Ch. 30 A brewing conflict
"Hey, the name's Sky Lark. I guess our teams are going to be spending time together."
"Cinder Fall, and I suppose so."
Cinder alternated between looking at Mint and Cardins antics and at Yang, who was still rolling around laughing at Cardins misfortune.
"So you guys are Mint's team? Well as the leader of team SWNY, let me introduce us. This is Pyrrha Nikos, over there rolling on the ground is Yang Xiao-Long. And I guess you know about Cardin."
"I knew Mint had found someone, though imagine my surprise when she told me he's a student here and a Winchester to boot."
"He is, but he chilled with using his family name and clout recently. He's a nice guy."
"Right. Well I suppose I should introduce the rest of us, this is Emerald Sustrai and that's Mercury Black."
She motioned to the dark skinned girl with green hair and the guy in all grey respectively.
"Nice to meet you."
"You too, can't wait to fight you guys during the festival. I'm looking forward to testing myself against the invincible girl."
Pyrrha sputtered for a moment a mix of surprise and embarrassment brought about by the stranger. It has been a while since someone treated her like this and she didn't appreciate it one bit. But she put on a forced polite smile and nodded.
"So uhhh, are those two okay?"
The green haired girl, despite shyly standing behind her team leader, pointed out that while Yang was picking herself up, both Cardin and Mint were still on the ground.
"Oh, they're fine. I think Cardin just… fell for her…"
A groan from Sky and Mercury alike was punctuated by a yell from the man in question.
"Shut it Xiao-Long!"
"Love you too Car."
Cinder stood there stunned. She knew Neo was childish and that she would have to be around teenagers for the foreseeable future for her plan to work. Though as she watched the love comedy unfurling in front of her it finally hit her.
"Oh god, they're actual children."
=O=O=O=
"Do you really think your student's can win a war?"
"I would hope they will never have to."
"Oz, they are the next generation. You cannot prevent it."
"Perhaps I can't, but that isn't a reason for you to bring in an armada and park it above the campus.."
"The Council of Vale tasked me with security for the Vital festival, you know why they had to make this choice."
"Because the SDC would eat them alive if they weren't seen doing something about the string of White Fang dust robberies."
"Because people deserve to feel safe!"
"Will they though? James, this isn't Atlas. Vale has always been a land of selfless and noble heroes rising up to the challenge. Vale has a history of rebelling against organised military to the point that it doesn't have a standing army. I'm not sure they'll believe your army is here purely to help."
"That doesn't change the fact that we need to retrieve all the stolen dust as well as prevent them from taking any more. That much dust could…"
"I am well aware. That's why this year's mission assignments were changed to allow us to follow up some of our leads."
"I know Oz, but why can't you just allow me to help you more."
"Because I do not wish to escalate the conflict further. I don't need people fighting in the streets of Vale. And do I have to remind you of who the underlying power may be? We simply cannot risk this knowledge to be revealed to the public."
"At least let me assign a few specialists to help. Surely there's something they could help with."
"Hmmm… Perhaps."
=O=O=O=
Down below the tower Qrow was waiting for the elevator. He had successfully shaken off Ruby and her partner as well as the Ice Queen and the sheltered redhead. Still he knew he took too long getting here and it was likely Jimmy was already up there.
It wasn't so much that he needed to talk to Ironwood, as much as he would have loved to be in the room when he tried to hit on Glynda again.
They had a relationship a few years ago and apparently it didn't end amicably. Jimmy would always try to smooth things over and Glynda would always shoot him down. That was the nature of their personal relationship, though they never let it be too public.
As the elevator door opened Qrow could see Glynda step out of it. Before he took a step in the elevator he couldn't help but quip.
"Shit Glyn, don't tell me I missed the show."
As those words left his mouth he could tell he fucked up. A second later a purple glyph launched him away from the elevator door and into a wall, making a Qrow shaped indent.
The few students around to see it quickly averted their gazes and started walking away. They knew better than to earn the Goodwitch's ire. In a few seconds there was no one around who would help the unfortunate huntsman.
"There was no show. I left before it got to that point. Thank you though, for volunteering to be my stress relief. I'm sure you'll make a fine punching bag."
A black crow tried to fly away, but was held in place by more purple glyphs as Glynda Goodwitch made sure that at least one proverbial thorn in her side would get his comeuppance.
=O=O=O=
The next day teams BSMT and RNJR were sitting in the dorm's common room. Classes would start the next morning, so Weiss decided to convince… well force… her teammates to review the class material. Surprisingly enough, team RNJR had joined in this endeavour, though most of them weren't exactly willing either. In the end it was because Nora mentioned Weisses effort to Ren, that Ren decided to aid Weiss in making their teams study.
