Disclaimer-I do not own RWBY, which is owned by the late and great Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth. Only thing I own is my characters and such other unannounced things.

"Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die."

7 Sextilis, 3176 PD -C. Astali-

I sighed, finishing the fourth of the five packets of paperwork Ironwood insisted I sign for my official resignation from Atlas Academy and, by extension, the Atlesian Military. He was a persistent twat, I'll admit, never ceasing to annoy and stress me out even when he wasn't my commanding officer anymore. It might also be my fault for not telling him about the meeting until yesterday.

Right in front of Specialists Schnee and Spectre.

That was an enjoyable couple of minutes of him being speechless in front of his subordinates, who both, assuming for Spectre's case, looked ready to attack me. In the end, Ironwood did something far worse than killing me. He gave me Paperwork.

'One day, I am going to rip off your organic arm and beat you with it, James!' I thought violently, something I've been doing for the last few hours towards the cybernetic commander. I will admit the transition to Beacon was going smoothly, if time consuming. I wonder how the staff at Atlas was handling my departure. 'They are most likely walking the halls without fearing my constant bickering over their ideals'

A growl escaped me as I remembered their bigoted ideals of "Separation for their own safety" towards the Faunus. Reminded me far to much of how I was justifying my campaign during the Revolution. Luckily, I was never required to associate with the other teachers unless absolutely necessary to one of my, or their, assignments to the students, a rarity in and of itself. If memory serves me right, I think I almost had to deal with Ironwood and his "elite squad", a fancy team for the privileged and arrogant gas bags he called honor students. Kissasses more like it.

I angrily threw the packet off my desk, a gift from a businessman in Mistral. It was intricately carved, the hutch having a battle, from the Third Holy Rapture I believe, engraved into it. A shame the man didn't tell me his name, he sounded like a refined sort of fellow. Pushing back my chair, I looked at my scroll and checked the time. '6:45, fifteen minutes until the students arrive. Damn you Ozpin and your half truths!'

When Ozpin had told me during our conversation on what is expected of me as a teacher at Beacon, a point he emphasized greatly, the students' Initiation would be soon, I thought it was a week away. As it turns out, the students were arriving today, two days after that conversation, and I was still chained down by the damnable paperwork like a dog! I was getting tired of the hassle that was politics, something, I'm sure, many actual military men would agree with me about. This was Aegis' sort of thing to do anyway.

As I got up from the abyss known as Ironwood's idiocy, I looked at the mirror next to the countless boxes of personal belongings and grimaced at the site of my condition. I had opted for my dress uniform for today, rather than the full body armor I wore to most places. Even though it wasn't a battle quality uniform, it looked like it could. It looked vaguely like the battle dress of the Atlesian military, but with a few major differences, the most noticeable ones being the several medals adorning my right breast of the dress coat and the red aiguillettes over my right shoulder. The least noticeable being that the dress coat had armor sowed into it, making it, theoretically, as strong as any regular Atlesian soldiers armor. But the main attraction was my helmet and faceplate. The red-tinted lenses flashed with a menacing glare; the skull-like mask covering my face gave my voice a subtle filter, sounding almost like I was speaking over a radio. The helmet that the faceplate was attached to had the mandible-like edges almost convene at the chin of the apparatus, the top of the helmet being like the top of a hexagon. My family crest, a hawk holding a rifle in one talon and a longsword in the other, was proudly stamped into the sides of the helmet. the armor pieces were apparently shaped to look like the helms of Queen Helios' Kopfe von Tod, one of the many elite knight regiments during her reign. I don't enjoy wearing the thing, but I'd prefer not looking at the murderer behind it. The brooding that was encroaching upon me was thankfully interrupted by my scroll buzzing in my coat pocket, but the thankfulness was quickly replaced by

'God, if this is the payment for the sins I have committed, then grant me peace for a day, at least.' I prayed for the third time in the last thirty minutes. Pulling out my scroll once again, I pulled out my scroll as sluggishly as possible. 'Ozpin wants me to be there to greet the students with the other teachers.' Not the best choice in my personal opinion, as I don't have the most... comforting appearance, but if that is his wish so be it. 'And to go to the teachers lounge to introduce myself to them... I suppose that can be done.' At least they know about me being here, the students and their parents likely won't have heard yet. I hope. Sighing, I looked at my messages one last time before putting my scroll back in my coat pocket.

