Atonement VII Part III
"An orphanage program?"
Aqua, better known as Empress Izanami nodded to Ozma who was better known as the King of Vale. "If the Huntsmen Academies are meant to train the warriors of tomorrow they should also be a place of refuge."
"Aqua, it would be difficult enough supervising those are at the proper age. Children would make it more complicated. Combat schools are to help prepare students, teaching them how to fight, how to forge weapons and how to unlock their Aura and Semblance." Oswald argued.
"Terra and I were children when we came to the temple that trained us." Aqua pointed out. "We spent years training there before we left. If the Huntsmen Academies have an orphanage program, they would be seen in a much better light for taking in orphaned survivors from Grimm attacks. Orphanages are sadly lacking sometimes when it comes to giving children a proper upbringing."
"At the very least, they would have positive role models to be around." Terra threw in his two Lien, seeing the merit in Aqua's proposal. "They can have a proper education growing up and if they chose not to be Huntsmen by that time and if no one comes to adopt them they can be free to pursue their own careers."
"Besides, the Academies are already being built as castles or temples. A wing for orphaned children wouldn't be that much of an inconvenience." Aqua nodded in agreement. "A few more classes and more teachers to properly teach them, giving them a basic education and if they want to become Huntsmen, the teachers can make recommendations to the Combat Schools."
"They take their classes there and if they pass, they can be allowed to take the Huntsmen courses back at the Academies. That way, they don't have to struggle on the streets and are given a choice." Terra crossed his arms. "I take it there's no shortage of orphans in Mistral."
"I am working on that as best as I can. Too many orphans can be lost to the darkness of crime if they are not saved in time." Aqua said with a sad look on her face. "We need more programs in place to better protect them. Not everything has to do with protecting the Relics."
Oswald had to admit, Aqua had a point about that. Perhaps he was too focused on the Relics that he was not able to see the big picture here.
"Okay, say we do this. We add on more staff and have additional funding to the academies." Oswald conceded. "There's still the matter of making sure the children would be protected if and when Salem tries to steal the Relics."
"Agreed." Aqua nodded in agreement. "Evacuation drills and emergency shelters."
"First years can be assigned to help escort and protect the children if the schools fall under attack and a secret way out should be made in case the usual exits are not useable." Terra suggested. "Secret passages that only the teacher staff and a few students would know of."
Oswald nodded. "That can work."
"There is something else to consider." Aqua said, a serious frown appearing on her face. "We need to consider eventually revealing Salem to the world."
Oswald looked at her with a surprised look. "How can you suggest that, Aqua? Telling people about Salem will only give her what she wants. I have faith in humanity, even after all this time but they can still be rash, emotional and judgmental."
"I could argue the same with you, Oz when you chose to keep this secret from the rest of the world." Aqua calmly rebuked, leaning back in her seat.
"What do you mean?"
"You and only those you choose to recruit know about Salem while the rest of the world does not. People and their families are killed by the Grimm, and they have no idea why the Grimm exist, who created them or who might be pulling the strings. And you would be right, it would give Salem what she wants but then people will know there is a person behind all the pain and suffering. You can only scare someone so much before they will begin to overcome their fears and fight back." Aqua explained calmly and slowly. "Salem will move on to the next thing she knows how to do, killing and hurting people so she can scare them into doing what she wants but that will only work for so long. Fear might be something that burns bright hot, but it eventually burns out. Yes, they will be afraid of they find out there is an evil witch controlling the monsters out there, but they will eventually get mad from all the pain and suffering she inflicts on them and then…"
She took a deep breath and ran her hands down to smooth out her kimono. "There will be no one left to scare, and she'll become powerless. She needs humanity afraid of her and divided but if that fear is gone, she will only have the Grimm and she has spent thousands of years trying to snuff humanity's hope out with just the Grimm and she hasn't come close. Salem may parade herself as a queen and a goddess, but we all know she is anything but that."
"Take away her ability to manipulate and she can't divide humanity." Terra pointed out, agreeing with Aqua.
"It's just too risky right now. Salem uses fear to get what she wants but Grimm are attracted to fear, and they will be attracted to anger." Oswald argued.
"Then show the people WHY they need to be brave…And why they don't have to be afraid of Salem." Terra replied.
