4

Chapter 4

"You want me to spy on some kids? I'm willing to do a lot for you Ozpin, but I have to draw a line somewhere. I think activity that might get me put on certain lists is fair game for that." For once, Qrow didn't punctuate his remark with a swig from his ever present flask.

"I am not asking you to 'spy on some kids', Qrow. I am asking you to monitor a potential enemy agent who spends quite a bit of time with your nieces. Surely you can see the sense in keeping an eye on him." Ozpin looked out of the window of his tower, down onto the students going about their day.

"And what reason do you have to believe that Mr. Arc is a 'potential enemy agent' as you put it?" Oobleck may have been made aware of the dangers lurking in the shadows, but he was an educator first and foremost, one who cared about his students. "Mr. Branwen here has a semblance that some would consider the epitome of just how unique and abstract they can be. If he can cause bad luck wherever he goes, I do not think it so strange that the young man in question is able to hear a voice in his head that tells him secrets. And beyond that, an alcoholic of his age doesn't exactly have an excuse to hang around teenagers for an extended period of time, even if two of those students are family. No offense, Mr. Branwen."

"Some taken, but I get it."

"I used the word 'potential' for a reason, Bart." Ozpin turned towards the others as he spoke. "It is not that I believe he is actively working for Salem or her allies, it is that constantly hearing a voice tell him things could very easily lead to him being… influenced. His father is a good man, and I see many of the qualities that made his father a quality huntsman in the boy as well. But I allowed him into the school with his forged transcripts because I believed Beacon could mold him into the best version of himself."

"You let him in with forged transcripts?" Qrow gave the man an incredulous look, but Ozpin ignored him.

"I had not anticipated that for every minute of positive instruction we may give him, there may be hours that he would be given instructions that could work in the opposite direction as well. Mr. Arc is the only person who can hear the words of his semblance. We have no way of knowing if it would lead him down a dangerous path, not until it's too late."

"That is not an excuse to have a man spy on him. He deserves privacy the same as any other student! We know who Ms. Belladonna's parents are, that she was previously a member of the White Fang, and yet we do not spy on her, now do we? And that is as it should be. We trust our students to make good decisions, and only punish them after they have strayed from that path."

"Wait, you've got White Fang members attending Beacon?" Qrow was once again ignored.

"We are not talking about the White Fang. We are talking about a boy who knows things that he should not. He is not someone I have known and worked with for years, someone I know that I can trust. He decided to come to Beacon, he wants to become a Huntsman. But if the voice in his head is an entirely separate entity, how can we know that their goals align? That he will not be manipulated into serving the interests of someone else? We can't. However, if we were to have someone keep tabs on him, make sure that he isn't getting up to anything untoward, at least until some level of trust is built…"

"Do you truly think that any level of trust can be built when you're actively spying on him? Do you do this for everyone you meet? Was I spied on? What about Glynda or Peter or the headmasters of the other schools? After all, we directly influence the next generation of Huntsmen and Huntresses, why wouldn't you spy on all of us? We could potentially be working against you."

"Hey now, it's not like that and you know it Oobleck, Oz wouldn't-"

"The more we speak about your secrets, the more you start to sound like James. I have respect for you, but I'm not sure that I can respect your methodology. I… I think it would be best if I were to cool my temper before we continue. Good day." The doctor pressed the button for the elevator, leaving the pair behind.

"Why am I even here if I'm just going to be ignored for the whole meeting?" Qrow threw his head back, downing his entire flask in one go.

Ozpin sighed, taking a seat at his desk. "I apologize, Qrow. You know how these things can be. Can I trust that you'll look into the boy for me?"

"...I suppose. But something's been bothering me. If this semblance of his knows your secrets, what's to stop it from telling him that I'm keeping an eye on him?"

"As far as I can tell? Nothing. But it came to me, asking for advice, so it is not omniscient. We can only hope that its limitations mean that it won't be alerted."

"I really hope this doesn't come back to bite us, Oz…" Qrow opened the window, stepping out and falling out of sight.

