Chapter 18

[||||=LEVEL 18= ||||]

Everything had been well in school. I had started on a new plan with Roman. I had realized that forever fall was a very… interesting location and that the sap from it's trees was immensely valuable. A plot had developed from there. If it follows well I might even meet Weiss pretty soon and improve a lot around Remnant. And today I found a gift in my dead drop location for Kerrigan. It was a good day.

I waited until subI to read it though. I didn't get a good time in the morning since I was a little later than usual and I wasn't reading it in math or history class.

When I got to subI though I saw Cesium on his scroll. An odd sight. When I entered he glanced up and stopped making an… Email.

"I found one. A woman named Harlequin." I nodded understandingly. Harlequin managed a bar over in north western Vale.

She was like the second Junior with more accurate information but more expensive costs. The place actual criminals go for information and not huntress es in training when they want a bar fight.

"Good." I said approvingly. "The report?" his face darkened.

"It's… Not great. There's a guy named Roman…" the door opened and Kerrigan walked in and Cesium paused. "I'll tell you later." I quirked an eyebrow but left it be. Well, for now.

THere was relative silence until Ocean got here, whereupon Bella dropped down. "Okay! Today-"

"Actually Bella, mind if I interrupt you here?" I cut in. She looked to me curiously. She clearly seemed to consider ignoring me but she shrugged and took a step back.

"Don't take long. This really is important."

"Cesium. Give your report to everybody this time." Cesium looked at me with some surprise but stood up.

"My monthly assignment was to look into the underworld element in Vale and check up on it's situation. I got some portals to Vale and connected with an information broker named Harlequin." Kerrigan looked sharply to me and Cesium and Ocean looked very interested as to why I did that.

"I provided some information on signal - graduation rates, average test scores, and a little dirt on my history teacher to get a simple update on the situation. As it turns out it is BAD." Kerrigan kept his face neutral and Ocean openly curious.

"There's a gang, the Empire, under a man named Roman Torchwick, that's been tearing through the underworld in the past four-ish months. They were fine before but recently a ton of gangs have been swallowed up as they expanded and solidified their gang. They currently cover half of Vale from the docks and industrial district covering west side to the plaza. And they're not stopping."

"If they keep going they could take up all of Vale. Somebody holding that much power is… concerning. Not just to me but everybody. Atlesian agents are supposedly looking into it since as of now every assault they've done has been so well done that they practically walked in. Recently they've been far more non-lethal than before but that doesn't mean they're a good thing."

A silence took over the room. Bella broke it first. "That's-"

"Entirely incorrect." Kerrigan interrupted. Cesium raised an eyebrow and looked to Kerrigan challengingly.

"Then what is the state of Vale's underworld?" He asked.

"Vale's underworld is being taken over by the empire gang but they're not doing it like some sort of tyrants. Captured gangsters, of which there are many, are handed to the officers in exchange for them turning a blind eye to their activities. The only deaths recently have been the leaders of gangs."

"Not to mention that the man holding that much power doesn't quite hold all that power without restraints. He has a system of under bosses that manage his territories, who then raise their own captains to handle operations."

"But most of all, the empire isn't a bad thing. Crime rates have reduced in severity. They're more organized now crime-wise but they aren't stupid. They know that if they drastically increase crime they're going to be beat on by the police and even the huntsmen if they really screw up. In fact, the empire has cut down severely on the drugs that enter Vale. Druggies have reduced in numbers by quite a lot. There's a few but serious drugs like cocaine are only available at east side now."

"This has a variety of effects. Housing prices on west side and parts of the plaza actually increased due to the crime being organized, for example. The only people that cause real trouble are the typical hoodlum that claim to be some hot garbage playing at being bad boys."

A short silence followed this while I grinned and watched this all unfold. "And how do you know all of this?" Cesium asked.

I put in my part here. "Remember when I said I'd introduce you to two info brokers? Well meet Kerrigan Granite. Second son of Cruche Granite, head of the Granite family of big-time information brokering. He'll be your new information guy since Harlequin is unreliable. Junior's reputation as a more softcore underworld broker is pretty undeserved. He knows what's happening and who's moving in Vale but Harlequin is more for finding a person, getting in touch with a guy, or something like that."

Cesium was speechless. Then Bella clapped. "Great! That lasted far less long than I thought it would. Kerrigan's anonymity I mean."

"I knew before we met." I said.

"I learned on my first assignment, to learn more about him and Cesium." Ocean said.

"And obviously I knew. I did background checks on all of you guys. But then I got some red tape around Abyss." Bella glared at me halfheartedly and I smiled at her.

"Wait, I was the only one that didn't know?"

"Of course!"

"Yup."

