Shadow wizard money gang, we love casting spells

Anyways, here's your chapter. Here's the Discord: /cgFmXz3qJ5


"So...remind me why we are doing this?" Rook asked, as he tried to look as casual as possible, keeping a look out for any officials. Deep down, he was actually quite nervous about this; it just didn't feel right to him.

"I'm just curious." Blake frowned. "Ironwood trusts us as agents, but not as people in his true inner circle. Ozpin had skeletons. Lionheart had skeletons. And I'm very sure that Ironwood has quite the few."

"But should we be exposing them so soon? I do not doubt that the general has secrets, but...," Rook trailed off. He wanted to say the general would reveal them himself in time. After all, James was probably just as on edge about the idea of double agents. especially with what happened with Lionheart.

"It's not that we need to reveal them. It's just that we need to know them...in case of something." Blake said. "I've seen that look in Ironwood's eyes before. It's ambitious, but...is it for the people's good...or his good?"

Rook had to concede on that; it was never easy to tell who the ambitions were truly benefitting.

"Well...you are in the clear for now."

"I'm sorry. I just need to know if his side is really 'our' side." Blake said. "And with him? I'm not too sure nowadays."

"Either way, you're forgiven," Rook said, "but I would hurry. I do not know how long we will be in the clear."

"Right." Blake said, looking towards the heavily locked door. "Thankfully, I think our lady is already on the inside."

Soon enough, locks started clicking and the door pulled back. On the other side, Blake and Rook were greeted with Min, taking a bow as she appreciated her handiwork.

"You just teleport inside?" Blake asked.

"Now where's the fun in just TELLING you how I did it?" Min smirked.

"Whatever. Did you take care of the cameras?" Blake asked.

"Of course. Just don't mess up anything in here. Managed to get them running on a loop so if someone looks REALLY carefully," Min said.

"Then everything will be as it was before we left," Rook said, following Blake into the room.

Blake and Rook walked inside- the room just had a computer, with presumably some pretty heavily guarded military secrets...or worse.

"Want me to access it?" Rook asked.

"If you can." Blake nodded.

Rook nodded and got to work, trying to gain access to the computer.

Blake paced around the room. She was worried on what she'd find...especially with the power Ironwood possessed.

"No? Hm...I could have sworn," Rook muttered to himself as he was still trying different passwords. Everything from phrases like "The Greatest Kingdom" to various number combinations. Eventually, he managed to get a hit. "And we have access."

"What was the password?" Blake asked, a bit curious.

"A number combination. 73114," Rook said, moving over so Blake could look at the computer.

"Now...let's see what we can find."

There were...plenty of files on this machine, all locked behind the highest security clearance Atlesian military officials can get. Only people like Ironwood, the Ace-Ops, Winter and a select few others would be able to get in. Well, unless you happened to have Rook on your side.

"Now...where to start?" Blake asked, as she clicked on the documents files. A bunch of files popped up, much to her chagrin.

"Just look up some words that sound incriminating! Anything to just lessen our time here!" Min insisted.

"Hmmm...I might have an idea," Rook said, "Try searching for 'Salazar'."

"Right." Blake typed in Salazar...and quite a few things popped up. Blake raised an eyebrow. "This raises some questions."

Rook's eyes widened at the sheer amount of files here. He was scanning through different file names when he found one that worried. "That one," he pointed out a file, "Fafnir."

Blake clicked on Fafnir. "Why this specifically?"

"Let us just say I might have decided to...learn more about human culture and I discovered the legend of Fafnir. Things did not end well for the title character... I am hoping things are not as bad here."

Blake began to read.

...Rook was right to choose this one. The more and more she read, the more horrified she became.

"...I take it we have found one of Ironwood's worst 'skeletons'," Rook said, noting the horrified look on Blake's face.

"Worst is...it doesn't even start to describe this," Blake answered, "Why would he MAKE this?!"

"An aura transfer device...made by Rex's parents?" Min asked. "Wait, so...Ironwood KNEW his parents but never thought to mention it!?"

