Author's Note: Hope you enjoy!
Beta: GeneralMayhem, kpmh2001
"We'll be on our final approach to Mistral in the next ten minutes." The pilot's voice called over the intercom system, her words breaking the awkward silence that had been left by Pyrrha's explanation.
Taiyang hadn't said anything yet, simply staring at the floor with a blank expression. Pyrrha couldn't tell if he believed her or not, but she wouldn't blame him if he didn't. She was still amazed that Ozpin and the others had believed her, a small mercy she was grateful for, but it was perhaps too much to hope such luck would hold out.
"I know how it sounds, Tai." Glynda spoke just loud enough to be heard over the engines, but kept her voice quiet enough so that their conversation wouldn't be overheard by the pilot, just as Pyrrha had done. "But I'm afraid it's the truth."
"How do you know?" Tai looked up to Glynda, sparing suspicious glances her way for a brief moment. "I mean, really? Time travel?"
The professor simply sighed, looking towards Pyrrha with an expression she could only describe as exhausted. "Qrow was tracking Amber for weeks, trying to bring her back to Beacon. When he finally managed to catch up he found her being attacked."
"By who?" Tai interrupted.
"We didn't know, but she did." Glynda nodded towards her. "Cinder Fall, an alias no doubt, there isn't any record of her existence across all of the Kingdoms; The only thing we know for sure is that they fit the standard profile of Salem's followers and they knew how to hunt down the Fall Maiden..." She paused for a moment. "-and they knew how to kill her."
Taiyang winced subtly. "I'm sorry Glynda."
"We've all lost something to this war, haven't we?" She took a moment to compose herself before continuing. "Qrow kept an eye on her the entire way here, she never left his watch. She knows things about us that she could only learn through being told, she knew where to look to root out the White Fang, and above all else, she has the Maiden powers."
Taiyang struggled to think for a moment, clearly not wanting to believe what she was saying but unable to come up with an argument against it. The Deputy-Headmistress of Beacon was possibly one of the most intelligent Huntresses in the kingdom, skilled and trained beyond what most would even be capable of; she was not easily fooled. If she believed it, then Pyrrha's story had at least some credibility.
"What was she like?" Taiyang asked. "I only ever met her a few times on visits to see Ozpin, I never got to know her."
The Professor smiled sadly. "She was smart, and dedicated, and kind… she deserved far better than to have that curse thrust upon her." She locked eyes with Pyrrha. "You both did."
"Five minutes until we're on their radar, if you want to make a detour, this is the last call."
The Professor stood and moved towards the cabin to speak to the pilot, leaving Pyrrha alone with Taiyang.
"So… the future…" It was clear he still didn't believe it, in the same way that she had struggled to believe magic was real. He would come around in time, she hoped. "Know any winning lottery numbers?"
Pyrrha smiled, exhaling softly as the tension from their discussion slowly seeped away. "Sorry, I was never much of a gambler."
"Stick with Qrow long enough and you'll pick up the vice." Taiyang's smile turned somewhat sour at the reminder of his friend's predicament.
"Qrow is the strongest huntsman I've ever seen. I'm… sure he's okay." Pyrrha hated herself for her hesitation, knowing how disingenuous it would sound. Still, she made the effort.
"Well, there's a reason for that." Taiyang's smile grew slightly. "You hadn't met me yet." Despite the bravado, Pyrrha didn't discount his words.
Older huntsmen were often far stronger than anyone could guess, them having grown old in a profession where people usually died young. Add into that the fact that he was Qrow's old partner from when they attended Beacon together? Pyrrha would have to be crazy to write him off.
"We'll be dropping you off where Qrow and Miss Schnee requested to land." Miss Goodwitch returned from the cabin. "A small outcropping in the city's natural barriers where the artificial walls have fallen into disrepair."
"I know the spot, Qrow used it to sneak out of the city whenever he and Summer got into a disagreement." Taiyang's smile fell away, replaced with a determined expression that Pyrrha found oddly calming. "It's not exactly a secret, just not something anyone on the upper levels would know about."
Glynda nodded back. "Hopefully you'll be able to track their movements."
"Did Qrow say anything useful when he reported back to the Headmaster?" Pyrrha asked, hoping that they would have any kind of lead to use.
Taiyan chuckled dryly, Glynda glaring at him for a moment. "Qrow's reports are almost always… vague. It can be difficult to keep a secure connection so far from Vale, so the finer details have to be implied more than anything else."
"And he hates actually doing it, prefers to just finish and bask in the praise later." Taiyang continued. "If he was here investigating someone Ozpin didn't want him to investigate, I guarantee you he didn't tell us anything helpful."
"Unfortunately, he also kept Miss Schnee from giving anything crucial to James as well." Glynda sounded exceptionally annoyed by that fact. "I assure you, Qrow and I will be having a discussion about this once he has been safely returned to us. Mark my words."
"So we have no idea where they might have started, or what they might have actually been doing?" Pyrrha slumped in her chair, all hopes for a simple trail to follow vanishing before her eyes. She hadn't expected it to be easy, but she had hoped for something that they might be able to work with.
