Klein was used to receiving odd requests but receiving orders from all the family members in residence and the guest for the latest edition of Salutations as soon as possible was a first. It was not hard to arrange a delivery at six in the morning. Indeed, he had decided that he may as well reserve a copy for himself if all his employers wanted to read it.
The publishers had struck lucky. There would have been some curiosity amongst the public for pictures of Pyrrha Nikos, Miss Weiss and Coco Adel in any case. The reaction to the earlier Beacon photo shoot had no doubt made commissioning this one a no brainer for them as the row about the photograph of Brede Campion with a female teammate had resulted in record sales in Vale and Mantle. The fact that during the evening the White Fang had attacked the venue and had been defeated by some of the same people who later fought at Kulsa presumably would result in more records been broken with this issue.
The front cover showed a picture of Pyrrha Nikos, Miss Weiss and Coco Adel in conversation. This was no doubt the best choice as it suggested that there was negligible risk of bait and switch if they had one of the most desirable photographs on the front cover, Anyway, he enjoyed flicking through the photographs of Miss Weiss and her friends. He was amused that Miss Weiss mainly appeared in shots with one or two people which the magazine described as in conversation or sharing a joke. The ones with Brede and Pyrrha certainly met these criteria. The one with Yang and Coco was a little more animated.
It appeared that Miss Yang had been enjoying herself that evening and the shots of her dance with her Vacuoan friend looked highly dangerous. Klein himself had been a lindy-hopper in his youth so he knew that provided you had both practised it was not as dangerous as it looked, but practice and sobriety were preferable. He was not convinced that Miss Yang believed in sobriety, but perhaps she could rely on talent and practice.
There was an interesting mix of before and after the White Fang raid photographs although Miss Scarlatina had clearly been choosing her angles carefully. From what both Miss Weiss and Miss Yang had said, there had been a lot of blood around after the fight.
It was good to see that Miss Weiss and her friend had spent time together that evening and that Miss Weiss had been smiling. He had known Miss Weiss since she was a baby and she had always been a serious child. That was even before the attempted kidnap and the aftermath of the ninth birthday party where the master and the mistress had both lost control of their emotions. He still remembered desperately trying to persuade Weiss that it was not her fault that her parents were screaming at each other.
It did not help that Miss Winter's view of it was that both parents were contemptible. It does not help a nine-year-old child for their admired older sister to tell her that their mother was a drunk and their father was a bully. Miss Winter was the only one child who remembered Nicholas Schnee clearly and had decided early on that her father was not an adequate replacement. Klein actually thought that she had been unfair. Jacques had had to make changes at the SDC as their competitors had finally worked out and started copying some of what the SDC had been getting right for the previous twenty years.
He had done his best to hint to Weiss and to tell Willow that if Weiss wanted to be the SDC heir then she had to deal with Jacques' insecurities. It was not as though Jacques needed reminding he was not Nicholas. The fear that he was not fit to lick Nicholas's boots terrified the man and the only way of proving that he was adequate was to increase profitability and to project certainty. Willow had tried arguing with him more directly and that had not gone well for the whole family. Miss Winter had decided to say frack you Jacques and had found a new father figure in General Ironwood. His own favourite of the children Miss Weiss had been scarred and until going to Beacon had never really had any friends. Master Whitley was desperately trying to love both of his parents and be approved of by both. The pity was for all of them that the child whose approval Jacques wanted was Winter.
He sighed to himself. The last week or so had been the best things had been within the household for nearly ten years. He just hoped that it would last.
He smiled as he saw the team photographs. He had heard about team JNPR from Miss Weiss before the events of the last few weeks had made the rest them almost as famous as Pyrrha Nikos. No doubt most of the readers would stare at the photograph and try and work out how obvious it was that Jaune and Pyrrha were destined to be a couple. The boy looked a little goofy in the photographs as opposed to the determined look he had worn when faced by a few score Grimm charging him and the two Haven students at Kulsa.
