Glynda strode to the lift to Ozpin's office. Velvet had repeated to her what she had told Bart and expressed her concerns. She also mentioned a couple of other points which had confirmed her suspicions and made a suggestion or two. Glynda had sent Velvet back to her duties asking her not to say anything to her team for the moment, but thanking her for reporting her concerns. She had asked Bart if there was anything more she needed to know before she spoke to Ozpin again. He had handed her a dictionary and two photographs and explained their significance.

When she reached Ozpin's office, she found Qrow drinking from his flask and briefing Ozpin about what he had discovered on his recent travels.

"Glynda, you look like you have something on your mind?" said Ozpin with an irritatingly relaxed voice.

Glynda controlled herself and said "I have no doubt that you had good reasons for recruiting Miss Nightshade or rather Miss Belladonna, but you really should have spoken to me and Bart first. While I do understand that refuge in audacity can work short term and no one would possibly believe you would have recruited her to the Academy at the same time as Miss Schnee and Mr Campion, there are limits to what people are prepared to ignore. At the very least we could have found a less transparent alias and a better disguise. Bart would also not have hinted about Anne Harker to Miss Scarlatina if he had known there was another student whose identity was in question."

She handed him a copy of a photograph dated twenty years in the past which showed the wedding of Ghira and Kali Belladonna together with the photo of Blake using on the gallery of first year students. Qrow looked over Ozpin's shoulder, whistled softly and said, "They are both lookers, but I can see the resemblance."

Glynda continued, "To make it worse, there is evidence that the Belladonna daughter takes after her mother." She produced another photograph dated twelve years ago showing the Belladonna family with an unnamed daughter who was clearly her mother's child

"At the very least she should have used a stiffer bow – Miss Scarlatina and perhaps another student saw the bow twitch during your speech. For what it is worth, she does carry the bow off, but really it might have been better to acknowledge she was a Faunus and say so what if she looks like someone famous"

She then handed the book Bart had given her to Ozpin, with her finger pointing at a paragraph. "Bart apologised to me for not remembering sooner, but Nightshade is an alternative name for the plant Belladonna in Menagerie."

Ozpin sighed and said "How many people have Bart's background in both politics and Faunus linguistics. She assured me that she had been using it for the last five years without any human making the connection."

Glynda said "While even Bart did not know this, Miss Scarlatina assured me that she knew the younger Belladonna's first name was Blake. The Faunus equivalent of Salutations apparently often reported on Ghira and Kali as being the glamourous power couple campaigning for Faunus rights. She did say that Blake is a common name among Faunus – an earlier campaigner for civil rights was called it. She also added that at first she had dismissed it as being too obvious and that if Miss Nightshade really was Blake Belladonna a different first name would have been used."

Qrow intervened "When going undercover, it can be sensible to use a first name you are used to answering to. Admittedly I tend to use Bran and would have suggested she call herself Donna."

Glynda then turned to Qrow and asked, "What were you and your sister playing at today?"

Qrow replied "In my case, Taiyang asked me to check on Ruby and Yang and I used it as an excuse to report to Ozpin. Taiyang was not expecting Ruby to be going to Beacon far at least another year and being told she had fought Torchwick and an unknown rogue huntress did not make him any happier. It seems that despite all evidence to the contrary, Raven has some maternal feelings and wanted to see Yang arriving at the academy. I was impressed that you we realised we were there so quickly."

Ozpin replied "One of the second year students is extremely sensitive to auras. He was a little surprised when one appeared out of nowhere and another arrived out of the sky. He could tell you were related, and it was fortunate for everyone that he worked out that you were both related to Yang. I suspect if that had not been the case, Glynda would have used her semblance on you both and Miss Adel would have used her handbag to fire dust enhanced bullets at you on the assumption you had either an invisibility or an illusion semblance. I should add that those bullets were designed for her by a teammate and are banned from use in tournaments and the practice ring because they can drop aura too quickly for safety"

Glynda asked "Qrow, was Raven tracking you or Yang?"

Qrow thought about it and said "It could have been either of us, I suppose. However, she could not have known that I would be visiting Beacon today and so I would say probably Yang's"

Glynda said "Do we tell James that classmates of the Schnee heiress and a member of the Atlas upper crust include the daughter of an ex leader of the White Fang and another student who can be used as a portal by one of the most dangerous bandit leaders in Remnant who has a history of kidnapping people for ransom or do we wait for him to find out for himself?"

Qrow guffawed "Can I be there where you inform the Ice Queen that the Icicle Princess is classmates with the Belladonna girl?"

Qrow had been looking through the photographs of the new students and said to Ozpin "One of your mustangs has done contract work for the Ice Queen and is rather sneaky so I would not bet against him finding out about the Belladonna girl sooner rather than later."

Glynda asked "Is that Leslie Corkran?"

