"We know how to win wars. We must learn now to win peace."
- Stephen E. Ambrose
"So, how'd it go?" Shiro sat down across from Percy, resting his cane against the armrest and crossing his uninjured left leg over his right.
Percy glanced up from his scroll momentarily. "How'd what go?"
"Your talk with Pyrrha." Shiro clarified.
Percy shifted in his seat, continuing to tap at his scroll. "Not super well. She won't talk to me. She needs time."
Shiro frowned sympathetically. "I'm sorry. What was it that upset her? Just that you hadn't told her, or…?"
Percy sighed and clicked his scroll shut, setting it to the side. "I told her the truth. About Argus and what happened with the great families."
Shiro flinched. "Percy, you said when we did those things that nobody would ever know. Telling Pyrrha kind of ruins the point. That's the kind of thing that makes me nervous to even talk about. If it gets out…"
"She had a right to know." Percy said bitterly. "That I did it in the first place justifies her to condemn me. Keeping it from her was a betrayal, plain and simple. I won't do that anymore, not to Pyrrha."
Shiro let out a deep breath, "Percy, if anyone finds out about either of those then everything you've done will be for nothing."
"Everything I've done is for nothing!" he snapped, "If I lie to Pyrrha, what the Hades am I doing here? If for all my posturing and influence and money and power I can't even do right by her, then who am I doing right by?"
Shiro leaned back, eyes wide.
"Maybe Pyrrha isn't the only one that needs time." Percy snorted derisively, looking out the window to avoid Shiro's gaze. The calm waters lapped at the side of their ship, and just a few hundred meters away Percy spotted their single fully functional dreadnought cutting through those same waves.
"I understand." Shiro said softly, and Percy could hear him standing. "She's your reason. What keeps you going. If you lose that…"
"What's yours?" Percy asked suddenly, eyes still glued to the window.
Percy could imagine Shiro recoiling at the question.
His friend laughed sardonically, "I'm an aging huntsman with a dead team, no lover, no family, and about two people I'd call friends. People in my demographic don't tend to live long. When I got my leg mauled in the woods north of Windpath, I figured that was it for me. Since then? Well, it's been an interesting enough job."
Percy listened to Shiro's cane press on the ship's carpet as he walked away, the far door slid open and closed with a hiss signaling his departure.
When the doors behind him opened and closed several minutes later, Percy tensed. He was near the back of the ship, but there were still some rooms further back. Notably, the private quarters was the only section adjacent to this one. The private quarters that Pyrrha had disappeared into almost an hour ago.
When Percy looked to see who had joined him he wasn't greeted by a flash of shocking red hair, but blinding blonde.
Yang sat down across from him where Shiro had been sitting not ten minutes prior, popping her right elbow up on an armrest and leaning on it.
"Pyrrha wouldn't tell me what you said to make her so upset." Yang told him.
"And you thought I would?" he asked absentmindedly, energy fleeing him now that he knew it wasn't Pyrrha coming back.
Yang lifted a single shoulder in a half-shrug, leaning forward and resting her chin on her open palm while her eyes remained locked on him. "You'll tell me what you want to. Pyrrha won't."
Percy cracked a smile that quickly faded. As much as she was trying to put on a carefree attitude, it wasn't enough to convince Percy that she'd remained entirely laissez through everything that had happened.
"People don't like to talk about it around Pyrrha, but I heard what they were saying about you when she wasn't around." Yang interrupted the silence that had fallen over them. "Everyone knows you're powerful, but everyone has a different theory why. Some think you're blessed by the gods, some think you have a powerful semblance, some think you are a god, and some think all the storms were just some lucky timing and parlor tricks backed by secret weapons. People don't know what they saw. I do. I know exactly what I saw yesterday, and I think I'm entitled to some answers."
"Entitled is an interesting word to use." Percy mused.
"Aren't I?" she demanded. "After knowing you for how many years? After accepting you as a part of the family, watching my dad slowly begin to trust you, becoming best friends with your surrogate daughter — who, by the way, cried herself to sleep at whatever you're not telling me? Aren't I entitled to ask you to tell me something?"
"I'm not sure I disagree," Percy placated. "I was just interested in the choice of words, is all. Entitled means you think you should be treated specially. I don't point that out because I think you don't deserve to know, but because it means you don't think that everyone else deserves to know."
"You wouldn't tell everyone regardless." Yang crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. "That much is clear."