Miss Weiss had found it hard in her scroll messages to hide her disappointment on not being on the same team as Pyrrha and not being team leader, but by halfway through the term had hardly been able to conceal her pride in her own team. Anyway, the photos with her suggested that they were good friends
He also found it interesting to see Team CRDL in all its glory. Miss Winter had described the Mohawk tribe to him and seeing one on the same team as two minor aristocrats from Vale and an upper middle class young man from Mistral was intriguing of itself. The four of them together looked like mates and the Vacuoan did not seem out of place.
As an Atlesian he was also interested in Team LLAC. He could not understand why, apart from an appalling amount of inbreeding, the Campion family had let their newspapers go after Brede's teammate with such venom. Anyway, the team photograph had kept Brede as far away from Lydia as they could. He was at the other end of the quartet from her and had his arm over the shoulder of a shorter pleasant looking woman. He worked out that she must be the other Faunus on the team. Both Miss Weiss and Miss Yang had said things which suggested that she was a dangerous fighter.
Coco Adel and her male teammates were clearly enjoying themselves. He knew of Velvet Scarlatina and had met her father. As far as he could tell it was a civilised failed marriage, although the rabbit Faunus used the fact she took the photographs to avoid being pictured herself. It had only been after her second set of photographs in Salutations that they had actually printed a picture of her showing that she was unmistakeably a Faunus.
He turned over the page and burst out laughing. Brede Campion had both arms round two young women (ladies was not the word he would use) and there was lipstick on his cheeks. He clearly had learnt lessons from his uncle on giving the finger to his family. He then checked the names and was glad that he did not have any coffee or food in his mouth at the time. The picture of one of Atlas's most eligible bachelors canoodling with the younger daughters of one of Mistral's leading crime bosses made it more into a FU to the family. No wonder Miss Weiss and her friend Miss Yang had ordered copies. He was intrigued to note that Salutations reported that the twins were among three civilians offered place at Beacon as a result of their response to the White Fang intrusion.
The Scarlatina photographs including a few post-battle photographs. Miss Weiss had a team photograph with her teammates and Miss Belladonna was without her ribbon. He imagined that Jacques would be on the phone to Salutations asking for a license to republish the photograph.
There was a photograph of Kali Belladonna embracing her daughter with Glynda Goodwitch looking on. It was known that the General respected her and one of the rumours which spread amongst the senior servants in Atlas was that he was attracted to the Beacon deputy head mistress. Certainly, she was the Beacon teacher who most often visited Atlas.
He smiled. He suspected that all the family would be pleased. There were some good photographs of Weiss and her friends while Jacques would be amused by the picture of the younger Campion son sowing his wild oats.
He then moved to his next task which was to scan the Remnant Enquirer for stories about the Schnee family. The Marigold family was one of the largest shareholders and ever since the events in Vacuo a few years ago they had encouraged the editors to go after the Schnee family and also the Campion family. They blamed both for the fact that they had lost their council seat. The reality was that it was their own stupidity which had been the problem. Jacques had always been good at damage limitation and at least his employees had not been involved in a conspiracy to murder Campion's brother and son. The head of the Campion family might be infuriated by the pair, but they were family.
The Enquirer had always specialised in celebrity and conspiracy stories and unlike Salutations, people generally did not look forward to reading the stories about themselves in it. It was not all relentless negativity – the editors knew their readership and so there was a mix of heart-warming stories, and praising the military and hunters was standard policy. To complicate matters, they did have real journalists who specialised in business and consumer issues as well as exposes of hypocrisy.
Their front page claimed to have exclusive pictures from Vale showing the aftermath of the White Fang attack. Interestingly they had a pull-out section which they said was designed to allow readers to choose whether they wanted to see the pictures inside and whether to allow their family members to see them. The pictures were in black and white and had been received shortly before the publication deadline from two different sources. Apparently they showed some scenes immediately after the fight. The reason for them being in black and white was that there was some blood on some of them. He was amused by the blurb and wondered how much it had cost to have a tear away section inserted in the magazine. He also felt that they were in grave danger of disappointing their audience,
Still, it was intriguing enough for him to carefully tear the perforated edges and look at the semi -hidden pages. There was a picture of Ruby Rose cleaning her weapon. They had cheated slightly and had kept the red of her outfit.
