"And that concludes our feature presentation 'Keeping those little shits with superpowers in line,' are there any questions?" Atin put the clicker down, and looked at his captive audience.
Max ran his hand through his hair, sighing in disappointment. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea he'd prepared a third presentation to go with the first two," he said to Ozpin and Glynda, who looked bemused and exasperated, respectively.
"Honestly, I just did that to torture you Max, but I thought it might be a little helpful." Atin took his scroll off Ozpin's desk.
Max looked at his own scroll, contemplating the odds of hitting Atin with it from halfway across Ozpin's office. Before he could actually perform the windup, Glynda looked out the window, groaning in exasperation. "Ironwood is here. Your presentations took up literally all night," she said, getting up and stretching. "And he has apparently decided to bring his work with him once again."
"It's not my fault you guys have no idea how the use the iron fist of discipline and I'm sorry did you just say that Ironwood is here? Shit Max, we need to go. Now." Atin began heading towards the elevator bank, only for it to give a cheerful ding.
"Too late," Ozpin said, the elevator door opening to reveal James Ironwood and, to the surprise of Max and Atin, Winter Schnee.
"Fuccck. I am not in the mood to deal with the Winter Soldier or try to explain what's going on. Quickly Max, we must take the express elevator!" Atin began straining at the elevator doors, only to find them stubbornly shut. He moved to the next one, finding it similarly closed. "Ozpin, why did you get rid of our emergency escape?"
"And why would you need an emergency escape?" Ironwood asked, walking over to stand before Max and Atin.
"Because you and your femme fatale over there will not believe anything I say without a demonstration, and that means it will take at least an hour. Also, you annoy me greatly, but that's really secondary. Well Ozpin, since you have made an expedient demonstration difficult, hurry up and splatter me." Atin gestured at the Headmaster's cane, and seemed to brace himself.
Ironwood raised an eyebrow, deciding it would be more fruitful to talk to Max at this point. "Please tell me that at least one of you is one of the 'oracles' Ozpin mentioned recently," he said.
"Oh, we both are, you'll just have to excuse Atin. He likes to exaggerate occasionally," Max replied, offering his hand. "Name's Max Force."
Ironwood shook the proffered hand, saying in amusement, "I see Ozpin wasn't kidding about the comedy dynamic of you two."
"Wait, you're telling me believes it? The whole story? Even the pseudo immortality bit? I mean, I guess it isn't that unbelievable coming from the demi-lich of Vale." Atin headed towards the wall, which had begun to develop an outline from his frequent leans.
"The pseudo what now?" Winter asked, speaking up for the first time.
Ozpin gave a cough, bringing attention back onto himself. "Their semblance, Specialist Schnee. They cannot, for all intents and purposes, die. After an hour's time, no more, no less, they return to life, fully intact and healed, with all their memories intact, including that of the death itself. They have very little aura, however, so we believe this to be a tradeoff of sorts. And there appears to be something of a secondary ability in their semblance. The part concerning the title of 'Oracle' that Glynda and myself have seen fit to refer to them as in our communications," he said, taking a moment to sip from his mug.
"Yes, I was curious about the 'Oracle' bit. How trustworthy has their intel been? And how much of it has been actionable? I noticed the report failed to mention that." Winter gazed at the "Oracles", clearly judging them.
Ozpin and Glynda shared a glance at this point, Ozpin coughing awkwardly. "Yes, well...concerning the, er, 'Oracle' bit, as you put it, they are...they are in possession of potentially useful information and have demonstrated that they are in possession of knowledge that they should not have. Knowledge that may not be shared by all gathered here." Ozpin glanced to Winter, before turning his gaze on Ironwood.
Ironwood nodded at the message. "Specialist Schnee, if you would," he said, gesturing to one of the elevator doors.
"Actually, hold on. I think she should stay. After all Ozpin has his minion in on this. And if something terrible were to happen to General Ironwood, it would be useful to have someone else in the Atlas military up to speed. In addition, in the event of a crisis situation, having a trained specialist on hand with knowledge of what actually needs to be kept safe seems like a good idea to me. But hey, what do I, the mystical Oracle know? You probably shouldn't listen to me." Atin began idly flipping though his scroll, feigning disinterest, poorly.
"To be fair, as mystical Oracles, not being able to actually tell them shit ahead of time makes us pretty shit at our job," Max pointed out.
"Hey, it's a better schtick than the Oracle of Delphi got. At least they believe us. As opposed to calling us liars and throwing us in a dungeon. But anyway, having seen the Specialists record, I find no reason not to trust her, or her judgement."
