Heart to Heart

Chapter 66: Election Night

Everyone in the kingdom was clued to the news tonight as the open seat for the Atlas Council was coming to a close. All the talking heads were mostly in agreement that Robyn Hill was a shoe in. She had the popular vote with Mantel and support from Atlas city as well. Jacques had come in very late for the race, he hadn't been able to gain much momentum, although his promises of opening the borders and restarting the dust mines did gain him attention.

Still, it was also a night with dark subtle undertones. The string of murders of people in Mantel whose only link was that they were outspoken critique of General Ironwood had people talking. Nothing proven but of course rumors were all over the place, to the point that even Ironwood had heard of them. That was why he was sending people to the election candidates on both sides to show his real intentions.

It was also to help prevent any possible issues, the city was tense, and wile Robyn was loved by many she still had enemies, it was the reverse with Jacques. Either event could have had someone try something and he would be there to stop it and prevent a political incident if possible.

That was why Team RWBY and Jaune were sent to the Robyn Hill event with Penny and Marrow, while Nora and Ren with the rest of the Ace Ops were being sent to Jacques' headquarters as guards.

Marrow was sent since Robyn had a large Faunus following, he could more easily fit in even in uniform, at least that was the plan. The others while not wearing Atlas military uniforms might blend in a bit more easily.

What no one knew that the small building where Robyn was using as her headquarters for her campaign had two uninvited guests making their way. Tyrian was using the rooftops to make his way to the building. Watts got the blueprints for the building and there was a way in from a roof access he planned to use.

On the streets Adam was in a large trench coat to hide his weapons and cybernetics with a hood over his head to hide his face. He was making for the ground access as both killers were on a mission tonight.

At the Atlas Academy one man was sitting out the election night. Qrow was basically keeping an eye on Oscar and the Relic, not that it needed much protection, they were in the heart of the Atlas military after all but maybe it was for the best. With his bad luck semblance, the last thing anyone needed was something to happen at either of the campaign headquarters, plus he hated politics anyway.

Oscar was resting up, apparently James was pushing the kid hard to get his training up and to try and get Ozpin out of the boy. Personally, Qrow felt the immortal could stay hidden for a bit longer, the kid had it hard enough without worrying about Ozpin and him merging and what that meant. Plus, the kid was just that a kid and deserved to have some kind of life. There was also the fact that his niece and the boy were actively seeing each other.

Qrow had a bad feeling it might all end in tears, but they made each other happy, and he hadn't seen his niece Ruby like this before. It was good to see her open up and seeing both her and Yang being in healthy and happy relationships reminded him of how good it had been for Tai when he and Summer finally got together.

After how Raven gutted the man in how she left, Tai had deserved some happiness.

Granted that happiness didn't last long but at least he had a few good years' worth of memories of Summer before she went on that last mission. Suddenly a certain white-haired woman came into his memories as she smiled at his own little happiness. It was odd, Willow wasn't the normal type of woman he figured he would go for, she was rich, from high society but also broken like himself.

Part of him wondered what would have happened if they had met before her marriage? Most likely wouldn't have gone so well, Willow was a broken and hollowed out woman living years of a loveless marriage. The world had weighted her down, something he could empathize with. Suddenly his scroll buzzed as he looked at it.

"Well, what do you know," he grinned as he picked up the communication. "Hey there Angel, I was actually just thinking about you."

"Qrow there's a huge problem," Willow looked nervous if not right out scared as she looked over her shoulder and was speaking in a hushed tone.

That raised all kinds of alarm bells in his head, did her husband find out about the affair and was angry about it? If the man even hurt one hair on her head, he was ready to fly over as fast as he could.

"What's wrong?" he said seriously.

"It's Jacques, he's up to something, something happening tonight. I have a recording and I'm sending it to you, please get this to someone you trust that can do something about it. This is serious Qrow, I'm not sure what's going to happen, but I'm scared that it's going to be bad."

He saw a video file had been uploaded as he saw it was nearly finished downloading to this scroll. "Are you okay? Do you want me to come over?"

Willow looked to take some solace in that, "Not just yet, he doesn't know that I know. We hardly even speak or see each other but he's telling me to show up to his election day if only to be there in the background."

"James has some of the Ace Ops there, just look for anyone in a white uniform if anything happens and tell them I said to go to them for help, you can trust them." He informed her.

Willow nodded. "I'll remember, please hurry Qrow, I don't know what or when it will happen, but it will be tonight."

"Alright, I'll go straight to Ironwood," He knew James was in his office looking over the results.

"Stay save," Willow told him as her fingers gently touched the screen. He mirrored the action before the call ended.

Qrow quickly went to find Ironwood as this was not something that they could overlook or take their time on. Willow looked scared and whatever was in that video had to be something serious.