'I wonder what the my colleagues will be like. They must be powerful huntsman if they are being allowed to teach at this academy.' Quickly checking if my uniform was properly adjusted, I began my walk towards the teachers lounge. 'I look forward to meeting them.'

Why was my eye twitching so damn much, I couldn't really think much on it because I was trying to ignore the green blur and the walrus man's constant arguing over why caffeinated coffee was superior to decaffeinated coffee. The only silent ones being the one they call Goodwitch and a pink haired woman that I believe was known as Peach, but I didn't dare interact with the stern and crazy. Goodwitch seemed to be rubbing her temples from a likely growing headache, whilst mumbling about Ozpin being an idiot for hiring the two. While the pink haired one seemed to be… hiding and doing some form of work on her scroll. Meanwhile, I stood apart from the four, my head against the wall as I contemplated if a prison in Vacuo was still available.

While I was trying to find the possible errors and any people who could have rigged my trial in favor of a non-guilty plea, I made one fatal mistake. I didn't pay attention to the now very quiet room. Or the loud footsteps originating from the finely dressed walrus.

"Why hello, my boy!" I was awoken from my detective work by a loud, boastful voice and a hard slap on the back, "I hope me and Barty didn't scare you from any conversation you wished from one of us!" He cheerfully continued, failing to notice my head hitting the wall over and over again. Sadly, the helmet was keeping all the damage contained to the wall.

'Of all the times I decided not to take Peacemonger or Warmaker with me, I have to deal with the worst battle of my life. A walrus man with a megaphone powered voice.' How has Goodwitch, as I'm assuming from the past five minutes of her mumbling that she's been here for a while, put up with these two for so long? Is her semblance the ability to nullify stress? I must know her secrets. No matter the co-

"Are you still there, my boy?"

'Dammit! I thought ignoring a conversation made the person leave, not persist!' I took several calming breaths and stopped using my head as a battering ram, before turning around and standing at my full height, easily dwarfing the walrus by leagues.

"Yes, I am still here, but I was trying to do something before you interrupted," I say with very audible annoyance, walking towards the staff room door, the only hope of escaping the hell that I had voluntarily joined. "Now if you would excuse me, I am going out to the courtyard to get some fresh air. Alone." A messy lie, but the walrus' brain didn't seem that large, unlike his stomache. I will applaud him for his outstanding mustache, however. Almost makes me want to take my helmet off and let mine free. Humoring him, however, is not my goal.

"But I was about to retell my journey of defeating a King Naga with nothing more than my shirt and a cassette tape!" He said, eliciting an audible groan from the staff present, "And you have that breathing mask! You don't need to go outside for fresh air!"

We stood there for several awkward moments, His bushy eyebrow poking up in confidence. If only he could see the glare I was giving his soul right now. The only sounds that went about the room were that of the occasional sip from the green blur's thermos and the tapping of the the pink ones fingers on her scroll. "I hope you realize that I hate you with every fiber of my being." I finally said, slipping out of the room to the sound of Walrus man's pleas and quickly closed the door behind me.

I let out a few slow breathes, letting it calm my frayed nerves. After a few more moments of collecting my thoughts, the faint noise of doors opening came from further down the hall. Choosing not to deal with students, by which I mean scare them, I began walking in the opposite direction to where, I hoped, would be another set of doors. 'This year is looking to be a very frustrating year.'