Qrow nodded, a little surprised. Glynda continued "Unfortunately Velvet thinks he may have suspicions about Blake."

Ozpin looked up from his scroll and smiled. "I do think things are better than you fear, Glynda. While I acknowledge that it may have been better for me to have discussed this with you and Bart, I was requested by Miss Nightshade herself not to discuss her identity with anyone else at Beacon. I will now be open with you both, but I stress that this conversation must not be repeated to anyone."

Ozpin said "Glynda, I think you dealt well with Raven. The fact that you confronted her within minutes of her arrival and had clearly been notified of her presence within seconds will make her wary of using her semblance to visit Beacon. While she may think that you could have been bluffing, the Raven I know does not take unnecessary risks. Besides which, Raven had left our group before James or Winter joined it and I do not believe that any of us would have had reason to discuss her with them."

He paused and continued "In relation to the other concern, then not only is she the daughter of Ghira and Kali Belladonna, but until a short time ago she was an active member of the White Fang."

Glynda tensed and she gripped Disciplinarian while Qrow did a spit take.

"She contacted me, said that she regretted the path the White Fang had taken and wanted to redirect her energies into protecting everyone on Remnant. She did not hide her identity and described the activities she had been involved in. While not prepared to disclose all she knew about the White Fang and its members, she did provide me with information about stockpiles of equipment which were intended to be used for acts of terrorism against civilians, details of plans she knew about which would risk mass casualties and details of some cookie cutter operations which are in the White Fang playbook. She also gave some background on the internal politics within the White Fang."

"I take some comfort in the fact that within the last half hour both Blake and Leslie have warned me that they are concerned that an active member of the White Fang has concealed themselves among the students. I thanked her for the warning, told her that we knew about the person in question already, that he is in a similar position to herself and I will discuss it with her later when I have an opportunity."

"In addition, I received a coded communication three days ago from Winter informing me that acting on information received the Ace Ops team raided premises in Atlas last week and seized bombs and bomb making equipment. She says that on that basis my informant had proved her bona fides. She gave me a code against this eventuality which I have sent to Mr. Corkran. It tells him to take no action and that the position has been cleared at the highest level."

Qrow was startled and said, "I knew Winter was ice cold, but I thought she cared for the Icicle."

"Perhaps in the same way as you care for Ruby and Yang, but feel that it is their right to take risks" said Ozpin. "Winter has accepted for herself that she is a target for the White Fang three times over - as a Schnee, a member of the Atlas military involved in anti-terrorist operations and a protégé of James. Her sister has the right to make the same decision."

Glynda asked "How is Leslie Corkran involved in this? I thought he was simply one of the Mustangs, albeit a rather unusual one according to Peter."

Ozpin sipped his coffee. "I do not know the whole story. Perhaps Qrow can fill you in."

Qrow said "When I first met him, he was a typical Vacuoan orphan who had travelled with his tribe and become a security guard at age 14. According to the files, he never knew his father, but his mother claimed he was a rich human from Atlas. I assume he knows the story. If so, this accounts for the accent and the fact that he really enjoys winding up the Ruperts."

Glynda raised an eyebrow, and Qrow explained "Junior officers with more wealth and family than brains – to be fair he can tell the difference between the Ruperts and the Winters of this world, and the NCOs and grunts found him amusing."

"Anyway, he was a good fighter, treated himself as deserving respect and was excellent company. Certainly if I was on a mission in Vacuo he was one of my first choices for any team I put together and I did approach him about joining the mustang program last year, but he said thanks but not yet. I also originally recommended him to Winter three years ago, partly because he is excellent at what he does and partly because it amused me. It was a little bit of a surprise when the next time I met her, she thanked me for the recommendation and said it was useful to have someone who could deal with Faunus without instantly causing hackles to rise. Presumably she recruited him to infiltrate the White Fang, Ozpin"

Ozpin replied "Winter has not told me the details and I have not asked her for them, but in essence yes. She did say that he was impressed by the fact that he had managed to set things up so that the White Fang approached him without him seeking them out and gave her an excuse to get rid of a well-connected, but incompetent, subordinate."

Qrow nodded "Always said he was sneaky. Do I assume that they have now pulled him out and arrested his contacts?"

Ozpin nodded "He was too good at what he did. They ordered him to go on a mission which involved crimes which not even a semi-detached member of the Atlas military could possibly be involved with. The attack failed; I presume because he sabotaged it. Atlas announced all participants had been killed and have been rounding up his contacts in Atlas and Vacuo. Part of the deal was that he be paid to become a huntsman and he chose to attend Beacon. Winter claims she is employing him in a personal capacity to look out for Weiss while studying, but I suspect he is still acting for Atlas security more generally. By the way, Glynda, the other person who Mr. Alistair noted reacting early to the argument between Miss Rose and Miss Schnee was frequently employed by the SDC and so we should assume that he is employed by Jacques Schnee personally"

Qrow snorted "How many students this year are not double agents, here to guard the Icicle, or children of Taiyang?

