Chapter 12: Last Minute Adjustments
A/N: This fic no longer has a set update schedule. I write for fun. Focusing on the deadline made it feel like a chore. Also, this is the last chapter with rotating PoVs. Switching between characters was slowing down the writing.
Azure's PoV
I carefully backed away from the forms of Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald walking down the corridor. Right, the run is tomorrow afternoon/night. Now I can actually make a plan…
A Day Later
Alright, I've had a good amount of sleep, managed to remember when everything happens, and now I have an itinerary.
Item One: let Ozpin know that I'm trying to do something.
I decided to just send a message.
Ozpin's PoV
I glared at my scroll, hoping the message on it would go away.
'Hey Ozpin, doing something to help out Those Teams, might need to commandeer a highway, don't worry everything is under control. I think.'
Why must Azure keep doing this?
Azure's PoV
Alright, next up on the itinerary: go eat lunch because I just realized it's 1:00 already.
Did that. Third task: go check in on Pyrrha and make sure that mental crap didn't have any lingering effects.
Pyrrha's PoV
Something was up with Professor Azure, Pyrrha had decided. She was sitting in the dorms, simply taking a moment to relax and reflect, and occasionally have important realizations.
For starters, he was supposedly younger than her class, but there were times he acted far, far older than he actually was. When he was talking to her about tournament fighting (and she still didn't know why he did that), he sounded like he had fought in a war… but there hadn't been any wars since the Great War eighty years ago.
Secondly were the weird nicknames. Sure, he'd basically dropped them after first semester, but they made little to no sense. Except Yang's and Ruby's.
She was interrupted in her thoughts by a knock at the door. She walked over and opened it to see the very person she was suspicious of.
"Hey," he said. His eyes were flickering around. "I just wanted to apologize for… um…pressuring you."
Ah, yes. The third reason she was suspicious: his weird interest in her crush on Jaune.
"I just…" He hesitated. "When I was growing up (He looks younger than us, Pyrrha thought), I spent a lot of time reading stories. Whenever I got to a part where two people had crushes on each other, but just couldn't spit it out, I got frustrated. I wanted to yell into the page," he pitched his voice higher, "just confess already you idiots!" His voice went back to normal. "So when I saw something that looked like the stories right in front of me…" he spread his hands.
That explains a lot, Pyrrha thought. "And you didn't talk to Jaune because…"
Azure opened his mouth, paused, and closed it again. "Because I have complete confidence in my plans until they blow up in my face." He turned to leave, then stopped. "Oh, one last thing." He looked her in the eyes. "I have a mission for your team, once mission assignments come around. It involves…" he hesitated. "I can't say much without Ozpin's permission, but it is directly relevant to you and most of it is classified." He then turned around and started walking away.
Pyrrha sighed and closed the door. That was like most conversations with Azure: weird and probably pointless. The only time Azure had been helpful was when he gave her advice on how to teach Jaune - focusing on blocking rather than dodging. She shook her head, and started heading towards the lockers. Beating up a training dummy or two could clear her head.
Azure's PoV
Alright, so there weren't many side effects of my little mental crap, and it looks like it cleaned itself up. Good. I don't know the code for mental spells very well, I even had to copy the spell from someone else. Pretty interesting syntax, applying an SEP field to a single person instead of everyone who looks at the thing under the field, needs some… wait. Focus. Itinerary. Freeing up the chunk of freeway in case they have to fight the Paladin again… wait, shit, I could have done another 'anonymous tip' but for the Atlesian Army convoy. Ah, well, nothing builds teamwork like fighting a mech. Okay, anything else? No? Well, then, let's start faking some road construction. I already have some construction vehicle illusions prepped, and the signs just needed to be edited. Now for how to set it up… I've been meaning to see if I could make illusion golems.
I walked around a corner in the Beacon dorms and walked out of an alleyway within a few blocks of the highway. There weren't many people around; it was about 2:00, so most people were still at work. I pulled up the code, gave it a quick once-over, and then walked over to the highway. I set up an SEP field to conceal my work, then started blowing apart the tarmac. Turned off some of the barriers as well. After that, I assembled the scrap into golems…
Wait. This could be so much easier.
I dismissed the forming golems, and then set up a time delayed repair spell that would fix the road in a few hours. I then set up a couple of signs and called it a day. Now, it's time to go troll team RWBY for a bit because I can. Wait, have they left yet? I checked my watch. Okay, so it's dark by the time the fighting starts, they leave during daylight… call it half an hour to an hour to get from Beacon down to Vale… means that if I want to get back on time I need to teleport. I ducked into an alley and less than a second later was walking through the corridors of Beacon.
"But… but… but…"
And almost crashing into Ruby, who was dragging Weiss behind her. I made a startled noise.
"Dah!" That was Ruby's reaction. She jerked to a stop, Weiss managing to get free when her grip loosened, only to stumble from the lack of resistance.
Looks like I was later than I thought.
A/N: It's been a while! Sorry, school was exhausting and I need to rewatch RWBY before I can write more.