"Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier."

- Curtis LeMay

"If we were to be on the same team, we'd dominate the competition!"

Blake spared a glance to where her two priority number one 'avoid at all costs' targets were speaking.

"Mhm."

Or, well, less that they were speaking and more that the Schnee had ambushed Nikos while she was gathering things from her locker.

"You'll be the best in combat in the year — obviously — and I achieved the maximum score on the academic section of the placement exam. We'll be the best two students in the school as partners!"

"Ah, yes, that sounds lovely." the plasticity of Nikos' voice couldn't be missed.

"Oh, I'm glad you think so, we'll be excellent partners!"

Or not.

"Well, we still have to see how partners are determined. We might not get to choose our partners at all." the championship fighter said, sounding oddly hopeful it wouldn't be voluntary.

"Oh, nonsense! They have to let us be partners, we're even associated through Perc- er- Perseus! I've never seen him fight, though, is he as good as the rumors say?"

"Aha, yeah… He's… really good!" the redhead replied, forced enthusiasm leaking through every word.

Blake winced, shutting her own locker. The ice princess may be the most socially oblivious person she'd ever seen. She was clearly driving the champion fighter away with every new attempt to win her over.

Just before Blake walked away she noticed a blonde boy interject himself between the two, speaking to the Schnee who seemed rather annoyed at him getting between them. The last thing she saw before passing through the doorway out of the bathroom was Nikos shooting the back of the boy's head a grateful smile. Well, go figure, Blake wasn't the only one who had a modicum of social awareness.

A moment later she was reminded that while she might not be the only one, she was still in the minority.

"Hey small, dark, and mysterious." the boisterous girl that had refused to leave her alone the night before — Bang? Yang? That was it — sidled up to walk next to her. "Get any sleep?"

"Plenty." Blake deadpanned, the girl apparently not catching the outstandingly obvious lack of enthusiasm in her voice. It was bad enough that she was far too energetic — for this time of morning, especially — but to top it off she was friends with Nikos. If Blake got stuck as the blonde's partner on a team with Perseus' two favorite pets, she may as well take the next flight to the grimmlands as far as her life expectancy was concerned. Problems with the White Fang though she may have had, at that point leaving Beacon and risking it on the run would be preferable.

"Well that's good, you need your energy for initiation, right? Are you excited?"

What was wrong with this damn girl?

"Ecstatic." she deadpanned again, considering just telling the blonde flat out to leave her alone.

No, it might give her temporary salvation, but it would draw attention. The last thing she needed was for tall, shiny, and red to come over and run her through the wringer for hurting her friend's feelings.

Blake wasn't one to let herself get tossed around, she'd stood up against squads of Atlesian soldiers and Vacuan huntsmen alike, but Pyrrha Nikos?

Yeah, she'd rather not take her chances.

Plus, on the off chance she managed to so much as scratch the girl she knew there was nowhere on Remnant she could hide that Perseus wouldn't follow.

"What's got you in such a sour mood? Nervous?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Yang!"

Blake thanked her lucky stars once they reached the designated initiation area and blondie was immediately ambushed by a red blur. She took the godsend for what it was and made her escape to stand on one of the designated platforms, content to simply wait until the initiation started. It was a bit boring, but she vastly preferred the monotony of the birds chirping to being forced to think up new, creative ways of getting the blonde girl to stay far, far away from her.

She waited for long enough that she was pretty sure she'd fallen asleep standing up for a moment, the light breeze and warm sun lulling her into a state of relaxation, only startled to attention by Headmaster Ozpin.

"Students! Welcome… to Beacon Academy initiation."

"...and this billet, here, would have authority over all of Mistral's ground combat forces. That is, the forces for combatting opposing conventional forces only, though they could of course serve other functions should there be a need. The position above them is the general in charge of all ground forces, which would include the combat divisions, logistics, QRF, GRF, armor, and all other military operations not under either our air wing… or the navy."

Percy tried to remain focused, being pitched a proposal Shiro wanted him to hear. The early middle aged man presenting it on a small stand in front of him was a member of nobility to some function — likely the nephew of the leader of one of the minor houses he hadn't heard of, or someone equally irrelevant — and wore the bird of a colonel on his crisp uniform. The beginnings of gray edged in at his hair, but otherwise he looked young. Creative enough to have come up with something relevant, old enough to have the wisdom to think it through.