There was an overhead picture of Brede, his Faunus teammate together with the Malachite twins and a girl who looked far too young to be in a night club sharing a bottle of wine. One of the twins had claws on her hands and the other had blades on her shoes. The girl had a parasol which seemed to be dripping blood. He wondered how that had got past the editors. He also registered that there were six members of the Atlas Diplomatic Protection squad circled around the table to block photographs from the ground floor. Underneath he read that the girl, who was mute, had also been offered a place at Beacon on the basis of her performance at the White Fang attack. Klein checked back in Salutations and saw that the girl appeared in the background of quite a few of their pictures. Unsurprisingly the Enquirer had made a reference to Brede and his harem.
Another couple of pictures showed teammates comforting each other. Coco Adel looked shaken, but somehow seeing her in a group hug with the tall man from Mistral her seem more human. Having seen all the coverage of Kulsa the image of an obviously distressed Nora Valkyrie holding a kitchen hammer being hugged by Lie Ren was weird. Still killing humans and Faunus was different from killing Grimm and he supposed that it was a good sign that she was not rejoicing in it. Still, the preference was for hunters to put themselves forward as tough and showing vulnerability would go down badly with some readers. Still by Enquirer standards it was a positive spin.
He was not happy with the two photographs of Miss Weiss. The first showed her arguing with her protection squad and trying to escape from them. He supposed that it did reflect that she wanted to be with her classmates, but anger was not a good look for any of the Schnee family. Somehow the one of Brede remonstrating with his protectors seemed more dignified. The two photographs rather emphasised the fact that the twelve diplomatic protection squad members had not been in combat with the White Fang.
The other photograph with Miss Weiss saw her hugging Blake Belladonna with tears running down her eyes. Miss Weiss would hate being caught on camera showing emotion. He was also certain that there were some people who would snigger at her holding a Faunus close.
Another picture where he felt that the mileage might vary showed the White Fang prisoner being restrained by Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark, and Jaune Arc. In his view four unarmed students who had just tackled an armed terrorist were entitled not to take risks and to show a sense of triumph and the picture would certainly go down well in Atlas and the human readership in Mantle. It was just he felt that they there must have been a better picture to choose. Jaune Arc and Sky Lark both had looks on their faces as though they were wondering what to do now, while the other two were almost snarling as they restrained the prisoner.
He then looked at the next picture which was entitled Brede Campion comforting a teammate. It looked as though his security detail was trying to form a human shield around them but had not quite completed it. He then engaged brain and went back a few pages. He also looked back at the photograph of the four girls and Brede. Although Brede was next to the twins, it was obvious his eyes were on his teammate.
Brede had clearly outdone his uncle. Not only had he been pictured with the daughters of a crime boss, but he had also been photographed embracing a Faunus. Also, when he looked back at the team photograph in Salutations, it was quite clear that, in the Remnant Enquirer pictures, the Faunus's dress was drenched in blood.
There was a certain camaraderie between butlers in Atlas to avoid or reduce embarrassment to their employers. Just in case he contacted his counterparts at the Campion family home and at Ambassador Campions flat. He then to be on the safe side contacted the butler of the Campion sister.
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In Vale, Roman was awakened by an excited Neo brandishing a copy of Salutations. He was impressed in some ways of how many pictures Neo had managed to appear in the background of and made a note to provide Junior with copies of the proof that Neo was old enough to drink in Vale.
He had no doubt that Little Miss or as he preferred to call her the Divine Miss M would appreciate the photographs of her daughters with a leading Atlas aristocrat.
She then produced a copy of the Remnant Enquire and he laughed at the fact that she had ended up with a proper photograph in that one. He then clocked it was with her friends from the jail break and Brede Campion. This would undoubtedly raise a few questions in Mistral. He wondered whether they would register who Miss Piggy really was. While the twins had received a pardon for the escape and the charges they had been arrested on had been vacated, it had been felt better to keep them out of Mistral thereafter in light of the injuries the juvenile detention officers received as part of the escape. The worse had been the woman who had had a nervous breakdown after she had claimed that her own baton had beaten her up. The twins and Neo all insisted that she had had it coming as she had been a sadistic piece of excreta who delighted in setting the inmates against each other.