The Bullhead set down roughly, the door opening to reveal the familiar mountainside of Mistral. Pyrrha wished it could invoke some kind of feeling of familiarity but found nothing. She had long since stopped calling Mistral home, now it was nothing more than a kingdom she happened to have lived in.
Pyrrha turned towards Glynda. "Will you be safe alone? If Qrow went missing investigating the Headmaster of Haven…" It was a worrying fact that only lent credence to the plausibility of Lionheart being involved somehow with the plot against them.
"I will be fine, unlike Qrow and Miss Schnee, my arrival will be met with a fair bit of publicity." She explained. "While that will protect me from reprisal if Lionheart is a traitor, it will also make it difficult for me to investigate his actions. Success rests entirely with you, Miss Nikos." Taiyang coughed beside her. "Oh don't be so facetious Tai, you know what I mean."
"Whatever you say, Glynda." Taiyang hopped off of the Bullhead, taking a moment to check their surroundings before turning back to them. "Well, we'd better get going before Qrow somehow gets himself into more trouble than he already is."
"Good luck." Glynda nodded, turning away as the door closed and the Bullhead lurched upwards once more. Slowly disappearing towards the city.
"Come on, it'll be getting daylight soon, and we want to be inside the city before then." Taiyang stepped forward, Pyrrha followed closely behind.
Glynda couldn't say that she enjoyed Mistral. Despite how so many saw it as the perfect getaway, she could only see the flaws. She could appreciate its art, its culture, but she couldn't ignore the hypocrisy. The city, as well as the entire kingdom, suffered from corruption at the highest level of government.
Leading up to the Great War the last King of Mistral had imposed strict laws on self-expression and what many would later come to define as individuality. A host of laws were established to keep the people in line and large amounts of power were given to men and women who didn't deserve it, all the while the city of Mistral was allowed to do whatever it pleased. The city, as well as the elites who lived in it, ignored the laws they enforced on those they viewed as lesser.
Glynda wished she could say the Great War had taught them a lesson, but everything that she saw simply proved the opposite. Where Atlas and Vale had grown after the war, Mistral and Vacuo had fallen. Where Vacuo struggled to survive, Mistral chose to wallow in its own corruption, and she couldn't tell which was worse.
She had thought that Haven was different, a bastion of good in a kingdom of people who would betray the moment it became profitable. She had been wrong, it only took her a few minutes of talking to the faculty to realize that. Some fit the image of brave warriors willing to sacrifice everything for their students and the generation of people who had kept the kingdom alive, an ideal she respected greatly, and then there were the ones who merely said as such. People she could tell didn't hold any honesty in their words.
Headmaster Lionheart hadn't been there to greet her when she landed, an odd yet not surprising fact. While the Headmaster may have been expected to play politician to those from other kingdoms, he was still a busy man with a school to run. He had sent his Deputy instead, a woman of roughly her own age with the clear signs of stress and over exhaustion that Glynda could truly understand in her heart. She appeared capable and she held herself with a dignity lacking in those dishonest frauds.
When Headmaster Lionheart finally found her, she was forced to hide her shock. She hadn't seen the man for years, the last time being nearly two decades ago when she had been placed in charge of the students attending the Vytal Festival in Mistral that year. A far simpler time that she often looked back on nostalgically.
He had seemed tired then, and something heavy had been weighing on his mind, but he had insisted it was nothing of concern. The man she saw now looked to be an entirely different person. Where he had once been the embodiment of a proud Huntsmen, a strong warrior, and a man who had earned his place through merit and skill; now he couldn't even meet her eyes when they spoke. That lack of confidence and utterly broken spirit sent a chill down her spine.
Shocking her concern aside, she forced a professional smile onto her face as he spoke to her.
"I hope your trip was uneventful." He gestured with one of his hands towards the school before quickly cupping his hands together, fidgeting as they walked.
"It was quite calm, the Grimm have been remarkably tame in Mistral as of late." Glynda replied, making sure to keep a few feet between herself and the Headmaster.
"Yes well… we have our esteemed Huntsmen to thank for that." Lionheart tried for a smile, managing something more resembling a grimace. "I'm afraid we have been far busier than it seems however."
"Headmaster Ozpin assumed as much, it has been quite some time since you two last spoke."
Lionheart winced. "I… Well, it hasn't been easy managing this all alone."
"I'm sure." He was making excuses for himself, another worrying sign that was quickly driving her to see what Ozpin had been so blind to.
"At any rate, the reason you are here, we can finally begin now that everyone has arrived." Glynda paused, looking at the Headmaster with a raised eyebrow. "James arrived a few hours ago, he insisted we wait for you before meeting." Lionheart kept his words vague, clearly not having trusted his Deputy with the truth of their meeting.
Glynda paid it no mind. "The General is here?"
"I, um, thought you knew." Lionheart stepped away from her, chuckling coldly. "H-He's waiting in my office as we speak."
Glynda gripped her Crop tightly, her knuckles turning white with the strain. "Then we had best not keep him waiting, I would love the chance to speak with him."
What are you thinking James?!
