Watts was staying a day longer in the Grimmlands. He was working on the W the Unknown response to the events in Mistral. Salem had also asked to discuss his strategy with her. After an initial scepticism she had become fascinated by the willingness of humans to believe nonsense and the power of modern technology to keep them from listening to more sensible opinions. It was also clear that in the past she had been a practitioner of the dark arts herself.
In her case, the fact that she was so powerful in her own right had made it easy to present herself as a living goddess. Tyrion's worship of his queen was actually a rational response by his standards. If there was a god or goddess on Remnant she was it.
Anyway, with Atlas's response to the new republic being clearly one of wait and see, it was easy to see how to present this to the Human supremacists as part of a conspiracy between Ironwood and the White Fang to enslave the people of Mistral under the iron hoof of Faunus rule and that Raven Branwen was a figurehead to fool the ignorant and credulous.
Some of the points even looked convincing. There were unlikely to be more than three thousand members of the Branwen tribe and if there were most of them would be under fifteen or over seventy. He assumed that Raven must have given a secondary membership to the survivors of her initial destruction of the four competing tribes, but still six thousand fighters tops. In a few months it was easy to believe that the Faunus proportion of the population of the new republic would have doubled and the Faunus would be in a majority. Plenty of dog whistles to be blown there.
He then considered the press conference where the donations to the Mountain Glenn orphans charity had been made by Agnes Winchester, the Travers Foundation, the Schnee Dust Company Foundation and Campion News. The press conference had majored on the fact that many of the orphans were Faunus whose lives had been saved by a group of student hunters.
It was becoming a little more difficult to portray Jacques Schnee as being the brave defender of humanity. However, it was possible to portray the gift to the orphans of Mountain Glenn charity as being an act of his treacherous wife. Most of the W the Unknown supporters seemed to dislike strong women, including those who were strong women themselves. It was also possible to throw in a comment below the line that actually the majority of the orphans were humans and that Jacques had done his bit to mitigate the damage to humanity.
Presenting Beacon as a cult was also an easy target. Cardin Winchester turning on his father could be shown as an example of how Ozpin divided and weakened humanity. He also decided that in a week or so's time after his assistants had done some more research he might turn his attention to the alleged heroism of Edward Travers and the rest of his team. His eyes widened as he looked at the names of his team members. Perhaps best to check with Rainart whether or not the woman who had died was his sister and if so he would drop the idea.
Anyway, he sent the clip to Rainart with a note to say that they needed to talk and trying to hint that he thought Hazel would want to see it even if it would annoy him. He was careful around the man. Salem had warned him about Rainart when he had first joined. "I don't mind your desire to show that you are the cleverest person in the room and be sarcastic and superior to your minions and most of your peers. Do not ever make the mistake of using that voice on me. You may also find it safer not to use it on Hazel. The man may appear gruffly polite but lurking close to the surface is a smouldering anger which is waiting for an excuse to express itself. I am not certain that if he unleashed it on you I could call him to heel before you were dead. Tyrion and Cinder, yes."
He had watched the man after that and had worked out that they shared in common a distaste for Cinder and a wariness of Callows obsessions and manic laughter. They managed to be polite to each other.
His eye was then caught by an official announcement from Atlas. Fria Whitestaff had died of natural causes. Tributes had been paid by all those who were old enough to remember her in her prime and Winter Schnee had been particularly effusive.
He decided that this needed to be brought to Salem's attention at once. One piece of interest was that Winter Schnee would be visiting the other three academies to consult with the headmasters over the following week on recent developments.
Salem was indeed interested in this news. She tapped her fingers as she thought about things. "Watts, put together all the footage you can of Winter Schnee in action, particularly the two Vytal festival fights and Kulsa where she actually had to break out the summoning semblance. Send it to Tyrian, Cinder and Hazel and ask if they think that they take her out in the meeting rooms of Haven Academy if they all fought together and Lionheart gave them the chance to take her by surprise."
Watts was happy to obey provided that he did not have to be present. Salem then gave him an additional message for Rainart.
Finally, she asked, "The ball in Atlas tonight. Have you arranged a hitch?"
