Hello again! This chapter, Glynda Goodwitch pulls no punches, and Ozone has some memory trouble.

79. Headmaster

Thank you again for the leave, sir. I'm feeling much better now, and should be back in a few more days.

Unfortunately, my .24 was damaged a few hours into my flight, and I'll need to replace it when I return.

James blinked at the message. Winter did not own a weapon that fired rounds that size—and she should only be messaging if she'd found them, and if that were the case then why would it take so long to... Ah.

He leaned back. Twenty-four hours, if he'd read the hidden message correctly. If he could just hold out that much longer, they'd be in a much better position to convince the Council to leave. Cordovan probably wouldn't pick a fight if she was outnumbered.

As if summoned by the sound of her name, one of his students knocked on his office door. He gave Flynt a grateful nod as he strode past him towards the courtyard. "Cordovan?" he asked, and the boy nodded.

Grimacing, he crossed out into open sunlight. Most of the students were outdoors, their dragons lounging in the grass, as if to tell the world how unconcerned they were. But quite a few of them were tense, even if they hid it a little better than the Council's dragons. All of them had the tight, drawn look of dragons that knew they were about to be given an order they wouldn't like.

"This has gone on far too long," Cordovan announced, puffing herself up as if she was trying to tower over him, despite the fact that she barely came up to his elbow.

"It is unfortunate, how slowly bureaucracy moves," James said, and tried not to smirk at the way her eye twitched. "I would suggest—" he paused just a moment, so that a nearby camera could turn to face them fully, "—that the Council consider performing an inspection of the student's dragons, as they originally intended, and putting aside the matter of protection until more riders can be spared for the task."

"And I will suggest that you quit stalling, James," Cordovan snapped, heedless of the cameras pointed at her. She even shot a glare towards them. "You seem very eager to turn a matter of students' protection into a fight."

"Not at all." He tried to smile Ozpin's inscrutable, infuriating smile, and judging by the look on her face he'd gotten close. "I only think that those dragons could be better deployed elsewhere. To be frank, we are not in danger here—but recent unrest has brought Grimm to outlying settlements, and we don't have enough dragons to repel them as it is."

Her eyes narrowed. "So you say... though you seem to be missing quite a few students."

James tried not to grimace, but his smile felt transparently fake. "They were unsettled by the prospect—"

"Of an open rebellion against the Council," Cordovan snapped, going in for the kill. James was suddenly very conscious of the cameras surrounding them. "I'm sure these..." she sneered at the nearest journalist, "fine people will be able to track them down and ask them why exactly they don't feel safe in this institution."

It was all he could do not to swear out loud. Part of the reason he'd been keen to keep as many students outside as possible was to hide the chunk of missing students... but it had always been a matter of time before she caught on.

"Some members of the student body preferred to avoid a confrontation, even an indirect one," he said, letting a hint of steel into his own voice to match hers. "After the events at Beacon, you can hardly blame them."

Cordovan went back to fuming, at that—but he could see a terrible spark in the eyes of the crowd of reporters, and knew that even if most of the students felt that way... it would only take one who didn't.

The hold of the cargo ship was dark and windowless, with only a few flickering lights, about half of which were blocked by Storm's head. Ilia sat in one corner with her knees against her chest, trying not to look at Ruby or the professor. Or the Lieutenant.

He at least seemed content to ignore her in favor of petting Gigas, who was curled up in his lap and humming contentedly. Glynda, meanwhile, was keeping a wary eye on both him and Ilia. She wasn't sure why. Justice was outside, and she couldn't do much of anything on her own like this. Especially when she hadn't wanted any of this to happen in the first place. It was Blake who'd decided it would be a good idea to double back to the Fang camp, not her.

"Do you think we'll get back in time, Professor?" Ruby asked.

"Hard to say. It depends how well James has managed to stall them, and how quickly this ship can fly. I don't know if it was designed to handle this much weight. Or exactly how far we are from Atlas Dragonry."

"Oh." Ruby sat back against Storm's chest. Then she started fidgeting and shooting glances towards the Lieutenant. He was glaring sullenly at everyone else in the ship, except for little Gigas, and the hostility radiating from him seemed to be making her uncomfortable.

"So... uh, Ilia."