"And look at all the tests...failure after failure after failure...," Blake said, her eyes scanning the numerous tests until another phrase at the bottom of the document caught her attention. "Status: REPURPOSED."

"What the hell happened?" Min asked.

"And what did it get 'repurposed' to?"

"Classified. Blacked out. Must be very important..."

"And somehow even worse than this," Rook said.

"...I'm copying this," Blake said, getting out her scroll, "we need to show the others."

"...what happens if we type in the word 'Omnitrix'?"

"I'd say 'you don't think he's gonna try and steal it' but considering...that?" Min gestured to the Fafnir project file.

"It'd be worth something to look it up." Blake said, typing in the word 'Omnitrix'.

That brought up a significantly less amount of files, thankfully. Most of them were studies on the device, how it worked. Though one file seemed...out of place. Clicking on it, Blake discovered that out of place file...were the schematics for a DNA Scanner.

"A DNA scanner?" Blonko hummed. "What would Ironwood want with a DNA scanner, exactly?"

"I...have no idea," Blake said as she scrolled through more of the file. But that was it. Just the schematics for the scanner. "First an abomination that...that STEALS Aura from people and now a DNA Scanner under his files for Omnitrix..."

"Alright, they say the third times the charm. What does it have about us?" Min asked.

Blake first tried typing in Min's name to see what came up.

A single file, with her name on it. Min's eyes narrowed. "...click on it."

Blake did so, bringing up notes on...oddly enough occult subjects. Specifically, there was a significant amount of detail on binding and banishing rituals.

"What the hell?" Min asked. "It's a total deconstruction of my person! He's even got my weaknesses and everything!"

"It is a contingency plan," Rook realized, "In case you ever turned."

"He...he has these?" Blake asked, looking up her own name.

Sure enough, files came up about Blake. One was on her as a person, a total deconstruction of her personality, another detailed her Semblance's and Gambol Shroud's capabilities, and another was on the White Fang itself.

"He doesn't trust us." Blake muttered in disbelief.

"I am now concerned if he has anything on me. Or the others," Rook said.

"...look up Ozpin." Min said.

"Ozpin?" Blake repeated. She didn't fully understand the reasoning there but she decided to try it. And got a result.

"He has a file...on OZPIN?"

"Winter." Rook suggested, "does he have anything on her?"

"If he actually has files on his daughters," Min said, barely containing her anger at the thought.

Blake typed in the name, hoping that there would at least be something to suggest Ironwood had SOME faith in people.

Nope.

Winter's file popped up.

Blake clicked on it out of morbid curiosity. How far did Ironwood's paranoia go if he had a file on his own daughter?

It detailed everything. Every flaw. Every worry, every fear, every single detail about Winter Schnee, down to her core.

"I'm very tempted to just…wring his neck the next time we see him," Min growled.

"We need to keep a low profile." Rook frowned. "Download everything you can, Blake. We need to stay quiet for a bit.."

Blake nodded and set to work. But then she realized something. "...Rook?" Blake said, freezing after she started the download.

"What? What is troubling you?"

"We were all so busy with looking at the files, we forgot to keep a lookout."

"Oh shi-," Min spun around quickly, checking to see if they had been discovered.

Min quickly threw up a spell to hide their presence, just in case, as she moved to the door. She slowly opened the door, but no one was there, thankfully.

"We're still good," Min said.

Blake breathed a sigh of relief as she turned her attention back to the screen, watching the progress bar fill up as files were being copied and transferred.

"...when should we tell the others?" Min asked.

"Soon," Blake suggested, "obviously can't do it now."

"Agreed. We have more immediate problems," Rook added.

"We just need to keep watch on Ironwood. 'Atlas' invokes the image of a titan. A single individual tasked with holding the world upon their shoulders. No support. No aid. No one strong enough to share the burden. If Atlas shrugs or fails in any way, the whole world comes crashing down. I need to know Ironwood can hold Atlas up..." Blake said.

