"Battles are decided by skill, or treachery"
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
"Wow, so that was Vale…"
Percy sat down his keys on the kitchen counter in his penthouse, turning to lean against the counter and watching as the girl scrambled to move to the window which made up the far wall, looking out over the city.
"Still is Vale." he quipped, still watching her wide eyes as she unabashedly took in the sights with a soft smile. She'd never left the continent of Mistral, even at fifteen, and the new sights certainly had their impact.
"I've never seen so much going on in one place in my life." she muttered to herself, still fighting to try and see something through the window which she hadn't before. "You get to see this whenever you leave Mistral?"
Percy chuckled, walking up beside her. "Well, we can go explore some more. There's a spare room down the hall, go unpack and we can head out."
Pyrrha's bright smile almost blinded him as she whipped her head towards him. "Really? We can go back out?"
Percy laughed. "Of course we can. Now go, unpack. I'll be waiting."
His eyes almost couldn't track the girl as she grabbed her suitcase and hurled herself down the hall, sprinting into the room he pointed out.
He let himself enjoy the moment for a bit before his smile melted off his face. He pulled out his scroll and called Shiro, listening to it ring for a few moments before he picked up.
"It time?"
Percy sighed, keeping his voice low and glancing at the door Pyrrha'd disappeared into. "Yeah. We're moving forward with the plan we came up with in Windpath. Tell Malachite to release the info. I want everything on double time. I'll try keeping Pyrrha away a bit longer, but I don't want her in the country while everything's happening."
"Boss… with everything happening, Pyrrha and Alexandros will be burnt just as much as everyone else..."
"I know, Shiro. Which is why it's important we do this right, so that their lives can return to normal as quickly as possible. If we do everything right, Pyrrha won't even know until she's told."
"Got it. I'll call Malachite, tell him to move forward with it. Any changes to the plan?"
"No, move forward with everything as planned." Percy said, clicking his scroll shut as Pyrrha came back out.
"Who were you talking to? I heard you speaking." Pyrrha asked curiously, her excitement still present, but muted by curiosity.
"Shiro." Percy said, truthfully. "Work stuff." He said, again truthfully. "Don't worry about it, let's go."
That removed any curiosity she had, and she barraged him with questions as they walked back out to the streets of Vale.
Percy chuckled, and tried to put what was happening on the other side of the world out of his mind. Shiro could deal with all that, he'd just enjoy his time.
"Is this what food is like in Vale, too? I thought there was different food. Like… like cheeseburgers, and hotdogs."
Percy couldn't hide his smile as he responded. "Yes, that's pretty normal Valean food. But this is a Mistrali place — somewhere in Vale that serves Mistrali food. We can get some burgers later — and trust me, we will — but I wanted you to meet a friend of mine first."
"Oh, is he meeting us here?" Pyrrha asked, glancing around.
"He owns the place, actually." Percy said, signalling to a man in the corner of the room. A moment later Junior appeared, making a beeline for their table.
"Perseus!" He greeted with a wide smile and a shake of the hand a few moments later. He turned to Pyrrha "And who is this gorgeous young lady?" he asked, holding out a hand to Pyrrha.
Blushing, she awkwardly took his hand. "This is my protege, Pyrrha." he introduced.
Junior's eyes widened slightly, though Percy could tell it was mostly for show. "The ever skilled Ms. Nikos? It truly is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Lady Nikos. If there's anything you should want in Vale, you need only ask."
Pyrrha nodded mutedly, seeming as if she wanted to retract in on herself.
Seeing the girl had had enough for the moment, Junior turned to Percy and nodded at him. "It's good to see you back in the city, my friend. You know if there's anything you wish from the Xiong clan, you need only ask."
Percy raised his drink "Some company would be a good start."
Smiling, Junior motioned to someone in the corner of the room. A moment later a man in a suit brought over a seat which he pulled to their table and sat down in.
