"An army is a diversion of energy from the productive life of a nation."

- Isabel Paterson


Winter stepped into the homely office, looking around with an expression that Percy couldn't quite place. She looked different than the last time he'd seen her with the change in uniform from student to officer and all. She was far from unrecognizable, but she did seem to carry a different air about her.

"I'm trying to decide between complimenting your home and arresting you, considering how clear this makes it that you definitely have active operations in Atlas."

Percy snorted. "Please, nothing illegal. I do some legitimate business, you know. Almost all my business is legal these days, actually. There's only so much money you can make in the underworld. And I'm still deciding whether to congratulate you or give you my condolences."

Winter rolled her eyes, idly walking over to an antique that Foley had kept in his office and inspecting it. "Condolences for what? I never had the slightest interest in being my father's heir, being disinherited is hardly a tragedy."

Percy shrugged. "Congratulations then. Graduating from Atlas isn't a minor feat, I've heard."

Winter preened. "Top of the class, as well."

Percy snorted, marking off a couple of boxes on the document he'd been working on a moment prior. "Nah, that just makes you a nerd."

Percy could feel the withering glare boring into his skull and chuckled to himself. Worked every time.

"Well, thank you anyway. And for supporting General Ironwood in his decision." Winter apparently decided not to rise to his prodding.

Percy waved it off. Using a bit of his pull with Ironwood and on the council to counter Jacques' objections to his daughter being allowed into the military had been trivial, and Percy only had so long until both Ironwood and Jacques knew who he really was. From there any pull he had with them meant jack.

He couldn't imagine that Jacques didn't know he'd stepped in to help Winter, but Percy couldn't be sure. Either way the man hadn't felt the need to bring it up.

"What are friends for?" he asked absentmindedly, finishing scrawling his signature on the last couple documents on his desk. He had to keep up with things here in Mantle, and had even been expanding them where possible. Though the way that Foley had had it set up made it so that the Tammany Hall and its influence was just about impossible to uproot, it also meant it was a terrifyingly arduous process to expand that influence. With any sector or industry he could possibly expand into, he was already in bed with every one of his competitors. If he started muscling in on businesses under his protection then everyone would start wondering if they were next and the house would start to crumble. He'd tried waiting until someone stepped out of line and then using punishing them as a reason to consolidate the market, but he'd discovered quickly that nobody stepped out of line in Mantle. It was almost absurd the level of unquestioned political control the Tammany Hall held in the city. But Tammany Hall was a political power brokerage first and foremost, meaning the profit margins were hardly attractive. Something Percy was slowly working on.

"Not usually leveraging influence in the council in a bid to let you stay in the military against your father's wishes." She replied dryly, setting down the antique and moving to sit on his desk. "Well, are you ready to go?"

Shoving aside the last paper, Percy stood from his seat and stretched. "Yeah, I'm good." he said, before noticing her state of dress and pausing. "Uh, are you planning on wearing that?"

Winter glanced down at her crisp, freshly ironed officer's uniform. "Well… yeah? What's wrong with it?"

Percy snickered. "You might stand out a bit in Mantle, is all I'm saying."

She blinked. "How so?"

Sighing, Percy gave up on his amusement. "Mantle doesn't have too many Atlesian soldiers. Not the most patriotic, down here."

Winter's eyebrows drew together in a confused expression that Percy found at once comical and adorable. "What? Why not?"

Percy grimaced, "I'm not sure I'm ready to get into a political debate at this very moment. We'll miss the movie."

Winter put her hands on her hips and looked at him like he was the biggest idiot she knew. Considering the circles she hung out in, he probably was. "You say something like that and then expect to just drop it?"

Percy physically stopped himself from rolling his eyes as he made his way around his desk. "Whatever. Either way, you're a bit dressed up. We're going to a movie, not a parade."

She blinked and glanced down as if to make sure she was still wearing what she'd put on this morning. "I'm dressed up?"

Percy poorly hid his snicker. "Don't worry about it. Who cares, if you wanna wear your dress uniform then you can wear your dress uniform."

Winter scowled. "Don't think you can change the subject so easily. What did you mean by what you said before, about Mantle 'not being patriotic'."

"Can we just go to the movie?" he pleaded, "If we want to make it on time we have to leave soon."

Winter just kept her hands on her hips and looked at him expectantly.

