Glynda Goodwitch was drinking Oobleck levels of caffeine. She had hoped to catch up on her sleep deficit on the flight to Atlas, but two hours into the flight she was woken by the Atlas NCO in charge of looking after the Beacon passengers. He told her that both General Ironwood and Professor Ozpin wanted to talk to her urgently. Apparently, Ozpin had said that she should talk to James first, but that later she would need to speak to Agnes Winchester.

Fortunately, the military airship had a command communications centre as well the flight deck communications facility. James had semi-apologised for dumping her in it but said that he too had many things on his plate to deal with anything other than the most pressing of the Atlas implications of this morning's photographs.

He would remind the Marigold family that they were still on probation for their actions in Vacuo and that if he found out that any member of the family had been involved in the editorial choices he would consider them in breach of the terms. As far he was concerned the Campions could be left to their own devices. The Ambassador and the sister were reminding the idiot members of the family that it was never a good idea to air family arguments in the press and that they should sort out the arguments behind closed doors. The difficult point was that the prisoner was now dead, killed in a n explosion on board the airship taking him to Atlas. He could not be produced to show that he had suffered no lasting damage from the attentions of the students. Neither had the Atlas military announced that someone had blown up a military bullhead.

James said that his Vale and Mistral experts were actually more worried about the implications in those jurisdictions. He did not need to add that Mistral was the least of his concerns. If what the White Fang envoy had suggested to her and Winter was true, them any ructions there would be rapidly superseded by a more fundamental crisis. If it was not, then it was all part of the soap opera which was Mistral politics. Besides which ever since it had become clear that Team LLAC was bound for the Vytal festival, she had known that Anne's story would come out.

He then sent her the pictures which were the source of controversy. Glynda disliked both Salutations and the Remnant Enquirer anyway. She found the one facile and the other mostly reprehensible. She hated even more having to read them as part of the job since Coco Adel had become a student and especially now that Weiss, Pyrrha and Brede had joined them. She knew what Brede had been up to with the Salutations picture and even approved once she was reassured that the Malachite twins had been fully briefed.

The Enquirer ones were worse although even she could not avoid a smile at one of them. The image of Lydia clearly ordering the males around her to check out the cloak room for casualties and to collect weapons clearly showed whose great niece she was. It also suggested that the Remnant Enquirer believed its readership did not like strong women.

The first photo which concerned her was Cardin, Dove, Sky and Jaune restraining the surviving White Fang member. As far as she was concerned, the fact that he had been alive at the end was a credit to the four. She, Oobleck, Coco and Nora had between them made even identifying the Faunus who had fought them a challenging task and taking prisoners had not been an option. Still understandably people did differentiate between what was done during a fight and what happened to prisoners.

She then realised that the Remnant Enquirer pictures were almost certainly taken from the CCTV footage in Junior's Club Mistralian. She had stared at the footage long enough and so recognised the angles. If so, they were first a lot clearer than the originals and second it should be possible to identify the original still images. If it was possible to show that the photograph came from the period where the prisoner had not yet decided that he had been captured then that would help with the neutrals or the fair-minded opponents.

Her bigger concern was the use which Ronald Winchester and his party would make of the photograph. To have his son and the son of his best friend subduing a violent terrorist was a propaganda coup for them and she could see him welcoming any calls of outrage from Faunus rights organisations as it would allow him to blow more dog whistles. At least she had Cardin with her, and Dove and Sky were sleeping in the dorm at Beacon.

She sighed to herself and then decided that she needed to speak to Ozpin. While it suited her to be busy and she understood that the time he had lived made it hard for him to take an interest in the detail of running the academy or in the nitty gritty of political manoeuvring. He claimed that she better at it than him and so tended to leave it to her with a few suggestions. It was challenging work which if she did well, she would get little credit for.

On the other hand, the man was good at pastoral work. He cared for the students and was excellent at nudging them along the way to working out their own answers. Watching him with Ruby this week had confirmed her belief in the man's fundamental humanity. Sixteen going on seventeen was too early in life to be told that there was more truth in fairy stories than anyone was happy to acknowledge. Worse, that the older and Grimmer versions were closest to the truth.

Luckily, the young girl's essential optimism had mostly protected her from the shock and her sense of duty to protect the world encouraged her to knuckle down. The emphasis was on mostly and perhaps it did not help that Taiyang had insisted on keeping close. The man was loving, but too clearly was trying to hide the fact that he was remembering Summer and feared that Ruby would be targeted. Ozpin had called in Qrow of all people to improve morale and if it had not been for the fear of the effect of Qrow's semblance on the flight and the fact that he was looking for Roman Torchwick would have tried to persuade Taiyang that Qrow was the right choice.