He replied, "A third party seems to be acting to do so without my help. I have simply fanned the flames with rumour and fear. The wealthy confronted with the threat of being only well off can be relied on to act like rats in a trap."
He paused, "The most likely result is that Ironwood's hold on Atlas will be strengthened. I personally will be happy at the impact on Atlas, but it may not suit you."
"Not a problem. I have met his type before. The less he thinks he has to listen to other points of view, the more dictatorial he will become. By the end of next year Vale and Mistral will be rearming to protect against the threat and the multi-Kingdoms will look for a way to dispose of him."
She paused, "Start working on your surprises in Mantle and Atlas. Once Winter Schnee dies, he will be paranoid. A few power outages and acts of sabotage will lead to martial law being declared and the arrest of the loyal opposition."
/-/
Salem sat and thought about the opportunities which were opening up. She had an excellent chance of seizing two relics this month. She believed that Raven would jump at the opportunity to be left in peace to conduct her experiment. The only question was how high a price would she be prepared to pay and how great a risk she was prepared to run.
Salem smiled. The fact that Hazel would ask for something which would force Raven to rise her head high above the parapet would make her more likely to agree to the demand which cost her nothing and which only Ozma and seven or so acolytes would understand the significance of.
She was very confident in her predictions of the likely reactions of Ironwood. She knew how she had reacted to Ozma's attempt to escape with their daughters and the dissent of the citizens who refused to accept her loving rule at the times in her long life when she had become an empress.
She would be slightly sorry for Lionheart, but a minion who had already gained most of what they wanted from her was of doubtful future use. Besides which leaving his body with the body of Winter Schnee would muddy the waters. Certainly, a crackdown on the Faunus in Mistral and Mantle would follow as a reaction to his seeming betrayal. Perhaps she could have it both ways and have Lionheart portrayed as a martyr to the Faunus cause. She would in any event give Rainart the opportunity to come up with an alternative plan which did not involve killing Lionheart. The man probably still knew background information which may come in useful.
Would the attack work? Tyrion could quickly neutralise Winter's aura, Hazel was a virtually unstoppable force once he had stabbed himself with dust crystals, and Cinder would be motivated to claim all the power of the Winter Maiden. Even with only part of the strength of the Fall Maiden inside her, Cinder had taken a few weeks to get used to the powers she now held. Attacking Winter early on was the smart move before she got used to wielding them.
She smiled to herself. Actually, make that three relics. The death of Fria presumably meant that Polendina's maiden power transfer system worked and combined with the death of Winter would also force Ozma to decide about transferring the residual Fall Maiden powers to one of his students. Luckily Goodwitch was too old, and the younger choices seemed too headstrong to accept that they would stay confined to Beacon.
That would just leave the Summer Maiden. A massive Grimm attack on Shade would surely force her to come out of hiding and once identified it would only be a question of time before she would be hunted down.
/-/
Hazel was on his way to Mistral. His first real stop would be Haven. He needed to talk to Lionheart about Salem's final instructions to him. Salem had waited until Cinder, Watts and Tyrion had left the room and then said she needed another word with him.
"When you see Raven Branwen tell her that she can keep the maiden provided she supplies me with the relic which is kept underneath Haven Academy. The maiden is needed to open the vault where the relic of knowledge is kept. The woman seems capable of visiting Lionheart at will which no doubt terrifies him so tell her she can come with the maiden to help protect her interests. Explain that I see no point in killing her or the maiden if she complies with my request"
"Your wish is my command. I assume that you wish to keep this secret from the others and that I should tell Lionheart to also be silent."
"You are correct. As I said before, Cinder is not capable of taking on both a full experienced maiden and Raven Branwen. She probably will not be even after she has the full powers of the Fall Maiden. I would also be interested in any information which the Raven has on the powers of the maidens and the impact of the transfer of the full powers."
Hazel must have looked puzzled and for once she deigned to elaborate her thoughts. "Their powers are derived from Ozma. Over the centuries Ozma has changed because even though his personality eventually crushes that of his hosts, they seem to leave a little bit of themselves in him. It would be irritating if Cinder is overwhelmed by the character of the first maiden and suddenly discovers an impulse to protect Remnant from the Grimm and me. My belief is that the host personality is dominant and is merely influenced by the personalities of past maidens. If so, I am confident that Cinder's self-centeredness will prevail."
