Cover Art: Aristeo Storm

Chapter 37

Summer refused to help him pick out a nice outfit to wear, which Qrow could only assume meant she was still pissy about the whole being caught drunk by Ozpin thing. To him, it was just one infraction among many Team STRQ had picked up in Beacon, but he supposed it felt a lot more worrying to her to be told off before term even started. In fact, Summer refused to speak to him at all about his meeting with Willow, practically slamming the hotel door in his face.

I guess it's easy to look back on her and remember how sweet she was, but Summer always did have a temper in hindsight.

He considered asking Raven and then considered cleaning his brain out with bleach to think for even a moment that Raven would know what to wear. In the end, he threw on some clean black pants and a white shirt, defaulting to the tried and tested male method of dress – black and white, and call it done. He wasn't going to win any awards but he figured he was in acceptable dress be it for a formal event, funeral, wedding or just about anything, so it should do.

Luckily, Willow seemed to approve when he met her. "You look good," she said.

"Not as good as you," he replied easily, and honestly. Willow was wearing a silver sequin dress that looked like it cost a million lien, and it might very well have. It clung to her slim frame and hinted at everything while showing nothing. It was a lot fancier than what he had. "I feel a little underdressed compared to you."

"You look perfectly dashing, Qrow." Willow offered her arm. "Shall we?"

It felt a little strange to link arms given she was at the entrance to the restaurant, but he went along with it and let her slip her arm through his. Side by side, they walked through the doors and toward a waiter working at the front behind a tall wooden counter. He didn't need to ask their names, not with Willow's pure white hair flowing down her shoulders.

"Welcome Miss Schnee. Your table is ready for you."

Qrow wasn't so dense that he didn't know to draw out a chair for her before taking a seat himself, and Willow's smile in response told him she was pleased with it. The whole formal shenanigans had never been his thing, but he could remember Taiyang looking them up before his wedding with Raven, not wanting to make a fool of himself, and Qrow had picked a few bits up by quizzing him on it. Mostly, he'd learned through osmosis, the knowledge seeping into him as Taiyang learned it.

One thing he hadn't learned was understanding nine-course meals, but he had a wide enough palate that he was content to just point to one thing on each menu and let that be ordered. There wasn't much he didn't eat, and he'd travelled enough in the future to have tasted a lot of wild and exotic delicacies, most of which had been delicious despite questionable names and ingredients. That was the thing, really, other kingdoms might have strange foods you'd turn your nose up at, but the reason they kept eating them was because they were tasty. If they tasted like garbage, no one would be selling them in street stalls and vendors.

"So," Qrow waited for the waiter to leave before getting to the meat. "You wanted to talk about your dad."

"Hmm." Willow leaned in as well, her voice dropping. Insider information on such an important business would be risky to share. Even a hint that it was doing poorly could lead to a mass sale of shares and the company imploding. "We might as well get the bad things out the way first before moving onto more pleasant topics."

"It's bad, then?"

"More like... well, bad in a certain light. The SDC is doing well. Profits are steady. They're not growing as fast as many of the shareholders would like, but father has been averse to the proposals they've put forwards."

"Oh?"

"Many of them want to see a mass increase in the number of mines. More dust means more money. The problem is they want father to take huge loans out to afford it, and creating a new mine isn't cheap. It's dangerous work and father has always demanded the highest safety, but the shareholders are arguing he's being too safe, that money is being wasted on making sure no incidents happen when that's what insurance is for."

Qrow drew back. "You mean they're saying he should let accidents happen?"

"Basically. It's easier to pay someone for a crushed leg then it is to invest in state-of-the-art safety equipment across fifty new mines opening up – and that's how many they want. Father has no idea where he's meant to get the miners for all that, too. Mining may be a low-skill job but that doesn't mean there are five thousand unemployed miners looking for work."

No, but there were a lot of unemployed faunus who could be shunted into those mines, especially those living in Atlas where there were fewer labour laws to protect them. Having knowledge of what was to come, he knew Jacques had gone whole hog on the expansion. Or he could assume it. He'd never actually paid attention to it happening, but hearing Willow talk about it now made it clear what was going to happen. Her father steps out, Jacques steps in, all those ethical concerns take a long walk off a short pier.

"Your father is in charge though, right?"

"He still has a majority share, yes. The problem – and what I wanted to talk to you about – is that he's taken me aside and asked me exactly what I plan to do in the future."

The conversation paused as the first course came, along with some wine. Qrow wasn't as much a fan of wine as beer and spirits, which was probably a good thing tonight. This was a serious issue and he didn't want to be throwing up into a toilet when Willow needed his help. Once the waiter was gone and they were eating, Willow spoke again.