Percy sighed, "Just… Mantle sentiment towards the capital isn't very high and not too many people from Mantle join the military. That's all."

Winter went back to looking like a lost puppy. "Approval ratings in Mantle are the same as they always have been?" she said rhetorically, "What do you mean?"

Percy bit his tongue. That Atlas only allowed state media probably didn't mean anything to her other than that they couldn't trust profit-seeking and bribeable corporations to accurately report the news. To be fair that was accurate from a certain point of view, (Percy had used the privatized media in Vale quite a bit himself) but it certainly didn't mean that the Atlas-run media didn't have quite a bit of incentive to fluff some numbers, too. Winter was a good person, he knew, and had the people's best interest at heart. But her entire life she'd been growing up jaded by the SDC's influence, and how much corruption that private businesses could entail. To her, government-run was synonymous with 'more resistant to my father's whims than everything else'.

"Forget it," he pleaded — nay, begged. "I really would not like to do this with you right now. Can we just go?"

His begging tactic was not effective.

"I'm not leaving until you explain what you meant." she told him.

He sighed, resigning himself to miss the beginning of the movie. Not that he cared all that much, he wasn't even sure what it was called, he just didn't want to get into an argument with Winter.

"Okay, fine. Guess we're doing this." Percy let out an explosive sigh. "People in Mantle, as a generalization, resent Atlas. They've been sucked dry of their lien for decades, and left with the crumbs of anything Atlas doesn't use up. They're not super gung-ho about the government up there."

"And how exactly is Atlas taking their money?" she challenged.

"Ludicrously high kingdom tax rates combined with spending stilted towards Atlas." he said dryly.

"If they want different tax rates, then they can vote for different taxes! That's what we have a council for!"

"Winter, how many seats on the council are held by Atlas?"

"Six." she said after thinking it over for a moment. "A maximum of half the seats can be held by the capitol or the mainland at any one time."

"And what about the general's seat? Or the chairman? Or the headmaster?"

"Those aren't decided by Atlas, those are decided by the council." she said slowly.

"And with a total of twelve seats, that means that Mantle holds three." he continued. "Can we agree on that?"

Winter shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, but Atlas still can't do whatever it wants. It still just controls half of the seats."

"And you don't think there's anything wrong with having half the seats on the council when a quarter of it is decided by a majority vote of the council?" he asked.

Winter looked almost offended at what he was implying. "It's not like they pick the headmaster or general based off of if they'll be favorable to Atlas. General Ironwood was-"

"Elected by me, if you remember." Percy interrupted. "And it's tradition that the headmaster and especially the general abstain on irrelevant matters, even if Ironwood has been breaking that trend. You didn't mention the chairman in your objection so I doubt you'll disagree that the chairman is almost exclusively a council member from Atlas. So just from what we can agree on, for the average vote, Atlas has seven votes to Mantle's three. They also have the chairman, who can veto proposals and break ties. I cannot fathom why the people of Mantle, which make up eighty percent of the population of the kingdom of Atlas, could be upset about that arrangement."

"I agree it's unbalanced and maybe some reform would be good, but it's not like every single decision is made just with the capital in mind! A council member is elected by one district, but they represent the interests of the entire kingdom!"

"Okay Winter." he finally said. "Can you please explain to me why the twenty percent of the population on Atlas receive seventy percent of the funding?"

"Because they make up a majority of the taxes paid." she answered simply.

"But not seventy percent." he challenged.

"Low sixty-something." she waved off. "It's a bit higher, but that's because it provides the most return on investment, as it's densely populated."

"But while income determines where the taxes come from, it doesn't determine how much is needed." he threw back. "Think about how much of the budget goes to things that are needed by people and not to stimulate economic growth. Healthcare, social security, policing, basic education, sanitation, the military stationed here, and the grimm defenses. When all of that's covered the city of Atlas might have eighty percent of its funding left to spend on quality education, economic programs, and a goddamn state fair. Guess how much of its funding Mantle has left?"

Winter, apparently still disagreeing with his point, shrugged. "Ten percent? I don't know. But it's not like Atlas is sucking them dry. Without Atlas or those taxes, they'd have about as much anyway."

