Glynda only got to bed at 3 in the morning. Last night had been stressful even by her standards.
The briefing had gone as expected, although the warnings about the stresses between some of the Pharos students meant she had an extra headache. While they did leave the pairings to chance, there were ways of reducing the chances of certain combinations of students meeting up and occasionally students were given the benefit of the doubt on whether eye contact had been made. She had not felt the need to pass on what she had learned about Weiss and Brede from James, although she had suggested to Coco that she speak to Weiss and try and put her at ease. It had surprised her that after speaking to James she had felt sorry for the heiress. She had also suggested that Coco speak to Pyrrha Nikos and Brede Campion.
Things had started getting worse when Bart came to see her saying that there were good reasons why the student now known as Anne Harker should not have a photograph printed in the international press, and she quickly agreed with him.
He had then said "While I may be being overcautious, I should mention that one of Ozpin's last minute picks, Blake Nightshade, bears a superficial resemblance to Kali Belladonna. I think it might be best to avoid photographs of her being widely published and sparking speculation among the more paranoid members of the SDC security team and the Atlesian security services."
She had replied, "Thank you for letting me know. Perhaps it would be best if we both look at Miss Scarlatina's photographs before she sends them to the press."
After Bart had left, she got out the files on the Belladonnas and she could see what Bart meant when she looked at the photograph of Kali Belladonna and compared it to that of Miss Nightshade. She noted that the Belladonnas had a daughter, but the file did not mention her age or which parent she took after. The files had not been updated much since the Belladonnas had moved full time to Menagerie following an internal coup within the White Fang. She and Ozpin had taken the view that Ghira was not a threat and the details of Menagerie politics did not impact on Vale. They relied on Bart to tell them if anything happened in Menagerie which they needed to know about. She told herself that not even Ozpin would dare to enroll the daughter of an ex-leader of the White Fang at the same time as the current Schnee heiress, but she had learnt that it was risky to underestimate Ozpin's idiosyncrasies.
She had been away from Beacon when Jaune and Blake had been accepted. They had both been Ozpin's choices and he had seen them with Professor Peach. Ozpin when explaining his choices had said that Jaune had a strong aura and a good tactical sense, but his aura had been unlocked late and so he was a little lacking on fighting skills and background knowledge. He said Blake was clearly a strong fighter and despite not having trained in a combat school her academic knowledge was better than most first year students when they arrived. Peach had nodded, but had confided to Glynda later that Jaune was very green. Peach said she had no reservations about Blake and perhaps that had lulled Glynda into a false sense of security. She decided that she would ask Ozpin for more details of both Jaune and Blake when she saw him next.
After that she had to go into Vale and meet with the representatives of the Atlas press, Salutations magazine, the Schnee lawyers and Brede Campion. After a few hours discussion it was agreed that the press would not send reporters to Beacon itself, but that Beacon would provide photographs of Weiss and Brede arriving at Beacon. It was also agreed that pictures of Pyrrha Nikos would only be released to Salutations. The representatives of Salutations were happy with Velvet taking the photographs and had showed examples of her work for them to the other press representatives. The Schnee lawyers had agreed to this, but had insisted on being able to vet the photographs of Weiss before they were sent to the press. Brede Campion had been easier to deal with, especially as he remembered Velvet from an event in Atlas.
She had been on her way back to the bullhead to Beacon when she received a scroll video from a huntsman friend showing extracts from a fight in a nightclub. It asked, "Is she one of yours - if so, it may be worth getting there early before they have time to doctor the tapes. If she isn't one of yours, you may want to recruit her." She cursed as she recognized the blonde as being an incoming student.
She had arrived at Junior's club. He was looking rather shell shocked and had muttered when he saw her stride in that he had already had his balls broken once tonight. He had tried to bluster and claim compensation from Beacon and that he would go to the press.
