Cover Art: Aristeo Storm

Chapter 30

Lessons went by in a blur, and Qrow spent most of it wondering who the spy in Beacon would be. Ozpin had never mentioned it before, but that could have meant anything. If the spy had graduated and moved on before Qrow became Ozpin's agent then it never would have come up in conversation.

Could it have been someone in his own year? Possibly. Qrow would be the first to admit he hadn't paid attention to most of the people in class. They just weren't his priority. The others had friendly relations with their classmates, and sometimes Raven would mention one as being good to spar against, but Qrow would always just hum and blank them out in his mind. It sounded cruel, but he wasn't here to make friends.

When classes eventually did end for the day, he began to wonder if something was delaying the spy, or if they'd decided against it, before an older boy with oddly familiar hair – a shade of lime green – approached them with a warm smile.

"Hello there. You must be Qrow. My partner has told me a little about you."

Qrow paused, flabbergasted, and it was probably that which saved him blurting out a name he wasn't supposed to know. His team paused, unsure who this was, and Raven, as ever, refused to let that go. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Ah, forgive me. Bartholomew Oobleck. I'm part of a second-year team. My partner, Roman, has been sparring with Qrow in his spare time. He's improved drastically as a result of it, so I wanted to come offer my thanks."

Bartholomew Oobleck.

Of all the people to be some secret spy, this was not the man who came to mind – which was probably a good thing since a spy was meant to be secret. But he'd become a teacher in the future, working under Ozpin. Had he been a spy even then? Had Ozpin known? He must have. Qrow couldn't believe a world in which Ozpin wasn't aware. The man was always so on top of everything, so sure of himself, that he must have known and been playing Oobleck all along. Or working with him.

Yeah. Ozpin must have known. He always does. He probably just didn't tell me because it wasn't relevant.

Qrow realised his silence had caused everyone to stare and quickly answered. "Oh. Yeah, sure. No problem. Sorry I can't spar with him with my shoulder and all."

Raven didn't care about that. But she did care about what had been said. "What's this about you sparring with someone else anyway? You should have been sparring with me."

"It was something Ozpin asked me to do—"

"Why? I'd have sparred with a second year."

"Look, it's not my place to say. Ozpin asked me to do it as a favour and I agreed. That's all. Besides, Roman wouldn't want this sharing." He shot Oobleck a warning look. This may have been a signal, but he very much doubted Roman had actually confessed to this. Now, the secret was out in the open. "It's embarrassing for him to need advice from someone a year younger than him, so don't any of you go talking about it."

"He's weak, then." Raven closed her eyes and huffed. "Never mind. I don't want to spar with him."

"Don't be nasty!" Summer hissed, punching Raven's arm. "We'll keep it secret. It's not any of our business."

"Appreciated," Oobleck said. "I was hoping to speak with you in private, Qrow. With your shoulder as it is, I want to take over and help my partner but… well… if I'd known how to do that then your help wouldn't have been necessary in the first place. I'd like to pick your brain for ideas if you have time. With any luck, I'll be able to take over it permanently and help Roman out."

It was a good excuse. Qrow accepted and agreed to meet up with his and his sister's team later, and no one batted an eye at what was a very reasonable talk about personal training. Teammates did it all the time, and they could respect Oobleck wanting to support his partner.

He's good, Qrow thought. He managed to come up with an excuse to get us alone and even managed to turn Raven away. She's normally keen to get involved whenever training is brought up, but he managed to make it sound boring.

Oobleck led him down a few corridors and up a flight of stairs. Since final classes had just ended, people would be heading for dinner, which mean the upper floors of Beacon were practically abandoned. Instead of taking Qrow into a public restroom or bedroom where someone might overhear, Oobleck chose for them the end of a hallway, with a wall and window to one side and an open corridor with which to see anyone nearby on their other side. It would be difficult for someone to listen in unless they were hanging outside the window. To Qrow's surprise, Oobleck went and checked that, opening the window and peering out before closing it and turning back to him.

"Paranoid much?"

"Cautious. That's all."