"It's not a warning so much as him asking me to think about what'll happen after I graduate. He's fine with me becoming a huntress, but he says I can't be both a huntress and the CEO, and he's probably right. I'd be too busy to have two jobs. He isn't giving away the company, though. He wants it to be left with me, but he says that if I want to become a huntress, he wants to know the company is being run by safe hands, so he wants to look at bringing someone in to run it in my place."

Jacques.

Jacques, Jacques, Jacques. Qrow wanted to scream it, and then scream warnings in Willow's ear, but nothing was decided yet and it'd sound awfully strange if he could predict all this. Also, Jacques would only have real power if he married Willow, which had obviously been his power move in the future but wouldn't necessarily here. Not if Qrow had anything to say about it.

"Has he given you a time limit?"

"I have until I graduate to decide. And he wants me to take all that time and think on it properly. It won't be immediate, either. He says I can study and train for four years and graduate, and that after I'd be taught in how to run the business by him. I won't have it dumped on me, but I'll have to give up on being a huntress to learn how to manage the company." Willow waved her hand in the air. "Or, I'll have to accept someone else running it in my name while I become a huntress. I'll receive money either way, so he wants me to pick which I'll feel the happiest with."

"Sounds like a good father."

"Mmm. I'm lucky to have him. And I'm lucky I'm being given all this time to think about it as well."

"Yeah. Five years, isn't it? You're a year younger than me, so you'll be starting at an academy next year and—" He noticed Willow's excited smile, and the way she was vibrating in her seat. "Am I wrong?"

"That moves onto the good news!" she said, giddily. "I decided to study and test ahead and I've officially graduated already! I've been accepted into Beacon!"

Wait, what? Qrow leaned back, utterly blindsided by what he knew, for a fact, had never happened before. Willow might have graduated early, that he couldn't determine, but he knew with 100% certainty that she'd never studied at Beacon.

But maybe he was wrong.

Maybe Willow had applied and been accepted to Beacon but had changed her mind at the last second or chosen her father's offer early. Or maybe she met Jacques beforehand and was convinced not to go.

Maybe...

"W—Wow, that's... wow. I never realised. That's amazing, Willow! Well done!"

He managed to bring about some cheer, since she was obviously expecting it. It was in no way bad news, either. Willow being at Beacon would mean one more person he knew there, and it'd help him be close when Jacques did rear his ugly head. It wouldn't interfere with Team STRQ either, other than giving them another friend to hang out with and spar with.

"How did you manage it?" he asked.

"Well, you know I've been receiving private tutelage. I just explained to my teachers that I wanted to make it into Beacon this year, and once they were confident I was prepared to put the work in, they put me through an intense course. I had to learn a whole year's worth of subjects in a couple of months." Willow puffed her chest out. "But I did it! I studied hard and passed with flying colours!"

Praise me, her face seemed to say, which felt so very amusing because Winter would have never allowed herself to look so smug and self-satisfied. Then again, Winter had always buried that stick deep within her ass.

"You're amazing," he told Willow, chuckling at her huge smile. "Crazy to think you did so much in such a short amount of time, but I guess that's what hard work gets you. Good job."

"Y—Yes. Well..." Blushing faintly at the praise, Willow averted her eye and said, "I wanted to go to Beacon with you, so I could hardly rest on my laurels."

"With me?"

"Yes. Is that such a surprise? I'm homeschooled, so my friends are just the sons and daughters of businesspeople my father spends time with. Most of them are only interested in my because their parents have told them to be. I always wanted to study away from Atlas to avoid that," she added, "but I'd been planning on applying to Haven originally, in a year's time. Then I changed it to Beacon when I met you, but I assumed I'd join when you were in your second year."

"But then you decided to try for this one?"

"Yes. I felt that it wouldn't harm me to try and fail. If I didn't succeed, I'd simply have a head start on learning the course material for the year ahead. But I didn't fail." Her smile returned, along with the side eye sent his way. "I passed with excellent scores!"

Praise me.

"You're incredible. I'm in awe."

Willow wriggled happily in her seat, only going still when the waiter came to take their plates and begin the next course. Then, the stiff-backed and polite young woman returned, vanishing into the ether once more the moment he was gone.

"Anyway," she said, leaning forward excitedly. "I'm going to be seeing you at Beacon, which is the good news, but the bad news is that this means I only get four years to decide instead of five. But I think it'll be time enough to get an idea of what I want."

"Yeah, it probably will be. You'll get to fight Grimm and do some test missions as part of it all, I think." He knew, of course. "So, you'll get to feel what being a huntress is like and decide what's right for you. You're not feeling pressured to run the business, are you?"

"No. Thankfully not. Daddy keeps worrying about that as well but he's made it clear that my replacement if I say no will be personally trained by him, so they'll keep the company running and safe. That means no panicking about what'll happen to all the employees if I make the selfish decision. They'll be looked after by someone else."

