If you enjoy reading, please favorite and follow! Also give a review for feedback, ideas or questions! I love reading them!

General Ironwood brooded at the end of a grey conference table that looked like a blank tombstone slab. Although the table could seat two dozen, only three sat scattered along it. The thin and tall scientist, Pietro Polendina and Winter Schnee.

He leaned and set his elbows on the table, fingers steepled. Behind and around him he was framed by giant windows that looked over Atlas; for they were at the top of a fifty-story tower on the floating city. That did not stop the large room from feeling claustrophobic.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "Of the three advanced androids we have poured millions of lien and thousands of research hours into… one has been kidnapped, one has gone rogue and one is very sad."

"Penny has refused to leave her room after getting the news," Pietro replied, face sullen. "She won't speak to anyone, not even Ciel, her closest friend besides Leif himself. She is utterly inconsolable."

"And P-156 is in pursuit," said the thin scientist.

"Yes, Irkutsk, you already said that. But what does that mean?"

The thin and tall scientist, Doctor Irkutsk, replied skittishly. "It means that it is doing what it was meant to do. Pursue. Somehow, someway, it got itself assigned to a target that now it will chase to the ends of Remnant."

"And how could that have possibly happened?" Ironwood grumbled. "How come it denied your orders?"

"Well…" Irkutsk swallowed back his feebly excuse after Ironwood gave him a withering look. "It… was a series of oversights while constructing its logic processing."

"Oversights?"

"Yes. We managed to piece together some of what may have happened based on what it said:

"P-156 mentioned to us that it had gone into emergency response state. That only occurs when it is attacked or damaged unexpectedly and needs to act immediately. It also mentioned responding to an interloper. That specific term we programmed to classify an unexpected attacker who has breached an area they shouldn't be in.

"Now, in the emergency response state, the unit has some leeway regarding independent decisions. This is so it can do what it needs to survive. Since the primary objective we've given it thus far in its testing stage has been to pursue its targets, it must have surmised that the interloper must be designated its target and pursued.

"This gave it a pursuit objective. And, in the course of pursuit, it is programmed to not tolerate interference. That combined with the emergency state made it decide to disobey us."

He rubbed his sore chest. Under his lab coat was a nasty, swollen bruise that mixed dark purple and sickly yellow.

"Then it used that computer. After reviewing it, we determined that it actually deleted the lines of code that would make it receptive to the emergency command prompts. Thus, I could not stop it even when I managed to say the entire command.

"In short, our oversights and unfinished work resulted in a process by which the Pursuer's own logic system could completely bypass our own authority."

"But it's not developed awareness?" Pietro asked.

"Thankfully, no." Irkutsk let out a sigh. "It is still just a program executing its given command: pursuit."

"The pursuit of what?" Ironwood asked.

"We have no idea," Irkutsk admitted. "All the clues point to it having been attacked by something, but we're not sure how that could be. It's only been back at our lab for a few days, and it wasn't activated at that time nor were there any intrusions into the lab.

"It spent a week at the main facility—with units D and F—for comparative diagnostics. Maybe something happened there?"

"We already reviewed security," Winter said. "Nothing got into that facility either. And there were no signs of a fight in the lab where the Pursuer was stored."

"That lab's a big place," Pietro said. "A lot of room is left to test for motor functions, and we did even use it as a place for Leif and Penny to test out their martial arts when the training room was undergoing maintenance. If there was anywhere that a fight could be covered up, it would be there. The attacker just would have needed to be careful to power off the Pursuer rather than damage it."

"Meaning it was someone with the technical knowledge to do so," Winter surmised. "And someone who knew that there are only cameras in the halls, not in the labs themselves."

"Pointing to an inside job," Ironwood spoke with a grimace. "Assuming, of course, that your Pursuer isn't operating off of a glitch."

"That is also possible," Irkutsk admitted with open hands. "But I'm not sure that's likely. It seemed to have a real target. After all, it used the facility's radio tower to boost its own signal.

"The unit is capable of launching micro-trackers from its right hand. Perhaps it embedded one such tracker into whatever attacked it, and now it's after that." He shrugged and rubbed his sweaty hands together.

"Given Leif's kidnapping," Pietro said, "I think that being more suspicious of an attacker is the right choice."

"I agree," Ironwood said. He set his hands down on the table, formed into fists. "I think it may be safe to assume that whoever got into a fight with the Pursuer also had a hand in Leif's disappearance."

Irkutsk scoffed. "I certainly wouldn't want to be him, not with what the Pursuer is currently programmed to do when it catches its target." He cocked his head to the side and hummed. "Actually, the Pursuer should return to us freely after it catches whoever its after."

"Hm, that could actually be somewhat beneficial then," Winter said. "But what will it do to its target when it does find them?"