"-tattletale, and parallel mind." Jaune found himself going over the list of names the team had come up with the following day, still undecided.

Hmmm. I don't think any of them are exactly bad names, except maybe Nora's suggestions. Second Thoughts is my pick though. Clever, rolls off the tongue, hints at the reality of the situation without being obvious if you just knew the name. Who came up with that one again?

"I think it might have been Blake? With all of them shouting over each other it was kind of hard to tell though. But I agree on that one being the best of the bunch, so we'll go with that. Unless you feel like revealing your real name?"

I thought we agreed to no more uncomfortable questions, at least from you.

"We did, but you're the one who suggested Cassandra! That's not a semblance name, that's a person's name!"

I can't help that our thoughts are still spilling over! I only thought of that one because of an old story where a woman named Cassandra predicted the future and was ignored or something like that. Been a while since I heard it so don't quote me on any details.

"Fine then, keep your stupid secrets. Some semblance you are…" Jaune grumbled, "Hopefully that list of exercises Ozpin sent us will help with the separation, though I don't really understand them. How is mediation meant to do anything?"

Honestly? I don't get it either. But he's the only one who would have any clue, so it's follow his advice, or we resort to literal guesswork. I've never tried any of this stuff, so I suppose I can't exactly knock it without putting in a serious effort, even if our first attempts didn't yield results.

"How could you have tried it? You haven't even existed for a week."

Right. Yes. You're totally correct, I should have thought of that.

"When you say it like that I don't believe you."

Well I don't care what you- OH! A convenient distraction! I need you to look at the wall over there, next to the window. Don't say anything!

With no other options if he wanted his mental roommate to shut up when he needed his head quiet, Jaune found himself staring at a blank wall, wondering how exactly does this count as a distraction?

Quit complaining. While I'm stuck in here I'm limited to your senses, if you can't see something neither can I. I thought I had heard… aha! There you are, you dusty old bird!

A bird? You're distracted by a bird?

It's a special bird! One of the alcoholic variety.

How can a bird be an alcoholic? Can birds even drink alcohol?

Look Jaune, birds aren't real. They're sent by the authorities to spy on you.

What on Remnant are you talking about?

First of all, I'm not talking about anything. We're thinking, genius. Secondly, I mean that bird right there, the one looking at us through the window, is spying on us. What's so confusing about that?

Jaune, very much done with Second Thought's shenanigans, proceeded to stand, sending a message to his team that he'd meet up with them soon.

Come on! You have to let me have a little fun here. It's kind of boring being stuck in your head, you know. I have to sit through all these garbage lectures, watch you get your butt kicked, hear all of your cringey teenage thoughts. This could be considered a form of torture.

"The torture is me having to put up with you. Why couldn't I get a cool semblance like… well, basically any of the others I've seen?"

I'll admit that some semblances are cooler than me, but not all of them. That's just mean. I'm way cooler than Mettle or Misfortune. Also, why are you physically speaking? Isn't one of the biggest bonuses of me being in your head the fact that we don't need verbal communication?

"We're having a conversation, it feels weird to not be speaking to you."

Well you better get over the weirdness real quick. That'll be a liability in the field, and I kind of need you alive for my continued existence. Presumably, anyway.

"What difference does it make against Grimm? They don't seem like they can understand what we say. Or maybe they just don't care? Either way, I'll definitely be talking to my team, even when we're fighting."

I'm not talking about fighting Grimm. I'm talking about fighting other people.

"Why would I fight other people? Huntsmen fight Grimm. That's like, the whole point."

Because when shit goes- I mean, you have to fight people all the time! You fight other people in combat class don't you? And when the Vytal Festival rolls around you'll be doing team combat with the other schools.

"But that's just training, isn't it?"

Look, you've heard how Ruby got into Beacon, right?

"She fought some criminals? Stopped a robbery?"