He would have to talk with Junior. Some of then looked like stills from his surveillance cameras albeit significantly tarted up. Junior had always said that these were only used for evidential purposes if people sued the club or caused trouble and not for extortion. Not that Junior was against extortion, but his business model depended on people feeling that they could trust him on his home turf.
He initially relaxed and then panicked when he realised that his employers must be responsible for at least some of the black and white photographs. The one with the aristocrat hugging the Faunus was one thing. He saw that testing Atlas's newfound lip service to equal rights by suggesting that one of their most eligible citizens was an animal lover was a smart play. If shortly afterwards it was revealed that she had been accused of attempted murder in Mistral then he could see that all kinds of mischief could be made.
Still, he remembered the fourteen old girl who Neo and the Malachite twins had insisted he also help escape. She had looked like fourteen going on thirty and had been. The rather demure 18-year-old looked young for her age. The only real resemblances were the eye colour and the jutting jaw. However, no doubt the DNA could confirm her identity.
What puzzled him was the photograph showing Neo as well as Miss Piggy with the Malachite twins. One of the unofficial deals which had been cut was to blame the injuries to the juvenile detention centre staff on the girl from nowhere, Neo. Initially the blame had been shared with the Faunus girl and indeed largely attributed to her. Everyone knew that once the girls were free Little Miss would be looking for payback and also no one wanted to look too closely at the circumstances of their original arrest. The little Faunus girl and the juvenile delinquent were easier targets. It then turned out that there were even better reasons why the authorities wanted to forget about the Faunus girl's existence. Thus, the official report blamed the escape on Neo.
This was despite the fact that whatever Neo's abilities were, she did not have the semblance to cause someone's electronic baton to chase them around the prison bus giving its owner acute electric shots. No blame on her, the people at the juvenile detention centre had set up both the Malachite twins, Neo, and Miss Piggy for being attacked by their fellow inmates. Roman for one was not going to condemn a girl for getting her own back. Still Neo had focused on the illusions and incapacitating the juvenile detention officers. After all, Little Miss had made it clear that she would prefer to avoid fatalities and Neo had taken that on board. It was the pig Faunus who had the skill to use her semblance to play catch up.
He saw no reason for his employers to draw attention to the links between Neo, the Malachite twins, and Miss Piggy. It only risked drawing attention to Neo and her semblance. He made a note to warn Junior of the need to contact the Divine Miss M and explain that any leak was more likely to have come from the authorities who had taken possession of the surveillance footage.
He could believe that his employers had been responsible for the one with Cardin Winchester and Dove Bronzewing restraining the White Fang that they had actually bothered taking prisoner. The publishers in Atlas could be forgiven for not realising how provocative a photograph of those two restraining a Faunus would be in Vale. Roman himself thought fair dos to the lads, they had just restrained an armed terrorist and were entitled to be over cautious in case he was wearing an explosive vest. Still, a Winchester with a knee on the back of a Faunus and pulling the arms behind his back had connotations in Vale. The fact that Dove was fiddling with the man to take off his belt to use it to tie hm up was not self-evident from the photograph. Actually, the longer he looked at it the more it suggested that Dove was about to ritually humiliate the Faunus in the traditional way of victorious warriors. The phrase squeal like a pig unfortunately had been a catch phrase of conquering armies for thousands of years.
Still, he had no doubt the older Winchester was already negotiating for copies to be printed on his election literature, while the Adam Taurus wing of the White Fang would also be reprinting the photograph without any concern about the copyright laws.
Anyway, time to get up. He, Perry, Igor, and Adam had been asked to give an updated report using the Seer in the cottage and receive further details about the dust shipments which would be arriving shortly and the latest W the Unknown nonsense. He did wonder why his employers had bothered with the robberies if they could afford to buy that much dust. If they had merely wanted to spread public fear then a more diversified set of targets using the White Fang might have been a better choice. Remnant, there should have been no need for his services at all.