She had glared at him over her glasses, insisted on watching the tapes and then swiftly moved on to the offensive. She pointed out that much of the damage resulted from him bringing out a rocket launcher, that strictly Yang was not yet a student and that the majority of the damage occurred when Yang could plausibly claim to have been acting in self defence after he and his staff had escalated matters. It was therefore doubtful he had a case against the academy or the girl. She then pointed out that going to the press or fighting a court case would involve showing the tapes of him leching over, and then being beaten up by, an 18 year old girl which would be bad for his reputation and for his ability to retain his license to operate the club (it being left unsaid that this was probably more of a hike in the level of the bribes he would need to pay). It had ended up with her agreeing to put right most of the structural damage so he could reopen more quickly, while he agreed to make a 10,000 lien donation to the academy. The fact that she had a standard form for these incidents was a depressing fact of life. She had also asked if the two sisters had ever considered becoming huntresses as they looked to have plenty of raw ability. She looked forward to the idea of them encountering Port for the mustang tests. Junior was sufficiently happy about the result to describe the woman in the photograph Yang had shown him. Glynda thought she recognized the description, but this did not improve her mood.
She had left the club and then heard sounds of a firefight a street or two away. She had rushed over in the direction of the disturbance, sending a scroll message to a contact in the VPD asking if they knew what was going on. She arrived just in time to see Roman Torchwick throwing a dust crystal at a young girl wielding an outrageously large scythe and then firing at the crystal to try and kill the girl. She had intervened to protect the girl. Things had rapidly escalated from there as a strong huntress level fighter then replaced Roman. While Glynda had held her own, this had been the hardest fight she had been involved in for years and a rogue huntress working with Torchwick was not a prospect she relished. She was also relieved in some ways that she had not prevailed as crashing a bullhead in central Vale would have caused a lot of damage and almost certainly an unacceptable loss of civilian lives. While she had tried to bear it in mind when fighting, it is hard to judge things perfectly when fighting for one's life. The young girl had shown an admirable, if reckless, determination to be involved in the fight as well. The VPD had arrived, too late to join the fight, but in time to pick up the minions whom the young girl had taken out by herself. She sighed and had decided that misery needs company so had sent a scroll message to Ozpin as she, the girl and the shopkeeper reported to the local police station.
If she had even remotely suspected that Ozpin's reaction would be to offer the girl a place at Beacon or if she had realized whose daughter she was, she would have thought twice about contacting him so quickly. Still she had not known that the CCTV in the shop had picked up the fighting inside the shop and some of the fighting outside and that a shadowy bystander had recorded the fight outside the dust shop and had sent copies to both the VPD and Lisa Lavender.
Ozpin had smiled as he watched the coverage of the fight, had paused the clip when there was a close up of Ruby's face, remarked he still had one discretionary place left and suggested that he and Glynda play bad cop/weird cop before offering her a place. She had argued for some time, but recognised that this was a losing battle after they had called the headmaster of Signal. The headmaster had promised to send over Ruby's school record and a recent picture from the school records, but had also expressed a degree of relief at the possibility that she would be attending Beacon early. By 1 in the morning they had recruited Ruby, delivered her to the hotel where she was staying with Yang and headed back to the bullhead. They had stopped off at the shop and Glynda had repaired the window and a couple of broken shelves. The comparative amount of collateral damage caused by the two sisters suggested that they took after their respective mothers. Glynda had also made herself a note to summon Yang to her office the first day of classes to warn her about her behaviour and to offer anger management lessons.
On the way back to Beacon she asked Ozpin for more details about Arc and Nightshade. He said there was some family background on Arc which was instructive and made his decision a little more explicable. In relation to Nightshade, he said that he was happy she had the right attitude to be a student at Beacon, would not be a threat to students and that he had been satisfied at her reasons for making a late application.