The progress bar soon filled up completely. Blake disconnected her scroll from the computer and logged out. They needed to hide even the smallest trace that they were here.

Blake looked around. "Min- any way you can quickly scrub down the room of any fingerprints?"

Min waved her hands and summoned up a small black flame in front of her.

"...are you sure-" Rook began before Min simply sent out a wave of fire over the whole room. Nothing burned though, the fire actually passed through some of the objects in the room.

"And just like that, not a trace left. The perfect crime," the chaos demon smirked.

"Good...and can you give us the perfect escape?" Blake asked.

"I'm offended you think I couldn't."

"Just get us out." Rook said.

Min smirked and snapped her fingers, summoning up a portal for them to walk through right back to their rooms.

"Voila."

Blake took a deep breath. "Right...now, we gotta hide this."

"I may be able to encrypt it," Rook said, "Plumber code security still outdoes Atlas'."

"Good." Blake said, handing it to him.

Rook took hold of the scroll and got to work, locking the copied files away behind layers and layers of security.

"Still need a password for one security layer," Rook said, seeing if Blake had a suggestion.

"NinjasOfLove." Blake said.

Rook raised a brow at that, but went ahead with it.

"Really?" Min asked.

"What? No one will guess it."

"Yang could."

"...fuck." Blake hummed.


Carl stormed inside the cube, and slammed the door shut. "That goddamn brat..." Carl hissed, as the machines inside started taking off his main armor. "That kid...is gonna get it."

Carl began to tap a few things on a screen, selecting a certain piece of armor called "Lightweight". The machine began to install the armor- black and silver plates covered the internal systems of Carl's main armor, as well as serve as the strong but thin layer of armor. Its overall design had thin golden lining and also has gold plates across it's streamlined body armor.

Lightweight- designed for quick combat. It's top speed was 200 MPH. Nesmith grit his teeth. "Let's leave this kid in the dirt."

Glancing at such an armor, Albedo felt a little honored that he had forced the captain both in a corner when confronting him about his words and even making him change armors in the process! For now, he was quick to spin the dial on the Ultimatrix before deciding that perhaps starting off with Fasttrack would be worth it.

If this armor was designed for the challenge at hand, he'd need to be on his guard or at least try not to get carried away; besides he wanted to make this believable and not an easy picking.

One thing that Albedo had wanted to try and do just for fun was to call out the names of the aliens he transformed into; but under the guidance of Yang he was advised against it. He knew that Tennyson would get a kick out of it even if it was stupid, but for now he would hold his tongue unless absolutely necessary.

Albedo slapped down the Ultimatrix, and transformed into the blue furred alien. Albedo did some leg stretches, because...that seemed like something that Ben would do.

"The two contestants are about to run a VERY complicated obstacle course!" Jennifer explained. "They'll be running through a gauntlet of hurdles, beams and tires- the typical military workout."

Yang lifted an eyebrow. "...when was the last time we did anything with tires?" Yang asked Rex.

"Fuck if I know, but I'm curious." Rex said.

"And, the best part is that the racers are allowed to interfere with each other should they deem it necessary! It is survival of the fittest after all!" Jennifer added with a small smile.

Albedo immediately perked up upon hearing that. This contest was probably about to get a lot more dicey if he couldn't pull out some tricks of his own, but he kept his cool. Those stretches would do him good.

Nesmith walked out, in his new armor. Albedo took note.

"That suit made out of aluminum and aluminum alloys?" Albedo asked.

"...yes, actually. How did you-"

"I feel like I don't have to be a genius to know how durable and lightweight aluminum is." Albedo smirked.

"Right." Nesmith huffed.

"Either way, I hope you're ready to put that money where your mouth is." Albedo commented before taking a sprinter's starting position.

"Oh this brat's gonna see more than money by the time I'm done." Nesmith thought to himself as he simply prepared himself, suit starting to hum to life as he began to activate a few protocols that would allow for him to start off with an intense boost…and also put on some insane music.

If all went well he'd be done and by the finish line before his opponent could blink.