"That's a lot of power for one person." Percy commented, speaking up for the first time since the presentation had started. "For any of the chief positions — army especially."

The proposal wasn't dissimilar to what he knew of the US military — and probably most other modern militaries on Earth, though he had no real clue — and how it worked. Branches of service with delegated authority. The only problem was…

"Putting that kind of power in the hands of any one random general isn't bound to end well."

The officer squirmed. "The successful operation of the military requires some individuals to be trusted rather… extensively, at times. A soldier's loyalty is to Mistral — to you, Perseus."

"Loyalties can change." he refuted. "The problem is when an individual's loyalty can begin to affect that of the entire military — which, despite technically assigning the captured Atlesian fleet to the airforce and our blue water fleet to the navy, the army is still virtually the entire military, personnel wise especially."

"No soldier would refuse your orders, Perseus." The officer looked scandalized, if not offended outright. "It was the military that hailed you first. More than any other's, the military's loyalty lies unerringly with you."

"You were the ones to raise me, just as you can be the ones to tear me back down."

The officer didn't respond verbally, sending a helpless glance to Percy's right.

Shiro, the only other one in the room, cleared his throat and leaned forwards in his chair, prompting Percy to turn towards him.

"Percy, these aren't your personal forces anymore — they aren't another branch of our operations. We've been keeping things going like nothing's changed, but you're not just leading from the shadows anymore — you are the country. Countries have militaries, and sometimes you have to trust people to lead them who you haven't personally assured the loyalty of."

Percy frowned at him. "I'm not saying every officer needs to be checked by me personally, but what we have right now is doing just fine."

"It's really not." Shiro disagreed. "I know you weren't in the control room during the battle, but it was a clusterfuck. We're lucky it went as well as it did before you intervened, and even then the battle would've been up in the air without you. We saw what combat was like, and we're improving on what we have."

It was Percy's turn to sigh. He'd lamented how nobody in his ranks had any real combat experience — literally none of them — but now that they had some and they wanted to make some changes, he was hesitant to make them. He knew it was tried and proven back on Earth, he was just… apprehensive.

"Is this what you want?" he asked Shiro. "Do you support this plan?"

There was a knock at the door to the small meeting room.

"Come in!" Percy called, briefly glancing to the door to see it was Cinder walking in with her green-haired pet. He mentally flicked himself, he'd lost track of the time.

"I think it's a good idea." Shiro answered.

"Take a seat, I'll just be a second." Percy gestured for Cinder to join them, turning back to the officer. "Alright, do it. You have my permission, reorganize the entire thing."

The man looked like he'd gotten whiplash from how quickly Percy had gotten on board once Shiro had thrown his support behind it, but he nodded nonetheless. "As you say, we'll get started immediately. Before we can, we do need you to promote leaders to each branch, Perseus."

Percy waved him off, already picking up a folder Cinder had slid across the table and flicking through it. "Shiro stays in charge of the army until he finds someone to replace himself, and I'll take the navy personally. Shiro, find whoever you want for the airforce."

Shiro groaned, standing from his seat. "Percy, I'm in charge of a lot already — the entire point of this was to limit how much micromanaging I'm going to be doing."

Percy shot him a side glance, flicking through another page. "From what I understand all of our most senior command staff were killed during the battle, meaning we have nobody readily available for such a position. And besides, even with you still in charge of the army isn't this taking a lot off your plate in the meantime?"

"Touche." Shiro sighed, shoving in his chair and moving to hold the door open.

"Ave!" The officer bid Percy a salute as he left the room, Shiro walking out after and shutting the door behind them.

"Quite a fun place you've got here." Cinder quipped, looking over the brown carpet and gray walls.

"It's a military base, interior design wasn't exactly the priority." Percy deadpanned, shuffling his way to the last page and thankfully not having to spend too long deciphering the various captions given their large black font. "Now what's your point with all this?" he asked, closing the folder and tossing it back to her.

"The situation in Atlas is declining." she replied bluntly. Idly, Percy noticed the green haired girl taking up a position near the corner of the room.

"What's your point?" he asked, just as bluntly. "Why do you care?"

"Because despite the fact she's underground now, we'll need to find the Winter maiden eventually, and we'll need to hold control over the vault of creation when we do find her." Cinder scowled, picking up the folder and beginning to take pages out one by one, laying them on the table in front of her. "Riots, police violence, suppression of speech, protests interrupted by soldiers — the unrest in Atlas looks like it'll be boiling over soon. If that happens, your ally will lose her hold on it, and you'll lose your hold along with her."