-?-

I took another sip of my beer as I read through the latest report on my phone from my informants in the government, laughing as I thought about how easy it was to get them hired. Lowly secretaries didn't care why I wanted them to give me information, just as long as I kept giving them a steady source of lien. It was amusing really how stupid they were, to never realize that while they were worrying about that entire Astali business, I was getting fed every opinion, secret, conversation from the inside. Priceless!

…

Maybe I'm enjoying this a bit to much. Looking at my beer for a minute, then looking at the four others I had, I decided I've had a bit too much to drink as well.

Putting my beer down and throwing my scroll on my couch, I went over to my kitchen to look for my lunch. Opening the fridge, all that was there was some more beer bottles and leftover lasagna from yesterday. Running my hand over my face, I took out the leftovers and got out a plate. Gods, hated this low profile bullshit that Magenta suggested. Why a crap apartment in the slums? Why couldn't I live in a condo or something? Most guys wouldn't suspect a guy in a condo, right?

Before I could get some lasagna scooped onto my plate, someone started knocking.

Groaning, put my plate down on my counter. I swear to the Gods, if it's that old hag that keeps asking me if I know where here cat is again…

"What is it? I was just about to eat…" I stopped myself the minute I opened the door and saw who was behind it. Standing in front of me was a man that was easily taller than 7 feet, and was hunched over due to that height. He had a old fashioned look to him, with a frock coat covering a tie and waistcoat, a dress shirt, pants, and shoes, with a top hat and a long cloak. A decorated cane was held in hand, with the images of Grimm seeming to climb from the bottom of it to its very top. The top seemed to have larger, claw like hands forming the top of the cane, the hands cupped in a sphere shape. In short, the man looked like Death personified.

"Am I interrupting something, Mr. Verde?" His voice was deep, and sounded refined and sophisticated beyond all measures. But there was a hint of malice and contempt as well. He was an all around douche, too, but I wasn't going to say that to his face.

"N-N-No No! Of course not, Sir Bealdor! I was just... Um..." He leaned in close to my face as he approached me, making me reflexively step away from him as his face, which was barely visible safe for his almost glowing yellow eyes, was mere inches away from me, "C-Can I have some space, please?" The yellow orbs seemed to continue to bore into my very core, and I swear I could feel them doing it too, before making a 'tch' sound and leaning away from me.

"Very well, but I'm not here to simply antagonize you. This time, anyways." A chair from the corner of the apartment was pushed towards the center, where Bealdor sat down and crossed a leg over another. A clapped twice and I felt myself collapse into a second chair that was pushed into me, freaking me out endlessly. "I'm here for information on a quite infamous quarry of mine."

I perked up at that, "I can do that." I grabbed my laptop from the coffee table and began starting it up, "Who is it? A politician? Civilian?"

He chuckled for a second before folding his hands, putting them on his more prevailing knee. "Military, in actuality. A Colonel Cadec Astali." I looked over my screen for a second before looking back down and going to the military subsection of my intel.

"I'm going to send it over to your butler so you can look at it whenever you want, where ever you want." He made a noise of confirmation before standing back up and walking back over to the door. "Is there anything else you'd like me to do, maybe?" If I remember from my talk from Sorriso before coming here, was that the guy liked being asked if you could do anything else for him. Sounds like a thing a psychopath like Bealdor would get off on, but as long as I get to live longer around this guy...

Bealdor retrieved a orange USB drive from within his coat tossing it to me. I caught it barely, and kept it as close to my chest in fear of what would happen if even a scratch got on it. "I need you to find a way to get this installed into the Beacon camera systems tonight." He opened the door to my apartment and hunched over as he got past the doorway, but stopped there, "And I mean it when I say tonight."

I gulped at the obvious threat, an nodded like a little kid who just got in trouble. A chuckle emanated from him before the door closed behind him, seemingly on its own. I let out a breath I didn't know I had kept in before closing my laptop.

"I fucking hate this job..."

Edit AN: I have way to much fun writing Bealdor. That's all I'm going to say on that. Honestly.