Main theme: Enemy by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D
Theme: Dark Rage by CO Ag Music
Arthur Watts began his career at the Atlesian Academy of Scientific Endeavours, developing new technologies and innovations for Atlas and eventually graduating from a student to a junior assistant, then to a tutor, and then to a fully-fledged professor. He prided himself in being one of the youngest students in the academy to become a professor, and even more so in being the pioneer of Atlas' robotics and technologies department, developing the first in the Atlesian Knight line of robots, and singlehandedly bringing to life the Paladin line of heavy robotics in his spare time.
Everyone needed a hobby, after all.
He also found a hobby in Hunter training and culture. Remnant was a dangerous place after all, and it was good to have some training behind you to deal with anyone who would try to see him gone, either failed students or those jealous of him...
And there were many people jealous of him. People that were jealous of his position, his talent, his everything. Co-workers, students that he removed from his classes for their stupidity, and everyone else.
He had a good reason for failing those foolish children. They were all disgraces, walking humiliations. They were content on looking back to the past and copying the creations that came before them for inspiration instead of using the little intelligence they had and creating their own. Remnant didn't need recreations of old machines and dead men's ideas. Remnant needed new ideas, new creations, new tools for the future. Not for the facsimile, unoriginal copies of times gone past made by unoriginal children with so little mind that they couldn't see anything for themselves.
He had told them all of this... and he was kicked out of the Academy for it. He had been removed from his position, simply for speaking the truth.
The indignity of it, of them. He would make them all suffer for the humiliation if he could.
But he couldn't. The higherups in Atlas recognised his genius and silenced the unjustified criticisms - the ungrateful voices - against him. They rightfully kowtowed to his intellect and placed him within the Institute of Research and Development, perfecting his many ideas and creations, blessing the world with his robots and machines, developing a new line of Paladins with proper funding, and even creating the weather manipulation systems that kept Mantle warm and Atlas in eternal spring.
He had been lauded for his achievements, adulated for his accomplishments, as he rightfully deserved...
Until it has stopped, and they began to praise another.
He remembered when Ironwood brought that paraplegic idiot Pietro Polendina into the Institute, showering him with praise and speaking of his great accomplishments (whatever they are. Watts had already forgotten about them; they were that worthless). It would be Pietro that rose up through the ranks of the Institute, eventually being granted the position of Head Scientist within the organisation.
That position should've belonged to Arthur Watts, the true genius of Atlas! Not some crippled upstart, who'd rather spend his days in the dredges and the filth down below and intermingle with those that Watts considered lesser, and his Faunus slum rat apprentice.
It was aggravating to witness, especially when Pietro would constantly wow and amaze that short-sighted, childish fool Ironwood with his stupid science on such useless things like Aura, and that ridiculous P.E.N.N.Y. project of his, when Watts' grand achievements and intelligence were just besides him.
It was the most humiliating thing that Watts had ever been subjected to, and that idiot Pietro acted like he wasn't aware of it at all. He acted like his eyes were working as poorly as his legs, so mocking in how he would approach Watts and act 'Friendly' towards him, as if he wasn't looking down at him mockingly from whatever high pedestal he had placed himself upon.
It was disgusting, and Watts wanted to vomit during every moment that he had to spend around the sentimental idiot.
He wanted nothing more than to destroy everything that the attention seeking idiot that he knew as Pietro Polendina had built over the years and force him to watch it all burn, all before doing him in and destroying Ironwood for ignoring his accomplishments as well.
So when Salem approached him, recognised his genius mind and incredible achievements, and then offered him a place at her table in exchange for his services, he accepted eagerly.
He spent years inside of Atlas, funnelling his knowledge and inventions back to Salem and her court, and granting that insolent womanchild of a creature, Cinder Ella, her place in Atlesian high society (he had been the one to build Cinder's insignificant little empire from the ground up. That had been all his work). He had tried to fake his death at one point (something with the Paladins, maybe) in order to work more closely with Salem (and less people looking into him meant less time needed in covering his tracks), but she had insisted on him staying inside the Institute and the lesser people that he was forced to stomach, so there went his plan.
And you know what? Despite the idiots that he had been forced to put up with, it had been a good life. A fine life, even. Even if it was amongst those who had no idea of how grand his intellect was or how far his achievements would take Atlas, both for and against it, he found such greatness in building his creations for a master that acknowledged his work and would put it to work for a cause greater than anything in the small minds of Atlas, especially Ironwood and Polendina, could ever imagine.
(And Merlot definitely made for pleasant company, seeing as how they were both scientists that were disgraced by those beneath them, even if Watts was put off by his disturbing fascination with the Grimm.)
But then, everything changed.
The Daughter came to stay at the table.