Percy frowned at the newspaper headers and pictures from various incidents in Atlas recently.

"These are over what — the last week?" he asked incredulously, picking one paper up and seeing it was dated yesterday. "A bit of unrest for a week is hardly a major problem. I trust Winter to be able to deal with it."

Cinder rolled her eyes, "I wouldn't be so sure. She was a fresh graduate when you made her general, Percy. She's doing well enough, but your confidence in her leadership is unfounded."

Percy huffed, "Okay, so what do you want me to do about it?"

She looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "You're telling me you conquered half of Remnant and you need me to tell you how to put down a bit of unrest? I don't have an agenda here — just help her however you see fit, or do nothing if you truly think it best. I'm simply here to keep you informed."

Percy took a deep breath. While he knew she wasn't exactly a paragon of virtue, Cinder had been doing a lot for him that he knew she didn't have an ulterior motive for, recently. He suspected her 'ulterior motive' was to make herself useful to him, so he'd keep her around and with all the resources she needed. Plus, it's not like she was wrong. If they lost Atlas, it wouldn't exactly be good for her either.

"Yeah, I know, sorry. I'll touch base with Winter some time to see if she needs any help, but Atlas just went through a lot of change — unrest is inevitable. That being said, I'll make sure to keep an eye on it." he granted.

"Thank you." Cinder smiled tightly. "Now, speaking of keeping you informed, I do have some bad news. Ozpin has met with the headmistress of Haven."

Percy raised a dubious eyebrow, shifting in his seat. "They're headmasters of huntsmen academies, of course they'd meet."

"And yet, Ozpin is not merely a headmaster." she said, and Percy groaned. "I see you understand."

"He told her, didn't he?" Percy asked rhetorically. Of course he would. Headmaster Lionheart, the one in charge of Haven before Heather, had been a staunch ally of Ozpin's. Ironwood had been to his dying breath — literally — and it was likely it was the same for Shade's headmistress, though that was conjecture considering the Asturias' had gotten to the vault of destruction without any issues, as far as he knew. Though, that could've just as easily been because they hadn't believed Summer would work with them.

Point being, Ozpin made a habit of making allies out of the heads of the four academies, and letting them in on the secrets of Remnant. Or at least, his version of them. That he'd tell Heather and convince her he was the only one that could be trusted was just short of a given. The only question was when.

"So, we have a problem." Cinder adjusted in her seat, crossing her legs. "If he hasn't told her already, he will soon. Now unless you'd like to try to convince her yourself…"

Percy shook his head, he couldn't say a word.

"Well then she's almost certain to be told at the Vytal festival, assuming she hasn't been already. You do have to do something, unless you like the idea of the woman in charge of all of your huntsmen being controlled from the shadows by an immortal parasite."

Percy scowled. "I'll be heading to Beacon for the festival instead of Heather," he told her. "I figure that fits in well with our other project as well, and gives me a convenient excuse to be there."

A shadow of a grin tugged at the corner of Cinder's lips. "Oh? You seem to have this all figured out."

He shrugged, "I got the idea after Belladonna ran to Beacon. Figure I can take care of both problems at once."

Cinder raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Belladonna's that important to you, that she's a consideration when relics are at stake?"

"She's not important to me, she's important to Adam and her parents." He corrected. "Which makes her important enough to be a consideration, yes." He said, doing his best to skirt around just how important she really was to him.

"The Vytal festival isn't for a few months yet." Cinder pointed out. "That's a long time to sit around doing nothing."

"I'll hardly be doing nothing." He grunted, kicking his legs up on the chair next to him. "I have the other maidens to look for, and quite a bit besides that. If this Atlas debacle is as bad as you think it might be, that's just one more thing to add on. I plan on heading to Beacon a month or two early anyway — there's no specific guidelines saying when representatives have to arrive, and I intend to push the limits of precedent there."

Cinder's eyes gained a glint of mischief. "You could always take me with you to Beacon. If you said I was an assistant teacher at Haven, no-one would question it."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "What's the problem, don't trust me?"

She rolled her eyes. "More than you trust me. But no, I'd just like to aid in gaining the first relic as soon as possible. I know what to look for better than you, after all."

