Hey there! Commission time now. I know I haven't updated much lately (past month at least) but I was submerged by work (that since it was for my father, I didn't even get paid) and my stress levels had risen above what I'm comfortable with. Since it was writing work, I didn't feel like writing ten hours per day between work and fanfictions, so I put everything on hold (that, I barely managed 800 words in three weeks when I tried). Right now I'm sick (not Covid, thankfully, but still sick), and the next story to be updated (Watching Future Mistakes) will probably take a while since I'm currently at 1,735 words with a goal of at least 8,000 words.

This commission is for Ultrahero74! The reactions are mine, but the story is property of Ultrahero74. Cheers!

If they thought they would wait very little before the next projecting session began, then they would be disappointed.

"Guys!" Ruby's voice got everyone's attention, tearing them from their thoughts of awe and conspiracy (teens and adults, respectively). The girl in red and black was standing next to the projector in the middle, one fitted into a column of blue and dark green materials. She pointed her finger toward the barely-visible display. "There's something written on it."

"What is it?" Yang asked, walking up to her alongside Team RWBY. With Jaune and Pyrrha having recovered, JNPR also joined them. "What does it say?"

"They look like numbers," replied her younger sister, squinting to see through the semi-opaque gems surrounding the projector. "Twenty-eight… colon… forty-seven. No, forty-six. No, wait, it's ticking down!"

"A bomb?!" Blake exclaimed, cat ears trying to flatten against her head.

Everyone scooted away from the object. Everyone but Weiss.

"Guys, of course it's not a bomb, it's probably just recharging," sighed the heiress, shaking her head. She pointed at the semi-hidden projector. "Looks like we're going to have to wait thirty minutes before the next projection starts."

"Ms Schnee, as much as I'd like to agree that having a bomb fitted inside a projector is pointless, I suggest you step away from it nonetheless," Goodwitch spoke up, her strict tone telling her that the suggestion was an order in all but name.

"Of course, Professor." Weiss nodded and walked back to her team. 'I wouldn't have stood there for thirty minutes anyway'

"But why would it be thirty minutes?" Pyrrha wondered out loud. "The first time it was basically instantaneous, the second it took a few minutes, same as the third. The fourth took fifteen minutes, and now thirty. Is the time increasing?"

"Nope, I just needed some time for introductions."

With a yelp, everyone turned around to see Khor, standing there with a sheepish look on his face. By his side there was a short (like, super short) girl with short white hair and a pair of goggles on, covering her eyes. She also had fox ears peeking out of her hair and a bushy tail that could be seen behind her, partially hidden by a long white lab coat that made her look like a mad scientist, especially when paired with the goggles. She lazily waved. "Hiya. Nice to meet most of you."

'Most?' everyone thought.

"Sorry for popping in so suddenly, but I wanted to leave her with you since she's gonna be important later," Khor explained quickly, earning himself an even more confused look from the Viewers. The girl just stared at them as if she already knew what was going on. "Basically, you're gonna see her in the upcoming projecting session, so I wanted to introduce her before the session started. I don't like to interrupt a session mid-way just because a new person popped up."

"So you're saying she's gonna appear as well?" Winter questioned, looking over the Faunus scientist. "Is she going to meet Mr Taro?" She narrowed her eyes. "She looks familiar…"

"Of course you'd say that. Well, this is Mary." Khor glanced at her. "Full name Mary Sue Aarons, but you can just call her by first name." Then he smirked at Winter. "She's familiar indeed. She's the one who kicked Ironwood in the balls and bitch-slapped you."

"Oh no, not her," Ironwood groaned, face-palming. 'I can't even arrest her since I went as James Ironwood when I met her, not as a military officer.'

"Why did you bring her here?!" Winter demanded to know, indignant. "She will cause nothing but trouble!"

"What?!" everyone else shouted, incredulous.

"Well, why don't we ask Mary?" Khor suggested with a sly grin. "No offence, but I believe she'd have a bigger impact on people here. Mary, if you would, why don't you explain what happened that time?"

"Sure thing, Horns. Well, Horn and a Half, really." Khor grumbled, rubbing the stump of the horn Amber had broken earlier. Mary paid him no heed and turned to the audience with a grin of her own. "So anyway, it's a funny story. A long time ago-"

"It was last year," Winter corrected frostily.

"I didn't think you already reached the age where a year isn't long, but okay~" Mary was delighted to see Winter's glare narrow even further. "As I was saying, last year, Mr Cyborg Ass over there tried to recruit me into the Atlas Military Science Division. I'll admit, the pay was good – everything else was not."

'Cyborg Ass?' Nora repeated in a mumble. 'Does she mean that literally?'

"It was an incredible opportunity for you. Atlas could've benefited from your Semblance's power and your life would've become much better," Ironwood replied stiffly, straightening up a little to look even more imposing. He already towered over her while hunched down, straight up he made her look like a child. "You would've had a yearly salary of several million Lien, the privilege of being part of one of the most scientifically and technologically advanced organisations in the entire planet, and you would've been the first Faunus to reach that high in Atlas's hierarchy."

"Wow, I totally misjudged you," Mary said, eyes wide. Then she deadpanned and her tone turned sarcastic. "Not. You say privilege, I say hell. A Faunus in Atlas's Science Division? Yeah, sure. Money doesn't have a race but everyone knows that Atlas's discrimination is up there with its arrogance – both aren't lacking. It's obvious you would simply use me and take the credit yourself – if not you, then some other scientist. And they'd surely believe them over a 'dirty Faunus'." Mary rolled her eyes and made a noise of disgust. "You don't discriminate simply because as long as they keep the weapons coming, you're happy. Odd fetish but I don't kink-shame people. Too bad most people in Atlas think that, in a world of superpowers and soulless monsters, having a tail or ears is something horrible."

"Oh, and let's not forget the fact that I don't want to work on machines of mass destructions that Atlas would use against people the moment the Council decided to become the rulers of the world – it's not like it would be the first time anyway." Mary scratched one of her fox ears while she talked, observing everyone's reaction. She seemed please to notice that at least the students were pretty much speechless. "And the fact I'd be high in the hierarchy? Yeah, sure. They'll just use me as a way of 'proving' that Atlas has nothing against Faunus. A disclaimer that will then be discarded as soon as the attention of the public is elsewhere."

"She sure seems to have a hate boner for Atlas, huh?" Qrow commented, making Amber and Taiyang both nod, impressed by the venom in her voice. "But still I want to know why you kicked him in the balls. I mean, you look like you could've just roasted him right then and there."

"Oh, of course I did," Mary replied, all too happy to remind everyone that she had actually kicked the Atlasian General in the balls. "He didn't come as General since he wanted it to be a discreet thing, so to surprise the media with it. No armed escort except for his loyal doggy over there." She jerked her head toward Winter, whose hand flew to the hilt of her sword. "He came up to me and told me his idea. Basically, he told me to get in line so I could join the never-ending ass-kissing that is the Atlas politics, and I didn't like the idea, so I told him no, and when he tried to convince me that I would've benefited from the deal, I kicked him in the balls. Then his guard dog tried to arrest me, and I slapped her." She looked thoughtful for a second before adding, "Oh, and I might've also yelled Fuck you, you ass-fucking dogs! Or something along those lines. No offence to anyone who likes anal, of course, I'd never compare them to Atlasians."

Qrow burst out laughing, quickly followed by Yang and Nora. Everyone else was in some kind of shock born of horror – she'd just candidly insulted one of the most influential men on the planet, calling him all sorts of names, without even giving him time to defend himself. Brutal was an understatement.

Some of them didn't like it, either – way too aggressive without reason. But the aforementioned three were definitely having the time of their lives.

"As if I would let a child blinded by unjustified bias and hatred persuade me she's right," Winter growled, staring daggers at Mary, who just flipped her off calmly. "You speak as if you know everything, as if you know perfectly what is right and what is wrong, while you don't even know how Atlas works. You base your prejudice on speculation I have no doubt the White Fang will have spread around in Menagerie and amongst Faunus. Your sources are unreliable and thus your opinion is flawed and pointless."

Mary looked at her and shrugged. "Whoopsie, looks like I hit a nerve. I mean, only an absolute idiot, or a monster, would deny the inhuman cruelty Faunus suffer at the hands of Atlas's people. I can relate to Mantle… but Atlas? No, not Atlas. It's a city full of people who are either businessmen who only want more money, without caring for the lives of people, or naive idiots who can't see the truth nature of their neighbours." The white-haired Faunus didn't bother giving names. "Everyone who does a tiny bit of research knows that the Schnee Dust Company is guilty of unspeakable crimes, such as slavery, murder, torture, and affiliation with criminal organisations, usually called in to deal with the SDC's political enemies. And yet, Jackass Gelé not only walks free, but is one of the most influential, richest men alive."

Winter narrowed her eyes. "While I do not see eye-to-eye with my father, we have repeatedly checked and the SDC's activities are within what the law allows, even if just barely."

Mary gestured at her as if to say 'See? She gets it!'. "Exactly! This should tell you a lot about what kind of laws there are in Atlas, if all of that goes without punishment. And then you bitch out at anyone who 'doesn't follow the law' and want to arrest this and arrest that." She snorted. "Sure. I mean, compared to the SDC, the White Fang has killed a lot less people. They are still bloodthirsty bastards but hey, numbers are numbers. What, does the SDC have a special license to kill and torture issue by the Atlasian government?"

"You should watch your tongue!" roared Winter, drawing her sword. She made to lunge at the unperturbed whitenette, but Ironwood held her back. Following his gaze, Winter tensed when she noticed that everyone else in the room was looking at her.

"Stand down, Schnee. Do not let her baseless offences get to you. I thought I trained you better than that," the General told her sternly. As much as he hated what Mary just said, she wasn't completely wrong about Jacques Schnee, and they were just words. A soldier should never respond words with violence. Especially such a highly skilled soldier, against a civilian.

Then he turned to Mary. "Watch what you say, Ms Aarons. Here, both Winter and I are military officers of a visiting country – insulting us could get you arrested."

"And she almost attacked me, which would've been a declaration of war, but who follows those laws any more?" Mary shrugged. "If they did, the Kingdoms would be constantly at war, if it only takes a particularly dumb fucker to declare war."

"Declarations of war aren't instantaneous, they must be approved by the government," retorted the General. "While I could ask for your arrest right now. In fact, I will ask for a restraining order – I will forbid you to come close or even talk to us, since I know all you have to say are pointless insults."

Mary blew him a raspberry. "Good luck getting that restraining order. We're not in Vale any more, or Remnant for all that matters. And I don't think Horns over here would give you that restraining order."