Irkutsk trailed a finger across his throat and made a croaking sound. "That's all we've programmed it to do right now. You can practically call the thing a Termina—"

The conference room door opened. Ironwood's head shot up, while Winter's hand fell to the hilt of her sword. They were not expecting company.

"Hello everyone," said the new man who calmly waved and quietly shut the door behind him. When they saw who it was, both Winter and Ironwood begrudgingly let down their guard; that did not stop them from frowning.

"I do not remember inviting you to this meeting, Sundown." Ironwood crossed his arms, making the medals pinned over his heart clink against each other. "I do not even remember letting you know that this meeting existed."

"Oh there are a lot of things you don't have to tell me," Sundown said as he strode across the room and sat just beside Ironwood himself. He took off his hat—a short-brimmed silver piece that matched his suit—and set it down on the table. "But you did invite me." He smiled wryly; the humorless grin creased the skin stretched taught over his face. It did not reach his eyes, a pair of piercing grey things.

"And when was this invite sent?"

"When you lost an android, of course," Sundown replied with a shrug. "Well, androids. It's become plural now, right?"

"Your arrogance is, as ever, not appreciated," Ironwood grumbled, "but your help is required, yes."

"Ah, and I'm always happy to help." He sighed. "Such a security breach is deeply concerning; and I was looking forward to working with the Deceiver as well. The Pursuer, too, is quite enticing to a man in my line of work. And the Fighter"– he waved at Pietro –"well, she's just endearing, isn't she?"

"The Deceiver's name is Leif," Pietro said with a frown. "And the Fighter is Penny. And the Pursuer is…" He glanced to Irkutsk, who just shrugged. "Well, he's just the Pursuer, but still. Leif and Penny are people, give them the respect they deserve."

"Of course," Sundown replied amicably. "But poor Pursuer, getting left out of the whole 'having a soul and a consciousness' club."

"You know quite a bit about our program," Pietro said, frowning.

"I know quite a bit about quite a many things," Sundown said shamelessly. "You and your work aren't getting any special attention." He smacked his hands together suddenly; the loud clap! shuddered in the room. "Rather, the thing that made me come here is the fact that security managed to be compromised on such an important and secretive project. I can practically taste the presence of traitors."

"Yes," Ironwood said with a grave nod. "We believe that there are imposters among—"

"Please don't say that," Sundown interrupted.

"What?"

"Just, don't say that."

"Say what?"

"What you were about to say."

"Why not?"

"You don't want to know."

Winter cut through the squabble with her sharp, forcible words. "Enough. We need to coordinate our efforts. This is not a problem to banter about."

"Oh no, of course not," Sundown said with a quick nod. "Let's get to coordinating." He pointed at Winter. "I trust the Specialists to keep hunting down the two missing androids." He pointed at Pietro. "I trust the good Doctor to cheer up his daughter." He pointed at himself. "And I trust me to butcher the rats who squealed."

Sundown's rolling chair rumbled as he pushed back from the table. He picked up his hat and nodded at the general again before turning to Irkutsk. "I look forward to our talk later this evening."

"What?"

Sundown smiled with all of his bleach-white teeth. "A chauffeur waiting outside the building is going to take you to an office of ours. I'll be around later to have a chat."

"I—"

Sundown brushed past him, not sparing another word or look at the people in the room as he reached the door and swept through.

"An insufferable man," Ironwood said the moment the door clicked shut. "But you do not want to try and avoid that conversation."

Irkutsk looked at the general with a face worthy of pity. "Um, why?"

"Just get to the chauffeur; it should be obvious who it is."

"Who even was that man?" Pietro asked.

Ironwood sighed and rubbed his face with his good hand, massaging down the scowl that had gotten stuck there. "Agent Sundown is one of the foremost counter-intelligence officers in the Atlas Intelligence Service. He's an expert at weeding out double-agents and conspirators."

"They call him the mole-eater," Winter specified. "For obvious reasons."

Irkutsk gulped. The man had been unpleasant and off-putting, like a cold stethoscope against one's back.

"But we need his skills," Ironwood said. "So let's just all agree to put up with him for now."

He turned his chair around and looked out over the pristine Atlas skyline. The buildings made of marble and glass shone like diamonds in one's palm under the noon sunlight. He wanted to smile when he saw it, but he could not.

"Whoever these people are, they are professionals, and they are dangerous."

"I spy with my little eye… something yellow."

"The sun?"

"Darn it!"

The four had been on a road trip for around forty hours at this point, and two of them were absolutely miserable. Hazel had gripped onto the steering wheel for so long that his fingers stiffly curled up even when he let go. Omsk had given up on life some time ago, and now she passed the time by sitting in shotgun with her eyes closed, trying to forget about how carsick she was.

Tyrian and Jaune played road trip games the entire time.