When she had first arrived in the Land of Darkness, protected from the Grimm by Salem's powers that Watts was so fascinated with (were they an evolved form of a semblance, or something else entirely? Something a lot more mystical?), he couldn't help but be impressed by the girl's tenacity. She was missing a limb, looked like she had gone through the nine hells and back, was losing an awful amount of blood and looked like she was going to pass away at any given second, and yet she was still pushing forwards and clinging onto life itself. There was something that you just had to admire about her sheer determination.
And when he saw who she had come with... well, Watts couldn't help but laugh with glee.
In hindsight, he should've stopped them. Stopped her. Pulled out a revolver and planted a bullet hole in both their heads when he had the chance. He cursed himself for being so stupid as to not do so.
Because when the woman that would soon be known as the Daughter was thrown into one of the many pools of Grimm matter, changing the world around her in response, Watts realised too late that everything had changed.
At first, the Daughter's presence had been a welcome one, if only because it was at the expense of Cinder. On her first assignment to deliver Cinder the Fall Maiden powers that she lusted over so much, the Daughter and her minion stole them for herself and did what no one had been able to do for what must've been eons for Salem, if not ever: deliver one of the Relics into Salem's hands. Such a feat assured her a permanent place in Salem's circle, and Watts once more couldn't help but think highly of the woman, this time being her efficiency in getting what she needed for their shared cause, and all in a few days (and all it cost was an insignificant island).
That Cinder was humiliated in the process was a bonus.
But then, the Daughter stagnated. She began to lose focus on Salem's orders and spent her days gathering her little army of children and servants, whom she pulled under her spell with sweet words and promises to their desires. She began to make plans all of her own, and Watts constantly voiced his private concerns to Salem that the new Grimm types that she had creating were less loyal to Salem, and more to the one that made them.
Salem ignored his concerns, of course. Those with lesser intellect (as Salem revealed herself to be) were always so assured in their own superiority.
Until it was too late. For Salem, and for everyone else.
The Grimm Civil War was brief, sudden, and only lasted a day, if not then a few hours. But it was also destructive, ruinous, and by the time the day was done and the battle was won, half of Salem's court were dead, Cinder and another Grimm had slunk away off to Atlas, this new Ascendant Court stood victorious over the debris, and the Daughter had Salem wrapped in bloody chains and at her knees.
Watts hadn't been able to get away like Cinder, but he had no desire to stick around like Merlot did. He wasn't too keen on the change of management. Not when he had a good thing going for him before.
But by then, it was too late for him to back out. The Daughter had assumed control of the Grimm, and all of Salem's former court now fell under her. Her first order to Merlot was to head to Atlas and convince Cinder that he was on her side (easy enough, considering Cinder's mindset, or lack thereof). As good as the stuff they had in the Land of Darkness was, Atlas' facilities were much better in terms of research and development (that much that Watts could attest to, at least) in seeing how to perfect the Grimm hybridisation process.
But then the Daughter wheeled onto Watts, and he came to regret ever coming to this place.
"I need someone inside of Beacon. Someone to feed us as much intel as we can on Beacon's operations in the war to come. That's going to be you."
"You wish for me to throw myself into Ozpin's arms like a common whore?"
"If that's how you want to look at it, then yeah. Yes. Get a position up in Beacon, report back everything you learn. That kind of thing."
"I wish not to commingle with the common rabble."
"Merlot has his orders, Watts. You have yours."
It occurred to Watts that the Daughter was a lot curter with him than she was with her minions. It wasn't like he particularly cared about that, though.
What he did care about was how she was relegating him to such menial tasks as this. He was a scientist, not an infiltrator. This work was much more suited for the likes of spies and cutthroats.
Not that he wasn't already a cutthroat, and not that he hadn't already cut some throats.
Then again, the Daughter may have seen his work in Atlas when he was in the employ of Salem and wished to replicate that. Watts didn't care for any of her reasons, though. What mattered was what it would do for him.
Eventually, a position did open up in Beacon Academy, and Watts (with Ironwood's cautious commendation) transferred to the Academy to begin teaching the idiots there.
But not yet, though. He had to look after Beacon's special guest.
And Ozpin built him a facility under the Wishing Well Lake just for that purpose, to store and take care of the Summer Maiden.
Ozpin was desperate, that much was clear to Watts. The destruction of that little island where he had stored the Relic of Choice - and the theft of the Relic itself - had rattled him for the first time in a thousand years. and it was clear that keeping the Summer Maiden isolated in his vault was no longer providing him the guarantee that he wanted.
That was, of course, what Watts told Ozpin when the old fool brought him into his fold. In reality, Watts wanted a space to his own, and if he could spin it in a justifiable way to Ozpin, then all the better.