Yes, exactly. She stopped Torchwick and some goons from robbing a dust store. Goodwitch showed up part way through and assisted. The ideal is that you fight against monsters. The reality isn't always that pretty. I can't say for sure, but I imagine that's why you guys do so much training against each other. Fighting a person and fighting the Grimm are two very different things, especially if those people are trained just as well, if not better than you are.

"I guess when you put it like that it makes sense, but I never saw my dad fighting other people…"

You didn't exactly grow up in a crime ridden area though, did you?

"Well… no… I guess I see your point."

Good. In that case, start working on thinking to me, instead of speaking to me. Also, when we meet up with your team you're gonna ask Pyrrha for extra training. Not that you can really start it until we get the aura drain thing figured out, but it's good to be proactive.

"What? Why?" Er, I mean, 'what? Why?'

…we'll work on it. And it's for the same reason that you're not speaking right now. You need to be ready for combat situations, and frankly? You kinda suck. I know you forged your transcripts, you know you forged your transcripts, Ozpin probably knows… but you haven't told your team. They should probably be aware so that they realize you need extra training. They all have a lot more experience than you. And that's all on top of the fact that you're skipping any training while your aura is draining like this. Or did you want to hold them back by being an awful team leader?

…no. Fine, I'll let Pyrrha kick my butt if it'll shut you up.

Ha! You think I'm gonna be shutting up? That's hilarious.

"Too long! I'm gonna call him Second!" Excluding Nora's proclamation, his team seemed to accept the name for his semblance.

"Nora, you can't just say that people's, or semblance's, names are too long. That's rude." Ren chided his partner.

"I totally can! All of our names are only one or two syllables. Thoughts can be his last name."

"That's… not incorrect…"

I don't particularly care if she just calls me Second.

"He says he's fine with it." Jaune spoke for his semblance.

"It's nice that we have something better to call him, but have you had any luck with stopping him from draining your aura?" Pyrrha asked.

"Not much luck yet, but we haven't tried everything on Ozpin's list yet. I'm sure we'll get it figured out soon enough. Although… we haven't actually checked my aura levels recently." Jaune pulled out his scroll.

What's the point of constantly checking it? We know I'm draining you, that isn't magically going to stop. Though may- oh. That's interesting.

While his aura was obviously still draining, the rate was not what they had been expecting.

"How am I still at 50 percent? That's only a 10 percent difference from when I was supposed to spar yesterday. It had drained four times that amount before Second started talking to me."

"Perhaps the drain isn't linear with time? Though I'm not sure how what might be considered heavier use could correlate to less drain without some sort of strange hidden variable involved…" Ren contemplated.

I am not about to do that sort of math again. If that's the case we're making it someone else's problem.

"Maybe your body just needed to get used to it?" Pyrrha suggested, "There are some semblances that are passive, and it wouldn't make sense for something that's on all the time to constantly drain your aura by so much."

"But if that's the case, wouldn't Oobleck have recognized what was happening?" Jaune countered, "With all the notes he has, he had to have seen at least a handful of cases where the semblance was passive. Theirs would have drained them more at the start, just like mine did, right?"

"But he had never seen a semblance as cool as yours before!" Nora exclaimed, "Maybe something about Second being able to talk drained your aura harder at the start. Like a jump start! He needed your energy at the beginning to get his own battery going. Maybe once he gets up and running properly he won't even drain your aura anymore?"

Trust Nora to come up with an analogy related to electricity… but it is something worth considering.

"I sure hope so." Jaune replied, "The sooner my aura gets fixed, the sooner I can get back into training. Speaking of which… would you guys mind helping me get back up to speed? Having time off from training is going to leave me even further behind you guys than I already was."

Pyrrha seemed to light up at that request. "Of course! I'd love to do some extra training with you!"

"We'd be willing to help as well of course, but Pyrrha should probably take the lead, given the results of the combat classes so far." Ren chimed in.

Pyrrha blushed, but she seemed even happier with that outcome. I wonder why?

If you actually put in the effort with this extra training, I might just tell you.

You can't just tell me now?

It's like I said before, I've gotta have my fun somehow.