Hello folks! Sorry this one's a bit late, time-wise. I wound up getting food poisoning right when I was going to bed yesterday, and didn't get to sleep until like nine in the morning. Let it be known that being sleep deprived and nauseous is a terrible combination!
93. Something Sour
"I'm confused," Specter said, as they all piled outside. "Is he really Weiss' dad?"
Steele's claws twitched. "Unfortunately," he growled.
"He's not like Tai at all."
"No, he's not." Steele gave him a little nudge. "Why don't you say hello to Willow instead?"
"Oh." Specter had to poke his head over Glacier's shoulder to see. "Lo!"
She turned. Specter clambered over Glacier's foreleg so that he could sniff her. Mostly she smelled like something sour he didn't like very much, but there were traces of a smell that reminded him of Weiss. He pressed his nose into her trembling hand.
Her eyes welled up. Specter drew back, alarmed, and whimpered. He tried licking her face, but that only made it worse.
"Stop that," Whitley said, giving him a little shove.
"Hey!" Weiss stepped up next to him. "It's not his fault."
"What's going on?" he whined. "Why's she upset?"
"It's alright," Willow said, and reached out to touch his flank. "He's just... beautiful."
Weiss went very stiff. "Thank you."
Her mom was still crying. Specter shifted from paw to paw, and shot a frantic glance over his shoulder at his siblings. Fang just flicked his tail, as if to say, I don't know, don't look at me! Pit whuffed. Storm barked encouragingly at him.
Glacier rolled onto his side and whistled expectantly. Willow started petting him, and murmured something in his ear that Specter didn't catch. Everyone else knew enough to back up and give them lots of room. Sure enough, Glacier's tail started to wag and demolished several bushes and a fancy lamppost.
Weiss was still tense. Specter nuzzled her side, and she gave him a tight smile and a pat on the nose. That was no good. He glanced over at where Glacier was playing with Whitley and Willow. The older dragon lay on his back, now, wiggling back and forth in the light dusting of snow on the ground.
Specter trotted over and copied him. The cold of the snow felt wonderful on his back as he thrashed around, and flurries of snow Glacier kicked up kept landing on his belly. When he rolled back to his feet, there was an imprint that looked a little bit like a many-legged Grimm. Another clump of snow landed on his head.
When he glanced back at Weiss, she had her hand in front of her mouth to hide a smile. Emboldened, he pounced on Glacier and sent them both rolling in the snow. There was a startled yip. He went very still when they'd landed, wondering if he'd just made a terrible mistake. Then came the sound of wings flapping, and a small tidal wave of snow crashed over him.
It took a moment to blink it all out of his eyes. Once he did, he found Glacier sitting smugly with his tail wound around Whitley and Willow. Weiss' shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter. Specter had never had a better reason to play in the snow.
Blake couldn't help but smile. Specter had started wrestling playfully with Glacier, and they were kicking up so much snow that it almost looked like a localized blizzard had come down on the lawn. Steele watched them from a distance, his neck arched in aloof amusement... up until Specter pounced on him. Then he glanced over at Winter, as if asking permission.
"Fine," she sighed. "Why not?"
Steele was still a little stiff, but it didn't take long for Specter to teach him and Glacier the tail catching game. Glacier wasn't very good at it, since he seemed to underestimate how big he was and usually just ended up tackling the other two, but he didn't seem to mind either. He rolled onto his back with his tongue lolling out. Barked at Willow and Whitley, who knelt to pet his head. Winter and Weiss stayed back—probably wise, since Glacier didn't seem to be very aware of where his flailing legs and tail were.
A tap on her shoulder distracted her. When she turned, Sun was grinning at her. "Cute, huh?"
Blake looked at Weiss' soft smile and said, "Very."
"Think the old man will help us?" asked Neptune, from Sun's other side.
He'd spoken quietly, but Weiss must have heard him. She turned and scoffed. "Only if he has no choice. We... didn't exactly go about this diplomatically."
Glacier paused in his play to tug a scrap of canvas off one of his horns.
Blake's ears flattened nervously. "There are other ways of looking at those records," she pointed out.
Neptune blanched, and Sun smothered an incredulous laugh with his hand. Weiss glanced at Specter, who was chasing Glacier in circles while Steele watched. "He won't miss me for a little while," she said. "And I... would like a minute, anyway." Her eyes flicked towards Willow.
Sun did a double take. "Wait, are we actually breaking in?"
"It is my house."
All three of them turned to look at Blake. She was already regretting opening her mouth. "What?" she blurted.
Neptune gave her an apologetic grin. "You're the expert on this kind of thing, right?"
Blake wanted to argue with that... but he wasn't wrong.
Jacques was silent for a long moment, once his children had left the manor. Glynda waited for a while—they had the advantage here, so it couldn't hurt to let him stew a little. Then she cleared her throat and said, "The records."
He scowled at her and snapped, "Klein."
The butler was still standing where Specter had dropped him, looking overwhelmed and a little frazzled, but he maintained enough composure to bow and say, "Sir."
"Fetch the files in the upper right drawer of my desk. The video files, mind, not the paper."
"Of course, sir." Klein vanished upstairs, leaving her and Peter alone in the vast and partially demolished foyer. Jacques had finally gone from purple to red again, and his breathing had slowed down.
"I suppose you must consider this a great victory." The false coolness in his voice didn't quite reach his eyes. "Bringing my own children in here to threaten me."
"We thought they might be able to get through to you," Peter said, affably ignoring the man's sneer. "Alas, it seems it wasn't meant to be."
