"I only got after action reports. The squad, one of mine by all accounts, had acted on their own. Menagerie was not about to allow that to stand, of course. They didn't just impose sanctions, they began to attack ANY vessel, of any Kingdom if they passed within the territory claimed by the 'Faunus State', and when the other Kingdoms objected, they demanded that they put the same sanctions on Atlas as they put on Menagerie after every major White Fang attack," the General said all this with a weariness in his voice, the sound of someone who knew how this terrible story would end.
"And how did that happen? Semblances don't change, not like that. Extreme skill might show someone a new way to use it, but this was not that," responded Ozma, and Ironwood just shrugged.
"Does it matter?" asked the General, and the old soul in a young body stared at him, before realizing…while it might later…that was prefaced on them HAVING a later.
"It would still be nice to know, but I suppose in an academic sense only," he admitted, and James nodded.
"To be fair, our own scientists went to work immediately. Some of the logs from that ship, an experimental stealth craft I had only just learned about thanks to this incident, with all kinds of sensors. The best they came up with in the few months we had left was she 'compressed' the Null Field of her body, and then let it out as a kind of pulse, one that disabled others for some time, a few minutes, but left her able to use her aura, what little she had left, until it ran dry," he explained, and Ozma nodded in turn at it.
"That, however, was only a prelude to what was to come. I had in my employ at the time, Null himself, hidden as a bodyguard, and together, we'd been…cleaning Atlas of the ones who'd soiled her soul so much over the decades," he began, and that got the old soul's attention, as he turned to him. He didn't question WHY Ironwood would employ the one who'd killed him, there was no need when he knew perfectly well the reason.
"I had the option of withholding the information of the attack on his sisters from him. Their safety had been one of the conditions of his employment, and that of the woman with the illusion semblance. I was tempted to, very much so, as there was still so much to do, so many things to make right, but I knew what it would cost another piece of my soul at that point, and decided it was time to stop paying such costs," he went on, turning his chair around, looking away from Ozma, so he might as well have been talking to himself.
"Null was…not pleased, but at least was not angry at me, since I had volunteered this information. He did inform me, however, that our partnership was sadly at an end, and before I could stop him, he and the woman were gone from my office. That same day, several files vanished from the secure archives of Atlas, and a ship, a simple bullhead, nothing fancy, was stolen by unknown means," as he continued, his voice perked up, as if he were talking of a lost son he was proud of.
"I had enough on my plate to deal with after that that I let them go. I had wanted those girls safe, his sisters deserved that much for what my Kingdom put them through. Instead, we'd visited yet one more horror on them, and broken what little happiness and security they had managed to find. I had wished them all the best…and then they threw the ultimate truth down, and the world burned," he took a deep breath, knowing this part was going to be the hardest to speak.
"Six months had passed since you left us, since Null 'bested' you in close combat," he said, as if it were somehow a fact he wasn't sure of, but he moved on quickly.
"Six months we'd had to deal with the fallout. And then the nation of Menagerie revealed something I'd truthfully forgotten about. Perhaps I shouldn't have. It was important, but it had been dealt with as far as I knew, and so it had seemed unimportant compared to the problems of today," as he spoke, he spun back around, and stared Ozma in the eyes, his steely gaze showing he'd used his semblance, Mettle, to allow him to tell this part without emotion.
"They announced it with all the fanfare one might expect. That an Atlas Company, accused of so much else, had come up with a plan, one designed to kill the faunus, every single one. Not this generation, not those alive, but those yet unborn. The generations yet to come, culled before they could even take a breath. That is what Chivalric Arms had tried to do, and that knowledge sent ripples through the world," the words seemed to echo for a moment in the office, despite him saying them no differently than anything else.
"The sterilization agent," said Ozma, and Ironwood looked at him, just a little more fondly, before nodding.
"I had honestly thought you would have forgotten about that," he admitted, and the boy's face looked hurt for a moment, before he too nodded.
"I was not, I will be the first to admit, thinking as far ahead as I should have. I didn't even bother to keep the Silver Eyed Warrior with me. But something like that was world ending…which given our current circumstances, I'll hazard a guess, is what happened," he said, waving his arm around the office, and Ironwood shrugged. It certainly hadn't helped, but it was not solely responsible.
"It was certainly bad. But worse came when they somehow got information about the makeup of the sterilization agent. I hadn't even known they'd saved that, so it caught me flat footed. And then they started testing the water supplies for it, finding none in Vacuo, none in Mistral, and being stymied in Atlas, for obvious reasons, they turned their attention to Vale…and found the water supply of the entire city completely contaminated," he said that last like it was the eulogy for the city…and truth to tell, it had been.
"I demanded answers at that point myself, and soon found them when the woman whom team RWBY had 'convinced' to turn against the conspiracy was brought to me, and I broke her. It took hours, doing things I'd promised myself I'd never do, even in my darkest moments, but in this, I had to know, and what I learned, well, the after action report described it best. 'Subject did not survive interrogation'," he said, a sad, but somehow satisfied smile on his lips as he spoke those last few words.