"On the contrary." Percy shook his head. "When Atlas was separated from Mantle it was the wealthier part of the city, but it had about twenty percent of the wealth and ten percent of the population. There's no longer any money to reinvest into the city from the businesses themselves, because just about all of the profits are being taxed away. Atlas has most of their budget left over to reinvest into the community, while Mantle." he twisted his back to grab a document from his desk, rifling through a few packets before finding the one he wanted. "Doesn't just have nothing left. They don't have enough to cover the base expenses mandated by the council in the first place. The city is quite literally forced to take on debt."

Percy handed her the stapled-together documents now in his hand. For all intents and purposes it was mostly public information — he wasn't all too worried about her knowing he had access to it. That being said, he really hoped she didn't notice that his signature was needed on the last page for the budget to be enacted.

"It says here that the taxes are lower this year." she pointed out after a few moments looking it over. "I believe you, it's a flawed system. That's… that's clear. But if the council is as corrupt as you say, why would they lower taxes? If they only wanted to help Atlas take advantage of Mantle, wouldn't they keep raising them? This is proof the system is working, at least to an extent."

"That isn't the system, Winter. That's your father and I."

Her attention at once left the document in her hands and leapt to him. "What?"

"I've been doing business in Mantle since a mentor here took me on years ago. I convinced Jacques to let me borrow some of his influence on the council and begin lowering tax rates, let the economy down here start to grow. Since then, I've managed to lower the overall income tax rate by four percent."

For how much control he had over Mantle and the pull he had in Atlas through Ironwood and Jacques, four percent in a couple years was agonizingly slow progress. With that kind of clout he would have been able to cut the tax rate in half the first year anywhere else. But Atlas was not anywhere else.

Winter stood there with her mouth slightly ajar, processing for a moment, and Percy waited impatiently for her to respond.

"But that's- why hasn't anyone said anything?"

"I'd tell you the state media's been suppressing it, but you wouldn't believe me." he said dryly.

"But something like this… there would have been widespread unrest. We must be missing something, some reason that this isn't as bad as the numbers make it look. Otherwise, this would have boiled over by now. Stuff like this has caused revolutions in other countries — you know that better than anyone."

Percy winced at the reminder of his own coup. Not that she knew how much of a hand he'd had in that, but he was sure she had a good guess that he was Perseus at least.

Huffing, Percy shook off that memory and walked out of the room without a word. Winter called after him for a moment but after several seconds decided to follow him out and down the hallway. He didn't have to walk far before he got to his destination, just down the hallway and a couple turns.

Twisting the handle, Percy pushed open the door to the Tammany Hall archives. Without pause he strode into the large room. It was full of books, files, folders, hard drives, USBs, and just about any way that you could think of to store information from about two thousand BC to today.

Basically, it was not Percy's favorite place to spend his time.

But despite not being the most familiar with the wealth of knowledge contained here, there were a small handful of archives that he'd bothered to remember the location of. It was one of those archives that he made his way to now, Winter cautiously following about a dozen feet behind him.

"Four hundred and seventy two." Percy finally broke the silence, stopping in front of a shelf full of boxes, which were themselves full of manilla folders.

Grabbing hold of one of those boxes he pulled it so that half of it was sticking out of the shelf and began rifling through it, grabbing the first page of each folder and adding them to the ever-growing pile of papers in his hand.

"Sorry?" Winter looked confused, trotting up to stand beside him.

"Four hundred and seventy two." he repeated, taking the first page of the last folder in the box and adding it to the heap of paper in his hand before shoving the box back into its slot on the shelf. "In the last hundred years since Atlas separated itself from Mantle there have been four hundred and seventy two petitions sent to this office from the people of Mantle to declare independence from Atlas. I personally have received six. They've all been declined. That's the reason there's been no revolt." he handed her the stack of papers, the invitation clear.

Hesitantly, Winter began reading through the pages he'd handed her. "This is… how did you get these? Why are they petitioning you?" Winter asked, cycling through more and more formalized requests. "These are from members of the city council, members of the kingdom council, the heads of political parties and unions and police commissioners. Why do they go here?"

"Consider it a self-elected government, away from Atlas' prying eyes." he said carefully, not sure how much he wanted to reveal but knowing it wasn't everything. "I facilitate things. That's my role. That's it. They ask me and those before me because they know that whatever we answer will be in the best interest of the city. And as much as the people of Mantle deserve equality, revolting against Atlas would force them to make their own, public government. And that's a target. A soft target vulnerable to the whims of the superpower floating above them with a military powerful enough to turn their city to rubble. Better to work to better the city from its current position, while nobody sees anything to take advantage of."

