Had trouble uploading this today, hence the later upload than usual. Ended up calling out of work two days this week from just being exhausted and fighting a migraine. Between that and two days of telework (max allowed usually), I only had to go in today. Get there, get settled in, and work about half the day before going to the bathroom and finding out the water's out. Had to go downstairs, where only one of the sinks had any water coming out (so I could wash my hands). Reported it and went back to make my lunch, only to get an email saying the water is out in all of our buildings and telling us we could go home and telework the rest of the day.
Naturally, I packed up the food I'd just heated, drove home (only ten minutes), set up my workstation, and enjoyed the halfday not in my cubicle. Only spent 4 hours in the office all week.
"Get Sienna on the line, then clear the room."
The comms tech nearly fell out of his chair as Adam barged in. Clearly, he'd been asleep at the controls, but that didn't matter. It was late, and if someone tried to contact Reyno, the blaring alert would certainly wake him up.
Not as quickly as having their commander march in and start giving orders, though. It only took the guy a second to understand the seriousness of the situation and rush to do as he was told. Adam could hear him talking to someone on the other end, likely his counterpart at the headquarters in Menagerie. After an awkwardly long wait, the tech finally put the call through to the console in front of Adam. "Signal's good."
"Then get out." He hated being so rude to someone just doing their job, but he didn't have time to waste. He also couldn't risk this guy listening in. As much as he hated to admit it, the thought of a spy had him suspicious of practically everyone. Someone in the comms team would be perfectly placed to betray them, monitoring communications and relaying the info through their own systems. Even if their current tech wasn't to blame, he could still tell others about Adam's suspicions and end up accidentally alerting the real spy.
"I've sent someone to fetch Sienna," the tech on the other end - some woman he didn't recognize - informed him.
He halfway thought about pointing out that fetching their leader was hardly an appropriate description. Summon. Request her presence. Anything like that would've been better, but he didn't have time to waste on vernacular. "Good. As soon as she arrives, you are to leave."
"Understood."
He doubted anyone in Menagerie was involved, but he couldn't risk being wrong. Someone was leaking information, and until he knew who they were, he had to suspect everyone. The only person he could a hundred percent count on was Sienna.
And Blake, of course.
The very thought of either of them betraying the White Fang didn't even cross his mind. If Sienna wanted to take them down, they were already doomed. Blake, on the other hand, was about the most devoted person he knew. She'd die before she gave up on their cause. If Sienna was the brains of the White Fang, then Blake was the heart. Which made him the teeth.
Gods, he hated analogies.
Speaking of Blake, she'd followed him after his big revelation. For the second time today, the two of them were alone together late at night. Thankfully, the tension of what was happening kept it from being as awkward as last time. "You really think there's a spy in the White Fang?" Blake asked.
"The failed missions. Raven knowing we were coming. It's too coincidental." And Adam didn't believe in coincidence. "Someone's giving up intel on us."
"You think they're working for the bandits?"
"No." Raven wouldn't be that interested in them. The White Fang weren't as easy a target as the villages and caravans, and like she'd said, they kept the Kingdom's attention off her, giving her tribe more freedom to act without repercussions.
Blake asked the obvious follow-up. "Then how'd she find out?"
That was the million-lien question. If the spy wasn't working for her, and he sincerely doubted they were, then how did she find out what was happening? They hadn't even spread the news of the attack among the White Fang until practically the last moment. The location hadn't even been spread further than the pilots right before takeoff, so even if the spy knew they were mobilizing, they wouldn't have had a specific location.
Then again, it didn't take a genius to piece things together. If Raven heard the White Fang was on the move, she'd probably have a rough guess what their plan was. She knew as well as anyone that the caravans had all but run dry. The supply depots would become tempting targets, and Paulownia was the most exposed of the three major depots. Had she shown up on a whim and waited on the off chance they'd show?
Still, if Raven wasn't the one spying on the White Fang, that realistically left only a few options - Atlas and Mistral. Getting a spy into the bureaucracy of a Kingdom's government would be a lot easier than infiltrating a smaller operation like the White Fang. If they were receiving intel from the White Fang, then it was entirely possible someone else picked it up from there and sent it onto another source. Sort of spy on spy action.