He hummed. "Fair enough, I'll consider it. You'll have your answer before I'm at Beacon."

Cinder stood, and he joined her. "Now who doesn't trust who, hm?" she taunted, turning to the door. "I await your decision. In the meantime, my mistress has expressed that she's looking forward to speaking to you personally. I've been delaying, but I cannot do so indefinitely. I doubt it would be best if you spoke in person the first time for… adjustment reasons, so name a place and time and I can direct her messenger there."

Percy shot her a curious glance, reaching over and opening the door for her. "You say it like I don't want to meet her."

Cinder paused in the doorframe, frowning distastefully. "She serves her purpose well enough, but in the end she'll just be another obstacle in our way."

Our way, Percy noted. Percy certainly had his own goals, and Cinder's goals were, as far as he knew, just to accrue as much power as she could for herself. But our goals way meant something more. It meant a plan.

Cinder had an end goal for them both, and Percy wasn't sure it was one he shared.

Blake stared ahead blankly, barely registering professor Goodwitch's speech. It could be worse, she told herself. She could be on a team with Pyrrha Nikos.

She briefly glanced to her right at where the girl in question stood with who would almost certainly become her team, sharing happy glances between them.

Yes, that would be worse. If she'd been on a team with both Nikos and the Schnee, that would have been the worst case scenario. But she wasn't. She'd only be put on a team with one of them, and the other one's two friends.

She wanted to die.

She wasn't unlikely to get her wish, from the looks of it. When Perseus inevitably came snooping for his protege and the heiress to the Schnee name, Blake had been banking on being far, far away from them. He'd know she was at Beacon — he knew everything, Blake had learned from countless intelligence briefings — but she was really hoping she'd be beneath his notice, and he'd ignore her in favor of the important people.

But no. Now she was on a team with one, and bound to be in constant vicinity of the other. He'd come around to scheme with Ozpin, have a quick chat with Pyrrha about the friends she'd made, hear that Blake had been snooping around what was his, and then she wouldn't get to wake up the next morning. It was that simple.

As headmaster Ozpin took the stage and began reading out the team designations, Blake suppressed an envious glare at the crimsonette. Their places should be swapped. Pyrrha Nikos on a team with Weiss Schnee, partners with her best friend, and Blake on a team full of nobodies far away from them all. But no, apparently destiny had decided to switch their teams.

"Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, and Lie Ren, led by Jaune Arc. Team JNPR." Ozpin announced, beginning to read off the team assignments. He knew what he was doing, he had to. Damn him. Damn him to hell.

As he neared the end of the list, Blake began to accept her fate. If she'd die, at least she got a couple months advance notice — assuming she was lucky enough to avoid him for that long. A couple months without waging a war, dealing with Adam's fits of rage, fighting for her life, sleeping on a rag in the middle of the desert — she'd never need to worry about any of that again. Just a few months of homework and tests, and then it'd all be over.

"And lastly,"

Yeah, she'd just have to learn to play the hand she was dealt. That being, of course, her imminent demise.

"Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao-Long, led by Ruby Rose. Team RWBY."

It wasn't until a few weeks later that Percy found himself on a landing pad in Atlas being greeted by Winter.

"Have a nice flight?" Winter greeted casually.

"I hate flying." he sighed, giving her a quick hug before they moved into the tower that dominated Atlas' skyline, both of them dropping the formalities considering they were alone. Well… almost alone.

The dozen automaton soldiers acting as Winter's escort turned and marched neatly alongside them, the newest models from what Percy could tell. The latest models could now fully outperform traditional — human — soldiers in just about everything, and were even starting to close the gap on tactical thinking and low-level leadership. It had been an expensive program developing the software, but the profits from Atlas and the SDC had more than paid for it, and now Mistral was ordering more of its own models. Now that the conflict was over — knock on wood — they could be put to use killing grimm without putting lives at risk.

Winter rolled her eyes indulgently as they walked back to her office. "Air sickness is simply nerves. It's all in your head — it only affects you if you let it."

Percy snorted. "I don't get airsick, I just don't like flying. My dad and my uncle have had a spat going for the last three thousand years, and I've been caught in the middle of it more than once. Even if I know nothing's going to happen, my distaste has been reinforced pretty frequently over the years."

Winter grimaced. "I see. I keep forgetting about your… family."

