"The knowledge explosion is also an ignorance explosion;
If knowledge is power, then ignorance is powerlessness."
- William F. May
To clear up some confusion, this chapter begins about a bit over a year before canon. The last chapter ended a bit under 2 years beforehand.
Percy hadn't heard the roar of a crowd this loud since — had it been in New Rome, or with Antaeus in the Labyrinth? Definitely the Labyrinth, New Rome didn't have the crowds to make this sort of noise.
But the audience here made even Antaeus' enormous colosseum of monsters pale in comparison. Though he knew it to be in the thousands, the stands seemed to be filled with millions of roaring fans.
"PYR-RHA! PYR-RHA! PYR-RHA! PYR-RHA!"
And the reason they were there, the spectacle occurring in the middle of the arena. Pyrrha was hard at work showing the world why she deserved her recently given moniker of the 'invincible girl'. Undefeated and out of the yellow in the previous two tournaments, which was soon to become three, if the current trend was any indication. Normally the crowds wouldn't really care about the younger age brackets, only truly showing up to see the students from Haven competing or the odd adult Huntsman who had time to compete. But this year? This year the crowds had shown up in force to watch her win.
Pyrrha wasn't technically a student in Mistral anymore since she'd transferred to the Signal combat school almost a year ago now, but she was still a Mistrali citizen and entered the tournament as such.
"A serious blow! In the first real exchange of the match Arslan goes for the gamble but is unable to find purchase, earning a spear to the sternum for her troubles!"
The annoying announcer's voices blared over the arena, barely intelligible over the roar of the crowds but there nonetheless. And as they said, Pyrrha's opponent for the finals — Arslan, the girl's name was — had fallen for a fake opening and been ruthlessly punished for it. Most anyone aside from the odd huntsman watching wouldn't be able to tell the opening was a fake one, but Percy knew. After all, he'd taught it to her.
"She's good." Tai chipped in from his left. "You should be proud."
"I am." Percy assured him, letting a smile slide back onto his face. He hadn't been there for the last two tournaments, and wanted to make sure that he'd be there for this one. He was glad he'd come. Despite tensions with Atlas, things had been slow recently. It was good to just… relax for once.
Percy saw the end of the match a mile away. Pyrrha got close — where Arslan had the advantage — but didn't stay still enough for her to get a solid hit. She wasn't the most proficient in hand-to-hand, not enough to beat someone who specialized in it like Arslan to be certain, but her goal wasn't to engage in a fair fight.
She flipped over each hit that came to strike her, using the punches as an excuse to mask her constant movement. She wasn't on the ground for more than a moment, dodging circles around Arslan and doing whatever she could to remain moving and unhit. Leaps, flips, rolls, jumping spins and twirls, she moved like lightning. After a few aggravating seconds, Arslan began to lead her hits, scoring glancing blows at best. But it only helped Pyrrha with what she was actually doing. Because while it looked to everyone else in the arena like she was simply putting on an acrobatics show to dodge some incoming damage, she was using her movement to build momentum and energy. She used her semblance on her armor and spear to push the effect further than humanly possible, and Arslan's glancing blows just to push her that little bit faster.
And then when it looked as though she were an actual blur moving around her opponent in a circle, she planted a foot and transferred every bit of that potential energy into a thrust straight into her opponent's torso.
It hit like a tank shell, knocking her from the low green into the low red and sending her sprawling a dozen feet back.
Seeing Pyrrha use the tricks he'd taught her all those years ago made him proud, sure. It was always nice to see his student had become proficient enough to put it into practice. But seeing her come up with crazy shit like that? Something he could never teach her in a million years?
That made him preen.
The gongs rang and the crowd went wild for the now three-time champion's swift and brutal victory. Once again, Pyrrha had finished in the green.
Tai stood up beside Percy and began clapping and cheering. Smiling, Percy did the same. He couldn't hear it over the roar of the crowd, but out of the corner of his eye he spotted Yang and Ruby launching from their seats to cheer on their friend's victory.
"And Pyrrha Nikos takes the gold in a brutal finish, mere minutes after the start of the match!"