"I was keeping it quiet."

"Don't worry about it Cesium." I said to soothe his pride a little bit. "You made a contact, got Kerrigan as an info broker, and I'll be introducing you all to a big fish around new years." Some interest was shown at that but Bella started on her lesson first.

"Good on you all spreading a web of deceit and information trading. Reminds me of my early days. Anyways, we're training to sense and hide our auras today."

"You can do that?!" Ocean asked in surprise. Bella nodded.

"It's super useful for not being snuck up on! I mean, Abyss already hides his aura - hyper competent asshole - but you all need to learn."

"Isn't this a skill reserved for spec op units and the like?" Kerrigan asked.

"Yeah but there's nothing against you learning it. Anyone can do it with a bit or work. Normally people don't because to learn it you have to have somebody flare their aura. REALLY strongly in front of you and you get a grasp on that sense and keep it."

"Flaring your aura that strongly, of course, attracts grimm. So you can't learn it in cities and it's dangerous in the wilds to do it so there are special facilities for it to defend against grimm. We're going to abuse Abyss to go somewhere isolated he's been and train there."

"This is abuse of authority." I grumbled.

"Yeah, yeah! Now make the whoosh thing and the portal poofs here. By the way can you sense aura?"

I focused on a portal to Vacuo's desert. Literally the middle of nowhere. "Yeah. I on now how and do so pretty often. It's how I saw you in the rafters. You were being lazy."

"Damn. Well I've never met a signal student who can sense aura before so I'll just take you more seriously next time."

"Fine by me." and at that I got the portal open. Immediately a maelstrom of sand flew out and I closed the portal.

"Sorry. I didn't in know there was a sandstorm there. I'll take a different area." I opened a portal to a steep cliff I had found once and everyone focused on getting the sand out of their eyes.

"Well if that wasn't just a massive 'Screw you' from Vacuo then I don't know what is." Bella said. I opened the next portal and poked my head out. There were some Grimm around but I made a slew of light arrows and headshot every grin around.

"Okay. It's safe." I stepped through the portal and embraced the warm desert sun.

"Wheeee!" Bella said. She looked around and was instantly far less happy. The sun was scorching everything from the sky and everything was terrible. Well, that's probably what she thought.

"Ah, can we visit an island paradise instead?"

"Sure. How about Patch?"

"No really. The desert sucks."

"... Fine." I walked angrily to the portal and Bella hopped through behind me.

"What happened?" Ocean asked.

"We're going to an island. Not a crappy desert!" Bella cheered.

I had visited a tropical island once with Summer. It was a beautiful place on the far eastern coast of Vacuo.

We went there and back within two days tracking down an extremely rare grimm called a dusk nomad since the grimm is huge and constantly travels from east to west or not at all.

It's suggested that it performs photosynthesis but the nomad is scary and big so nobody knows.

I walked through the portal and looked through mage sight for a little lagoon Summer and I had found. I had some beach clothes in my inventory.

I watched as Bella was way more gleeful this time. She laughed and looked around the little clearing where we landed.

Celsius looked towards me jealously - probably because of my semblance. When Ocean arrived she noticed this and whispered in his ear "We can abuse his semblance for fun and profit."

"I heard that." I said with a sharp point to my ears.

"Oh yeah. I forget you have those sometimes." Celsius said. I smiled a little.

"It's because nobody is dumb enough to try to pick on me."

"I made some threats of blackmail and sabotage to your math teacher," Bella called from where she was climbing a tree, "who I call beacky because of her long beak-like nose. She's a racist."

"Thank you." I said honestly. Really subterfuge and information gathering is the perfect class for me. I get so much fun here.

"Don't worry about it! I met some super nice faunus in my time as an operator. Even dated one once. Then I was exposed and it turned out he hated humans with a mad passion and we never talked again - but yeah, faunus are cool!"

So this is that bad dating history observe mentioned. Wow that is bad.

Kerrigan walked in and I got to addressing everybody.

"Everyone!" they all turned their attention to me. " there's a lagoon a mile roughly going downhill. We'll get there soon and do the aura sensing stuff in the water."

"Can't you teleport us?" asked Bella.

"Of course I can." I said obviously. Bella took a moment to process that and leaped from her tree but too late.

I appeared at the lagoon and started making a large circle of runes around it with my parallels. It took about ten minutes but nobody could sense our aura flares inside the ring now. Writing the runes underwater was a pain.

I finished finally and got around to setting some things up. I took a table from my inventory and put it on the sand. I then lauded out two pairs of swim trunks, two bikinis, and two girl's swimsuits. The kind that hide everything. I also put down a few towels.

