Remnant - XX

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Fanatical Fucking Reader, ScrubLord Yoda

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Requested By : Gib

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Ozpin's office was smaller than he'd gotten used to, with barely enough space in it for his oaken desk and a table by the door with. The desk was expensive, dark, solid oak from deep within Vale's dark, heartland forests. The table in the corner was much the same, embossed with age-dulled bronze inlays that swirled across its top like the wind. Both were older than his current vessel itself was, passed down from two iterations back, locked into vaults with a will tied to them that meant whoever first came to claim the contents with the password to enter could have them. Which meant that finding out who he dwelt within with each turn of the wheel was as simple as watching the bank in question.

But that presumed he went straight there, which he never did. And that Salem held any actual value in killing him which, thanks to his extensive network of assets in each of the Kingdoms' governments, she didn't. She would buy weeks at best, which was hardly enough time to take any ground. And his agents would be on alert around the Relics regardless, adding even more to the veritable army he kept them locked away behind.

And besides, he had a stressful job. What were some pleasantries compared to fighting for the fate of all mankind?

Nothing much, as far as he was concerned.

The brewer on the table across the room dinged gently and tugged him out of his thoughts. He smiled and reached out with his hand, magic trailing out from his fingers like pale, wispy fog. A fog that lit up as power flowed out of him, and tugged the pot up into the air. The little ceramic pot sailed to the air on a magical current and landed gently on the thick pad sitting on his desk, right beside his monitor, and he picked it up to pour himself a mug-full.

He had a few minutes to enjoy the warm coffee before he heard a gentle, polite knock on his office door.

"Come in, Miss Goodwitch." He called, flicking a look to the clock and smirking - exactly nine in the morning, just as scheduled.

The door opened quietly, and the young student slipped in without a word.

She was just into her teens, but even so, the blonde carried herself with an air of dignity. Back straight, shoulders square, eyes peering through her glasses and meeting his gaze levelly but without the heat of a challenge, or an insult. She was dressed as diligently as she carried herself, in Signal's black blazer and skirt, with a gray shirt under it and matching stockings to keep her legs warm. She slid her simple black bag off her shoulders and left it by the door before she moved to the chair across from him and, at his permitting nod, took the seat.

"Good morning." The girl nodded her head in a polite, quiet greeting, and added a respectful, "Sir."

"Good morning." He smiled and gestured to the other mug across the room, by the coffee maker. "Would you like a drink?"

"I-I, um, I suppose." She stammered quietly, caught off guard for all of the obvious reasons a fourteen year old would be put off by an offer for coffee. Especially if they didn't know he'd made decaf that morning, just to see what they would do.

"Then please, fetch your mug." She started to stand and he held up a hand, "With your Semblance, if you wouldn't mind indulging me."

She hesitated for a moment, half out of her seat already, before she nodded meekly and returned to her seat. She used a simple little brown wand to conduct her Semblance, and fished it out of her pack. A flick, and the other mug was in the air, careening toward them. A second and it stopped, hovering until, slowly and carefully, obviously nervous with the porcelain, she brought her wand down to the desk. The mug followed it, settling with a quiet little 'clack' that echoed around the quiet room.

"Impressive control, young lady." He smiled, leaning back in his seat while she poured herself a cup and relaxed with it in her hands. Trying to keep up her mature act as always, she sipped at it and fought her grimace.

"Thank you, Sir." She smiled politely and ducked her head a bit, avoiding meeting his gaze. All just like a polite lady was taught to do here in Vale. "I… Admit that I have had to work at the control aspect for some time, to be able to do that."

"Control is the more difficult aspect of Semblance usage." He counseled easily, "Anyone can rip and tear with most Semblances, or speed along across a clear track, but precision use of either is both more difficult, and more important."

"Yes, Sir."

"Apologies, it can be… Easy, to slide into combat lessons." He had a century or so of experience doing it, after all, in the interims leading up to his Headmastery.

Presuming some other venue didn't demand his intervention once he'd been around long enough to pass public scrutiny, of course.

"You don't need to apologize, Sir." Miss Goodwith smiled gently, "You are a teacher, teaching is your job."

