Even if I didn't have a villainous plot to take advantage of tonight, I couldn't see myself either attending or enjoying the dance.
I was technically around the same age as most of the people attending, but because I was an Assistant Teacher and spent most of my time interacting with students beating bad habits out of them, I had a hard time imagining myself just unwinding around them.
Small groups I could see happening – one or two teams at most. But a ballroom filled with students?
That sounded much worse than spending the night hiding in a supply closet inside the CCT tower waiting until everyone except security went home.
At least in the closet I could just play games on my scroll instead of watching people awkwardly try and interact over punch and tiny snacks, or whatever their interpretation of dancing was.
The downside was that I also had very little to distract me from all the niggling thoughts about how my plan could have been improved.
The issue with that mostly came down to the fact that to do anything better, I would have to include Ozpin at least in the broad strokes and I couldn't be sure that he would both allow me to do what I needed and not tip off my true target of the night thanks to his trusted inner circle.
It was the same problem I had with a lot of the things I'd like to warn the headmaster about, but I would first either need overwhelming evidence that Headmaster Lionheart was a traitor working for Salem – not really possible without traveling to Haven Academy personally – or somehow convince Ozpin, and now Ironwood as well, to go along with my plan blindly and not take too much time asking questions about how I knew things I had no real way of proving were actually true or how I knew them.
Especially because the main target of my plan tonight was supposed to be dead.
Stopping Cinder on her own wouldn't be hard. Hell, I didn't even need to get involved much if I simply wanted her to fail in uploading her little virus.
All I would have to do would be to launch a fake attack on the CCT tower – maybe as a false flag by the White Fang if I was feeling vindictive – and the resulting heightened security would be enough to ensure she failed. But Cinder wasn't my target tonight. Her tech support was.
Arthur Watts.
Genius scientist and programmer second to almost no one, who after faking his death started working for Salem. And who also happened to be one of the latest developers of the CCT's security system which meant he had not only the ability to hack and manipulate the systems if he got access, he could also hide his involvement from anyone else when they came around to investigate.
In my mind he was the most dangerous of Salem's followers because he was the one that could ruin nearly everything without ever revealing himself. And he was also the one follower I had no idea where to find him or how to draw him out.
Instead I was planning on using Cinder to lead me to him, ironically, by doing the same thing she was going to be coming here to do. Uploading a virus into the tower that would infect her scroll, allowing me to monitor, manipulate, and eventually trace its way back to where Watts was hiding.
The issue was that I wasn't as good as he had to be to actually hide that virus from the security programs. If I just uploaded it, my program would likely get flagged in under five minutes. But what I could do was upload mine right before Cinder showed up, have her plug into the system, and then have my VI rewrite my virus at speeds no normal person could hope to keep up with to shadow the one Watts created – allowing it to use his virus to hide from detection.
The tricky part would be the timing…
An alert popped up on my scroll followed by a video of a masked woman breaking into the CCT tower while knocking out the guards.
Speak of the devil I guess. Time to get started.
-o-
I'd give her one thing, Cinder was fast.
Sure, Vale Security Officers weren't exactly top level combatants. But Cinder knocked out a room full of them and was heading up the main elevator in the time it took me to sneak out of my closet and get to the terminal room.
In fact I only finished uploading my own virus program and removing any sign of my presence a few seconds before the doors to the elevator opened and the pseudo-Maiden confidently walked out into what appeared to be an empty room.
Or at least I assumed she did because I couldn't see much more of her than a particularly blurry black blob in my Spiritualized state.
I hoped she would continue to be fast, because I fucking hated Spiritualizing to any significant degree on Remnant. Going halfway to where I was invisible but tangible was like moving through thick mud at the best of times here, but because I couldn't risk Cinder sensing me thanks to her own magic I had to push that ability as far as it went.
Fully invisible and intangible, but at the same time I was about as mobile as a particularly lazy snail.
Which meant I couldn't do more than watch as Ruby stumbled into the terminal room – kinda hard to mistake Crescent Rose as anything else, even as a red blob – to briefly confront Cinder, only to lose her when Ironwood showed up shortly after.
After that is was a stressful few minutes making my own way out of the CCT tower before it was crawling with additional security officers without being seen and making sure my alibi was set up.
-o-
"And you never went near the dance tonight?" Ironwood grilled me as the two of us stood inside Ozpin's office.
Alibi or not, it seemed the General was determined to track down the person who attacked the CCT tower and the fact he was getting nowhere made it easy for him to be suspicious of nearly everyone. Even to the point that he called several members of the staff to Ozpin's office where he asked questions until I was the last one to be asked.