With all that down I glanced with mage sight at the class, which was jogging steadily down the hill towards the lagoon. They couldn't see me but in the last fifteen minutes they had come pretty far.

Unfortunately Cesium and Bella had their scrolls. I blinked under spatial negation at them and reached my ghost-like hand into their pockets, stealing their scrolls. Kerrigan also had a list of things to do that I stole.

I blinked the objects inside the towels at the lagoon and made a portal under an illusion in front of the group.

Bella ran right into it and the rest of the group couldn't react in time to dodge it going downhill as they were. I blinked to the lagoon and saw Bella falling into the lagoon with a shriek. Ocean, Kerrigan, and Cesium followed.

I closely watched them to see if they couldn't swim and found that they all could. They were angry, though. Or Bella was at least.

"Screw you, Abyss!"

Cesium patted his pockets quickly. "My scroll! Wait… It's gone! M-... You stole it didn't you."

I nodded. "Bella too. The water and salt will dry out of it on the shore. I got some swimming clothing and towels. We've got an hour and a half left in class before we have to get back. So who's up for Marco polo with aura sensing?"

Bella quickly forgave me and the others did too. They all found some bushes and changed before making their way back to the lagoon. Both girls wore their bikinis rather than the other swimsuit. Ocean had also materialized a band to tie her hair from some unknown location. Wherever girls get those things.

Bella proved her habit of jumping right into things constantly by jumping right in. Cesium took his time a little more wading in a bit. Kerrigan could wade in deeply with his muscles. Ocean glided in almost. I teleported to the deep water.

"Okay! You three close your eyes! Abyss and I are going to flare out auras and You'll have to find us. It's more of a feeling you have to dig in to find. Everyone uses it instinctively but it's like hearing. You can refine it. Now close! Don't peek!"

Cesium, Ocean, and Kerrigan closed their eyes and Bella and I shared a look. We then simultaneously flared our auras as we swam to our left. Mine a deep crimson and Bella's a dark midnight blue. I had to turn off my net system too.

Ocean let a slight gasp out and nearly opened her eyes. She scrunched her face and swum towards me and Bella. Kerrigan clocked his head and clearly felt something but didn't quite get a location. Cesium didn't feel a thing.

"Polo?" Cesium said. I looked to Bella and shrugged. Well he wanted a flare. I was planning one every twenty seconds but sure, playing polo alone in a lagoon is fine.

We moved a little behind the group and to the side and Ocean paused and scrunched her face up but couldn't find us. We flared our auras and she got it down and swum towards us.

Kerrigan seemed to find it a little and began moving towards us uncertainly. He seemed to kind of get it.

I suppressed my aura and swum silently towards Cesium. Our two apprentices didn't notice me leaving.

I was right in front of Cesium's face and I prepared my aura for the biggest flare I could. With actual effort to make my aura project itself I let it go.

"OH HOLY SHIT-BRBRLBLR!" Cesium tried to swim backwards from the sudden burst of a new sense but fell backwards into the water. Ocean jerked towards me and opened her eyes to look between us confused. Kerrigan didn't jerk in surprise but opened his eyes to see Cesium flailing about.

I laughed at him with Bella and Cesium calmed down and surfaced, pushing his long golden hair out of his eyes.

"That was awesome! It was so powerful! Like a tidal wave broke on my mind!" I chuckled.

"Can you feel this?" I flared my aura moderately and Cesium nodded enthusiastically.

"Yeah! Now I found that little sense part of my mind! It's awesome!"

"My awakening was kind of like yours. I was pretty dense to aura but then I had my instructor flare and I jumped half a foot in the air and yelled 'it's so big!'. I was the talk of the camp for a week. It was pretty funny though."

Kerrigan cracked a grin and Ocean giggled while I just shook my head in amusement.

"So… Once more, kids! Eyes closed!"

[|||| == ||||]

"Dad? What's this call for?"

"C! I'm glad you picked up! This is big! I got a promotion! A huge one! Bossman got his head stuck in his ass and got fired! Someone higher up took a peek down and didn't like what he was doing so they've put me in his job! It's great! My pay grade increased by nearly half!"

"Wh-what?!"

"I know! That's how I reacted!"

"B-but… what changed?!"

"Kid, someone up above is happy with what we're doing. I've got to break in the boss' chair and do the job he was always supposed to be doing now. Do great in school as you always done."

"I-... Yeah."

"*Beeeeep*"

"... someone up above, huh?... I think I know someone who knows some people up above… things are finally going my way."

[|||| == ||||]

A report sat in front of me. Qrow Branwen and Cesium… I really didn't expect this all to be the case.