He could tell she was uncomfortable with all the attention, now that the fight was over and the adrenaline had faded. Paramedics raced into the traditional dirt arena to retrieve the unconscious body of her opponent, but she didn't pay it any mind. Instead her eyes were scanning the crowd until they met Percy's in a VIP box, just a few levels above the arena itself.
Percy just gave her a reassuring smile and kept clapping. This was what she'd worked so hard for since she was a child. Why she pushed herself through those extra trainings, why she put up with his brutality as a teacher, why she'd woken up at the crack of dawn since before she was a teenager, why she bothered staying in the courtyard sparring a dummy while the other kids went to the movies. The first victory could have been a fluke. The second in a row could have been an early head start, before the competition got tough. Three national tournaments in a row won unscathed?
She'd proven herself. Of that, no-one could doubt. He wasn't sure — he'd have to check — but he even thought it might be a record to win three national tournaments in a row before even getting to an academy. Regardless, it was certainly an accomplishment, even without accounting for the ease with which she dismantled her competition.
So Percy was proud — elated, even — when he saw the pride in Pyrrha's own eyes at her moment of victory.
But like everything else, it too passed. Soon enough she had to break from his gaze and wave to the crowd, and soon after that an organizer signaled her to step out of the arena and back into the back rooms.
Despite her discomfort at the attention she seemed less than pleased to leave it so soon, but with a last glance at his direction and a wave towards the crowd she disappeared into the walls of the arena.
"That was awesome!" Ruby cheered, bouncing up and down by the railing. "She's so good! She's definitely holding back on you in your spars, Yang."
Yang's own excitement at the finale died a quick death. "I'll still kick your butt blindfolded." she threatened.
"Come on girls, play nice." Tai stood between the two, resting a hand on Yang's shoulder. "Behave yourselves, or we won't be able to go to the locker rooms to congratulate Pyrrha."
A bluff. Tai wouldn't punish Pyrrha for a small sibling spat by keeping her friends from her in her moment of victory, but the threat worked all the same and they both reluctantly nodded.
"I wish uncle Qrow was here." Ruby lamented, "He'd have loved that fight!"
Percy wasn't sure how true that was, but she was barely fourteen, she was allowed to complain about missing her uncle. Said uncle was busy, working with Ozpin on… who knows what. Even with his virtually endless spy network, he wasn't omniscient, and Ozpin could be damn secretive when he wanted to be.
Tai half-mindedly comforted her as they exited the VIP booth and headed down the hall and a few sets of stairs to the athlete lockers. There could be up to a hundred competitors on each side of the arena at once all getting prepared or cooling off, but today there was only one.
"That was awesome Pyrrha!"
Ruby's enthusiasm, dimmed for but a moment, came back in full force as soon as they came within sight of the newly recrowned champion. She'd already changed back into some more casual clothes — or at least as casual as Pyrrha ever really got — and from the dampness of her hair, Percy'd wager that she managed to stand under the shower for a few seconds as well.
"Yeah, that was something else, I've never seen anything like it." Yang agreed, walking up to the girl and slugging her lightly on the arm. "You better not be holding back on me in our spars anymore now that I know what you can do." she threatened, her joking smile to convince Pyrrha that she wasn't being serious not quite meeting her eyes.
"I'll be sure not to." Pyrrha laughed nervously, rubbing her arm with some embarrassment. But despite that Percy was sure it was obvious to everyone in the room how ecstatic she was.
"You got cleaned up quick." Percy pointed out, "You haven't eaten since this morning. How's dinner sound?" he suggested.
"I could eat." Yang shrugged, and stretched her arms above her head. "I could use a walk, too. We've been cooped up in here for hours!"
"It has been a while." Tai agreed, "How about you, Pyrrha?"
Pyrrha just smiled. "Yes, that sounds wonderful."
Ruby managed to multitask, leading them out of the locker room while pleading with her dad to let her have dessert at the restaurant, walking backwards out the locker room door…
And right into the chest of a Mistrali police officer. Or, what was passing for a police officer anyways. The ones that walked around with gas masks and assault rifles at all times… their job description didn't include much police work. But creating an actual Mistrali army — even as small as it was at the moment — would've caused too much of an international incident, so they just made it a department of the police. Geopolitics.