Percy shrugged. "It's up in the air."
Yang looked at him expectantly. "Well?"
"Well what?" he shot back. "You have to ask me a question to get an answer. There's a lot of things you don't know about me, and a lot of questions you wouldn't be wrong to ask. You'll only get answers to some of them tonight."
"How'd you do what you did during the battle?" she didn't hesitate. "With the storm, the water, the — the healing yourself from injuries that should have been fatal. How can you do that?"
"My dad's a god." he told her, avoiding looking at her. The reactions had never been particularly pleasant to gauge, considering the circumstances needed to call for someone to learn of the gods. It was nearly always death or the imminent threat of it by something that couldn't be explained.
"I'm being serious." her voice was flat.
"So am I." Percy bit the bullet and met her eyes. "My dad's the god of the sea, my mom's mortal. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it."
Percy watched Yang's eyes dart over him for several seconds before they narrowed to slits. .
"You're… being serious."
Percy couldn't stop himself from chortling. "Usually people's reactions aren't so muted."
"I'm still trying to decide if you're crazy, an idiot, or just been lied to your entire life." she said bluntly.
Percy laughed at that. "Gods don't I wish. But no, unfortunately I know for certain the gods are real, and that I'm the son of one."
"So either you're crazy or you're right." Yang concluded, rather obviously leaning one way rather than the other.
He grinned. "Can't I be both?"
Percy took satisfaction in Yang failing to keep the smile off her face. "I mean… you did the impossible, I'll give you that. That being said, it's hard to just… take your word for it."
"It's the only answer you'll get." Percy told her. "And for the record, don't tell anyone. I might make it public knowledge later, I might not. Not really sure, to be honest."
Yang picked her head up off her hand and leaned back, kicking her feet up onto the seat opposite her. "Really? You? Mr. 'always has an answer' doesn't know what he's gonna do?"
Percy rolled his eyes. "I'm hardly all knowing, I just know that doing something and sticking with it is better than not doing anything at all. I'm only 21, Yang. Or, well, 22 yesterday."
Yang blinked. "Hell of a birthday."
Percy snorted. "Not my worst, believe it or not."
She sent him a baffled look.
"When I was sixteen I-" Percy paused. "You know what? I don't need to tell an abridged version, do I? On my sixteenth birthday I fought my grandfather — the lord of time — in the throne room of the gods. It was a big mess — we'd all been fighting armies of monsters for days, but he'd barely done anything more than fight a skirmish with me a few days before."
"Your… grandfather?" Yang asked incredulously. "He was fighting you, why?"
"It's a long story." Percy waved it off. "It'd take hours to tell."
Yang made a show of bringing her arm out from behind her head and checking the watch that wasn't there. "I've got time."
Percy snorted, but to his surprise he actually considered diving into the messed up story that was his family. He could see the spark of curiosity in Yang's eyes. He never had gotten the chance to explain everything to Pyrrha in any detail, deciding to come clean about Argus and his coup of Mistral as soon as the conversation started. Leaning back and kicking one foot over the other, Percy hid a smile. Maybe this would be fun.
"Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy."
- Benito Mussolini
"Please, take a seat!" Mantle's mayor offered, leading the way into the room. "My sincerest apologies for the disarray. As you can imagine, I've been quite strapped for time recently."
Percy waved it off, throwing his jacket on the back of one of the couches surrounding the short table in the middle of the room and then collapsing onto it shortly after. Shiro sat down next to him at a more sedate pace, while Mantle's mayor and police commissioner sat opposite of them.
"Where's Cinder?" Percy abruptly asked, looking around and noticing the obvious absence. He'd been pushing their fleet to travel between Mistral and Atlas for days now non-stop, and fought to keep about half a dozen major grimm from swallowing one of their ships whole all the while. It was like he'd been straining an invisible muscle for almost a week and had just now gotten the chance to rest it, except instead of being able to enjoy the blissful peace he had immediately disembarked to find a small welcoming party waiting for them at the docks that hinted at the hours of meetings he had to look forward to, so sue him if he was a bit short on patience. That Pyrrha still wasn't speaking to him didn't help matters.
"Miss Fall informed me shortly after the battle that she would have to depart for a short while. She told me you would understand."
He didn't, but it's not like the commissioner knew that.
Leaning over to Shiro, Percy whispered to him. "Get the Malachites on her. I don't want her running loose who knows where at a time like this."
