Chapter 5: Bird's Eye: Part 1
The pouring rain made this a miserable evening for just about everything. Most of the townsfolk carried umbrellas or wore various forms of raincoats or ponchos. They dashed from cover to cover to avoid being drenched by the torrent of water falling from the sky. Others simply stayed indoors, unable to justify having to fuss with mother nature to run errands. But one man didn't seem to care. He mosied down the sidewalk at a very casual pace. His cloak, drenched. Hair? Slicked back, dripping from every tip. His dress shirt, hardly appropriate for any occasion when dry, looked more like a wet suit.
The man made his way to the end of the street, stopping briefly to check his surroundings. "The Foam Anchor. Yeah, this is the place." The small tavern with a nonsensical name was the same place he'd always go. "Why do I still do this?" he wondered out loud, before opening the door and stepping in.
The tiny bell above the door alerted anyone sober enough to care, of his presence. A few awkward looks were exchanged between inebriated patrons and the… most likely also inebriated newcomer. He looked around for a moment before a voice direct at him seemed to sail above the rabble, catching his ear, "You're late. You're never late."
There weren't many people who Qrow Branwen could call his friends. He couldn't afford to have friends. But as he worked his way across the room, he took a seat at the bar next to the closest thing he had to one. "Ehhh-I think you're early. You're never early." he challenged, brushing off the comments about his late arrival. Reaching into his pants pocket, Qrow retrieved his favorite flask, the contents of which remained a mystery to everyone. Well, almost everyone.
"How can you still drink that garbage?" the voice next to him inquired, disapprovingly. The bartender, not coincidentally, also gave a disapproving look, but did not speak. "You're at a bar… That's as close to home as you get. At least try to put on a good face."
"Fine… geez." he said as he reluctantly put his flask back into his pocket.
Qrow's friend motioned to the bartender, "He'll have the usual." They remained silent for the time it took the bartender to prepare the drink. "And for me, cherry moonshine. Extra cherries." More silence followed. After a short time, both drinks were finished, and passed across the counter. "Thank you."
After more silence and a few sips from his drink, Qrow growled, "I hate coming all the way out here for this… One of these days, we're gonna have to stop meeting like this."
His counterpart looked up, irritated, "Oh, I'm sorry. Next time we'll meet at high noon. In the park! I'll bring a nice picnic blanket and some potato salad. You can put on your Sunday best- Oh, wait, you've already got that on. It's not even Sunday. What's the occasio-"
"Yeah… reeeeal funny… I mean at some point you're going to have to come clean. So you can… you know, go out in the daylight? That might be fun." Qrow's apparent sarcasm was not lost on his friend. This was a normal do-si-do for the two.
They shared a smile, then provocative sneers, then another minute of silence.
"So, where do you want to start this time?" was the question posed to Qrow.
"I thought it was your turn to go first..." He pondered whether that was true, or if he just never wanted to go first. "Ehhh… whatever. But I still don't understand why we even do this. You already know everything I'm going to tell you."
"Humor me." was all Qrow got in response.
"If you laugh at any point during this, I might have to reconsider our friendship." he quipped.
I'm not gonna bore you with how my story begins in a bar, that's...
"...par for the course." his friend interjected.
Shuuut uuuup... Anyway, I'd just concluded my last mission for Ozpin. Mind you, I said concluded, not completed. As in, he didn't even know I was coming for a visit. The look on his face was priceless when he saw me in the courtyard at Beacon. Oh, wait… back up on that. General Iron-for-brains was the first one I ran into. You know how he is… acts all high and mighty in front of a crowd, then throws empty threats around when it's not for show anymore.
Ehhh-hem, moving along… the mission… I'd been tailing this woman…
"...par for the course."
Oh, for fu-. Never mind… trying to gather intel for Ozpin. Ever since she attacked Amber, this girl was nearly impossible to track. Probably something to do with the maiden powers. No, definitely something to do with the maiden powers. She moved all over the four kingdoms, but mostly stayed in Vale, as in, the Kingdom, not the city. I'm not… that… bad at my job. I don't know if I would have ever been able to keep up with her if it wasn't for her cronies being… cronies.
Torchwick might as well have left a dust crystal trail to his HQ in the south east, inside Mountain Glenn. Even the kids figured that one out. When they flushed him out, all of Beacon was pretty much waiting for him. They put him behind bars. Still not sure if that was their plan or not, but I'm guessing it was.
Right around that time, the trail went completely cold in the search for our maiden-slayer. There were leads, but no hard evidence. The two kids I saw when I saved Amber, they were staying at Beacon for the Vytal Tournament. That's easy. And you'd think the rest would be easier. Find the kids, then look for a floating one-glowing-eyed harpy. No offense.
"None taken."
Nope. She didn't use her power for anything At least, not anything we knew about. There were some incidents at Beacon in the weeks leading up to the tournament… like the break-in at the CCT… but nothing stolen. Nothing broken… aside from security guards… Either she was hiding, or she was the best illusionist I've ever seen. Turns out it was both.
Tracking is easy. You and I both know that. It's the semblances that are tough. Anybody who's anybody at hiding their semblance takes too much observation and analysis to make it worth the risk while undercover. Both of the kids were experts at hiding theirs. It took me a long time, and I couldn't get close enough to get a read on the 'em. I was sure one of them could mess with perception. That much was clear from the attack on Amber. It became more clear in some of the fights later in the tournament. Certain students kept claiming to have seen things that no one else saw. It was pretty obvious they were interfering in fights, not so obvious why.