He had found it hard to disagree with this analysis and had mused about how to approach the new ruler. He smiled to himself. There was some amusement to be derived from the fact that the four kingdoms were in reality republics while the new republic was the nearest to an absolute monarchy in practice. For at least the next few years Sienna Khan would be more dependent on the goodwill of Raven Branwen than the other way round.
He arrived in Anima mid-afternoon, and he would not be with Lionheart until that evening. He moved towards the railway station to take him to the airport from which he would fly to the capital provided the politicians had not panicked and locked everything down. He turned on his scroll and found two messages from Watts.
In relation to ambushing Winter Schnee he regretted the necessity but believed that it was possible if all three of them were involved and the attack was in a room small enough not to allow Winter to summon a Manticore or Goliath. The Beowulf and baby Nevermore would not be a problem. It would be essential to allow Tyrian to attack first. He wondered if they could get Emerald back in time in order to cast an illusion on Winter. He would suggest to Salem that it might be more effective to have Lionheart survive the ambush and flee to the Grimmlands with them. They might even be able to try exploding a bomb in his office after the death to hide the evidence and to sell the death of Winter as an unintended consequence of an attempt to murder Lionheart and leave him in situ. He would discuss the possibilities with Salem over the seer while Lionheart was out playing at politics.
He wondered why these relics were so important to her majesty. Previously in front of Cinder she had emphasised the maiden powers and had treated the relics as a useful side quest. It was now clear that the relics were the real target.
He also had to work out how to best present the proposal to Lionheart. Perhaps selling it in advance as Salem's quid pro quo for not interfering with the new republic and with Lionheart's Mistral agenda would work. It helped that Ironwood and Winter had never really hidden the fact that they did not entirely trust Lionheart and tried to keep him out of the loop. The fact that they were right not to trust him was neither here nor there.
He then clicked on the other message and was intrigued by it. There was a sense of apology in part of it which was odd for the man although the other half was boasting. He clicked on the link and watched a press conference featuring representatives of four of the wealthiest families in Remnant plus Ozpin, a load of Beacon students and some youngsters. While he may be cynical about the motives, it was hard to find fault with the cause.
He was willing to admit that the Travers girl was genuine. He remembered meeting her eleven years ago at a birthday party for one of Team Glade's members. She had been a young girl clearly in awe of her older brother and honoured to be his guest at a team celebration. Gretchen had asked him afterwards whether she had used to look like that at him and he had been honour bound to admit yes. She had also said that Edward treated his sister in a way which reminded her of how he had treated her in those years in the forest.
What had shaken him was hearing Gretchen's name and the description of the final moments of her life. He was still angry with Ozpin for having arranged things so that four students had been the rear guard at Mountain Glenn station. He was now angry that he had not been told more of the details about her death at the time. Some of what he was hearing now would have helped him grieve ten years ago.
He recalled how proud she had been of her team. They were not the best, but they were in her words good people. She had been leader of team Glade and he had often met the four of them. He had known that she had liked Edward Travers, but at the time he had thought that no one was good enough for his little sister.
Thinking back, it was not surprising she had hidden the engagement from him. She had been getting him used to Edward who had been a polite and respectful young man and clearly adored Gretchen. In retrospect the fact that she had noticed and appreciated the way that the man treated his sister should have warned him that she was in love.
He wished that Ozpin had told him more of the details. He supposed that at the time Ozpin may not have known. Interrogating small children would not have been a priority and the political class of Vale had collectively decided not to talk about the disaster.
Still at least he now knew that in her eyes Gretchen would not have died for nothing. She could imagine her coming upon a few hundred small Faunus children and their teachers and persuading her team to do their utmost to save them. He had dismissed Ozpin's claim that Team Glade had disobeyed orders and were not intended to have been the last people with aura standing in Mountain Glenn. Now he could believe it. There had been things in his and Gretchen's shared past which would have made it impossible for her to abandon children who needed help.