Khor shrugged. "If I gave you that, then I would have to issue a restraining order on Winter to keep her away from Qrow, since she has already tried to attack him without being attacked first. And I think that would pretty much ruin her career, now wouldn't it? So really, it's better if I don't get involved."

"Nah, Cyborg Ass would remove any criminal offence from her records just to keep his loyal little doggy," snickered Mary.

"Why you-"

"Winter, enough! Do not raise to the bait!" Ironwood barked, silencing his Specialist. Then he turned his glare on Khor. "Have it your way. But leave us alone, or we'll be forced to take countermeasures."

Mary flipped him off again and turned to the students, looking at them critically. "So, anyway. I know you must all be wondering why I'm here. Thing is, I know Taro. Like, personally know him. Khor told me you were watching Taro's past from before he met us, so I won't spoil anything for you. Although I must say," she added, looking at Penny. "I honestly thought it'd be harder to tell you were a robot. A tad disappointing, no offence girl, but it's almost as obvious as Kitty Cat's so-called disguise."

Blake looked up in shock. No one had ever managed to tell she was a Faunus!

Mary looked at her pityingly, then shook her head. "Honestly, if no one realized, then I'm not even going to say it – use your peanut-sized brains and figure it out."

The Faunus relaxed slightly, but not by much. Mary had proved to be too unpredictable to relax around.

Khor cleared his throat. "So, I know you're all gonna love this, but Mary is going to stay with you from now on. She's important to the story and she's pretty smart, so she'll be able to answer a lot of your questions, but don't bother her too much or she'll just sass you to death. Almost literally." He clapped his hands with an evil grin, ignoring the protests. "This being said, see you later!"

And he disappeared in a shower of tiny blue crystals.

"So Horns is also Gems, huh?" Mary noted with a raised eyebrow before glancing around. "I suppose he created this place. Fitting."

"Miss Aarons, how did you know I was a robot?" Penny asked, confused.

"Well, even without looking at your body language or lack thereof, your iris are tiny metallic plates that can slide closer to enlarge or shrink the pupil, so there's that," the whitenette replied easily. "But don't mind my observations, they're a byproduct of my Semblance, which allows me to analyse and process things a lot faster than normal people – I'm basically a computer. Of course, if I don't know something I can't just magically know, but I can guess. Unfortunately, it's not something I can shut off."

"How's that a drawback?" asked Qrow, a little annoyed and for good reason – his Semblance was basically all drawback. "Being super smart all the time sounds useful."

"Not when my mind automatically calculates the fact that you have a chance of around eleven percent of having tried to mix your two main hobbies by having sex with a bottle of alcohol. Sorry, ten point seven eight three six eight." Everyone stared at her, weirded out. "See? Annoying. Sometimes constantly overanalysing and overthinking things is not a good thing." She shrugged off the stares. "So anyway, can we start already?"

"Actually… we still have ten minutes," Nora informed her, walking over to the projector and peering at it. The display said 00:08:22 and counting down.

"Oh, well, then I guess I can use that time to explain the tier system," Mary proclaimed nonchalantly.

"Wait, tier system? You mean the power ranking shown about the two Kajius, both of them Mid-Tier 2?" Jaune questioned her, receiving odd looks from Weiss, Blake and the adults. "What? I pay attention when I want to. Plus, details like those are important."

"Keen eye, blondie," Mary nodded in acknowledgement. "Anyway yes, I was referring to that power system. I'm going to keep it as short as I can. Now, Tier 1 are mostly giant animals with no special abilities, which means that while they can still level a city, they are pretty straightforward to fight."

"Tier 2 are a little trickier. As you can see, just because they are the second-weakest tier doesn't mean they are weak. You'd need several teams of ridiculously powerful Hunters to take down one of these, but they could still do it. The Kaijus you saw were both Tier 2, though neither were top-tiered." She thought for a moment, or more likely she got lost in one of her calculations for a second. Then she resumed. "Tier 3 are already beyond what Hunters can take down. Perhaps using Hunters, science and technology and concentrating all of Remnant's resources -meaning somehow getting the Grimm to play disturbance as well- maybe Remnant as a whole might take down one. But I doubt it – it would just tear through the planet while we're still preparing."

"Tier 4 are even more powerful, usually to the point of being ridiculously powerful even for Kaijus. Remnant as a whole could unite and fight one Tier 4, and it would lose. Spectacularly so, too," she added with a good helping of sarcasm. "As you can guess, Tier 5 is even more powerful that Tier 4. Considering that even our strongest Grimm can't reach Tier 3 -special abilities might allow some Grimm to be a Low-Tier 2 but it's unlikely- it's basically impossible for you to imagine these monsters."

"Tier 6 are the 'apparently invincible' Kaijus." She raised a hand to stop the questions. "Basically, they are invincible unless a certain condition is met. Usually this conditions is also fucking impossible to fulfil too, so they are basically invincible." She smiled. "And then there are the Tier 7. They are literally invincible. Taro told me that those he knew of got weaker on their own for some reason – perhaps some kind of Kaiju-only disease or other happenings – which made them beatable, but otherwise these guys are literally invincible, there is no way to beat them. The Ultraman King is also here."

"What about Taro? Where does he fit in the tier ranking?" asked Pyrrha, curious about the man. He was surely above Tier 2, probably 3 as well.

"He's a Mid-Tier 5, but honestly?" Her smile became a predatory grin. "I'm pretty sure he could go beyond that. After all, he defea-"

BOOM!

And then the projector exploded, sending dust and small debris all around the room, making them cough, before the projecting session resumed.

General James Ironwood was considered a lot of different things during his long career in the Atlas Military.

A Great commander, a headmaster, a good friend to others, and many other things as well.

"Kiss ass," Qrow managed to cough out, tearing up as the dust got into his eyes.

"I guess in the end it was also a bomb," Ren commented. The boy had pulled his shirt up to cover his mouth and nose. His eyes were watering as well, but he was handling himself pretty well. "But why?"

"I suspect Khor has a very odd sense of humour. Unconventional, if you would," Ozpin replied with a sigh, wiping his dirty glasses with his handkerchief. He placed them back on his eyes. "And we cannot rule out the chance that he might consider this a harmless prank."

"Coffeman isn't wrong," Mary nodded. "Considering the powers he must hold to bring us all here, it's probable he didn't think a bomb would do much. Which is kinda true – no one got hurt."

And somebody who overreacts to things as well as being a self righteous hypocritical jackass like the rest of the people up in Atlas. Save for a few exceptions.

Everyone stared flatly at Mary, who just shrugged. "What? I have nothing to do with this projection. Even though I think it went easy on him. But I suppose he's not important enough to spend so much time insulting him."

"General Ironwood is an accomplished soldier who reached this rank through hard work and skill!" Winter was quick to defend him, glaring down at the much shorter white-haired girl.

"Plus he was made General for a reason, as well as being the Headmaster of Atlas Academy," Weiss added as well, defending her home kingdom. While she didn't like how they did business, she didn't hate all of them.

Mary blah-blah-blahed them with a grin. "Yeah yeah. I don't doubt that he was the picture of the perfect Atlasian Commander! I'm sure he fulfilled every criterium they set. Too bad that means he is, as described, self-righteous and arrogant as well as an asshole. Or well, a cyborg asshole. Oh, and he's rich. That's important too."

"Ms Aarons, James was chosen because he was the most competent for the roles, both of them," Ozpin reminded her with a vein of steel in his voice.

"Of course he was, you needed someone who knew how to handle Atlasians at the head of Atlas Academy, didn't you?" Mary grinned mischievously.

"What are you implying, Ms Aarons?" Goodwitch inquired as the Inner Circle began to tense.

"Simple, the Headmasters all work very closely together to organize inter-school events and all. So he needed someone who knew how the Atlas Council worked to get the school projects to be accepted," she replied smoothly, although the glint in her eyes didn't leave.

However right now though, what he was was somebody who currently just got the message about an entirely new kind of ballgame that's just been introduced to him.

Everything had started off normal today. All the soldiers under his command were doing their assigned jobs. There was no indication of any recent Grimm activity. And everything was seemingly turning out as a seemingly calm and normal day in Atlas, as well as Mantle.

But then later on Did he get an emergency transmission from the base that was placed in Argus. Straight from Special Agent Cordovin herself.

Answering the line to see what she wanted, it was only then did the old agent started off formal at first. Only to go straight into full blown ranting when she started to make her report. Ironwood was initially confused as to why the fanatical agent was acting so out of character before she sent him some footage about a Grimm incursion that had happened earlier in the day.

"And now we get to see the reaction of the General to the Kaijus," Yang grinned excitedly. "I wonder how much he'll like the news of superpowered monsters attacking Argus and scrapping its giant robot protector like a soda can."

"Yang! You should be more respectful! General Ironwood-" Weiss was cut off by the blonde, who just waved her off.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not offending him, I'm just stating a fact – the Kaijus toyed with giant robot and Grimm alike. And I'm curious to see how he'll react, since it was his robot, in a way."

"I doubt I will like it much, but I'm sure I will analyse the situation and react in the way I believe is the best," the man himself replied, also to avoid looking at Mary, who was doing a very offensive replica of his speech in real time. "I cannot say for certain, since in the projection I was not aware of them beforehand like I am now, but I'm sure everything will turn out for the best."

Jaune and Ruby exchanged a guilty glance – in comics and anime, even if people did try to help the good guys, usually the main characters were the ones to do everything. So really, it probably wouldn't be up to Ironwood anyway.

From the start it would seem like the staff stationed in the base had dealt with the situation rather well.

'I take that back, I'm firing all of them for not noticing the two approaching threats,' Ironwood thought angrily, bunching up his fists.

Though he had to admit even he was rather put off by Cordovin's fanaticism to her Kingdom, but regardless she handled herself and the Leviathan Grimm that had appeared rather effectively. And he watched as she was about to take care of the matter.

And that's when shit hit the fan hard.

Now to be honest, Ironwood was a rather battle hardened man. Who had earned his rank over the years by performing many accomplishments and going against various different threats.

"Yeah, like international laws, basic human rights, public disapproval, people's lives and business rivals!" Mary nodded, faking a serious tone. "Cyborg Ass is talented at facing and overcoming those kinds of challenges."

"Ms Aarons, while I understand that you don't like Ironwood, or Atlasians in general, could you please try to contain yourself?" Taiyang spoke up, causing the Atlasians in the room to glance at him gratefully. "Picking a fight is wrong, no matter how much you may think the other side deserves the ribbing."

Mary shrugged. "Picking a fight isn't wrong if it's exactly what you're trying to do. I'm not afraid of them nor do I care if my words huwt theiw bawby feelings," she added in a baby voice before returning serious. "But if it's getting annoying for you, I'll try to tone it down a bit."

So needless to say it would be very difficult to break his ironclad composure. But what he saw next didn't just break his composure. It outright shattered it!