Jennifer held up the flare gun. "3, 2, 1-" She pulled the trigger- before the flare had even left the gun, Nesmith was RUSHING through the obstacle course, already up and over the hurdles at the start.

Well am I making haste or could it be haste is making me

What's time but a thing to kill or keep or buy or lose or live in

I gotta go faster

Keep up the pace

Just to stay in the human race

Albedo ran to get a move on, but to his shock, his legs were somehow tied up in wires of some sort. "That armor..." Albedo frowned.

"Oh, that son of a..." Rex muttered as he watched Nesmith rushing ahead.

"Why am I not surprised?" Yang commented as she then noted Albedo's growing impatience as he quickly started to look ahead; he was already surveying the course for any extra traps but soon reached for the wires to try and pry them off.

Albedo's hand cut right through the line, as he rushed off- Fasttrack was fast, especially in a time like this. Nesmith was already at the end of the course when Fasttrack was right in the middle of it.

"He got here faster than I expected..." Nesmith smirked.

Eventually, Fasttrack made it to the end mere seconds after Nesmith had finished, Albedo simply folding his arms and giving a slight nod as he now knew that if he wasn't about to play fair then perhaps it would be best to fight fire with fire!

"Alright then, Captain. I will give you that your suit is fast...even if you had to trip me up to get a headstart."

"Just saying. A handicap is a handicap." Nesmith smirked, as he pressed a button on his chest. "Oh, and you were right about the whole aluminum stuff...but, bet you weren't expecting this."

Nesmith's armor suddenly covered up the exposed areas in beautiful golden titanium armor. The crowd oohed and ahhed. Nesmith thought he looked cooler like this.

"...he looks so cringe." Ari flatly stated.

As Albedo rolled his eyes he simply got ready for the next challenge, hoping that this time around there wouldn't be as many handicaps put in place that would allow this guy to cheat any further.

"The next challenge is..." Jennifer pointed up to the stars. "Flight! Currently above the clouds itself is a drone- first person to grab what's attached to the drone and land back on the ground wins the round!"

"Simple enough for me." Nesmith grinned. "See this armor, boy? Built it to withstand the cold of the tundra. And way up there? Also works like a charm."

"Cute." Albedo said, slapping the Ultimatrix down as he shifted into Jetray.

"Get ready!" Jennifer grinned as she held up the flare

Albedo and Nesmith prepared to fly. Nesmith's boosters popped out of his back, and began to warm up.

Jennifer pulled the trigger, and the two took off to the skies, Jetray pulling a bit ahead of Nesmith.

As Jetray glanced around for the drone, he knew that he had to think fast; one wrong move and either Nesmith would take a chance to strike him down or worse he'd lose track of where the drone was located.

Right now he could not afford to lose twice in a row.

"I dunno if you know this, kid, but we're allowed to have a good old fashioned dogfight." Nesmith said, boosting himself further up. "So, come on. Let's see what this space mantaray can do." Shoulder mounted rocket launchers popped up from out of his shoulders, and began to lock onto Albedo.

"Of course she'd neglect to mention that." Albedo sighed before quickly circling back around and starting to smirk. "Well then, how about you try and catch me first?" With a quick push with his wings, the space mantaray was off, speeding across the skies like a concorde jet.

The rockets followed close behind, as Nesmith began to fire off blasts of energy from his hands. He had battery life to spare on his tech, a few stray blasts would be nothing. He put on some new music.

'Cause you can't see what my eyes see

(I can see it, I can see it)

And you can't be inside of me

Flying high again

As the rockets followed, Albedo started to try and maneuver out of their range, even speeding up and trying to cut through the air to make sure the missiles got in the way of one another.

"If he even thinks I'll let him strike me then he's got another damn thing coming! You owe me big time for this Tennyson!" Albedo thought before hearing the high pitched squealing of Nesmith's suit charging up more blasts

Albedo quickly flipped around, and smirked.

"Did you know that I can shoot lasers out of my eyes AND tail?" Albedo taunted, as his eyes and the tip of his tail began to light up.