"Ouf!" Ruby's breath was driven from her as she ran back-first into what might as well have been a wall, losing her balance for just a moment before recovering and turning on the one who'd blocked her way. "Who are you?" she asked curiously, the fourteen year-old apparently not at all intimidated by the sight of an assault rifle in the hands of a man three times her size.
Remnant really was weird.
"That's Milanovic." Shiro said, stepping past the soldier and answering Ruby in lieu of his response. "He's a soldier, and he's helping me today." he explained.
Ruby looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but Percy spoke before she could.
"What is it this time?" he asked, withholding a groan. He greatly appreciated all Shiro did for him, but over the years any time Shiro poked his head around it almost certainly meant that there was something Percy had to deal with.
Shiro frowned, "It's best if we talk in private."
"Will you still be eating with us?" Pyrrha asked before either of them began to move. If Percy didn't know Pyrrha as well as he did he'd say she was being optimistic. Instead, he knew she was as resigned as he was.
Glancing over to Shiro and quirking an eyebrow, Percy silently passed the question onto him.
Shiro hesitated for a moment. "It… might be best if you order before he catches up."
The little bit of hope Pyrrha had left died a painful death, and her face fell. Ruby and Yang, for their part, didn't seem nearly as disappointed.
"Come on Pyrrha! You can help convince dad to get us malts!" Ruby leapt onto her arm, squeezing it and looking up at her with pleading eyes. "Pleeeease!"
"Come on Rubes." Taiyang, ever the savior, gently pried her from Pyrrha's side. "Let's go get some dinner. I'm sure we'll be able to spend some time with Percy later, Pyrrha."
Pyrrha looked to him as if to confirm it and Percy just nodded. While he had no idea what Shiro needed, he seriously doubted that it would take him the rest of the weekend to deal with it.
Apparently that was enough for her, because she reluctantly let herself be dragged off by Yang to follow Tai and Ruby, who had started disappearing down the hallway.
"Now, what is it?" Percy asked, turning to Shiro.
"Let's walk and talk." he said, jerking his head down the hallway in the opposite direction Pyrrha and the others had gone.
Shiro started walking down the hall and Percy fell in step beside him, feeling just a bit awkward at the presence of the two Mistrali police escorting them. Shiro really was being cautious. As much as Shiro had mellowed out in the last few years he still had aura and the training to use it with deadly efficiency. The two guards on top of that would be… overkill, really, for anything short of a military ambush.
"First, Adam is heading to Mistral. Someone made contact with him while he was restarting operations in Atlas, and he wants you to meet them."
Percy hummed, "Who would that be? Ozpin knows I have Adam and his organization, and Jacques wouldn't have anything to talk about. Hades, even Ironwood wouldn't bother. There are no other major players, are there?" Percy asked, careful to omit the name of a very specific organization. While it was an open secret that Mistral was backing — or at least giving refuge to — the White Fang, it was far from proven. Mistral had made enormous strides back towards the height of its power in the last few years, but it still had the image of the sick old man of Remnant, which meant that even if the entire bottom floor was a White Fang cell they could feign ignorance. To be fair, even a few years ago it could have been the case and nobody would've noticed for… ever, maybe. But that gave him the ability to realistically deny anything on an international stage as long as it wasn't caught literally coming from his lips. So, he wouldn't be making any stupid mistakes like that.
Shiro shook his head. "No. But just because they're not a major player doesn't mean they can't tilt the scales. Whoever they are, Adam apparently thinks they're worth meeting."
They exited the arena onto a side street where a bullhead was waiting. He wasn't sure how Shiro had organized that without destroying any property or hurting anyone, but it certainly was convenient.
"Alright, I'll meet with em'. So, what else?" Percy asked, climbing up and swinging himself into the bullhead. Shiro echoed his movement, leaving the two silent police to climb in after them and the pilot to take off a few moments later.