Through dusty forest paths they had trekked ever since leaving the mine, past frozen lakes, icy rivers, crumbled rocks and countless trees. Only recently had they managed to find a proper road which did not shake their brittle blue car so violently that their teeth clattered.

"I spy with my little eye," Tyrian said, "something white."

"That cloud?"

"Nope, that cloud. The one that looks like a warthog."

"Really? It looks more like a puma to me."

Omsk groaned. "I'm using my vacation days for this..."

"Hey Hazel," Jaune asked from the back seat, "are we there yet?"

The big man growled. "Look outside the car."

Jaune did so.

"What do you see?"

"I see an open tundra with nothing in sight," Jaune reported.

"Right. Does that mean we might be close to something?"

"I don't know. You haven't told me where we're going."

Hazel growled again. "But when you asked ten minutes ago, I told you we weren't even close."

"Yeah, but how do you define close? I mean, a person who's right next to me is close, obviously. But if someone lives a block down from me, I could say that they live pretty close, right?"

Hazel spoke with barely restrained anger. "I would really appreciate it if you just didn't say another word this whole trip."

"Can do!"

Ironwood had gone about his day. That included three other meetings with officials on topics regarding matters of national security. That also included a couple phone calls with rich bigwigs whose support helped him preserve his power. That also included a lunch break of about five minutes. That also included a public meeting with veterans at a hospital. He was a busy man.

He finally managed to rest in the middle of the night, well after most of Atlas had gone to sleep. He would soon have to wake up much earlier than most of Atlas will have opened their eyes.

He reclined on the uncomfortable bunk, but a military man like him had learned to be happy with the floor. That night, however, his excuse for a bed felt even bumpier than usual. He had just ended one last call with Pietro.

"He's a good kid," the engineer had said quietly. "He deserves so much… promise me you'll find him?"

"You know I can promise that," Ironwood had replied. "The mostly likely outcome is that we never see him again."

He could not see Pietro's face, but he could still perfectly imagine the pained wince.

"I'm sorry."

Ironwood blamed himself. The buck always stopped with him. An innocent kid had been abducted; an ally turned into an enemy. And such an enemy it was. Leif had not been code-named Deceiver for nothing. He could quite possibly break into power plants, military bases, government buildings or even—

"A high school?" Jaune asked.

"A high school," Omsk confirmed.

They had finally—mercifully—ended their little road trip. After many hours, they had reached a little town of a thousand, the biggest building in which was the now rusting lumber mill. It was the kind of place that had seen better days. Now it joined the ranks of many other struggling municipalities in trying to become a tourist trap. The town's welcome sign advertised that the best hiking spots on the continent were nearby, and a ski lodge was under construction in mountains not far from here.

The group occupied a little studio motel room that Hazel had purchased with cash. A cheap place with a disconcertingly sour smell in the air and a few stains in a carpet that might once have been white, it served them quite nicely as an inconspicuous place to rest.

Hazel leaned back against the door, quiet with arms crossed. Tyrian had jumped into the bathroom the moment they arrived and proceeded to make sounds that the others tried desperately to ignore (they would not be using the bathroom after him). Omsk, meanwhile, had begun to tell Jaune more about their plans.

"Not just any high school: Beacon Academy," she said. She leaned her hand against the wall, only to immediately pull away when she felt something sticky against her palm. "Oh goodness…" She shuffled over to the kitchen sink.

"Where's that?"

"Down in Vale," she answered. "It's one of the four elite Hunter Academies, one for each of the major cities." She twisted a handle on the sink. The facet groaned unhealthily for one second, then another. On the third beat, a trickle of brown-ish water slopped out. Omsk grimaced and turned it off.

"Oh cool, how old am I?"

"Technically, you've only been under construction for a few years," she replied, wiping her hand on her pants. "But your appearance and general mindset is age seventeen."

"Sounds good," Jaune said. He examined himself in a mirror hung above the bed. "I don't look half bad."

"I've spent at least ten hours customizing my characters' appearances in Miryks, so thank that."

"Thanks!"

"But yes," she continued, "Beacon is essentially a high school for monster-killers with superpowers."

"Wait, if I start it at seventeen, then isn't it more of a college?" Jaune asked. "I mean, people start college around then, right?"

"Someone going to college at seventeen?" Hazel asked.

"My roommate first year was seventeen, actually," Omsk said. "But yeah, that's because she skipped a grade… I guess you are going to college?"

"That's odd," Hazel added. "Beacon is always advertised like a high school."

"Maybe hunters have a totally different schooling program? They must, since people usually start Beacon at seventeen, I was told, which is actually a rare exception for people starting college."

"And isn't it almost summer?" Jaune asked. "Aren't you supposed to have summers off for school?"