Atlas wouldn't be likely. They definitely had the infrastructure for an operation like that, but despite their best efforts, Atlas didn't exactly excel at recruiting faunus. Funnily enough, most faunus didn't look too kindly on the SDC's guard dogs. Even if they did, the odds of Raven getting a spy into Atlas was pretty small, and not just because she wouldn't have much reason to.
The obvious choice was Mistral. They were closer and had easier access to the White Fang's main recruitment area. Slipping a spy into one of the villages and having them watch for a chance to join up would be child's play. At least, that's how Adam would do it. Then again, it could've been someone planted long ago, back before Sienna even took over. Had they planned ahead, knowing they were most at risk if the White Fang did start something? Or maybe it wasn't planned at all. Maybe one of Ghira's supporters decided to take matters into their own hands and turn after Ghira's ouster. Mistral had already been in contact with Ghira in the past. Who's to say they didn't have others working with them?
Which brought him back to an unfortunate conclusion. "I don't know." Who the spy was, where they were from, or even how to track them down. But that wasn't his job. "Sienna will know more." On all accounts, including how to find this pesky, little rat. Once she did, he had a feeling the rest would be left to him.
Each minute dragged by excruciatingly slowly as they waited for Sienna to join the call. He knew the short wait wouldn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things - not like they'd catch anyone at this hour - but it felt too urgent to be stood waiting in a quiet room all night. Pacing back and forth didn't help, either. Not that it would stop him or anything.
"Adam, what's wrong?" No greeting. No small talk. Just a somewhat panicked voice all the way from Menagerie. "Did something happen?"
"We can have reinforcements on the way within the hour."
"Fennec?" She'd brought the Albains with her? This was supposed to be a private call. Then again, the Albain brothers basically lived for the White Fang. He couldn't even imagine them doing anything else. Maybe start a cult. That sounded right.
"Corsac," the voice corrected. He always struggled to remember which was which. "Though Brother Fennec is here as well."
"Good evening, Brother Adam," the other brother offered.
"Enough with the pleasantries!" Sienna snapped. "Adam. What's going on? Is Reyno under attack?"
"No." As if he'd be calling in the middle of a battle. What sort of coward did she take him for? He'd send someone else to call for backup while he charged the enemy.
"Something wrong at Nonemu, then?"
"Not that I know of." He hadn't checked in on them after the mission, but usually no news was good news.
"Natural disaster? Plague? Alien invasion?" Aliens? Did she really believe in all that garbage?
"What?"
"I'm just trying to figure out why you dragged me out of bed for a call in the middle of the night!" Middle of the night? It wasn't that late, was it? Adam checked his scroll.
Yikes. He must've waited longer than he thought to talk to Blake.
"Sorry. I didn't realize how late it was." Wait, no. He wasn't going to apologize for alerting her to a crisis. "Sienna, we have a problem."
"Thank goodness." Really? That was her reaction? She wouldn't be so thankful once he told her the horrible truth. "What is it?"
Adam took a deep breath, knowing just how cataclysmic something like this could be. Sienna would be furious. "I think…we have a spy."
Dead silence as the three on the other end of the line took in his statement. To be fair, he'd been just as shocked when he first realized. How much worse must it have been for Sienna? To find out one of her men had betrayed her trust? That someone under her command would choose to turn against them and side with their oppressors, even after seeing everything the so-called authorities did to faunus everywhere? It was like a slap in the face to everyone who had worked so hard for the future of the faunus.
Or so he'd thought. "Is that all?"
"Is that all?" Adam repeated back incredulously. Maybe she'd misheard him. "There's a spy. In the White Fang." Nothing. No gasp. No shriek of outrage. "There's a traitor in our midst."
"We're aware."
What? "You're aware? Aware?!" She already knew? "Did you think about maybe sharing that with the rest of us?" Preferably before this little mole could have them running into trouble.
"We weren't sure who we could trust yet." Him, for one, unless…no. No way.
"You thought I might be the spy?" After everything he'd done for the White Fang? He'd basically been the key to Sienna's ascension, been banished from Menagerie for his loyalty, and risked his life time and time again for the cause. In what sick, twisted world would he turn on Sienna and the White Fang like that?
"Not you," Sienna tried, failing to calm him down even a little. "But you have to understand, there are few others we could trust so easily."