She and Ozpin had agreed that sending her and her team on the Grimm hunt next week was the right thing to do. First, Team CFVY and Professor Port would be there and Taiyang had insisted on either Qrow or himself being added to the group. Second, the busier and more normal a life she could lead the better. Third, there was a limit to what she and Ozpin could teach her about silver eyes in theory.

That latter point was why James's sudden production of a silver eyed veteran huntress, albeit one who had been blinded, had made it impossible to resist the request that Ruby go to the ball. The woman had apparently lasted as an active huntress for over a dozen years despite being self-trained.

Before speaking to Ozpin, she called James as there was something which Atlas was better equipped to deal with. "Ironwood speaking. What can I do for you Professor Goodwitch?"

"I think I know where the photos come from. Could you get Polendina and Scarlatina to get their best people on to checking the photographs against the surveillance footage from the nightclub. If I am right, the stills have been cleaned up from the originals to make them suitable for publication. If we are really lucky they may have failed to resist the temptation to touch them up as well."

"Excellent suggestion, Glynda. I will do so immediately."

She then called Ozpin. The man was in his office, sitting on his ridiculous chair and was sipping from his mug. "Ah, Glynda. I would be grateful if you could use your influence to help prevent anyone else responding intemperately to a few photographs in a scandal rag until this evening."

Glynda noted the choice of words. "What's happened so far?"

"The W the Unknown site has both praised Team Cardinal for showing the White Fang their proper place and accused the Vale PD of having released the prisoner. The Vale PD has announced that the prisoner was not injured beyond a few bruises when they collected him from the nightclub and when they handed him over to the Atlas authorities. Clearly someone did not trust James's notion of "enhanced interrogation techniques" as they took photographs of him in his underwear before handing him over."

Ozpin could not resist a chuckle at this. There were good reasons why him and Ironwood spent a limited time in each other's company. They respected each other, but James found Ozpin a little too detached and Ozpin thought that James suffered from tunnel vision and a belief that the answer to every problem was a hammer. Amongst her more important tasks was mediating between them and finding the common ground to the extent it existed.

She next put in a call to Junior Xiong. The man had answered the call with a pre-emptive, "Professor Goodwitch, I have had no dealings with the Remnant Enquirer, either direct or indirect. Even if I had I would not have supplied photographs of Mr Campion hugging his teammate. It would have risked displeasing Mel and Mil's mother." Glynda avoided nodding but took his point.

He went on to say that as the Vale PD had taken copies of the security camera footage, his own belief was that they were the likely source of the leak. He hinted without directly confirming that he had in the past found some members of the force useful sources of information.

She later passed on to him a suggestion from the Atlas legal team that he should threaten to take legal proceedings against the Remnant Enquirer for breach of copyright and level a complaint with the Atlas authorities that the Remnant Enquirer was in receipt of stolen property. The Atlas team had offered to deal with the initial work pro bono. Glynda was not entirely convinced by this strategy as it seemed to risk inflaming the story by making it one about freedom of the press, but perhaps they were focussing the minds of the Marigold family

Glynda would wait until she arrived in Atlas before suggesting to James that the leak may have been in Atlas. There was a risk that the transmissions could be listened to by Watts either during transmission or later. While the use of codewords might prevent an immediate bringing of matters to his attention, she expected that any recordings of her speaking with Ozpin and the General would be listened to, and the real meaning easily worked out.

She checked that she was looking fully awake and went out to disturb Cardin's slumbers. She as ever reminded herself that he was not his father and had worked hard last term to rehabilitate his team.

She was still conscious that the photograph with the most potential for damage was one which the editor had probably thought comparatively tame. It was entitled Brede Campion and Harem. The problem was it had all four of the girls who had broken out of the juvenile detention centre together.

Previously history had been rewritten in Mistral to portray the Malachite twins as wrongly imprisoned girls who took advantage of the situation to escape from custody. The violence had initially been blamed on the two other girls. After the truth about Anne (Tracey as was) became known a further revamping of the truth to blame it on the fourth girl was undertaken.

In reality the whole incident was swept under the carpet. The injured officers received money by way of "donations from the public" which almost certainly were directed by Little Miss Malachite, although actually funded by her opponents. Still a picture showing all four girls being friends was risky. Both Anne and the smaller girl looked superficially very different from how they had four years ago. Anne had had a growth spurt and a change in persona, but the jaw line was the same. The small girl was now stylish in a way which orange jumpsuits could never allow but was still small.

