Percy crossed his legs, leaned back, and closed his eyes, attempting to get some semblance of rest on the flight to Vale.
He was able to relax a bit more on this flight than the last one, considering that the last one had gone off without even a bit of turbulence. He had also gotten a bit more used to the 'no Greek gods' prospect since getting here, which made him a bit more at ease so high in the sky.
Yet still, his nerves weren't helped by the Mistral police in his bullhead, supposedly here to escort the representative of Mistral. Percy knew that they were more a danger to him than a protection, yet that danger was hardly apparent, either.
Between his aura's sixth sense and the natural instincts he got from his heritage, he would be awake and have his aura instinctually up before any one of them could get off a shot.
From then, he was the only aura user in a confined space with three police. It wouldn't be a pleasant experience for them.
So he had few problems getting some shuteye on his way to Vale, which was useful because he had hardly slept the night before, brainstorming different routes to the top of Mistral.
When he woke it was to a light shaking of his shoulder by the man next to him. Percy sent him a nod, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and glancing out of the bullhead to take in the image of Vale.
Only to find nothing but the emerald towers of Beacon awaiting him on the other side.
Percy let out a long suffering sigh. He should have expected that. He was looking forward to checking out a place with good old fashioned capitalism for once since he had gotten here. Getting a cheeseburger didn't sound so bad about now. Sushi and noodles were nice, but it got pretty boring after a couple of months.
But no, he was bound to arrive, stay in, and leave from, Beacon. He was sure Ozpin had some clever excuse or the other, but Percy knew it was so that he could have more control of the area. It was isolated, completely under the headmaster's control and, because it was summer and all the students were elsewhere, private.
There was also the added advantage of being able to try and sell him on Beacon while he was here. While he was considering it before, (even if he was heavily leaning towards saying no) his recent developments with Qrow had more or less turned him off to that idea.
Less than a minute later after the bullhead landed, Percy casually stepped off. He had decided to wear his normal wear of jeans and a t-shirt, despite the supposed formality of the occasion.
Percy looked up to see his greeting party, blinking the spots out of his eyes from the sun. Waiting for him there was Qrow, who he recognized from the news as Ozpin himself, and a woman in a white top and a black skirt who was holding a book of some kind. She must have been some sort of assistant, he figured.
"Ah. You must be Percy. Or do you prefer Perseus?"
Ozpin was the first one to talk once Percy set foot on solid ground, and Percy held back a wince. Ozpin knew him as Percy, not Perseus. Yeah, Qrow had definitely sold him out.
Percy had a split second decision to make. Did he present his friendly persona, the real him, Percy? Or did he present his public visage, Perseus.
The answer came to him rather quick.
"I do prefer Perseus, actually. Thank you." Percy reached his hand out to shake Ozpin's.
As Percy met the man's eyes, finding something relatively strange about them. They weren't… dulled, necessarily. Bored wasn't the right word either. He just seemed incredibly, assuredly, and almost boringly confident. Percy could swear he had seen that expression before, he just didn't know where.
"This is my deputy headmistress, Glynda Goodwitch." Ozpin introduced, gesturing towards the woman at his side.
She didn't offer her hand so Percy didn't take it. Instead she nodded at him, and so he nodded back.
There was a few seconds of silence as Percy stared at Ozpin, genuinely curious if he would address the elephant in the room.
Instead, he cleared his throat. "Right. Well, let me show you to my office. We can speak there."
Withholding a sigh, Percy followed the party to the headmaster's office.
He had to admit, though, that Beacon itself was quite beautiful. The crystal towers gave the school an almost fantasy vibe, and the campus itself was larger than the living space of a hundred thousand Mistralans. It truly was a utopia, and if Percy wasn't so put off at Qrow right now, he might actually be considering coming here.
"This is the campus of Beacon academy. We have a variety of classes here, including Grimm studies, combat, and dust manipulation." Ozpin said, waving in different directions with each class. "We have a wide array of dorms, a large cafeteria with a plethora of options, and a very accommodating recreation center." he continued.
Percy had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Did Ozpin actually go through all of this trouble just to make a sales pitch for the school? Percy could have saved them both some time and just told him no.
Percy held his tongue as Ozpin went on about life at Beacon until they reached a large, circular elevator.