"To do that…They would need more than just Huntsman or the Academies to become as brave as you two believe…. They need hope." Oswald said, reaching for his cup of tea. "How can we offer the truth when sometimes the truth is not good enough? How can we offer hope if there is none?"
"What is taking him so long?"
Hazel kept silent, leaning against the wall of an alley with his arms crossed and his eyes closed while Tyrian paced impatiently. He had nothing to say to Tyrian at the moment so why bother trying to calm him down?
"I take it you two are my escorts."
Hazel opened on eye and Tyrian turned to see Watts at the end of the alley, immediately slipping in to avoid being seen. "Took you long enough."
"I had to make sure I wasn't being followed." Watts replied, not sound apologetic at all. "Is the ship hidden and ready?"
"It will be there when we come back." Hazel uncrossed his arms. "Where's Ansem?"
"At the moment he is in Atlas Academy, tending to General Ironwood after I tampered with his little project." Watts held out his bag that he brought with him. "These will help us."
He opened them and produced three cloaks for all of them.
"Cloaks?" Tyrian scoffed. "A little old for fashion here in Atlas, don't you think?"
"They are not ordinary cloaks." Watts said, slipping one around him…and he vanished from sight, surprising the pair. "These are invisibility cloaks. They bend light around whomever wears them, rendering the person completely invisible."
"Impressive." Hazel commented, holding one cloak up. "These can help us slip past security?"
"Indeed." Watts nodded.
"Good." Hazel nodded and turned to Tyrian. "I will bring in Ansem while you help the doctor with his other plan."
Tyrian pouted. "Why do you get to have the fun?"
"She was specific that Ansem was not to be harmed in any way. If he resists too much, you might unintentionally damage him to the point she'll be unhappy." Hazel stated bluntly.
Tyrian groaned but did not refute Hazel's claim as Watts produced a small drive. "Hook this up with your scroll when you find Ansem's office. Plug it into his computer and I will have access to it."
Hazel wordlessly took the drive and nodded.
"How is he?"
Winter wasted no time in coming to check on Ironwood after she heard what had happened. When she arrived at the hospital, her father and Dr. Polendina were present and giving their own report to the leader of the Ace-Ops, Clover.
Ansem glanced in her direction. "Winter."
Winter walked up and looked through the window, seeing the general unconscious in bed. "What happened?"
"Sabotage, we suspect it was done by Dr. Watts." Ansem answered. "We discovered evidence that he had hacked into the holo-projectors in the training room."
"Dr. Watts?" Winter looked to her father. "Why would he do something like this?"
"Because the general picked my project over his as the next defender of Atlas." Pietro spoke up. "He cut funding for the others, including Watts."
"That's it? That's what all this is about?" Winter had seen her share of obnoxious elites in Atlas, but this was beyond simple pettiness.
"It's a bit more than that." Clover spoke up. "After his work was passed over by Dr. Polendina's, it was discovered that Arthur Watts had been caught diverting funding and resources."
Ansem glanced at Clover in surprise. "…Why wasn't I told of this?"
"General Ironwood chose to keep it a secret, knowing you two were friends. He was stripped of his authority and access in the Atlas military and was reassigned to low level testing on the new security drones." Clover explained.
Ansem was surprised to hear all of this. Watts had told him that the general had stripped him of funding and chosen Pietro's project over his own, but he had not mentioned that his security access had been revoked.
And yet it explained something.
After that meeting with Ironwood, Watts spent more time visiting the SDC headquarters to speak with him. They had talked for some time and Watts even chose to be an observant in his Limit Break tests involving the general and the Ace-Ops.
Was it because he knew he could use his friendship with Ansem to gather information he could use for himself?
Ansem wanted to believe it wasn't possible, but history was a harsh teacher.
"General Ironwood agreed to keep the scandal secret from most Atlas, but the higher ups were informed." Clover finished.
"And I wasn't informed of this?" Ansem asked harshly, glaring at the operative. "I may not be part of the military, but I had as much right to know about this."
"Mr. Schnee, please calm down-"
"I am most assuredly calm, Specialist." Ansem said, coldly cutting Clover off. "It is one thing for bad news like this, but an incident brought about by ignorance is unforgivable. Arthur Watts had observed the training sessions I had with the general and your fellow operatives. If I had known about this scandal, I would have barred him from taking part and this incident would have been avoided."