Still, someone out there was bound to make the connection even if they did not actually believe it. The story had made a stir at the time and had shown the Mistral press at its most poisonous and had stuck a nerve. Now the human supremacists had been badly set back by the events at Kulsa. Reviving the old story of the murderous Faunus girl would press buttons and remind their supporters of the reasons why they did not want to live next door to a Faunus.

A clever person could have their cake and eat it. Any official announcement now that Anne was innocent would be disbelieved by many and would eventually bring two, admittedly only mid-ranking, members of the new coalition into the firing line as being related to an "animal fracker."

/-/

Cardin composed himself as he prepared to disembark at Atlas. The military airship, which was conveying them allowed him, Russel, Ruby and Taiyang to view the full majesty of Atlas without obstructing the pilot. The towering skyscrapers in the north of the city, the green parks and country estates to the east, the blocks of flats in the west, the shopping and professional classes district to the south and the overwhelming impact of the military base and Hunter Academy in the exact centre. It was also noticeable that there were military fighters in the air patrolling the city, although it mystified Cardin that they bothered. It was not as though any other kingdom had the airpower to invade Atlas in a surprise attack. Perhaps a few large Nevermore could cause problems, but it was as not though there were flying blue whale Grimm to contend with in real life.

Ruby asked the NCO who was keeping an eye on them. "Doesn't Atlas block out the sun for Mantle?"

"To a certain extent, yes. It also protects from the worse of the snow and the rain. Swings and roundabouts, miss."

Russel commented, "The buildings in Mantle look old and grey compared to Atlas."

The NCO muttered that "It is hard to redevelop in mantle without destroying residential buildings. The inhabitants prefer to renovate rather than demolish, sir."

Taiyang may have meant to ease the tension by saying, "Let's just admire the view. It's not as though the Lower East side of Vale is the same as Mauvefair." Still, Cardin could not believe that he was not the only one there who did not think to himself that at least you could walk from the one to the other in Vale.

While he disagreed with his father on the fundamentals, dad had identified a constituency who had been left behind and, in the absence of anyone else paying them attention, were happy to believe that he wanted to improve their lot. Cardin liked to believe that they deserved better than his father, but after finally starting to listen to Dr Oobleck in the final month of term was wondering whether anyone could genuinely promise them a better future as opposed to offering someone else to blame for their situation.

Anyway, he needed a bit of relaxation before leaving the plane. This was not what he had expected when he had agreed yesterday morning to join the Stronger Together ball with Russel. First, it did get him away from dad before he was forced to be brutally honest with him. His father wanted him and Dove on the campaign trail with him and he did not want either of them to do it. He had sought excuses from two sources to say no and three days away gave time for at least one of them to come in and save him having to directly confront his father. Second, he saw the argument for having a representative of the old Vale aristocracy present for the ball together with a member of a Vacuoan tribe. Third, he had never been to Atlas before. Fourth, he could see no reason for him and Russel not attending. He knew that Salutations would be published, but it would be Brede and the heroes of Kulsa who would get all the attention. Fifth, Dove and Sky seemed honestly not to mind that they were not attending. Both claimed to want to spend more time experimenting with their newly identified semblances. Sky had said "Too many people remember me and Dove and Velvet's ear. Besides which only members of Team Lilac are attending and both of them have strong Atlas connections."

Fortunately, his great-aunts had seen the Remnant Enquirer before his father and Dove's father. Even luckier, Dove and Sky had spent the night at Beacon. He and Russel had left on a ludicrously early morning flight from Beacon and the team had decided that the best plan was to have a delicious meal cooked by the incomparable Anatole at Great-Aunt Dahlia's Brownstone mansion and then all left for Beacon and a night in the dorm. This involved more drinking before he and Russel joined the flight with a view to sleeping on the flight north. One advantage of aura was that mitigated hangovers as well as wounds.

It was still only 8 am when he and Russel were woken up by Goodwitch who explained what was happening.

The problem with being on a flight with Glynda Goodwitch was that it was necessary to negotiate time alone on the communication channels. It also did not help that he was not certain that Goodwitch liked him or his team. She would do her duty, but they had made too many of their mistakes more or less in front of her.

The point was that Sky and Dove were his teammates and they needed him to do his best for them. If the truth about Anne came out than the secrets Sky wanted to hide would also come out. He also needed to speak to Dove without Goodwitch being behind him, to ensure that Dove believed what he said. His concern was that unless they spoke alone, Dove would be defiant rather than measured in his defence of himself. He also did not know whether Goodwitch knew about Sky's connection to Anne's story and did not want to be the cause of her finding out. It might affect her view of Sky.