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In the Adel Atlas house Pyrrha and Jaune were woken by knock on the door and a gentle exercise of Fox's semblance. "Coco says that the two of you had better know about this sooner rather than later. The Salutations pictures are fine, but the Remnant Enquirer has published some of their own. Unsurprisingly Brede and Weiss have been shafted. In particular, they are suggesting that Brede and Anne are an item and Dove looks like he is molesting his prisoner."
Pyrrha awoke quickly after that. As she and Coco were the most travelled of the Beacon students she knew that the woman, although defaulting to the personal right to do what she liked with other consenting adults and accepting the consequences, would want to ensure that before anyone spoke to the press they had engaged brain.
She respected Anne as a fighter. While no doubt the strategy was down to Leslie, she and Lydia had been the two who had allowed Team LLAC to defeat Team JNPR in two minutes. The trouble was that she was the introvert on a team with two extroverts in Leslie and Lydia and a practised surface emotion player as Brede. It made it easy for her to disappear. She was also five inches shorter than Lydia. She was still quite tall for a female Faunus, but when the rest of your team is over six foot tall, it is easy to behave as though you are less important.
The voice from Fox continued, "Coco suggests that we join Yang, Weiss, the rest of team CFVY, Team Vibes and Corkran for brunch in two hours' time to work out a response. Coco is sober enough to realise that saying that there is no way Brede would ever fancy Anne and that they are clearly simply good friends, will, even if true, just suggest that the whole idea of a human having feelings for a Faunus is unthinkable. On the other hand, saying that they are in a relationship when they are not has its own problems. We need to give them time to come to their own answers."
Pyrrha thought about this for some time. Her problem was that she was now with a man she loved and if she had not feared that he was dead would never have shown it. In some ways Brede and Anne weremore relaxed than her and Jaune. They had always been the less flamboyant members of their team, but never had any problem with acknowledging that they were friends.
Weirdly despite the fact that they were socially relaxed, Lydia and Leslie had been the most focused on winning fights. She still recalled that those two had agreed during initiation to delay taking the bullhead back to Beacon while they practiced their combined attacks against Grimm. It had made it hard to not make one of them team leader and anyone watching the footage would have agreed. The fact that the more she knew them the less she thought that that factor had motivated them spoke volumes. They both had a sense of public service and an edge of ruthlessness. The other two members of the team had the former, but not the latter.
Her own call was that Anne and Brede should not be forced to decide now whether they were simply good friends or potential lovers. She was also worried that she was not alone in suspecting that Anne had a past which involved Mistral. The fact that she was friends with the Malachite twins was suggestive. Even if she were not the woman in question, as soon as the question was raised then a storm would be let loose in Mistral and Vale. Certainly, her past would be under scrutiny.
If Pyrrha was right, there was only one way she could jump and still respect herself. She now had to make sure that Jaune would follow her. She also knew that some of her sponsorship deals would not be renewed, or she would be lowballed if she was honest about how badly the original Anne had been treated by Mistral. Actually, put like that it made it a no brainer. She already owned her own house outright. The difference between comfortable and being wealthy was not worth selling her soul for.
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In Atlas Brede had woken early in the family home and was waiting to see the family reaction to the picture of him snogging the Malachite twins. His line with the family was going to be that this was payback for treating a good friend of his appallingly. He had rehearsed the line "If you object to me spending time with a well-off potential heiress, then the only women who will spend time with me will be gold diggers, publicity seekers and tarts. Decent women will not have anything to do with me because of the risk of being libelled by you and your newspapers."
He actually had enjoyed the company of the Malachite twins. They had understood what he wanted to achieve and apparently the publicity suited them. They had also warmed to him after the battle. He had not realised that they had known Anne in the past and they had appreciated that the first person he had checked on was their friend.