Percy elbowed her lightly, concealing a wince himself. He enjoyed not having to lie or conceal the truth about his past anymore, but that didn't mean he enjoyed the look on Winter's face when he reminded her he was different. "Hey, don't worry about it. You don't have to deal with any of em', trust me on that. They don't touch anything down here. Too caught up in their own problems." he told her, still not quite willing to go in-depth about the whole 'different world' thing. Mostly because he wasn't sure he entirely understood it himself and explaining it would be… difficult.

"Yeah, well, so am I." she replied wryly, turning around a corner to a large hallway where the dozens of officers present stopped and stood rigidly still when their party came into view, noise cutting immediately. They kept walking with nary an acknowledgement of the attention, Winter occasionally nodding to an officer or two. "But you know that. After all, that's why you're here."

Percy shrugged, "Guilty as charged. I'm getting concerned." he admitted. It wasn't a secret. Cinder had been right. The unrest from that first week hadn't calmed, it had simmered. Percy was here because it looked like it might boil over sooner rather than later, and it had even spread to Mantle and Vale from the looks of it — violence had been on the rise for weeks, shortly after Atlas' spike, if escalating much slower than it was here.

She remained silent for a few seconds while they walked through a waiting room into a large, prestigious office, leaving only the noise of the droids trailing behind them. Winter shut the door after them, walking to sit behind her desk and offering him the seat on the other side.

"Trust me, I am too." she told him, leaning back slightly and crossing her legs. "But I have ways to deal with the unrest. Atlas has ways to deal with the unrest."

"Oh?" Percy gestured for her to continue.

"It is a problem." she admitted, "Which is what I'm concerned about, but it's a problem that can be dealt with. Atlas has many, many fail safes in place. In the end the state will triumph over anything thrown at us."

Percy couldn't help but show his doubt. "And where were these 'fail safes' during the war?"

Winter's eyes flashed. "Shot down by anti-aircraft fire that was supposed to be deactivated."

Percy winced. Okay, that was fair. But what was she planning on doing, nuking the rioters?

"It's not like an Atlas bomb would help here." he vocalized his thoughts. "If Atlas has as much strength as you say it does, why didn't we see any of these other fail safes at the end of the war?"

"A combination of a few reasons." Winter sighed, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward to bring up a large terminal of floating blue light on her desk, tapping away as she spoke. "Firstly, General Ironwood declared a general order he thought would be more than sufficient in the event we fail our primary objective, and then passed down command to someone who you promptly killed along with every other person in the designated General chain of command before any of them could declare an order. After that the chain of command was so disarrayed that nobody alive had the authority to view, much less declare, the full list of general orders. Which leads to reason two; I was made general, and not someone else."

He looked at her curiously as she stopped tapping her terminal, apparently finding whatever she'd been looking for. "Anyone else may have tried to do as much damage as possible the moment they had the authority to, but I did not. It's because of this that I took to personally convincing Atlas' new council that I should remain General, in the recent elections."

He raised an eyebrow at that, failing to hide his surprise. Sure he'd have made sure she stayed in power either way, but that she had taken the initiative to do so meant… he wasn't sure what it meant. She'd have been opposed to something so shady normally, and Percy expected a pretty major reason was behind it. Whatever these fail safes were had played a rather large part, apparently, and Percy's curiosity began to gnaw at him.

"And third, you didn't call for the abolition of the Kingdom of Atlas. If you had, you'd have made a severe mistake. Most general orders don't go into effect unless they're declared by someone of the requisite authority. In the case of the dissolution of the Kingdom of Atlas…" she fell silent, and Percy found himself wondering just what Atlas had that could pose much of a threat when they were as defeated as they had been — what sort of contingencies did they have in place to strike back if they decided it was do or die?

"What is it?" Percy finally asked, his patience having run out. "What other weapon do you have that makes you this confident?"

"Not a weapon." She told him, "Or at least, not as such." At his annoyed look, she continued. "The list of general orders contains many orders the General and others are privileged to give outside their normal authority to… ensure Atlas is as prepared as it can be for any situation it might come across. It was implemented under General Sylvanus, but General Ironwood was the one to expand it from a couple dozen to the one hundred and seventeen it holds today. I've updated some to make them more relevant to the current situation, as well, but I've mostly been busy with other things."

"I've been told of the general orders, but I've only managed to get access to a couple of the classified ones. Considering their nature I thought it might be useful to get access to the rest, but we never had any luck." He admitted.