Oddly, Ruby's father had been helpful and had persuaded Glynda to allow Cardin access to the communications array by himself. "GG, the man wants to look after his team. He is acting like Summer would have. No matter that the rest of us were a bunch of jerks she looked after us. She also said things to us behind the dorm doors which she would not have said in front of the faculty, and which made even Raven feel guilty. Trust the man to do the best for his team and for Beacon."

Glynda had looked at Taiyang, taken a deep breath and then stared at Cardin. Finally, she said, "Fine, Mr Winchester work out what you need to say to your team and to your relatives. Taiyang has a point. I would say that whatever the faults of your team, none of them are in the league of him, Qrow and Raven in terms of rule testing. I also cannot fault your sense of duty."

The problem was that with transmission delays and the number of messages coming in for Glynda, his time for broadcasting was limited. Actually, perhaps that had not been all bad. Telling Dove to allow other people to defend his actions and simply say that he had done what he thought was best at the time was probably right. There were things which third parties could say which he and Dove should not. Dove took the point that becoming the pin-up of a separatist political party would both be bad for the team's reputation at Beacon and that Cardin genuinely believed that it was the wrong thing anyway.

Great-Aunt Agnes had been happy to be persuaded to tell him that her view was that trainee and active hunters should, like soldiers, not be involved in partisan party politics. This would allow him a fig leaf in persuading his father that he was not being rejected by his son, but that Cardin was simply keeping ahead in the race for the inheritance. He had prepared the way for this by telling his father about the Great-Aunt's agreement to update Lydia's weapons and general approval of her.

He spoke with Sky who gave him permission to speak to Goodwitch. The main problem with Leslie being out of Vale was that there was no one to rein in Lydia. She was all about protecting Anne (or whatever her original name was) and because she did not blame Sky for the actions of his uncle did not see why anyone else would. His cousin dealt with difficult issues by deciding what was the right thing to do, doing it and ignoring the complications.

Also, Team LLAC had known this moment would come for at least a month and in some ways just wanted to get it out of the way. Sky had only been able to talk to him about it just over a week ago and while intellectually knew it would come out in public had not expected it to be an issue until the Vytal festival had started.

Goodwitch was admired by most of the female students and Lydia was among them. She agreed to help persuade Lydia to delay holding the press conference pre-emptively revealing Anne's past at least until after Sky and the Malachite twins had spoken to their families in Mistral. He had no idea what the twins had to do with it, but Lydia was persuaded by it. She also got Lydia to realise that if she and Anne did break the story they should make it clear that they accepted that Sky's uncle had acted alone and that his family knew nothing about it.

Russel, as ever, had been supportive and also reminded him that there was a limit to what he could hope to achieve. Ruby had been sympathetic, but there was a sense that the weight of Remnant was on her. She spent most of the flight sleeping and when she awoke spent the time hugging and cooing to her dog and weapon. There were signs of her underlying cheerfulness still being present.

Goodwitch had reassured Ruby shortly before landing that she had been insistent with Ironwood that her time in front of the cameras would be limited, that she would be given a script which she could either follow or ignore, and that she would not be expected to answer questions. It had been weird seeing Goodwitch being, if not exactly maternal, the cool and worldly-wise aunt.

/-/

Hazel had a growing sense that something was happening out there which he and the rest of Salem's team had failed to properly appreciate.

This morning he and Cinder had received briefings from the Vale operatives. First Adam had had a solo debriefing. He knew more about the proposed operation than the others as he was the most bloodthirsty of them. Later he had been joined by Roman and Perry. Finally, Watts' sidekick had been interviewed about the W the Unknown campaign.

Salem, although watching and listening to the seer transmission, was not seen by Adam, Perry and Roman. The fewer people who saw her the better as the Grimm colouring could not reliably be passed off as a fashion choice.

The first intimation that something was up came from Adam Taurus. The man announced that he was expecting to hear news from Mistral later today following the White Fang council meeting, but that if he did become the leader of the White Fang the Vale operation would still be his main priority.

It was not unexpected that his faction was seeking to take over the White Fang, but the fact that the meeting was being held in Kuroyuri rather than the old temple which was used as the White Fang's headquarters had puzzled him. Perhaps it reduced the risk of a firefight, but it was one of the Branwen strongholds.

The first real inkling that something unexpected might be happening when Arthur Watts returned after the mid-afternoon coffee break to show them an extract from the raw footage which Lisa Lavender had sent to her employers. What had drawn his attention was that two extracts had been sent with the message that they be sent to Ozpin an hour before transmission and Ironwood thirty minutes later.