Monsters. But not like the Grimm, no these creatures that suddenly came bursting out of the water were clearly something much worst. The first one easily ripping apart and tossing aside the Colossus Battle-Mech. The second one beating down the Leviathan with ease, before firing a beam of pure heat from its mouth. The first Kaiju then decimated the Atlesian ships that attempted to attack it.

By then both monsters turned their attention to the city and Ironwood was actually about to call in the entirety of the Atlas Military to deal with these creatures. Before he quickly remembered that this was a recording and somewhat relaxed.

"Happens all the time," laughed Nora, remembering all the times she watched a video or a movie and forgot it was only on the screen. Fortunately she never really watched horror movies, or she would have a TV bodycount too high to count.

Mary opened her mouth to roast Ironwood some more, but then shrugged and closed it. She would have to choose her battles and comment when it hurt the most. Petty comments, she could give them up if it made the students more comfortable.

Besides, what happened next explained why Argus was still on the map.

"That's a pretty accurate way of putting it," nodded Amber. Grimm could devastate a city, but those monsters looked like they could literally level every building to nothingness.

But it was none the less shocking. Possibly even more so if that was even possible at this point.

Out of nowhere, appearing in a flash of light was a giant!

Ironwood from that point could only watch as the Giant horned being fought both the monsters at once. And defeated both creatures with incredible skill and strength that only a Hunter or Huntress could accomplish. He defeated the first monster with ease. And the second one went down just as fast.

What was truly incredible was how the Giant finished the fight. It's whole body glowed with rainbow colored light before firing a beam that had so much power not even the super computers in his office could fully fathom how powerful it was.

"What does that mean?" asked Jaune. "It's not like you could calculate its power by a simple video, right? I mean, you'd need specialized recordings from particular equipment or something, right?"

"Actually, no. Well, I guess the answer is yes and no at the same time," replied Ironwood. "We can do both. We do have specialized equipment for it, but we can also extract data from a normal recording, as long as its quality isn't poor. However I'm afraid that I cannot give any more details than that."

"Because you're dumb," snickered Qrow.

"Because it's classified information," retorted Winter, staring down the Hunter.

"Where you left your brain is classified information," snarked Mary, before turning to the boy. "It's simple, Jaune, there are visual signs of power which can be picked up and analysed by a computer. Here, look." Mary pulled her Scroll out and scooted over to the boy, who leaned in to look at the holographic screen. "For example, that energy beam. First of all, unbridled energy generates heat. Cold energy is usually controlled energy. Now, if energy generates heat, heat does have some visual signs, like distortion in the air, or simply heat damage to its surroundings. Heat and energy both generate light, which is a form of energy, so very luminous energy is strong energy. It doesn't matter what colour, as long as it's remarkably strong. Did you understand?"

He nodded, still looking at her Scroll. "Yeah. Makes sense. Though honestly the thought that with computers, people could be able to tell so many things from a simple recording is kinda scary."

"Welcome to the club of being paranoid over the Atlas Military spying everyone to try and take over the world," Mary replied with a smirk, closing her Scroll. "If you want me to teach you how to protect your computer or Scroll from hacking, or for lessons about IT, hit me up."

"Sure! It looks really interesting!" he agreed with a giant smile.

'As much as I think he was stupid when he entered Beacon with no training or Aura, I gotta admit that at least he's eager to learn,' Mary thought to herself. 'Though I guess that Pyrrha helping him with combat also brought down his pride a bit – not like there was much to begin with.'

"How do you know about protection from hacking?" Weiss asked, confused. "There is no protection unless you consider counter-hacking a protection."

"That's because your firewalls and antivirus suck big time," the white-haired Faunus replied.

And just like that the giant took to the Sky and disappeared into the distance.

From there the general had to calm his nerves greatly. Too disgruntled to even bother listening to Cordovin's ramblings. Regardless before she could even continue he hung up to ponder and thin to himself. Everything about the whole situation didn't sit well with him. The Grimm where bad enough, among other things. But now this? it was all to much even for him.

"You hung up on her?" Amber repeated, raising an eyebrow. "Isn't that like, against military protocol?"

"It isn't, especially if she started to ramble."

Roughly an hour later did he decide to inform his most trusted ally. Ozpin, of Beacon Academy.

The moment the Headmaster's image appeared on the screen Ironwood wasted no time to show him the footage he had been shown.

And while his reaction seemed neutral compared to his, Ironwood could still see the shock hidden in his features. Which in on itself was extremely shocking to the general considering he's never even seen Ozpin get shocked.

Which showed how much of a big deal this was.

"Really? You are never shocked?" Nora asked out loud. "I'm shocked all the time! How do you keep yourself so calm?"

"A lot of experience, Ms Valkyrie," Ozpin smiled knowingly at her.

"Yeah, he's pretty old so he's had time to learn," Qrow snickered, making Amber chuckle a little as well.

"Well, you aren't wrong, Qrow. Although you're not exactly young yourself, yet you sorely lack that kind of self-control." Ozpin smiled smugly as Qrow stumbled on his laughter, not expecting the old Headmaster to actually fire back.

"And you don't wear your years well. I mean, Raven looks like your daughter, not your sister!" Taiyang joined in on the teasing, making Qrow sputter even more.

Raven rolled her eyes, but she inwardly felt pleased to know that she still looked very youthful.

"I wish my Headmaster could have a cool composure like yours," Sun confided to Blake, who smiled thinly. "I mean, the man is a nervous wreck! I swear, he could probably be bullied into submission by students, how is he supposed to run the whole school?"

"Perhaps his talents lay in the field of paperwork," Blake replied sardonically.

By the end of the footage Ozpin had slumped onto his desk with a deep pondering look on his face.

"Well?" Ironwood asked.

Ozpin said nothing for a brief moment as he took a deep breath and sighed. And after what felt like an eternity he finally spoked his mind, "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know!" Ironwood exclaimed as he got to his feet and had a look of disbelief on his face.

Ozpin was inwardly amused by the fact that Ironwood thought he knew everything or at least could hypothesise on anything.

Mary smirked as well. Ironwood was a fan of acting independently, but he did basically rely on Ozpin to understand things since his default response always involved his army or his soldiers in some way. She considered speaking up for a moment, but then she let it go since it would just sound like a petty comment unless she pointed out a mistake or wrongdoing that actually influenced the students – no point in insulting them if the students didn't learn from it.

"I mean what i said," the old headmaster said as he took a sip of his coffee to calm his nerves. "I have seen and experienced many different things James. But this is new even for me."

And just like that, Ironwood soon realized the gravity of the situation. A new kind of threat that were clearly more dangerous than even Titan-Classed Grimm. And a Horned Giant that had come seemingly from nowhere and destroyed both creatures, that showed that they both could easily wipe out both high grade military equipment as well as a massive Grimm, with barley any effort at all.

"For once the cyborg understands the situation," mumbled Mary. 'Though I'm not sure he'll react as well as he understood,' she added in her mind, before getting distracted calculating the probability of Ironwood doing something stupid – which turned out to be around ninety percent if not more.

"It's not very hard to understand it's a very serious matter," the General replied stiffly, knowing that despite the seeming agreement, Mary probably had something to say about it too. "It doesn't take a genius to see that those monsters, and Taro, are incredibly powerful. Way more than what we are used to."

"Dammit Ozpin this serious! If you don't have an Answer as much as I don't then we have to act immediately" Ironwood said as he already began to plan out their next move.

"James, you need to relax-"

"I'll relax when I find that there aren't anymore of those monsters out there somewhere on Remnant!" The general exclaimed.

"While that is the right thing to do, wouldn't panicking only make the situation worse?" Amber commented.

"Yes!" That was Mary, who then went back to watching.

"I am only human," replied Ironwood, ignoring Mary's comment on his cybernetic parts and how he was only 64.586% human, the rest being machine. "And thus I can fall victim of my emotions. I can assure you, I do take all possible precautions against acting thoughtlessly."

"And he's in a call with Ozpin, which means Oz will calm him down," Qrow added as well, pointing to the projection. "Case and point."

"James!" Ozpin suddenly yelled, Getting Ironwood to stop in his panic. Making sure the general had his attention on him, Ozpin leaned back into his seat before speaking, "I understand that this is a serious situation right now. But getting all panicked about it will only make things worse." The old head master reasoned as he went on, "Right now our best course of action is to try prepare for any more threats like those monsters that appeared."

With this in mind Ironwood took a breath before sitting back into his char. The general still looking disgruntled by what he saw, but now looking much more relaxed.

"Your right. But I still say this is requires immediate action," He said as he then tapped a few buttons on the monitor. When he finished typing in the numbers, the images set on one single individual in the battle. The giant.

"More importantly though, what do we do about whoever, or whatever, this giant is" Ironwood asked.

"Why would it be more important?" Penny asked naively.

"Probably because he's the only one still actually alive," Pyrrha replied calmly, smiling at the gynoid. "Or at least, the only one who wasn't killed during the fight."

"Also because he's the most powerful of the three, and because unlike the monsters he actually showed signs of human-level intelligence," Mary rattled off quickly, her Semblance not giving her time to stop and explain further. "Henceforth, he is the most interesting one to them, not only because of his power, but also because human intelligence means that a diplomatic approach might work and that he could become their ally instead of their enemy."

"As much as I hate to agree with her, she's right," grumbled Ironwood, ignoring Mary's raspberry.

Out of all the things this footage had shown him, the giant was still the biggest standpoint out of all of it. From the sheer size of him to the immense display of power, everything about this mysterious giant set off a lot of bells inside of the generals head. But what really stood out was the skill in combat he displayed. That fact stood out the most because the giant displayed was a clear sign of intelligence. And intelligence meant that whoever this giant was, he possibly had motives of his own.

Whether they were good or bad though had yet to be made clear.

"That's something I can admit about him – no matter how badly he might react, he does know how to assess the situation properly," Qrow begrudgingly admitted. 'Of course, this doesn't extend to Winter. She may be a good soldier but seriously, she gets so worked up about everything.'

Ironwood glanced at him and nodded. 'While we have had a disagreement, Qrow is still my friend. Let's hope this can be an olive's branch between us. I don't want to keep secrets from them if I don't have to, but I cannot talk about Atlas's top secret projects in a room full of children.' He cleared his throat and turned to the drunk. "While I'd love to take full credit, I learned a lot of it thanks to my mentor, a Huntress who thought my formal training wasn't enough. I was her apprentice for a few years and she taught me a lot regarding how to approach difficult situations on a psychological level."

Qrow lifted his flask at him as acknowledgement, although it kind of looked like he was offering him alcohol.

"Hey, man, that's awesome!" Sun exclaimed with a grin. "Why aren't we taught that at school?"