She fought the urge to groan. All she wanted was to sit, in silence, for however long it took to get to Atlas. Once they were there she was sure they'd lock her up, or worse, and Justice...

"What?" she snapped.

"Do you know that dragon? The one that's coming with Pyrrha?" Storm perked up with interest. So, though he tried to hide it, did Gigas.

"Yeah," Ilia said shortly. "She hatched in the lab."

"Then... did something happen to her rider?"

"No. She ran off."

Even Glynda took an interest, at that. "Ran off?"

Ilia shrugged. "Yeah. She hid out in the woods, stole food and broke things."

She half-expected the Lieutenant to react to that—he'd thought it was her, the last time they were on speaking terms—but he didn't. Of course they'd realized who the real saboteur was right after they chased her off.

Storm curled protectively around Ruby—even Gigas croaked and burrowed his head into the Lieutenant's armpit. Ruby's voice was a little shaky when she asked Glynda, "Is that... I didn't think dragons would do that."

"They normally don't." Glynda grimaced. "We can only guess why, but if her rider mistreated her before the bond had a chance to form, perhaps...?"

"Sienna didn't hurt her!" Ilia burst out.

"Quiet," the Lieutenant growled. It was the first time he'd spoken to her since she left, an admonishment for leaking secrets.

Which was stupid. Blake knew her too, it wasn't a secret. Most of their members were probably compromised by now.

...Well, all the ones Blake knew by name, which might not actually be that many. She wasn't exactly a social butterfly.

"Someone must have," Ruby said. "I only know one who left her rider on purpose, and that was only after he'd been mistreating her for almost a year. They don't just stop caring about their riders for no reason!"

"What the fuck do you know?" Ilia snarled. "We hardly had any healthy dragonets hatch, we didn't mistreat them!"

The younger girl gave her an uncharacteristically cold look and said, "Maybe she found the lab."

Ilia lurched to her feet. "Shut up!"

"Enough!" Glynda's voice cracked like a whip, and Gigas twanged in alarm and hid inside the Lieutenant's shirt again. Her expression softened a little at the sight. "Not you," she said, much more kindly—but she was all steel again when she looked at Ilia. "I think it would be best if you didn't talk."

Ilia went bright red with fury. "So, what, I'm the enemy now? I didn't tell Justice to do that! I didn't want him to do that!"

"That is quite clear," Glynda said icily. "As is the fact that you've been paying very little attention to what he wants. Small wonder you can't predict what he'll do."

She couldn't think of a response to that, or at least none that would satisfy the professor, so she went back to sitting silently in her corner. It was ridiculous—she'd told Justice why they had to leave. She'd always explained everything to him. He just never listened.

Tyrian led the way back to Beacon—or rather, Ozone did, her electric blue eyes glowing eerily in the near-dark.

They gave the area where the student had been a wide berth, and were careful to stick to the woods where the patrolling dragons wouldn't see them. If this was what their security was like after at least two break-ins, Emerald wasn't surprised Adam had pretty much waltzed right in.

Knowing Tyrian, she half-expected him to start giggling at the worst possible moment—but he was almost as quiet as she was, even with Ozone cradled against his chest. They stopped when they were as close as they could get to their destination, but there was still a fire barn and the cafeteria between them and the hatchery.

At that point, they had to leave Rudder and Jade behind. Emerald was reluctant to do it, but... well, Mercury was decent at stealth. A dragon whose weight was measured in tons, not so much.

They inched closer by stages, keeping to the shadows. Tyrian finally set Ozone down and let her follow them. Once, he sent her to scout ahead, and when she returned she tapped a pattern in the dirt with her forepaws. He cooed at her and rubbed her head. "That's it," he murmured. "You're starting to remember."

She bumped her nose against his hand, then led them into the shadows of the building they wanted. This one had its own dedicated guard. Mercury disappeared around the side of the building. There was a quiet thump, and he leaned out to gesture for them to follow.

"I'm afraid this is where I leave you," Tyrian said, with his too-wide smile. He held his arms out, and Ozone jumped into them, coiling her tail around his waist.

"Cinder said—" Mercury started, and Tyrian waved him quiet.

"Yes, yes, your instructions." He pointed to the door. "Go in, and destroy everything."

"What?" Emerald blurted. "But we—"

Mercury grabbed her arm, hard. "How are we supposed to break incubators without a dragon?" he asked, shooting her a quelling look. She pulled away from him with a glare.