If she could trust him, then why leave him out of the loop? It wasn't like he would blab to everyone. Who would he even tell? "My squad?" Sienna's hesitation was all the answer he needed. "You don't trust my squad?" The people they'd handpicked to become Adam's personal trainees and the future leadership of the White Fang? They were already leading missions without him, training the recruits, and handling recruitment for the most part. Yuma and Trifa were even put in charge of an entire camp! If they couldn't be trusted, who could?
"We don't trust anyone."
"What we mean to say is, that in these trying times, it pays to be cautious." Corsac tried to play the diplomat. At least, he was pretty sure it was Corsac this time. Not being able to see them made it even harder.
Whichever one it was, the other was never far behind. "Better to be wrongly suspicious than foolishly trusting."
"More importantly, we don't want to start a witch hunt when there might not even be anyone guilty." No one guilty? But she'd already said- "It's also possible our communications are no longer secure."
Adam's eyes widened. She was right. What if it wasn't someone betraying them, but just an enemy listening in the entire time? Laurence assured them he'd done everything he could to mask their signals, but he was just one man. Well, one man and a small team that wished they knew as much as he did. Still, he was basically fighting a one man battle against some of the most capable, experienced, and well-funded enemies in all of Remnant. For all they knew, Atlas had already found a way to hack into their communication network and were listening right now.
"I'll get Laurence to look over our systems and see if he can beef it up a bit." Maybe he'd missed something before. Or maybe they just needed some sort of update to the software. Overclock the RAM, tweak the algorithm, or whatever. No matter how many times Laurence tried explaining what he did, it all went over Adam's head.
"Are you certain he can be trusted?" Sienna asked, already getting on Adam's nerves.
"Of course we can trust L-"
"And his team?" Sienna cut him off. "Can you vouch for every single person who has access to those systems?" She knew he couldn't, but that didn't stop her from twisting the knife, just to be certain. "Would you trust them with your life? With your squad's life?"
With Blake's?
Would he ever forgive himself if she got hurt on a mission, all because he'd assumed the best of someone else? The answer was obvious.
"So you understand our concern, then?"
"I do." As much as he hated the idea of not being able to trust anyone around him, the risks were too great. Hopefully, it'd just be a security issue with their comms systems, but he knew better than to assume the best. "What's our next move?"
"Nag's report only confirmed our suspicions. If information is leaking somewhere, we need to find the leak and plug it." Naturally, but he'd been hoping for something a little more specific. Something he could actually work on. "Bringing you in on the investigation was our next step, but it seems you've sped up our plans a bit. I assume Blake knows as well?"
Was he really that predictable? "I'm here," Blake confirmed. "Adam already told me about his concerns."
"Good. We'll need the both of you leading the investigation in Reyno." She didn't question Blake's loyalty or his decision to trust her. "I'd recommend we start with the rest of your team."
"We can trust them," Adam promised. He'd spent way too much time with them to not notice one of them going rogue.
"I'm sure we can, but I'd prefer it if we made sure." Adam didn't like where that was going.
"And how exactly do we prove them?"
"A test," Sienna offered, dispelling any concerns about interrogations in a dark room. Not that that sort of thing would do much for someone with aura. Besides, playing good cop, bad cop with Blake would last all of about two seconds. The goal was to get information, not make them laugh.
A test, though? That sounded simple enough. Personally, he'd hated tests growing up. Studying a ton of information only to see a tiny bit actually matter. Focus on the wrong bits, and you'd fail spectacularly while someone half as prepared but with better luck aced the thing because they'd picked the right sections. Or he'd panic, second guess himself, and end up bombing despite actually knowing the material for once.
Such cruelties for children to endure.
He had a feeling that wasn't quite what Sienna had in mind. "What kind of test?"
"We simply give them information on an important mission and tell them to keep it quiet. If the information spreads, then we know there's a problem. If not, then we can assume they are trustworthy." Pretty straightforward and a lot easier to pull off on his end. Just give them a briefing and wait. What could be easier?
The problem was, proving there was a spy would be a lot easier than disproving it. "What if they don't take the bait?"
"Worried it might actually be one of them?"