Ozpin exchanged a glance with Ironwood and sighed. "Because thinking is not something that can be generalized. Different people think differently, so a class like that would need to cater to every student differently. It would be far too complicated and time-consuming to prove efficient. Professor Goodwitch does try to sharpen your intellect as much as she can, but it's not something we can force on you. A method that works for someone might not work for another."

"That is correct. For example, if Friend Ruby were to be taught how to think like Friend Weiss, she wouldn't solve anything, and vice versa, while both are outstanding students when using their own methods," Penny added as well, smiling at the two mentioned girls, who exchanged glances and nodded, agreeing with her words.

Ozpin meanwhile examined the image of the giant thoroughly, before finally speaking, "Well I can say for certain I haven't seen anything like this man before." He said as he scrolled through the various images taken of the horned stranger, " It's possible this is a semblance of some kind."

"Ozpin if that were really the case then we would've been seeing whoever this is long ago," Ironwood reasoned. "No. Something about this giant is different from anything we've seen. Almost... alien even."

"As much as I hate to agree with Cyborg Ass over there, he's right, it'd be impossible to have such a Semblance and keep it hidden," Mary nodded, a look of disgust on her face at the thought of agreeing with Ironwood. "First off, because Semblances are usually one-trick powers or very straightforward. Gigantification and several superpowers? It's not a newborn Semblance. There is a microscopic chance of training a Semblance to impossible levels, but it takes a lot of time and for a Semblance that flashy, it would've been found out much sooner. So yeah, it can't be a Semblance or they'd know of it."

'Either that or it's a Semblance groomed and trained by Salem, far away from our eyes, but then why did it protect Argus and leave witnesses? Salem hates for her pawns to be uncovered before their time,' Mary thought for a second before mentally smacking herself. 'Of course I go off and calculate what Cyborg Ass might've been thinking. I fucking know Taro on a personal level, dammit!'

"Wow, you weren't kidding when you said your Semblance makes you super smart!" Nora exclaimed with a smile.

Mary shrugged.

"Well whatever the case he's clearly shown that he's not an enemy. If his battle with those creatures is anything to go by." said Ozpin.

"Unless he's actually an enemy trying to look like a good guy," Jaune pointed out. "It's not uncommon in comics for a friend of the protagonist to suddenly reveal themselves as a bad guy."

"You are obsessed," Weiss stated flatly.

"I won't confirm nor deny that claim."

"What's wrong with liking comics?" Amber spoke up with a grin, ignoring Qrow's horrified look. "I'll admit I'm partial to suspense and cool detectives, but I do enjoy reading a superpower comic from time to time."

"And besides, it's not like he compares real life to comics," Taiyang added as well, pointing at the projection. "That thing's not real."

Mary rolled her eyes. "I told you guys I personally know Taro."

"Yeah, but Argus wasn't saved by a giant horned man," the blond man replied with a grin.

"Newsflash, I'm not from your multiversal vector coordinates," she replied, sticking out her tongue.

"Our… what now?" Ruby repeated, scratching her head.

"Multiversal vector coordinates. Basically, the specific point of the Multiverse our universe is at," she replied without missing a beat. "The coordinates are of course the three space dimensions, plus time, and Multiversal space coordinates. All of those are numbers. Then there are the non-numeric coordinates like alterations, deviations, opposites, and a whole boatload of others." She looked thoughtful for a second. "A while ago, I even tried to calculate the relation between our multiversal coordinates and the number of cranberries the average hamster can eat in a minute."

Everyone sweat-dropped at her last statement. "A hamster?" repeated Weiss.

"Eating cranberries," Mary confirmed, nodding. "I abandoned the project since I had no way of travelling to alternative universes and find out how many cranberries their hamsters could eat."

"So it would seem." Ironwood said.

"Bwahahaha!" Amber burst out laughing. "Sorry, I-Hahaha. It just sounded like Ironwood agreed with Mary's reasoning! Hahaha!"

The teens (and Qrow) cracked a grin of their own. Mary rolled her eyes but she was grinning too. Penny didn't find it particularly funny but she was smiling because her friends were happy.

However both of them had the same thoughts on one thing. If it is true that whoever this stranger is truly was an ally of some some kind, then how was he able to obtain the power he had.

And could he be asked to join their side.

"Boo!" exclaimed Mary. "Seriously? That's what you're going for? You see a giant who could destroy just about anything you throw at him, and you immediately think of making him your little pawn? I knew you were dumb but that's just suicidal!"

Ironwood and Ozpin had a tick mark each. The former stayed silent, taking his own advice to Winter, while the latter tried to diffuse the situation. "Ms Aarons, it is only natural to try and befriend a new entity of such power. Not because we desire to use him, but because we do not want him to be our enemy."

Mary just cackled. "Yeah, sure. If that's the case, then you're naiver -or dumber- than I thought you were. Let's pretend for a moment that you two would try to harness his powers in some way. I know, I'm asking a lot but let's pretend it's not totally true." Both men glared at her – well, Ironwood glare, Ozpin's eyes just narrowed a little. "Do you really think the Council -Vale or Atlas, it doesn't matter- isn't gonna swoop in and try something? What about big companies like, I don't know, let's see, the SDC?"

"Taro would be a well-kept Atlasian military secret," Ironwood replied stiffly before suppressing a groan. He hadn't meant to say that, but with his job and his position in the Council, that was the first thing that came to mind. He just knew Mary was gonna make a big deal out of a simple mistake.

"An Atlasian military secret, huh? Interesting choice of words," Mary grinned at him, although there was venom in her voice.

"It was a slip-of-the-tongue, Ms Aarons."

"Well, you know what they say, or at least what I say, a slip of the tongue ain't no slip of the mind." She stared at him for a moment. "Yeah, I know you didn't mean to say that but honestly? That's exactly what he would end up being. Atlas would try to keep him a secret for them only, and with his power there is no way they'll put him to crop fields when he's not fighting Kaijus. I know you're trying to do some good here, Ironwood-" He looked surprised she had used his actual name. "-but can you say, and mean it, that Atlas wouldn't try their hardest to get their hands on Taro and do who knows what with him?"

The General looked away. While his projects had been non-violent, he too had immediately thought of some way to use Taro for their benefit. And it was only natural – he had immense power and that power would save thousands of life and make everything so much easier, be it Grimm or international warfare. He was looking out for his people. But there was no denying that to look out for his people, he was willing to sacrifice others.

And if he was willing to do that, then how far would some of the shrewdest, most ruthless businessmen in Atlas go?

"Exactly my point. Look, I hate you but I hate you less than I hate a lot of other Atlasians. I know that if possible, you would befriend Taro instead of going evil dictator right off the bat." She crossed her arms. "But is there a single person in this entire room who thinks that there is no one with power and influence who would try to use Taro for their own goals? Atlas may be full of snobby scum but there are rotten apples everywhere."

"And that's why we should get him on our side," replied Ozpin. "He may be immensely powerful but he has no political influence, no connections and no way to stay under the radar if he is found out. We can provide him with all of that."

Mary shook her head. She didn't deny that they could offer him protection in some way, but the point was Taro wouldn't take lightly being manipulated, and both Ozpin and Ironwood were manipulators (one more than the other). They would be playing with fire.

Ironwood just sighed before speaking again, "Regardless though I'm going to prepare the atlas military for another possible incursion of those monsters. For your sake I suggest you do the same and prepare like i will," he suggested.

Ozpin only just nodded in agreement and the screen shut off ending the call. Which left Ironwood alone in his office with his thoughts.

"Hey, Mary, what's with that look?" Sun asked, glancing at the white-haired Faunus.

Said fox Faunus was sticking out her tongue as if she had a horrible taste in her mouth. "Nothing. It's just that he said he's gonna be preparing, which means I'm probably going to see the lap dog sucking up to him and all. Not into that."

Ironwood's hand flew out and grabbed Winter's forearm before she could move to attack the Faunus. "At ease, Schnee."

"Yes sir," the woman nodded tensely, letting go of her weapon.

"Why do you hate her so much?" Weiss asked, a tick mark on her forehead as she stared at the girl who liked insulting her sister so much.

"Well, my fellow whitenette, it's because I'm smart and I love smart people – and I hate when smart people waste their brains. Lap Dog over there can be considered above average in intelligence level, but she wastes it by never thinking for herself, always following orders blindly and all."

"That's called loyalty," Weiss replied frostily. "And she is fully capable of disregarding orders, she just doesn't need it since she agrees with them."

"She idolizes Ironwood and she wouldn't listen to anyone telling her otherwise," Mary scoffed. "She thinks your sperm donor is awful, yet she's too blind to see that that adjective is a good fit for a good majority of the Atlasians. Not talking about Mantle here, by the way."

Weiss stared at her for a few seconds. "Are you part of the White Fang?" she asked bluntly.

Mary barked out a laugh, no pun intended. "No. Those dumb nitwits are off their minds. I was part of the Fang when it was still a movement that actually aimed at equality. I dropped out when it became humans hurting Faunus and Faunus hurting humans in some sort of petty revenge that would only make things worse." She paused for a moment. "Also, I find it really stupid how they never tried to free the Faunus slaves in the mines. I guess they just wanted payback, not to actually help the Faunus community."

Blake's cat ears twitched at that and she looked down. She had brought it up several times with Adam, using his own experience there as leverage, but he had always insisted that those places were too closely guarded and that he would not lead his people to die in vain.

First thing that needed to be done was to inform all of the other major kingdoms of this possible new threat. Chances are that there were possibly more of those monsters out there somewhere, and it would be best to inform all cities and settlements of any possibles attacks from such creatures.

Secondly was to get all forces of the Atlas military ready for mobilization from the kingdom and all Atlesian bases. If any more of those giant creatures do appear then everyone needed to be ready to face them. And hopefully they'll be ready for such conflicts.

The General was about to make calls and give out orders when suddenly his intercom system went off.

"What is it? I'm in the middle of something important here," Ironwood said.

"Sorry General Ironwood sir, but Special Operative Schnee is here to see you," said a soldier over the line.

Mary rolled her eyes. "Fellatio session incoming."

"Ms Aarons, please stop insulting the two of them," Ozpin ordered, standing up menacingly. "I can understand you don't like them – this does not condone calumny!"

Mary looked at him. "Maybe you're right, I've been going too far… even if I don't think so. But if you think you can prosecute me by law, you're dead wrong. Byeffects of a Semblance that the user has no power over cannot be used against them in court. And a side effect of my Semblance makes it hard for me to keep my thoughts to myself. Basically, I have little to no filter." She pointed at Qrow. "Like he is not held responsible for the damage his Unlucky Charm causes, I cannot be held responsible for any verbal offence made while my Semblance is active, which is constantly."

