I fidgeted uncomfortably under the stares of both Headmaster Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch.
I had to give Oz credit, I had faced armies and fought dragons, but the design of his office had me feeling like a disobedient school student despite the fact I had done nothing wrong. I think it was because of the massive gearworks on the walls and ceiling that just ticked away without any clear indicator for their purpose.
This wasn't the tenth or even twentieth time I'd been in his office and they still made me uncomfortable.
Still, I wasn't going to let them treat me like I actually was a student. "You asked to see me, Headmaster?"
"I did," Ozpin nodded as he gestured towards a few empty cups with his own. "Would you care for a drink? Or a seat if it makes you more comfortable? We have a few things to discuss."
"Thank you, but I'll pass on both for now."
"Very well," he took a sip before setting his drink aside and leaning forward on his desk. "As I'm sure you're aware, this year's Vytal Tournament is just around the corner. I wanted to get your opinions on how the first years you've been assisting have grown from the last time we talked."
I wasn't surprised.
Ozpin did this pretty often, although he usually just asked about a singular person or team.
Despite being a shady, often manipulative mastermind I probably couldn't trust as far as I could throw him, I couldn't deny that Ozpin actually did care about his students' growth. All of his students even, not just special cases like teams RWBY and JNPR.
"Well, it's only been a couple weeks, but Team OCHR is getting better at team coordination beyond just not hitting each other. CRDL is individually doing better than the last time we talked but not much else. As for…" I continued listing off the progress for each team for a while. Unsurprisingly, most of my updates were positive. Beacon wasn't one of the best academies in the world for nothing and that reflected on the students that made it in.
They wanted to succeed and put in the effort on their own.
"That's excellent to hear. I'm glad to see you take to your new role so easily. Most new teachers struggle to find their style quite a bit." Ozpin commented once I was done.
I shrugged. "It helps that most of my teaching involves hitting them with a stick until they start doing better. Professor Goodwitch handles the harder parts of the job."
"I'm sure they appreciate it, the improvement from Mr. Arc alone shows your methods work." Ozpin raised his cup to his mouth and I could swear I saw him smirking behind it.
I knew for a fact I was the fourth most feared person in Beacon among the first years because of those methods. The students might appreciate my training in the future, but right now most of them cursed my name whenever they had to fight me. Something I was sure Ozpin was aware of and no doubt found amusing.
"Right. Well, that's my update done. Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?"
"Yes, actually." Ozpin said, growing more serious for a moment. "Soon we will be hosting students from the other academies in preparation for the Vytal Festival. While normally I'd inform you of that and tell you not to treat them any differently from your current students, there is one special case that you need to know about."
"A special case?"
"Yes. I want you to understand I am choosing to trust you with a very important secret first of all because Glynda believes you're trustworthy and I happen to agree, and secondly because you're observant to know something would be off about them and I'd rather you didn't draw attention to the fact."
I had a feeling I knew who he was talking about and was quickly proved correct when he started telling me about Penny Polendina, Atlas's most recent mechanical marvel and combat gynoid with a soul.
If I was to generalize the kingdoms into genres and say Vale was a JPRG, then Atlas would be a sci-fi. Robotic soldiers, giant mechs, and flying airships backed by a militaristic culture. A bit reductionary, but good enough for a generalization.
But according to Ozpin, Penny was Atlas's latest prototype for something to support – though from my own knowledge the hope was to eventually replace – Huntsmen out in the more remote areas of Remnant. Because at the end of the day, Huntsmen were incredibly rare resources and every fight, every injury, risked losing one permanently.
Atlas's solution? A robot capable of using Aura.
Theoretically mass-producable, much more easily repaired if maimed, and quicker to train and deploy than waiting for children to grow up and go through Huntsman training. In theory, the perfect weapon to push back the Grimm.
In practice?
Well, according to Ozpin Atlas was having Penny pose as a student to see if she could actually measure up to the standards demanded of her. Their last miracle project… didn't perform all that well.
"Alright, robot girl with an Aura." I said at the end of his explanation, pretending to sound a bit overwhelmed at the idea. "And what do you want me to do about her? Ignore her? Treat her as a normal student?"
"Ideally, you would treat her as just another student under your care." Professor Goodwitch said. "But what happens in the classroom will be determined by how she reacts to your unique weapon effects."
Ah, because Torashinai bypassed Aura to inflict the illusion of pain even without leaving damage. And while I was sure Penny had some level of touch all over her body, I wasn't sure about actual pain receptors – or whatever her equivalent would be. That wouldn't be an issue for teaching her or anything like that. But her either freaking out at her first experience of actual pain thanks to the Noble Phantasm's ability or not reacting at all because of her nature would definitely blow her cover pretty quickly.
"So you want me to meet her before the first mixed classes so we can see if we can treat her normally or take a modified approach?"