He then went on to say "I am concerned about this possible rogue huntress. I wonder whether there is a chance that any nearby buildings had CCTV which might have captured her image. In any event, I suggest you meet with Mulberry first thing in the morning and describe the woman to her with a view to her producing a drawing which resembles the woman. We will then send a copy of the drawing together with a description of the semblance to Ironwood, Lionheart and Theodore to see if she rings any bells with them. I will also discuss this with Qrow when I next meet him. Considering that she was strong enough to go head to head with you, it is not impossible that this person is linked to the attack on Amber"
While she could not disagree with him wanting to discuss the possible rogue huntress in priority to Miss Nightshade, she felt that he had been a little evasive and decided that she would talk with Bart later that day to see if he had more background on the Belladonna family.
She finished off the day by sending four scroll messages, one to Team PLUM and Team CFVY informing them of the new student and rearranging the time of the meeting, another to Velvet explaining her additional photography duties, one to Mulberry booking an appointment to do the drawing, and a final one to Taiyang asking him to call Ozpin urgently. With the last one, she included a message that the girls were safe.
….
Velvet had taken some time to fall asleep. Dr. Oobleck had mentioned some things to her which she was still thinking over. He had said that after last year and recent events at Pharos, the staff were determined to make it clear that Faunus students would be treated in the same way as human students. He suggested that if she thought it would help, it may be worth letting the new Faunus students know how Velvet and her team had dealt with Biff and Unity the previous year.
Velvet thought about this. She suspected that at dinner tomorrow night, the Faunus from outside Vale would all sit at the same table and possibly some of the Faunus from Pharos would join them. Coco and Velvet had agreed that, if that were the case, Velvet would join that table and be as honest as she thought appropriate with them. Velvet rehearsed in her own mind what she would say. She felt that she could honestly say that attitudes were generally better than in Mistral and Atlas, but far from perfect. In her experience the teachers were not overtly prejudiced. Glynda would take decisive action if proof existed of discrimination and that Oobleck went out of his way to warn students that discrimination was not tolerated. However, this was an academy for training hunters and a certain degree of mental and physical toughness was expected. Most of the teachers expected students to deal with issues themselves and for the student body to be self-regulating. An additional problem was that the teachers were focused on fighting Grimm and could not comprehend the mindset which decided that Faunus were a threat.
She decided that she could say that the team system meant that generally bullying from people in other teams could be kept in check with the support of team members. In her case, when she had broached the problems with her teammates, they had been very helpful and that it should be assumed that teammates would be supportive. In addition, she could say that she had talked to other Faunus at Beacon who had said that in their cases even team members who distrusted Faunus generally tended to treat the Faunus members of their own teams as being honorary humans or the exception which proved the rule. She decided not to describe in detail her own experiences last year, it had taken too long for her to raise the problems with the rest of the team and the steps she had taken to avoid being in the same room as Biff or Unity by herself had lived down to many of the frightened bunny stereotypes.
Oobleck had told her that there were officially nine Faunus students this year, although only seven of these were obviously Faunus from the photographs. The other two had been at the Vale combat schools and were known to be Faunus by their classmates. He had said that every few years a Faunus would decide for their own reasons not to admit to being a Faunus when they first arrived, provided they had plausible deniability - small tails, whiskers which could be shaved off and foot features lent themselves best to that. In the past, as far as he could tell, things normally went best if they came out to their teammates voluntarily after a month or so. Things went worse if they were outed involuntarily, no matter whether it was by a human or Faunus.
She was trying to decide for herself whether he was just talking generally or whether he was dropping hints to her. If it was the latter, then both Anne Harker and Blake Nightshade had looked vaguely familiar to her. If Anne was the person who Velvet thought she might be, she could understand why she was hiding her identity. It was one thing to be a Faunus, but to come from a background which meant other Faunus despised you was tough. In Blake's case she could not believe that she would have been admitted to Vale if she had been the person who she reminded Velvet of.