He didn't mention that the amount of collective tax evasion the city was engaging in was absurd, to the point that most transactions didn't even officially occur. Mostly those with Atlas itself and international trade were the only ones actually recorded. Though with his position as the head of the Tammany Hall and controlling the trade of both Mistral and Menagerie, recently even most international trade was kept off of Atlas' books. It didn't hurt that the lack of taxes only encouraged buying from and selling to Mistral rather than Vale.

She hesitated, "I'm not sure… I'm not sure what to think. This isn't right, but… neither is the situation Mantle is put in."

"What's not right about this?" Percy challenged. "As far as I'm concerned there's nothing illegal here. Our main contribution to history is that Atlas and Mantle haven't been embroiled in a civil war for the last hundred years."

Flicking through the last handful of pages, Winter glumly handed them back to him. He pulled the same box out again, putting the pages back one by one. "I told you the first time we met that I'm not one for politics, Percy. I get you might have your reasons to be secretive and keep things hidden, but as far as I'm concerned if things are truly this bad then Mantle shouldn't settle for good enough."

"Then become a politician." Percy said dryly. "But otherwise, unless you want to fight a war you're all out of options."

It was something he'd considered for some time now. Actually letting Mantle revolt. Foley's main reason for not doing so before had been his philosophy of staying away from the public, remaining completely hidden and never playing your full hand. His predecessors had shared the same opinion. That way of thinking had kept the Tammany Hall as a player in Remnant for a very, very, very long time, but he wasn't as concerned about the future of the Tammany hall as he was about the future of Remnant.

He knew it was dishonoring what Foley wanted, but Percy thought that maybe, just maybe, the old man had realized Mantle was no longer in a position where it could sit back and wait things out. But even throwing away all that, the death and destruction caused by Mantle attempting to overthrow the Atlesian garrison would be a catastrophe. Throwing off the chains of Atlas was feasible, but without waiting for the right opportunity any attempt at it would cause untold death and destruction.

Winter scowled. "I don't need to be a politician to be on the council."

Percy raised an eyebrow. So, she wanted to go for general? It was ambitious, but not unrealistic all things considered. She was a skilled huntress from everything he'd heard, and had been given an officer position in a specialist squad right out of school. With her name, connections, and reputation to boot, a general Schnee in the future was not all that infeasible.

"Okay." Percy shrugged, putting away the last of the papers and shoving the box back on the shelf, "Then let's work together."

Winter blinked. "What?"

Percy snickered. "Trust me, I've seen this go poorly before. You're working from the inside and I'm on the outside, but we're working for the same thing. If we forget that, we fall into the trap that so many others have and start fighting each other. Let's work together."

"I mean, yeah, sure." Winter coughed, "I just… Yeah. I agree."

Percy snorted. "Well put."

She hit him on the arm and shot him a glare, daring him to keep laughing. Percy tried and failed to stop, rubbing his arm. "Well General, as much as I'd love to continue listening to your wordcraft, we do have a movie we're late to."

Scowling petulantly, Winter kicked him in the shin and turned on her heel, striding out of the room. Percy grabbed his shin and cursed, hopping after her on one foot.

"Come on Percy!" she called back, "We wouldn't want to be late!"


Several weeks later found Percy in Vacuo at the main White Fang camp, in the dead of night. He knew they were in the northern area of the continent, but any more detail than that was lost to him.

"Adam." Percy nodded, greeting the commander waiting for him when he landed. The camp he stood in front of was truly massive — tens of thousands of tents set out for the army being housed here. That they were nestled up against the waterfront helped some, but getting enough supplies out here to provide for the entire army was a logistical miracle. He should know, considering it was on his dime.

"Perseus." Adam grunted back in classic Adam fashion, extending his arm to shake.

Percy gripped the man's forearm briefly, glancing behind him at the two who seemed perpetually glued to his side. Blake Belladonna and… the other one. It was hard to see them in the dark of night without any fires lit (faunus night vision allowed for some impressive light discipline) but he could still make out their shadowy forms in the dark. It helped that he kept tabs on the girl who was a crucial bargaining chip for keeping hold of both Menagerie and the White Fang.