"If we come right through this way, we can get down to business." Ozpin finally said, keeping up his veneer of pleasantry, even through Percy's silence.
"Yeah, about that." he began. "What exactly am I here for? They didn't exactly tell me." he said, stepping into the elevator and trying not to tense at being within close proximity of three potentially hostile experienced huntsmen.
"A cultural exchange, of sorts. You can come and learn some of the customs of Vale, and perhaps we can make a business arrangement in the meantime. But mainly—"
"No, I mean why am I actually here. Qrow obviously said some things, and you haven't stopped trying to get me here since then, so I'm here. What do you want?" he asked, turning his head to look at the slightly shorter silver haired man in the elevator. The door opened, but none of them got out.
Ozpin spoke after several long moments of silence, still facing towards the open door of the elevator. "Apologies, Perseus. I didn't mean to offend, truly." Ozpin finally turned to meet his eyes. "And neither did Qrow. You're simply a very powerful youth, one which might help the world a great deal. I make it my business to attempt to cultivate talent so that we might have a brighter future."
Percy narrowed his eyes. He seemed genuine. Percy almost wanted to take him at face value, except for those eyes. They hadn't changed throughout their entire conversation. Not once had he made a change in expression.
"And how exactly does this meeting help 'cultivate my talent'?"
"Well, I've yet to meet you. I would hope to establish a relationship with you, so that we might stay in contact in the future. Even should you not choose to attend Beacon, I must admit I have high hopes for you."
"You had contact with me." He jutted his chin towards Qrow. "Now you don't. Seems like it backfired a little to me." Percy said, making sure he didn't catch a glimpse of whatever look was on Qrow's face.
Ozpin let out a long sigh, as if Percy was another errant student misbehaving. "Shall we continue at my desk? I feel it might be more comfortable than the elevator."
"You're curious, right?" Percy completely ignored him. Ozpin simply stood there, staring at him with those same eyes. Well, he didn't deny it. "Alright, you've met me ow. Doubtless you've heard about my fighting, so how about this. I'll fight someone you have lined up, you can sate your curiosity, and I'll be on my way. Happy?"
Ozpin let out another long sigh, letting his shoulders drop. "You're free to leave whenever you wish, Perseus. I meant what I said about just wanting to meet you." Ozpin paused for a long moment, staring at Percy and then suddenly glancing to Qrow. "Though, I must admit I am curious. If you would be willing then I agree that I'd love to see you in a spar against Qrow. Though, I need to speak with Ms. Goodwitch about something for a moment. Glynda, if you would? We'll catch up with you both in a moment." Ozpin said, stepping out of the elevator, quickly joined by the deputy headmistress.
Ozpin hit the button for the ground floor before he got out completely, and Percy sighed as the doors closed, leaving him and Qrow alone in the elevator together.
Qrow snorted behind him. "Well, that was subtle." he took his flask off of his belt and began chugging.
Percy rolled his eyes. "Is he always that… monotone?"
Percy imagined Qrow nodding. "Always. You get used to it."
They spent the next several seconds in silence, until Qrow gathered his nerve. "Hey, look. I'm sorry. I know you're a bit secretive about your strength, and I shouldn't have told Ozpin without letting you know. But he really does want what's best."
"For me, or for him?" Percy didn't bother turning around. "I'm walking on eggshells, waiting for a Mistral crime family to decide I'm better for them dead. Waiting for an assassination attempt at any point, or for Shiro's head to suddenly turn up at my doorstep, and suddenly I have the most powerful man on the planet strongarming me into a meeting on his home turf."
Percy did turn around now. "I'm a fucking criminal, Qrow, incase you've forgotten. It might be mostly accepted in Mistral, but I'm hardly accepted here, and I'm not exactly popular in Mistral, either. Now I'm on Ozpin's radar, and Lionheart's radar, and fucking everyone elses. Because I trusted you, like an idiot. And I guess it's okay, because his intentions were good." Percy took deep breaths, attempting to control his temper. He didn't want to have to explain why Beacon suddenly had no working plumbing.
"What do you want me to say? I fucked up, I didn't think Oz would go that far."