Soon enough, the Initiation Massacre came to pass, and Professor Peach was killed in the fighting, allowing Professor Watts to be brought into the academy in an official position instead of just being a hanger-on.
And Watts detested being a hanger-on. He hated teaching the little brats, yes, but oh how he reviled being treated as a hanger-on.
At least he had his little minion to do his bidding for him. Esper was a fine enough tool, if she wasn't so overzealous in her loyalty behind that snide demeanour.
But he could use that, of course.
That would come later, though. At the time, Watts would begin to detest the Daughter for forcing him into this position, and he would, naturally, begin to chaff under her rule.
And that was when he was contacted by Cinder's head stooge.
The Grimm known as Hephaestus, or as it liked to call itself, the Tinkerer.
"You despise Daughter's rule?" the Grimm asked him in its unintelligent way, "Me do too. All do. Changes coming. Big changes, big. Coming for all of us. You want to be on right side of it."
"What do you want?"
"Templar want information on students. Teacher too. Their strengths, how many there are, everything. You deliver, you get seat on new table. Better table."
Watts was initially going to write the Grimm off and send it on its way, but then he stopped to think. This Grimm was clearly stupid, and that meant that it was easily foolable. Manipulable. He could use it for his own advantage.
Because he wanted a seat at that fabled table. A seat where he was praised and lauded for his accomplishments, as he rightfully deserved.
"Alright then... you have a deal."
And so, he sent this Tinkerer Grimm the information that it wanted... and heard nothing from it for the next four months. Not when the Surge came to pass, not when Vale was left in ruins, and not when a new authoritarian regime rose to power from within Beacon's own walls.
Nothing at all.
That's not to say that he wasn't busy though. Because he was. He very much was.
Ozpin had given him a new task.
A vat of Grimm matter had been placed in his facility. Grimm matter that had been scooped up and collected from the underground tunnels beneath the collapsed Emerald Forest.
Ozpin wanted him to figure out if silver eyes could be used to manipulate Grimm matter. He had tried to do so many years ago but had come up with no results. But with one of the Relics missing, the kingdoms on the verge of collapse, the Ascendant Court on the rise, and the Choir of Silver growing in the background... he needed an advantage more than ever.
Well, Watts always appreciate a challenge.
But it also gave him a chance at a new discovery.
In the Land of Darkness, the Daughter had tasked Watts with creating a new form of Grimm hybridisation, and as much as Watts enjoyed the good doctor's intellectual company, he refused to be beaten in any sort of scientific endeavour. Not if he had a say in it.
And so, away from the prying eyes of Ozpin (with the help of a nifty little innovation with the cameras, of course), Watts had his AK-130s and Esper go out and bring him suitable test subjects from the city of Vale. Homeless people, refugees, scavengers... anyone that no one would notice, of course.
And each and every time... he found no result.
Every time someone was dunked into the tank or had anything from a droplet of Grimm matter to an entire syringe, would be transformed into disgusting mutants. He stopped bothering to count how many of these mutants he had been forced to put down after ten. It was infuriating how little of a result he was getting from any of them.
However, as he was slowly brought into the Beacon Militia due to his status as both a former professor and as one of the few capable and adult leading figures left alive after the Ascendant Court's siege of Vale, he was contacted once again...
By the Tinkerer, Hephaestus.
"What the hell do you want?"
"To make offer."
"Like your last one, then? Do you really believe that you can fool me a second time, you ignoramus? The last time I trusted your words, stupid as they are, you left me to hang and dry?"
"Last employer not do well. Previous one less so. Had management issues. Cut my losses them when still could."
"Cinder and Templar?" obviously.
"Who else?"
"Do not treat me like a child."
"You anything but."
Was that a compliment?
"Making new friends now. New allies. Trying to make connections with new employer. Need way in for both us."
"'Us'?"
"You scratch back, me scratch you."
"...Explain."
"New friends need proof competence, ability to help them. Ship and troops not enough. Need good way in. Need invitation other than word mouth. That where you come in."
"You want my help?"
"Yes."
"And what do you need specifically?"
"Beacon Militia High Command. Dead."
Easy enough. But... "Ozpin will be a difficult target for you. He is-"
"Ozpin nonissue. Useless. Irrelevant. An old man pretending he still mean something."
...Well, that was new.
"What about the Maidens?" he probed. Cinder had been obsessed with the Maidens, possibly even more so than Salem herself. The Daughter was less so, only ever seeing them as tools for the Relics, and she also saw Ozpin as a nonissue, but if this Grimm was anything like her...
"Maidens meaningless to me. Same as Relics. All of them useless. No need for them."
Now that was a nice change of pace. But still...
"They are powerful tools to have in your hands."
"Still meaningless. New powers in play now. New riches. You want those, no?"
"...Who do you need dead?" Watts was beginning to consider this Grimm's request.