A glance between Ozpin and Ironwood was apparently enough for them to agree. With a quick rundown from Ozpin, Winter was quickly brought up to speed on the Four Maidens and the vault under the school.
"Well, that's...a lot to take in and process, I'll admit," Winter said once all was said and done. "However, if these two are truly useless as future seers, why are they being kept in the loop?"
"Because even having someone around with some kind of motivation to interfere in events is better than not having them around or under the thumb of someone actually dangerous. Imagine what we could do if we simply set our sights on committing terrorism, Specialist Schnee," Max said, remembering an old point Atin made a couple months back.
"And while we can't tell you things ahead of time, we can tell you exactly what happened afterwards, and what they were after, in addition to us causing them whatever… complications we can. I can truthfully tell you that we have already stopped one murder, and that you might want to ask some very pointed questions to Beacon's new librarian. Just a thought." Atin glanced around, then shared a pointed look with Max, seemingly trying to get a point across without words.
"Atin, we're not Ozpin and Ironwood, I can't read your fucking mind from a weird look of constipation," Max deadpanned.
"You know, you make it really hard to sell this whole 'We are clearly very wise and you should listen to us' thing. Making the job a lot harder than it needs to be my dude." His head dropped down to meet his hand as Atin gave a massive sigh.
"Regardless, gentlemen, I must agree with Specialist Schnee here. I'm afraid I don't see much point in having you kept in the loop, even with the idea of you attempting to commit terrorism by grossly abusing your immortality," Ironwood interrupted the two.
"Well see funny thing about knowing all the important stuff, Ironwood. You can't actually keep us out of the loop. At all. This just makes it easier for everyone involved. It also lets you guys have some input on what we do. Or would you rather we just try and solve this problem by ourselves. Two civilians with a grossly abusable power and access to things that go boom?" Atin glared at Ironwood.
"And you would get access to 'things that go boom', how, exactly?"
"Well, we could always go work for Torchwick, maybe take a part time job at a dust shop and slowly funnel bits of inventory to our own personal use, maybe have a talk with a certain bar owner in downtown Vale about appropriating something with a bit of kick to it," Max suggested. "There are any number of ways, really, but it mostly comes down to a question of effort versus payoff in the end. And with two people who have nothing but time on their hands and no real threat to their lives, we can get very creative when we're motivated."
"Oh and given that we actually know what's gonna happen? Consider us verrrrry motivated, Robo-Cop. I would like to point out that it isn't like we're keeping secrets for fun here. We can. It hurts quite a bit more than you think. Peter Pan was a lying dick. It would be much simpler for us to tell Ozpin, and by extension, you everything that's gonna happen so you can grab them all in a nice little coup and leave you-know-who reeling. But we can't. I can't even say her name because Schnee over there doesn't know it. So do try and remember that we aren't trying to be difficult here." Atin had walked over to Ironwood during his rant, his face inches from the unflustered general poking the general in the chest, annoyed by their rather significant height difference. Max snorted from his position, any intimidation Atin might have been going for completely ruined by the imagery in front of him.
"Back on topic, sirs," Ozpin said. "As Atin said, it isn't so much that they won't tell us, as they can't. Their bodies react...unfavorably to any attempts at 'spoiling the plot.' I believe that's something like what Max said."
Ironwood looked at Max, swatting at Atin's still poking hand. "He's right, unfortunately," Max nodded. "Horrible, uncontrolled vomiting. And it's far more strict than I like."
"Oh?" Winter asked.
"Yeah. We can't even give basic yes or no answers, can't write things down, so on and so forth."
"Can't write things down? I could understand the vocal answering, but you can't even make notes for us to see?" Ironwood asked, understably sounding off put and disbelieving.
"Ozpin, got some paper? I don't want to ruin a scroll. Again." Atin didn't wait for Ozpin to answer, instead rummaging through the desk drawers until he found a paper and pencil. He quickly wrote the name SALEM in all caps, tore the sheet off the page, and handed it to Ironwood.
"Alright, do me a favor, read what this says to yourself. Go ahead and take the page, flip it around, observe to your satisfaction that is an ordinary sheet of paper." Having said this, he handed the sheet to Ironwood and stepped away.
Ironwood examined the page for a few moments, flipping the page around, before handing it back to Atin. "It certainly seems to be an ordinary piece of paper with a name written on it."
