No Grimm Fandango
Much to everyones surprise the time until the Beacon Dance passed normally enough.
There were still classes, occasional detentions for students who deserved them, and reports of White Fang attacks outside the city, but it was nothing the academy wasn't already used to at this point.
Which wasn't to say that people didn't take the academies security seriously for the event.
Salem did her best to follow the old rules of chivalry (whenever she remembered them and that she wasn't the villain, the Brothers and Ozma, as their servant, were), something she had tried to impress upon her followers.
As such, none of her loyal followers would even consider a plan involving disruption of a formal event like a dance.
It had taken her a moment to remember that Cinder was not a loyal follower.
Not that Cinder had been too interested in 'rules of engagement', Salem considered.
She had always been more about 'how to gain power' than 'how to use power'.
There was the saving grace that Cinder had always tried to act loyal, even if she had never really been loyal, so she hadn't been about to make an obvious departure from the rules Salem had given her, but then again by now she had to have seen that Salem was here in Beacon, seemingly working with Ozpin.
And with the obvious indication that their goals were no longer aligned, it was all too likely that Cinder would enact a plan to... disrupt... the dance, if for no other reason than petty spite, a driving force for many of her actions as long as Salem had known her.
If only there were more well-adjusted teenage girls willing to work with the 'embodiment of all evil'.
As the best option for preventing whatever Cinder might be planning Salem had triggered the 'self-destruct' for the symbiote that directed Grimm not to attack Cinder, leaving behind a noticeable trace that would draw Grimm towards her (not that she had mentioned anything about this at any point since discovery Cinders treachery when she had done so), and organised professor Callows and suitably... subtle Grimm to protect the dance.
With the addition of Ironwoods soldiers and the Huntsmen Oz had assigned to watch Cinder, there should be no way for her to interfere with the event.
And now it was nearly time for the event to start.
Salem took a quick look around the outside, making sure everything was in place, before entering.
She had been selected to be the students chaperone, watching the dance.
Not quite as good as if she'd been able to take part, but she was used to staying on the sidelines and simply watching.
It was as she stepped inside that things went wrong.
"Salutations," an annoyingly familiar voice declared from behind her.
[]
"Why is professor Salem running away from that student?"
After her sister had forced her into high heels and a dress, as suitable clothing for the dance, Ruby had found it hard enough to walk that she was sitting out the dancing (not that she was too confident about dancing in the first place).
She had decided to distract herself from the problems the shoes were causing by watching what was happening in the rest of the room.
She hadn't been expecting to see Salem retreating from a girl she vaguely recognised from the docks.
Drei, who was also sitting out the dance due to how few dances assumed the dancer would be on all fours, glanced over and gave a whine to indicate his own lack of comprehension.
"If you don't know then..." Ruby mumbled.
"So this is where you snuck away to sis," Yangs voice stated, indicating her approach. "Come on, you can't attend a dance and just sit on the sidelines all the time. You've got to actually spend time dancing!"
"Drei isn't either," Ruby protested.
"So you're saying that if Drei joins in the dancing you will as well? In that case..."
Ruby should have realised that was the wrong thing to say.
Yang grabbed Drei, placing his paws on her shoulders, and danced off onto the dancefloor with him.
"Better find yourself a partner sis," she called back, ignoring the looks she was getting from just about all the other students as they backed away from the girl mad enough to take a Grimm onto the dancefloor.
"Should have chosen someone else as an example," Ruby muttered to herself, thinking through the people she knew here who would understand her lack of grace on the dancefloor. "It's not like there aren't other people on the sidelines..."
[]
Cinder couldn't help but growl under her breath as she stalked through the dance.
It seemed like whenever she approached one of the exits there was someone watching.
Given that the whole point of placing the virus into the CCT during the dance was so that she wouldn't be connected with the attack, and in fact have the perfect alibi.
With the presence of Salem she had thought this would be even easier than she'd expected.
Oh sure, Salem had ordered her not to continue her plan, but given that it had pretty much been Salems idea in the first place, clearly there was something she would get out of this so surely she should be giving her some cover for her actions.
And that way Salem would get what she'd proposed the plan for in the first place.
Whatever that was.
Cinder had stopped listening after the whole "great power inherited by girl" "Relics of great power" and such comments that Salem had made.
With such comments being made so soon after her recruitment, it was clear what the plan was.
She was intended to inherit these powers, claim these Relics.
And she had every intention of following the plan that far.
But what Salem wanted these Relics for... well, she'd see if she wanted to go along with it.
Of course, first she had to get the virus into the CCT, not something she was willing to trust to anyone else even if Emerald did use to be a thief.
With the virus implanted, the robots Atlas was coming to depend upon would be useless for their security. And if Watts was right, even turn against their masters, causing even more of a distraction for when she went to finish the Maiden.
And she'd be in the tower with the virus ready to install right now, if she hadn't been seen just outside and directed straight into the hall.
She could have protested, but that would have been suspicious, and stuck in the staffs minds.
And now she was trapped in this stupid dance, without any excuse to leave because they had thought of everything the guests could need.
Aside direct access to the CCT.
Worse than that, it seemed like all the Grimm (and how did Salem even manage to get Grimm accepted into Beacon? Maybe she should have listened more closely to her plans after all) were attracted to her for some reason.
And she really didn't like the way that Seer was trailing after her...
"Damn it," she muttered to herself. If she wanted this done she'd have to trust Emerald.
She'd feel a lot better about this if she'd ever gone over the correct installation procedure with the girl...
[]
Emerald couldn't help sighing.
She was stuck on the sidelines while Cinder was trying to leave, ready to use her illusions to cloud the perceptions of the door guard enough that they wouldn't realise Cinder had gone anywhere.