I got nods from both professors.
"Ms. Polendina has already arrived in Vale city," Ozpin informed me. "We plan to have the two of you meet over the weekend to test the interaction."
"I'll be sure to keep my schedule clear then." I replied easily. Not that it was a hard promise to make, most of the active projects I had going on right now needed time more than any action on my part. A single weekend off wasn't going to make or break them.
"Good. In that case we can end this meeting here. Enjoy the rest of your day, Ms. Cross."
He didn't need to tell me twice! "Same to you, professors."
-o-
The weekend came without much fanfare and I found myself meeting the representative from Atlas that would be overseeing the test.
Even without my metaknowledge, it would have been hard to not recognise the man. Between his height, demeanor, and the artificial right arm – even if it was hidden under a military uniform – it was hard to mistake the Headmaster of Atlas Academy for anyone else.
And even if there was someone else in the world that shared all those attributes, I doubted that they could match the intense stare James Ironwood was giving me right now.
"General Ironwood, it's nice to meet you. I heard you had some concerns before we started testing with Penny?" I greeted him, extending a hand.
"Alexandria Cross. I've heard plenty about you as well. Your airship has a lot of some of my best people asking about collaborations if you ever felt like relocating to Atlas for a time." Ironwood replied as he accepted my handshake.
"I'm happy where I am for now, but I'll keep your offer in mind." If he noticed my smile turned a bit strained, he didn't mention it.
While a lot of the issues I had going to Atlas had been resolved by now, there were still plenty of other problems I'd rather not deal with. For one, their industry was pretty heavily controlled by their ruling council. Theoretically, I'd have access to much more manufacturing facilities but at the same time I'd have a harder time getting custom parts if someone high up enough said no.
And thanks to Ironwood being a part of Ozpin's inner circle who still believed me to be a Maiden candidate, he had plenty of reason to not want me running around with a fully functional airship.
Oh, I had no doubt I'd still be able to tinker and design things. But those would be collaborative projects with Atlassian scientists and engineers. The building and testing would be done by other groups while anything I needed for the Azure Horizon would be unfortunately delayed for one reason or another. Maybe with those new coworkers of mine finding excuses to tear apart my ship while I was gently guided into a gilded cage to…
No, that was paranoia talking.
While I'm sure Ironwood would like to bring me back to Atlas for what he considered my own safety, he wasn't the kind of person that would enslave someone for the benefits they could provide and pretending otherwise was just wrong. Besides, that would also mean I'd have to leave my students and I had grown atta–
Ozpin, that fucking snake!
No wonder he was so fine with me becoming an assistant instructor! Every single bond with the class I was teaching was a reason to not run off somewhere else!
"The offer is open." General Ironwood nodded, interrupting my internal revelation and changing the subject to what we were actually here for. "Regarding the test itself, we are hiding it as a final calibration test for Penny to see how she can hold up to sustained Huntress level combat against an unknown enemy. We've done this several times before so the staff will think nothing of it and any issues will be explained away as a bad reaction to your 'Semblance'." Right, because even a team responsible for looking after Penny wasn't cleared to know about Magic.
"Did you tell Penny anything about what to expect?" I asked. "Torahshinai isn't exactly pleasant to go up against."
"We have not." Ironwood clasped his hands behind his back. "The basis of this test is that Penny is facing an unknown opponent. Telling her any information about what she will be up against will stand out because of that. But we have taken precautions just in case she reacts negatively to your abilities. A team will be studying her responses in real time as well as a remote shutdown switch if needed."
"A shutdown switch?" I asked. I wasn't sure how much I liked the idea of a person having something built into them when they were literally proven to have a soul.
"As much as we may dislike it, Penny is a prototype." Ironwood responded. "If something unexpected happens, having a method to quickly and safely control her is needed for both her protection and the science team's."
Fair enough I suppose.
I still didn't like it, but it wasn't like I had another solution for them. Or that they would just blindly accept one even if I did.
I sighed. "Alright, let's get this started then. Where is she?"
"I'll have her brought in now." Ironwood looked over to one of the Atlas soldiers nearby. "Call them in."
Then it was us just waiting for a while.
And then waiting some more.
…and then some more…
Both I and Ironwood turned to the suddenly very nervous looking soldier who was frantically tapping on his datapad as if that would make us ignore him.
"Well? Where are they?" Ironwood demanded.
The soldier audibly gulped and threw one last glance at the datapad like it had personally betrayed him.
"A-ah, well, you see General…" He stammered. "I-it seems that Subject Penny went out into the city e-earlier today and… got lost."
"Lost?! How could she get lost? What about her escort?!"
"It, ah, seems like they lost her too?"
Wow, I did not want to be the people in charge of keeping track of Penny. Going by the look on Ironwood's face, they were not in for a good time.
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