Percy rolled his eyes, walking out of the now open doors of the elevator. "Good for you. The fact remains that I trusted you, and I'm paying the price."
Qrow reached out and grabbed Percy by the arm. "Hey. Trust me or don't, but I still consider you a friend."
Percy shrugged off his hand. "Where's your sparring area?" he asked in lieu of responding.
Qrow just sighed and let his arm fall, taking a long look around before pointing down a hallway. "I think down there."
Percy began walking down the hallway, Qrow following behind him. He felt like beating Qrow up a bit at the moment, and it's not like Qrow could get any new information other than that Percy was progressing as expected. Even if Ozpin made it in time to watch, it's not like Qrow wasn't going to tell him everything that happened anyway.
Eventually Qrow pointed him to a large indoor arena. Percy looked around, a little bit impressed. He hadn't seen an indoors arena of this size since the labyrinth all those years ago.
Descending the stairs, Percy hopped right over the edge into the arena, staring up expectantly at Qrow.
Qrow let out a sigh, emptying the last few drops of his drink into his mouth and hopping over.
Despite Percy's current opinion of Qrow, he had to admit that he was actually looking forward to this quite a bit. He hadn't been challenged by anyone resembling competent since Qrow had left, and training himself could only take him so far. He had refined his style a bit, and he had gotten a lot stronger and faster, at least for only a few months of training, but he wouldn't know how much he had improved until he fought Qrow again.
Percy whipped out Riptide, the blade extending the moment it was out of his pocket, and lunged at Qrow.
Percy's blade met Qrow's, his sword coming up to block inches from his face. Pulling back, Percy lunged again, this time with a wide overhead swing. Normally, it would leave him open to a stab to the chest, but with his aura that didn't matter. Qrow had no choice but to block, dodge, or lose the fight instantly.
Making his choice, Qrow was gone a moment later, sidestepping the blade and moving to Percy's flank, attempting to get in a swing of his own. Percy batted it aside a moment later, moving to close the distance. Qrow's longsword had a huge advantage that far away against Percy's 3 foot blade.
Narrowing his eyes, Percy raised his blade to block an overhead strike from Qrow, sending a haymaker for Qrow's jaw.
The blow hit, knocking Qrow back slightly. Pushing back to regain his bearing, he went back into the fray with a flurry of slashes.
Qrow's sword was in the way of them all, shaking only slightly under the pressure of his blows. Grunting, Percy pushed harder. He knew he was strong enough to lay Qrow out, so that's what he focused on. After a few more seconds of furious slashes, Qrow was forced to disengage, pushing back and using the recoil from the gun in his sword to push himself backwards faster.
Normally this would have bought him some breathing room, but Percy was faster now.
Pushing himself as fast as he could, Percy met Qrow on the other side of the arena, swinging his sword like a baseball bat and sending the edge digging into Qrow's torso.
"Oomph!"
Qrow was sent hurling to the other side of the arena, his aura presumably low.
"Alright, I —" Qrow coughed, interrupting his sentence. "I yield." he called from the floor.
Percy stood silently as Qrow picked himself off of the ground, internally quite pleased. He wouldn't have been able to win quite as quick a couple months ago. They would've played cat and mouse around the arena, Qrow bouncing off of walls and avoiding him as much as possible, getting grazing blows in which would inevitably end with Qrow tiring out or Percy getting a hit in.
But in just three months Percy was fast enough to keep up, even if he wasn't quite as fast as the veteran huntsman. Qrow wasn't wrong when he said that aura let you train much faster, breaking your muscles down and regrowing them infinitely faster than a normal human. Being a demigod, it was only exemplified for Percy.
"Fuck, you've gotten faster." Qrow muttered, dusting himself off. "But you're still making mistakes. When you punched me, you could've kept it going, not giving me a chance to respond. Instead you gave me a chance to recover. In fact, I seem to recall that your hand to hand could use some work. Let's try that again without our weapons."
Before he really knew what he was doing, Riptide was away and Percy sent himself at Qrow.
Though he wasn't exactly experienced with hand to hand, he could still get by. Greeks tended to focus on grappling and wrestling more than street fighting, after all, but he was a demigod all the same.
Unfortunately, adequate was not good enough to deal with Qrow.