She thought to herself generally about Faunus who decided to hide their heritage. It had never been an option for her – although her mother had said that her great-grandfather had used to wear a stovepipe hat when he went outside the Faunus quarter. She thought that if it had been an option for her, she would have been tempted to do so at least when she visited her father in Vale. As a youngster it had not been so bad – a rabbit Faunus was not seen as a threat and elderly humans tended to coo over her and say how sweet. She even now got less hassle from the police or shopkeepers than if she had been a bull or tiger Faunus. Often, she had been sent into shops to buy sweets for a larger group of Faunus or was the one delegated to ask for directions if she and friends had got lost. As she got older, it became harder. She had found it frustrating how hard it was to persuade people to take her seriously and she had felt uncomfortable when the comments on her sweetness started to be made by young and middle aged men rather than grannies. That had increased her natural shyness and she had not felt comfortable at parties. This was even though she had not had any enemies at Signal and had been good friends with her fellow weapon enthusiasts.
She was a little disturbed about the stories from Pharos and the news that Weiss Schnee was coming to Beacon. In particular, the fact that this meant that Beacon would be moved up the White Fang's list of targets was concerning. She had heard from her mother and her mother's friends and wider family stories of how quickly things could escalate from sideways looks to taunts, from taunts to sticks and stones and then all the way to swords and guns.
Velvet knew of Weiss Schnee from the gossip columns in the papers when she visited her father in Atlas. She had taken photographs of Weiss previously. Her spring trip to Atlas to see her father had coincided with the Atlas fashion show and Coco had got her a seat on the Adel company airship to go there and invited her to the show. When Coco's mother had seen the photographs Velvet had taken, she had negotiated a contract with Salutations magazine for Velvet to sell them the behind the scenes photographs at the Atlas show and then at the following party. Velvet had taken some persuading, but Coco had stressed that as far as she and her mother was concerned this was a win/win solution and that her mother would not have arranged it unless she thought it was good for Adel Enterprises. Velvet was an excellent photographer, the Adel corporation liked to be on good terms with the press, the press preferred to be on good terms with the Adels. This got everyone the best of both worlds as being a personal guest of the Adel family had got her better access than a normal photographer, even for Salutations, would have been granted, but gave the Adels a little more control of the photographs.
This had gone well enough that she had also been employed by Salutations to cover the Mistral regional tournament and the linked fashion show at the end of the Summer term where Pyrrha and Coco had met and talked. She had also timed her summer trip to Atlas to see her father to coincide with a charity gala which the Adel corporation was co-sponsoring with amongst others the SDC. This again saved on the fares. She had taken photos of Coco and Weiss speaking and had also photographed Brede who had chatted to Coco for about 20 minutes. The money had come in useful for buying dust and tools for weapon designing. It also perhaps had had the advantage that it distracted the gossip columnists who put her in a box which said press rather than possible exotic love interest of wealthy heiress. Indeed, the librarian had reassured her that she had the least coverage in the scandal mags of the other members of Team CFVY.
Luckily the team had been able to have a full and frank discussion about how to deal with the fact that Coco was so much wealthier than the rest of them and had come to a compromise which just about worked. If they ate out and it was Coco's turn to choose it was accepted that if she chose an upmarket restaurant, she would pay the difference between the normal cost of a joint meal out and the actual price. If there was a spare seat on a company airship when Coco travelled to Mistral or Atlas and it fitted in with Yatsuhashi's or Velvet's plans to visit their families then why not hitch a lift.
Eventually she had dropped to sleep. She was woken up at 6 in the morning by Coco who was holding her scroll with a look of disbelief. Velvet looked at the scroll and saw there was a message from Glynda at 2.30 in the morning informing them that they now had another student from Signal, Ruby Rose and enclosing a picture which seemed to have been snapped in a police station. Glynda had put back the meeting with Coco and Tom until 12. Velvet had also had a message from Glynda saying that she was also to take pictures of Weiss and Brede, but that with some for general distribution to the press and some solely for Salutations. It was underlined that before any photographs were sent out, they would be vetted by Glynda and Oobleck.
Coco asked "Velvet, do you know who this Ruby Rose is, and do you have any idea of why she should have been added at this stage?"
