The day started for team JPLL and ACMN as usual as many before it did. Classes would come and go, and though the biggest change was Jin being sent to private tutoring every once in a while, for the most part, the same old routines became slowly engraved in the teams' minds.
Yet another bombastic lesson with Port, in which he told them one of his favorite stories, passed, Perci listening in with glee. Just as the group was about to head out to their break, they heard the familiar sound of footsteps approach them, Glynda walking and meeting the team right at the doorway.
She started with a simple greeting. "Hello, children. May I ask Ms. Jin to follow me please?" The rest of them raised an eyebrow. This was not the first time Jin was called out in between lessons for something, and so far, trying to ask her what they were taking her away for proved quite the challenge, if it was even possible. Asking her directly, of course, wouldn't work, and every insane idea the team came up with to try and get her to spill the beans ended up in the same way: Each of them more perplexed and confused than before asking her.
However, despite that, the bit they DID manage to infer was as much as valuable as they could get: All they knew from what Jin could tell them was a very white space, and some auras being very nice to her. At first, they could easily figure out it was a medical check of sorts, as the area she mentions looks strikingly similar to Beacon's medical ward. This, of course, only raised MORE questions for the group.
"Okay!" Jin called out happily, walking behind Glynda. Of course, none of them raised any objections, as the general assumptions were that the headmistress wouldn't do anything that could potentially harm her. However, seeing as this was becoming more and more frequent, suspicions were at an all time high.
The first to react was Perci, gruffing and crossing her arms. "Man... What the crap are they even doing with her anyway?" In honesty, she was just curious at this point, if nothing else. Jin's actual safety wasn't her highest priority, but while Perci would never admit it, some part of her was genuinely concerned for the lovable dust giant.
"That is a mystery to be solved." Leila looked at her, just as curious. "I mean, I do understand she needs some special tutoring, but those lessons replace her combat class for the most part. Being called during recess... I have no idea what they would need her otherwise."
Of course, the moment they mentioned the word mystery, Ash's ears perked in curiosity. "So... Got some info you wanna fish out?" She asked, eager to show off her skills. "Then I guess you'll need a... Private detective?" Ash was actually quite proud of her skills in the field. Having a detective for a father, as well as being under his wing for quite some time, left her with plenty of experience when it came to the delicate art of sleuthing.
Looking at her determination and cockiness, the rest of team JPLL only exchanged a quick glance before nodding and turning to her. "Are you sure you can find it out?" Leila asked her. "We'd great appreciate it, of course, but I don't want you getting yourself into trouble by trespassing into areas where students shouldn't be."
"Man, who the fuck heard of a P.I who's completely clean?" Perci rolled her eyes, turning to Ash. "Yo. How much experience you got in this, anyway?"
"Enough," Ash replied in a single word. She smirked, her usual laid back attitude now being laced with hints of confidence and self-assurance. She knew *EXACTLY* what she was doing, and she knew how to do it well. "Enough experience to always..." She pulled out a part of her trench coat, showing that underneath it, she had plenty of gear one who wants to know things would need. From lock picks, to magnifying glasses, to pincers, Ash had nearly all of the gizmos needed for tasks such as these one could imagine.
Perci and Hue stared in admiration, for two entirely different reasons, and though Leila did take a quick look, she turned her head just as fast. "No. I cannot support such lawless actions."
Now it was Ash's turn to roll her eyes. "So what, you'll just let it slide and pretend like you're not curious?" She asked as the rest of her teammates gave her a similar look.
"Yeah Nun, I mean seriously? From the looks of it, she's the ACTUAL real deal. I mean hell, now I just wanna see if she has what it takes to get the job done if nothing else." Perci smirked, turning her head to the gray-haired teen. "So, Detective. You REALLY think you can outsmart Ozpin and Glynda?"
Before Ash could answer, Melody chimed in. "Yeah, she sure is! Ash managed to find the creep that's been stealing underwear from the girl's lockers! It's such a relief now..." She sighed, Perci raising an eyebrow.