"Atlas." Shiro lowered his voice. "Jacques had an informal meeting with the chairman last night. The SDC is pushing hard for them to start sanctioning Mistral. The sanctions when we began trade with Menagerie was mostly kept to dust and weapons which didn't mean much because of the MTC and J&W, but with how much the MTC has been growing recently coupled with the instability in Vacuo, the renewed White Fang activity in Atlas, and the recent dust heists in Vale… The SDC is getting desperate. If we don't play this well, they'll stop us from importing a whole lot, and may even be able to convince Vale to go along with them. Mistral has made enormous strides in the last few years, we're getting it back to being the superpower it was before the great war, but we still greatly depend on the technology of Atlas and Vale. If they stop trading with us and we're left with Vacuo and Menagerie it'll take decades to catch up."
"They won't stop trading everything, will they?" Percy furrowed his eyebrows. Vale and Atlas had been seeing a boom recently too. All the hundreds of millions of new people to sell to in Mistral, Menagerie, and even Mantle recently had put quite a few lien in a lot of pockets. If they cut that off completely then they'd suddenly have nobody to sell to and their economies would fold in on themselves. Besides, there was something to be said about the legitimacy of an economic system which didn't include the majority of the people on Remnant.
Since Foley had died — much closer to Foley's own predictions than those of his doctor's — Percy had taken his place and now had control of Mantle, a city which made up a small majority of the kingdom of Atlas (by population, if not by GDP). It was because of that, that he had some pretty intricate details about Atlas' economic situation right now. If they stopped trading everything…
"Not everything, no." Shiro assured him. "That'd be almost as bad for them as it would be for us. Worse, maybe, if we can finish securing Vacuo. But if they just cut us off from a hefty chunk of trade at a time or make the taxes high enough to raise prices to unreasonable levels, then their economies will suffer but survive. Meanwhile, we'll be set back a year and unable to fully recover for most of a generation. Can you…"
"Pull some strings?" Percy asked rhetorically. Shiro shrugged helplessly.
"Not really. Ozpin's pull on the council seems to be falling with every election, and I still can't do what I need to there because just in case he does get word of it, I'm fucked. And I'm not sure he'd be in the mood to help me in the first place."
Shiro cursed. "Did something happen?"
Percy shrugged. "He's very gung-ho about democracy and the people's will. Which I can't really blame him for, but it doesn't work out very well when that democratic system is forced on people like in Mistral and Vacuo. I think he sees what's happened here and happening in Vacuo as an undoing of hundreds of years of progress."
Shiro grunted. "Yeah, well, the old man can shove it. The King of Vale beat us in a war and decided to use the opportunity to wipe away thousands of years of structure and culture, and make us the vassals of Vale by a different name. He made the huntsmen academies, sure, but he erased everything that made us a people. Before the great war Mistral was the most powerful nation on Remnant. After the war and the Valean King forced his ideals on us it's been nothing but downhill since. Mistral hadn't really been one country in decades until we did what we did. Even Vacuo was transformed from a glimmering jewel into a ghetto, their resources taken from them even more than ours were. The old man can see it as reactionary all he wants, but he didn't grow up on our streets. Didn't learn our history."
Percy wasn't sure what to say for a few seconds after that, remaining silent. He didn't… disagree, necessarily, but he himself hadn't grown up on Mistral's streets either. Not to mention, Earth's history told him that democracies were pretty much always a good idea. Or at least, until he considered all those times that a ruler was forcibly toppled by outside governments and democracies were installed, ironically, against the people's will.
Germany and Austria after World War 1… had led to World War 2. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. None of it had ended well. Even when Napoleon had installed republics all across Europe they lasted for what, a decade? Less? Percy's knowledge of history wasn't the most sharp but he knew that by the time the first world war came around Europe was right back to a bunch of monarchs invading each other.
"Anyway, Ozpin aside, what about Jacques? Can you convince him somehow?" Shiro asked, pulling Percy from his line of thought.
"No." Percy didn't even stop to consider it. "I can get him to do quite a bit when it comes to literally anything else, but at this point he's all but declared a crusade on the White Fang and Mistral. To be honest, I think he's not far off from buying as many weapons as we can make and a fleet to match it before flying over here and invading himself. I can't convince him to do something that would hurt us less either, he's a smart man. And as far as my political influence in Atlas goes, I have pretty much none. The councilmen from Atlas are all in either Ironwood or Jacques' pocket, and while I own the ones from Mantle, I'm pretty sure that Atlas' government was actually made to make it so that the majority of their population in Mantle has just about no say at all. The only slim possibility I have is to pull a favor on Ironwood to get his people to vote against it, and do the same with my own people from Mantle. But even then it's not guaranteed, and Jacques will find out I interfered. From there Ironwood and Jacques become hostile, the jig is up, and this whole thing is as good as over."