-MANTEL, Robyn Hill HQ-

Inside the campaign headquarters Ruby looked around, it was a large open venue with a stage at the end. From what she could tell it was an old storage building converted for Robyn and her people. There were a lot of people from Mantel in the building as the place was filled with talking and excited people as they were eager to see the results.

She had to admit she was wondering what would happen with Robyn Hill gained the seat, she wasn't a supporter of James Ironwood but at least it seemed she had her focus on helping the people of Mantel. She also seemed to be someone who would at least listen to other's opinions, at least she hoped that was the case. There was only the one interaction, but it had at least been one where she had heard her out so there was hope Ruby figured.

"Man, this place is packed," Yang said looking around.

"Robyn Hill is very popular here," Blake commented seeing several sighs proclaiming her victory.

"Is it me, or have we been getting looks?" Jaune asked them standing next to Yang.

"Nope, we are," Yang nodded her head catching another few people giving them side eyed looks. She had gotten used to people giving her looks, mainly after puberty hit her hard growing up. Blake nodded her head, her time in the White Fang doing less than legal things had also given her a sense of when people were looking at her. Well, that and growing up Faunus and going to political rallies with her parents all the time also added to that.

"Most likely it doesn't help that we came in with Penny and someone in an Atlas military uniform," Yang shrugged.

Penny was well known by the time they got into Atlas, being seen cut to ribbons by Pyrrha and shown to have been a robot was the kind of thing that people remembered. Also, her work in fighting off the Grimm in the city was also well known. Marrow while his position as an Ace Ops wasn't known, the uniform did give him away.

"You'd think he would be better suited to be with the others?" Blake looked around as she could feel the tension directed towards the man. She felt bad for him as normally this kind of subtle hostility she knew just being a Faunus, but now it was because of the uniform not because he was a Faunus like her.

"Yeah, I feel a bit bad," Jaune commented as he had gotten to know the guy during their morning briefs. "Maybe one of us should be with him."

"I'll do it," Blake commented. "Maybe being seen with another Faunus might help?"

Yang shrugged, "Well it couldn't hurt."

With that Blake left them as the couple looked over the crowd.

"I wonder how badly Weiss's dad is going to lose?" Yang said looking to see that Weiss was with Ruby and Penny across the building. She didn't seem interested in the election at all, although given what they had all learned about her father, Yang couldn't blame her for not being interested.

"Still not sure why he picked such a late time to join the race," Jaune questioned. "I don't know much about politics but even I can see that he joined in pretty late."

"Who knows, maybe he thought he could buy his victory. He might have the money to do it," Yang considered it but mentally shrugged it off. She wasn't into politics either, it just wasn't interesting to her.

"So, you want to do something after?" Yang asked him.

"Depends on how long this goes," Jaune replied. "If this goes on pretty late we might be too tired for anything than maybe curing up in bed."

"I could get behind that," she nodded. "We've been working so much lately that it feels like that's mostly all we do."

"There's just so much that needs to be done here." Jaune sighed.

"Between the problem with the walls, materials being harder to get because of the lock down and the you-know-what project. It just seems like there's more work than bodies to throw at it, I mean there's literally a whole army and we're still scrambling to keep the walls defended."

"I noticed that too," Jaune had thought it strange how Atlas being the largest military didn't have people stationed along the wall. "It looks like General Ironwood is keeping most of the military on standby. I think he's preparing in case Salem attacks."

Yang thought about it and figured he had a point, that did seem like what the General was doing. It seemed like a waste to her, Salem up to this point seemed to be more of the cloak and dagger type and not the straight up in your face type. If she had been wouldn't the world know about her long ago?

Across the hall with Ruby, Penny and Weiss were looking about.

"I do not detect any malicious items or people," Penny stated for the fifth time.

"Just how good can you detect things like that?" Weiss asked.

"I am able to scan effectively within a twenty-foot radius, my eyes can take in x-ray and infared spectrums as well as other abilities my father invented just for me," the robot girl pleasantly said with a smile.

"Is that how you knew Blake was a Faunus before any of us?" Ruby asked.

"Precisely," Penny nodded.

"Hey, you in the red hood," a female voice called out getting Ruby's attention. She turned to see a sheep Faunus girl looking right at her.

"Uh, yes?"

She nodded her head towards the stage. "The boss wants to talk to you."

"Uh, okay then, just me or?" She looked at her team.

"Just you for now," Fiona a member of the Happy Huntresses said.

She gave her team a look as they nodded in understanding as Ruby let herself be lead backstage. There was Robyn Hill talking to a group as she stopped seeing them. She said something Ruby didn't catch as the others scattered as the older woman came up to her.