"Wait, they finally caught the asshole?" She scoffed the ground a bit. "Shit! I wanted to have that one! Was about to break his legs, too..."
Ash shrugged, raising her shoulders a bit. "Ehhh... Those were easy prey. I don't think I can fool that headmaster for very long, but I'm pretty sure I can dig out what Y'all are curious about."
Leila stuck to her ground, huffing. "Well, I must condone those actions then. I am sorry Ash, but if this is what you choose to do, then I will have faith in the Lord that he is keeping Jin safe instead. Good day." She started walking away, her steps only accompanied by Perci's shouts and taunts.
"Chicken!" She kept calling a few more, but as she saw the Nun wasn't responding to her whatsoever, she gave up the act, instead turning her attention to Ash. "Well anyway... So, I think we got everything set, right? When can we expect results?"
Ash looked around, just to make sure no one was eavesdropping on their conversation. A habit she picked up from her younger days, at least when it involved more professional topics. "Honestly? No freakin' clue. Hopefully? About a week or so. I'll keep ya posted while I'm on the case, K?"
"Hmm." Perci hummed in agreement, Hue nodding simultaneously. "Alright then. For future reference, though, this conversation never happened. Got it?" She addressed the rest of the girls present, each of them nodding.
"Took the words right out of my mouth," Ash smirked. "You know your way around the sleuthing business too?" She was quite surprised, at the very least, to see how much Perci was aware of those types of practices. While she could only guess the reason she was even on parole in the first place, seeing her think on the level her father taught her to think in always managed to impress her, gaining some semblance of respect for the delinquent.
Perci could only cackle a bit. Her time on the streets made having to avoid the law quite the usual occurrence, and apparently enough, she had to deal with her fair share of private detectives as well. "I guess you can say that." She summarized, the group splitting apart, each going in a different direction, leaving Ash to sneak away and do her work.
First thing Ash did was learn the ins and outs of the medical ward. Acting sprained during combat practice and being hurried in was easy enough, and eventually, after a day or two of sneaking about, she could map the entire wing without too much of an issue. After that, came the subject of learning the physicians' schedules, which, much like the building itself, weren't too difficult to decipher. Once again, a clear outline of each doctor's locations throughout the day laid in front of her, giving Ash all the information she would need to learn the truth behind Jin's visits to the doctor.
Gradually, in between her own tours of the ward, she managed to sneak out updates on her progress to Perci and Hue, both of them monitoring her and waiting anxiously for the next bits of news she'd bring. As the first week passed, nothing came up, and Ash redoubled her efforts, sneaking past the cameras and doctors patrolling the area to try and find anything.
Until, at last, the first lead came to her in the form of a conversation between two of the doctors.
She heard the exchange happen behind a closed and locked room, pressing her ear to the wooden frame to listen as carefully as she could. In there, two voice, male and female, were discussing their findings on the enigma students, which, considering Jin's nature and the topics in the discussion, made deducing the identity of the subject in question a walk in the park.
"So... She comes in tomorrow, correct?" Asked the male. Ash only wished she could have gotten there earlier, though having some news was better than having no news.
The female took a few seconds to respond, the sound of rifling paper audible near the two of them. "...Yes. She does. I hope this time she'd cooperate more... She already managed to ruin some pretty expensive equipment with her behavior..."
"I guess it was unavoidable. After Glynda taught her what a button does..." Hints of fear popped up in the doctor's voice, and Ash couldn't help but suppress a snicker, thinking of Jin pressing a button repeatedly until she managed to make whatever equipment they were talking about break. The brutalizing of medical equipment regardless, the conversation quickly moved on, subject changing to a more concrete one.
"At the very least..." Another pause was heard in the room. "We managed to get this, huh?" Obviously, some object that Ash couldn't see. Raising her head up to catch a glimpse through the glass on the door would have been far too risky, and so, she was forced to try and use her brains to assert what the object in question one.
"I never imagined she'd react to violently to being stung... But at the very least, with her blood, we should have a better understanding of the state of her infusion." The answer to her question, as one would expect, came shortly after. Ash almost gasped, covering her mouth at the last second, though some of her voice still managed to come out. The voices inside of the room hushed at the same time.