"You can do what-?" Nesmith suddenly had to divert power to dodge out of the way as Albedo started to fire off some rather quick blasts of his own.

"And unlike your suit, I don't really have a limit to how much I can fire. So you might wanna unload all that juice now before you get cooked!"

"Sorry, kid. But I got a drone to nab." Nesmith said, as his chest unleashed a beam of energy far greater than Albedo's neuroshocks. Albedo half expected the beam to just shock him...but his body started to freeze up.

"Dust is one hell of a tool, kid. Don't underestimate it." Nesmith said, as he passed by the falling, frozen Albedo. His torso had been encased in ice, thanks to that underhanded attack.

Albedo suddenly started to try and free himself from the ice, he may not be able to do it as quick as he had hoped but if there was one thing he had; it was time on his side.

"You forget one thing, Carl Nesmith." Albedo spoke under his breath as he started to quickly try and heat up the ice; he was about to blow this man out of the sky as the ice suddenly began to crack from the sudden heat of both Jetray's laser tail and eyes.

Albedo boosted himself high into the air, speed almost causing a sonic boom as he flew. Captain Nesmith only saw a red blur pass him by, soaring above the clouds.

"NO!" Nesmith yelled.

It only took a few more seconds before Albedo had snagged the drone from the sky, quickly stopping his sonic speed before flicking his tail off the side upon landing. Surprisingly graceful.

The crowd cheered, as Albedo reverted back to human form. Yang and the others cheered, as Albedo waved to the crowd.

"Unbelievable! Ben Tennyson not only won the race- but somehow broke the sound barrier doing so!" Jennifer added.

Ironwood couldn't help but smirk at that. "Checkmate, Jacques."

"Alright kid, we get it. You can break the sound barrier, but if you could do that then why couldn't you stop that giant Dragon back at Beacon? Or better yet, speed on over here to get a warning out about Haven?" Nesmith seemed to be bringing that up again, which right now had a bit more credence considering the absolute speed that had been showcased.

"You might be fast, but if there's one thing that I know you lack, it's experience. A kid like you trying to play hero? This ain't a TV show." He continued, clearly his facade of trying to be a hero was cracking ever so slightly.

Elsewhere Jacques was trying his hardest not to burst a blood vessel as he simply pressed a button on his desk.

"Send it in. I want that brat turned to paste."

"I've been at this since I was 10 years old. Ever punch an alien into outer space?" Albedo asked. "From the surface? Ever stop a threat that the world wasn't even ready for? Have you ever BEEN into space? To stop a crisis that could very well destroy this planet? There's a reason why you don't have to step up to the plate, Carl. It's because I'm doing all the heavy lifting."

Jennifer could feel the awkward tension. "Uhhh...we're gonna take a quick 15 minute break before our final competition!" She announced.

Albedo quickly shifted back to his human self and made his way back into the crowd, he was at his breaking point. Any more of those comments and he was going to go Ultimate on this bozo and crush him...even if he'd be given some dirty looks by doing it.

"God, does he ever learn to shut up?" Rex asked, before turning to Yang. "How're the others doing? Any word from them yet?"

"Someone call for us?" Ruby asked, as she and the others appeared, the real Ben hiding himself.

"How'd it go?" Kylie asked. "Whatcha find?"

"Just found some good documents that we can leak to the press." Weiss smirked. "How's the competition going?"

"It's going..." Albedo said. "Ben's ahead, 2-1."

"Really? Sweet." Ben grinned. "Now, lemme tag back in."

"Finally. One more word out of him and I would have gladly punched him hard enough to break his sternum." Albedo then ruffled his hair and made his way to the stands to sit by Yang and Rex.

"Sis, you're not gonna like what this clown's been talking about." Yang warned as she looked to Ben and then back to Ruby.

"Yeah no, I'm gonna agree with Yang here? Ben unless you wanna fight at your best? You don't wanna hear this." Rex added

Ben smirked. "Believe me. I can handle this second rate Titanium Man."