"So basically you are declaring yourself mentally unstable?" Qrow asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Not exactly but I suppose you could call it that. Since my Semblance forces me to analyse things more than I normally would, filling my brain with calculations, commenting and focusing on something helps me avoid headaches. However, this means I have to analyse what I'm commenting on and thus this usually results in a pretty honest-to-God comment. Which, by the way, is also why I'm explaining this."

She smirked as she turned to Ironwood and Winter. "So, I cannot be fully held responsible for my comments. Which also means that in court I have to have someone without a mental Semblance backing up my claims or they could be considered invalid too. But right here… I stand by what I said: we're gonna see how well Lap Dog can suck… up."

Yang and Ironwood respectively held down Weiss and Winter, both of whom were looking quite murderous.

"I've never heard of that law, Oz," Qrow mumbled to the Headmaster.

He just sighed. "I don't remember it clearly, but yes it's an actual law. It was made to avoid people blaming innocents victim of their own Semblances for something they had no control over, but of course like all laws there are loopholes in it. And Ms Aarons can effectively use those loopholes. Unless you have a doctor's certificate that her Semblance works like that, we have to take her word for it and if it works that way, she's covered by the law."

Upon hearing the name of his most trusted soldier Ironwood relaxed, "send her in" he said.

Putting the alert for the creatures that appeared in Argus for a moment, Ironwood waited for the Special Agent to enter through the elevator. And after a brief moment did the elevator reached his office with a resounding ding, and a rather beautiful woman stepped through.

She was a tall and fair-skinned young woman with slate-blue eyes. She wears her white hair tied up in a bun, high on the left side of the back of her head, while her bangs are shaped around the right side of her face, a small curled lock of hair reaching almost to her left shoulder. Her attire is colored navy blue, white, and gray, consisting of a white coat with sleeves that expose her upper arms, a red-lined high collar, with a red brooch and black gloves, as well as pants that have garters incorporated into them.

This was Winter Schnee. Former Heir to the Schnee Dust Company and General Ironwood's right hand woman.

Making her way in Winter stood in front of Ironwood and gave a curt salute to him, "Special Agent Winter Schnee reporting sir." She said with a formal and respectful tone of voice.

"At ease" said Ironwood, making her relax slightly. "Winter I'm sorry to say but you'll have to make this quick. I'm currently busy with something extremely important."

"Are you sure you should be telling her that?" Blake asked out loud, raising her hands in defence when Winter glared at her. "No offence, but that sounds like some real top-secret material. Ms Schnee may be your right-hand woman but maybe you should bring the matter to the Council before you take action?"

Winter relaxed once the question was explained not to be born of malice. "Normally you would be right. However, the Atlas Military, as the as all the Hunter Academies, has the power to take action immediately during emergencies. With the level of power Taro has shown, this can be considered an emergency and thus the General can legally take action without informing the Council."

"Although unless the emergency requires secrecy, I will have to tell them later," Ironwood added, nodding at Winter to praise her for the explanation.

Winter raised a quizzical brow at that "Is something wrong general?" she asked.

"Unfortunately yes. But its nothing that I can't handle at the moment." he reassured her, "now. What is it that you needed to see me for?"

At that moment when he asked that Question, Ironwood soon took notice of Winter's posture. While it was very subtle do to years of training, among other things in her life. Normally one wouldn't notice such small things from winter but Ironwood knew her better and because of that he was able to pick up such small and sudden hints. And what he saw made his already high anxiety rise a bit more.

She was nervous.

Weiss looked shocked. Her older sister had a composure of a statue. Nothing broke her cool. Of course it was subtle but the simple fact that Winter showed any sign was worrying all by itself.

"Winter. What is it?" Ironwood asked slowly, trying his best to maintain whatever calmness was left right now.

Winter seemed to hesitate for only a brief moment. As if she was reluctant to now tell him what she had to report after learning he was in a not so very good mood. But after a brief moment or so she seemed to have steeled her own nerves and took a deep breath and sighed before finally speaking.

"General, I have an important report on project P.E.N.N.Y." she said.

"Oooh, he's not gonna like it, is he?" Sun winced, glancing at the General.

The man frowned. "I had forgotten about it. That will only complicate matters. I'm sure that just like me, that James Ironwood cares for Penny as much as I do. Splitting his time between an emergency and finding my sort-of niece is going to be hard on an emotional level."

Penny smiled at him. "Don't worry, Mr Ironwood! I am completely safe and, as you said, this is just a projection!"

Many people smiled at the gynoid's sweetness, including the ever-serious General of Atlas.

Mary thought about it but eventually shrugged. She had no proof it was real, since she came from their universe. She wanted to believe it was but the truth was, she had no actual proof.

At the mention of that particular project, Ironwood suddenly got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"And what might that be?" he dared to ask.

Taking another moment to compose herself Winter finally made her report. And what she said did not get Ironwood in a better mood.

"I'm sorry to say sir but the ship carrying the project has just been reported to be brought down. And all its crew members are KIA." Winter said solemnly.

Needless to say Ironwood wasn't a happy camper.

"When is he ever?" Qrow mumbled, too low for anyone but the Faunus to catch.

"Well, those are really bad news, and he must be worried about Penny," Blake replied, coming to the General's defence. Not that she liked him or even tolerated him – she had a general dislike towards Atlasian and a light mistrust towards humans. She just thought it would be more correct to point that out.

"WHAT?!" ironwood cried out, getting to his feet. Having a look on his face that was mixed between Anger and Disbelief, "How did this happen?! And why wasn't I made aware of this earlier?!" he cried out.

"I apologize sir but we were only made aware of this development today." Winter said while maintaining her stoic cool, " from what we discovered the ship was brought down by a Grimm horde. Fortunately we managed to locate it and destroyed the horde entirely."

"And what of Penny? Was she undamaged or recovered." Ironwood asked her, daring to at least hope something good was to be made out of this mess. But that hoped was crushed like a cockroach under a steamroller when he noticed Winter get nervous again.

"Nice analogy, fits you well," snickered Mary. "Although a cockroach is extremely hard to kill. A steamroller would normally kill it, unless you take in consideration all the possible bumps and cracks in the surface it is being squashed upon. So really, cockroaches are really hard to crush – stabbing them with precision works much better."

"No sir. Unfortunately it would seem Penny has gone missing," she informed him.

"What?! What do you mean missing, how is that even possible?!" The general exclaimed again.

"Unknown for now. But we're currently trying to get something from the security cameras, but it could take time sir." Winter said. "Sir, your orders."

"Considering how smashed everything was, I doubt they'll find anything," Ren commented.

"Not true. The room where Penny was kept was more or less intact, and military cameras don't always run on one single electric system, so they might have captured Taro on tape," replied Jaune, smiling at his bro-friend. "That would also fit well with our comic theory, right Ruby?"

"Yup!" she nodded excitedly. "If they find out about Taro they have even more reasons to go after him, even if they don't currently know he is the giant. This might lead to conflict later on, a necessary part of all comics!"

She and Jaune high-fived. "Comic geeks forever!"

Ironwood didn't say anything for a solid minute or two as he placed his face in his hands. his already bad mood just turning even worse than it already was. But after a moment he finally stood up and took a deep, DEEP, breath before tiredly exhaling. But then he looked at Winter with a look that said man in charge.

"Winter recover that footage as soon as you can. As soon as you find out something notify the Ace-Ops and mobilize with them immediately. If there is someone involved with taking Penny then i want you to track them down immediately. I want whoever is possibly behind this found and Penny returned at once." he said as he gave the order, making Winter give a curt salute.

"It will be done at once General!" She said as she made her way back to the elevator. And just like that, Ironwood was once again alone with his thoughts.

"See?" Jaune said, pointing at the projection. "An appropriate build-up for the conflict that will emerge later on."

"I think they would've clashed anyway, Jaune," Pyrrha interjected, patting his arm when he shot her a betrayed look. "The Atlas Military would be looking for the Ultraman, and Taro will likely have to fight more Kaijus – I doubt those were the only ones. So they will eventually find him and confront him about it. Even without those tapes."

"No, but that might set off a man hunt for him," Ruby replied with a smile that did not fit with what she was saying. "Which will inevitably lead to conflict, just like in comics."

"Pyrrha's right, there would've been a confront anyway, but they are right too, this will speed things up a lot," Weiss declared before gaining a look of disapproval. "Although they should really stop comparing this to a comic book."

The moment Winter was out of sight General sat back down in his chair, slumping in a emotionally and physically exhausted heap.

When he finally got his strength to go on he immediately sent those messages and calls he had planned to do before Winter arrived to give him that even worse news. When he was finished he felt some relief that something was going right for today. But then he had to make one final, and important call to someone he wished someone else would talk to.

'Well, I suppose it's time to call Pietro.' Ironwood thought to himself tiredly, 'Call him and tell him his daughter is missing.'

Needless to say, this was looking to be a long, long day for Ironwood.

"I take it he's not going to take that well, right?" questioned Qrow.

"Not at all. She is his daughter and he loves her a lot." Ironwood groaned. "Which means that I'm going to be on the receiving end of a tirade from a furious and worried parent."

Meanwhile back in Argus.

Back in Argus, Kotaro and Penny had the time of their lives there in the city.

Raven perked up at that. 'Finally! I need to find out as much as I can about this Taro.' She stared at Penny. 'In our world, he is not aware of her existence, so kidnapping her wouldn't work.' Then her gaze moved to Mary. 'She, however, personally stated that she knows Taro and is from our world. I'm not sure if those morons have picked up on it, but that means that Taro does exist in our world. Kidnapping and torturing her will increase the chance of Taro bowing down to the Branwen Tribe, although I will have to make sure she's kept somewhere he'll never be able to reach. My Semblance might help with that.'

Qrow glanced at her, eyes narrowing. He might not know what she saw thinking exactly, but he could guess what the general topic was. And he didn't like it.

Once everything had calmed down in Argus the two had decided to go around the city and have some fun. From going to an Arcade place to a dance hall, anything that looked interesting was something they went and did. And since Penny was experiencing all these different things for the first time she found everything interesting with a childlike curiosity and wonder.

There was a hiccup or two concerning some of the things they did. Fortunately it wasn't anything that was an issue.

"Tell that to the Dragon Hunters," muttered Nora.

"What?" Ren turned to the girl, bewildered. "You're freaking me out, Nora. And we share a room."

"I know, Ruff. Sorry, Ren." Nora then just smiled. "Just something I dreamed of."

Ren frowned. "Nora, we have the same dreams."

"Really?" Ruby piped up, curious. "Is that even possible?"

"I think Nora gets so enthusiastic about her dreams that she subconsciously projects her mind onto mine, or something like that," Ren replied with a shrug. "Besides, it's Nora we're talking about."