Shiro scowled. "Well, we need something to stop or at least get around the incoming sanctions. Otherwise Mistral is doomed to play second fiddle to Atlas and Vale for the rest of the era. If there's a time to use the cards we're hiding up our sleeve it's now."
Percy pinched the bridge of his nose as the bullhead, now at the peak of the mountain that made up Mistral, began to descend onto a landing pad. "How bad would it be if only Atlas sanctioned us? If we could stop just Vale."
The doors slid open and they both stood, stepping down and onto the pavement of the landing pad. Directly in front of them was the capitol building which held the council chambers and the top officials of Mistral. While Percy was hardly unfamiliar with the place, he also didn't tend to come here often, usually directing the Mistrali government either over scroll or through Shiro.
"Well that'd help a lot. Most of the things we'd be banned from importing — scrolls, scientific tools, advanced manufacturing equipment, computer chips and the like — can be gotten from Vale almost as easily as Atlas. We might take a hit on the price but all of our industry would still be viable, if less profitable, and you wouldn't have to move our drone or airship production to Mantle. It would also allow our own scientists and engineers to keep working on new technologies. That alone would turn any major sanctions from a disaster into a pretty major inconvenience. On top of that, Atlas won't be able to do nearly as much to us. If we're sanctioned by both kingdoms with incredibly high taxes on their goods, then we're pretty much forced to buy the stuff at those high prices. If they cut us off completely, then we just can't get access to whatever they ban us from, and we effectively go back to the dark ages. But if only Atlas cuts us off? If they ban us from something, we just buy from Vale for higher than normal prices. We suffer a bit of an expense increase but they'd kill their entire industry. If they hike prices it's the same thing; we just buy from Vale. If they put the prices too high then their goods will never be cheaper than Vale's and the industry will collapse all the same, which means they're forced to keep the prices much lower. More likely than not they'll be targeting industries relating to technology and electronics, which means that when those industries suddenly collapse it'll be Atlas relapsing to the dark ages, not us. Or at least, they stop developing cutting-edge technologies for years to come. And for a kingdom as reliant on technology as they are they may as well hand us their spot as a major player in Remnant on a silver platter with a kind request to go join Vacuo in the backwaters."
Percy groaned. He knew he could stop — or at least delay — Vale from imposing the same sanctions. Junior — Percy — controlled the unions for the docks, the warehouses, the factories, the schools — every union in the city, really. Through Menagerie, the White Fang, and the unions Percy also had pretty much unconditional loyalty from the faunus voter base. And just as icing on the cake, Percy had an expense account larger than every Valean campaign fund combined. On the other hand, Vale had anti-corruption laws which were actually enforced sometimes, and a competent group of law enforcement. He couldn't just walk in and start buying politicians like he could in Mistral, but he could definitely stop or stall one thing. The only problem was…
Percy paused near the top of the stairs and rubbed his eyes in frustration, "Alright, I can stall it. It just means I need to piss off Ozpin by stomping around his politicians. I'll run some ad campaigns, make it look like it's public pressure, 'don't sacrifice our jobs for the Schnees' type thing, but he'll find out sooner or later and it won't be pretty."
Especially considering that the MTC's production had grown exponentially to the point that he was able to let Roman start taking the odd cargo container of dust to sell to Ella and sell the difference to Vale, he wasn't keen to test the man's patience.
Shiro looked back at Percy and frowned. "Ozpin lost Lionheart and you took Mistral, he lost Sylvanus and now his replacement owes you as much as he does Ozpin, he lost Foley and you took Mantle, and now he's losing control of his own council. Currently he has Qrow, a couple of Valean councilors, about a third of General Ironwood, and an enemy in Jacques Schnee. Percy, right now Ozpin's greatest asset is that you're his ally. There was a time not so long ago when Ozpin was a dangerously influential person. That time has passed."