Even the fact that she had been mortally injured trying to save the life of the man she loved and had died in his arms reflected who she was. He knew that he would have died for her and her for him. How could he begrudge her the fact that she had had someone else in her life who she thought was worth that sacrifice?
The truth was that he had been devastated by her death and without her semblance to comfort him he had wanted to lash out against the world and in particular Ozpin. The man had owed her a duty not to put her in life threatening situations. Instead of which she and two members of her team were dead and the fourth had received what were euphemistically referred to as life changing wounds.
He had not even acknowledged the message from Edward Travers that he wanted to speak to Hazel. Gretchen's semblance had been to spread happiness. He had relied on it to contain his natural anger at the world in general and it had not been until Salem had offered her services as the indestructible punching bag that he had even begun to be remotely in control of his emotions again.
He then reread Arthur's message. The man had said "You may believe that there is nothing I can say which will make people look on supporting orphans and saying that hunters have a duty to protect humans and Faunus alike as the act and words of evil people. You would be wrong. When people want to believe something strongly enough, they will accept any rubbish in support of their view."
Hazel knew all too well how true a statement that was.
/-/
Cinder was travelling with Tyrion which was never her idea of fun. Better than Watts, but that was a low bar. He wanted an opportunity to test his new metallic stinger on real people rather than Grimm. She suspected that that was part of the reason Salem had sent him with her.
She was working out her strategy to deal with her two contractors in Mountain Glenn and Vale. While Roman would be the easiest, he was the least important. She would probably wait until the next meeting at the cottage and remind him of her power and that he also had Neo to worry about. She possibly might as Salem suggested offer him carrot as well as stick. Salem had clearly been struck by the semblance of the young woman and had instructed Cinder to think about how Emerald and Neo could work in tandem.
Adam was harder. First, the man was capable of digging in when threatened and there was the problem that she was not a Faunus. Just telling him that he had agreed to arrange for a train to explode in the middle of Vale and to destroy Beacon and that he had better come through or else could result in him fighting her. She had actually spent time with Hazel discussing what he thought would be the right arguments to use and had even spoken to Watts. Anyway, appeal to his vanity, ask him if he really trusted Raven Branwen and point out that he was not actually timetabled to commit and acts of terrorism for the next few weeks were the lines she was working on.
Another disadvantage of her being human was that vamping him was a high-risk strategy. He might be repulsed or worse demand that she follow through on the implied promises. Anyway, he was still besotted by the Belladonna girl and the bow plus black and white clothes were not the best outfit for her. She toyed with bringing Neo along and telling her to cast an illusion on herself but rejected it as impractical.
Then the message from Watts and Salem arrived. Suddenly all doubt and confusion left her. She decided on the strategy for Adam and would leave him to deal with Roman. She was exhilarated that she would get the opportunity to humiliate and kill a member of the Atlas elite. She imagined the look on the arrogant woman's face as she realised that all her power as well as her life was being taken from her by a hotel skivvy.
While she had nothing personal against Winter Schnee herself and would not make the mistake of underestimating her, she symbolised all the arrogant people in Atlas who had tolerated a social services department which had taken orphans from Mantle and supplied them to the citizens of Atlas for slave labour and worse.
She had met Jacques Schnee and indeed many of the Atlas elite. For three years he had gone to the Glass Unicorn once a week to meet his then mistress. Indeed, one of the few jobs which her stepmother had not delegated was the task of ensuring that the wealthy men (and occasionally wealthy women) who used the hotel for their liaisons did not bump into each other in the foyer, corridors, or the lifts in company with their companion.
She decided that no chances should be taken. From the attempt at the Fall Maiden, she knew that Emerald would be helpful and in three days' time she should be back from Atlas. Mercury would be delegated to keep his teammates and Team ABRN away from Haven. Hazel had the strength to hold even Winter Schnee in place and Tyrion could take away her aura quickly. While she would prefer to make it last, the reality was that the quicker the better.
She then daydreamed about making Weiss Schnee into her servant once she had taken control of Atlas and ordering her to make her bed and clean the toilet.