Except each exit was watched by multiple people, and while she could try ensnaring more than one in her Semblance it would strain her, lasting only a brief time before collapsing, and while it might give time for Cinder to leave, it would also serve to draw attention to her.
And having to sit back while Cinder was still trapped drew unwanted attention to her.
Not from the staff, that would be simple enough.
But rather from hormonal students.
Emerald knew she looked good, one thing Cinder had impressed upon her was the need for an ability to distract peoples attention, and used her own natural sexiness to prove her point.
It was at that moment that her feelings about the woman that saved her from the streets became clear.
It was from that moment she had started learning to draw attention in the same manner, doing her best to ignore the unwanted attention she received and lack of the attention she desired.
Of course, when she was stuck waiting it was much harder to ignore the unwanted attention.
"I can understand not wanting to stress yourself if it means loosing control of your Semblance," the boy trying to flirt with her continued. "I mean, I've only recently got it under control, but I'm sure with someone as beautiful as you I'd be able to forget all about everyone else..."
"A simple dance is hardly worth risking loss of control over," she responded, going for a sweet tone but knowing full well she'd probably failed.
"It isn't dangerous," he assured her. "I mean, nobody even seemed to notice for the first term."
"What kind of Semblance can be left uncontrolled for that long without problem?"
"When I activate it properly I can hide in my shadow," he responded, somewhat proudly, before losing confidence as he continued. "Without control, it can leave people looking like silhouettes."
Emerald culdn't help but roll her eyes at the claim. There was no way people wouldn't notice their fellow students ending up looking like their silhouette rather than who they really were.
"Oh sorry," she announced suddenly. "My team leader wants to talk with me."
It was true, Cinder had apparently given up on trying to sneak out and was heading her way, wearing something of a snarl.
"Oh, okay. Can I talk to you later?"
"Why not," Emerald shrugged.
Cinder waited to approach and start speaking until the boy had left.
"Who was he?"
"No idea," Emerald replied. "What do you need me to do?"
She had learned quickly that Cinder preferred focus on her tasks and did her best to keep on topic as much as she could.
"It seems the staff are particularly interested in watching me," was Cinders answer. "As such it falls to you to prove your claims about being perfect for installing the virus."
She held out the disposable scroll the virus had been loaded onto, which Emerald took quickly.
"Anything I should know about its installation?"
"It should be simple enough. You just have to..."
Emerald listened closely to the directions, doing her best to also keep an eye out for any would-be eavesdroppers.
It was finally time to prove her worth to Cinder.
[]
It wasn't too hard for Emerald to escape the dance.
After all, besides Cinder, it wasn't as though any of the students were about to try and escape.
And with the CCT so close to the building it must have seemed only reasonable to Ozpin to roll the security for both into one, seeing as there weren't any guards posted to the tower.
For a moment she considered sneaking up the side of the tower to break in, but dismissed it on the basis of being too easy to spot by anyone looking outside so she simply used the call elevator button like normal.
Fortunately there didn't seem to be any cameras, as her Semblance didn't exactly work on technology, so there was no evidence of her actions.
Having reached the communications floor it was easy enough for her to access one of the still active terminals and connect the scroll as she'd been told.
There was no alarm, no cry of discovery, just a normal download bar filling up.
And then, at the moment the bar was filled, an image of a chess piece appeared on each screen, even those where the terminal had been switched off.
Emerald panicked.
Cinder had mentioned that the virus had been programmed to make it clear when it was working properly, but had apparently forgotten how to remove the sign, assuming it would be something nicely subtle.
After all, what kind of moron would make it so obvious that the entire network had been hacked?
She dove onto the keyboard, typing frantically to try and get back to the start screen, to no avail.
It wasn't like she had that much experience with technology before meeting Cinder after all.
About all her attempts managed was to set the piece rotating and magnifying itself on the main screen of the floor, making it clear nobody had just placed an image over the screens as a prank.
A glance at the time on her own scroll revealed that she had been up here too long already, and with a snarl she returned to the elevator, planning to tell Cinder that while the virus was installed properly, it was a bit more obvious than expected.
[]
Ozpin and Ironwood had sat out the dance, instead watching the security feed from the cameras around the CCT.
"You were right, they did target the CCT," Ironwood acknowledged. "But I still think we should have had guards to catch them in the act."
"You had the CCT backed up, didn't you? This way we get the CCT working fine and our enemies believe they have it hacked. That gives us the advantage. If we did things your way we would have shown our hand, made it clear we knew they were an enemy. Instead they believe they still have the element of surprise."
"I still don't see why you don't just have them arrested."
"We don't have the evidence needed for a trial yet. James, remember that the Kingdoms follow the rule of law."
"How much more evidence do you need?"
"James, the current limit to our evidence is that a staff member of Beacon approached Cinder to break the law for her and that Cinders team accessed the CCT during a dance. Even suggesting using the former evidence could well return Salem to her former approach, with all the civilians deaths that would cause, while the latter is hardly a crime."
"The virus-"
"Could have infected the scroll without her knowledge. At least, as far as the defence would claim."
"That doesn't mean we should just leave them free to do whatever they want!"
"I am not leaving them free to do what they want, their every move is watched?"
"And Salem?"
"Her as well. Everyone she is associated with is under total observation. With her agreement of course."
AN: A few weeks ago I had a 'bad news - good news' thing. Bad news; Covid in household. Good news; my test was negative. Bad news again; I was still unwell. As such I had to take some time off writing to maintain the quality.
After this I had to reread the story so far to restore the tone of the story, and noticed some lost plot threads, which I will try to restore (I did reread the story before each new chapter at first, but when the number of chapters gets too large that has too much impact on update rate).
And the silhouette guy... I've just been waiting for the right time to introduce him. Unless RoosterTeeth says otherwise, we can even claim he's canon!