"...Did you hear that?" The female spoke, getting no audible response. Ash closed her eyes. She didn't have enough time. Her semblance, as passive as it was, kicked into action, as her sixth sense, or her Gut, amplified through the powers that were her special trait, allowed her to easily see when the door was about to open, and in which direction they would look at first. If there was something certain in Ash's life, is that she could listen to her gut.
Thoughts and simple calculations popped into her mind. 'Alright... Now!' Just as she imagined it happening, the door swung open, a female with dark hair and a lab coat peering out. She first turned to the right, then to the left, giving Ash just enough time to hide behind the door, and quickly duck low enough to make sure she was still hidden and out of sight.
The male approached, looking out briefly. While she couldn't see him doing that as clearly as she could the woman, at this point, she was safe. "...Saw anything?" He asked her, and the female waved her head.
"...Nothing. I guess I just imagined it." The door closed again, and the sound of a lock being tightened meant that Ash could safely move about again, though at this point she didn't want to take another risk of getting caught. Taunting fate once was fine, but twice? Her gut told her to get out of there, and listening to it as she always did, Ash quickly left the wing. Getting to the main corridor where she no longer had to hide, pretending to leave, She walked off, heading to the dorm of team JPLL, while calling her own team on the way.
"They're taking her blood?"
Hue asked her, perplexed. "I wonder... What could there be in her blood that would require dragging her to the medical ward so many times?..." She asked out loud, the rest of her friends waving their head.
"Oh wait, I got it:" Perci cleared her throat, standing up. "Clones!"
The rest of them just paused, turning their head towards her, Ash being the first to actually find the words to speak up. "...Excuse me?"
"You heard me." Perci came to explain, sitting down again and getting the attention of the rest of the team. "They're using her blood to make a clone army! I'm calling it now it's totally clones." She nodded to her own crazy ideas as if she was right in every part of that ludicrous assumptions.
It took several minutes of awkward silence for someone, Hue in particular, to speak up. "...You're serious."
"Fuck yes I'm serious! I mean think about it, Ozpin is a weird, cryptic fuck in the first place. Hell, I bet you he takes severed limbs of students who lost them while in Beacon to make clones out of them or something!" She exclaimed, her crackpot conspiracy theory knowing no bounds. "Either that or Atlas. Actually now that I think about it yeah it's totally Atlas."
Another wave of awkward silence later, and Ash simply shook her head, resuming revealing what she could find out. Leila, as they expected, wanted none of it, sitting at the edge of the room, and saying nothing, though her peeking every once in a while was a clear sign she was interested, to a degree. "So anyway... Yeah. They managed to take some of Jin's blood, and so far she managed to learn what buttons do."
"Bout damn time. I hate having to open shit for her..." Perci rolled her eyes. "But that's not the point... You said she has another physical tomorrow, right? I HOPE you're not gonna let the opportunity slide..." She muttered, and Ash nodded in response. In fact, she already had the whole plan formulated, from faking a sprain again earlier that day, being there on time before Jin arrives, and shadowing her until she can determine what she was doing there.
There was, however, one last part to her plan. One aspect that was pivotal to ensure her success. "There's one last thing I need." She turned to Perci, coughing a bit. "I need you to drain my aura before I go in there."
Perci expression twisted a bit in surprise. "Wait what?" Out of all the things that Ash could have asked for, being purposely drained was the last thing Perci expected, not that she complained, of course.
Ash continued to explain her thought process. "Jin sees auras. Thus, she would spot me right away, and knowing her..." Ash looked over at the giant, who was completely distracted playing with her chess piece, moving it around in the air and smiling cheerfully as ever. "She probably won't keep her mouth shut about any of this. Thus, the best way to ensure not being detected would be to have as little as aura as possible, so that Jin wouldn't be able to see me." She then glanced at Copper's general direction. "Either that or we could have Copper shadow her. I still have no idea why Jin won't pay attention to you... I mean, there's no reason she won't be able to see your aura, right?" She asked.