Velvet had replied that "Ruby is Yang's younger sister, although they do not look alike and have different surnames. She is only 16 but was accelerated a year ahead at Signal shortly after she arrived. Apparently not only had her aura already been unlocked, but she seemed to have predigested the first year's curriculum, had advanced fighting skills and had already designed herself a weapon. I have no idea why she should have been added last night"
The rest of the team were now awake and Fox commented "Clearly she must be something special to have been accelerated a year at Signal, but it does seem a bit tough on her to arrive at Beacon two years younger than the rest of her year."
Velvet added "Despite her being three years younger than me, I did get to know her in my last year as she was a member of the weapons club I ran and she asked me for advice on developing her weapon. She is friendly and enthusiastic when discussing weapons, but a little shy and awkward in other areas even by my standards. Unless she has had a growth spurt in the last year, she is small for her age, so she will be clearly younger than anyone else. If anyone tries to pick on her, then that will risk triggering Yang's berserk buttons. There was an incident early in her first year which Loretta should know more about as she has a sister in Ruby's year."
When they had met Team PLUM after breakfast Loretta had confirmed Velvet's recollection and was able to provide more details as she had called her sister this morning. She explained that "After she was promoted into the second year and started scoring high marks in the combat and weapons classes, some of her classmates decided she needed to be put in her place. None of them knew that she was Yang's sister or that her father was one of the teachers. Six of them tried to stuff her head down the toilet in one of the girl's locker rooms and just after they had got started Yang walked in"
"Do I gather this did not go well for the six second years" enquired Yatsuhashi.
Loretta nodded vigorously and said "While no one said much afterwards, the school sanitorium was full that afternoon and neither Ruby nor Yang were among the inmates. In addition, the locker room was closed for a week and in retrospect the fact we had a visit from Glynda the day before it reopened was more significant than we realised at the time. She was not bullied afterwards, but neither did most of her class feel like getting close to her. My sister says that her closest friends are all in weapons club. Few in her class want to practice fighting with her as her weapon is regarded as lethally over the top by anyone near her size and build and for larger opponents it is rather embarrassing to lose to someone who is just over 5 foot tall. She is also rumoured to go Grimm hunting for fun with her uncle."
Beau Ursa added that he had received a scroll message from a slightly disreputable cousin who came from Patch. He had been in a night club with some friends when a fight had broken out between Yang and the entire staff of the night club. This had included someone firing a rocket launcher at her. Despite this, she had apparently won the fight. The authorities had not been involved as the club was in a tough part of town and the rocket launcher had been produced by the owner of the club. Loretta, who knew Yang well, thought that asking her about this might be a good way to get her and the other Signal students into the main hall quickly.
They turned on the news out of curiosity to see if the nightclub fight was mentioned. It was not, but Velvet suddenly went "eep" when Lisa Lavender reported on a dust robbery involving Roman Torchwick and included a clip from a scroll recording made by a passerby. Although Ruby's face was pixilated, Velvet had seen Crescent Rose at an earlier stage in its development. The rest of the two teams looked at her and she said "I think that was Ruby Rose fighting Torchwick. I recognised her weapon."
The teams rewound the footage and watched it again. Tom Piper said to Loretta "I can see what your sister meant about not wanting to practice against someone who can wield that weapon."
Coco glanced at the scroll message from Tom Piper of Team PLUM informing team CFVY that the first bullhead had set off with him and the first 18 new students aboard. He also sent them a list of the students. There was a large Pharos contingent aboard including all the main participants in the election saga. The two friends of Yatsuhashi from Mistral were also on board as well as six students from Torch.
Tom send a message just before the bullhead landed saying that the Pharos students were on their best behaviour and admiring the view. They had divided into two distinct groups and he asked if Coco could greet the group without Cardin. He commented that a small female student from Mistral seemed as though she could compete with Oobleck for words per minute and Port for volume.
