Atlas

General Ironwood was not a stupid man. In spite of the things that the rags calling themselves newspapers wrote about him, ready to throw all the blame at him for all his failures in Atlas, from a road accident to spoiled milk. General Ironwood was not a stupid man.

But regularly, day after day, he couldn't help but find himself in stupid situations. And, unfortunately, they were not the kind of silly situations one could just laugh at in the end. No, unfortunately these situations were silly because they made General Ironwood feel like a fool, a man whose experience and intelligence were simply not enough to deal with them.

Behind him was Remnant's greatest army, the lives of millions of people, hundreds of apprentices, dozens of cities and settlements, failure was not an option. Perhaps only Ozpin could grasp the weight of responsibility that lay on his shoulders, if even Ozpin could do it.

Ironwood was not accustomed to doubting his old comrade, his leader, Ozpin, but looking at him now… Could he still trust his old friend?

Ironwood had never wanted to become a General in the first place. He had graduated from Atlas' Hunter Academy as a Specialist, dreaming of something else entirely.

Ironwood did not come from an honorable family, although he was born in Atlas he was born to a soldier and a waitress parents, he was not some special child, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Contrary to the perceptions of many, mostly those in Mantle, not everyone in Atlas was a wealthy multimillionaire, willing to throw money at each other and fill their garages with newer and more expensive cars.

Was living in Atlas like living in Mantle? No, of course not. Ironwood was forced to admit with regret that the life of the average Atlas resident was still somewhat better than that of the average Mantle resident. But this was not to lead to the macabre delusion that all of Atlas residents were better than all of Mantle residents.

There were very few rich people among the inhabitants of Atlas, the kind of families that the people of Mantle thought all of Atlas were. Maybe there are twenty or thirty families, the Schnee among the first, then the Trophy, Marigold and some more, less notable families. Perhaps two hundred people in all that are considered extremely rich.

But there are almost a million people living in Atlas. The extremely rich, as expected, are an extreme minority.

Even including all those people who could only very conventionally be classified as rich, shop managers or army captains, there wouldn't have been even a couple of tens of thousands of them. All the other people of Atlas were very ordinary, soldiers, waiters, engineers, technicians, even laborers and cleaners. Atlas might be the most technologically advanced city in Remnant, but army robots were still too expensive to try to replace people doing hard physical labor with them. Each robot cost thousands of liens, not including the cost of regular maintenance and recharging, which was simply inefficient when for just ten lien an hour, an adult-bodied man could do the same amount of work.

While one might argue the managerial load could be reduced by having a robot replacement, managing robots is still a very specialized and expensive work.

In the end, the people of Atlas were not so different from the people of Mantle. Ironwood, known by his friend back then as just Jimmy, also played games with his peers, also saw the trials his family went through, and saw the tragedies that happened here and there.

Initially, James didn't want to join the army at all, but during his school's annual testing, it was revealed that he possessed significant reserves of an already opened aura. How exactly that happened, James never knew to this day. But after that was known, his career path was sealed.

Still, having enrolled at Atlas, James, tired of his father's pressure, did not want to get involved with the service of the state in any way at all, preferring to stay with his Hunter team. He hoped that he and his team would go on a great adventure in a world full of danger and wonder, saving beautiful ladies and killing horrible monsters. What more could a young lad who had just escaped the care of a tired mother and former military father want?

And then his team died.

It was their third mission as Hunters, there was no sign of trouble, just another horde of Grimm, another small settlement to save… And then they started dying.

It happens so easily. When a young and naive Hunter overestimates their strength, underestimates their adversary, and throws themselves headlong into the maelstrom, they die.

James Ironwood's world fell apart then. Had it not been for his Semblance, revealed at that moment, he would probably have simply gone mad.

By then, old wounds seemed so immaterial, and he wanted to mend his relationship with his father. His realization came too late, and his father had given his final honor, finding himself buried in Mantle amongst his past comrades.

Specialist Ironwood was still young by then, but for the first time in his life he found himself utterly lost.

And as if to prove Atlas' jokes true, like any lost man, he joined the army.

He wanted no more adventure, maybe he just wanted to forget himself. To finally put the reins of his lost life in someone else's hands and worry only about whether his uniform had been pressed on parade and whether the money he had sent to his mother had arrived.

But Specialists in the army are a rare thing, not because Atlas was somehow unique in this respect. On the contrary, Atlas had pooled most of its Hunters into the army, but there were never many of them in the first place. In the entire Atlas army, numbering six hundred thousand men, there are less than a thousand specialists.

Their position was special from the start. It's in the name, don't you know?

But with great rank comes great responsibility. Often Hunters act as field specialists in destroying Grimm, often they also have to take command in the field, simply because they could stay on as the most senior commander.

Granted, Atlas' army hasn't left the confines of Solitas in a long time, and there aren't many Grimm in the frozen wastelands, but that doesn't mean they've been sitting around doing nothing. Considering what a huge tax burden, maintaining the greatest army on Remnant is never mind the resources needed to maintain it, it would be foolish to have one and not use it.

Any scrap of deposits of any resource, be it dust or iron, tended to run out, and scouting new ones among the Grimm was by no means the easiest of operations.

So first Specialist, then Sergeant, then Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel, and finally the Army General and Headmaster of Atlas Academy appointed James Ironwood as his successor.

By then, James was no longer the young man who had once wanted to see the world. By then, James had already been trained by Ozpin, and therefore took on another heavy burden.

But James Ironwood never wanted to become a politician, a general, even headmaster of a Hunter Academy.

He simply had no choice.