Ozpin could not resist adding "We also have a student here under an alias."

Glynda said "I still think we need to improve the disguise. Miss Scarlatina said that she would not be the only Faunus student capable of putting the pieces together if they saw another bow twitch. She suggested to me that it may be sensible to consult Miss Adel on a makeover to reduce the family resemblance and to hide the ears more convincingly. Miss Adel would enjoy it, will understand intellectually that there are circumstances in which a Faunus may wish to hide their heritage and Miss Scarlatina assures me that if I tell Miss Adel this is to be kept secret, it will be."

She then added "Can you have a think about what I can tell Bart and Miss Scarlatina. Miss Scarlatina while being prepared to countenance that Blake is a reformed character is afraid of her losing her temper with Weiss Schnee and the consequences for Faunus in Atlas and Vale if that happens. In Bart's case, he will dig away at the details until they make sense unless we take him more into the loop. Clearly, we cannot tell them all you have told me and Qrow, but both are natural worriers."

Ozpin nodded and said, "Let's discus this after initiation tomorrow."

Qrow added "After all it is not as though Blake and Weiss are likely to be teammates, although I assume you will take steps to ensure one of them stands on one of the weak launchers and the other on one of the strong launchers"

Glynda nodded at that one.

…

Team CFVY gathered outside the dining hall. Coco and Velvet had jointly led students on tours of the Academy. Coco had focused on the fighting arenas with Tom while Velvet and Beau had stressed the weapon shops. Yatsuhashi had spent a few minutes with Jaune Arc discussing landing strategies – the Goodwitch list had mentioned the danger that students who had been home schooled may have not been trained in their use. While from what Fox had said, Jaune could probably manage on aura alone, he did outline some ways of breaking the fall. Jaune had thanked him for the heads up. He had also confirmed that he was the brother of the twins and said he had five other sisters. He did not elaborate on his training and Yatsuhashi did not press him.

He had then introduced Jaune to Nora and Lie Ren. This seemed to go quite well – perhaps having seven sisters was a good preparation for meeting Nora. To his surprise Pyrrha Nikos joined them and it became clear that Jaune either did not know who she was or was a good actor. Certainly, he did not gush or stand in awe, but simply treated her as an attractive woman who he wanted to get to know better. Pyrrha seemed to respond well to that approach. She also went out of her way to say hello to Nora saying that she had enjoyed fighting her four years ago and was sorry that their paths had not crossed since. Nora responded happily to that and the two discussed the fight – apparently Nora had got Pyrrha's aura down to 30% before Pyrrha's technique had prevailed. Ren seemed to have thought about saying more, but had decided to follow Nora's lead.

Yatsuhashi recalled the Remnant Enquirer story and wondered whether Nora had been the person allegedly targeted by the minimum height rule. He could see that a plebian short girl in pink giving the invincible girl a run for her money would not have been a match up sponsors would have approved of. He would also give Pyrrha the benefit of the doubt as to whether she would have been a party to such a manoeuvre.

Fox had. as requested by Velvet. spoken to Anne. She had initially been a little reserved but had then surprised him by asking "Is that an ADA you are using?"

He said, "Yes, is it that obvious."

She replied, "Not really – it is just that I have one as well. I have 60% vision and am also dyslexic. I only got it three years ago and it has made a huge difference."

They had compared notes and made suggestions to each other about the best ways of using the ADA. He had also raised the landing strategies point and she had assured him that she was fine on that. He invited him to join his table at dinner, explaining that it was likely to be full of Vacuoans and mustangs, but that they would be good company. She said that would suit her fine.

Fox then asked if she knew anyone else in her year. She said no, the eyesight and the dyslexia had not been diagnosed until she had already been dismissed as stupid and so combat school had not been an option. Fox congratulated her on making it here adding that he knew how difficult it could be when people underrated you. She agreed wholeheartedly.

Coco and Tom had discussed the dinner arrangements with Glynda who said "It is not ideal, but it is the best option in my experience. It occupies everyone for just over two hours and fills in the gap between the tours and bedtime. As everyone is sitting down, we can control the amount of alcohol which is drunk. We serve soft drinks before the meal. We then serve one small glass of wine or a small beer each course and that together with plenty of bread at the start of the meal means no one gets too intoxicated. The students also are made to feel that they are being treated as grown-ups and it marks the evening as something special. We tried buffet style once, but that was over too quickly and too many people headed to the college bar at an early stage. Even though we had thought enough about to it to say that until the initiation trial had been passed, they were not allowed to buy drinks, they were bought drinks by their friends in the year above. Others headed outside to walk in the grounds and that was the year when two people slept outside all night. It is also easier to allow people to sit with the people they know – they feel more comfortable and it reduces the tension. I have tried table plans mixing people up, but that did not work. Some students swapped place cards anyway, conversation became stilted and some students thought that we had given it the same level of thought as the seating plan at a wedding and spent the evening working out the implications. In a couple of cases, it resulted in arguments and in the worst case to the weapon waving incident. Once the students are in teams, our experience is that they realise they must try and make things work despite the differences in background. Another advantage is that a formal dinner allows Professor Ozpin to give a more upbeat speech at the end of the meal than the one at the welcoming ceremony which further fills in the time before sleeping in the ballroom."