Pyrrha didn't know what she had been expecting when she heard of a secret entrance into the city, but it certainly hadn't been a crowded, busy, road. Taiyang had led her up a hillside towards where two of the mountains seemed to meet, towards the bottom however there was a surprisingly large gap where remains of a wall could be seen. The stone was covered in moss and the wall had clearly been broken down quite some time ago. A simple dirt path led up most of the way, before merging with several others and turning into a gravel road just before going into the city proper.
On the pathway were several dozen people entering and leaving the city. Most wore dirty or torn clothing and avoided eye contact, keeping their heads down so as to remain as unknown as possible. More than half were also faunus of some kind, a fact that she only noticed due to her time with Blake and Velvet. Near the actual entrance itself a small group of people were watching them like hawks, occasionally reaching out to grab a person and asking them questions before shoving them off again.
"Just as inviting as ever." Taiyang muttered quietly, slowing to a halt and waiting for her to stand beside him. "I'm guessing they belong to whoever owns the lower levels at the moment, just keep your head low and we should be able to avoid any trouble."
Pyrrha nodded her head, pulling her hood up over her head and following behind him. As they approached the entrance she could feel the eyes watching them, but no one said anything and they were inside a minute later.
The inside didn't look like any part of Mistral she had ever seen, and while she had spent the majority of her time on the upper levels, she felt as if she was standing in an entirely different city then the one she was familiar with. The buildings were clearly falling apart, most of them not being maintained beyond the occasional patchwork repair job with nails and boards to cover the worst of the damage. Several of the buildings had collapsed roofs or had burnt interiors, places where no one would live, and yet, she could still occasionally make out people watching them from the ruined windows.
The uncomfortably narrow and dark alleyways that branched off of the gravel path they walked on quickly turned to mud, the small groups that sat there stopping their conversation while Taiyang and her walked by. What she noticed above all else was the smell. Mistral, for the most part, was a blend of nature and an urban setting. Trees and grass could be found nearly anywhere in the city, because of that the air was almost always fresh so long as you avoided the industrial areas.
Here though, the air was stale and dank, and the only plants she saw were mangled and sickly. Considering the placement of the mountains, and the numerous other levels built above this one, Pyrrha figured little if any sunlight made it down there. Combine that with the faint smell of ash from the burning buildings, and the revolting smells often associated with poverty, and Pyrrha found herself having to breathe through her mouth.
"That's the easy part over." Taiyang stepped off to the side of the street, pulling her along with him. "Now we just need to figure out where to start."
"What would he have done first?" Pyrrha would freely admit she was out of her depth. The world of secrets had never been one she enjoyed, and now that it was very much a life or death situation, she was more than willing to let the more experienced Huntsmen take the lead.
"I'm not certain." Unfortunately, he looked almost equally out of his depths. "Qrow and Raven were always the underworld types, I was more the muscle in case of trouble. I'm no stranger to the darker parts of the kingdoms, but when it comes to actually spying on people, let alone a Headmaster of an academy? I wouldn't know where to start."
"So we won't be able to do their mission and hope to find them, we have to hunt them specifically." Pyrrha sighed, once again feeling her spirits drop at the fact this was going to be harder than expected. She looked around for a moment, spotting a sign hanging off of a building. The sign, originally held up by two small metal chains, was dangling dangerously from one corner, one of the supports having rusted away, but the poor maintenance was only the second thing that caught her attention, as she recognized the powerful smell of alcohol in the air. "We should probably check the bars."
"So you do know Qrow." Taiyang laughed softly. "That's a good place to start, even if he didn't stop there, we might be able to find some information from the locals." She stepped towards the building with the sign, only for Taiyang to reach out and grab her arm. "Not that one."
Pyrrha looked back towards the building, clearly seeing people inside and, judging by the smell, they were definitely drinking alcohol. "Why not?"
"The guards at the entrance have been watching us since we stopped." Pyrrha looked back, meeting eyes with one of them for a moment before turning back to Taiyang. "And judging by those matching spider tattoos, it's a gang at best."
"At worst?"
"Let's try to stay positive, all right?" Taiyang started back down the street, only continuing the conversation when they were far enough away to not be heard. "Besides, a place like that has too much publicity."
Pyrrha shook her head in confusion. "That never stopped Qrow before, why would that matter now?"
"Qrow can blend in easily enough, I'm sure he'd fit right in." Taiyang replied. "His friend though?"
He's referring to Miss Schnee. Pyrrha understood what he meant. She might be able to avoid attention, but if someone did recognize her they would ask what an Atlesian Specialist was doing at a place like that, almost definitely causing an incident if purely by assumption.
"So they would have looked for a less obvious place?" Pyrrha hazarded a guess.
"Exactly. We'll be looking for something out of the way without any security." Turning off the main road they stepped onto a muddy path. "Time to start bar hopping, Qrow's favourite sport."
Pyrrha fought back a sigh, following closely behind and hoping that they might get lucky. It was going to be a long week.
Author's Note: Writing Tai is interesting, considering we know absolutely nothing about him as a character aside from a few surface level interactions and some third person perspectives. Hopefully I did him justice.
As always, don't forget to review and let me know what you think. Positive or negative it does help, I had a few good reviews about pacing that I will definitely be using in my next story.
Sincerely SE