"The Arc boy. Him and his friends."
"The children?" seemed even easier for him to do, "You want a group of children dead?"
"You have problem?"
"Not at all," he never did have a problem with killing children, "It just seems like a waste of effort, is all."
"Not waste at all. Worth the effort."
"They are just children. Worthless and stupid by nature. They're hardly a threat to anyone."
"Underestimate will kill you. Arc dangerous to us. He and friends. He rally world against Grimm. His friends shatter Choir of Silver. Too dangerous to leave alive. Need them all dead as soon as possible."
"What about the Rose girl? The Silver-Eyed Warrior? The one who destroyed the Choir of Silver and killed Templar herself?"
"Kill her if you have to but bring me alive if can."
"I thought you worshipped her, considering that she is a Silver-Eyed Warrior herself," Watts said with a certain degree of amusement, "Wouldn't you place more emphasis on her being alive instead of just accepting her death?"
"Being pragmatic. Have idea for Silver-Eyed Warriors, but not current priority. Take alive if can, but kill if have to," the Grimm paused in thought, "Always need good martyr for cause anyways. Want to see if can use corpse."
"You don't worship those with silver eyes, then?"
"You say it, not me."
Watts smiled. He was starting to like this Grimm, speech impediment besides.
But still...
"And what do I get out of this?"
Hephaestus, the Tinkerer, rolled its head to the side.
"You get place in new organisation, new alliance... so long as uphold end of bargain."
Like it said before.
"And if I refuse?"
"They you stay Ozpin's pet, slave, servant. You stay in role and languish in job you despite around people belittling you."
It tilted its head to the other side.
"At this point... what else you left to lose?"
...Alright then.
"I'm in."
And that was that.
It didn't take much convincing to get Esper to turn herself into a suicide bomber (he had no need for her anymore). All he needed to do was tell her that the Daughter had ordered it (he had never informed the stupid girl of his various dealings behind her and that fool she called her boss), and she was completely onboard.
She was zealous in her loyalty, and like he said, he could use it to his advantage.
And so it was official: he made covert contact with the Tinkerer's hopefully new allies in Beacon and gave them what they needed to go rampant, all out of extra spite on Ozpin, and just before the day was done, he performed one last test with the Grimm matter on an intruder into his facility, snooping around and trying to expose him for the things he did (the idiot Techion was a former student, he believed. He didn't care though: he'd never bothered with learning any of their names). The results were, of course, the same as always. Predictable, but it was nice to get one last test in before the day of the event arrived.
And that day soon came. The troop inspection. He perched himself high up in the auditorium just to get a good view of the show. He wanted to see every little detail of the children's and Ozpin's faces as they were blown to smithereens by his merry suicide bomber (Hephaestus had dismissed the old man as a nonissue, but Watts still wanted to see him die anyways, if only for forcing him to teach the little brats).
Soon, the moment of truth came.
The stage was set.
Esper played her part well.
And while the Arc boy had run off somewhere else, Watts didn't mind too much. If anything, it only created a perfect opportunity. Surely everyone would be shocked if it turned out that their beloved hero was the one who bombed the auditorium and killed dozens.
Frameups were fun like that.
And then, Esper committed, and detonated like a firecracker...
And she failed miserably, as Watts should've expected.
The children of importance were still alive. Ozpin was still alive. The Beacon Militia's High Command were all still alive.
What a damn shame.
It didn't take long for the children to surprisingly connect the dots and pin him to the crime (which were false, untrue in every sense of the word. He may have given Esper the gun but she had been the one to fire it) and chase him halfway across the damn campus just to have a go at him.
(He lost them though. He must've. He was too smart to get caught.)
And now, he was here...
...Standing in front of a hologram of his benefactor, who he suspected would be both pleased and disappointed in him.
No matter. He could spin this into his favour.
Hephaestus was, by nature, a stupid creature.
"Actually, I have good news... and I have bad news."
He could still make himself appear useful to this Grimm.
He was too smart not to.
Reviewer response time:
ZACK2357: Bueno, espero que tengas (o más bien hayas tenido al momento de publicar esto) ¡un buen maratón, amigo! En momentos como estos, todos necesitamos algo bueno en nuestras vidas.
MilitiaMasker: They're probably going to get a mixed reaction, sure. There're going to be those who understand their reasoning and just accept it, but at the same time, there're going to be those who are disappointed in their decision regardless. It's not going to be a big thing... at first.
And here's another short story for you. I was intending to put Watt's backstory in the next main chapter, but I couldn't find a way to comfortably place it in, so into a short story it goes.
So with all that said and done, please leave a review, and follow and favourite. Share your thoughts, stay safe, stay healthy, and I shall see you all next time!
Titanmaster 117 out!