddenly very serious.
"Moreso than we have so far. I mean, at best, we got Jaune a headstart on being useful. That's really about all we've done. The team RWBY thing was fixed in about the same amount of time, so all we really did was change how it happened. Not when or where. I wanna see how much we can change before this becomes a roller coaster we won't be allowed off of. Like keeping Tukson alive. Or slowing down the computer virus thing. Or...I dunno, trying to talk Roman into swapping sides. Or at least keeping him off the damn airship."
"Max. You didn't answer my question. Do you want me to be as disruptive as I possibly can, yes or no?" Atin leaned forward in his seat, still staring.
"I...am now scared to answer…"
"It's a simple question Max. Yes or No?"
"Um...yes?"
"Yipppppee!" Atin jumped off the couch, before running into his room, grabbing the notepad on the way, slamming his door shut. A distinct "click" of lock being turned could be heard in the silence.
"Wonder how many times he'll die before coming off this high?"