It was late afternoon and the common room's TV was on in the background, displaying a 24/7 news channel. Though the sound was turned down to a barely audible background noise, so as to not be a distraction. They had been sitting in the common room for a few hours now and even the lacklustre enthusiasm they had initially was mostly gone..
"...I still think we could have finished the spear today."
"We pretty much did though."
"But you're so close to being done-done."
"Between yesterday's movie night and forging all day today I'm actually pretty tired. We can do all the finishing touches after school tomorrow and see if we can get in a spar right after. In the meantime it's safe in my locker."
"This isn't fair. I've done all my work early and I'm still stuck here."
Jaune sneaked his hand on top of hers and squeezed it a little. He hoped he could placate Ruby for now with the unsaid promise of spending more time together later.
Ruby pouted as she turned back to her notes. For all her complaining, she would study while everyone else did. Though her mind did wander occasionally. There was actually a lot on her mind.
Master Févre had given her a task of writing down a patent proposal for him to review and help her submit it. And she was almost done with that, thanks to working on it while Jaune worked in the forge. Plus there was the success with the electric dust alloy from back in Velia. It wasn't a part of the patent proposal she was working on right now, but once Jaune finished the spear they could begin on that too.
And then there was her relationship with Jaune. They went on that date a few days ago and Jaune promised to make it up to her when they had to cut it short. Apparently he already had something in mind, but he kept it secret for now.
So Ruby tried to focus on her studies with varying success, but at least she was staring at her notes.
The same could not be said about Nora, who was snoring up a storm while using her history textbook as a pillow.
Ren sat next to her and studied diligently. He knew Nora wasn't dumb and after all the effort she put in regularly, she could probably do well enough on any quizzes the teachers might throw at them. Granted he was the one who insisted on studying most of the time, but he didn't feel the need to wake her up right now.
Jaune had actually already finished his revision for the regular subjects. Well, he skimmed through most of them, but he had a good reason to. Doctor Oobleck would have another lecture on ancient Valean and Jaune wanted to review for it. Plus he needed to make sure he didn't mess up when naming his weapons.
As for team BSMT, their situation wasn't much better on the studying front. Maroon and Cocra were sitting in front of their notes and textbooks but their attention was clearly on each other rather than schoolwork.
Weiss was fine with that honestly. They had gone through their notes a few times before they started to slack off and at least they didn't just leave her. Probably something about that team cohesion that Blake talked about the day prior.
Weiss had already gone through everything, but she didn't really want to let her mind wander too much, lest it end up on her family again.
Winter had visited to talk, and while Weiss was happy to meet her sister again, she also felt like she was proven right in that she herself was the worst sibling out of the three of them.
Weiss shook her head to refocus on her notes but before she could return to studying she noticed Blake stiffen.
"The police have confirmed the involvement of a high ranking White Fang member, Adam Taurus, on scene. The incident seems to be another part of the string of dust robberies that continue to plague Vale and drive up the prices of dust for commercial use. Lisa Lavender is on scene. What can you tell us about the case Lisa?"
"Thank you, Hazel. The police have secured the crime scene and have yet to provide a statement with the details, however from what we can see on the scene is rather gruesome. It seems the robbery has gone awry due to the involvement of two Pharos students. The students of the primary combat school happened to be present when the terrorist's struck. Unfortunately the conflict escalated when the leader of the local White Fang cell showed up. Adam Taurus, along with a majority of the perpetrators, escaped the crime scene before the arrival of armed forces.
The two student's were critically injured during the conflict and are currently being treated but remain in critical condition. Although their identities remain unknown to us at this point in time, we can confirm that one of the student's is himself a faunus with visible features.
A huntsman on the scene, one Gemini Gorm, has provided the following comment."
"One of the kids was faunus. If faunus on faunus violence is their way of changing the lives of faunus for the better, then there is nothing to save in this once peaceful organisation."
"Thank you Lisa, in other news…"
The TV was quiet but the room was completely silent. Everyone was either looking at the TV or at Blake, who was now shaking. It took Maroon, Nora and Weiss hugging her to finally stop the shaking.
Though the sobs that followed were barely an improvement.
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
So the reason behind the last segment is twofold. Obviously it serves to move forward the plot, but I also wanted to highlight how extraordinary Ruby is for dealing with Torchwick. Kinda a nod to Ozpin having a genuine reason to accept her early beyond her silver eyes.
So I've been kinda tired lately. I recently moved back to my dorm and it was a bothersome ordeal but at least I'm out of my parents house.
As a sidenote I am writing this author's note literal minutes before posting. I've been busy and so has been my beta reader so yeah.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch.31 Class is back in session