"No, I haven't." I said, entirely honest. "Now do someone want to tell me what is going on or do you want me to give you an itemized list of how many times I breathed today?"
Ironwood narrowed his eyes at me, but answered all the same. "During the dance a masked woman broke into the CCT tower, disabled the guards, and attempted to access the main terminal before being confronted by Ruby Rose. We currently don't know what her goal was or if she was successful before she managed to escape the tower and slip into the dance to hide among the students."
"Is Ruby okay?" I asked the natural first question for a teacher instead of trying to defend why the masked woman couldn't be me.
It bought me at least a few points with the current crowd because Ozpin spoke up from the side, "Outside of having to endure James's lecture about calling an authority figure instead of just her weapon when following suspicious figures – she's fine."
"Good." I replied. "And did she get a description of the person she confronted? Height, hair color, unique or identifiable items?"
"She didn't get much." Ironwood said, taking control of the conversation again. "A woman in black clothes with a mask and black hair, advanced Dust manipulation abilities, and a dual sword wielder that could either combine or be swapped for a bow. She didn't speak to Miss Rose or seriously try to attack. Instead she just fled the moment she could when Miss Rose was distracted."
"Dual swords and a bow… that's my preferred fighting style." I said as if I was connecting the dots. "You think I might be the one Ruby was following?"
Surprisingly Ironwood was the one that shook his head. "No, while hair can be covered by a good wig, unless you can make yourself several inches shorter you can't be the one she saw. But we needed to know if there was a possibility you could have seen them before or after their attack on the tower. Although if you know anyone that fights similarly to you, we'd like to know."
I was about to deny him when a thought occurred. It was a bit of a longshot, but…
"I'm sure Professor Goodwitch would have told you already but among the transfer students there is a girl that uses dual weapons, though I don't think she's ever shown off a bow. Cinder Fall."
"I did mention her, but she and her team have been thoroughly vetted and they were already confirmed to be inside the dance when the break in happened." Goodwitch told me. I wasn't really expecting to catch Cinder with just that, but it was still a little frustrating that the Professors completely dismissed the possibility of her involvement just the same.
"Then I don't know who else might fit that description. There aren't a lot of dual sword wielders among the first year students."
"We figured as much. This was mostly to inform you of what we know right now so you can be on alert while the students are out on their first missions." Goodwitch said. "While we haven't found any evidence of tampering yet, we don't know if that's because our intruder failed to complete their objective or because they were after something else. You should be on alert in case they try something else."
"I'll be sure to keep an eye out." I nodded.
The professors had a few more things to ask me, but in the end I felt like I managed to avoid any suspicion on their end and left Ozpin's office without issue.
Only after I was out of the elevator and away from any security cameras did I feel comfortable bringing my scroll out to confirm the status of my virus program hadn't changed.
But sure enough, the words were still there.
Program Upload : Complete
Contact Trace : In Progress
I'd done it. Now all I needed Cinder to do was lead me to my target.
-o-
[??? POV]
"You're sure about this? She'll be in the city while the Beacon students are on their mission requests?" A masked faunus of the White Fang demanded.
"Of course I'm not sure." Another similarly uniformed faunus snapped. "This is just a talk overheard by a sympathetic student in the halls, not her personal itinerary. For all I know she could decide to wait an extra day or stay home because she broke a nail."
"Take it easy, we're all on the same side here." A third figure added in. "Even if it's just talk, it's still more than we had before this, right? So we set up in Vale and keep an eye out. At the very least it gets Roman off our backs by showing we're working hard and if we're lucky we take her down and job's done."
"I don't give a damn what that stinking human thinks." The first faunus growled. "I don't like the timing either. Alpha group is supposed to be running some kind of major operation around that time and I don't want to get in the way of that."
"We probably don't have a choice. A lot of the new recruits got scared off with the Grimm Cult talk and more are looking to leave thanks to no one high up enough being able to explain why we're working so close with those humans." The third figure shrugged. "If that kinda talk gets out more than it has, I don't think even sympathizers are going to keep feeding us tips."
"Adam has his reasons."
"Adam also isn't here to explain!" The second figure shot back. "And until that changes we can't give anyone good answers."
"Then tell them to shut up and follow orders!" The first faunus slammed his hand on a nearby wall before taking a deep breath. "...okay, fine. We hope the tip we got is good and set up in the city. If someone spots her, we all group up nearby and take her out quick before she can call for help. We get out as soon as we can so we don't interfere with whatever the Alpha group is doing."
"Works for me."
"I'm cool with that."
"Good, then get out of my face. I have actual stuff to do if we want to get her contained and delivered like that human girl wants."
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