"So, you asked me to trust Ironwood and yet he's filled this area with his people, mind telling me what's going on?" Robyn asked the young girl. She wasn't sure what Ironwood's game was, she had a feeling this was all for PR or at least to try and get on her good side but with how he ran things he was going to take a lot more than adding 'security' to her headquarters.

There were still the vicious rumors going around that he was responsible for all those murders whenever people voiced their opinion about him. It was why her Happy Huntresses never left her side, she was the biggest opponent Ironwood had politically.

"He's just worried that something might happen," Ruby honestly stated. "He wants to show that he's ready to offer protection."

"Well, I'm fine with my own protection with my Happy Huntresses," Robyn gestured to her members with her. "And if this is him trying to butter me up then he knows nothing about me. I still want to know what he's doing out in the middle of nowhere and why an old SDC mine is locked down."

Ruby shifted not sure how to answer her, not without betraying Ironwood's trust to keep the secret project to turn the arena into a giant satellite.

"All I can say is that…that it will help solve the communications problem," she winced internally, she knew Ironwood wouldn't be happy about that. She just hoped this little nugget would be enough to at least show some trust.

Robyn paused at that, ever since Beacon went down the communications network between kingdoms had been cut off. No one knew what was happening outside of their kingdoms, she wasn't even sure how good the communications were even inside the other kingdoms. Was Ironwood making another tower? Wait no, that wouldn't make sense, a new tower in Atlas wouldn't solve the issue, they already had on in the Academy.

Whatever it was she didn't see how it could fix the communications but maybe with that up and running it could help. Lots of people had friends and family that lived outside of the Kingdom of Atlas, many of which hadn't heard from them since the crashing of the network. No one knew what was happening outside of their borders and it was worrying people, not to mention rumors were spreading all the time on the kinds of things happening.

"You do realize when I win, I'm going to demand a vote to have Ironwood to explain himself right?" She asked the young girl standing in front of her.

Ruby nodded. "That's your right."

Robyn wasn't sure what to make of the girl, she obviously worked for Ironwood, but she also didn't seem to be totally one of his people. It was an odd complexity that made the older woman wonder whose side she was on. What were her goals and what was she working towards? For someone so young to be given a Huntress license and for directly for the General, it was just odd. She had her people shadowing her and her friends but all they did was the usual things Huntresses did.

Sure, they seemed to be part of that convoy, but they went around guarding the wall, helping citizens with Grimm attacks.

She knew that she could use her semblance to force answers but that would technically be assault and she was trying her best to keep her council seat, she didn't need Ironwood dragging her off in chains on a small charge like that so close to her goal. She could ask if the girl was willing, but she doubted she would allow for much.

Before she could ask there was a bit of a commotion going on from outside the room.

"What's going on out there?" Robyn asked.

One of her people respond from beyond the door. "One of Ironwood's people is trying to get in, saying they have an important message."

Robyn looked to Ruby with a silent question.

"I don't know what it could be, but it has to be important," Ruby guessed as she couldn't know for certain but General Ironwood wouldn't communicate with them unless it was important.

"Show them in," Robyn spoke out as the door opened and Penny rushed in with a worried look.

"Ruby, Miss Hill, information just got to the General, there might be an attack soon," Penny warned them.

"Oh really?" Robyn wasn't sure if this was real or fake, Ironwood wasn't really the devious type, but she also didn't trust the man. "By who?"

"Jacques Schnee." Penny explained as the room fell silent at that.

Now Robyn Hill might not like Ironwood, but Jacques was someone she did hate and from all of the dirty things he had covered up that she knew about, both seeing the results of the workers that worked for SDC and their stories, she could believe that man would pull something shady.

"How do you know this?" One of her people asked.

"A recording was discovered with him talking about it," Penny said. "I was told not to divulge the identity as who got the recording as their life might be in danger if Mr. Schnee found out."

Ruby's mind was thinking about who it could be, there wasn't much of a list in her mind. The only people that had regular contact that would tell them was most likely Weiss' mom that or maybe her uncle had come across it since she now knew where he had been spending his nights lately.

Robyn thought about it, while she preferred to know more information, she couldn't just ignore this.

"Should we evacuate?" Ruby asked.

"If we do it should come from us," Robyn stated. "Sorry kid, but given how the Atlas Military has been handling things since the kingdom has been in lock down there is a lot of resentment and distrust."

Robyn looked to the sheep Faunus, "Fiona, tell May and get the others ready, we need to get all the Happy Huntresses on alert but keep it quiet. If a panic starts with all those people grouped up together than it's going to cause chaos and-"

That was as far as she got before the power cut out and the place was filled with darkness. There were sudden shouts throughout the building as confusion ran rampant.