The extracts were clearly designed to send a message that no one should frack with the Raven. The line combined a storm and lightning appearing out of nowhere accompanied by a messianic declaration that "The Branwen Tribe is supported by the power of warrior maidens" was clearly a statement that Raven controlled the Spring Maiden. The second one which showed her opening a portal and moving herself, her bodyguard and the Vale TV team hundreds of miles also sent a message that if you went for her, you had to kill her in the first assault. If not, she would escape..

Salem rested her chin on her upturned hands. "The black bird is squawking after eighteen years of silence. She has revealed her powers. But why?"

Cinder with her own tunnel vision in play asked Watts to replay the extract in slow motion and then paused it when Raven moved her head shortly before the lightning.

Arthur Watts more plausibly said, "In case she was blamed for Kulsa, she is making it clear that taking punitive action her would be expensive and likely unsuccessful."

Tyrian looked as though he was up for the challenge of confronting the woman.

Hazel waited a few seconds and said, "Arthur, I agree that is the message she is sending, but I do not think that you have the right motive. Neither Vale nor Atlas was showing any signs of wanting to be some involved in Mistral internal affairs and Kulsa is being blamed on the Raddock girl. At most, the new Mistralian government was going to make noises that no further towns would be allowed to fall, but without making it clear how they would achieve it."

Salem nodded slowly. "I agree with Hazel. I know the type of woman from the past. She prefers to pass under the radar and is happy to enjoy the reality of power without having all the trappings. She is up to something."

She turned her head and looked at Cinder. "Your prime target must continue to be that husk of a girl who Ozma has hidden away. Until you have the full powers of a maiden you must not risk challenging a combination of the Spring Maiden and Raven Branwen until you are nearly certain that you can claim the maiden powers before Raven spirits her away. You and your team rightly avoided fighting her drunken brother when he was by himself. Raven Branwen is more dangerous than he is."

Arthur Watts had taken advantage of Salem addressing Cinder to fast forward the recording. He had now paused it, "Hazel, do you recognise her destination? You spend more time with her than the rest of us."

Hazel half-smiled to himself. Vintage Watts. He simultaneously showed himself recognising where the expertise lay while highlighting that if anyone should have spotted something happening it was Hazel. Still the question was a good one.

"It is Kuroyuri. Can Raven Branwen accompanied by a Vale TV crew be planning to crash the White Fang meeting?"

Salem said, "She would not have bothered with showing her strengths if she was merely going to either massacre the whole lot or eliminate a faction. Also, she has carefully avoided offending me on purpose since her teammate died. Always she has destabilised Mistral while growing her own power and protecting the White Fang fitted in with that."

Watts scroll beeped at him. He checked it and said, "My assistant in Vale has passed on a message that the Vale TV company is saying that they will be broadcasting live from Kuroyuri at six this evening with what is believed to be a major announcement by the leadership of the White Fang concerning a change in strategy."

Cinder said, "Hazel, why did you not spot this?"

Salem replied, "Let us see what is being broadcast first. It may be that she is simply sending a message to Atlas that she is quite capable of preventing the new White Fang leadership from peddling any Faunus supremacist movement in her backyard without any assistance from them. Besides which I ordered all of you to leave the rest of the White Fang alone after we recruited Adam Taurus."

Hazel thought, but decided to delay saying, that even though Raven had plausible deniability in saying that any impact on Salem's plans would be unintentional, she had made certain that the deliveries of dust had been completed and payment made before she made whatever the announcement tonight would be. He also thought that she would prefer dealing with Sienna Khan who was a known quantity rather than Adam Taurus.

Salem was thinking things through herself. "Hazel, I think Lionheart may need to have his mind focused. You are best at putting things to him so that he can persuade himself that doing what we want him to do will best serve the ends he wants to achieve as well as increasing his chances of survival. In particular, I want him to report anything he is told by Beacon or Atlas without delay."

She paused, "Arthur, muddy the waters in Atlas as you suggested earlier today. Activate your proxy whistle-blower. Do not risk revealing our capabilities to disrupt their systems but do leak the more interesting of the Remnant Enquirer's sources and the texts showing that the journalists believed that a human comforting a Faunus colleague is still considered shameful in Atlas and that the photographs of the boys arresting the Faunus were touched up to make them look more dominant than they were. Let's overshadow their Stronger Together ball with a political and social scandal."

She then looked at Cinder. "Whatever is happening in Mistral, go to Vale and help Adam Taurus deal with any dissenters."