"Indeed." And, with a perfect segue at hand, he leaned back and smiled. "To that end, I wanted to speak with you."

"About?" She blinked, panic filtering across her face, "W-Wait, the exams. I didn't-"

"You passed with exemplary marks, as always, Miss Goodwitch." He cut her off. Technically, he wasn't supposed to tell her that. The grading wasn't even done on all the tests, so the results were meant to be secret.

Which was public knowledge, too, so he wasn't surprised when the young Huntress hopeful's eyes widened just a hair.

"Our secret. Hm?" Ozpin promised and, when she nodded, he had his hook.

Now, they were both breaking policy, which tied a promising young Huntress-to-be to him. Which, given the advanced age of Alexandria and Alphonse in Vacuo, he needed to begin looking into. And had already begun, in contacting General Ironwood. Someone who… Would take a lot of work to bring around, but who would give him influence in Atlas. If he took the Headmaster's place in Beacon, as he intended to, then that would be half of all the Kingdoms with an agent he could influence. And he still had the other two, to boot, at least for now.

Steady progress.

Smiling, he said, "I have something of a habit, with young Hunters in training. When I find one who is exceptional, I reach out to them. Offer them my own, personal training."

"P-Personal training…"

He understood her surprise, of course, and her excitement. His most recent host had wanted to be a famed hero, and until his final days, Ozpin had helped him do just that. So his name was fairly famous, before he had 'retired to teaching' a few years ago. And the prospect of personal teaching from a veteran like him would obviously appeal to her.

And allow him to probe and test her, to make sure she was a good candidate as well.

"If you're amenable," Ozpin said, "I have a small arena of my own. A gym in the city, which I rent on the weekends. I will give you the address, and you and another student of mine will come for several hours of practice. And study."

"I would be honored, Sir."

"I'm very happy to hear it." He smiled as the first bell, a warning for students to get to class, chimed. Nodding, he grunted, "I hope you have a good day."

"You, too, Sir."

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"Vacuo's desert is too unstable for most of what my people could build." Sienna explained, pacing around a large map of Vacuo and Vale both, which he had chiseled out onto a massive slab of steel and placed on the ground, based on a smaller map she had shown him. She paced along the continent's south-western coastline and went on, "But the coast is solid. Lots of caves, rocky cliffs, hidden bays. Perfect places for hidden bases."

"You already possess some?"

"Only a couple." She said, setting her hands on her hips and looking up as he knelt down to inspect the map. "But, mostly, they're just smuggling ports. Refugees and supplies both. And places for my fighters to get onto the continent, of course."

"Of course."

"But with communications set up, we'd be able to crew bases all along the coastline." She explained, tapping her foot on a dozen locations along the map. "Here, here and here. We'd be able to raid local Dust mines run by a whole slew of companies, and put a real hurt on Vale and Vacuo's bottom line."

"A war waged on a nation's industry is a war waged for victory."

"That's the idea, yeah." Sienna nodded, looking up into his optic and adding, "You think it's workable?"

"It is, yes." And, with that level of communications development, it opened up an entire world of possibilities. With that kind of reach, and presuming they spread across Mistral as well, he could reach out and, potentially, touch every database across the three continents. Quietly, he admitted, "I believe this is quite a bright idea, Sienna."

"Well," she chuckled, "that sounded dangerously close to a real compliment."

"Hmph." He ignored her, leaning down and looking over the map. "There are no locations we can emplace these further inland?"

"None I know of." She shook her head, "But I could put out feelers. See if anyone knows anything, or maybe just get scouts looking."

"You never have?"

"No point." She answered, "Our best way of fighting has been raids. Hit and run. And ships are best for that, as few as we have of those. Honestly, with the ships we have, we'll already be stretched thin just roaming the coasts and supporting these bases."

"Is our naval situation so dire?"

"Have you seen any shipyards, Shockwave?" She countered, shrugging and waving her hand at the city beyond his tower. "We make use of what we can get from the Kingdoms."

"We require our own navy, then."

"I agree." She nodded, "But we don't have the means to do that yet."

"I see…" Supplies would be the bottleneck, as ever. Quietly, he asked, "Would you prefer a navy, or deployable communications units?"