As it turns out Raven's defection was a big issue. It wasn't a secret that she had but it was a secret as to where she went. A cover up. Cesium wanted into signal so he applied and was accepted. He did his stuff but in the last grade of the year he missed quite a few classes for some reason.

Now SOMEHOW Cesium found out about Qrow's blood ties to the bandit clan and his sister being the leader of the tribe. He went right up to Qrow and said along the lines of 'get rid of these absences and I won't tell everyone that your sister is a murderous bandit.'

Qrow having a bandit of a sister wouldn't make him tossed into prison or anything but teaching children? When your sister is a murderous raider? No. He would be fired.

Cesium didn't actually know it but I think that Qrow's sister being a bandit might cause a stir among the info brokers and contacts he knows. Not a huge one but which is worse? Being possibly fired and closing a few doors when you're in the middle of fighting humanity's greatest enemy or letting one smart cookie with some serious moxie have some slack?

Being that Cesium is in signal the answer is rather obvious.

I leaned back into the couch and pivoted to rest my feet on the armrests. I had felt like having a couch would be nice. It has been nice. Very nice.

I'm going to stop investigating Cesium. I've grown tired of reaching down the rabbit hole that is his life. He's clearly not a terrible person. I'm by far a worse one anyways. I just have one thing to look for myself.

I opened a two way wind whisper to Raven, who was cleaning her dust blades in her room. "Hey Raven? Do you know a kid named Jamie Cesium Mirrow?"

"Oh?... yes I remember him. Something about him?"

"Did you say that you were born into a bandit camp by any chance?"

"Heh. He said he wanted to blackmail my brother so I gave him that little piece of dirt on him. We just met when I was going to take a tribesman of mine, Swan Blanco, from a seedy bar. We were moving and I had to hunt him down through the ghettos of patch. Don't ask how he got there. I met that Cesium kid, dropped that little tidbit of blackmail on Qrow, and he pointed me towards the nearest bar."

"You really like messing with your brother too much."

"It's an older sister thing."

"Aren't you twins?"

"I was first. I'm also taller."

"Hm. Fine then. I'll use some embarrassing stories about him that Sum told me."

"Good."

With that done I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. So he ran into Raven, asked her for blackmail on her brother, and she pretty much said 'screw it' and told him that tiny piece of information just for the lolz. On the other hand, she did it to get to a bar. Qrow would forgive her straight off the bat.

Damnit Raven.

[|||| == ||||]

"I can't be the only one that wants another monthly assignment."

"They're well planned and rewarding. Of course I want more."

"Don't you two wonder what it is Abyss is working for? How he gets this stuff? I asked Harlequin and she said she had nothing on him. She said she can dig for information but it's a bit costly."

"I'll pay. My family doesn't mind if I use some money of their every once and a while. If it's for information gathering they would be ecstatic. I do most of my networking in Vale and personally so they'll easily shell out a few hundred lien."

"I just need two fifty. It might cost more if it's complicated but I've got the Mavros family name. It isn't hard to scan through the databanks of the government population databanks."

"Sure. I can do that easily. I don't use my allowance. I stockpile it so I've got plenty stored away."

"Thanks Kerrigan."

"Of course."

"If either of you need any wetwork I'm up for it."

"I don't think we will but I'll remember that for next time."

"How long will Harlequin take?"

"A month roughly. Before December's assignments."

"Tell us when you get the documents. Wait, this isn't treason, right?"

"It is. I'll take the dive for it. I'm the one reaching out to Harlequin after all."

"Be careful. Abyss doesn't seem like a sensitive person but digging into his past might be a bit touchy for him."

"Of course."

[|||| == ||||]

It was a month and a week after the aura sensing class that something new happened. It hadn't been terribly difficult to realize that the subI class was up to something. It was the day to assign new monthly objectives. I had this one and then one more, where I'll introduce everyone to my 'big fish' as they call him.

Last month's assignments had been less important than before but not something to sniff at. A few times we reserve a room for something or want to do something with a facility of signal's and have some sort of issue with the other classes and we have to fight for it. We lost the rights to the swimming pool because athletics needed it more, and being larger they got it. It was raining at that tropical island so we couldn't use that. Since we were the smallest class at beacon that sort of thing could happen a lot. Well not anymore!

Kerrigan got some dirt on the other class leaders. People tended to gather around people in the classes. They're just better at what they do than the others and help others out and gain some authority. Yang, for example, was the leader for combat class. When you needed help she was there. There was also Ignatium in math or Tyll in history. Cesium got some dirt on all of them.

It kind of bothered me that Yang was already experimenting with guys. I wonder if Ruby will be an early bloomer like Yang is… well Yang is thirteen and not stupid. She probably knows what she's doing.