She thought about Emerald and Mercury. The plan to place them as contestants in the Vytal festival had required them to be students at Haven. This had meant that she had seen very little of them for the last four months and she would have to remind them who was boss.
Although she would not admit it to his face, Watts was effective at messing with the discontented humans of Vale and pushing their buttons. He also enjoyed messing with her head. Now she was away from him, she had the opportunity to think about his insinuations about Emerald and her new career and about Mercury becoming more socially adept.
Perhaps she had taken then for granted. She had taken Emerald from the streets, she had trained her, she had fed her, and she had widened the girl's horizons. While she had not been as cruel as her stepmother had been to Cinder, she had striven to keep Emerald dependent on her and had periodically withheld her approval from the girl and had enjoyed seeing her squirm. The result had been that the girl worshipped her.
Watts had sent her the footage from the Adel fashion show. Cinder could remember what she had been like at the Glass Unicorn, and she could imagine how she would have reacted to people watching her as she walked down the catwalk in beautiful clothes and applauding her. She had also heard how much Emerald was being paid. Pragmatically Emerald having contacts with the rich and famous was useful tactically. Giving her additional reasons for travelling to Vale and Atlas might allow her semblance to be in the right place at the right time for future operations. Still Emerald was being successful in her own right and that was annoying.
She would need to tell Emerald not to trust her new alleged friends. The Adel family would only use her to enrich themselves and would toss her away after a couple of years. It did not matter that the Adel family had a reputation for being only mildly exploitative by the standards of their industry, Emerald would believe her. If nothing else asking her what her new friends would make of her past as a thief who had done what she had needed to do to survive on the streets of Mistral would reduce her to a snivelling wreck who would beg Cinder to protect her.
Mercury might also need some reminders. She had initially assumed that he was as cynical as he appeared to me. He said that he believed that the world was a cruel place and only fools behaved as though it were not. His motto was trust no one but oneself. That was a lesson that she had learnt the hard way and from what she knew of Mercury's upbringing she had expected him to behave accordingly.
The fact that he was infatuated to Emerald was a given. He was a young man who had had little or no exposure to women of his own age and Emerald was an attractive lady. It had not surprised her that Mercury had not known how to show it and had irritated Emerald initially.
The reports which she had had from Lionheart had puzzled her. Emerald fitting in and persuading people that she was a good sort she had expected. Emerald had spent enough time on the streets and in orphanages to learn how to ingratiate herself when necessary. Hearing that Mercury was a team player and got on well with the second son of a wealthy businessman and a monkey Faunus from Vacuo mystified her. She had been further confused by the fact that Watts' lab assistants liked Mercury and actually had embraced his nicknames for them.
It also became clear that he and Emerald had become closer. The kiss at the end of the battle of Kulsa had been understandable relief at still being alive, but some remarks from Watts sidekick had suggested that their bickering had become affectionate teasing.
/-/
Lionheart had hardly slept last night and was almost totally exhausted. He had spent the morning and afternoon contacting the people who would talk to him and was now confident that the Mistral government would not be taking any swift decisions. The longer they deliberated the more likely they were to do nothing dramatic.
Certainly, Atlas had shown no signs of wanting to intervene and the private conversations his contacts had had with Winter Schnee, Councillor Sleet and Clover Ebi had made it clear that there was no appetite in Atlas to send troops in. Councillor Sleet had made it clear that as far as he was concerned any military help from Atlas would need to be paid for upfront in cash. It would also be in the form of weapons and not troops.
In any event the information that he was hearing from his students and professors in Atlas for the ball was that attention in Atlas was being distracted by a political crisis of their own with rumours of political murders and arrests. This all sounded very Mistralian. From a distance it looked like the traditional great families were carrying on fighting amongst themselves and not noticing or caring that power was being concentrated in General Ironwood and to a lesser extent in Councillor Sleet.
The representatives from Argus had made it clear that they had no interest in funding a war against the new republic with taxpayer money. Some had said that demanding this without first addressing corruption and spending in Mistral City would risk strengthening the support for those who wanted Argus to become a semi-autonomous part of Atlas.