Before Clover could answer back, Ansem's Scroll beeped and he opened it, scowling when he saw the alert. "And it seems another incident is about to happen."
"What is it?" Winter asked, moving to her father's side.
"Someone is trying to remote access the main computer in the SDC headquarters." Ansem answered. "Our security program is preventing it for the most part."
"It must be Watts." Clover commented. "We must send a security detachment to apprehend him immediately."
"Remote access means he is not in the Schnee headquarters." Ansem answered, bringing a hand to his chin. "He must have someone on the inside. I must get down there at once."
"Father, wait." Winter said as her father turned and headed down the hallway. "You cannot walk into a potentially dangerous situation."
"Dilan and Aeleus will be waiting for me." Ansem replied. "I will not sit back and allow someone to endanger this kingdom with my work."
Winter grunted but followed after her father. "Then I am going with you."
"Well, he made it in." Watts flexed his fingers.
He was seated at a table in an abandoned looking office with ten Scrolls opened in front of him, all of them projecting together a single large screen.
"Now, let's see what you have been hiding, Ansem." He muttered as he attempted to access the hidden mainframe called the DTD.
Accessing Schnee Dust Company Database
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Uploading WProgram
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Accessing Schnee Files
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DTD
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Enter Passwords:
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Watts furrowed his brow, still annoyed that Ansem would have nine passwords, but he paid it no mind as no matter the encryption he could still break through it.
He would just have to use brute force instead.
"Ugh, what is taking so long?"
Nearby, Tyrian Callows was on guard at the door to the office, carefully watching the factory for any sign of movement.
Watts rolled his eyes. 'Rather impatient this one.'
Still, he shouldn't voice such things out loud since this man was going to help him get out of Atlas.
So, for now he would play it safe. "This is a delicate operation. We can't rush or we'd end up being find out."
Tyrian scoffed but said nothing else.
Watts looked back to the screen, scowling as he worked to break his way through the decryption surrounding Ansem's files.
Program TRON Activated
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Virus Program Found
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Virus Deleted.
"Nice try." Watts lips curled up into a smile under his moustache. "Time for the Argus Boar."
The Argus Boar was the name of a maneuver used by Vale during the Great War. They built a giant wooden boar and presented it to Argus as a gift. Only the Mistralians and the Atlesians posted there didn't know it was hollow on the inside. The following night, Vale soldiers snuck out of the boar, took out the soldiers and captured the city.
This of course weakened both Mistral and Atlas as Argus had been their main source of trade, even after the Great War had ended.
Watts had planned something similar.
Uploading Argus Boar Virus
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Virus Deleted
"WHAT?!" Watts shot up from his chair, surprising Tyrian. "How did it anticipate my back up?!"
This was maddening!
Ansem couldn't be this good!
The plan was to use his virus to infect and copy Program: TRON so he could sneak past Ansem's security and get into the DTD to find out what he was hiding.
But the TRON program somehow anticipated his movements.
Watts banged a fist down on the desk. "Damn you, Ansem!"
He hastily began working his way through the Schnee files again, trying to find if there was some way he could turn things around in his favor.
He combed through the files, trying to find something.
The Schnee Database was not part of the main Atlesian network which was why he was so interested in what Ansem was hiding from Ironwood in the first place.
It was then he noticed something.
Mantle Security Program Version 2.0
"You were planning to replace my security system in Mantle, Ansem? How arrogant are you?!" Watts grunted, banging the desk again.
He opened the file, but he couldn't make heads or tails of the coding he was seeing.
It was…
It was…
It was beyond anything he had seen before.
"Impossible." He muttered as he sat down.
He had never seen coding this complex before, and it was almost impossible for even him to decipher.
"What exactly is this Grid system that you are working on, Ansem?" Watts wondered to himself. "Another surprise, no doubt."
He tried to comb through it, bring up some kind of main control program to tell him just what this infernal program was.
Winter and Ansem arrived at the SDC headquarters to find it was being evacuated with the staff workers rushing outside.
Ansem stepped forward, stopping a worker. "What happened?"
"A fire alarm went off sir." The worker said, immediately recognizing Ansem.
Ansem frowned, walking past the worker with Winter quickly following him. As they walked into the entrance of the headquarters, Hazel was watching from a window.
"Let's hope he comes quietly." He muttered to himself before slipping the Invisibility Cloak back on.