Shiro nodded, and Percy leaned back. He'd call her after this meeting, but he'd much rather know where she was and what she was doing than take her word for it.
The mayor cleared his throat. "Shall we… get down to business, so to speak?"
Percy waved him on.
"Well, I daresay that most importantly is the matter of what happens to Mantle." he said. "We haven't officially begun talks on the formation of our government yet per your request, but I've called a congress together this weekend."
"During the peace conference." Percy noted.
He nodded. "The events of the peace conference may affect the outcome of the congress, and vice versa."
Percy sincerely doubted that. He held all the cards, in both cases. Which he supposed is where he came in. He could tell the mayor wanted to expand on it more, but didn't want to overstep.
"Mantle will be free to self govern, of course." Percy assured him, leaning forward. "The Tammany Hall will remain as intertwined with Mantle as it always has, but despite my position as its president it'll have no affiliation with Mistral. The Tammany Hall always has and always will serve the interests of Mantle first. Because of the relationship I enjoy with Mantle through The Tammany Hall, Mistral seeks only free trade and an alliance."
The mayor's shoulders slouched in relief, and the commissioner's less visibly joined them. The fifty thousand ton warship that had shown up alongside the delegation from Mistral had to raise some questions about what exactly Mantle's place would be when the dust was settled, but Percy had no intention of conquering Mantle.
He already had.
Or rather, Foley and his precursors had. The message was clear; Tammany Hall had saved Mantle from being strong-armed into being made a puppet state of Mistral, and had instead gained it a powerful ally.
"Now," Percy continued, "Speaking as the President of Tammany Hall, you won't be surprised to find out I have documents ready were something like this to happen. The language is a little dated, but clean it up and it's ready." he said, signaling Shiro to pull out a stack of papers which he slid to the other side of the table.
Truth be told there were a dozen proposals for how an independent Mantle should run, but one of them in particular had caught Percy's eye far more than any of the others.
"The… Republic of Mantle?" the Commissioner read slowly.
"That's correct." Percy confirmed.
"I've read about republics." The mayor said softly, reading further into the proposed constitution. "They were theorized as an alternative to kingdoms hundreds of years ago, but none have emerged."
"Haven't they?" Percy countered. "It's the system you and the rest of Remnant have been dabbling in for a century now. Just because you're called kingdoms doesn't mean you are kingdoms. Embrace it, become a full-fledged republic."
"Is this… open to suggestion?" the mayor asked.
Percy nodded and leaned back into the couch. "It's not set in stone. Send me whatever modifications you'd like to make, and float it to some of the more prominent members of the congress you've gathered beforehand. We can change most of it, but that's a conversation that has to happen in private."
Because if it was in public, Percy couldn't control what happened. Despite Percy's other projects entering the limelight, The Tammany Hall would remain as it always had; not a secret, but out of the spotlight. The constitution had no mention whatsoever of him or the Hall, and Percy didn't plan on attending the congress itself. If so many eyes weren't on him now he'd have considered attending as just another face in the stands, but as it was his presence would raise far too many eyebrows.
The mayor nodded. "I'll make sure to do so. Next, we should speak of Atlas."
Percy's mood took a sharp turn downwards. He knew what he wanted to do with Atlas, the problem was what he'd have to deal with first.
"I have plans for them." Percy told them, standing up and throwing his jacket on. His day just kept getting better. "But before we can settle that, I have to deal with the more immediate issue."
The mayor blinked. "That being?"
"The Schnee."
"You must be careful who you pick as your enemies, because you end up resembling them."
- Jorge Luis Borges
Percy pulled on his jacket to shield himself from Atlas' withering winds, eyes locked on the enormous Schnee manor obfuscated by the perpetual snowfall.
"This is your last warning! We don't care who you are, turn back now or be fired upon!"
Percy took his hands out of his pockets for a moment to rub them together and breathe into them, taking comfort in the brief moment of warmth it provided. Shoving his imperceptibly warmer hands back into his jacket, he took a step forward.
Crunch.
Snow crunched underfoot, echoed by the sound of gunfire and then a whoomph. The guns were quickly silenced, large mounds of snow burying each of the security whole.
Crunch.
Percy continued on his steady trek towards the manor, making sure to add a hole to breathe through so that Mantle wouldn't waste time digging out corpses.
Crunch.
Percy passed the walls, large turrets ripped from where he had installed them and tossed across the snowy tundra.
Crunch.