Percy's first punch was what did him in. He wasn't reckless, per se. He had far too much combat experience to just rush in without having contingencies and responses to possible counters. But he was not prepared for Qrow's counter.
Moving around his incoming hand, Qrow aimed a haymaker for his face. Percy stopped it with his left hand, grabbing Qrow's fist and preparing to twist it until the older man yielded. He didn't expect Qrow's other hand to impact his shoulder, sending a jolt down Percy's arm and numbing it.
Both of Qrow's hands now free and both of Percy's now occupied, he had no problem getting several hits in and dodging backwards before Percy could fully recover.
"Always make sure that if I can disable one of your arms, I have to use one of mine in turn. If you can't do that, I have an arm to wail on you while you stay there doing nothing."
Percy grunted, wiping blood from his nose and charging back in.
It continued like that for another hour or so, Percy winning every few bouts but mostly losing, and getting chastised by Qrow. Even when he won, Qrow would always have something he could improve, something Percy would always work on.
At some point he saw Ozpin and the deputy headmistress walk into the arena out of the corner of his eye, but mostly he kept his attention on Qrow. After about an hour, however, their bout was interrupted by Ozpin clearing his voice from above the arena.
Percy cursed at the distraction, throwing himself swinging around Qrow's fist before coming up in an uppercut that was blocked.
"As informative as this has been, I would prefer to continue our talks now. After all, your combat prowess is not the only reason you are here."
Percy scowled, remembering why he was here in the first place. Fucking Qrow.
Deciding 'screw it', he launched a haymaker at Qrow as hard as he could. It blew past the tired huntsman's block, clocking him in the side of his head and sending him to the floor groaning.
Letting out a huff, Percy reached his hand out to help Qrow up. Waiting a few seconds to catch his breath, Qrow reached out to take his hand and stood up, giving him a nod as he did.
Percy raised an eyebrow. No critiques this time? Maybe there were some advantages to simply knocking the sense out of his teacher.
Turning away from Qrow, Percy looked up at Ozpin expectantly.
"We have a dinner soon, and I'd much prefer to speak some more before then."
Qrow rubbed the back of his head. "Wanna give us some time to clean up first, Oz? We're a bit sweaty here."
Percy looked down at his sweat free body before glancing at Qrow and raising an eyebrow.
"Okay, I'm a bit sweaty here, but this demigod over here is fine. Give me time for a shower, at least."
Percy froze. Demigod. He had called him a demigod.
Slowly forcing himself to unfreeze, he tried to rationalize it. Demigod was just a term for athletic people, right? Qrow was just saying he had a lot of stamina.
Glancing at the still beaten down Qrow, he nodded to himself. Yeah, if Qrow or Ozpin knew he was a demigod, they'd have a lot more interest in him than to invite him over for dinner.
"We'll be quite fine, Qrow, you can go enjoy your shower. You should remember where the locker rooms are."
Qrow stiffened, and so did Percy.
Qrow turned to Percy and lowered his voice, not that Ozpin didn't get the gist of it.
"Will you be alright on your own? I can stay, if you want." he muttered.
Percy shook his head, speaking in a normal voice. "I'm a big boy, Qrow. I can handle myself."
Letting out a sigh, Qrow nodded and moved towards one of the tunnels leading out of the arena. Percy just walked over to the edge and hopped the dozen feet over the wall of the arena, landing on his feet before Ozpin.
Ozpin just nodded. "Glynda, could you please inform our guests we will be with them on time?"
Percy held back a snort. 'Inform them we're on time' was code for 'please fuck off, I want to be alone with this person'. But then he registered the second part of Ozpin's sentence.
"We'll be having dinner with others?"
Ozpin smiled slightly, turning to walk out of the room, not checking to see if Percy was following. Which of course, he was.
"Why of course. I am not the only one curious as to your exploits. I know many a businessperson or council member who are interested in what you've been doing."
"What specifically about what I've been doing would raise anyone's interest? I'm hardly the first to take over a city in Mistral."
"Not the first, no, but the first in many years. But that's not what I'm referring to. You are the first to bring a free market to Mistral. It's something Atlas and Vale have encouraged for a long, long time. Yet within a short period of time you managed to do it in Windpath single handedly."