"How went things in Windpath, my friend?" Junior asked, pouring them three glasses of Wine from a bottle another employee handed him. Percy still was hardly a fan of wine, but if there was one thing that Junior didn't have, it was poor taste in drinks.
"Not as well as I'd hoped." Percy admitted. "We were barely there for a day when work took me away. I decided to show Pyrrha around Vale instead."
Junior made an overly disappointed face. He was… surprisingly good with kids. Not that Pyrrha needed the heightened expression of course, but as far as teasing her went he'd already established himself as a master of the art.
Speaking of which, Junior turned to the girl and began making conversation, causing her to almost pull in on herself like a turtle. That was good, she needed to learn not to be so shy sooner rather than later.
Percy observed the two with a smile, glad that Hei was willing to play along so well. Percy didn't much spot him out as being good with kids but well, now he was seeing differently.
He'd make sure to talk business with Junior before they left, he had to make sure that the slow assimilation of the rest of Vale's underworld was still going well, after all. He was nearing complete and total control over organized crime here, and he had to make sure nothing was interrupting that — he couldn't be half as blatant here as he was in Mistral, with Ozpin watching — But for now… for now he was content to wait.
There was also the matter of the other business he had to deal with in the next few days — ideally, before he'd have to let Pyrrha go back to school. Meeting with the new general he'd be all but getting elected, and then meeting with this friend of Ozpin's in Mantle. Then after that he'd have to stay in Mantle to deal with any rabble, while Shiro was dealing with things back in Mistral.
But the events in Mistral would take more than a few days, and there was no way he was sending Pyrrha back in the middle of that. So either he let the general of Atlas and the city of Mantle slip through his fingers, or he took Pyrrha with him…
Well, Atlas wasn't all that dangerous. And he could always send some Windpath police out ahead to protect her while he was out for meetings. And besides, she seemed to love seeing Vale, Atlas probably wouldn't be far behind.
A few moments later Hei was called away and excused himself to go deal with whatever it was that required his attention, leaving Pyrrha and him alone.
"Enjoying Vale?" Percy asked coyly.
She nodded quickly, regaining her bearings now that she wasn't under a constant barrage of teasing. "It's uh, nice, and really different from everything in Mistral."
Percy grinned and took another sip of his drink. "I'll need to head to Atlas soon for work. You can join me, if you'd like. I'll still be around most of the time, just need to catch a few meetings for the most part."
Looking across the table at her smile, Percy didn't need to wait for the words to come out of her mouth to know her answer.
Crowds gathered angrily outside the entrance to the fourth floor of Mistral — the actual gates themselves, rather than the elevators which could be easily shut down.
Indistinguishable cries and shouts erupted from the crowd, as varied as the people in it. One theme stayed common between them all, however. Anger.
The ever growing mob grew larger and larger with time, thousands making the long trek up from the lower floors to voice their displeasure at the upper echelons of Mistrali society.
The reason… well, one only needed to glance at their scroll to see the news. First it had started slow — clips of one or two nobles casually mentioning their disregard for commoners. It had caused a bit of an uproar, but nobody expected anything would actually be done. A slap on the wrist, at most. The people weren't happy, but they weren't about to start a revolt over it either.
Then the rest came.
Leaked video after leaked video was released to the CCT Internet over the next few hours, each one worse than the last. It had started out with the first few videos — some candid conversations, less than polite words, and that was it. Then those 'candid conversations' began to envelop almost everyone in Mistral nobility. Then they got worse. The words were harsher with each new video, disregard turned to disdain, disdain turned to hatred, and words turned to actions. Papers proving that the great families had signed off on a report that would result in the starving of many of the lower populace, and a further weakening of the economy. Most lesser houses had been engaged in something similar. Not necessarily from the head of the houses themselves, but all of them had businesses, interests, taxes, which they knew would hurt those below them. Of course they did. It's what they'd been doing for decades — why stop now?
The real problem was how systematic it was. Every great family did it, and the vast majority of the lower houses had too. It was the nature of nobility, and an open secret that the nobility abused the lower classes for their own gain. When there was a king it'd been curbed, but having it all spat in their face like that, to have not only suspicions but proof that it was happening, and willingly, while you couldn't find work… Mistral wanted blood.