"I'd prefer both…"

"Indeed, but we only have so many workers with the skills needed to work in the factory." The factory, when finalized, would be able to employ two hundred on its own. But as intensive as constructing his labor-drones would be, they would be tied up with that, and the same would apply to the communications units. "If we split our force, then we will be unable to make headway in either direction."

"A navy, then." She answered, "For now, at least."

"Then we shall expand Menagerie's industries." Shockwave declared, rising and rumbling, "The forests along the coast are thick and rich. We will need their lumber for proper ship-building."

"The logging camps will need to be protected."

"I will dedicate my Insecticons." He said, "And return to the Dark Mountains, to construct more of them."

"You can just… Do that?"

"Yes." Shockwave answered, "I will need to be careful, however. I can only create so much Energon to feed all of us. And I am only capable of personally overseeing so much of that, with my other projects taking up time as well."

"You could teach us how to do it."

"Energon refining, particularly from such a poorly understood substance as Dust, is a complex, risky business." He explained cautiously, "It would require intensive education."

"Not necessarily." Sienna countered, crossing her arms and explaining, when he cocked his head questioningly, "Every one person only needs to understand a single step of it. Build a facility that runs like an assembly line, and teach each of a hundred people to do one thing. It'll be harder to mess that up."

"You are not incorrect…" It was a simple enough theory, nothing more than old hat role-oriented education, even if putting it into practical applications was more… Complicated. For numerous reasons. "I will draft a list of requirements for candidates. You can deliver that to the Belladonnas and we will see what is possible."

"Works for me." She nodded, "Get it drawn up while I head out and ask for laborers for those logging camps."

"Acknowledged." Shockwave nodded and turned to retrieve more metal sheets for inscribing his instructions and requirements onto.

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"Police!" A booming voice bellowed before the fist went back to pounding on her door, "Open up!"

Ashe groaned as she rolled out of the pile of blankets on her couch that she called 'bed' and pulled her work pants back on, careful to tuck her tail along her waistband and under her belt, as always, so she didn't stand out. Her card read as Human, and had been expensive enough that the records would match, so she just needed to be careful. Pushing off of the couch and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she paced over to the door and cracked it open, careful to leave the chain-lock in place - Vale police couldn't enter without a warrant if a door was locked, which had been her first lesson when she moved into the city.

"Yes, Officer?" She answered the beam of light shining straight in her eyes.

"Ashe Zeal?"

"Yes?" The moment she said that, the door was hurled open, her chain lock shattering under the force of a gray-armored shoulder. The breaching man surged forward and shoulder checked her back, across the room and into the far wall while two more armored soldiers came in behind him. She wheezed as the air was driven out of her lungs and gasped, "What the hell-"

"Quiet, don't resist." The first man bellowed in her ear, yanking her off the wall by the front of her shirt, spinning her around, and hurling her into the wall again. He pressed her against it with a fist and snapped, "Martins, contraband. Helena, body search."

"You can't just-" The man cut her off by slamming the stock of his rifle into her head from the side and dazing her. Before she could recover, she felt hands run from her shoulders down to her waist and along her belt. When the woman yanked her pant-waist up and grabbed onto her tail, her eyes widened. "W-Wait, you can't just-"

"Tail!" The woman shouted, yanking her pants back down until they fell around her ankles and exposed her tail to open air. "Bag her!"

"What in the Gods' names-" She was cut off by a thick, black bag being dragged over her face, and then she was thrown to the ground. She struggled as the men dragged her arms behind her back, and screamed when she felt the cuffs on her wrists.

Then, a boot slammed into her side and her face.

And all she could wheeze was, "Why…?"

None of the soldiers answer her. Two of them just grabbed her by her arms and dragged her up while the third tore her pants the rest of the way off and dragged her out into the cold air, without so much as a pair of shoes on.

Around her, she could hear more people arguing, begging and fighting as doors opened and slammed closed. She was lifted up and stumbled on a set of rough metal stairs that cut at her feet, and more arms grabbed her, dragging her in and dropping her on a seat. Then they yanked her hands up and cuffed them to some kind of pipe hanging over her head, and she heard the door to the truck slam.

Its engine rumbled as it pulled away and turned south, towards the docks.

She'd been so careful, too…

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