Ocean had to steal objects to have evidence on the leaders so she worked with Cesium a little. Cesium found out the stuff and Ocean found evidence.

Cesium made more solid connections with the school and kept what he had. If we wanted to blackmail people if something ever came up we should be able to spread it like wildfire. It wasn't really hard for him but it was necessary.

I didn't give out any rewards since the assignments were so easy. Nobody really minded but they were a little disappointed. I gave good rewards. This month will make up for it though. They'll be meeting Roman after all. With him meeting with Raven so often he has more like sixty percent of Vale under his control.

Obviously the contact they'll be meeting is Roman. I'll ask him to charge them hard for his services. I don't want them to run to him for every one of their issues. They're in subI to get competence. Not throw money at my contacts. No, to get his services they'll have to pay in a more dangerous currency than money most.

Favors.

Not very nice of me but I eliminated whole gangs for Roman. I damn well deserved what few favors I asked for.

Somehow even Bella was in on what they're doing. She, at least, is subtle about it. Nothing out of the ordinary happened except when Cesium's scroll rang the edges of her lips twitched. Nothing extreme about it but this is Bella. She's the sneakiest person in signal that I know of.

When class, which was on advanced infiltration into a building, ended I walked out and the others followed me out before circling back around by either walking around Signal or going into a bathroom for a minute.

I looked to what they were doing with mage sight and blinked myself to the subI room again under invisibility and with my net system on. They all looked suspicious as all hell around Cesium's scroll.

I walked under muffle and everything to their side and read the article.

-where his parents, Kamina Mavros (Formerly Ictarine; see attached) and Hans Mavros were murdered by the local gang which desired control over the local water pump. Hans Mavros opposed them and, with his large frame and intimidating demeanor, frightened away trespassers. He was killed in his own house with his wife. Strangely enough both the gangsters died. One of a knife wound to the throat, likely by Kamina Mavros, but the other is strange. He was riddled with bullets as though from a large collection of pistols at once. However, there were no bullets in the wounds nor was there any signs of a melee weapon used whatsoever. It is for this reason that the incident was recorded in the first place.

During the incident Abyss Mavros disappeared. The pistol used to inflict the wounds was taken as well as what meagre lien and ammunitions was on the gangsters and around the house. From this point onwards the trail goes cold.

That… That could be a slight problem.

"... Oh. Oh dust. I didn't think… I thought it wouldn't be that bad." Cesium said nauseously. He leaned back against a desk.

"How could they do that to a family? To leave a child an orphan over water?" Ocean whispered.

Kerrigan said nothing but went to the nearest desk and sat down.

Bella rubbed her forehead and looked tired. "I hate this part of the job."

Ocean looked up to everyone. "We have to tell him. I won't lie. I looked into the pasts of you two." A wave towards Kerrigan and Celsius occurred. "But this is beyond a past. This is incredibly personal."

Nobody spoke for a moment. "Yeah." Bella said. "Yeah we do." Kerrigan nodded a little shakily. Cesium nodded slowly.

"Don't worry about it." I said coldly, revealing myself. A small jump occurred in everybody. Even Bella. It seemed to unnerve them to see me without a calm smile or a grin.

"My father was being recruited because he was strong and smart. He refused so that he could keep his job at the pumps. The gang didn't take kindly to that and aimed to make an example of him. They did. I made an example of the gangster."

"I spent some time alone for a while. I didn't want to talk to anyone. Just to be alone and work on some stuff. I travelled and grew up fast. Then a friend found me and we travelled together. I made my way to patch then. Of course I'm skipping everything that might help you even a little by the way."

Everyone looked somewhat disturbed by how I skipped over everything and the ease with which I went through all that. "I suppose you all still want details. Figure them out yourself." and with that I teleported out through a portal back home. I needed some time.

It was after school back home that I sparred with Ruby. "Um, Abyss? Are you okay? You seem a bit… off." I paused to consider it.

"I had a bit of a rougher day at school than usual."

"Something bad happen?"

"My subI class looked into my past and found some things they didn't want to see."

Ruby winced. "Yeah I can see how that would be bad." I grunted as Ruby's scythe came swiping under my feet. I hopped over it and stabbed with my halberd at her. Ruby dodged and used her semblance to appear behind me. I brought the butt of the shaft back and hit Ruby in the stomach. I then hooked the collar of her shirt on the butt and dragged Ruby in an arc to land in front of me.

She landed with a grunt and rolled over back onto her feet. "Okay, so is it end of all things bad or just awkward bad?" I paused for a moment. Ruby took my moment of contemplation to lunge and execute a series of cuts and swipes. I knocked them all away but made no moves to counter.