But it wasn't over by the time the first crowds began moving up floors. The videos and images kept coming, highlighting corruption and rot from the highest levels of the government to the great houses themselves, making backroom deals with dozens of companies including the SDC itself chief among them. Headmaster Lionheart himself was found to have a bevy of evidence against him, deploying huntsmen as the great families demanded. The protectors of humanity, reduced to enforcing the rule of criminals. And to finish it all off, there were videos of not just paper and words and conversation, but action. Of violence.
Admittedly this didn't include every great family, or even close to it. There were only two videos on record of a nobleman personally causing the death of a commoner, a hardly widespread practice… but it had happened all the same.
When Mistral had been a kingdom the nobility had been incredibly influential, but ultimately subservient to the sovereign. When the war was over the nobility was seen as less than official — criminal organizations which ruled through fear, for their own profit. But over the decades they'd slowly transferred back to something seen as a ruling body, even if they weren't officially. Rulers were expected to at least somewhat care for their people, to act in their best interests. Suddenly, everyone was reminded that the great families cared only for themselves.
Of course, there was one family which hadn't been implicated. One which had no videos, documents, or conversations leaked proving their disdain for commoners.
The great families would normally be suspicious that only one family had managed to escape this horrible chain of events, if not for the fact that it was only a couple years old. The only family, in fact, which had been inducted since the loss of the great war. The family was a single person, it made sense that nothing had been leaked about them. They hadn't had time to slip up like all the other families did. And the head of the new family, Perseus, rarely spoke to any family outside of the Nikos family, meaning the chances he would be caught saying what the nobility all had at some point were slim to none. It also meant that Perseus couldn't be the person who had gathered and leaked all of this evidence. After all, how do you collect such deeds from decades ago when your family hadn't existed until years later, and you yourself hadn't been born?
But the people were less pragmatic in their reasoning. Perseus, who had given them jobs. Perseus, who had developed the lower city, who had hired so many millions of them personally, who directly owned the vast majority of the nation despite being a lower house, who had been born a commoner, who was advocating for change when no other family would, had not been caught speaking ill of the commoners. The reason? Because he was the only one of the rotten bunch which didn't look down on the people of Mistral, who acted in their interests. The only irony was that technically, they were right.
The result culminated that morning, leading to hundreds of thousands of angry people gathered just outside where the nobility lived — where their families lived, and trying their damndest to get in without dying, the number increasing by the minute. But as history had shown there was only so long they'd wait before the first martyr fell to the armed police, and the boiling cauldron of rage erupted. The nobility was on a ticking clock, and they had to find a way out. And that's when the second estate, the nobility of Mistral, met officially for the second time in a hundred years.
"Who are we going to meet, again?" Pyrrha asked, pulling the coat he'd bought for her tighter around her torso. Unfortunately, she hadn't exactly prepared to dress for cold weather when heading south to visit him in Windpath, but fortunately money wasn't much of an object to either of them, especially when it came to visiting a local clothes shop and buying a few jackets and combat pants.
Considering she'd been born and raised in Mistral, Percy was just now realizing he hadn't seen her in anything but a skirt, and occasionally shorts. She hadn't worn pants often, if the way she moved was any indication.
"The headmaster of Atlas academy. I'm meeting him, for… well, it's complicated. But he's going to be the general soon, and I have some business with him to sort out. Now you know I wasn't originally intending you bring you-"
"I'll be good! I promise!"
Percy smiled chidingly, and Pyrrha ducked her head when she realized she'd interrupted him, to tell him that she'd behave.
"I know you will, Pyr. Don't worry about it too much. I'll introduce you, and then we'll be talking. I'm not worried about you hearing anything so you can stay there, but make sure that if there's anything you don't know you don't let your surprise show, in any way. If you have questions I'll answer em' on the way back."