"I guess that's fair given you're… what, some super spy?"

Oobleck chuckled. He didn't talk as rapidly as he did in the future. "I wouldn't call me a super anything. I'm a minor agent at best, hardly even fit for the role I've been given. It was intended I remain inactive in Beacon until I'd gained enough skill here to be of use, but they needed someone with some degree of huntsman training for this mission."

Inactive in Beacon? That was good news, since it meant the group wasn't spying on Ozpin or holding any plans against the students. As he'd thought before, it was logical for them to have a few people with this kind of training.

"I'd have thought all of you would have huntsman training."

"We all have aura and some degree of training, yes, but Beacon teaches more than just that. Most of our duties are against other people, which isn't the same as fighting Grimm. Given that the Grimm are a threat to the city, however, it makes sense to have a selection of agents trained and capable of dealing with them."

"I see. Your future missions are likely to be outside the city, then?"

"I would assume so." Oobleck sounded genuine, but then no one could predict the future. Maybe his orders had changed in time. "But given Atlas smuggling Grimm in and now this farce in Mountain Glenn, it seems my training will be called into question within the city limits. Bad news all around, I say."

"Yes. The Grimm should be kept outside the walls at all costs."

Oobleck flashed a smile. "Glad to see we agree. I'm authorised to tell you about my operation and involve you in it. What do you know so far?"

"That you're going to pose as a bounty hunter. That's about it."

"Right. Well, we don't yet have definitive proof it's the research facility calling for mercenaries and bounty hunters. They're scheduling a meeting to discuss the matter with several of us at once and I've been invited to that. I somehow doubt they'll come in person and explain their motives, but we'll at least know if they want us to procure Grimm for them. What's causing my superiors no small amount of concern is how unhurried they are to make this meeting."

"Really? Why?"

"Given the strict deadline this facility has and their fears of being shut down that you overheard, you'd think they would be desperate for subjects. Instead, they're content to make us wait for a few days. That implies one thing."

Qrow swore. "Fuck! They got a shipment in!"

"Yes. That's our fear. Luckily, it seems to have gone well since we haven't had an outbreak in Mountain Glenn, but that still means someone has given them Grimm. And we don't believe it's Atlas after how burnt they were before."

Not Atlas, certainly not the White Fang. That still left an unfortunate number of options. His first instinct was to blame Salem, but the truth was there were plenty of others who might do it, particularly for money. Not to mention the facility had its own contingent of soldiers that might have gone out and risked their life to capture some Grimm in order to earn a bonus.

I still want to be sure, though. There's a chance Salem is involved now.

"Do we know who?"

"No. I'm tentatively hoping they might reveal it in the meeting, but that feels like a long one for sure." Oobleck sighed. "Either way, we have people watching the walls for any future meetings, and we're also tracking finances in and out of the city. No wire payments have been made, so it was either a case payment or an exchange of favours."

"I'm not sure which is more worrying."

"The favours for sure," he said. "Mercenaries can be bought off, and we're willing to throw money at this to stop it being a problem. There's no telling what someone asking for a favour might want, but it'll be difficult for us to track them down. Either way, we have our eyes on Mountain Glenn from every angle now. I'll also be tagging every bounty hunter and mercenary who comes to the meeting. They will be tracked."

"Sounds good." Qrow was pleased they were so proactive. "Anything else?"

"There's talk of having me capture Grimm and us injecting them with microchips to monitor what is done to them. It's a controversial plan and not at all decided yet. We don't want to bring Grimm into the city either, though we could at least guarantee they were safely transported."

"Only problem there is if the facility kills them," Qrow pointed out. "A microchip falling out a Grimm as it dissolves isn't something you up and ignore. The facility will realise something is up instantly."

Oobleck shrugged. "They're likely on high alert anyway after the shipment from Atlas was intercepted. I wouldn't be surprised if they're breaking laws both domestically and back home at this point. They have to know it's succeed now or become a scapegoat back home."

"Atlas, eh?"