Winter nodded, through scowled — at the idea he'd even gotten his hands on a couple, he assumed. "It makes sense. Certain units and commanders might be privy to specific orders, but the only ones with access to the full list are a small handful of high command and a select few working in the Office of the General. None survived the battle."

"What's in there that has you so spooked?" he asked, equally unwilling to contain his curiosity and uncaring about the taboo of bluntly asking for state secrets.

"Treu!" Winter called behind him, seemingly ignoring him.

"Ma'am?" a woman was just inside the doorway to the office a moment later, the door apparently materializing open and shut again, considering how quick it had happened. Percy took note of 'Treu' just long enough to dismiss her as a threat. Bright golden insignia pinned on her lapel shiny enough to be new, long-ish blonde hair, thirty-something, officer's uniform, and Percy could put the rest together off that. A competent officer, maybe, but nothing special beyond.

"Serve as witness; I am granting Perseus access to the General Orders for the Grand Army of Atlas, order initiation one through one hundred and seventeen."

Apparently Treu had seen them too, because her face went deathly pale in a picosecond and a hand snapped to her forehead in salute. "Understood, ma'am. I shall inform the requisite command staff."

"Thank you, Treu. You're dismissed." Winter nodded politely, saluting quickly back. The woman sighed in obvious relief and slipped back out the door, gone as quickly as she'd entered.

"What was that about?" Percy quizzed, eyebrows furrowed together in befuddlement.

"We take security very seriously, but as you may have guessed we take the security of our classified general orders very seriously. If anyone in uniform learned you knew of them without my express permission, diplomatic considerations would go out the window; they would attempt to kill you on the spot. She was worried, I'm sure, because she thought I was ordering the execution of one, and was relieved when I did not."

Winter putting it in her usual matter-of-fact way didn't do much to make the information any less ominous, but she pushed on — presumably without noticing.

"You asked what the other general orders were? Take a look for yourself." she tapped a button on her terminal, projecting the screen to a tablet-sized scroll and handing it to him.

Percy expected to be shocked by something in there based on how Winter was talking about it, but he had to admit he figured nothing would exactly shift his worldview. He was no stranger to the kinds of less pleasant considerations a military had to make, after all, and he'd mentally prepared himself. He'd like to have been able to say he got at least half way through the list before something surpassed his expectations.

But it wasn't 58 orders in that he was genuinely surprised. It wasn't even close.

It was two.

Order 2:
In the event the Council of Atlas attempts to illegally overthrow the Supreme Commander (General), the GAA must arrest or eliminate all members of the Council to preserve democracy within the Kingdom of Atlas.

Percy read it again, making sure his dyslexia wasn't acting up and playing tricks on him. And then he reread it a second and third time, just to make sure.

"This isn't a plan of action for Atlas to take in times of desperate measures, Winter. This is a plan for a coup."

"Then you clearly haven't read very far into the list."

He wasn't the most willing to just let that conversation topic drop, but something about her deadpan tone made him keep reading. She treated it like it was nothing — like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and this wasn't it.

He burned to know what made the murder of the council a footnote.

So he kept reading. The next few were nothing like order 2, in that they weren't classified. Public, unclassified orders for the public to be free to look at. Protocols in the case of a settlement under siege, succession of command, and so forth.

But before long, the classified orders began popping back up every few in the list.

Some, he noted with a small helping of morbid humor, were almost reasonable. Genuinely reasonable orders that might need to be classified, like what to do in the case of a comms breach.

Those quickly gave way to others that made his head spin, and brought on the sudden urge to vomit.

Erasing entire settlements, secret executions, kidnapping and torture, and, he soon found, worse. It was all wrapped in formal — though not quite flowery — language. Like how 'murder the council and place the general in charge' had been reworded to make up something that sounded as reasonable as order two.

He finally stopped reading just sixteen orders in, when, just below the unclassified order on how the military would quarantine a settlement experiencing an outbreak to stop further infection, a classified order detailed how, 'if necessary', they were to separate the healthy from the sick, and 'begin the process of mass extermination of the afflicted'.

Dropping the tablet on Winter's desk, Percy found her having stood from her chair and turned to face the window overlooking Atlas along the back of her office.

"You couldn't get people to follow these orders." he said, doing his best to keep the vitriol out of his voice — Winter hadn't written these. That sin was borne by her predecessors. "Some of them are… insane. Literally insane. Nobody would do that — even if Atlas was at stake."

