"And that's all I've gathered general Ironwood sir." Spoke Penny with a salute.

"Thank you Penny, we'll deal with it from here. Continue to monitor everything."

"Very well sir." The girl said as she turned on her heel and marched out of the office.

Ironwood himself crossed his fingers as he leaned forwards deep in thought.

"Well... I assume you've heard everything too?" He asked as the man on the screen sighed.

"Yes James, I did."

"And what do you make of it? If he has parts of his aura missing then he shouldn't even be alive."

"I know that, however I don't think it's that extreme."

"Then what do you think." He questioned as Ozpin looked to cross his arms as he spoke.

"Like you said he would be dead if that were the case as there's never been any reports of missing aura throughout all of history. I believe it may simply be that the girls equipment may be outdated. What type of scanners did you give her?"

"State of the art. We outfitted her with the most advanced tech we had available, both tested and improved over the past several years." Ironwood answered as he looked up to the screen.

"Perhaps the fault may lie within the device itself. Technology has always been prone to hiccups every now and then. Try giving the girl's equipment a check, there might be some damage."

"And if there isn't, if her scanners are fine?"

"Then it may be that her 'state of the art' isn't advanced enough to read the supposed 'missing aura'. I highly doubt he's got whole chunks gone, and I believe the answer lies within his... 'unique' nature. As you know he's not fully human, nor is he Grimm; he lies somewhere in the center of that scale, and I believe that may be what has caused this... phenomenon."

"If that's the case then what do I do about Penny, she's been ordered to keep an eye on her teammates, and she's chosen to keep an eye on the boy as well." Ironwood shut his eyes and leaned back. "She'll ask questions Ozpin."

"Well, first you'll need to take back her scanner. Tell her that you're checking it for flaws that may have caused the impossible results, and then claim you found some. This way we can blame everything on faulty equipment, and we can work on the rest from there." Ozpin explained as Ironwood silently grimaced.

That was easy for him to say, but Ironwood knew such a thing would be impossible. Penny was constructed with her advanced tech built in from the get go, making such decisions nearly impossible without the head scientist around to oversee his daughter's alteration safely; not that Ozpin knew any of that. Ironwood wanted to tell his friend about Penny, but with all the excitement he never got the chance, and with everything going on he didn't know how the man would react to the news.

He decided to hold off on informing Ozpin of Penny's artificial state for the time being, at least until the end of the festival.

"Fine, but what of the children? How are you going to handle that?" Ironwood questioned as Ozpin smiled deviously

"I have a few tricks."

.

.

"WE"RESOSORRYPLEASEDON"TBEMAD!"

"Ruby!" Weiss screeched as she tried to pull her leader off the floor and out of her apologetic bow.

Ozpin could only raise an eyebrow as he watched the scene unfold, feeling a slight chuckle overcome him as he watched the others back away from the two.

"You're not in trouble if that's what you're thinking. I've called you to my office for a different reason." He said as the two stopped their struggle, with Ruby standing strait again as if she never dropped in the first place. The transition was so quick that it seemed Weiss had stumbled over on herself, only to quickly pop back up and brush off her dress.

"Oh... then why did you call us sir?" The young girl asked as he let a small smile stretch across his face.

"Well Mrs. Rose, I've been looking over the scheduling for the festival and noticed something. While Atlas has been doing a wonderful job at watching over everything alongside Vale it seems as though they've been stretched thin a bit. I also noticed that your team has the least amount of matches this year. So I decided to call you in to see if you'd like the chance to earn some extra credit."

"Of course sir!" Weiss spoke before anyone could even blink. All eyes were on her and he laughed silently at the change of tone.

"Riiiiight..." Yang let out as she looked to Ruby. "What do you think?"

"It doesn't sound so bad." Ruby looked up to Ozpin. "But why do we have less fights than anyone else?"

"It happens every year as with the amount of teams allowed in through the qualifiers there's never an even way of distributing the matches. As such there's always a single team with less battles than everybody else." He explained as the girl looked to accept it.

"So what do you think Ruby?" Asked Blake as she poked at the tall standing Schnee girl, who in turn sent a small glare. "Should we take it?"

Ruby looked over to him, and Ozpin was glad to see they were thinking of the situation as a team.

"What would we have to do?" She questioned as he smiled and leaned back.

"It's rather simple. All I ask is that you keep an eye out for anything that may cause problems."

"Uh huh..." Ruby looked slightly confused, and he suspected it was due to the vague state of the request.

"Sir, may we ask why both Atlas and Vale's staff are stretched thin?" Piped Blake from behind Ruby.

"Unfortunately that is something I cannot answer, all you need to know is that I'm offering extra credit for this little assignment. So will you accept it, or do you feel yourselves not up to the task? This is optional, and you won't lose any marks for refusing." Ozpin told as he watched the girls mull it over, all the while keeping a relaxed face.

"We accept." Spoke Ruby as he gave a nod.

"Very well, I'll let the staff know not to bother you then. You may freely walk into 'staff only' areas, nobody should bother you as I'll let them know of your situation. You may go now." He told as he watched them leave his office.

All the while his smirk revealed itself.

.

.

"Something wasn't right." Blake spoke as Yang sent a look.

"Pretty sure we could all see that... except maybe Weiss."