"Atlas," Oobleck agreed, with a hefty sigh. "They'll throw anyone into the fire if it lets them protect their reputation. Either way, that's you brought up to speed on my role. Yours will still be to infiltrate the facility once you're healthy. We need to know what they are doing and why they need Grimm."

"Have there been any attempts made or are you all waiting on me?"

"Of course there have been attempts. We're not about to risk the future of Mountain Glenn on a first-year student. We've tried to have men inserted into their employ, we've tried hacking, and we've even tried bribing their soldiers. If nothing, they're fiercely loyal. Recklessly so, in fact. We found out one has cheated on his wife and threatened to go public with that information and his response was duty before dishonour, which doesn't make much sense since he's dishonoured himself anyway. Their fervour goes beyond typical Atlas patriotism. I suspect they've been handpicked for their loyalty. Background checks have shown remarkable levels of faunus racism and violence among them, and while that and patriotism aren't synonymous, it does tend to be that those espousing hatred of faunus are the most patriotic in Atlas."

That tracked. In the future, there were plenty of people in the Atlas military who respected and admired their faunus comrades – Ironwood among them – but Qrow knew there were all too many officers who didn't, and who argued that Atlas was weakening itself by taking in the faunus. Ironwood had complained about those assholes enough times within Qrow's hearing to know it was a systematic problem in the military.

"If you fail, we'll try harsher methods – perhaps even abducting and torturing one of their security guards."

"Hell! Is that legal in Vale?"

"No. But laws are designed to keep the public in order, not to hamstring us. The security of the city takes precedence over the law – and over our feelings." Oobleck had the good grace to rub his arm uncomfortably and look away. "I'm hoping you can infiltrate successfully and find what we need. I really am."

"Yeah," Qrow said. "Me too."

/-/

It was two weeks later when Qrow was brought into the infirmary to have his shoulder checked and was given a tentative all-clear to being light training once more. The doctor forced him through an hour-long instructional video on just how quickly he could undo all his healing if he pushed himself too hard. Qrow had forced kids in Signal to watch the exact same video – it even had the talking dog puppet.

To this day, Qrow still wasn't sure why it had a talking dog.

As much as he'd like to say he was beyond it, he was also self-aware enough to know adult huntsmen had worse records for re-injuring themselves than children. Younger teenagers could be rebellious, but they were in school, so there weren't that many chances to mess it up. Older huntsmen had mortgages, bills, jobs and the guilt of imagining what the Grimm were doing to innocent people while they were bedridden. All of which led to higher rates of injury.

It's not like they'll let me infiltrate the lab until I'm fully healed. They won't want to take that risk.

"Assuming I rest and don't do anything intense, how soon can I be back to full strength, doctor?"

The man smiled. It must have been nice to have a student actually planning to stick to their recovery regime. "I think you could be back to full strength within a week. I'll give you a programme I want you to follow. Light stretches and recovery exercises. Do those twice a day and don't get into any fights, and I expect you'll be back to normal by next weekend."

"I'll make sure he doesn't, sir," Gretchen said.

"Hey, it's not like I'm planning to juggle chainsaws."

"No, but you're too easily goaded into spars with your sister."

That wasn't entirely untrue but, in his defence, it was nice to have his sister back. To actually be able to see her as his sister and not some jaded shell of a woman abducting and ransoming innocent people.

With programme in hand, Qrow and Gretchen left the infirmary. As if summoned by the very thought of her (but more likely because she'd been worried for him) Raven was leaning against the wall outside.

Qrow couldn't resist.

"That worried about me, sis?"

"No." Raven wasn't the kind of person to blush, but her eyes did flicker sideways when she lied. Cute. "I just wanted to know when you'd be up to fight. You've probably grown weak as a baby with so long out of action."

"I'm—"

"He needs a full week," Gretchen interrupted. "A full week and he can have a big fight with you, but do it before and he'll be at half-strength and any victory would be pointless."

"Hmph. Next Sunday, then. I want a proper spar then."

"Sure thing."

"You'd better not have fallen too far behind me," she warned, before pushing off the wall and walking away.

Fall too far…? Raven, you've never bested me in a spar. Sheesh. He'd have to remind her where she stood come the next weekend, though that might be before or after his work in Mountain Glenn.