"I have a plan in place with Roman that gives me an uncle, though in reality I'll just be using a remote clone. It'll interfere with it a tiny bit but it's worse that things might get awkward." Ruby smiled.

"Then you just have to move on and put it behind you! That's what I do when something awkward happens. Everybody wants to move on from that stuff. I'll leave you to the criminal stuff on your own."

I nodded. "When did you get so good at this stuff?" Ruby dashed towards me with her semblance. I planted my halberd in the ground to stop her momentum and she swung her scythe anyways. The blade caught and Ruby swung herself towards me. I probably could have dodged but she had been sneaky so I let her feet slam into my side. I grabbed her leg and swung her into the ground and tossed her away from me.

"First of all, ow. Secondly, that's what you always had me do when I did something awkward in elementary school. I just kept applying that and found that it worked. You just have to do the same thing you had me do."

I let a small smile onto my face. Glad to know she was paying attention to do that sort of stuff herself. Ruby cheerily attacked again and I put me effort into the spar again.

[|||| == ||||]

"Where's Ruby, dad?"

"I don't know."

"You're her dad! Why the hell are you just handing her to Abyss?! You don't know where she is, what she's doing, or ANYTHING!"

"... Abyss is in high signal. He can live wherever he wants."

"What does that have to do with Ruby?!"

"... I registered him as her guardian three months after Summer-"

*SLAP*

"... I… That's pathetic."

"Yang… she's happy. I know I made some mistakes. Some mistakes so huge that everyone around me is just stunned that I'm making them but try to see this from my perspective."

"What the hell do you mean?!"

"Ruby is my daughter. Summer's daughter. I'd give everything for her happiness and I know you would too. We both have. I'd even give her up for her own happiness at the price of seeing her grow up and so I have. She hardly even the same daughter I knew before anyways… did you know that she goes on morning jogs?"

"... No."

"She does. Every morning for a while she goes on jogs and I had no idea. That's just a small part of it too. She's branched into her own person. Every parent wants their child to come into their own. Ruby just did it earlier than I ever wanted."

[|||| == ||||]

"This month's assignment is a bit different than normal." I said to the subI class. "Mostly in that you'll be in this too, Bella." She looked in surprise to me but said nothing. She trusted my opinion enough to let me say what I have to say.

"You'll all be meeting with that contact of mine. The 'big fish' as you've taken to calling him. I already put in your pockets an invitation to meet him." Nobody was surprised by this.

"Go to the meeting place, keep him secret, and help him out for that reward I always give out. Oh, and Cesium, it's a little different than usual. This might require a little bit more effort than usual to use but you'll definitely appreciate it." Cesium smiled a little. He probably knew it was worth it already. An apartment on patch's moderately poorer places wouldn't mean much to most but to him, who lived in the ghetto, it was a pretty big increase from what he was used to.

"I've got a portal ready for you all since this is in Vale. We've got a lesson today, though. Right?" Bella nodded.

"Stealth and reconnaissance." I grinned.

"You'll want that. The stealth part especially. This is more dangerous than what I typically give out but let's be honest. You all are talented at wetwork, networking, and digging. Talking about Ocean, Cesium, and Kerrigan in that order."

"What about me?" Bella asked cheerily, obviously digging for praise.

I sent a puzzled look towards her. "What do you mean? I thought you just sat around signal chatting up Qrow?" A collection of snickers sprung out at that. Bella looked flatly towards me and rolled her eyes.

"I sometimes do stuff. I've got other classes than you guys, you know…" I shrugged.

"Well whatever. Let's just get this over with. You all can work on this over the weekend. Wait, it's friday, right?"

"Thursday but tomorrow's a holiday." Ocean said quietly.

"The next three weeks are christmas break." Kerrigan informed. I blinked at that.

"Break creeped up on me. Strange… well that means you have more time to do subI work."

"What if we have more stuff to do than subI work?" Ocean asked.

"SubI never rests. Always on the job. Remember that from the beginning of the year?"

"I thought I was exaggerating." Bella muttered. "You're way better a spymaster than I thought you would be. I haven't had to help at all."

"Are any of you going on a trip or something?" I asked.

Kerrigan spoke up. "I have to go back to Vale to my family. I live with my aunt most of the time."

"That's fine. This is all happening at Vale anyways. Just find a little time away and coordinate with the others. Don't you all have a group chat or a chatroom?"

"We talk about subI stuff in it." Bella said. I froze for a moment.

"Wait, I'm the only one not in it?" A series of awkward glances away and coughs went off. Bella whistled innocently.

"Just don't try something treacherous." I grumbled. They needed some time away from me I suppose. I can look into it anyways. I know all of their scroll codes anyways.

"Try not to bother me too much. I've got an important project to work on during the break. I need this up before spring."