"True."

For example, when they went to a Carnival that had arrived in Argus Penny had decided to try a high striker game. And in the process sent the bell of the game flying when she slammed the hammer down like a falling meteor.

Or when she played an Arcade game to the point of burnout because the game couldn't keep up with her.

Yang burst out laughing and gave the gynoid a thumbs-up. "Never change, Penny, never change!"

The poor girl looked at Ruby. "I don't see why me breaking two machines would be funny… I am actually feeling a little guilty about it."

"Don't worry, Yang just likes shows of force," Ruby waved off her concerns. "And you are super strong, even if you're not super buff!"

"Thank you, Ruby, I'll be sure to tell my father!" Penny smiled her gigawatt smile.

Fortunately these slight problems were easily fixed and the two still had a lot of fun together all and all.

By the End of the day though as the sun began to set in the distance did the two of them decide to go enjoy the view in the state park. Both of them having grabbed a bite to eat together as they enjoyed the sunset together. Kotaro having just a soda pop to drink while Penny had gotten a Cotten Candy. The robot girl greatly enjoying the sweet treat, much to Kotaro's interest and amusement.

"I didn't know you could eat food," he said.

"Neither did I," Said Penny as she took a moment to turn away from her treat. "But it would seem that the people who designed me wanted me to be as human as possible. Meaning I can eat food and convert it into energy," She said as she took another piece of the fluffy pink delight and popped it in her mouth. Earning a smile on her face from the taste.

"Well, that is more or less what our body normally does, so I guess they followed the human body's design and just replaced flesh with metal," Amber commented with a shrug. She was far from an expert on robotics but that's what it looked like to her.

"Well I'm glad to hear that Penny," Kotaro said with a smile as well. While he was completely against the Atlas Council turning her into a war machine, he was at least happy that the people who constructed her to begin with designed her to be able to live a normal life.

"Trust me when I say this, you're not the only one," Ruby sighed, sad about her friend's fate. She really hated how she was built just to fight, and it also scared her – that meant that she wouldn't be able to see her much, because Atlas wouldn't let her have friends.

"I don't think anyone would be." Blake's bow twitched as she continued, fidgeting slightly. "To be born for the sole reason of fighting sounds horrible."

'Well, at least they built me!' Penny thought cheerfully.

Mary thought about making a comment, but she knew that it would degenerate into a fight and she didn't want to do that while the projection was still going. She could always keep it for later. Besides, what she told Ozpin was a bold-faced lie. Her Semblance did urge her to speak sometimes but she had enough control on it to stop herself from running her mouth. Of course she would never tell them that.

The two sat in silence for the next five minutes as they enjoyed the peace. However all the while Penny took notice of something about Kotaro as she glanced over to him.

Ever since the aftermath involving the conflict with the Grimm and the two Kaiju, Penny noticed something off about her friend.

All throughout the day while they were having fun together, she would sometimes noticed a deep pondering look on his face for a brief moment every now and then. It kept occurring so often she was starting to get worried for him.

"Well, he's on an alien planet, I guess he's still adjusting," Blake guessed flatly. "I know I would."

"But I thought Ultramen were supposed to travel planets sometimes, wouldn't he be used to it?" Penny countered with a frown.

"Maybe he didn't travel so much. Or maybe this world is very different from what he's experienced before." The cat Faunus shrugged as she gave her answer. "It's easy for us since it's our world, but perhaps other worlds are extremely different."

"He didn't even know what Aura was," Weiss pointed out with a scoff. "Even little kids know what Aura is, and over eighty percent of the population has it unlocked even though their Aura is so weak it barely protects them."

Jaune tried not to look too guilty. He also made a mental note to tear his parents a metaphorical new one once he got home, because seriously, he was starting to get pissed at how little they taught him.

So now that things where calmed down and the two were alone together, she decided to asked "Kotaro, is something wrong?"

Snapping out his inner thoughts Kotaro turned to give Penny a slightly puzzled look, "Huh, oh! Yes I'm fine. Why do you ask?" he asked her.

"Well, it just seems that you have something on your mind recently," she pointed out to him. "Ever since you defeated those two Kaiju you've been looking as if you had something on your mind. And I've looked up that when someone has something on there mind it normally means that they are bothered by something." Penny said knowledgeably.

Taking a moment to hear Penny out Kotaro sighed as he placed his drink down on the bench before leaning back and looking up at the sky. A pondering look coming across his face.

"Well, yes your right Penny. Something is on my mind right now." Kotaro confirmed, "It has mainly to do with those Kaiju that appeared."

"How come?" Penny asked curiously.

"Well, they were two gigantic, immensely powerful monsters… isn't that enough of an explanation?" Sun grinned cheekily.

"I highly doubt he was worried about that," replied Weiss. "It's probably related to something else. Perhaps how people will react to them."

"It mostly has to do with the fact that Kaiju shouldn't even be on your planet," he said. Taking notice of Penny's curios look he elaborated for her, "When i came to your world, the only kind of monsters your planet had were only the Grimm. And other than them, there were no signs of any form of Kaiju on your world, and it's quite possible this was the first Kaiju encounter your world has ever faced. And that's whats bothering me."

As Penny listened to what her friend had to say to her, she began to understand the implications of why he was so concerned right now. If what he was saying is true, which she knew it was because of the history information stored in her memory banks, then the implications were as bad as she calculated.

The Hunters and Huntresses, as well as the various other defenders of the world, were trained to handle Girmm, and only just Grimm. Granted they were also trained to take down criminals as well but still, this was an entirely new level of trouble for everyone.

Remnant couldn't handle Kaiju. But the real question was this, if the Kaiju had never appeared on Remnant before.

Then why were they appearing now.

"Ooh," the students murmured as the real reason was revealed. The adults rolled their eyes, having already guessed that would be the biggest problem.

"Now that I think of it, why did they appear?" wondered Blake, frowning pensively at the projection. "Was it because of Taro himself? Did his presence attract the Kaijus to Remnant?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Blake!" her team leader protested hotly. "There's no way that's true. If Ultramen really attracted Kaijus, then the Ultramen themselves would know, and Taro would've just kept away from Remnant! Taro seems surprised they are showing up, so they probably don't follow the Ultramen!"

"Since when you can use this much logic and make this much sense?" Weiss asked dryly, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Hey! I'm the team leader for a reason!"

"I never said you weren't a good strategist, I am merely saying your over-the-top enthusiasm usually leads you to disregarding logic or common sense," the Ice Queen replied, crossing her arms. She was offended by the fact Ruby immediately thought she was trying to undermine her position as leader… which she had admittedly tried to do in the past, but the past was past.

"This doesn't really solve the question," Yang spoke up, wrapping an arm around Ruby to put her in a sisterly headlock. The younger one yelped and squirmed when the blonde rubbed her knuckles on her head. "If Ruby is right, then why are the Kaijus only arriving now?"

"Perhaps that is why the Ultraman King sent him in the first place," Jaune and Penny both said at the same time, glancing at each other in surprise. They had reached the same conclusion, one by comics knowledge, the other by perfect memory.

"Then why did he not warn Taro about them?" Weiss was sceptical. The King should've been the most powerful being in the universe – he could've afforded to be a little more precise.

"Maybe he didn't have the answer himself," countered Ren, calm as ever. "It is not impossible for him to have had a bad feeling about Remnant's future, without fully knowing what that feeling implied."

"That's true," Blake agreed. "If that were to be the case, then the King might not have wanted to confuse Taro by giving him possibly false information."

"I can see what you mean. Do you think this is why King sent you here to begin with?" She asked.

Yang cracked a smile at the sight of Penny repeating herself. Seeing the one in the projection and the one near Ruby acting in the same way was kinda funny.

"It's a definite possibility all things considered," Kotaro replied, but then he shifted his attention to Penny, "Now. As long we're talking about personal issues how about we talk about what's bothering you Penny?"

At that, Kotaro noticed how Penny suddenly starting to shift nervously as discreetly as possible. It was very subtle but his sharp eyesight picked up on it as clear as day.

"Um... I don't think I have anything bothering me *hiccup!*" Penny said before she suddenly hiccuped soon after, making Kotaro raise a brow.

Ironwood facepalmed. He knew of Penny's built-in lie give-away, but he would've preferred if people didn't find out about it so soon. Possibly not at all, but he knew that after a prolonged period of time spent with people, her secret was bound to come out. He just hoped no one would take advantage of it.

Then he frowned. That giveaway had also been added for the secondary reason of being able to always tell if Penny was lying. The Atlas Council wanted it as a precaution – unless Penny was completely reprogrammed anew, and they would be warned if that were to be the case, they would always know whenever she was telling the truth or not. He didn't like it, because as 'cute' as Petro said it was, it really limited her. Not to mention she would be completely unreliable when it came to keeping military secrets.

"Really, you're sure there isn't anything you want to talk about? He asked again.

"Yes *hiccup!*" Penny said, earning another hiccup.

"Nothing at all?"

"Yes *hiccup!*"

"Positive?"

"Mmhmm *hiccup*"

"Absolutely sure?"

"Most definitely *hiccup!*"

"Looks like Penny really is like a human, she even got the hiccups," Jaune pointed out with a smile.

Ruby smiled as well, glancing at Penny, who smiled back at her. "See? I told you you were a real girl!"

"What's your name?"

"Penny Polendina."

There was a moment of silence, and then Kotaro crossed his arms and with a bit of a knowing smile on his face, "Funny, when you tell the truth you don't Hiccup. Your own bodily functions have betrayed you".

"Wait, Penny, is that true?" Yang asked with a shit-eating grin. 'Oh, the possibilities are endless!'

"No, it is not." Penny's face contorted as she tried to keep her breath, but eventually she hiccuped again. "Hgh."

Yang's grin widened even more. "Penny, why are you lying?"

"It's not something she has any control over," Ironwood grumbled, trying to take the attention off of his sort-of niece. "She was built like that, it's not her fault. If anything, blame her father…"

"I think it's super cute!" Nora squealed, hugging the girl tightly. Fortunately she was made of very resistant alloys, because the bomber didn't hold back either.

"Don't worry, Penny, I won't let Yang make fun of you or embarrass you!" Ruby proclaimed, still in Yang's headlock – which was starting to hurt too, to be honest. She squirmed harder and her sister let her go with a grin. Rubbing her head, she glared at her. "She tends to not know when to stop teasing…"

"I'm not that bad," Yang waved her off.

'Yes you are,' all the students thought at the same time.

Raven glanced at Penny, taking in this new information. Using it to extort information out of her and then using that information to blackmail her would be an extremely effective, and really easy, way to get her to join her side. Her first target was Taro and would continue to be, but there was no wrong in checking out what or who else she could add to the tribe. Even though Penny was a robot, Raven didn't care as long as she obeyed.