"No." Whatever doubts he had, they weren't aimed at his team. None of them would dare betray him. "But I'm guessing we'll use a similar method on the rest of the men. How can we be sure they'll react?" Because if he was the spy, he'd be picky on what he leaked. Every time information got out, the risk of exposure increased.
"We give them something worth reporting." Something they couldn't risk staying quiet about. "Three weeks from now, the Head Councilor will be heading to his private villa with his family. Our scouts have found a weakness in their perimeter defenses that should allow you to slip in unnoticed. The plan is to attack at night and kidnap the Councilor and his family, then ransom them back to Mistral."
"You want us to kidnap a Councilor?" And not just any Councilor, but the Head Councilor. That would definitely make a stir.
"I want you to say you're going to kidnap a Councilor. We aren't actually planning any move against the Head Councilor right now." But they might in the future, or so she implied. "There's also no weak point in their perimeter."
So she'd already looked then, had she? That was worrisome. A move like that would certainly capture the world's attention. Then again, it was pretty much par for the course lately. Attacking Atlas on their home turf. Wiping out a secret military base in Anima. Looting a major supply depot. Compared to those, kidnapping and ransoming a politician sounded pretty simple. A lot smaller body count, too.
"I'll have men stationed near the villa watching for any increased activity." Sienna had plans in motion already. "Increased patrols. Inspections of the perimeter defenses. Anything that might indicate their expecting an attack."
"Wouldn't they just change his schedule?" If they knew there was a risk of an attack, why not just remove the target completely. That's what he'd do.
"They might, but they have to worry about overplaying their hand. As far as they know, we don't suspect anything yet." Which is how they needed to keep it. Their spy would go to ground if they thought the White Fang was catching on. Or they'd find a way to extract before they could be caught. Either way, Mistral wanted to keep their spy a secret, and the best way for the White Fang to catch them was to play along.
Blake stepped forward, even though the cameras were off. Still, it let Adam know she wanted to say something. "So just to be clear, we're not actually attacking this place, right?" A reasonable question. After all, if there was a spy, he'd rather not charge into a trap.
"Officially, no." Good. "But I need you both to act like you are. Give a briefing like normal, then up their training. Have Yuma and Trifa join you as well. I want the full team on this one." So they could clear them all in one go. "We've already drawn up a plan for you to use. Fennec will send that over in the morning."
"Isn't that risky? What if they've breached our comms?" Mistral would have access to the same plans. No, worse than that. They could be listening in right now and know the whole thing was a fake! "Won't that ruin your plan? If they already know what we're doing, then we won't learn anything."
"Au contraire. Whatever happens, we learn something. If it's someone in your squad, they'll prepare for the attack and tip their hand. If they do nothing, it either means the leak's somewhere else or we have a comms breach, in which case they'll know it's a fake." Either way, it meant his team was in the clear.
Then again, if they were listening in, wouldn't they have just heard the plan and try to bluff them? "What if they know it's fake and still act like it's real to throw us off the scent?"
"Then it's either your squad or a comms failure. That still rules out a lot of other options." Sienna had really put a lot of thought into this one. Another reason she was in charge. She could fight better than anyone else in the White Fang - present company excluded - but she and the Albains were far more dangerous behind the scenes. "No matter what they do, we get one step closer to finding out the truth."
A guaranteed win. The only real question was how much of a victory at this point. Yet again, he was grateful that all he ever had to worry about was fighting. A life or death struggle sounded a lot easier than the mental gymnastics of espionage. He'd take a sword over a dagger any day.
"Anything else?"
Not really. He'd rushed here to break the news, only to find out Sienna was already on top of it. "Did Nag give you our report from Paulownia?"
"She did." Not that he'd ever doubted Nag's reliability. "While I'm not thrilled to walk away with less than half, I'm assuming fighting this…Raven Branwen would've been too much of a risk."
More than she knew. "She's not someone to be messed with." Not unless you had a death wish.
"I will have to trust your judgment on that one." She should. Even without her reputation, Adam knew Raven was no joke. Call it a sixth sense, but those experienced in fighting could usually tell a real threat when they encountered one. Something about the way they carried themselves was hard to ignore. Huntsmen were easy to identify, not just by their vibrant clothes and unique weapons, but by the intimidating presence they gave off.