Percy furrowed his eyebrows as they continued through the halls of Beacon. "Why do Atlas and Vale want a free market in Mistral? It's not exactly philanthropic, I assume."
Ozpin paused, sending Percy a confused glance. "I had figured that you had an astute comprehension of economics based off of your decisions in the city of Windpath."
Astute comprehension of economics? Not really. He knew the basics of what they taught him in his micro/macro class. Free markets are good, to varying degrees. Some would argue against that, but at the end of the day it was pretty objectively much better than a system where one man controlled every business with an iron fist.
And even those who argued against a free market back on earth mostly did so because they believed it wasn't fair to the workers — not because it wasn't the best at creating value.
It just generally made sense based off of everything Percy had been taught in his life. But what he didn't understand was why Mistral opening their markets could help Vale.
Ozpin seemed to sense his confusion. "If Mistral opens their markets, individuals are free to trade whatever they like to Vale, allowing us to gain access to goods we didn't have access to before. It also lets us invest in foreign companies, increasing opportunities for investors, and it allows those in Mistral with excess money to invest in our companies. If Mistral became a free market right now, trillions of lien in value would be created in seconds."
Percy nodded. He always knew there was kind of a mutually beneficial thing between capitalist nations, but he didn't know it went so deep. Either way, he would continue what he was doing now.
"I would personally greatly prefer the country of Mistral to become a free market. Should you need any assistance, you need only come to me."
Ah, that was the play. It was unlikely Ozpin actually cared about any of that, what he cared about was Percy, for some reason. Percy just couldn't understand why.
Sure, he was… a pretty valuable asset, if he had to say so himself. Likely the single strongest person on Remnant without his powers, he could take on an Atlesian battleship by himself. But he was only one person, and there was only so much he could do. With even a billion lien, much less trillions, Ozpin could build an army that Percy might not be able to beat. If Ozpin could get in on the ground floor of that, — which he would be able to — then he'd be a trillion lien richer by sunrise, and Percy would be nothing compared to that much money. He could take on one Atlesian battleship, but not a hundred.
So for the life of him, Percy just couldn't understand why Ozpin seemed far more interested in his combat prowess than his economic potential, especially given that he didn't know about Percy's powers.
Percy outwardly just nodded, "I'll be sure to do that. Thanks for the offer of help."
Ozpin just turned his head to send a small smile at Percy. "Of course. You're doing a service to Remnant, after all. There's a reason nobody else has given up their share of business in Mistral. Most are far too greedy to give up power or money like that."
Oh. Right. Ozpin had no idea that Percy still owned the businesses through back channeling, proxy companies, and bearer shares. To him Percy had just decided to give up everything he had in Windpath out of the kindness of his heart. He'd have to make sure not to correct him.
"Personally I was never really in it for the money. I'm sure Qrow has told you all about me by now, but I just did it to help the average person." He couldn't help the bitterness slipping into his voice when mentioning that Qrow had undoubtedly told Ozpin everything about him.
He was certain Ozpin noticed it, but he didn't mention it.
Ozpin nodded. "Very noble indeed. I do believe we can work together." Percy held back a snort.
It was almost funny, in a really, really sad kind of way. Here he was profiting off of people's addictions and misfortune, and Ozpin was referring to him as noble. It just showed how low the bar was among the powerful, really, at least in this world. Everything seemed more than upside down. Mistral was entirely controlled by criminal enterprise, Vacuo was lawless, Atlas was essentially in a military dictatorship, and while Vale was the closest thing to acceptable, they had their fair share of faults. Not to mention that there was a sub-race of humans which was heavily discriminated against.
Yeah, Remnant was screwed up.
Outwardly, Percy just nodded. "Yeah, I might be open to that."
Ozpin stepped into the elevator which led up to his office, and Percy let out a deep breath. Well, this was it. He was going to a private meeting with the most influential man in this world for a few minutes before going to a dinner with a dozen of the most influential people in vale. He might as well make the most out of this.
Percy stepped in behind him.
Yeah yeah I know, shorter chapter. Just know that less words here means the quicker i can get back to weekly updates. It just seemed like a good place to stop.
Next chapter (unfortunately) December 17. I hope to at least temporarily return to weekly updates after that.