'It doesn't take a genius to guess that it's not just a cute habit Petro did for added adorableness,' Mary thought gloomily. 'The Atlas Military and the Council both want their little 'project' to be unable to lie or hide things from them. I suppose she could also be used as a spy. Ugh, why do I do this? It only makes me hate them more… As hard as that may sound.' She shook her head and glanced at Penny. It wasn't the right moment to bring it up. The girl was currently being hugged by both Nora and Ruby and mentioning possible (certain in her mind) conspiracies behind her habit would only ruin the moment for her.

However Kotaro quickly took Notice on how Penny now looked more nervous than ever, Kotaro scooted closer to her and put a comforting arm around her "Penny, what's wrong?" he asked her in a calm voice, doing his best to keep her calm.

The robot girl didn't say anything for a moment as she kept staring At the floor, not saying a word as she nervously fiddled with her fingers. But eventually she finally said something in a quite mumble, "I'm not real..."

"I'm sorry what?"

"I said I'm Not real!" Penny suddenly cried out, actually startling Kotaro a bit from the sudden outburst. However Penny began to calm down but still looked greatly distressed, "That's why I'm upset, Most girls are born, but I was made. I'm the world's first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura! I'm not real…"

"Penny…"

"Yes, Ruby?"

"Do you really feel like that?"

Penny smiled warmly at her. "Once, I did. But you changed my mind!"

Everyone waited for the revealing hiccup, but none came. This made Ruby (and secretly a lot of other people) smiled happily, knowing that the gynoid had gotten over her birth method and accepted she was as much human as everyone else in the room – and more human than some, not that it was particularly hard to beat Raven at humanity.

Kotaro's heart ached when he saw the sad look on the normally cheerful girl's face, the robot girl looking like a lost and sad puppy. But at the same time a part of him suspected that this is what was bothering Penny from the very beginning. And Kotaro could tell it was hard on her for a while now, but he never had the chance to ask her about it until now.

"Penny if this has been bothering you why haven't you said anything before?" he asked.

"I didn't think it was important," she said, and her response actually shocked him a little, "You have your mission to help protect the world and that's more important right now. But I can't get over how I'm just some imitation. Just a copy or life meant to look and act like a real girl." Penny said as she then looked down looking more sad then ever. And then...

"How I'm only just a weapon…"

Ironwood looked away. For all his power he couldn't stop the Council from using her even if he tried. And as much as it made his heart hurt, she was needed the way she was. He hated to do this to her, but it was for the best. He was a soldier and soldiers sometimes had to sacrifice everything to keep their people safe.

That, was the last straw for Kotaro.

Before she knew it, Penny felt a pair of hands firmly grasp her shoulders and twist her over to face Kotaro. And the Gynoid quickly noticed the firm but caring look that the Ultra was giving her.

"Penny, listen and listen carefully about what I'm about to tell you," he said with complete seriousness in his tone of voice, "You are nota weapon, and you are more real than anything or anyone else. When I first came to this world I couldn't find any other person of life until I met you, I felt the life that was dormant within you. So don't think for second that your a fake or an imitation of something else, because your wrong. You are a real girl."

"I'm still confused about that," Penny admitted. "How could he feel my Aura if I had yet to be activated?"

Mary decided it was time for her lovely voice to be heard again. Regardless of whether they thoguht it was lovely or not. "It's bloody simple, really. I'm surprised you didn't figure it out earlier. I mean, look around you. Everyone here has their Aura unlocked, right?"

"It's true!" Penny nodded enthusiastically.

"But if you walk around in a city, the majority might still have their Aura unlocked, even if it's weak, but some won't, right?" Penny nodded again, and Mary snorted. "Then what are they, bloody vegetables? Just because your Aura wasn't active does not mean it was not there. Your father put part of his soul in your body to create your own, which is more or less what happens when people fuck without protection, only without a partner and less messy." She laughed at their disgusted faces. "Yeah, yeah, turn away kiddies, you're too young anyway. So yeah, Penny, you are one hundred percent human. You're just a gynoid, like I am a Faunus and Ruby is a human."

Penny smiled brightly at her. "Thank you, Ms Aarons!"

"First off, I need sunglasses for that smile," Mary commented, but there was no malice in her voice. "And second, call me Mary. Everyone calls me that anyway, unless you want to be a boring adult."

He then gave her a warm smile as he continued, "and besides, you weren't meant to be a weapon and you'll never be a weapon. If anything your abilities just help you to help others. And just because your made of metal and wires doesn't make you any less of a person, so don't worry about it okay?"

Penny was beside herself, Kotaro showed such care that she didn't know what to say. And before she new it her usual happiness returned full force and she practically tackled Kotaro as she embraced him in a tight hug.

"Oh Thank you so much friend Kotaro!" she said happily as she embraced him, earning a hug back from him.

"Heh, anytime penny." he said.

Sure enough the mood went back to normal and the two just sat in silence again as they enjoyed the sunset. But sure enough though, Kotaro was first to realize one certain issue that they both had, "We need a place to stay." he said

"There are lots of hotels at Argus," Weiss replied flatly, having visited the city before.

"Yeah, but with the Grimm attack, some houses might've been destroyed so they might be full," Pyrrha countered worriedly.

"I'm sure they are going to find a way," Jaune waved her off before freezing. "Wait, I don't think either of them has money… for obvious reasons."

"Perhaps someone will house them," replied Ren. They could say they lost everything during the attack, and someone will let them in."

And Penny was also realizing this crucial issue as well, "a necessary living quarters would be a good thing to obtain right now. But what can we do to get one though, we don't have any money." she rationalized, "And even if we went out to find a job to obtain any Lien, we wouldn't be able to obtain the amount we need. Not to mention that by now all the stores or working area's are possibly going to close soon."

"*Sigh* which means we're in a fine mess right now," Kotaro said. The situation about living quarters not looking good for either of them right now, "Well we might as well go look for at least someplace we can stay for the time being. But the odds of that happening are pretty-"

"Excuse me! Sir, Miss, Excuse me!"

"Saph?" Jaune spoke up, surprised. "What's she doing there? I thought she'd be back at the house to take care of Adrian!"

"Adrian?" Yang questioned him.

"My nephew," replied the leader of JNPR, smiling warmly at the thought of his family. "Or well, the boy who will be my nephew, he's not yet born. His name is Adrian Jaune Cotta-Arc, my sister told me she wanted to give him my name and that nothing would've stopped her. Thankfully Terra, her wife, didn't argue."

"They sound like a nice family," Blake smiled warmly.

"They are. I've spent some time with them, and they were already planning on inviting me over to help them with Adrian once he's born." The boy chuckled. "My sister is a pro and I'm sure Terra is great at babysitting too, but between work and moving and the pregnancy, they haven't gotten much lovers' time themselves, so I'm there to buy them some time."

Suddenly perking up, the two looked over to see who was calling out to them. And to both of their surprise it was none other thsn the same blond woman and her son from earlier today during the Grimm attack. The blond and her son both looking delighted to see the both of them as they came up to them.

"Oh thank goodness I found you two. We've been looking all over Argus for the both of you." she said with a relived smile.

Kotaro and Penny looked between each other for a moment before looking back to the woman and her baby, both of them a bit confused.

"Um pardon miss, but who might you be?" Penny asked.

Realizing she hadn't introduced herself, the blond straightened up smiling, "Oh I'm sorry. My name is Saphron Arc," the now named Saphron introduced herself, before shifting her hold on her baby, "and this is my son Adrian" said baby waved at them cutely.

"Oh my God he's too cute!" Weiss exclaimed with stars in her eyes.

"He is exceptionally adorable," admitted Mary, chuckling a bit. "Baby power, I suppose."

Smiling, Kotaro stood up and shook the blondes hand.

"Nice to meet you Saphron, My name is Kotaro Higashi," He said as he then gestured to Penny, "And this is my friend Penny."

Penny smiled as she gave a curt bow, raising her skirt up a bit, "Salutations miss Arc, its a pleasure to Meet you," she said in her usual megawatt smile.

"Pleasure to meet you as well," she said smiling back, "Also I hope you don't mind but, would you be interested in joining me snd my family for dinner tonight?"

"Sorry Saphron but me and Penny have to find a place to stay for the night," Kotaro said turning the blondes offer down gently, "we're not exactly from around here to be honest."

Saphron though seemed to perk up from that, "Oh, well in that case how about you spend the night at our house, It's the least I can do to thank you both for helping us earlier today."

"She's inviting two strangers at her house?" Winter repeated, frowning.

"Well yeah, I mean, they did save her life," Nora shrugged as if it wasn't anything big. "She doesn't have to but it wouldn't be too weird. She's just showing her gratitude."

"Although I'm not sure if they have enough room…" wondered Pyrrha.

Jaune waved her off. "Nah, they got plenty of room. They could house all of us without many problems. Thanks to their jobs, their house is really big."

"Oh well, we wouldn't want to intrude or anything-" Kotaro started before sapphire cut him off.

"Oh no it's no trouble at all. Like I said you saved our lives, so again it's the least we can do to repay you for helping us," she reassured him.

"Well in that case, we'd be delighted to come join you and your family for the night. Right Penny?" Kotaro said as he looked over to the Gynoid.

"Absolutely!" She said.

Smiling at their approval Saphron began to walk back towards the city with her two Guests following closely behind. The two of them relived that their current problem just solved itself.

"That was pretty lucky," admitted Ruby. In comic books it usually wasn't so lucky. Though she was starting to wonder if comic books could really apply. Khor said it was real, even though it was really hard to believe it, and Mary said she knew Taro, but it wasn't real, right? Aliens and all didn't exist – it was just a movie or something.

Right?

Meanwhile near the continent of Anima

Elsewhere, thousands ofmiles away, was the large Island of Menagerie. Menagerieis a landmass in the southeast of Remnant where most of the Faunus population resides.

Blake looked up quickly, interested in seeing what would be said about her hometown. She met Mary's eyes, which held a teasing glint, and looked away.

"Menagerie…" mumbled Ironwood, glaring at the island. 'I hate how Faunus are segregated there, but Menagerie is also the birthplace of the White Fang, a terrorist organisation that has killed hundreds, thousands of people. And in Menagerie, the White Fang is even a public branch of the government, supported and accepted by its citizens. True, they do keep up an appearance of peacefulness, but their leader Sienna Khan has repeatedly been spotted during violent attacks or boycotts. How can I trust a kingdom where its very government is made up of terrorists?'

"Sir?" beside him Winter asked.

"It's fine, Winter." His glare lessened. "I'm just not too fond of a certain organisation born on that island."

Menagerie is a continent located south of Anima and is the smallest continent on Remnant.