He felt his scroll vibrating and saw that his Uncle Parsifal was calling him. He had not realised his uncle got up so early when he was in Atlas. He picked up the scroll and heard his uncle say, "Me and your aunt Angela are just down the street. If you want our immoral support at the breakfast table we will invite ourselves in. More sensibly if you want to come and stay with one of us, just exit out of the window."
Brede laughed, "I did not realise the photographs of me with the Malachite twins were that hot. Seriously, you are overreacting."
His uncle said, "Brede, you did not tell me that you had embraced your Faunus teammate. You know how your mother is going to react to one of her son's being accused of what she thinks of bestiality."
"But Velvet did not take any pictures of us two together."
"No, but someone did, and they are in the Remnant Enquirer."
Brede's heart sank. "Has anyone spoken to Anne?"
"Corkran is trying to contact her and Lydia in Vale. He is also trying to arrange a secure CCT link to Vale using the military lines so the four of you can decide how you want to react to this."
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Yang was doing her best to restrain herself from overly teasing Weiss about the photographs. None of the family quite knew what to say. Willow had focused on the Salutations photographs. Jacques had actually said he was pleased by Weiss's look of determination to join in the action and that if was the least flattering photograph the Enquirer could find then she should be proud.
Yang knew that Weiss was conscious that her teammates had divided her personality into two basic components. Miss Schnee was arrogant, proud, and entitled and fumed if things did not go her way. Weiss was a more reasonable person who wanted to be the best she could be and be a teammate. If you gave her a little time, the team knew that Weiss would eventually win the battle. Still the face in the photograph was classic Miss Schnee.
Most of the photos in the Remnant Enquirer seemed fine to her. The one of Ruby cleaning Crescent Rose was rather sweet and seeing Nora being comforted by Ren made her want to hug both of them. She was amused by the one with the prisoner. Sky and Jaune looked rather bemused and seemed puzzled about what to do next. Cardin was sensibly restraining the guy while she was looking forward to teasing Dove about what on remnant he looked like he was doing. She recalled that a few minutes later the prisoner had been tied up unable to move, but otherwise unharmed. Well at least not any more harmed than being flattened by four extremely fit and in some cases chunky unarmed trainee hunters.
It was odd seeing Coco not being cool for a second. The girl was infuriatingly self-confident and seeing her clasping Yatsuhashi to her in an unguarded manner was odd.
The photographs of the Atlas security team trying to surround Brede and Anne to protect them from dead terrorists made the security guys look ridiculous. She then spotted that this was the photograph which the Schnee family was focused on.
Jacques seemed to find it hilarious. Willow looked concerned and Weiss was frowning.
Yang said, "What I am missing, Weiss?"
Willow said, "Tomorrow evening we are having a ball entitled Stronger Together promoting human/Faunus unity. Today one of Atlas's leading families is likely to make a fool of itself over a photograph of a son hugging a Faunus."
"But Anne is a teammate of his. It's no worse than Coco and Yatsuhashi. Let's face it Weiss and Blake look hotter together."
Whitley sniggered at the last comment.
Weiss snorted, "Yang, you must recall the row about Brede and Lydia being photographed staring into each other's eyes. She at least was the right species for the Campions and has wealthy relatives. Goodness knows what the effect of a picture of Brede hugging a Faunus who is poor and has no known family is going to be."
Jacques stopped laughing and said, "Willow, dear, perhaps you could speak to Ironwood. If he reminds that old fool Campion about the ownership of the Remnant Enquirer there may be a chance of diverting his anger to John Marigold. Perhaps suggest that having his newspapers run a profile of May Marigold and the rest of the Happy Huntresses would be a more satisfying revenge than trying to start a second Faunus War. If he is still angry then I am certain that they can always have a section on the wit and wisdom of Henry Marigold."
He then paused, "For the avoidance of doubt, everyone is going to say and act as though the picture of Weiss and Blake Belladonna is something to be proud of. Two people comforting each other after an attack which could have resulted in people they knew being killed is a good thing. It also shows that the SDC and the Schnee family take Stronger Together seriously."
Whitley asked, "Weiss, why were you crying? All of your friends were still alive."