They wouldn't be, not with Jacques on the case.

But if I can stop Willow feeling she has to give power to him, then maybe it won't matter. Jacques would be in charge of the SDC, but Willow would still own it, so she'd be able to force him not to abuse faunus. Or she could fire him if he acts out.

In a sense, it didn't matter if Jacques got the position, just so long as he didn't have all the freedom in the world to abuse it.

The rest of their meal went by easier, with Qrow promising to spend some time with Willow while she was in Vale before starting Beacon. Naturally, she was staying at a much fancier hotel in the city, but she gave him her room number and an assurance he could visit whenever he wanted. Seeing the hint for what it was, Qrow gave her his and the name of his hotel.

/-/

"How was your date?" asked Raven.

It was early morning and they were at the hotel's buffet eating breakfast. Qrow hadn't drunk enough wine to get tipsy and so avoided any more tellings-off from Ozpin. Not, seemingly, from Summer, who had her eyes fixed on her food and was stabbing it like it was a Beowolf.

"It wasn't really a date," he replied. "Willow has some stuff going on in her life that she wanted my input on, plus I promised to do an upgrade for her weapon."

"Hmmm. You sure it wasn't a date?"

"Pretty sure. I mean, I'd be able to tell."

Raven snorted,

"Oh, there is one thing," he said. "Willow is going to be coming to Beacon with us. Isn't that grea—"

Summer's fork and knife clattered down. Her chair scraped back as she stood. "I'm not hungry."

Qrow watched her storm away. "What's up with her...?"

"You deaf?" asked Ray, eyes focused on her own food. "She isn't hungry."

"I'm not so stupid I can't tell that was an excuse."

"But you are so stupid you can't figure out what it is," she fired back. "Not my business to tell you. Summer wouldn't want me to. See about upgrading your brain while you're upgrading her weapon, yeah? It's getting boring having to deal with you being an idiot."

"Would it kill you to up and tell me...?"

"Yes. Telling you might cost me my life."

"Bitch."

"Moron."

Their words said, they ate in silence, finishing up before Raven left to go see if Summer wanted to work out at the gym. The fact he wasn't dragged along made it clear he'd been uninvited by Raven. Fine by him. He'd always dealt with Summer's bad moods before by avoiding her until they wore off, so it should work here.

Heading out the hotel, Qrow made his way to an estate agents store in the city – one advertising Mountain Glenn properties out front and borrowed himself a brochure. The estate agents were all busy, and there was even a line of people waiting for a new agent to talk to them. A quick check through the brochure gave some hints as to why.

"Damn, these properties are a tenth the price they would be in the city!" It even showed similar properties side by side to prove it. "No wonder so many people want to go there. Plus, it's not like moving to a poorer area since everything is brand new. New schools, new hospitals, new roads, new parks."

It sounded amazing even to him.

"Rules, though. You can't buy property and own property in Vale unless the latter is a business. Huh, that's an odd one." He thought about it for a second before realising the reason. "Right. It's to stop greedy landlords buying up all the cheap property and renting them out, or people buying second or third homes in Mountain Glenn as an investment."

It wouldn't achieve its goal of expanding outward and reducing the overpopulation in Vale if a portion of the homes were left empty because the rich wanted to get richer. Qrow imagined a lot of landlords were unhappy about that. But, had they been allowed to buy, the prices would be pushed up out the range of those who could afford them now.

A little controlling on Vale's part, but for a good cause. It was such a damn shame Mountain Glenn was going to fall, especially when it was obvious everyone was doing their best to make it a roaring success.

Still no ideas on how to fix this. Damn it all to hell.

He'd had throwaway ideas like calling in an anonymous warning or posting a fake bomb threat himself, but he couldn't provide any details that'd be corroborated, and while he knew the date – mostly from the awkward silences and memorials – he didn't know if changing the day would really change its fate. Say he drew attention and prevented the attack happening on the exact day, if it were under the control of Salem's agents then they might just do it the next day, or the week after.

Something to learn from Cinder and the White Fang was that simply foiling their plans didn't mean you'd won, since they could always regather their forces and come back. The only way Mountain Glenn would be saved was if he could cut the source off at the root. Which wasn't easy when he had no ideas where the roots were, or even what they were other than that it involved a lot of Grimm.

"Honestly, I must just have to go to Mountain Glenn and check it out. It should be safe, it's not like it's going to fall right now." He had months until it did, and until that point people were already using the subway systems to go back and forth. "Maybe I'll talk to Ray and Summer about it. Make it a day out. If I go enough times, I might be able to spot something suspicious."