"Hey!"

"No I mean besides the job." Blake looked between them all. "Think about it for a moment: would Vale and especially Atlas knowingly leave any area without sufficient protection?" Blake asked as the heiress scoffed.

"Of course not, Atlas prides itself on near perfection and technological prowess."

"Exactly, so something like this shouldn't even be a thing right? And what about the schedule; notice anything off about it?"

"Everyone else has plenty of fights, while we only have three." Yang said as Blake nodded.

"If we were really just unlucky then we'd have at least gotten close to the number of matches as the other teams. But for some reason we have the bare minimum."

"It's almost like the schedule wasn't even random." Weiss jumped in as Ruby cast a look.

"Wait a minute, are we saying that the schedule was written up by someone instead of being random?" Ruby asked as Blake shut her eyes, shaking her head.

"I don't know, but it all seems like too much to be coincidence, and I have a feeling the headmaster knows more than he lets on."

"True... he did seem a bit pushy with , there was also the situation with V." Threw in Yang as she crossed her arms. "He should have been arrested, but the headmaster took him in anyway, only to tell us he was an agent of some kind."

"That's another thing that's been bothering me. Why would a headmaster have agents like that? Aren't they just supposed to teach and run the school?" Blake admitted as Weiss let her voice be heard.

"Maybe it was because of the White Fang itself? They've been getting more brazen as of late. He might have just had V in with them before hand as a way to predict when they might strike?"

"Then why only one? Wouldn't it be better to send a whole team?"

"Teams are easier to catch. With only one there's less risk of the agent being caught." Weiss told as Yang sent a flat look.

"Didn't help V now did it."

"I never said it was perfect, just that it's more effective." Weiss told as Ruby centered herself between everyone.

"Okay let's settle down. We can mull over it all we want but that won't change anything. How about we take a look around first? The headmaster said we can go anywhere, so why don't we use it as a way to search around?" Ruby suggested as the others looked to her.

Yang smirked and pulled her sister into a hug.

"That's my sis! Always making the quick plays!"

"Y-Yang!"

"But where do we even start? There are plenty of places off limits in the festival, and I highly doubt the headmaster of all people would leave something serious out in the open." Blake gave her piece as Ruby looked to think about it, all the while resisting Yang's tightening grip.

"We could take a look around the stadium. There are lots of places to hid things there."

"And how do you know that?" Weiss questioned from the side as Ruby continued failing to free, only to give a tiny shrug from her sisters arms.

"I mean... where else are you going to hide important stuff?"

"In a safe, a secretive storage house, off-shore banking? Literally anywhere that some random janitor just can't stumble upon by accident!" The snow haired girl shouted exasperatedly. Blake gave a nod.

"Weiss is right, who would meet in such an open place anyway?"

.

.

"So are we in agreement?" Cinder asked as she leaned back against the wall, taking comfort in the fact that Amity had heating in it's maintenance rooms; something Beacon could take a lesson from in her opinion.

Emerald raised her hand, to which Cinder nodded her way.

"How are we going to make this hit national news? I know he's not all that liked, but even the media has it's limits. You know they're not allowed on school premises without proper authorization right, and Ozpin isn't looking to grant that any time soon."

"And that's what Neo is for." Cinder motioned over to the girl, who was softly licking at her fudge pop. Neo cast a taunting gaze and Emerald felt herself seethe on the inside. She held her feelings in, not wanting to upset Cinder, and instead posed a different take.

"Yeah, but how is she going to get them in anyway? There's a whole school of people in that... well, school. She's bound to miss at least one of them, so what do we do then?"

"Please Emerald dear, you know as well as I do just how little students care about such things. Most will simply choose to ignore it and wait for the staff to handle it."

"I know that, but what if someone actually decides to care about it?" Emerald spoke with enough concern in her tone to halt even Cinder.

She would have written it off, but begrudgingly her pawn had a point, one that Cinder knew she needed to address. Now Cinder was a woman of great pride, and as such would be loathed if she was caught without a plan. That sentiment rang true even as she looked over at her clearly worried colleague. What Emerald didn't know was that she already had a plan in place for such an occasion. While she never wanted to openly admit it, for fears of a misplaced ear listening in, it seemed as though her lackey needed the information to ease her mind and maintain focus for the coming assignment.

"That's why you're tagging along with her. Not only will you act as the guide to our little target, but you'll also handle damage control. If anyone tries to play hero you have my express permission to deal with them however you see fit." Cinder explained as Emerald looked to fidget a bit before taking a more relaxed stance as she leaned back.

"Fine, I understand."

"I knew you would. Now then..." Cinder looked over to Mercury who was playing with his scroll. "You said you knew where he would be?"

"Yep." The silver haired man answered, eyes glued to the device.

"And you're sure he'll show up?" She questioned as he looked up with a smirk.

"Of course, after all we've had this comic day planned for a week now, and who says we can't have a little fun with the paparazzi while we're at it?"

Author's note

...

Short, but at least it's on time... well, it's a little early, but whatever. I have things to take care of so I couldn't make it long, but at least we have things moving in rhythm... sort of.

Cinder is back, and both her and Oz have moves set in motion, all the while Penny throws another wrench of info into the gears of stability - even if unintentionally.

That's all for now, tell me what you think and see you next time.