Pyrrha nodded resolutely, determined. Percy grinned at her, and just for the hell of it reached out to rustle her hair just as they walked through the door to Atlas academy. He turned his attention away from her before she could protest, however, and began looking around for who would be greeting them. They were at the base of the elevator directly opposite the entrance to the lobby, apparently.
Looking across the hall he barely managed to hide his confusion. How did they…?
He quickly strode across the hall to their escort, absentmindedly unzipping his jacket to let himself adjust to the warmer building interior. Pyrrha noticed him moving and hurried to follow, speed walking behind him in an effort to keep up.
Their escort noticed him coming towards her and blinked, shook her head quickly, and then blinked again.
"Is this some sort of joke?" she asked once they were within conversation range.
"No," Percy responded with some degree of confidence. "I don't think Ironwood knows what he's doing."
Sighing, he glanced back at Pyrrha and put his hand on her back, nudging her forward.
"I don't believe you two have met. This is my protege, Pyrrha. Pyrrha, this is a good friend of mine. Her name is Winter."
The inside of the chambers were loud, incredibly loud.
The nobility of Mistral was gathered inside the council chambers, attempting to hold onto some semblance of order. Yet none of them were able to keep their emotions quite in check enough to have the calm, orderly conversation which would benefit them so much in the moment.
"We must find those responsible and make sure they never again see the light of day!" cried one.
"We're far past that. We're lucky if we'll ever again see the light of day." replied another.
As the minutes passed more and more nobility filed in, hundreds of people from the families both great and minor taking any seats they could grab, the great families sitting where the council themselves were to sit. Once enough were apparently present that the eldest of the great council thought it appropriate to begin he spoke into his microphone, slowly silencing the crowd.
"By now you are all aware of the… insurgence, which has taken place. Rest assured that whoever's executed this scheme will get their due rewards. In the meantime, we must discuss actions to take to quell this illegal rebellion."
The hall erupted into muttering, but the heads of the great families paid it no heed.
"I've already taken the liberty of arranging for the entire Mistrali police force to be reassigned to the upper floors. We'll be guarded by every officer the city has."
More muttering broke out at that, and towards the far left Alexandros looked distinctly uncomfortable.
One of the most recent ones to arrive, towards the right of the great families, and another younger member, replied. "That's hundreds of thousands of highly armed men. When I entered this chamber I saw but a dozen with pistols. I'm sure some are guarding the lower floors, but are you certain the police heeded your order?"
More muttering, as had by now become common, took place of the silence.
"I will order the huntsmen here as well, then! No matter how many rabble there are outside, they cannot defeat our huntsmen."
"And what about when the huntsmen turn on us as well?" Alexandros asked, looking resigned in his own seat. "Let's face it, this isn't a battle we can win by force. Reform is the only answer, something to placate the rebellion. Only then can we hold onto what we have."
More muttering.
"We are the rulers of Mistral! The people will heed our orders, or they-" the enraged man towards the middle stopped speaking when an officer came up to whisper something in his ear and step back.
With a resigned sigh, the elder began speaking again. "We have no time for this. I've just been told that the mob has breached the third floor."
Muttering and shouting, this time.
"I thought they were stopped on the fifth floor!" one called.
"They've overtaken the entrance and forced their way to the third floor." he responded dryly.
"At this rate, we'll be overrun within a minute!"
More muttering, even more shouting, nobles made to stand up and leave the hall with haste, including one or two leaders of the great families.
"Reform is the only way." Alexandros spoke into his microphone again, as resigned as before. "Otherwise, we won't survive this day as an entity. We must come up with something to present the mobs with by the time they reach our gates."
"What could possibly sate their blood thirst?" another asked incredulously. "They don't want change, they want revenge."
"The longer we sit debating that the less our chances of survival become. We must agree on something now, or become one with history." Alexandros replied.
As he finished speaking, someone near the entrance shouted something with urgency, louder than the others were speaking. Those near him, who heard him, quieted at once. Quickly the rest of the hall followed, waiting to hear what could be so shocking.