Cesium looked to me curiously. "What are you working on? Some sort of advanced criminal stuff?" I grinned.

"I've got a little side business to set up. It'll be useful."

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"Your goons know all of this?"

"Yeah. See the slips with the sort of hexagon with different colored corners and let the four people with the cards in. They'll look young but they're to be treated with respect. Bosslady isn't to see them and she knows this."

"... Bosslady?"

"She's scary and acts like a boss. You're the boss."

"Fine. You have all their names down and a task for each of them, right?"

"I'm assigning Goldilocks to meet with a few potential recruits of mine. They're running a shit operation and they shouldn't be that hard to recruit. Fishie will be infiltrating a dust depot and stealing their tax reports. I'm pretty sure they're cheating thon them and I want evidence so I can pull some strings with them.

Stone will be manning Junior's bar as a bouncer. I'm not really sure about that one though. Will he be fine there?"

"He'll work it fine. Junior was missing a man?"

"One of the normal bouncers is taking a vacation that day. Seeing family I think. I wasn't really paying attention. Anyways, the last one, Teacher, is taking a bit more of a serious issue. A little guy of mine is taking advantage of the lack of herd drugs in my territory and starting up a little business on the side. He hasn't sold anything but he's massing drugs from a contact in Vacuo, who are still rebuilding from their criminal power vacuum from their little war by the way, and she's to make an example of him and show their contact in the vacuan underworld to stay out of Vale."

"Good. And the rewards?"

"I have a letter for Goldilocks you gave me, the samples of exotic poisons for Fishie, the letter of referral to a contact of mine in Mistral for Stone; just show the letter and he'll let you buy info from him. Finally I have the letter for teacher you gave me in my desk."

"Good work. I cleared out that stretch of trees in forever fall and made sure no grimm can get in for a few days. Send your men to tap that area and get out before thursday. That's when the grimm will likely come wandering back in."

"Sure. Red sap isn't illegal but it sure as hell is valuable as an export. Do you think we could make this a permanent thing?"

"It will be though not in the way you expect. For now, though, it's temporary. Hit the trees and leave. Don't kill them. I heard it takes forever to them to grow back."

"Yeah, like hundreds of years."

"Curious. However, it's irrelevant."

"Whatever you say. Is there anything I should do to prepare for that more permanent venture?"

"Yes. Buy land on patch. It doesn't matter where."

"One bundle of acres in the most boring place in Remnant coming right up. Need them flat or anything?"

"Cheap. Terraforming is an easy business for me."

"Of course you can change the landscape at will. Let me guess, you've got a friend with a semblance for it?"

"My semblance, disaster call, deals with it. You'll see soon. Make sure it's legitimate and iron-clad legally."

"I'll expect profits to rain from the skies. Just following a trend."

"Remember to refer to me as a friend, don't say my name, and give no physical description. I don't want them knowing I'm your boss yet."

"Got it, Mystic. Thanks for trusting me with your name."

"It doesn't matter, Mahogany."

"Huh?"

"Your new name. Or should I say, the name of the co-owner of nature's bounty, Remnant's newest company located on patch. The second being Mystic Mavros, uncle to Abyss Mavros. Oh, and make my nephew the heir to your share of the company."

[|||| == ||||]

I talked with Roman a little and found out where the land he bought out was. It turned out to be in the middle of patch, where the land was pretty rocky and filled with hardy vegetation. I talked a little with Raven and opened up the idea to her.

With my life affinity I could root the forever fall trees, called crimson blooms, anywhere and mature in a few hours. More, even, with a large scale runic circle to encourage plant growth.

I would make some tornadoes and tear up the land pretty badly, removing all the vegetation. Raven with her earth affinity as a maiden would stroll in and fix it all to a nice flat land with all those plants under the earth as compost. She would also tear the earth to smaller chunks to get rid of the rockiness and make the soil soft enough to really grow things.

I'd plant a bunch of crimson blooms around the new land fit for farming now. But that was just a bunch of cash in Roman's pockets. It was so uncreative and not really worth the effort unless I was really bored. I was more ambitious than that.

I planned to alter plants at the genetic level. Plants with my high soul in small doses could be refined into a pill that, when consumed, would boost a person's aura. Plants with a purity affinity could be called the opposite of crimson blooms and sold as ways to ward off the grimm. They actually would be like the opposite of the blooms since the crimson blooms had a corruption element in them. It's what attracted the grimm.

Obviously there was a flaw with the plan. People would take notice of tornadoes lasting that long tearing up patch's badlands and acting erratically but I think I already have a plan to deal with that.