The human supremacists and the equal but separate brigade had predictably been open to the argument that encouraging uppity or hard-line Faunus rights supporters to migrate to the rebel provinces would help reduce the number of Faunus and their militancy.
Others were nervous about the impact on the Mistralian economy. Some were worried that the migration would not be limited to the Faunus but would extend to humans of a lower caste who actually made things work. Others were concerned at the impact on the availability of cheap farm labour to bring in the crops or on the hospitality industry.
He smiled to himself. Having complained about the inability of the Mistralian political system to do anything beyond protect the special interests of the players, he was now relying on its failings to ensure that little or no decisive action was taken against the new republic.
It had been easy persuading the army that going up against the White Fang and the Branwen Tribe would not be a walk in the park and that a better use of resources was to increase funding to the Grimm defence ministry and the Local Grimm Defence Forces. The performance of the LGDF in Kulsa had been about the one element of government which had come out smelling of roses in the last few months.
Knowing that he probably had only a limited time before either Salem or Ozpin decided that he was unreliable had concentrated his mind. He knew that Rainart was on his way and in a few days Winter Schnee would be visiting. Indeed, the announcement that she was coming had already been used as an excuse by many politicians to avoid deciding on anything.
He hoped that Rainart would be unobtrusive when Winter arrived, especially as she presumably now had the powers of the Winter Maiden. He was more confident that he would have a few days without Raven Branwen visiting while Winter was here. He still could not work out who amongst the staff and employees could be closely enough related or important to Raven to allow her to use her semblance to visit him without having to waste time travelling. He was confident that the woman would not risk going one on one with the Winter Maiden.
/-/
Raven Branwen was resting and waiting for the start of the Atlas ball and the arrival of Rainart at Haven. She had spent some of the day with Lisa Lavender using her semblance to take her on a whistlestop tour of three of the major cities in the new republic and the newest dust mine.
She had then attended a meeting with Sienna Khan and the leading members of the war Council of the White Fang who needed the reassurance of a personal meeting with her. To her amusement, of all families in Remnant the Winchesters had provided her with the line which had helped win their hearts and minds.
"I ceased to be a huntress eighteen years ago because my family and tribe needed me with them to survive. I never ceased to believe in the central message which Beacon hammered into us. Humans and Faunus should be united against the Grimm. I grew up in a tribe where, although a small minority, the Faunus members of it were treated as equals and any member of the Branwen tribe was superior to any other sentient being. Since the tribe could stop worrying about fighting for mere survival and had to think about running first villages, then towns and then provinces, we had to use every resource of intelligence and strength available to us. Discrimination never made any sense to me or to the tribe as a whole."
The Albain brother had been fed the line, "Our experience in Mistral is that the people here have been the most resistant to the idea that Faunus and humans are even related, let alone equal. How have you persuaded non-tribe humans to accept your views?"
"What the frack's the use of power if you can't use it to do the right thing when you have the chance? Besides which early on the only humans left behind to being murdered and ravished by us had been treated almost as badly as the Faunus had. It did not take much for them to accept that they had more in common with the Faunus than with the human rulers who had left them to die."
That seemed to satisfy most of the White Fang leadership for now. Sienna Khan and the civilians who had worked most closely with the Branwen Tribe had affirmed that what she had said was their experience of working with the Branwen tribe and its subjects.
She was looking forward to a piece of theatre tonight. Lisa Lavender had been told that she and her team would go to the ball and a grand entrance was being planned. That would be her fun. Either tonight or tomorrow morning she would take the largest risk she had ever taken. She had hidden the fact that she had the maiden powers including accessing the vault under Haven. Still, what the frack's the point of power if you don't use it when you have the chance.
Everything is coming to a head. I am running with Raven having some of the better aspects of LBJ. I hope that my attempts to make sense of Hazel's contradictions makes sense (or at least more sense than the show). If the references to the press conference are not totally clear, it is described at the end of chapter 3 of Yang Faces the Truth.
My Lionheart is very different to that of the show. I think that portraying him as an idealist who made an unwise choice during a moment of despair when offered a way of achieving some of his goals by Hazel Rainart is more consistent with the idea that Ozpin rated him enough to make him the headmaster of Haven.