"I can hear the mob! They're here!"
Pandemonium. Those who had begun to flee before now made haste, and many that hadn't began to leave. Many, however, sat. Resigned to their fate.
Just as the cries of the mob became louder than those on the inside of the chamber, a third noise drowned them both out.
The distinctive roar of bullhead engines made many throw their hands over their ears in pain. Dozens of them roared from just outside the hall, coming in quickly and then powering down. Through the slim windows near the ceiling of the grand chamber the nobles could see the iconic logo of the Mistrali police painted on the side of dozens of bullheads fly by, and far, far more could be heard in the distance.
The nobility, now having nearly no chance of escaping the enraged mob, stood with bated breath to hear what happened outside. Incredibly instead of gunshots and cries for blood, cries of joy left the crowd outside. That was… nerve wracking, for many of those inside.
As the seconds ticked by and the unseen crowd outside went from crying out in joy to quieting down, the nobility waited to see what exactly had happened.
A few moments later they found out. The doors to the hall opened with a flourish, too many Mistrali officers to count storming into the hall and moving around the edges, taking up a protective posturing. Many went up to the great families themselves to personally stand guard, their assault rifles and gas masks painting an intimidating sight.
Alexandros, however, was one of the few who noticed what most of the great families didn't. Every one of these new officers bore a distinctive medal on their chest. A simple bronze sword. It was a symbol which was unfamiliar to most of the other great houses, but which Alexandros himself was intimately familiar with. It was the symbol of the first minor house of the great Nikos family. The house of Perseus.
Alexandros' hypothesis for what exactly had happened today was now almost certainly true. That near certainty became absolute when a last man walked through the wide open doors. Unlike all the others, he was not in a uniform, but dressed from head to toe in white.
"Hello," he greeted loudly, calling attention to himself. "I am Shiro Wan, and I bring with me a way out of this mess, should you accept my help."
"So why are you here?"
Ten seconds in the elevator was all it took for Winter to break the silence. Percy couldn't say he blamed her.
"I could ask the same of you, to be honest."
She reached out and swatted his arm. "I go to school here, you trollop. You don't!"
"That's not what I- ...I'm here meeting with the headmaster. Ozpin arranged the meeting, so as far as the colonel is concerned I should just be another one of his associates. He doesn't know I work with your family."
"You know Ozpin?" She sent him a sharp look at that. Not necessarily of a negative emotion, but certainly surprise.
"I do work in Vale, you know. You gotta rub shoulders with the man eventually, I did it sooner than most."
Winter sighed. "I don't even want to know what sort of 'business' you do in Vale. Or what you're doing with the headmaster."
"Hey!" Percy objected, defensively. "I do legitimate business as well. And what I'm here for today is hardly contrary to the headmaster's interests."
Winter rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it."
And she had the last word, because a moment later the elevator dinged and they were in the lobby to the headmaster's office. Winter led him back without interruption, Pyrrha following along silently. Within seconds they were inside the headmaster's office, and Percy was greeted to the view of the man himself rising to greet them.
He came around the desk and extended his hand, which Percy promptly shook.
"A pleasure to meet you," Ironwood said, gesturing for him to sit.
"The pleasure's all mine." he replied, moving aside and making way for Pyrrha, who he urged forward. "This is my student, Pyrrha. I hope you don't mind that I brought her."
"Not at all," Ironwood said absentmindedly, gazing at Pyrrha with a disturbing amount of focus as they lightly shook hands. "Lady Nikos, I presume? We've heard much of your talent, young lady. It's no wonder your teacher is proud of you." he said suddenly, finally piecing together where exactly he knew her from.
She nodded as confidently as she could. "I'm glad to meet you, sir. Thank you."
Nodding kindly at her, Ironwood went to sit back on his side of the desk while Percy sat in one of the available chairs, motioning for Pyrrha to sit in the other.
"Thank you Winter. You're dismissed." Ironwood said with a nod towards her.