"I heard you were ready." Percy said, deciding to cut to the chase. He had no real desire to stay the night in the middle of the desert.

"We are." Adam agreed, "Have been, for some time. The royals are not."

Percy frowned. According to the plan the last time he'd seen it, they were supposed to get the ball rolling by now. "Do you know how long they'll need?"

"They say two days." Adam shrugged, "It might be longer, if I had to guess. Just like you told us, Atlas started supporting the Vacuan government with munitions."

That was another pain in his ass. Atlas had been buying his weapons and gifting some of the small arms to Vacuo. If there was any doubt that this would be a full-on civil war rather than a quick and mostly bloodless coup like it had been in Mistral, that doubt had gone out the window. It was why the plan had been expedited — the sooner they kicked it off, the less ready Vacuo would be.

"But they're not the only ones. The SDC is throwing blank checks at them."

That he hadn't heard about. Even with all of his agents, even with his relationship with Jacques he hadn't gleaned that bit of info. Considering how much effort he'd put into building up a network in the SDC over the last several years, that shouldn't be possible.

"Define blank check." he said instead of vocalizing his thoughts, worried about how much Vacuo could be getting exactly. What was a blank check for most companies was a pittance to the SDC.

"They're not bothering with small arms. The SDC has given them a legion of automatons, a fleet of bullheads, half a dozen turret emplacements, and I've even heard rumors that they're flying an airship over here."

Percy cursed. This was bad. Very, very bad. Not unwinnable, but SDC support changed the timeframe of the civil war from days or weeks to months or years. They'd decided the White Fang was still their primary enemy and even though they didn't know the reason the White Fang was focusing on Vacuo, had gone ahead and supported Vacuo to hurt the White Fang.

It was certainly something Jacques would do without a second thought, and Percy wasn't at all surprised. Part of him had thought that Jacques would take the relative peace as a chance to relax his guard or lay back on his crusade against the White Fang and Mistral.

Part of him had been wrong.

"Where are the twins?" he eventually asked. They needed to get things moving quickly now.

Adam shrugged, "In their little cave, maybe? Hell if I know, they don't tell me."

Percy snarled, checking his scroll to confirm what he already knew. No scroll signal this far away from the city.

"Gather your forces, have them ready to deploy to the staging areas within 48 hours." Percy ordered, "Unless you hear from me, have your task forces staged according to the plan as soon as you can after that. I'm going to head back to the city and give them the green light to start at the same time."

Adam grinned. "Finally, some action. That's fine by me, I'll start preparing immediately."

Percy nodded his thanks, shot one last glance at the Belladonna girl, and turned to hop back on the bullhead. He hated the desert.


"Initial reports don't bode well." Shiro told him, setting a folder down on Percy's desk. Well, his desk in Windpath that was. Not his desk in Vale, or Mistral, or Mantle. He had too many desks and too many offices. He'd slowly been trying to centralize everything here and succeeded to some extent — much of the Mistrali administration now took place here — but not as much as he'd like. The end goal was to have everything from every operation he ran to be operated from here. As much as he'd prefer Vale over Windpath, it was hardly completely under his control and so wasn't nearly secure enough to play headquarters for his international empire. Part of it was convenience, but mostly every time Percy had to go to another country to do something he heard Foley's voice in the back of his head chastising him for leaving his operations so decentralized. If all the paperwork and staff and infrastructure to handle things remained where they had been before Percy took them over, it would be all too easy to just go back to how things had been the moment he slipped up. If everything ran out of Windpath, cutting off a branch of his influence base was not as easily done.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts and focus on the issue at hand, Percy turned his attention to Shiro.

"Sorry, can you say that again?"

Shiro indulged him with a sigh. "The intel reports from Vacuo don't bode well for the Asturias'. In the four days since things have set off, we've just accomplished the goals we set for day one."

"Any reason other than the increased support from Atlas and the SDC?" Percy asked, peeking under the folder only enough to see it contained nothing Shiro wouldn't tell him anyway.

"Well the royal forces are doing a bit worse than expected, but the White Fang is doing pretty well against the stacked odds all things considered, so it's more than balanced out. Otherwise… yeah, just all of the support that Vacuo is getting from Atlas and the SDC. With the popular support the Asturias' have managed to rally, I don't think Vacuo can hold out in the long term no matter how much money is thrown at them, but this definitely changes the schedule. This thing could go on for months. Years, if Vacuo's backers decide it's worth it."