"That… hm." Omsk laid both her hands on the kitchen counter to think, before again pulling back after feeling something sticky. "Guh…"

Hazel scratched his chin pensively. "But can't you classify Beacon as a trade school? It doesn't seem right to me to label fighting evil monsters with magical weapons as a liberal art."

"Well, there's a lot of different things at liberal arts colleges," Omsk said as she wiped off both her hands on her coat. "For instance, my school had physics at the liberal arts college."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's a little weird. I went to Atlas University's engineering school, which is different from the liberal arts college, but I still—"

Tyrian spoke up from the bathroom, his voice muffled through the wall but understandable. "If we're sending him to college, is there some sort of hunter community college program? Then he can spend two years there and transfer into Beacon for the other two years."

"You can hear us from there?" Hazel asked.

"The walls are concerningly thin," Tyrian replied.

"Yes they are," Omsk said with a shudder. "But no, we can't sign him up for a community hunter academy program, time is of the essence—"

"But it would be such a cost saver!" Tyrian insisted. "And the first two years of college are mostly just finishing your general education requirements anyway. You can get those done anywhere and then go to the more prestigious school of your choice for the next two."

"But wouldn't those first two years at a good school set up more networking opportunities?" Hazel asked.

"Yes but"– Tyrian's voice was momentarily drowned out by the sound of the toilet flushing –"can you afford it? Especially considering that Beacon is in Vale, thus Jaune will be an international student; and that always comes with huge price increases." The bathroom door flew open and Tyrian strolled out. "There's a lot of things to think about here."

Omsk cringed. "You didn't wash your hands..."

"I think I agree with Tyrian," Jaune said. For the first time since they woke him up in that cave, he looked sullen. "I would love to go to Beacon and get the full college experience, but if money's an issue—"

"Don't worry about it," Omsk said tiredly, "you're going to Beacon and—"

"Well I think it's reasonable to have a discussion about the options here," Tyrian insisted.

"Why are you the one trying to be reasonable here?" Omsk asked. A blood vessel in her neck swelled in size.

"For once, I agree with Tyrian," Hazel said gruffly. "You need to be thoughtful and down to Remnant when making such important decisions."

"Yeah," Jaune said. "We should make a spreadsheet with the pros and cons for every school. I should definitely apply to more places than just Beacon, which is probably a reach school, right?"

"Oh definitely," Tyrian said. "When I applied, I really didn't think I would get into Mistral U—"

"You!?" Omsk was incredulous. "You got into Mistral U?"

Tyrian grinned and brought his hands together like a pair of wings. "Go Eagles!"

"I call bullshit. No way."

"It's true! I was a chemistry major; pre-med, actually. How do you think I lost my mind?"

"I don't know!" Omsk threw her arms up into the air. "But can we please—"

"Alright!" Jaune reported. "I just made a spreadsheet in my higher memory banks, so we can start filling that out now."

"When are the application deadlines?" Hazel asked. "My sister missed the deadline for her top school by five minutes because she read the date wrong—"

"The deadline's not for months!" Omsk shouted, raising her voice more than she had ever before dared with the two enforcers. "So, we have plenty of time! And money isn't an issue, since the four academies have free tuition!"

"Oh, that's excellent!" Tyrian nodded with approval and clapped his unwashed hands. "Thinking of students first, always worthy of applause!"

"Actually," Hazel said, "there has been some researched to suggest that free college mostly benefits certain groups in society more than others and could possibly exacerbate—"

"ENOUGH!" Omsk shouted, stomping her foot down onto the cheap carpet. "Enough! Enough! That's enough! You all can have debates about higher education LATER when I'm nowhere near! Now you"– she pointed at Jaune –"are going to Beacon! That's final! That's a key part of the damn plan! So no ifs or buts or maybes!

"And yes! You're going to get into Beacon and you're going to get accepted there because we're sending you to Vacuo to fight tooth and nail in different tournaments until you get Ozpin's attention and by all the Gods you may or may not believe in you're going to win those tournaments because Atlas spent a fortune making you a super spy warrior and I risked everything in helping to steal you gods damn it!"

Omsk glared with angry eyes at Jaune, then Tyrian, then Hazel in a frantic cycle as she breathed haggardly. Her ragged breaths, in fact, were the only real sound in the room after her outburst.

She spoke again, explaining in menacing, slow words filled with restrained anger: "You're going to Vacuo; you're going to meet with Watts there; you're going to impress the headmaster of Beacon; you're going to go to Beacon; you're going to do some spy stuff when you're there; you're going to get into the Vytal Tournament; you're going to do more spy stuff when you get to Vytal; you're going to be the lynchpin of our whole damn plan!"

"Sounds good," Jaune said, "but shouldn't we at least tour Beacon's campus first before deciding?"

Omsk picked up the nearest object—a cheap little lamp left on the kitchen counter—and hurled it at Jaune's head as hard as she could.

Poor Omsk, driven to madness by the college admissions process