Chapter 297 *Additional Scene* (Patreon)

A/N Here's the scene to fill out the gap in the chapter. As opposed to just writing out where he went to the dust mine and killed a bunch of people, i instead used it to give an update on how things were going for Ozpin and crew.

Adding this to chapter 297, this is not the chapter for today! That should be coming out later.

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Ozpin POV

“Glynda, how goes the recruitments?”

“Nearly all of the children we scouted had accepted our invitation to Beacon this coming year.” She pushed up her glass, a proud look about her. I could only imagine how difficult it was to gain so many promising Hunters.

My Scroll began ringing, I noticed it was James, but I pushed it on hold. I would call him back in a few minutes after talking with Glynda.

“What about the few I told you to see your eye on?”

“…..specifically, Pyrrha Nikos will be attending, as you put a lot of emphasis on her. Especially now that we have to look for a potential host for the Maiden’s power.”

I let out a sigh, recalling what happened to poor Amber. She never liked to stay in one place at a time, and getting her to listen to us was difficult at the best of times. It was when we was in the wilderness that she was attacked.

Not only that, stripped of half her powers as the Fall Maiden.

Somehow, Salem had discovered a way to steal away that power I granted so many years ago. Something even I couldn’t achieve with my diminished state.

If Qrow hadn’t arrived in time, she would have been completely stripped of the power and killed in the process.

As it is, she’s currently in a coma below Beacon, and we’re using the most state-of-the-art equipment to keep her alive.

Unfortunately, it looks like her Soul took a significant amount of damage in the process, and a natural recovery may be beyond hers and our means.

Thus, we must search for a viable candidate to inherit what remains of her Magic.

My scroll began to ring again, breaking me from my thoughts. Looking down I noticed it was once more James calling me.

“Should you answer?” Glynda asked.

I shook my head, dismissing the call. “I will call him in a moment. If it’s an emergency, he has other ways of contacting us.”

A special means for if Salem or her people make a move.

“And what of the other potential candidates, Glynda?”

“Yang Xiao-long is also attending. But Qrow may have some things to say about trying to get her to become a Maiden.”

“Agreed, we’ll keep her as a worse-case scenario. The young woman is already……hot headed, we wouldn’t want to encourage that kind of behavior with newfound abilities. And I believe that Miss Schnee is also attending?”

“Correct, we received the letter from the youngest Schnee daughter, Weiss, and she will be attending come this next semester.” Glynda confirmed, much to my delight.

Beyond her potential candidacy for the Fall Maiden’s powers, it would be very beneficial to have the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company attend our school. Especially considering that the Vital Tournament will be hosted by us this time. The cost of dust alone already puts us over budget, maybe we can get some allowances out of Jacques Schnee by means of his daughter.

“I would also like to bring up the subject of Blake Belladonna” Glynda’s mood noticeably shifted. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to take her in? She had acted as a terrorist for the White Fang for how many years?”

Oh yes, the young daughter of Menagerie’s leaders. How she thought she could go undiscovered by giving her real name is beyond me.

It was very easy to confirm her identity and cross reference it with sightings in White Fang operations over the years.

Hopefully we can teach her to correct herself from such……overt thinking.

“I believe in second chances. She clearly wishes a new start, and taking a promising young woman out of the hands of the White Fang is all the more reason. We will watch her closely, if she does revert back to her previous behavior, you have my permission to deal with it as you see fit.”

Perhaps I should reach out to her parents? That may be enough of a threat to keep her in line if she does show a hint of unsavory behavior.

My Scroll once more began to ring as I repressed another sigh. “It seems that James will not give up.”

“He is a stubborn man.” Glynda snorted. “I can wait, go ahead.”

I nodded at her with thanks before pressing to answer the Scroll. “James, what’s the problem? We were discussing the upcoming Beacon year.”

“Ozpin, he appeared.” James looked frantic

“Pardon? Who appeared?”

“Wilhelm Schweinorg. We have a sighting and activity from him!” James turned out, muting himself as he apparently started barking orders at some of his subordinates. “Alright, I cleared the room. We have witnesses who saw him.”

“Where?” I sat up with a renewed interest. “Actually wait, let’s get Qrow in on this, he’s going to want to hear things.”

I quickly dialed up his number as the red-eyed man appeared along with James.

“What’s the matter, Oz? I was ‘bout to hit the bar and crash for the night.”

“We have a more important matter than your alcoholism, Qrow.” James grunted. “The person we’ve been looking for has made a new appearance.”

“The Kid using Magic?” Qrow swayed a little bit, clearly having already started drinking. “Where’d he pop up?”

“He attacked a Schnee Dust mine, about 100 miles out of Mistral.” James revealed, and I was actually very surprised. “Oz, there were very few survivors among the Schnee staff and they all point at him as being the culprit.”

“Do you have the details, James?”

“We have tons of witnesses; all of the Faunus were sent to Menagerie. The reports say that he used his portals – which we didn’t know they could reach that far, but he dropped them all off right in the middle of their biggest city.”

“James, if you’re saying that he killed nearly all of the Schnee Dust Company employees, why did he send all the Faunus away. Wouldn’t he have killed them too?” Glynda asked a rather important question.

“….about that.”

“Shit, wait, is it that one that had a Gryphon attack it like eight months ago, then followed up by a massive swarm of Nevermores?” Qrow cut in.