"They will." Percy told him. "I know Jacques. This is the kind of thing that he sees as a good investment. And he's right. He could pour ten times as much into Vacuo as he has already and it'd be worth it to keep the White Fang off his back for even another month. And it'll be more than a month."

Shiro grimaced. "About that. As you might've expected, Atlas' orders have ticked up a bit to replace what they gave to Vacuo, and then a bit on top of that. Maybe to give to Vacuo, maybe to beef up their defenses now that they see what the White Fang is capable of in an all-out war. But the SDC isn't just replacing what they sent, they just put in a new order for everything we have and more on top of it."

Percy straightened in his chair "What? Are you sure it wasn't some mistake on their usual monthly order?"

"I just got off the scroll with Jacques Schnee." Shiro said grimly. "He wants the contract signed by the end of the day."

"What do they even want to buy?" he asked absentmindedly, settling back into his chair.

"I told you. Everything we have." Shiro repeated. "Guns, automatons, turrets, bullheads, airships. He wants to clean us out of everything we have, and then he wants us to make twice that and clean us out again. He's willing to pay in advance."

"Fuck."

"Yeah, kinda." Shiro pulled out the chair across from him and sat himself down, letting out a huff. He pulled two cigars out of his jacket and offered Percy one. When he declined, Shiro put the extra away and cut the other.

"Well," Percy began. "We have three options. One, we give them what they ask for. We'll get a lot of money-"

"Did I mention that he's paying a premium?" Shiro interjected, pulling his cigar away and puffing out a small cloud of smoke. "Ten percent above our usual price was the initial offer."

"We'll get a lot of money," Percy repeated. "But at the cost of giving enough weapons to Vacuo for them to completely wipe out the White Fang, and then enough left over for the SDC to field defenses about equivalent to Atlas'. We might be able to win the war if we can keep the Asturias' alive, but it'd take half a lifetime. Our only option at that point would be to abandon the White Fang, the MTC, the Asturias', and probably even Menagerie completely, to avoid the inevitability of Jacques discovering how deep it goes. Shift everything on its head and become friendly to the SDC at the cost of just about everything we've acquired so far. "

"Let's hear option two." Shiro quipped.

Percy rolled his eyes. "Option two isn't better. We refuse at any price, Jacques knows for a fact that I'm not completely with him on this, and whatever suspicions he has that I'm two-timing him are confirmed. He goes to Ironwood and the Atlas council with what proof he has that we- Mistral has basically been fighting a war against them for a good part of the last decade, and we're suddenly at war with the strongest military on Remnant and the richest and best-armed corporation on Remnant, all while our main army in the White Fang and any support we could have gotten from the Asturias' forces are completely incapable of helping. And by we I don't just mean Mistral, I mean every single bit of power or influence I have across Remnant which is recognized as being associated with either Percy or Perseus is erased. Game over."

"Could you… you know, take them on, in a fight?" Shiro seemed hesitant to ask.

Percy let out an explosive sigh. "Well… yeah, but it's more complicated than that. My powers don't exactly… aim well. Sure I can concentrate a wave pretty easily, or control a small storm to avoid the city, but the kind of stuff that'd be needed to wipe out Atlas and the SDC's fleets and armies? That's city-destroying type stuff. I can't make the earth swallow them without dropping an Avalanche on Mistral, or knock the airships out of the sky without making a hurricane that'll be fatal for half the people in the area. I can't swallow all of them in a wave without drowning the bottom few floors — you get the idea. And that's ignoring that I'd have to as good as openly declare to the world that I have magic."

"We could lure them away somehow." Shiro suggested. "Take the battle to the middle of the continent, or the shore."

Percy snorted, "What, and kill everyone in the settlements out there, or drown everyone living by the ocean? Even if there were no lives at risk it'd be a last resort. With the lives at risk, I don't even want to entertain the idea."

"Well, you're still trusted by Jacques, right? If we can take out Jacques, the war would be over before it could start. Winter — no, Weiss rather — would inherit the company. That would-"

"No." Percy interrupted Shiro.

Shiro sighed. "Look, I get it's not pleasant, and I know it feels wrong, but Jacques' death could save thousands of lives. We've been over this since I first started working for you. When the scale is tilted this far the ends justify the means."