Percy… wasn't so sure. He knew the look of someone who had more than one ace up their sleeve — he knew it well — and Ozpin screamed it. If Ozpin was a tenth of the man Percy thought he was, Hades if he was a tenth as competent as Percy himself then the pieces that Percy could see on the board only made up a small fraction of the tools Ozpin had at his disposal. Jacques Schnee was one of the most powerful men in the world and for all he knew, Percy was the young, ambitious CEO of a thriving arms company which had a prospering relationship with the SDC and Atlas. From that perspective all Jacques would have to do to not only cripple him but take him out of the game entirely was to stop buying Percy's weapons and use his influence on the council to make Atlas do the same. And yet, any one of the few people who knew everything Percy was doing would find that laughable.
Percy was worried that he didn't know much more about Ozpin than Jacques knew about him.
On the other hand Ozpin had lost a shocking amount of influence recently. Unlike Shiro and Jacques Percy was under no delusion that Ironwood would ever consider backing Percy or Jacques over Ozpin, and yet even then he'd lost near absolute sway over kingdoms in the last couple years. Foley and Lionheart were both large hits, and even Ironwood wasn't nearly as rooted as Sylvanus had apparently been. Additionally, he'd lost influence in Vale to the point where it was actually feasible for Percy to come take it from him. That was… crazy. It didn't make sense.
Foley had taught Percy quite a bit on what was basically his deathbed, and the idea of losing so much influence from a few deaths and a couple lost elections, much less within such a short time, was actually comical. Ozpin gave off the appearance of someone who was deadly competent, and yet the last couple years had seemingly proved that he was anything but. Even going by Ozpin's selective code of morality, someone as influential as Ozpin had been always had opportunities to make allies and ensure they got in the right spot. There had to be something Percy was missing, but he couldn't even begin to guess at what it was.
"Either way." Percy shook himself from his thoughts and let his hand fall. "I'll do it. We don't have much of a choice, I'm just worried there's something we don't know."
Shiro shook his head in exasperation as they continued walking into the building. "Percy, we know all there is to know. We're hardly omniscient, but the Malachites have been the information hub for all of Remnant for centuries. If it's been spoken out loud, we know about it."
"Okay," Percy challenged. "Where's Qrow?"
Shiro huffed. "If you want me to order the Malachites to find out, we can do that. Or would you rather save our assets to fail to prove a point in a different argument?"
"And how exactly are you gonna find where Qrow is?" Percy asked coyly.
Shiro rolled his eyes. "You know the drill. Check the gate logs, security feed at the gates and walls, bullhead passenger lists and destinations, air traffic control logs, even the cameras around Beacon if you really care that much."
"Oh, you can find him that way?"
Shiro shot him a weird look. "Yeah. I can. Or if you want to be petty about it then no, technically I can't, the Malachites can."
"Really? That's funny, because I was just talking to the Malachites before flying to Mistral and when I got here they told me that Qrow never left."
Shiro paused mid-stride, stumbling a step. "What?"
"Yep. Cameras all working, not looped, no blind spots, he walked into Beacon and never came out. No gate logs for him in or out of Vale, no camera footage at any of the gates showing him going in or out either. Security cameras didn't show him at the bullhead docks, no passenger lists for bullheads had him — or any forged identities — on them, and there were no unregistered flights that went through the airspace. So if you'd enlighten me as to where he is, that would help quite a bit."
Shiro resumed walking, speedwalking to catch up to him. "Okay, one thing. That is… confusing, but it's one incident. A camera could have… bugged out, and a pilot forgot to check his ID. It's confusing but it's one incident, I'm sure that there's an explanation."
"Every flight was full for 2 hours after he entered Beacon, but okay." Percy grumbled. "How about something more concrete? Harder to fake. The girl I told you about, Ella Fall. A teenage girl with hundreds of millions — maybe billions — of lien shows up in the middle of Vale claiming to be a local. She wasn't. Her skin tone means she's definitely not native to Vacuo either, which rules out the only place on Remnant we may have managed to miss a billionaire in our wildest dreams. We have her face and profile from multiple angles, her finger prints, her routing number, Hades we have her fucking saliva. Her DNA. And yet despite that we haven't found a single shred of evidence that she's even a real person, or that the money doesn't just appear in a magical cloud whenever she wants it to, or even of what she's doing with dozens of tons of dust. Now, unless you have an answer that you haven't been sharing, I'm going to assume that we don't know as much as we think we do."