So she wasn't using the maiden powers, and if she needed to do something shifty, she was covered by a shroud of twisted perception.. Even after Ironwood shut down Torchwick, she didn't bat an eye. I gave it a few more weeks of observation, but nothing came out of it. I watched their first tournament match. Nothing. Skilled fighters, sure… but nothing that screamed unlimited power. Not even the slightest indication. It was a huge waste of time. Evidence or not, I made the decision to cut my losses and report back to Ozpin.
When I got back, I found Ironwood was trying to use sheer force to intimidate everybody, but all he was doing was scaring people with his airship fleets and robot armies. Seriously, does the guy even know how clunky his robots are? They can fire a weapon, sure, but their movements are slow. Against an opponent with, oh I dunno, the use of his legs, they're next to worthless.
Ozpin must've told him about Amber at some point before I got back, cause when I finally told them everything I'd seen, they showed me the General's… Atlas' contribution to the fight. They actually built an aura transfer machine. They wanted to transfer whatever was left of Amber's aura into a new host. Oz called it his 'Guardian'. I called it insane. How can one person have two auras? What does that even do to a person, like philosophically? Wait… I know, let's put two brains in my head and just let them fight it out for a while. Sounds like a great idea. But people always said I'm too skeptical.
"...you? Nooooo…"
Ozpin told me about the existence of the maidens a long time ago. I've seen the powers transfer before my own eyes… mind you, not naturally. I'm just saying… the process is more complicated than that. Either there's some scientists in Atlas doing some really shady stuff, or there's a lot of guesswork involved. I can say this much for sure… we never got the chance to test it. If an aura transfer machine actually works, actually transfers an aura… and Atlas could build something capable of receiving a maiden's power, we might have had an opportunity… All too conveniently, Ironwood was testing the feasibility of how to design a vessel for those exact circumstances.
I'm not sure where you stand on playing god, but apparently Atlas is all about it. They made a synthetic person. A girl. It… she… could generate her own aura. Problem is, Ironwood didn't tell anybody. Literally, no one had even the slightest clue that this girl wasn't a real person. So we didn't know that until it was too late. He never said it, but I think those scientists would have loved the chance to attempt an aura transfer field test on the girl, or another like her… an empty shell, so to speak. The Iron-y... get it? like Ironwood?
"Don't quit your day job, Qrow."
You're no fun. Anyway, the irony is, that synthetic girl got torn to pieces by Ozpin's chosen guardian. Not intentionally. We realized not too long after that the girl responsible for Amber had created some kind of backdoor infrastructure to access every piece of technology connected to a centralized network. Probably the CCTS. That included things like the Tournament's randomization process, scrolls, live broadcasts… and the computerized components of the Atlesian military.
She hijacked the live broadcast of the Tournament, after forcing the world to watch one fighter 'kill' another one… Started to monologue about not being able to trust anybody or something. I don't know the specifics, I wasn't watching.
I got a message from Ozpin right as it was happening, so I hurried to the headmaster's chamber. Got there just in time for him to send me and Glynda away. To Vale. Not a decision I would have made, but to be fair, the Grimm were everywhere. People were dying, and I'm a huntsman. You get where I'm going with this. We did our best to defend Vale.
After a while, Ironwood made his way from the Coliseum where he had been watching his 'project' fight in the Tournament, to Vale. He took the scenic route, if you know what I mean. And remember that backdoor access point? Yeah, turns out every non-human Atlesian fighting unit was affected by it…. even a capital ship, apparently. I still don't know what that was about.
So let's recap.
"Yeah, you're hard to follow when you're drunk."
I'm always drunk.
"That's what they say..."
Glynda and I were in Vale, buried up to our eyes in Grimm. As we were fighting, what I can only describe as Grimmzilla flies overhead, seeding Vale with even more of those foul creatures. That's about the time Ironwood's personal ship crashed nearby. He's fine. Almost got eaten by a griffon. I don't wanna brag, but I kinda saved him. Please, hold your ticker tape parades. Then we had Ozpin, his guardian candidate, and a bunch of first and second year students fighting to regain control of Beacon against the Grimm, the White Fang, and the Atlesian Military… yeah, good luck with that one.
Ironwood asked me to go to Beacon and assist with the evacuations there, which I did. Glynda had to set up a perimeter for a safe zone in the city, which she did. The General insisted that he had to get to his ship, which in a comically poetic turn of events, crashed into the city behind us. Turns out he wanted to try to activate a shortwave radio antenna that his ships can use to communicate with each other.. Like in the old days. He wanted to piggyback our scrolls onto his radio signals, in case something happened to the CCTS. It was actually a really smart move. Way to earn those stars, big guy. To make a long story short, his ship was trashed, the antenna was useless. Major buzzkill.
For my part, I loaded up on an armored transport ship with a handful of 'Ironwood's finest', getting ready to depart for Beacon. Five minutes before takeoff, I get a message from Ozpin. "Check, attempting Stalemate". It's a little cryptic, but Oz always liked to refer to stuff within the context of a game of chess. It basically meant he was in trouble, or his guardian was in trouble. Either way, it was the last message I got from him before the CCTS shut down.
I tried to light a fire under the crew of my transport, but you know how Atlas operates, by the book. We finally took off, and my ship was almost at Beacon when this blinding light just kind of… stopped everything. I don't know how to explain it. The ship was fine, but everybody on board… we couldn't look away. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. But I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on it. I had to find Ozpin.
"But first, I think I need another drink." he said to his attentive, one-person audience. She hadn't touched hers, so she passed it to Qrow. Taking a sip, he nearly gagged. "How can you still drink this garbage?"