Raven felt way more stifling.
"Regardless, you accomplished our goal with minimal casualties." Not zero, though. Even one was too many in his mind. Acceptable losses were easy for those removed from the action. A number on a report didn't quite capture the weight of seeing someone in your command cut down in front of you. "And good work on that Huntsman."
"Mercenary," Adam corrected. He might've looked and acted the part, but Rauch wasn't quite the threat he pretended to be. Without his Semblance, Adam could've taken him down easily. He had skill, but not enough in the end. Probably someone who had gone to Combat School but never made it into the Academies. Weird. With his Semblance, he should've been a shoe-in.
"No, that was definitely a Huntsman."
Wait, what?! Rauch was an honest to goodness Huntsman? "No way."
"Way. Graduated Haven and was fully registered with the Kingdom."
But…but he'd died. Against Adam! Adam wasn't an idiot. He knew he was strong - stronger than anyone else in the White Fang. Call him prideful, but everyone knew it was the truth. Still, even his strength had limits, and Huntsmen were well beyond that limit.
Weren't they?
Huntsmen were the ultimate symbol of strength. People that devoted their entire lives to fighting and winning, facing life or death situations and always coming out on top. Not just against Grimm, either. Sure, that's how it started and what the Kingdoms claimed Huntsman focused on, but the Academies sure spent a lot of time teaching them to fight people to only worry about the Grimm. Sparring classes were mandatory even in the prep schools and got even more emphasis in the Academies. Even their vaunted Tournament focused entirely on human versus human combat.
Apparently, they'd tried for a few years to include demonstrations against Grimm. Setting one or two loose in the arena against a trained Huntsman for the crowd's amusement, despite some protests against the spectacle. Imagine that. People protesting against Grimm being killed. How absurd. To their credit, most of the complaints revolved around it not being family friendly enough, even though having a bunch of teenagers beat each other into submission apparently passed the sniff test. Problem was, they kept trying to go bigger and bigger, upping the fights until one unfortunate Huntsman found himself outmatched.
Luckily, no one died, but only because most of the front rows were filled with students and teachers who fought Grimm all day. The shield went down and the bloodbath ensued as the Grimm found themselves overwhelmingly outnumbered by fresh opponents. Still, the fact that the Grimm had almost won was enough to end the show once and for all.
Still, for a Huntsman to fall to someone without any formal training? Someone who based their entire life around conflict dying against some nobody who'd never even stepped inside a prep school? That didn't make sense. Sure, he'd pushed himself to train harder and harder, always testing his limits even back before he had aura. But perseverance and determination could only get you so far. Compared to a Huntsman, he was nothing.
Yet Adam lived, and Rauch was dead.
"Regardless, you've acquitted yourself well today, Adam. I'm grateful - the White Fang is grateful for your service."
"Thank you," Adam replied, still unsure how to handle the idea he'd taken down a Huntsman. Had he really grown that much? Rauch had been a terrifying opponent thanks to that Semblance of his, but in the end, Adam found a way around it. Some might call it a cheap trick, but so was hiding in fog and never fighting directly. Besides, fairness didn't matter in a fight. All that mattered was who lived, and who didn't.
More than that, it only confirmed his hesitation against Raven. If Rauch was a Huntsman, then the other two probably were as well. That meant she'd taken out two fully trained Huntsman and come out unscathed, where he'd struggled against one. What sort of monster was she?
"That is all," Sienna said, ending the report. "We will contact you tomorrow with details for your briefing."
"Wait." Before she went, he figured he should let her know. "Is there something wrong with your camera? We're not receiving an image here." And after all the work they'd done to get that up and running. He'd have the techs look into it in the morning, just to make sure it wasn't something on their end, but Sienna ought to do the same.
"The imagers are fine," Sienna assured him despite evidence to the contrary.
"But there isn't-"
"Adam, it's the middle of the night." Not quite, but it was pretty late. "I just had some random guy come pounding on my door, telling me there was an emergency call from Reyno. I ran straight here, thinking the worst." Oops. To be fair, he'd never said it was an emergency. Urgent, yes, but not emergent. Wait, was that a thing? Either way, he didn't mean to cause a panic. "I'm half-dressed, my hair's a wreck, and I'm this close to killing anyone who comes between me and my bed right now." He couldn't see how close this close was, but it felt like a pretty small gap. "The camera's off because there is no way I'm turning it on. Now, unless you have something else that you value more than your life?" Nope. Nothing. "I am going back to bed. Good night."