The Academy butler had announced that dinner is served. The members of Team Plum and Team CFVY headed towards their prescribed tables and waited to see who joined them. For the most part the tables split as Coco expected, Weiss joined her together with a couple of the other Atlesian students and otherwise the table was mostly full of Pharos students including Lydia Travers together with two Signal students who knew Lydia from hockey tournaments. Velvet's table mostly consisted of Faunus although Ruby had joined her. When quizzed about this, Velvet sent a thought that Ruby wanted to allow Yang some time with her friends and to discuss possible upgrades for Crescent Rose with Velvet. She was also happily drinking milk. Yatsuhashi's table was primarily Mistralian with a few Pyrrha groupies from Vale.

Fox had the Mustangs including Leslie Corkran and to her surprise Brede Campion and Anne Harker as well as some Vacuoans. She sent a thought to Fox asking him how that was going. His response was "Remarkably well. Brede and Leslie are teasing each other mercilessly and everyone is lapping it up. It seems Leslie was on the security detail when the Campion family visited Vacuo two years ago and so they know each other. We have been told that Brede is not a Rupert, whatever that means. Anne seems at ease - for whatever reason she seems to have plenty in common with the mustangs and has a similarly earthy sense of humour"

Cardin and his friends were on Tom's table with other Pharos students although she had seen Cardin and Dove look around before joining them. She noted that Russell Thrush had also joined that table and was talking with Dove and Cardin. Beau had a table of mostly Torch students, Loretta had a table of Signal students including Yang who were winning the noise race.

Michelle had a table which mostly consisted of Pharos students including Henry and June. It also included Blake Nightshade. It was the one furthest away from the door and Coco suspected that it was the table where the latecomers had ended up.

Each of them warned their table about the need to swat up on their landing strategy, not to take Ozpin too literally when he referred to finding relics as in their year it had been playing cards. They did not confirm or deny any rumours about team formation, saying that their understanding was that Ozpin changed things regularly, but that teams would be formed quickly. They also stressed that they would need to be ready to fight Grimm the next day so would advise an early night.

After the main course was over, Team CFVY exchanged thoughts on whether they should swap over. Coco said she would stay put. While things were basically going well, Weiss was a little taken aback by Lydia and her friends. Once she had learned that Lydia had been in the running for combat valedictorian, Weiss had clearly decided that she was worth getting to know. However, she suspected that the land rich, cash comfortable class was not a group Weiss would have encountered before. Yatsuhashi felt that he was best off where he was, although would wander over to Fox's table during coffee. Fox said that perhaps Velvet could swap with him for dessert and speak with a couple of the Mustangs who had some questions about the workshops if she felt that her table would be happy about that. Velvet said it would be fine and suggested that he be ready to discuss Sharp Retribution's ranged capacity for Ruby.

After dessert, coffee was served together with a small aperitif. Ozpin stood up and gave a second speech introducing the other professors and assistant tutors. He also slightly rowed back on his wasted potential message by saying his experience was that students quickly learnt to appreciate what was important and to value the traditions of Beacon.

Twenty minutes after the speeches were over Glynda sent a message to both teams that it was time to round up people and direct them towards the ballroom and to collect sleeping bags. Yatsuhashi joined Port and Oobleck in the bar where they were dissuading the senior students from buying drinks for the first years. Coco and Team PLUM gathered people who were still sipping coffee or otherwise chatting at the dinner tables and directed them towards the toilets and the ballroom. Fox and Velvet went outside to gather up the ten people who had gone for stroll after dinner. Six were easily directed in the right direction leaving four auras to gather. Fox said that the remaining four were in two pairs and their auras were close together. Velvet used her hearing and eyesight to judge the level of enthusiasm involved. A loud cough and a mention that Glynda would be shortly strolling around the grounds persuaded one couple to call it a night. The other couple were more engrossed and it had been necessary for Fox to tap one of the pair on the shoulder and refer to the alleged infra-red CCTV coverage in the gardens to dissuade them from continuing.

They reported to Coco and Glynda that they had gathered the outside waifs and strays and headed towards their dorm. It had been a long and draining day and they would need to be up early in the morning.