She and Yatsuhashi moved closer towards the landing stage while Velvet double-checked Anesidora was in normal photograph mode. Velvet had been instructed to mingle and take photographs while keeping an ear out for any trouble. Fox had already activated his telepathy semblance and was ready to coordinate their activities. In addition, he would identify the auras of the new students and track them if they wandered off. He had also been instructed to let them know if any unknown auras entered the grounds. He had said this morning that Yatsuhashi had been right in suspecting that the two new staff members had been sent by the Atlas military. It was unusual for civilians who worked in the hospitality industries to have their auras unlocked, and the two had stronger auras than was normal for simple bodyguards.
Tom left the bullhead with around half the Pharos students including Cardin and Dove, got them to pose for a group photograph by Velvet and then escorted them towards the main hall. Coco nodded at Cardin and Dove who she knew socially. While she grudgingly admitted that Cardin and Dove were more self aware than their parents, this was not altogether a good thing. Cardin at least was conscious that his parents had coasted on the family name. This had resulted in him striving harder but also being more insistent on his superiority being acknowledged.
She greeted the second group of Pharos students as Tom had requested. This group included Lydia who had grown a lot in the last year but was still fundamentally a boisterous tomboy with no interest in fashion. She was carrying a golf bag which included various items of sports equipment which Coco assumed were actually weapons. She still clearly had no interest in fashion and Coco had to resist the temptation to insist on a makeover. She chatted to them briefly and arranged a group photograph. She then directed them to the hall and the weapons lockers and suggested that they join her table at dinner.
Yatsuhashi, relieved of looming duties, had taken the opportunity to welcome Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie. Coco noted that Lie Ren certainly seemed to be as contemplative a personality as Yatsuhashi, but Nora was clearly hyperactive and was continuing to chat away at high speed. She decided that she would have to get more details from Yatsuhashi as they seemed an unlikely duo.
Fox reported that most of the first sixteen were heading towards the hall already, but a couple had wandered into the gardens.
The second bullhead was due to arrive and Coco scanned the scroll message from Loretta telling her who was on it. There was a large group of Signal students on board (including Yang and Ruby), most of the Atlesians including Weiss Schnee, Fox's mustang acquaintance from Vacuo Leslie Corkran and the two late entries from Mistral, Jaune and Blake. She said that Blake and Weiss were not really mixing with the other students, Weiss seemed very tense, but had signed a couple of autographs for the Atlas students who said that they were not for them but for their mothers. They also had in the hold two Schnee family valets looking after a preposterous amount of luggage. Blake was reading a book and ignoring the view. The main distraction was Jaune Arc who was trying desperately not to vomit, but was failing.
Coco prepared herself for greeting Weiss, double took at the sight of a tall blonde boy (who she recognized from his picture as Jaune Arc) dashing out of the bullhead and projectile vomiting into the nearest bin. Coco winced for him as it was hard to think of a more embarrassing first impression to make and Velvet moved towards him to check that he was as well as could reasonably be expected.
Fox then sent her a telepathic message that Vomit boy had an impressively strong aura - about 50% more than Coco's. He also noted that Weiss's base aura level was rather higher than the other students – whether this was nerves or standard operating practice for the Schnee family was unclear. He then sent a second message saying that a strong aura had just appeared out of nowhere and another one was approaching rapidly from the sky. He said the auras seemed to belong to close relatives, possibly siblings and that he recommended Coco contact Glynda ASAP.
Fox had been enjoying himself sampling the new auras and it was a good test of his skills keeping a track of so many new ones. However, having an aura appearing out of nowhere 100 yards away from him was a first for him and another approaching from the air was alarming. The fact that they had appeared just as Weiss Schnee stepped off the bullhead suggested that they may be facing an assassination or a kidnapping attempt. The concern was further increased when he realized that the two intruders were related.