The short, bronze-haired girl nodded. "Indeed. However, I will admit that my aura generation is not as high as my peers. Ergo, it is entirely possible that Jin would not pay as much attention to me when in the presence of other auras."
"I see." Ash closed her eyes, pondering. "Well, being invisible to her notwithstanding, I think I'll be the one to take on the mission. I've already done all of the groundwork for it, and I don't want you taking the risk of being spotted by anyone else." She made her decision. So far, Ash proved herself, despite her chilled and relaxed attitude, to be quite the competent leader, easily reading the situation, her semblance making it even easier during combat to get the general feel for her opponent's actions.
"Understood." Copper nodded once, and the group looked at each other one last time before calling it a night, realizing how close they grew together over those past couple of weeks in their first semester. And while Jin was nowhere near to being anything like a leader, her natural cheerfulness and positive outlook on the world still managed to affect those around her, uniting those she was around in a different way, to the usual role a team leader would fill.
After that, the meeting came to a close. Ash and her team got up, wishing JPLL a good night, walking out to the hallway, their dorm stationed right next to Jin and her friends, getting inside and preparing for the night. As each of them took turns brushing her teeth and getting ready to sleep, Ash picked up her scroll, typing a short summary of the meeting, including Perci's very odd sounding theory about the inner workings of the Atlesian military.
As she was busy typing, Melody, who had her bed next to her partner's, couldn't help but look over her shoulder, noticing what she was writing down. "...You're not seriously putting that in, right?" She asked innocently. "I mean... Come on. Atlas using severed limbs to make clones? How ridicules is that?"
However, to her surprise, the response from Ash was actually rather toned down and thought out. "You never know what's out there, Melody. Perci may be a crazy bitch at times, but knowing her type, and including the shit I've seen myself... Who knows, she might just be right. Not saying she IS, of course. Just... Putting it later for future looking into." In truth, she never expected to find anything. While digging up information about a local thug was a piece of cake, penetrating and extracting data from the Atlesian Military's records and servers would be next to impossible without a person on the inside, or an expert hacker helping her out. Regardless, it was a habit she picked up from her father, like many others.
She never knew when information would come in handy. She only knew her gut told her it would.
The day after, so far, the plan went without a hitch. After the first lesson, being combat lesson. Ash let her opponent hit her, playing clumsy, and getting hit just hard enough to warrant being sent to see a medic, Perci passing by her just before someone could take her away and draining the remains of her aura, keeping her completely empty. A few lessons after, just as Ash's information pointed out, Jin was asked to come with Glynda to the medical ward again, where she, of course, followed willingly, the fresh promise of candy still in her mind since the last time.
As Jin walked to the ward, she was tailed by Copper, keeping an eye on her at least until she got inside. From there, she quickly sent a message to Ash, who got out of her bed, still limping a bit from having no aura to heal her, getting out of the room and sneaking about, quickly catching sight of the jolly giant, seeing her enter a room across the hall. About ten minutes later, and some expert rolling skills which Ash was quite proud of, she had full access to the sounds from inside the room, planting her ear as tight to the door as she could, hearing one of the doctors from yesterday, the female one, greet the girl.
"Hello, Jin. Please, take a seat." Her voice was much warmer then Ash recalled her from the day before. Then again, dealing with someone like Jin would require some level of empathy for her condition.
"Okay!" Jin sat down, and from there, all Ash could hear was just standard, boring small talk between patient and doctor, though this time she seemed to focus on Jin's home in particular.
After a few minutes of standard talking, with nothing notable coming to mind, she heard a question that actually made Ash get curious about the subject. "Alright Jin, I wanted to ask you: Do you remember anything about your Mama? Her name, or what she looked like?" Obviously, expecting Jin to recall her mother's face was an impossibility. However... A name would be important, and Ash redoubled her focus, hoping to hear some groundbreaking information about JPLL's team leader.