“I’m surprised you know that.” James replied.

“Hard not to when I was among those who took part in cleaning upt he Grimm. Shit, James, if he cleaned that place up, then I’ll drink to his name. That place was fucking horrific, and that was after they cleaned it up for appearances sake when the Hunters came to help.”

“I won’t dispute your opinion on that place.” James let out a tired sigh.

“James, what was going on there?”

“Too far out in the wilderness, so the Schnee Dust Company allowed their employees to run it as their own miniature kingdom. Only, they decided that Faunus were slaves in their imaginary world, I’m sure you can imagine the rest.”

“What was Jacques response.” How utterly disgusting.

“He claims he didn’t know, I’m inclined to believe him.”

“Really? You’re going to believe Jacques – willingly breaks labor laws to abuse Faunus – Schnee?”

“….I wouldn’t word it that way, but I agree with Qrow. James, tell me you aren’t buying into the corporate nonsense he sells to the public.”

“Jacques is a businessman first and foremost. Do you think he would allow that kind of negative publicity for the minuscule gains that would have come in from that singular Mine?” James snorted with obvious disdain in the man’s name. “Trust me, I would be more than willing to nail Jacques with it if I could, but this is way too sloppy for his normal crap.”

“Very well, I’m sure you will do a thorough job of investigating, James. I won’t bother to assume anything right now.” I couldn’t argue with his reasoning, as much as I disliked Jacques Schnee. The man would completely abuse Faunus labor – even human labor, if he thought he could get away with it.

Ironically enough, I don’t believe he’s racist. I think he just knows that Faunus are easily exploitable and he can get away with it since there are a lot of people who are.

“Most of the staff are dead, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.”

“Good riddance.” Qrow raised his drink infront of his scroll.

“I won’t say their presence will be missed. But it’s going to be difficult to ease any outrage without anyone to parade around. This is going to become public soon enough.” James rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There’s already a good portion of public opinion that……embraces this Wilhelm. If news gets out about him rescuing literal slaves, he’s going to become very popular.”

“We can’t fault someone for the good deeds they commit, James. While I never will celebrate the loss of life like this, I will admit that the world is a better place.” I pointed out.

“I know, Oz, I know.” James continued to sound very tired. “It also proves how dangerous he is. That place was fortified, especially after the incidents that Qrow mentioned. He single handedly took them all down.”

“Magic is a very powerful tool.” I fully admitted.

“Right, and a great means of theft.” James snorted. “He stole all the Dust they had mined.”

“Pfft.” Qrow spit out his drink with a burst of laughter that followed. “Haha, get fucked Jacques.”

“Qrow, atleast pretend to be serious. This may be a concerning matter.” Glynda lightly scolded him.

“Thank you, Glynda.” Seeing James brighten up at her attention, it’s like being young again. “As I was saying, he stole allof the dust. Granted he didn’t’ keep it up, he left dozens of crates with the Faunus he freed. The witnesses said that he told them to take it to ease the burden of moving to a new place.”

“Ease the burden, I’m sure. How many of them were there? A hundred, two, three? Split that evenly, and you probably have enough Lien to set them up for life.” Qrow replied.

“It is a lot of dust. Hundreds of thousands of Lien worth.” I agreed with Qrow assessment. “An act of charity like that does give me hope that he isn’t aligned with Salem. I do not believe she is capable of such.”

“Based on how much was reported there and how much he gave away, it’s clear he still kept a substantial amount. We have no idea what he’s doing with that much dust, Oz. Not to mention, aren’t the White Fang stealing Dust around Vale right now? You refused me access to investigate.” James continued.

“It would do no one good for your ships to hover overhead, James. We discussed this already.” I rebuked him once more. He’s a good man, but he can be very hard headed when he gets an idea in his head. “As for the link you’re implying with the White Fang, I don’t believe it the case. For one, he is a human, and this batch in Vale seem to be much more radical than some of their counterparts. I find it unlikely they would work so closely with someone they dislike.”

“Admittedly, that is a very good point. But the timing can’t be a coincidence. Perhaps there’s some other connection we’re not seeing?”

“I will investigate on my end, and you do the same, James. However, what else can you tell us about Wilhelm? Do you have any clue on where he disappeared to?”

“We can’t very well track someone who can teleport, Oz. We’re trying to keep eyes on all his previous acquaintances but they’re all laying low too. We haven’t seen Roman since he came to Vale not that long ago, only for him to disappear into thin air just as quickly.”

Unfortunate. We didn’t expect him to just waltz in like he owned the place when he was one of the most wanted men in the kingdom.

The hubris on that one is almost admirable.

“I can take a look at the dust thing.” Qrow offered. “Seems like it’s our only possible lead right now, may as well start looking into it.”

“….thank you, Qrow. Your help is appreciated.”

“Don’t mention it, Tin-man.” Qrow chuckled, killing the warm moment between the two.

“Anything else of note to report, James?”

“About the incident, we’re still compiling a report. I’ll make sure to send you a copy, see if I missed anything.” James offered helpfully. “But besides that……how about we talk about your new students. I’m sure some would love the opportunity to transfer to –“

“Thank you, goodbye James!” I quickly ended the call.

“I’m checking out too, Oz. I’ll start asking around……after I wake up in the morning.” Qrow hung up.

I shook my head before giving Glynda my attention once more. “Where were we?”