The call ended abruptly, punctuating just how irritated she sounded. Well, that could've gone better. Still, he'd delivered his message and they had a plan for what to do next. He didn't love the idea of tricking his team, but if it helped verify his trust in them, then he'd do it. After that, they'd track down this pesky spy and put an end to all of it once and for all.
Hopefully before they could do any more damage.
/- - - - - - - - - -/
Winter Schnee was not unaccustomed to making people feel awkward. Former heiress to the largest company in the world and rising star in the Atlas military, she had a way of making others feel inferior just by being near her. She could've tried to act friendly, encourage people, and let the professionalism slip just to ease their discomfort, but why should she pretend to be something she wasn't. Winter hadn't gotten this far in life by bowing to the whims of others. No one knew that better than Jacques when he'd tried to control her life, demanding she tie herself to the family business and even going so far as to arrange a suitor.
Poor fool had run screaming on their first so-called date.
That wasn't her problem. Just because others were willing to settle for mediocrity didn't mean she ever would. She'd already overcome each and every obstacle in her path, never once proving incapable of exceeding expectations.
Well, almost never.
Adam Taurus. The one that got away. Every day he roamed free was another reminder of her failure to stop him. Every life he took fell on her shoulders. If she'd just been able to finish the job back in that damned refinery, how many lives could've been saved? Without their enforcer, the White Fang would've all but fallen apart at this point. Euryale would still be standing. If only she'd been there to lead the defense personally. Instead, she'd fallen for one of his clever tricks and wound up on a wild goose chase, all while her men fought and died without her.
Twice he'd gotten the better of her now. Never again.
Unfortunately, tracking him down meant having to deal with their incompetent allies in Mistral. As Taurus' base of operations, Anima afforded the White Fang tremendous cover and opportunity while limiting her own chances of fixing the one, glaring mark on her otherwise perfect record. After the travesty of Euryale, the Council of Mistral were still wary of Atlesian involvement, which meant she had to put up with their nonsense if she wanted to track Taurus down.
Cowards. They knew she was their best chance of actually dealing with the White Fang. Taurus may have struck at Atlas twice now and gotten away with it, but he'd been operating out of Anima with minimal opposition for a while now. How these incompetent blaggards let him go unchallenged for so long would go down in history as one of the great failures in history. A cautionary tale of what happened when you let public polling and elections influence security decisions.
Atlas knew better than that. That's why General Ironwood held two seats on the Council, only one of which was an elected position. He would always have a say on all policy, even if some buffoon ever dared challenge him for his second vote. So long as the General controlled two seats, Atlas policy would put security first in all matters. And as long as Atlas was safe, Ironwood would continue his dominance in public opinion.
Whatever happened, he would always steer Atlas right.
Unfortunately, this wasn't Atlas. Something she was reminded of again and again and again.
"How exactly did you manage to lose an entire supply depot to these terrorists?" Winter demanded, making the so-called intelligence officer before her tremble. "I thought you increased security at all supply bases."
"W-we did." Not enough, apparently. "We sent a team of Huntsmen, not to mention increasing the garrison."
"Yet Taurus still stands, and Paulownia doesn't." Imbeciles. The drawback of supply caravans had been one of her ideas, but she'd assumed they were smart enough to know to actually guard the supplies afterwards. Starving out the enemy only worked if you actually starved them. "Clearly, your measures weren't enough."
"We had no idea he…they were working with the Branwen tribe."
Ah yes, the bandits. She'd done a lot of reading on Raven Branwen and her tribe of miscreants. By all accounts, they weren't that big of a threat without their leader. A former student of the General's friend in Vale. No surprise to find that idiot Qrow came from bandits - it certainly explained his utter lack of any redeeming qualities - but it did make her question how Headmaster Ozpin could trust someone with such close ties to a tribe of bandits.
Headmaster Ozpin's decisions aside, the White Fang teaming up with a major bandit tribe was worrisome. Was this a one-time partnership, or should they expect more in the future? The bandits were dangerous but not a real threat outside of the occasional raid. The White Fang were by far the bigger problem for the Kingdoms. Put the two together, though, and you would have quite the mess.