Unlikely, but it was the only idea he had and standing around complaining wasn't going to fix anything. Mind made up, Qrow took the long walk to the subway itself, the entrance in what would one day be a sealed off plaza, up until Cinder blew it open to release Grimm into the city. It was open now, stairs leading downward and big signs announcing the transit to Mountain Glenn.

On the hour, every hour, read the sign. And, below that, FREE TRAVEL FOR RESIDENTS.

Residents of Mountain Glenn, he had to assume, in what was another measure to make the move as appealing as possible. The city itself would be happy to stomach the costs when the current costs of trying to house so many people were through the roof.

Cheap homes, new infrastructure, free travel. Man, Mountain Glenn really is a good deal.

One that the poorest and new families would be taking up in their droves. Innocent kids included. Qrow shook the guilt away – he was already doing his best, damn it – and headed on down. The ticket machines were automated, with cards for residents so they could breeze through them. The place was fairly crowded already, people coming from Mountain Glenn to begin work in Vale.

It didn't take long to find the price structure. A little more expensive than your typical route, no doubt to make some money back from letting all the residents travel for free, but not so bad that he couldn't afford it. Looking at it from the perspective of travelling from one city to another, it was downright cheap. You'd have to take Bullheads and dangerous routes through Grimm-infested land otherwise.

And, of course, there were a whole lot of posters and billboards down in the subway extoling the virtues of Mountain Glenn and the "NEW LIFE" it promised. There were even diagrams of the subway showing off how protected it was against Grimm, buried so deep and surrounded with so many layers of concrete that no Grimm could get in.

Yeah, and no survivors trapped in here will be able to get out either...

Qrow pulled out his scroll and texted Raven, asking if she and Summer wanted to check it out. He got a quick response back in the negative, which also suggested he do his own thing today and not bother them.

"Well, if I'm already in the doghouse then I might as well."

Qrow paid his way through the ticket machine and slipped onto the platform, then boarded the promised train – which arrived ten minutes before the hour and would leave on it. Moving into one of the new and fancy carriages, he sat down on a plush seat along with the far fewer people commuting the other way around, from Vale to Mountain Glenn. Ten minutes later, the doors hissed shut and the train began to move.

"Let's see what you're all about, shall we."

/-/

"He doesn't mean it."

"I know that." Summer pounded her fist into the pad that Raven held up, then twisted and slammed her shin up into the other. Raven took it with a grunt, ducking and weaving while providing her targets to hit at. "Doesn't mean it doesn't suck."

"My brother is stupid when it comes to understanding people. Kind of a relief to be honest. He's so obnoxiously smart when it comes to everything else that I'd be worried if he understood literally everything."

"That's good for you but not for me."

"You're the one who chose to fell in love with him."

Summer launched her fist forward, and Raven only just managed to bring the pad to block it in time. "You missed," she said, a quiet warning not to try that again or Raven would hit back. "You're meant to aim for the pad."

"Yeah, well, my bad."

"No need to take my brother's stupidity out on me. Just be more obvious."

"How!?" Summer kicked and punched. "I asked him to the prom! That's as obvious as a girl can get!"

"Strip naked and burst into his room."

"Fuck off, Ray."

"I'm serious. Qrow is dumb enough that if you trapped yourself face first in a washing machine, he'd convince himself you needed help. You need to paint an arrow down your back pointing behind you – and even I'd be worried he might get the wrong hole."

Summer groaned and tried to shut her up. "Don't be sick!"

"Oh, come on. Isn't this the whole point? First comes kiss, then comes fucking—"

"That's not how it goes! It's kissing, then marriage—"

"Bitch, are you going to marry a man without knowing if he can satisfy you? I fucking doubt."

Well, maybe not, but that was an old-fashioned way of doing things anyway. The real point was that she didn't want to talk about such sordid stuff when she hadn't even gotten it through to Qrow that she liked him in the first place. Also, why did Raven's ideas all have to include her being naked and seducing him? It wasn't like Raven wasn't a virgin, and the girl's closest experience with sex was hearing her parents get up to it. And Summer still gagged at the idea of living in a tent with your parents while they were going at it. Gross, gross, gross.

"I just want a nice and easy way—"

"Write him a fucking letter."

"What if he doesn't get it?"

"Dear Qrow," Raven faked a high-pitched voice. "I love you so much – like, romantic love. Like, want to jump on you and ride you, love. I'm talking about penis in vagina love here, Qrow. Not familial, not sibling – unless you're really fucked up – but two sweaty people getting at it and maybe getting married and having obnoxious spawn later down the line, kinds of love. Basically, pin me down and take me. Love, your NOT-SO-SECRET-ADMIRER, Summer Rose. Hopefully one day Summer Branwen."

Summer lunged for her face.

It connected.

"Right." Raven threw down the boxing pads. "My turn."

Summer wasn't allowed to pick them up.

Next Chapter: 6th July

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