Two thirds of the landmass is comprised by desert forcing the resident Faunus to congregate on smaller areas resulting in small and dense settlements. The biggest settlement of Menagerie and its capital is Kuo Kuana.

Menagerie is best described as a safe haven for Faunus.

Following the Great War, the Faunus were given Menagerie as a reward for their participation, in conjunction with equal rights. While some Humans saw these rewards as fair and just, many Faunus saw it as a slap to the face, as two-thirds of Menagerie is a desert that is uninhabitable due to dangerous wildlife.

"Well, it's not like I can blame them for that, I'd be angry too," Yang admitted, looking at the state of the island. "That's a crappy place to live, no offence to anyone who lives there."

"You're not wrong. While the Faunus have done an amazing job at turning Kuo Kuana into a town of happiness for everyone, most of the island is uninhabitable," explained Blake, anger rising as she remembered how badly humans treated the Faunus. "Humanity chose the worst place they could to give to the Faunus, because no matter what, discrimination is unfortunately still in our culture."

Mary snorted. "Yeah, sure."

Blake turned to her, eyes blazing. "What? You're a Faunus, you should know what I'm talking about!"

"I do, believe me, I do," Mary nodded, a glare making its way to her face. "But you clearly don't. Faunus haters are much less than you believe. Menagerie was given to the Faunus because it was the only big island available. All the other islands were already taken, and they couldn't throw millions out of their homes just so the Faunus could have their little kingdom. Especially since the Faunus wanted a place where only Faunus could stay – humans are looked at with extreme mistrust at Menagerie, and often chased off right away. You can thank Sienna and the White Fang for that."

She snorted. "Discrimination sucks, but most of the people don't really discriminate. The politicians do not because of race, but because Faunus don't have influence or money so they matter not. I won't say the Faunus are treated equally because it's false, but I'll say that the people like you, who complain so much and do so little, are despicable because they're basically just throwing themselves a pity party."

"I want to become a Huntress to fight for equality!" Blake exclaimed hotly.

"You want to become a Huntress because you like the idea of a romantic swashbuckler, fighting her way through billions of enemies and reaching world fame and then, with a single generous gesture, bringing world peace upon Remnant." Mary's voice was so flat and sarcastic, Blake felt like a fish on a grill – roasted. "Had equality really been your goal, you would've started a company to make lots of money and get political influence. Becoming a politician would've been harder, but you could've tried. What do you think you're gonna do for equality once you will be fighting Grimm and moving from town to town, or called by big VIPs for protection, uh? What will your contribution be? There are tons of Faunus Huntsmen and Huntresses, and you know what? Most of them never do anything that even relates to their race." She paused for a second. "Except Faunus porn. That's really popular, especially when starring Hunters. But I'm getting off-topic here. You think being a Huntress will make everything better, but what is your plan for bringing equality?"

Blake flinched, at loss for words. While she didn't agree with what Mary had just said, one thing was true – she didn't have a plan. Not really. She hadn't thought about what she would do once she graduated. To be honest, whatever she ended up doing probably wouldn't even be related to her Hunter duties anyway, unless she used her fame to bolster her revolution.

"Thought so," scoffed Mary.

Over time however, Humanity became adamant in their attempts for the Faunus population to be centralized in Menagerie, and would later push for the confinement of all the Faunus there, as well as countermand of the equal rights of the Faunus earned in the Great War. In response, the Faunus revolted, sparking the Faunus Rights Revolution.

While little is known of the events of the Revolution, the Faunus were successful in preventing their confinement to Menagerie.

And as of lately, Faunus predominantly live on Menagerie, and it is seen as a "safe haven" for their race. The population is gathered together where the land is habitable, making it comparatively crowded, particularly in the main city Kuo Kuana. Though advanced enough in architecture and industry to house one, Menagerie does not have a CCT tower, which makes communication with the rest of the world difficult. But they still manage to get by none the less

"Are there really no humans in Kuo Kuana?" asked Ruby.

"Only ambassadors from the Kingdom of Atlas. Vale, Vacuo and Mistral all have Faunus ambassadors," replied Ironwood, knowledgeable about politics even when it was about the island in the arsehole of the world. "Other than Atlas's ambassadors, who don't live there all the time but take turns of two weeks between the four of them to minimize the chance of terrorist attacks, there are no humans on Menagerie. Those who visit usually don't remain for longer than two weeks."

"Or are forced to leave," Winter added sternly. "The White Fang doesn't like having humans around in their home turf."

"Touché," shrugged Mary. "Those pompous assholes have a stick up their asses. Funny how much they hate Atlas, yet how similar to Atlasians they act."

However, as the night had come, and the moon soon began to rise up over the horizon, something was amiss.

The sound of whistling could be heard at a dock area of Menagerie, a local guard could be seen doing his rounds within a warehouse as he casually strolled along whistling a tune.

So far nothing seemed out of the ordinary. A new shipment of supplies had arrived earlier today, but other than that everything looked fine, and tonight was looking like an ordinary night.

However, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, and suddenly shifted his attention to his side.

For a breath moment, his Faunus instincts suddenly kicked off as he felt like something had slipped passed him. But as he looked he didn't see anything out of the ordinary and just assumed it was his nerves acting up.

Qrow snorted and nodded. "The dark can play weird tricks on you, I speak from experience. Your brain is not only tired, but disoriented by the silence, especially if you're used to usually loud places. Also, people rely mostly on their sight and their hearing, so the dark doesn't help. Left without full use of their sight, people rely on their hearing, but without being used to it, they often jump at the slightest sound since they expect everything to be completely silent."

Amber gave him an impressed smile. "How do you know all of that! I've always thought it was just the dark giving people the creeps."

The Hunter shrugged. "Oh sure, that also helps. But it's scary because you're partially helpless and you are like a fish out of water. People aren't used to living during the night. Night shift guards usually fare better, but they have a life outside their work so they are still exposed to sounds and sights that are later denied by the darkness. So yeah, when you're in the dark, it's easy to be scared by everything."

Shrugging, he went back on his stroll.

And only made it a few steps before his eyes widened in horror, as something shot out from the shadows!

And the guard could only scream as a bright flash shined within the Warehouse.

"I suppose it wasn't just the dark playing tricks on him," Winter remarked with a huff, throwing a glance at Qrow. And completely ignoring the horrified looks on the faces of the students.

"What was that!?" exclaimed Sun.

"Something extremely quick and quite deadly," Raven replied, a hint of interest in her voice. "Perhaps an assassin. Or perhaps not all Kaijus are enormous, and this one is closer to the size of a human, making it easier for it to hide."

"That's not good…" mumbled Amber.

And those screams were soon silenced, as an eerie and haunting laugh echoed all within the warehouse.

Everyone was silent as the laugh echoed in their cave as well. Goosebumps rose on their arms as shivers ran down their backs.

Mary scowled and let out a frustrated huff. "Oh no, not these guys again…"

"W-Wait," Ruby stuttered, wrapping herself in her cloak to hide her shivers. "Y-You know what d-did that?"

Mary shrugged. "Yeah, but I'm telling you anything, you'll see soon enough. But I'll tell you that this is close to when I met Taro."

"C-Can't you t-tell us what that was?" even Nora stumbled a little on her words, pressing herself against Ren. The boy used his Semblance on himself and then on the girl, getting rid of that fear and returning strength to the ginger's voice. "I mean, I know you don't want to, but any hint?"

"I'm sorry, you'll see." Mary frowned and rubbed her own arms. "But they surely weren't fun to deal with."

"They?" Ozpin's voice was tense in an effort to control his own subconscious fear. "There are more than one?"

Mary silently cursed before she came up with an excuse. "I just didn't want to say he or she since I'm not sure what gender they are, or if they even have a gender," she lied smoothly. Ozpin's gaze narrowed, but he didn't seem to be willing to press the matter.

"L-Let's continue, shall we?" Sun's voice broke a bit, but the fear was slowly leaving everyone there. As scary as that had been, they were still Hunters and Hunter trainees. They were trained to react well to shock.

And Jaune watched a lot of horror movies, mostly to at least keep his fearful sisters off his back. True, some of his sisters still stuck around but at least they weren't the full package of seven.

and not to far off from the docks, a lone Individual Faunus was walking through the street, only to stop dead in their tracks when the lights from the docks caught her attention.

The Faunus in question was a fox Faunus, who had short white colored hair and wore a pair of round goggles over her eyes. She also wore clothes akin to a scientist, complete with lab coat.

What was also most noticeable was the fact she had not only a pair of white fox ears on her head, but also a bushy fox tail as well.

"Wait a second, is that-"

"Yes, Ruby, that's me," Mary nodded, appraising her look in the projection and nodding in approval. "And before you ask, yes I lived in Menagerie."

"That's so cool, it's like watching a movie, but the movie's characters are actually with you!" Jaune exclaimed, excited.

"Did you forget a man just died?" Weiss exclaimed, still feeling the goosebumps on her arms for that infernal laugh.

Jaune slumped slightly. "Sorry, I was just trying to lighten the atmosphere…" He frowned and looked away, crossing his arms. "There's no need to call me out on everything."

Mary smirked. 'Looks like blondie isn't liking the prolonged company of the Ice Queen. Who knows, maybe he'll get over that puppy crush of his and stop his pathetic flirting. Offence fully meant, your flirting brings shame to your entire family.' She didn't have anything against Jaune, though, she was just stating a fact.

As she stood on the street, she adjusted her goggles a bit as she stared at the light coming from the docks, and said only one thing.

"Well. This is new."

"That's all you have to say?!" Ironwood exclaimed, glaring at her.

"Well, duh. My Semblance allows me to overanalyse things over ten times as fast as a normal person, which means I also get over shock ten times as fast as a normal person," she replied without missing a beat. "I'll admit I was in over my head, but I always keep a cool head. In battle losing your cool could cost you your life."

"Holy words," mumbled Qrow.

"So, in order to distract you from that laugh and the murder…" Mary grinned. "Who wants to be roasted? Who volunteers?"

"What do you mean?" Winter asked, a tick mark appearing on her forehead at the girl's cryptic offer.

"Easy, Pooch. It's just that since I am super-intelligent thanks to my Semblance, I just thought I could offer my advice to people." She flipped her hair out of her eyes, even though it wasn't long enough and she was wearing goggles. "I'm gonna roast the hell out of them, but if they are smart they'll see past the offence and they'll better themselves. So, who volunteers?"

The adults immediately backed out. None of them was sure how much the girl knew, and they didn't want to risk her revealing some secrets.

The students exchanged glances. Then, three of them were roughly grabbed and shoved forward to face their doom.

Mary smiled at the three unfortunate souls. "Don't worry, if you listen carefully you will actually learn a lot." She looked at the first one. "Let's start with…"