Tyrian giggled and opened his coat. Inside were several neat, gleaming rows of Dust bombs.

Mercury gaped at him. Then he scowled. "We're a distraction."

"I have my own business to attend to," Tyrian said cheerfully. He leaned much too close to Mercury, so that they were almost nose-to-nose, and pressed the coat into his hands. "I'll message you when it's time to light the fireworks, hmm?"

And with that, he vanished into the darkness.

Mercury exhaled, the sound harsh in the sudden silence, and pushed open the door. "C'mon."

"We can't blow up eggs!" Emerald protested. They stepped into a fluorescent-lit room, wall-to-wall incubators, all of them with eggs of various colors nestled inside.

Mercury grabbed her by the shoulders. "Think, Emerald. These are going to all the students the old man wouldn't give an egg, the ones who are happy to be here now that there's locks on the barns. We wouldn't be doing 'em any favors by leaving them here."

She shrugged him off so violently that he stumbled into the nearest incubator, jostling its precious contents. "Fuck off," she snarled. "That's bullshit and you know it."

"Alright!" He threw his hands up in frustration. "It's bullshit! What do you want me to say?"

"Cinder wouldn't want this." She paced back and forth in front of the eggs, glancing at them every so often, her gut clenching. "Tyrian wants us for some distraction, he could've gone off on his own!"

"It's a test, Em. That's why she didn't warn us."

"She wouldn't do that!"

Mercury leaned against the counters and put his head in his hands. It struck her for the first time how tired he looked—tired, but not surprised. "Fuck. If you can't do it, I'll—"

"No!" Emerald snarled. "That's not better, and I'm not an idiot!"

He sighed. "Fine. Fine!" He pushed himself off the counter and hefted Tyrian's coat, retrieving a detonator from one of the pockets. "I'll put it in the back. But if we're doing this, you're going to lie about it."

She opened her mouth to protest, but the look on his face stopped her.

"You lie to her fucking face if you have to, got it?"

Emerald bit her lip. There had to be some way she could bring it up without risking giving them away. And Cinder would be angry with Tyrian, and maybe even angry at them, until they explained that they'd known all along and faked the whole thing.

"Got it," she said, and set to work.

Scarred fingers jabbed forward, held in the signal to look ahead.

An anxious knot curled in the pit of Ozone's stomach—but she trotted forward, her mind already spinning with the signals she would need.

There wasn't much around the corner of the building. She stayed half-hidden in the grass, watching a dragon and his human standing guard outside the door. Once she was sure they were alone, she retreated to Tyrian's side.

She tapped out the sign for one pair with her paws. He made more motions—a question, but not one she'd seen before.

No, she scolded herself. She had seen it before. She should know it, but she could only stare blankly at him and watch as he realized she had no idea what he was saying. He didn't yell. He never did, but the flash of anguish in his eyes was much, much worse.

It was only there for an instant before he was smiling again. "Are they moving?" he whispered. "Pacing back and forth?"

She tapped out the signal for "no" and waited while he typed a message on his scroll. Then he held up three fingers, lowering one after the other until—

Bang!

A plume of smoke rose from the distant hatchery. Ozone ignored the uneasy churning in her stomach and joined her rider as he scuttled closer to the building. The guard pair sprinted into the dark, the human cursing loud enough to cover the sound of their footsteps.

Then they were inside. It was strangely still and silent, this late at night. Most of the people who worked here during the day were long gone—all except the one man who lived in the tower.

A ding. The elevator lit up, a green light above it blinking slowly as it descended from above. Tyrian beckoned her to follow as he moved to one side of the doors. They waited. Ozone's heart fluttered in her chest, and she had to restrain herself from winding around her rider's feet for comfort, in case she tripped him at the wrong moment.

The doors opened. Out walked an unremarkable human, dressed in rumpled pajamas and hastily combing his hair with his fingers. A rush of movement. He drew in a sharp breath to shout, and let it out in a wet, choked gurgle. Then he slumped to the floor, motionless and smelling like metal.

Ozone tried not to stare, because if she did Tyrian would know she wasn't remembering something. It wasn't like it mattered that he was dead. She'd been dead too, after all, and it must not have hurt very much if she'd forgotten all about it.