Shiro didn't say anything as they kept walking through the various hallways of the capitol building. Percy was pretty sure he knew where Shiro had started leading him, and they were getting close to the room now.
"I'll consider the implications of that later." Shiro said after a few seconds of silence. "But you should know who you're about to be meeting before you step into the room."
Percy nodded for him to continue as they rounded the last corner, pausing a few feet from the door to the rough Mistrali equivalent of the oval office. It was technically an office for the chairman, but mostly it was a glorified meeting room for more serious conversations.
"I meant to tell you almost as soon as we were alone, but we kind of got… side-tracked with our Atlas problem. We're here to meet with the Asturias siblings. Or rather, they're here to meet with you."
Percy furrowed his eyebrows. The Asturias'? That was… odd. Last he'd been updated on the situation — less than a week ago — Vacuo was about ready to explode. The call to return the monarchy to power was louder than ever, and the two were preparing to seize power within the year as king and queen of Vacuo. With all the progress the White Fang and they had made with Percy's support, they could already feasibly lead a successful coup within a month or two, but waiting a few months to build up more of a base and wait for public opinion to be swayed even further would save the kingdom a lot of damage and countless lives. Not to mention how much easier it'd be to rule with public opinion firmly on their side as soon as they took power.
But either way, they should be busy in Vacuo building their base, not… here.
"Why?" he asked simply.
"They… wouldn't tell me." Shiro grumbled, "I pushed the issue when they were coming to land and they just flat out refused. Didn't even threaten anything, just called my bluff and landed on an open bullhead pad anyway. They said they're only willing to meet with you directly, and alone."
Percy blinked. "Is it… just them?"
"They came with royal guards. About a dozen." Shiro scratched his head. "I think that's what they call all the people who are strong enough to be… you know. But they were fine ordering all but one of them to stay outside, so whatever they're here for it doesn't seem to be to try anything stupid."
Percy frowned. "Yeah. That doesn't answer why they are here though."
Shiro shrugged and jerked his head towards the door. "Only one way to find out."
Sighing, Percy strode towards the door and pulled it open, taking one step inside and promptly freezing on the spot.
Jax and Gillian both looked older than the last time he'd seen them. A little fitter too, and carried themselves more confidently. At least, Gillian did. Jax had been carrying himself more confidently than Qrow since the first time Percy had met the kid. While the last time he had seen them in person a bit more than a year ago made him laugh and cringe simultaneously at the thought of them ruling anything, time had served them well. They were still teenagers, people would hardly be throwing themselves to the ground in their presence. But now instead of the mix of amusement and incredulity he used to get when he imagined them on dual thrones, it was just a bit of doubt. They were no rulers, not yet. Though if he imagined them a year or two older before picturing them on the throne, with the experience of having successfully led a governmental takeover… He could see it.
But that wasn't the reason he'd frozen in the doorway. That was all interesting enough to occupy his mind for a few seconds, but it quickly moved to the third person in the room. Because the third figure, a woman dressed in a dark cloak and light leather armor, was the one that caught his attention.
Because beneath the hood of her cloak Percy could make out a rather distinct feature, one similar to only one other person he'd ever met.
Percy stared at the face of the fourth person in the room and two flaming eyes stared back.
Didn't wanna put an AN here, but ffn being dogwater forces me to.
Curious if you guys would rather have explicitly stated timeskips. I personally feel like it detracts from the story slightly, and it's better if it's just insinuated in the story. But I also know that it can be pretty confusing, cause ya'll are reading this once every couple weeks and can't really keep track of everything 100%.
I'd say to let me know in reviews but reviews and PMs are broken again, so either go over to AO3 and comment, or lmk in discord. I miss seein ya'lls feedback ;_;
Also, huge shoutout to Kathryn for betaing this chapter at 3 in the morning with 0 notice. Big Dub.
AO3, Discord, and Pat-reon are on my profile.
Next Chapter April 15