Weiss said, "I had seen some of the dead White Fang attackers. One of them had a scar which made it clear why he had joined the White Fang. I do not want to talk about it."
Weiss looked at Jacques who nodded back and said "Whitley, leave it."
Yang somehow managed to engage brain before asking Weiss if she was talking about the one with the branded eye. Hey, she might get the hang of tact and diplomacy yet.
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Velvet sat with the rest of her team, Team JNPR, Yang, Weiss, and Team Vibes trying to come to terms with the message they had received from Leslie.
The excuse for the meeting had been a brunch to celebrate the fashion show yesterday. It had got rave overnight reviews and in particular Sun and Emerald were overnight sensations. His friendliness and her toughness had had somehow hit a spot people did not know they had. Coco had said that she was glad for an excuse to be away from her mother who was oozing smugness. It had seemed like a good excuse to add a discussion about the Salutations and Remnant Enquirer pictures.
Leslie had arrived wearing an Atlas officer's uniform. He explained that the cap hid the ears nicely and that people tended to not look too hard at Atlas officers. Velvet caught Mercury double taking. The two had spent time together last night and clearly his commission was not something Leslie had mentioned.
Corkran had drawled at them, "Thank you for your support. It is appreciated by Team Lilac, but we will sort it out for ourselves. Lydia will be giving a press conference this evening in Vale. All we ask of you is that you follow her lead."
Coco had responded, "Hey, your call, but do you want to run the substance past us."
He had smiled and said, "We are still finalising the details. The one thing which is almost set in stone is that she will be emphasising that we are all first- and second-year students at the end of our first and fourth term. We are trained to kill Grimm and to spar with other hunters. We also are taught to protect both humans and Faunus without fear or favour. It is not until out third year that we are taught to fight bandits. The fact that at the end of the fight most of you comforted each other was what you would expect as you all expected the fight was over and we are trained to take care of each other."
He paused, "Me and Lydia have different histories. I fought with the Atlas Military in Vacuo and my training was that once you had killed the initial attackers at least some of you made certain you were ready to deal with the next lot. I had also killed both humans and other Faunus before. Lydia's brother saved hundreds of lives at Mountain Glenn by fighting after his teammates had died and the man in command had called on him to withdraw. Instead, he stayed where he was to make certain another four more trains could leave for Vale. The man never recovered from his wounds but to his final day insisted he had made the right call. The two of us checked out the cloak room, retrieved the weapons of our classmates, cared for the dying, gave first aid to the still living and made certain that the site was secure. Neither of us was traumatised. Lydia had kept her weapon and always had three feet between her and her attackers. An umbrella which doubles as a sword is remarkably good at protecting your clothes from the blood caused by the sword stick part of it."
He paused, "I was in a dark suit which hid the blood stains. Anne was in a light-coloured dress which showed the bloodstains. Besides which being a Faunus killing other Faunus is traumatic and frankly the downstairs people were criminals rather than warriors."
Velvet wondered if she imagined Emerald hiding a response to that.
Coco said, "Presumably you are telling us this so we can say why you and Lydia dealt with things differently than Brede and Anne. Fine, I would have preferred a more active role but cannot deny that your team has the right to make the call."
Corkran smiled back, "I can assure you that this is a team call. There are also reasons why Lydia is the best person to be the public face. After all her father is the senior partner of the most profitable and arguably the best law firm in Vale and her great aunts are the two richest women in Vale."
Weiss said "I accept you have a plan, but how long before Lydia speaks to the press. Some of us cannot avoid the public eye indefinitely."
He grinned, "OK, point out many of you were hugging each other afterwards. Say that you have not spoken to Brede or Anne about it. Simply ask your questioner that if you saw your designated partner who you knew was unarmed at the start of a fight, was covered in blood at the end of it and had sunk to the floor, what would you do? Would you simply assume that they were exhausted after having overdrawn their semblance or would you worry that they were wounded and dying?"
Coco said, "I can go with that. After all, I groped Yatsuhashi for comfort and no one thinks we me and him are an item."