"She had been, as it turned out, despite what she'd claimed to team RWBY and Null, in charge of the project. She'd known what was happening from day one. She had…she had believed at the time that what she was doing was necessary. That her actions would lead to a safer world, one more united against the Grimm. She was a true believer, honestly, and it took everything in me not to wring her neck after she told me all the horrible things she'd done," this was said with a pale face, but a stern set of eyes, showing he was not in the least bit joking.
"Then she revealed the worst of it. Fields had brought her, and the rest of her team for one reason. If I'd been thinking straight back then, I might have realized it at the time, but so much else was happening that I didn't question it. Namely, why would someone bring such a project with them to Vale, if all he was here to be was bait for Null?" he asked this, turning to the boy, and watched as the eyes went wide, a reflex perhaps of the body, as the old soul made the connection.
"Vale was to be a dry run of the agent. Can't release it in Atlas, too many would notice it when the faunus here stopped having children. Can't do it in Vauco, their water supply isn't actually centralized, instead using moisture catchers all over the city. Mistral was a possibility, but since he needed to come to Vale, well, that made it an easy choice," he finished, taking a deep breath, and then sighing it back out.
"By the time I knew what had happened, Vale was already burning. The faunus population was around eight percent of the total, but this? I don't think the police were ready for it, especially when the White Fang revealed all the details. The Council tried to stop it, even censored it where they could, but it was information, and that has a habit of wanting to be free," he continued, the old soul nodding at that statement. It COULD work sometimes, purging the info, but something like this? The best way was to get ahead of it and 'shape' it the right way. Trying to simply block it was always a bad idea.
"They tried to regain control of the situation after that. Police crackdowns and the like. It failed. Faunus Huntsmen and Huntresses were in the crowds rioting, and the police had no chance of stopping them without bringing in their own. Most refused, on principle. It was worse for the city when they didn't. Hunter fights were done in a floating, fully controlled stadium for a reason, after all," the last was said with a dark chuckle, and Ozma could only boggle at the idiotic minds he'd left in charge of Vale.
"Then the other shoe dropped. Beacon was called on to provide more bodies, especially since what few Hunters they had were running out, as they tended not to come back after contact with the protestors, either quitting or dying. Glynda refused. Then they demanded the faunus students and staff be turned over to them…for security purposes of course. She refused then as well, with good reason, telling them they would not set one foot in Beacon, and would not bring their war to those walls, especially not if it risked infecting the faunus who were safe within," it was obvious this was building up to something, but Ozma had to admit, he wasn't sure what.
"They then revealed that, thanks to something to do with the Amity Festival, the water supply at Beacon had been tapped, and mixed with the general supply. Tsune…did not take that well. Peter either, for that matter. Glynda, ignorant of this, tried to maintain order, but she was forced to watch as the faunus students left, taking a huge chunk of the humans with them, and soon Vale was almost completely abandoned of all of them, as they requested transport to other Kingdoms, and those were eagerly provided, especially as the young huntsmen and huntresses tended to bring their elders with them," Ozma, staring at him, knew exactly where this was going now.
"Did she launch the attack, or was it a natural thing?" he asked, and Ironwood had to shrug.
"Honesty? I have no idea. We had no warning. One moment, the outer villages of the Kingdom of Vale were reporting a small uptick in Grimm sightings. The next? A flood of them was on the horizon, swallowing the world. It was like watching a tide, as those few left in Vale tried to put up a defense, tried to fight back, but the horde was coming, and everyone was giving ground to it," he pulled up something on his scroll, showing mostly projections of the Grimm horde as it advanced.
"Instantly Atlas offered aid. The other Kingdoms as well, but it was too late. The Horde was moving too fast. Only Menagerie was close enough, and they didn't care for the humans. Oh, they sent a fleet, a huge airship armada, made with one purpose in mind, evacuating the faunus population from the Kingdom, even offering hope of a counteragent to what they'd been poisoned with," that last seemed to be the only bright spot in an otherwise dark tale.
"That idiot, Schnee tried to claim the Grimm were the faunus' fault, somehow. I broke his nose after that interview, and told him the next time he tried, I'd have him locked away, especially since the only reason his damn mines were still open was my people were keeping them that way, and we wouldn't be able to keep them that way for long. Even saying something like that brought the specter of doing that to our own people to everyone's minds, and that was unacceptable," he flexed his fingers as he said this, as if remembering the feel of that face on his own flesh.
"Regardless, they were enroute, and arrived ahead of the horde by hours. My own battleship, pushed as hard as I could get it to, was more than a day out, so I could only watch the videos the White Fang were sending out, transmitting their landing coordinates to every Faunus on the planet, and showing what they were about right away, as they took rest in the Mountain Glen region, clearing a route to them via a single craft flying over it, one containing Amber Arc," he said this, and got Ozma to perk up a bit as he continued.