"She was the best Mama ever! And she played a lot with me, and..." Alas, the only answer out of Jin's mouth was her usual, inane rambling, recalling childhood memories, making Ash almost sigh in defeat. Toning down her expectations, she closed her eyes, hearing the faint brushes of a pencil on a piece of paper. "Ooh! You write just like Mama!" Jin exclaimed, and Ash, for the first time, heard an audible gasp from the older woman.
Thoughts ran through her head wildly and uncontrolled. The identity of Jin's mother just got one step closer to being solved. "I... What? Jin, what do you mean?" She heard the female doctor ask her, her voice filled with a rush of adrenaline, the type someone like her would get she finding a new clue in a case. She knew the feeling quite well, and just like the researcher, listened as hard as she could.
"Yeah! Every morning, Mama would look at my dust, and then write it!" Her happy tones, while being a joy to listen to, carried some heavy truth with them, which Ash took a second to analyze. If her mother was checking on her... It meant that she wasn't sure herself how long Jin would live. Otherwise, she wouldn't bother checking it.
The voice of the researcher picked up again. Ash cut her line of thought to listen in. "I see..." She heard another pause, then the sound of Jin giggling a bit at something. "Regardless... It seems that your infusion really doesn't spread. That's incredible..." Her voice was astonished. "By any degree, you should have died in your mother's womb... A mutation, perhaps?" She heard the doctor theorize, several ideas coming into the air, from the mutation to natural resistance, and so on. Noting each of them mentally, as any good detective would, Ash heard her conclude, her guts telling her to get out of there as soon as she could. "Anyway... I think that would be all for now, Jin. It was nice seeing you agai- Hrk!"
As she imagined the scientist being hugged remorselessly by Jin, Ash couldn't help but snicker, making her way back to the room she was put in when she got there. Once she finally made her way back, she climbed back to the bed, taking out her scroll, compiling notes. Watching Hue do something similar with her moon research gave Ash a few new ideas, and soon enough, her digital recording was complete, every bit of the conversation written down, to be shown to the rest of them.
At last, the day of the big reveal came. Ash gathered all of her friends, at least from the two teams, loading her notes on a tablet and showing them the results.
"So... She was just taken for an ordinary physical?" Undine couldn't help but sound a tad disappointed. She had already imagined some epic mystery, with awesome powers and amazing fights to be had with Beacon, though at the end of the day, the realistic answer was just as good.
Ash nodded and continued her explanation. "Close... But not exactly. From what I could gather, they are heavily interested in the reason Jin doesn't just die from her infusion outright. I've heard several theories, though if you ask me, I think that she just might be a very lucky soul." She explained, the rest of them looking at her for a brief moment, before returning to the group meeting.
"And? If that is all, then was it really needed, doing all of this sneaking around?" At this point, even Leila found the temptation to hear what Ash found out hard. After all, it was done with, and while she found the actions themselves distasteful, she knew that this was it, and thus, excused herself into listening to the conversation that was happening regardless.
Ash looked at the nun, waving her head lightly. "If we just asked Glynda, we wouldn't know HALF of what we know now. We know that they have some of her blood."
"Totally clones," Perci added, Ash shushing her with a finger.
"We know that her mother was either a scientist or a researcher of some sort, and was from Menagerie." She elaborated. Considering all the clues, this was the most likely explanation, and on top of it, her gut told her it was right, although this wasn't part of her semblance. She was just sure of her theory. "And to top it all of..." She gave one more look at the resilient dust infused kitten. "We know that that the fact that she's alive isn't something obvious."
Leila's face twisted in disagreement. "Excuse me, but I have to disagree. The Lord doesn't make life to simply take it away at birth for no reason. Jin is here because the Lord MEANT for her to be here."
Perci looked at her with scorn in her eyes. "Keep your religious bullshit for yourself, eh Nun? This is FINALLY gettin' interestin'. Ain't no way I'm lettin' ya ruin this one for me." The only response Perci got was Leila turning her head, and turning away from the teams, going back to her bed. "Anyway detective..." Perci resumed. "So... What does any of that even mean?"
"Why, isn't it obvious?" Ash grinned, Jin staring at them and smiling widely.
"It means that whatever Jin is... It goes far deeper than she lets on."