"No." Percy repeated. "I refuse. I won't kill Jacques, not unless he makes me."

Shiro looked befuddled. "Why? It's one person. One person who is — almost objectively — a bad person, whose death would all but guarantee we succeed."

Percy took a deep breath and reminded himself that Shiro, from an objective point of view, was making a lot of sense. He also reminded himself that this kind of thing is what he had Shiro for — to challenge him on his ideas.

"Gods have very defined personalities." Percy began abruptly, speaking his words slowly. "They represent the elements of the world itself, and because of that they act in very… distinct ways, have very distinct traits, often reflective of their domain. Because of this, gods have very distinct, predictable and unyielding personalities. No, not personalities. It goes to the fabric of their being, the absolute essence of who they are. And within that fabric, is something — admittedly arbitrary — which is called a fatal flaw. It can be a relatively human flaw, at times. The king of the gods, for instance — his fatal flaw is pride. Arrogance. More than a few mortals have a similar flaw. But where humans are multidimensional, with a myriad of flaws and qualities and the ability to change both over time, immortals are generally static, with a single and distinct flaw which is so absolute that it's nigh impossible to overcome, even for their children. Very, very often this flaw leads to the deaths of demigods in one way or another — hence, it being a fatal flaw.

"But other flaws are less human. A little more arbitrary. My father's — the king of the seas — and hence mine, is loyalty. I've been told by the goddess of wisdom that I would destroy the world before I betrayed a friend — that I'd let it be destroyed before letting a friend die. Usually I think she was exaggerating, until I'm forced to consider stabbing a friend in the back." Percy had let his eyes float off to look into the distance, but recentered them on Shiro, making sure that their eyes found each other. "I will not kill Jacques. Because regardless of how many people he's hurt or how many people will die if I don't, he's been nothing but good to me. I no longer have a choice but to betray him, but it's business, and I hope he'll understand that to an extent. If I take advantage of the trust that he's given me to end his life… I can't. It wouldn't be me. It's not an option."

Shiro looked enraptured, more likely than not at the tidbits of information about the gods. Paul — his second step father, that is — had been the same way. Living your entire life in doubt of a divine power and then suddenly knowing for sure they were real must've been a bombshell. Having someone who was related to them and had interacted with them so often speaking to you about them so casually must have been surreal.

"But there is a third option." Percy continued, "A middle ground. We sell them most of our current reserves — what they know we have, minus some which gets 'seized' by the White Fang — but we delay the bulk of the rest. Say our supply line's been cut off by the White Fang, or there are legal problems, or both. We can even stage some shipments going missing, make it ironclad."

"How long do they buy that for?" Shiro looked dubious. "Half a year? A year tops?"

"What else are we gonna do?" Percy asked exasperatedly, "We keep building weapons and transfer a large share of our production lines to tanks and the other projects we've developed and slowly been building. Raise our defense funding in Mistral, hire more soldiers, run drills, bolster our defenses to the north, and hope that we can stall long enough for Vacuo to finish up. If we can do that, we stand a chance of holding our own."

Shiro's eyes widened in realization. "Argus."

"Exactly." Percy nodded. "Now that Atlas has been all but forced to withdraw from Argus and apologize, they lack a foothold on the continent. It'll discourage any action, and if push comes to shove we can use it as a hardpoint to defend against them."

Shiro scoffed and took a puff from his cigar. "How far ahead do you think of these things, exactly?"

Percy sighed unhappily, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes.

"Far ahead enough that I've begun gathering support within the Atlas military."


Hope you enjoyed!

The schedule I made for the next several chapters seems to be very optimistic as far as how much content I'll fit per chapter, which... honestly, was expected. The good news is that with such a detailed outline I'm able to write these much quicker, and I hold myself to getting certain scenes done during certain chapters so you get chapters like this one, which is about 1.5k longer than my normal chapters. Next chapter is almost 8k words :)

Next 2 chaps (so to 46) are on pat-reon, it and my discord are on my profile. Shoot me a dm or pm or review to see my channel in discord.

3 chapters a month is hectic, but I'm managin it so far. Here's hopin I can keep it up.

Next chapter June 30. I'll be moving that day, so if I can't post before I start on the day of, the next chapter will be July 1.