The new auras had come to a rest about 10 yards off the ground and 50 yards apart. He directed Yatsuhashi to move between Weiss and the two interlopers, just in case the worse was about to happen. He also told Velvet to activate the zoom focus on Anesidora and aim it at the new auras.
Velvet sent a thought to them "I have looked where you told me, but all I can see are two rather large black birds sitting in trees. Hold it, one of them has just cast a furtive glance at the other. If they were human, I would say that they were deliberately ignoring each other." They all speculated on what the family semblance might be – a semblance which included both flight and illusions seemed dangerous, especially if it came with a side order of stealth.
Fox then registered that there was a third aura amongst the new students which was also clearly related to the other two. Fox told Coco where the student was situated and asked whether she could identify the student in question. Coco replied "It is either Ruby or Yang"
Glynda then sent a message asking to be joined into the telepathic link as she was on her way down to the courtyard. When informed that they had narrowed down the family connection to one of the sisters, he had the sense that her fear levels went down but that her anger levels had rocketed.
A couple of minutes later Coco reported that Glynda had approached the first tree and seemed to have shouted at it. A bird had then taken flight towards the tower which contained Ozpin's office. Fox noted that this coincided with one of the auras moving away. Glynda then approached the second tree and seemed to be having another heated conversation.
Velvet had chimed in then with "I would not have guessed that Miss Goodwitch was a Battlestar Remnant fan. I am impressed that she can make an euphemism sound worse than the original. By the way, Fox, you are now apparently part of Beacon's updated automated security system designed to recognize nefarious criminals with aura"
The second aura now vanished and Glynda spoke over the telepathic link, "Before you think anything you may regret Miss Adel, I thought I should warn you that I am currently linked in. Miss Scarlatina the conversations you overheard are classified, although I am prepared to say that the first three series of Battlestar Remnant were excellent. By the way, I do not discuss semblances, including yours, without the consent of the parties or unless the security of Beacon or Vale requires it. This extends to our uninvited guests and I would expect the four of you to follow this protocol. In addition, while I will not prevent you from discussing this incident amongst yourselves, please do not talk about it with others and especially the two sisters. Mr. Alistair I am impressed by the subtlety of your semblance and will be happy to discuss the potential career opportunities it gives you. Thank you all for how you dealt with this incident. You can now take me out of the loop"
Coco reported that Loretta had gathered most of the Signal classmates including Yang and taken them in the direction of the main hall and that she would now go and speak with Weiss Schnee, Velvet resumed taking photographs, Yatsuhashi relaxed and looked for someone to direct towards the hall.
Fox had just breathed a sigh of relief and decided that it was now time to say hello to Leslie Corkran when he was startled by the sound of an angry voice, then a sneeze shortly followed by an explosion in the vicinity of Weiss Schnee. They all turned towards the noise terrified that there had been a terrorist incident.
Fox noted that although everyone in the vicinity had raised their auras in response to the noise, two people had raised them when the shouting started rather than at the sound of the explosion. One was Leslie Corkran and the other was the Atlas mustang. He sent a message to Yatsuhashi to keep an eye on the mustang who was next to him and that he would focus on Corkran. Yatsuhashi thanked him for the warning, but said that he had noticed the mustang reacting to the argument and had put a hand on his arm before he could draw his weapon.
Coco reported that the argument had between Weiss and Ruby, both seemed unharmed and were merely grumbling at each other. She and Velvet hurried towards the pair, but luckily it had blown over before they reached them. This was thanks in part to an intervention by Blake Nightshade which had distracted them. Weiss stalked off, followed by the two valets.
Velvet reported that Ruby slumped to the ground looking a little dejected, but before Velvet could reach her, she had been helped to her feet by Jaune Arc. Velvet listened to the conversation and reported that Jaune was saying the right things so there was no need for her to intervene.
Coco told Fox that she had sent a message on her scroll to Glynda notifying her of the damage to the courtyard while reassuring her that it seemed to be simply a dust accident, that no one had been injured and no fight had taken place. She then said that she would go and talk to Weiss.