"Now was I correct in my earlier statement that Specialist Schnee is unaware of that name? Don't bother answering, I know I am. Now watch this." Atin folded the sheet over itself so the name couldn't be seen, and moved towards Winter. "Specialist Schnee, in a moment I want you try and read the name from this page. I suggest you watch your fingers. I would also highly suggest turning your Aura on. " Atin handed the still folded note to Winter and quickly stepped away.
"General, this is ridiculous, it's a piece of paper. Must we continue humoring these… civilians?"
She held the note in her hand, still folded over itself.
"Let's humor them just a little longer, and then we can throw them out, and hear no more of this nonsense. Is that fair Ozpin?" Ironwood had a bemused smirk on his face as he looked over at Ozpin.
"That certainly seems fair to me, James." Ozpin casually sipped from his ever present mug to hide his smirk.
"Alright Specialist, go ahead and read that piece of paper." Atin gestured at the folded sheet of paper expectantly.
"Oh this is absurd. It's a sheet of paper. What's going to happen when I- oh my." The sheet of paper in her hand caught flame violently, a sudden flash of light was all that heralded the brief flame. All that remained of the note was a swiftly crumbling collection of ash.
Max sighed, this whole song and dance was still annoying. "Okay, how about some icing on the cake, then? Let's get a bit more into the things that can be talked about under the assumption that you and your right hand woman there know about. And let's be honest, I'm willing to put money down that you've told Ozpin and Glynda about one of the reasons for your visit. You plan to unveil the Atlesian Knight 200 series, a sleeker, more user friendly designed robotic soldier in the fight against Grimm." This got a scoff from Winter, while Ironwood simply nodded at him to continue. "Ozpin, Glynda, would you mind plugging your ears for just a moment?" His two employers complying, Max crossed his arms. "There's also the matter of a missing shipment of these knights and a handful of Atlesian Paladin-290s, yeah? Something you obviously wouldn't want the public or, presumably, Ozpin knowing about at this point in time."
Ironwood rubbed his chin. "I'm fairly certain anyone with access to Ozpin's network could figure as much out themselves," he noted.
"Fair enough, but would that network also be able to find information on Penny Polendina?" This got a wide eyed reaction from both Winter and Ironwood. "Or about what she really is? Because I'm pretty sure anyone that could have gotten that info would have been long dead by this point. And seeing as I can't be permanently killed, well. Not much happening, going that route." He waved his hand at Ozpin and Glynda, who unplugged their ears at this point.
"Well, James? Any further concerns about the validity of their claims?" Ozpin asked.
"Actually, not done just yet." Atin grabbed the sheet of paper and pencil, and handed them to Ironwood. "Go ahead and write out that name, give the sheet to Schnee, and observe it bursting into flames please, just so there isn't a question about this."
"I don't think that will be necessary. I see you two were not exergating about your inability to share the information you have. I will admit this is very… odd." Ironwood had lost his smirk, and it was replaced with a look of deep thought. "And you've tried everything to share this information? Even down to nodding or shaking your head? Hypnotism? Everything feasible and infeasible?"
"Nodding my head earned me a trip to the chiropractor," Max admitted. "Immediate inflamed disk near the neck. Atin was the one who volunteered for hypnotism, so ask him about that."
"I began to recite a list of ingredients for my family's special dip. Which sadly, no chip on Remnant is strong enough for. You remember right Max? The one I told you that only Frito scoops is strong enough for? That one."
Ironwood shook his head, visibly frustrated at this new turn of events. "Then I shall rephrase an earlier sentiment. What use are you to us in this state?" he asked.
"Okay Ironwood. Let me reframe this for you. You have two highly motivated operatives that literally cannot die, have invaluable intel, and absolutely no past tying them to you, and have for the past six months had theirs asses personally handed to by Ozpin's pet Qrow. How's that work for you?" Atin had sat on the floor, having grown tired of trying to crane his neck up to Ironwood.
"We'll do our best to stop bad shit, but we don't know all of the bad shit, just things that were deigned to be shown to us," Max added in. "We don't even really need help from you, aside from some sidearms or something for personal defense, but mostly we don't need help because we don't have a way of outright asking for it. But hey, it could be worse. We could have decided to bet on the other side."
"Actually, you could help us. We need something more…flashy. Something with nice stopping power, but still man portable. We have feeling we'll need it. Also, maybe an emergency flare if you can spare one? Being able to call the thunder would be handy. Certainly would make us more useful than 'accidentally' being in the right place at the right time with a group of students."
Ironwood rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We'll see. For now, though, I did come here on slightly different business with Ozpin, so if you'd be so kind?" He looked pointedly at Max and Atin.
"Yeah, sure, go for it," Max shrugged, moving to the elevator with Atin.