Percy stepped over a small mound of snow, the private soldier under it long since unconscious.
Crunch.
Percy deliberately climbed the stairs to the main entrance, reaching for the metal handle to find it freezing cold. Trying it, he couldn't help the amused smile that came to his face when he found the door unlocked.
Pulling it open, Percy entered and quickly shut the door behind him to keep the cold from following him in. He once more took his hands out of his jacket and rubbed them together, breathing softly to warm them up. Briefly wiping his shoes on the welcome mat, Percy wasted no more time before setting off down the familiar halls.
The manor was… less busy than usual in that Percy didn't see a single soul on his walk through the interior. There was always a butler ferrying something somewhere, or maids cleaning or cooking, or even a servant carrying a message. Today, they were nowhere to be found.
The door was open to the sitting room when Percy got there, and the telltale crackle of the fireplace just barely managed to reach his ears through the doorway.
Percy entered, the soft sound of his boots on the carpet signaling his arrival.
"Can I sit?" he asked.
Jacques remained motionless, gaze cast into the low flames of the fireplace. If he was trying to ignore Percy, he was doing a poor job of it. He was coiled like a snake, and though he hoped he was just being paranoid Percy made sure his aura was ready to flood to protect him at a moment's notice.
Once it was clear Jacques had no intention of answering, Percy walked over to the fireplace and crouched by the small stack of logs next to it, grabbing one and setting it gently on the dying flames.
"Didn't want anyone to keep the fire?" Percy asked rhetorically, grabbing another log and leaning it against the first.
Standing, Percy walked back from the fire and lowered himself into the chair beside Jacques. Percy took a moment to study the man, who took a sip of the drink in his hand. Eyes flickering to the bottle resting on the end table between them, Percy recognized the clear liquid as schnapps and was reminded of the first time he'd been in this room. They'd drank together — the same brand, Jacques' favorite — and established a tradition that would last years, where they'd sit in this room and drink something or the other and just talk. They'd go back and forth on ideas, talk about the world, and Jacques would offer his counsel.
The man in front of Percy looked different. He was thinner, with sunken cheekbones and aged wrinkles. Even his hair now seemed more gray than white. Even though the man had been in his early fifties by the time Percy had met him, Percy couldn't help but remember him as far… livelier.
"I'm sorry." Percy began when it became clear Jacques wasn't going to talk. "I really am. I went into business with you knowing I'd be lying to your face, but I didn't plan on… well, becoming your friend. But once I started, the only way it could end was with me fighting a friend. I can't tell you how, but I am doing this for the good of Remnant. For what it's worth, it was nothing personal. If there was another way, I'd have taken it."
"You disgust me." Jacques broke his silence, his voice coming out low and rough. "You have taken advantage of my weakness, betrayed my trust, worked tirelessly to tear down everything I have built, and lied to me for five years all for money and power." he paused, setting down his near-empty glass and shooting Percy a glare of detest. "If you are going to stab me in the back for personal gain, do not make paltry excuses and justifications. Embrace it. Otherwise, you'll be destroying the last shred of respect I still hold for you. You must have the will to make the hard decisions, the necessary sacrifices. It's the last possible way you can uphold my legacy."
Jacques lifted the bottle of schnapps to refill his glass, his hand visibly shaking as it tried to hold the bottle steady.
Percy swallowed. "I'm sorry, Jacques. For everything." Jacques picked the glass up and took a sip, but now that Percy had seen it it was impossible to miss the slight shaking of the glass. "I know I can't make up for everything, but I want to. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get you to give me another chance, Jacques."
"You have taken from me everything and left me with nothing." sneered Jacques. "Nothing except for the legacy I forge through you. At least that I still have. If nothing else, you've taken to my doctrines of pragmatism exceptionally. I can't think of a more perfectly indifferent demonstration of your excellence."
"You haven't lost everything Jacques." Percy pleaded, "Work with me. Let me help you."
"You have tormented me enough!" he snapped. "Taken from me enough! Leave me in peace."
Percy closed his eyes. Jacques didn't want to make a deal, or try to make amends, or hear excuses. He didn't want the truth.
He wanted the ruthless pragmatist he'd envisioned, a man that betrayed him in cold calculation. He wanted the student to finally surpass the teacher, in a cruel, callous fashion. Anything else meant that Percy's betrayal wasn't a matter of surpassing Jacques in his own game, but betrayal plain and simple.