Oobleck would be meeting with the other bounty hunters and their contact this very night. The fact the facility was willing to wait two whole weeks to give them their instructions was a bad sign, all but confirming they'd found other Grimm in the immediate term. Or that they had spare left over from prior shipments. Qrow hoped it was the latter but didn't believe it would be.

Last week, he'd had his "interview" with an officer from Atlas, accompanied by his own lawyer from the city. Not much had happened during it. The officer had parroted lines about White Fang involvement, the lawyer had demanded evidence, and the officer had all but refused – stating it was a "matter of national security" and therefore evidence would not be shared with the public lest it place their sources at great risk.

All very diplomatic and reasonable, and the worst part was the officer probably believed it. He'd been much too staunch in the interview, never even reacting to Qrow's little barbs. The man had been apologetic of Qrow's injury as well, and accepted some fault on Atlas' behalf even if he claimed the blame ultimately fell with the White Fang. He'd offered compensation, which his lawyer had rejected because he said it would close the case.

In the end, the officer left with the assumption Qrow was some bitter youth trying to steal taxpayer money from Atlas, and Qrow left with the knowledge that Atlas were prepared to throw money around to brush this under the rug. General Sol, the instigator, hadn't even bothered to show up for the interview. Apparently, he was far too busy leading an investigation against the White Fang, which would presumably turn up lots more evidence that conveniently couldn't be shared for national security reasons.

"You're brooding again."

"Sorry." He laughed it off. "Just annoyed about Atlas and that interview."

It was Gretchen's turn to show her temper. "Tell me about it! I can't believe they're blowing off everything we saw like that! And people are believing them, too!"

The public opinion was mostly on Atlas' side. Not necessarily because of any great amount of trust in them, but because of a lack of trust in a bunch of unknown students. Atlas was a kingdom, a government, while they were just faceless teenagers. It was all too easy for the news stations more favourable to Atlas to brush what they saw off as exaggerated and fanciful tales of children wanting their fifteen minutes of fame. They'd even pointed out that none of the students had shown themselves in public, as if that cast further doubt on their honesty.

None of them had been invited onto those shows to tell what they saw in the first place!

Assholes. They'd had General Sol on television, and they'd had so-called experts on terrorism there, all of whom had held the party line, and the people of Vale didn't want to believe they were all lying. To be fair, Vale – the city, not the kingdom – had always had a "head in the sand" mentality.

The people who lived in the city enjoyed a level of safety and security few others did, and rather than think on that and the people outside the walls who lived under threat of attack every day, they would complain about the economy, about inflation, about the price of cigarettes and how late the trains were. Anything to not have to confront the horrors outside.

Ironically, that was probably a healthier way for them to live. Worrying about things you couldn't change only caused stress, and ignorance very much was bliss when it came to some of the things he'd seen outside the walls.

"Aaand you're brooding again."

"I'm a broody man."

"Don't I know it. You're making me cynical as well. I never was, you know. I always saw the best in things." Gretchen glowered accusingly at him. "And now I'm the kind of person who thinks how corrupt governments are and how self-serving everyone is. Thanks for that."

"You're welcome."

A masked figure stepped into the corridor ahead of them, momentarily making them both freeze until they noticed the crutches and the limp. "Seriously," Gretchen hissed. "She wears that skull mask inside…?"

"I heard that," Maria Calavera accused. "And mind your manners. I've enough dealing with the one brat."

"Blame Qrow. He's corrupted me."

"Idiot student of mine."

"Don't side with her!" Qrow growled. "Maybe Gretchen is the one corrupting me."

A crutch came out to poke at his chest, only for Qrow to catch it. He considered shoving it back but didn't trust Maria not to let herself fall just to paint him as the asshole. He let it go with a roll of his eyes. "What is it now, grandma? Don't tell me we're going outside the city again."

"You are."

"That's—"

"Your team, that is." Maria interrupted his tirade and surprised him at the same time. Gretchen perked up. "You're all making up for that training exercise you lost out on due to the brat's injury."