"We need to get you out of here," Fiona stated grabbing Robyn.

"I'm not leaving my people," she replied.

"If they are targeting you, you are the highest priority," Penny stated calmly. "We should form a guard around you and get you to the nearest exit to avoid civilians being put in the crossfire."

"I hate to agree with her but she's right," Fiona told her.

Robyn showed as scrolls were coming out as people were using them as a light source. "We still need to get the people out."

"Leave that to us," Ruby told her. "It's what a Huntress is supposed to do, help the people."

Robyn looked at the girl and she didn't need her semblance to know that the girl was telling the truth. There was this youthful conviction in her voice, something that spoke out about how much the young woman truly believed what she said.

-Atlas Tower-

Cinder and Neo were already making their way to the tower by this point. With Adam making his own chaos it would hopefully keep the military occupied. They were already wearing stolen Atlas uniforms, something that Cinder had made a request from the Crooked Man, sure it would cost her later, but since this Kingdom wouldn't be around much longer, she didn't have to worry about what she owed the man.

He and his whole organization would be dead or scattered soon enough when this kingdom crumbled.

Neo was already masking them in disguises that hid their faces given that security already knew who they were. The stolen pass still worked, apparently, they hadn't gotten around to disabling it, which was just fine, they had the blueprints and had another alternate way in if they needed it. No one really gave them much thought as they cross the lobby.

It was late and most would be gone for the day only the night shift working. The greatest trick to not letting anyone notice you was just walk in like you belonged there. No shifting eyes, no stiff posture, just act like it was just another day for you at work. The ranks of a lieutenant and a captain made it easier as they just ignored all the non-commissioned members and gave slight nods to other officers they came across.

They entered the main elevator as Neo lead the way, Cinder felt that familiar sensation rising up in her. It was a type of excitement as she grinned to herself, so far things were going well. By now Adam would be causing mayhem and they were so close to the Relic. The door opened but not at their floor as two military members walked in.

"Ma'ams," one of them stated with a nod.

Cinder just nodded not wanting to talk, they were enlisted members anyway. There was a silent tenseness to it all as the two in front of them obviously were keeping silent while superior officers were right behind them. Cinder had to admit she liked the sense of power it gave her that a rank could automatically make people subordinate.

'If things were different maybe I should have gone into the military,' she jokingly mused to herself. Not that she could ever see that happening, she wanted real power not the trappings of military rank since there was always someone higher up. Still, she had been born and raised in Atlas, she supposed if she had grown up like everyone else, she most likely would have applied here.

The door opened again as the two left leaving her and Neo alone again. It wasn't long until they reached their floor as the two stepped out.

"Which way?" Cinder had studied the plans but there was a difference between a top view and practical experience. Neo had been here anyway as the mute woman nodded her head. They made their way down the hallways noticing that there wasn't much foot traffic here. Which made sense, this section of the tower was reserved for students when they came here for the Vytal Festival. It would be empty by this point in time.

Oscar was in his shared room with Nora and Ren, well originally Jaune had also been here but he and Yang had been living together in their own room for awhile now so it was just them. He was sitting at one of the desks used by students when the room was normally occupied working. On it lay a cloth with a small pistol on it.

After going to the ranges a few times with Ruby he felt a pistol was the best weapon for him to start with. While the cane was decent for up close, all this training lately (especially with Ironwood) had shown him that he could use a long-range weapon. With Ruby's help he picked out the standard Atlas pistol current in use.

It was so strange, a year ago he was just a regular farm boy, yet here he was currently putting his pistol together again making sure he understood how to take it apart and put it together again. He went through all the safety checks that Ruby drilled into him as she took gun safety and maintenance very seriously.

She had also offered to help modify his weapon when he wanted to. He smiled at the thought she was so excited when it came to weapons. Now thinking of how Ruby and he were now official made him excited and anxious all at once. This was his first time being with a girl like this, well it was her first time as well in a serious relationship so at least they both had that going.

Everything was so exciting and terrifying all at once. He thought of what his aunt would say when he could introduce her and scared to think what her dad might think of him.

He cast his eyes to the table not far away to the golden Relic just sitting there.

"We really need to think of some place safe to put this," he sighed. It wasn't like they could just put it back where they found it, not with the vault just open and no way to lock it.

There was a knock at his door as he wondered who it could be. Putting the pistol in a holster behind his back he got up and opened it up to see two female Atlas officers.

"Can I help you?" Oscar asked.

The taller one smiled but he found it strange, the smile didn't reach the woman's eyes.

"Oh yes, I believe you can," the disguised Cinder told him.

TBC…

Sorry for the long wait, dealing with some medical issues, stress and writers' block on this for a bit.