Yang looked like she was ready to say something, but Weiss had clearly pre-emptively kicked her ankle.
The Lynx Faunus then grinned and said, "By the way, Cardin and Dove need support as well. The fact that we may have more problems with the one they tried to keep alive for questioning is odd, but that photograph will mot go down well with Faunus. Anne has agreed to be supportive, but we need a few more people ready to say that they used proportionate force."
Jaune said, "I can testify that we were a bit puzzled after we had captured him as to how we could restrain him. Perhaps it was my fault, but I remembered from childhood that a belt could be an effective way of immobilising someone."
Sun said, "I can testify that the psycho was fully conscious and still had his trousers on when me and Blake saw him."
Velvet swore to herself and then volunteered, "I have some extra photographs which may be helpful."
Yang then said, "What happened to the bozo anyway?"
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In the Grimmlands, Salem decided that now was the time to let people destroy themselves. She accepted that Arthur's judgement calls on the photographs he had passed on to the Remnant Enquirer was a reasonable one. His view that the Atlas publishers would be so delighted at spoiling Salutations scoop, that they would only think about the Atlas connotations had been borne out.
He had been annoyed that the Marigolds had worked out the origins of the photographs and had bribed the Vale authorities for a few additional ones. Still, she did not feel that the fact that some revelations were coming earlier than expected was necessarily a disaster.
She had provisionally agreed to Arthur arranging for a whistle blower to send evidence to the Campions, Jacques Schnee, and Ironwood that the Marigolds were responsible for leaking the photographs to the publication of which they were a major shareholder. She had also agreed to him arranging for a warning to be received by Henry Marigold that this was going to happen, and that Jacques would be the whistle blower. She accepted Arthur's call that the young man would panic and do something foolish.
While it would end up strengthening Ironwood's position in Atlas, this was probably a good thing. She had known many Ironwoods throughout the years, and they always overplayed their hands once they had supreme power.
She was more worried about Hazel's concerns in Mistral. The fact that Raven Branwen had delivered the dust ahead of schedule suggested that she was more competent than Salem had given her credit for.
Maybe she had a mistake by tolerating the existence of someone who knew as much as Raven did. Still for the last eighteen years she had been de-stabilising Mistral without even asking for a subsidy. It made sense that she had a maiden working for her and would explain why the assassins had stopped taking contracts for trying to kill her. She still wondered how dreadful things were in Mistral that a dying maiden had chosen a sidekick of a criminal as being the next holder of the powers. Perhaps
She had ordered Hazel not to tell Cinder of his suspicions. She wanted Cinder focused on Vale and finishing off the job there and in particular capturing the relic. Perhaps once Cinder had six months experience of being a full maiden she would change her mind. Currently she would not bet on Cinder defeating a maiden backed up by Raven Branwen and would prefer Cinder to go after Winter Schnee next when Fria finally died.
So much was going well that it was annoying having a powerful silver eyed huntress and a competent independent player being around just when she had a real chance of forcing the gods to come back and admit that they must end all life on Remnant and especially hers.
The Lindy hop is a dance which makes it quite clear that our grandparents and great grandparents knew that dance was a vertical expression of a horizontal emotion. While the fact that the non-white dancers are dressed as servants and farm hands in the two dance scenes in Hellzappopin' and Day at the Races does not take away from the fact that the dance scenes in those two films show exceptionally good dancers doing their best work. A similar thing for the Nicholas brothers and Lena Horne who often were restricted to one reel tour de forces which could be cut out when playing in Dixie. The Nicholas brothers in particular often show up in the compilation videos of dancing.
I also think that having their classmates struggling with how they should support two classmates in the public eye shows that with the best intentions it is not clear what is the right thing to do.
For the avoidance of doubt, Klein referring to Miss Weiss and Miss Yang is from his perspective a sign of respect rather than being condescending. There would be other characters for whom it would not be.
The Marigold/Campion rift goes back to the events of Winter in Vacuo and in particular the end of chapter 17. That almost tutbocharged the Marigold dislike of the Schnee family.