"No?" she shot him a glance over her shoulder, jerking her head in a motion that made it clear she wanted him to join her. Frustratedly, Percy pushed out of his seat and joined her at the window.

"Some years ago, Atlas ran a number of experiments on human psychology." Winter began. "Experiments have been done on the affects of authority on decision making before, and to shorten a several-dozen page research paper written over years into a sentence, the affect of being thrown in a uniform and told what to do by someone with a higher rank than you is a strong one. Even in Vale where the initial experiment was conducted, the test subject's response to authority pushed their morality to… alarming limits. Here in Atlas we're far less individualistic, far more oriented towards the state and authority. The experiment, when replicated with soldiers from Atlas instead of civilians from Vale, showed that soldiers will very, very rarely disobey a direct order from who they view as the legitimate authority, and the affect is significantly reinforced in larger units — herd mentality, and such. Point being, there are very few things Atlas soldiers will not do when ordered, especially when everyone next to them is doing the same."

"Like murdering the council?" he challenged. If he was expecting her to back down, he was wrong.

"Like murdering the council." she agreed. "You'd be shocked, amazed, and horrified what your soldiers would do for you, if you commanded it. However, I understand your point. Group psychology, projections of authority — though much stronger than you may anticipate, are not infallible. I agree. So did the researchers. So did General Sylvanus. So did General Ironwood."

He stilled. He wasn't sure what she was getting at, but he didn't think he'd like it.

"As such, a solution was developed. A biochip, inserted into the brain stem of each soldier as a requirement to become a member of the Atlesian Military. It does many things — officially, it primarily keeps track of each soldier's vitals and location data. The latter especially is very useful for finding captured or lost soldiers, or rooting out spies, though the former certainly has its uses as well."

"Unofficially?" he asked quietly, dreading his guess was something approaching the truth.

"Unofficially, they send electrical signals to certain parts of the brain when activated. It varies depending upon the situation and the order given, but in general it suppresses testosterone production, releases oxytocin, and dims parts of the orbitofrontal cortex responsible for decision-making and individual thought. As I said, however, this may vary by the order. Should the order be something that might cause destress for their fellow man, the anterior insular cortex is suppressed. If it's something that requires they are placed in immense personal danger, a pulse is sent to the amygdala."

Percy didn't know what half of those words meant but he was pretty sure he got the idea, and he didn't like it.

"It's not mind control — far, far from it — but with the affects of the biochip, the psychological affects of authority, and group behavior combined, there has never been a documented case of a direct order being refused."

"You did." he pointed out tightly.

Winter raised a finger in correction. "I said all three combined. The biochip was not influencing me, — to the best of my knowledge — in the moment I destroyed the access drive."

He looked at her with narrowed eyes, confused.

"I had one the same as everyone else, but there are those who can resist or ignore the affect of the biochip entirely. Those who have something to protect them from the electrical pulses the biochip produces."

Percy's eyes widened. "Aura."

She nodded to confirm his theory, turning and reaching over to pick up the tablet she'd handed him, tapping it a few times. "Aura views the electrical stimulation from the biochip as an attack, despite being on the inside of the body, and will stop the electrical signals as if they were a shock. However," she handed Percy back the tablet, and he briefly glanced down to read what was on the screen.

He wished he hadn't.

"As you can see, there are orders to address that issue."

BEFORE YOU GO! There is a full list of orders in my channel on Discord, at the end of the most recent chapter on AO3, and the most recent post on pat-reon (it's public, not behind a paywall), the links for all of which are on my profile. I can't link the page here, as ffn disallows it. All 117 General Orders for Atlas are written out, marked classified and unclassified. This is purely supplemental, and you can still enjoy the story if you choose to completely skip reading them. However, there are about 5k words of orders I wrote out for you to enjoy if you choose to.

If you have not watched RWBY or read enough RWBY content to be familiar with the original work, this is the point at which you may struggle to fill in the blanks. As we move to the POVs of the new generation within this new arc, a lot of scenes and events that happen in canon will be skipped over or just referred to. It should still read well to the best of my ability, but just know that if you come away confused at something being abrupt (IE the skip of initiation in this chapter) that's because it happened more or less as it did in canon, which I won't be rewriting.

This is already a long AN and I don't have much to say I haven't already, so I won't take up any more of your time.

Hope you enjoyed :)

Next chapter March 15