"I'll have my team look into it." Not theirs. The Mistralian Intelligence Agency certainly lived up to their acronym. Sadly, they did have something Atlas currently lacked, and not just jurisdiction. "I'm told you had intelligence that the White Fang were preparing an attack." And still managed to fail spectacularly. "How?"
"I'd rather not say." Winter's sigh may have hid a bit of a growl. "To protect our assets! Surely you understand the importance of secrecy in our line of work."
She also understood the importance of competence, but that hardly seemed to matter to Mistral. Still, he had a point…for once. Atlas had plenty of methods of gathering intel, from spies to wiretaps and even enhanced interrogation when necessary. Such details were kept secret from all but a chosen few, as their very existence depended on remaining unknown.
"Very well," she begrudgingly allowed. "This intel of yours didn't indicate a specific target, did it?"
"Initial reports indicated a likely attack, but the actual target wasn't revealed until too late to respond." Winter turned to the nearby analyst - a bespectacled woman wearing a meticulously clean pantsuit and clutching a binder full of documents. She flipped to a specific tab, double checked her source, and then continued, "Unfortunately, it appears that particular message did not make it to the Director's desk until the attack was already underway. By the time our reinforcements arrived, both the White Fang and the bandits were gone, as were the supplies."
Finally, a hint of competence. "Anything else?"
"Footage of the attack showed a high level of coordination among the White Fang utilizing Atlas-style weaponry." That one hurt a little. Still, she should've expected as much. The armories of Euryale hadn't gone untouched. "It also appears the bandits and the White Fang operated independently, with the White Fang leading the attack shortly before the bandits struck from a different approach. It's possible the two forces were merely working toward a mutual end rather than together."
"And once they were inside?"
"Power was cut shortly after the walls were breached." Drat. Seeing how the leaders interacted could've painted a clearer picture. "But there was no sign of bodies from either side found among Paulownia after the battle."
That tracked with usual White Fang operations. Despite their vile activities and objectives, they rarely left bodies behind, going out of their way to recover their dead when possible. But no bandit bodies? The White Fang wouldn't have bothered clearing those, nor would the bandits care to. Something about refusing to honor the weak, according to her case file on the tribe. Which meant the bandits hadn't taken any losses once inside - an inevitability had they clashed with the White Fang.
"What's your name?"
"Agent Mimi, ma'am." Winter smiled. A fake name. She liked this agent more and more.
"Agent Mimi is now in charge of the White Fang operation. I will be working directly with her to go over your current situation and coordinate efforts between our forces."
"But she's just-"
"Agent Mimi is in charge," Winter repeated, silencing the lout of a Director. "Together, we will help streamline your reporting procedures to ensure no further failures." A failure that undid most of their work denying vital supplies to the White Fang. In Atlas, such a failure would've had the Director's resignation on General Ironwood's desk within the hour.
Here, it did little more than add to the pile of worthlessness.
With Winter now having more freedom to lead efforts in Mistral, she intended to deliver results immediately and prove the need for more cooperation with Atlas. For now, she would still have to rely on her Mistralian counterparts, but she'd make sure it was only the ones worth relying on that she worked with. They'd tighten the rope around Adam Taurus and the White Fang until there was nowhere left for them to run.
And then, she'd finish what she'd started back in Atlas and remove the stain from her record. Personally.
Adam has officially killed a full-fledged Huntsman! New achievement unlocked!
Too bad Winter is hot on his trail and has a score to settle. Adam managed to escape way back in Atlas, and she took that personally. Euryale only made things worse, So now, with the help of her trusty throwaway minor character Agent Mimi (based on the Chinese word for secret) and whatever method Mistral is using to spy on the White Fang, she'll track Adam down and make him pay.
Meanwhile, Adam and Blake are hunting the security leak. Finding a needle in a haystack is a lot easier if you can remove some of the hay, so they'll start by ruling out his own squad first and go from there. It's hardly a foolproof plan, but it's better than sitting around waiting to be betrayed again. The only question is, can he find the leak before Winter finds him?
Next chapter: Is Alpha Squad secure?