I really want to look into those ruins soon not only for those artifacts but because they might have magical flora or fauna that I can use for my purposes. I'm planning on looking into the ruins around beacon that are seen at the start of the show since there might be something there as well as in forever fall.

Forever fall is actually pretty small. Like ten miles by twenty miles to put it generously. The real thick forest is actually about three miles long and the rest being sparser trees. That's what brings my attention to it. A corruption affinity in the trees… it's tiny. Where have I heard of that before?

The ice forest in Vacuo, of course. Those trees had an ice affinity for certain. But that forest was pretty small. I'm not going to cite any numbers since I obviously didn't measure but I don't think it was twenty square miles of sparse and thick forest. That's where the desert comes in.

The trees with a weak affinity for ice melted or died off while the ones with a strong affinity stood strong. The trees in forever fall probably have a thicket of trees with a far higher affinity for corruption attracting stronger grimm.

Nobody's ever gone all the way into forever fall. I mean, they've gone in pretty deep and even built a railway through it but that's through the sparser part of the falls with younger trees.

As people ventured into the forest it was noted that the grimm get stronger and stronger. People say that they went within one mile of the center of the forest before they had to turn back from too many lives lost. Not always from the grimm either.

Some huntsmen that ventured in started being afflicted with mental issues. They were reported as seeing shadows. Looking at their skin and thinking that it was turning black like the grimm. Legitimate trauma occurred from the forest that people couldn't explain. Psychologists warded it off as stress or PTSD. They were losing friends to the grimm, after all. It's a valid theory and nobody's going to stand up and yell 'MAGIC' as the reason.

Pretty soon the topic died off and people started to go "Oh, forever fall? Yeah the center of the forest is nothing special. It just has really good sap." and that was considered as fact. Nobody actually wanted to spend the manpower to go in when they had perfectly good sap right there where it's safe to venture. When they built the railway the topic was left untouched and people just leaned back and called the forest conquered.

I scrolled to Ozpin's reaction to all of this, being that this whole business was being done when he first became headmaster and was completely unsurprised by his reaction. Complete disagreement with the whole business. Actively protesting the business, citing that we could be using those hunters to find new dust deposits, defend the people (like they were supposed to, he pointed out), or create new territory for humanity to settle in to get out of the somewhat overcrowded cities.

I think that the forever fall is an excellent place to test out my silver eyes in full. I never tried out that super silver eyes mode, where the affinity is a hundred times greater, flaring them I believe it's called, so I can use the mode to kill some strong grimm and reach the center. Hopefully there's some artifact from ancient times or a spellbook on magic.

If it's corruption magic I don't care. I'll gladly raise a new affinity from scratch if I have fantastic spells to use with it. I can only do so much with my own creativity. Ozpin's spell books were the basics of the magic I learned. I could never have come up with the marker for teleport marker or how to make a portal or ice storm on my own. The textbook itself stated that a single spell could take decades to create since they were so complex. Spells I made were the basics of the spellbooks. Apprentice level works that anybody would be expected to do. That I found them on my own was impressive but they didn't make me a genius or anything.

Anyways, I need to go to forever fall and the icy forest soon. Raven will definitely come with me, being that she uses ice magic and is probably getting stabby. Ruby might be allowed to come to the forest. I don't know how dangerous the wraiths are. Certainly not the forest. It's too dangerous for anybody but me to go there since I've got steel will and my eyes.

Whether there's anything worthwhile at these sites doesn't matter. I'll be exploring them soon enough. I just need to wait for a good time to get to them. Summer or spring break should work fine.

[|||| == ||||]

"You're… you're Roman Torchwick."

"Yup. Now which one are you? I've got Stone, Fishie, Goldilocks, and Teacher. Which one are you?"

"Teacher."

"Good! You're actually the one I wanted to meet most. My friend spoke highly of you."

"Your friend is an ass. I know he had a reach in some high places but to you? He just threw me in the deep end here."

"How long have you known him? I've been around him about a year and a half and he tends to toss you to deep water often. It's worth it though."

"That it is. And not too long. Normally I'm a spectator rather than actually interacting with him."

"Huh. Well, anyways, that assignment of yours is to look into a guy under me that's been naughty and selling drugs. Not weak stuff but the hard stuff straight from Vacuo. Go make an example of him and show his Vacuan contact to stay out of Vale with their drugs. Here. That has everything I've got on him."

"Are the other jobs this intense?"

"Dust no! He called you a professional. I'm treating you as such. Well without killing. He said you might be a bit averse to that. The others have easy stuff and I give them the rewards he gave me. Well except for Stone. I'm giving him a referral to a contact of mine."

"I see. Alright then. It's good to meet you, Roman. I'll be back soon enough. This shouldn't take more than a few days."

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