Pepper snorted. Jacques turned his glare on her. "Is the beast really necessary?" he drawled. "It's not as though I'm going to physically overpower the pair of you."
Glynda rolled her eyes. "Don't be deliberately obtuse. We know you have security in the building, and we also know it's not enough to handle twelve dragons at once."
"Twelve." His gaze turned sharp. "There should be thirteen. Where's yours, I wonder?"
She was suddenly and forcefully reminded of why no one, not even the Council, liked to deal with this man in person. Peter bristled, but Glynda grabbed his shoulder. He was just lashing out, trying to unsettle them the way his children had unsettled him. No need to show him how well it had worked. She stayed silent and waited for Klein to return.
He was out of breath when he did, carrying a folder full of miniature disks and a holoscreen projector. Jacques gestured towards the center of the foyer. Klein set up the screen within seconds, inserted one of the disks, and stepped back.
"I didn't think you'd take my written word for it." Jacques gestured at the screen. "There you are. The eggs are filmed so long as they're on my property."
He cued up dozens of feeds on one screen, until they looked like a cluster of chicken eggs. Then he handed a remote to Glynda and let her flip through the footage. Even sped up, there was too much of it to check by hand, but she saw no hint of anyone giving extra injections to the eggs.
"You won't mind if we take these," she said, and gathered up the files before he could protest.
His smile looked more like an animal raising its hackles. "Of course not. I have multiple copies."
"And we'll need the written records as well, to make sure everything matches up."
He smirked. "If you want to waste your time, by all means." A snap of his fingers. "Klein."
The butler hurried off again. He returned with more folders—Peter stepped forward to relieve him of most of them, while Glynda took the rest. She flipped through with calculated carelessness until a name caught her eye.
An entire transport ship full of glycinamide vanished off the records, between one month and the next. Tons of the stuff, and yet no word of it had ever reached Ozpin or James. She pointed it out to Jacques. "Why didn't you report this as stolen?"
"I did." He waved a hand. "It's useless, nobody cared."
The file crinkled under her fingertips as her grip tightened. This was it. This was what Cinder had used to wreak havoc on this years hatchlings. She was looking at the weapon that had killed Tornado and, indirectly, Nautilus.
They had proof of the how—but they still needed concrete evidence of who had done it.
"You guys suck," Neptune said, as he clung to the northern wall of Schnee manor. There were these weird decorative patterns carved into the stone, with just enough room to wedge his fingers in. Calling them handholds would be way too generous. Of course, Sun and Blake were already a floor above him. Weiss, who had insisted on going last since she was wearing a skirt—which, fair—reached up and tugged on his pant leg.
"Hurry up!" she hissed. "I can keep us away from security once we're inside, but it's not like I have a lot of practice climbing around on the walls!"
"I'm trying!" He hauled himself up another half a foot. "It's way less stressful being up this high with Nymph."
Far, far below—about fifteen feet—Nymph let out a little bark of encouragement. Huo was muffling his laughter into his wing. And Pit just watched, his head cocked to one side, his tail curled around his feet.
Neptune pulled himself up a little higher, and his fingers slipped. He yelped, scrabbled at the stonework, missed, and tipped backwards. The instants seemed to stretch as he passed the point of no return, with his body almost parallel with the ground. He caught a snapshot of Blake and Sun staring wide-eyed down at him. Then he stopped dead, his hands still flailing uselessly in midair.
He looked down. "Thanks, Pit..."
A bark, and a feeling like someone was lifting him up by the armpits. Then he touched down gently beside the window they'd been aiming for, the one Weiss said led to her bedroom. Pit lifted her, next. By the time he finished with that, Blake and Sun were already up there with them. Blake stuck a lien card inside, jiggled it a bit, and pushed the window wide.
"That was... disturbingly easy," Weiss said, as she dropped to the ground inside.
"If it helps, I'm pretty sure the perimeter is where most of the actual security is, and I'd have a harder time getting past that. Most people don't like being surrounded by armed guards inside their own homes."
Weiss squinted at her. "I notice you still haven't said you couldn't do it."
"Only if I had a good enough reason," Blake said, smirking, and hopped inside. Sun jumped after her, then stretched and yawned. Neptune groaned and flopped over the sill.
"This is, uh... nice?" Sun glanced around. "Kind of... empty."
Weiss frowned. "I didn't collect that many sentimental objects. And the ones I did were at Beacon."
"Anything you want to steal?" he asked. "Y'know, while we're here."
She gave him a flat look. "Don't touch anything."
"Alright, alright!" He opened the door with a flourish. "Wouldn't want to... disturb..." His mouth dropped open.
They all crowded into the hallway, only to find most of it completely demolished. Broken tiles littered the floor, scarred and pitted with claw marks. Parts of the ceiling had been shredded, and paintings and sculptures lay torn and broken in their alcoves.
There was a moment of tense, frozen silence. Neptune glanced at Blake. Then Sun.
Weiss started to shake. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but not before he heard a snicker escape. "It's not funny," she said, like it was them laughing.
"Sorry, Weiss." Sun thumped her on the back. "It kind of is."
Blake grinned at her. "You're sure there's nothing you've always wanted to smash? I don't think he'd notice one more."
"Oh my god. He's going to... I don't even know."
Neptune swallowed nervously. "How about we be, y'know, elsewhere when that happens?"
"Right." Weiss squared her shoulders and pointed down the hall, in the opposite direction from Glacier's trail of destruction. "His office is that way."