"The SDC and its assets will be merged into the MTC." Percy opened his eyes, pushing off the chair and turning to look down at Jacques, whose eyes were once more locked on the fire. "You'll be kept in house arrest in the Schnee manor with a limited number of staff. You will be left with enough lien to spend your time however you'd like." a generous sum, but a minute fraction of what the Schnee's wealth had been.
"The Schnee name, fallen into obscurity so quickly." Percy's old mentor spoke to the air, his tone dripping acid.
Percy considered extending another olive branch. The company could be renamed to the SDC — he didn't actually care what it was called — or Jacques could remain a figurehead. Hades, he'd even be willing to let Winter run it.
But no. Jacques had been quite clear that compassion wasn't what he wanted from Percy.
Percy began leaving, but paused just short of the door. "Your family won't be under house arrest. They're free to leave whenever they'd like. Weiss can go to Beacon."
"You've already taken one of my daughters, and now you take a second. I expect the rest of my family will be next?"
Percy might have mistaken it for a joke if it weren't for his dead tone and steel-cold eyes.
Percy began to turn, but hesitated for a long moment. He knew he wanted to say something, but… what could he say? He'd already said it, and Jacques refused to hear it.
Nothing. There was nothing he could say to change his mind.
Silently, Percy turned and left.
A violently shaking hand lifted the glass to Jacques' lips, the once sweet drink leaving nothing but a bitter aftertaste.
Jacques sat in the small room and watched as the lonely fire slowly grew cold.
"I've so clearly made this scene already in my head that actually making it seems like a waste of effort."
- Monty Oum.
Percy's eyes fluttered open and then slammed shut to block out the blinding white all around him.
Wait, what?
Percy forced his eyes open to take in his surroundings, suddenly alarmed at not knowing where he was. But when he did, he found nothing but white in every direction.
"Where the…?"
"Your head."
Percy span around, and let out a deep breath of exasperated relief when he found Oum standing there with a plastic cup of coffee in his hand.
It took a moment for his mind to catch up. "This is a dream?"
"Yeah." Monty nodded. "Well, technically…" he scratched his head for a moment. "Yeah, it's all a bit complicated on the backend. For all intents and purposes, you're dreaming."
Percy blinked. "Okay… why am I here?" he hadn't dreamed since he'd arrived in Remnant, something he considered a blessing. But other than when Percy had first been sent here — where they'd spoken in an endless white field like this one — Monty had always just… appeared wherever Percy was.
"Why are any of us here?" he quipped, which to Percy seemed like an alarmingly nihilistic question for a creation god.
Percy waited for the real answer, but none came. "So are we just gonna sit here all night, or…?"
Monty rolled his eyes, "Can't I pay a social visit?"
Percy's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Most of their visits were 'social', but those had been increasingly rare since he got here. The last time they'd spoken…
"You owe me some answers." Percy remembered.
Monty wore a self-satisfied smile. "And there we are."
Percy groaned. "That's why you pulled me into this dream?"
He shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee. "It'd be a bit weird to be waiting next to your bed when you woke up."
"Why couldn't you have just told me- you know what, forget it. You promised you'd tell me what's of so much importance in Remnant when the war with Atlas was over, so spill."
"Things have remained on track enough that I'll tell you, but I did warn you that it wouldn't mean anything to you right now."
"Trust me, I'm used to gods spouting cryptic messages by now." Percy said dryly.
Monty smiled knowingly. "How about writing them?"
Percy was opening his eyes for a second time before he could respond, this time in the room he'd been given to stay in in Mantle. He groaned, pressing the heel of his palms into his eyes and rubbing the sleep out of them.
What the Hades was that about?
Monty had dragged him into a dream to tell him what he'd promised to before the big battle with Atlas, and then… what? Changed his mind?
Fucking gods…
Groaning, Percy reached to his bedside table to fumble around for his scroll and turn off his alarm. Looked like he'd be getting an early start today.
Half blind, Percy only noticed the small piece of paper when his hand landed on it on the nightstand. Blinking the last smudges out of his eyes, Percy looked over to find a small piece of paper no bigger than a sticky note folded in half. It looked like it'd been haphazardly torn from a notepad, and the last words Oum had said before he woke up clicked into place.
Unable to contain his curiosity, Percy leaned up in bed and grabbed the note. Unfolding it, Percy found the answer he'd been promised scrawled messily in black ink.
RWBY
Next Chapter January 1, 2023