"Which I got saving your life."

"Inconclusive. I had her."

"You absolutely did not!"

"Anyway…" Maria bulled on over him. "Ozpin was all for letting you have a pass on the basis you'd showed more than enough initiative for it, but the headmaster thinks otherwise." Maria sneered the man's title. "He's pushing Ozpin to see you all properly tested."

Gretchen caught the derision. "Why? Is this a punishment?"

"If it is, it's one aimed at Ozpin instead of you four. He has to accompany you out of school to run this little test, so it may be to get him out the headmaster's hair. I probably shouldn't say but I'm not a teacher here, so fuck it. Basically, Ozpin has been pissed at the headmaster for not standing up to Atlas on your behalf."

"Best teacher…" Gretchen whispered.

Qrow absolutely agreed. Oz always had been on their side.

"So, the headmaster is flexing his muscles to remind Ozpin of his place and also get him, and you, out the school. I wouldn't worry about your safety. This is a petty power play between two adults. Still, Ozpin can't technically refuse without giving the headmaster reason to fire him."

"Why is he headmaster again?"

"Because he was a great huntsman and even better teacher once. Old age sneaks up on everyone, brat. It makes bitter old fossils out of the brightest and most cheerful of people. You'll be a cantankerous old fart one day. Assuming you survive long enough. Anyway, Ozpin is talking with your other teammates but sent me to tell you. The four of you will be dealing with a small Grimm situation to the west of Mountain Glenn. You," she said, staring at Qrow, "should stay out of it for the sake of your shoulder. Or take pot shots from a distance with your good arm."

"Isn't it a little reckless to send our team out at all when Qrow is injured?"

"He's technically not injured anymore." The way she said it made it clear she knew he still was. Her own injury would take much longer to heal, being right through the leg and thigh. "But Ozpin will be with you anyway, and he'll intervene if things look tough. Keep your wits about you and you'll be fine. Most Grimm close to Mountain Glenn have been culled anyway."

But not all bounty hunters, Qrow thought. Could this be related? Does Ozpin know… No. No, he can't. Otherwise he'd have wanted to come out here and wouldn't need to be forced by the headmaster.

"It should only take a day or two," Maria said. "But you'll get your passing grade for the exam you missed picking me up. For what it's worth, I'm hearing a lot of talk from the staffrooms and none of the teachers are pleased with the games the headmaster is playing. I haven't found a single one who doesn't think you four earned your pass by rescuing me."

Qrow smirked. "The headmaster isn't going to be here for long, then."

Maria smiled back. "Not likely. I've heard one or two talk of a motion of a teacher's strike bundled up with a motion of no confidence."

"Would that do anything?" Gretchen asked.

"It doesn't have to. If enough teachers agree and deliver it to the headmaster, he'll have a choice between rejecting their demands for him to quit and humiliating himself as every teacher under his employ goes on strike or retiring with what little grace he has left and keeping his reputation as a successful huntsman. He's old. He isn't going to want his legacy to be dragged through the mud, and the newspapers and media would be all over him if every teacher refused to work. He'll take the path of least resistance." Maria snorted. "It's what he did with Atlas, the coward."

That was good news. Earlier than it had been in his past life, too. Ozpin had become headmaster after the fall of Mountain Glenn, but if he was looking to stop that then it was good he found a new way to the position. Qrow just hoped that if Mountain Glenn did fall again, Ozpin wouldn't be swept up in that. He shouldn't be. Even if the worst came to pass, everyone would know that the decisions surrounding Mountain Glenn had been made by Ozpin's predecessor.

And that's if it falls, which it won't. Having Ozpin become headmaster this way is a net positive.

"Thanks for letting us know, then. When do we leave?"

"Tonight. Why do you think Ozpin sent me to find you now rather than wait for you to meet up with your teammates? Go back to your dorm and prep. And keep an eye on yourselves," she added. "We both know there's shit up with what happened to Baxterville. Ozpin will keep you safe, but that doesn't mean you can afford to let your guards down."

Next Chapter: 8th March

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