"That won't be necessary, actually." Percy said, interrupting Winter mid-salute and drawing a rather curious look from the colonel. "What you know is that Ozpin vouched for me, so that this meeting could happen. What you don't know is that I represent quite a bit more than the interests of just Ozpin. I'm here on behalf of the SDC, as well. And, of course, myself and my own businesses."
Ironwood looked at Winter curiously. She hesitated for only a moment before speaking. "Percy is a… family friend of the Schnees, and a business partner to the SDC. He has my father's confidence. If he says he's here on behalf of the SDC, I have no trouble believing he's being truthful."
Intrigued, Ironwood leaned back in his seat. "Very well. Please, go on."
Percy nodded. "I have rather good working relationships with both Jacques and Ozpin, and recently we've been discussing a certain… topic. Your name was floated by Ozpin first, as if that's any surprise. But I agreed with him and spoke to Jacques, who shared similar sentiments. Between the three of us, well… I can't exactly pin the stars on you now, but I'm here to do the closest thing to it. You're being made General, Colonel Ironwood."
Winter stiffened, and Ironwood himself stilled to a halt from where he was in his chair. The only one who didn't startle was Pyrrha, who he'd told on the way in. Ozpin hadn't told him, then. Good.
Eventually, Ironwood spoke. "The council will decide who the next general is, not you." he said slowly.
Now normally Percy would understand the man's hesitance. But he'd been living in this life of crime and briberies and had been peering beneath the veneer of democracy and freedom in this reality for long enough that he didn't have all that much patience for it.
"Yes," Percy agreed. "The council will decide. But of course, all of the Late General Sylvanus' high command have unanimously endorsed you, and the Atlesian media is singing your praises, and the diplomats from the three other kingdoms will happen to mention the good things they've heard about you, and you'll do well in the polls of the populace, and the council's largest donors will all suddenly release statements in support of you — the point is, Colonel, it's already been decided. I understand the sentiment, but there's a difference between wanting to make the system clean and just being plain stubborn."
Ironwood let a long sigh slip through his lips. "Very well. If Ozpin… Nevermind, I digress. Fine, if I'm already being forced into this game I may as well play along. You got me elected, what's expected of me?"
Percy stood up and shrugged on his coat. "That's the wrong question. What I expect is a great many things. At the moment I expect you'll lobby for increased funding for the military. An expansion of the bullhead fleet, the creation of more warships, the purchase of more drones and weapons for your men. I expect that because of what you've said your stance is on the current level of protection Atlas enjoys… or the lack of it. Jacques expects that the Kingdom of Atlas finally defend its own shores, fights its own battles and help expunge terrorists from its land. He expects this because of what you've said about the White Fang in the past. Now Ozpin… you know exactly why he wants you, what he expects of you." Percy neglected to mention that while Ironwood knew, Percy himself did not. "What I demand, however, is what you need to know. For now, that's nothing. For some time, that may be nothing. But I have your number, and there'll be a day that I call. I may call for me, I may call for Jacques, I may even call for Ozpin if he decides not to tell you personally, for whatever reason. But I will call. And when I call, you'll pick up."
Finally finished adjusting his jacket, Percy shot Ironwood a crooked grin and held out a hand.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, General."
Well it looks like I lied about the next chapter being delayed to the 20th. The one time I don't think I'll be able to make a deadline, I have it ready early. By a day, but still. Just the nature of the difficulty of my finals made it so that it was actually easier to find time to add a few thousand words on to this Saturday and Tuesday, than it was to find time to upload and post it Wednesday.
Last minute note but I've had this sitting in my ff docs ready for like 40 minutes and havent posted, sorry. Blame meth for asking me a question which I went on a 20 minute rant about in discord. Also join the discord. Please. I need people to talk to.
Also also I forgot until this moment to mention my pat reon, which is weird cause thats the channel the discussion is happening in. Uh please join the discord, the link is on my profile and should be a lot easier to type in now. Find my channel and just say words in it I need human interaction.
Next Chapter January 1