The funny thing was, that having become the most prominent figure in Atlas, rivaled only by Jacques Schnee, he still had no more choice as she had as a young man possessing nothing.

What could he do when he saw terrorists from Mantle receiving resources that pointed entirely to Jonathan, and heard Ozpin and Jonathan himself assure him that these were the actions of the long dead but still active Aifal of Mistral. A man he had never seen but heard more about than others hear about God?

What can he do when he sees a mad tycoon preparing forces to seize power in Atlas?

What can he do when those investigating the mass disappearances of Mantle's inhabitants find themselves the prime suspects?

What can he do when event White Fang transforms from a mere activist movement into a new state before his eyes, as Menagerie sprouted up political systems, an army, and an economy.

Grimm bite his ass, even some Atlas tycoons are already trying out financial ventures in Menagerie's territory!

What should James Ironwood do in these circumstances?

Oh, surely he doesn't sit still! Inactivity is not something that James Ironwood knows!

Three years ago, when Ozpin and Jonathan brought the information to Ironwood, everything seemed simple. Not easy, but simple. There was a clear purpose, clear allies and enemies. It was reminiscent of the army that James Ironwood loved, all that had to be done without trying to find the answer to the age-old question of who is the enemy.

There's the enemy, Jacques Schnee, in front of you, so act!

And along with Ozpin, James Ironwood acted. Ozpin had created a neat plan, and all James had to do was act on that plan. A little pressure here, a little military presence there, a little money there, and lo and behold! The indestructible Schnee empire crumbled brick by brick.

James was no good at political wrestling, or the fine arts of the bargain, but James was brilliant at getting things done. This is how the army was always supposed to operate, the very idea of tying the army to politics was flawed in its very essence.

And in just over a year the 'invincible' Schnee Empire was defeated, and Jacques himself was reduced to the level of a mere manager.

Here Ironwood could even be proud of himself, he had fulfilled all his tasks clearly and efficiently. Acting according to Ozpin's plan, they managed to neutralize Jacques even before he realized that he had already been defeated.

The problems started afterwards.

Distracted by his fight with Jacques Schnee, James suddenly found that Jacques was only one of his new concerns.

Mantle had always butted heads with Atlas, but it had always seemed to James that this was nothing more than the attitude of a resident of the countryside towards a resident of the capital. Not the happiest, but not beyond grumbling at each other, either.

But what had arisen before his gaze no longer fit into that framework.

Terrorists, the most diverse and the craziest, Mantle was crawling with them. From those whose ideas James even sympathized with, not that he would acknowledge their methods, to the ones that wanted to abolish the segregation of faunus in Atlas by the outright destruction of Atlas.

Action was needed, and quickly! James didn't need to know whether these emerging cells were a response to Schnee's actions or a separate disease entirely, but even sympathizing wholeheartedly with some of them - in the end they were all dangerous. Not just for Atlas, but to Mantle as well!

Solitas were sparse of Grimm, but the level of negativity they created was excessive, even for Solitas.

But Ozpin spoke out against him.

Seeing the same pattern that gripped Mantle like one with Jacques' when General Ironwood felt not the desire, but the need to act, Ozpin only shook his head, telling Ironwood to be moderate, to leave it all to chance.

Even when people started going missing in the slums of Mantle, all Ozpin would advise was to send some of his best people on a reconnaissance mission!

The moment Mantle's terrorists moved to start terrorizing ordinary citizens who did not support their aspirations, all Ozpin could say was 'do nothing!?

That was the first moment James Ironwood remembered that, after all, he was not only Ozpin's enforcer.

He was still also the General of the Atlas Army!

And, disregarding Ozpin's words, James Ironwood brought in troops to assist the police.

Did it work like he expected?

No, unfortunately not. James Ironwood was a good doer, but not a great strategist. The people in Mantle met him with apprehension, and after a while, rumors began to spread that Atlas' Army itself was responsible for the mass disappearances.

James would have liked to shoot the one who spread such rumors himself!

But in the end, James did the right thing. Despite Ozpin's words - Mantle's terrorist cells began to disappear one by one.

Of course not all of them were eventually charged with terrorism, there were plenty of small interest groups among the Mantle societies, not all of them with terroristic intent. But a good number of them ended up just as small gangs, real criminals that had to be brought to justice. And more than once, James was saddened to see another young boy or girl end up being sentenced to capital punishment.

James was sad to see it, but even if the law was harsh, it was still the law.

Still, the rift that had formed between James and Ozpin only continued to widen. Although James saw that he was acting for the good of his entire state, for the good of millions of people who only wished to be left alone, without the interference of Grimm or criminals in their ordinary daily lives… Ozpin stubbornly refused to acknowledge his rightness.

And so, when Ironwood discovered several deliveries of arms pointing entirely to Jonathan, Ozpin sided with Jonathan.

No, James was not blind, he saw that Jonathan was not the kind of man who would choose to supply terrorists, in the past, perhaps.

But hadn't Jonathan started the transformation of the White Fang from a pacifist movement for the rights and freedoms of all faunus to a state with its own army? A state willing to steal Dust even at the expense of supplies to Atlas?

And even if Jacques Schnee were, well, himself, he was still an Atlas man, a citizen who still had rights and freedoms. And the White Fang, no matter how much they cried out that they were freedom fighters, had eventually crossed the line into mere criminals.

General Ironwood understood that the world of politics in which he found himself, one way or another, was a dirty business. A place where bribery, blackmail, silencing other people's sins and even creating false ones for each other were commonplace, but he believed there had to be a limit to everything, a final line.

Wasn't this line crossed by Jonathan when Raven, a notorious criminal on whose hands rested the blood of hundreds of innocents, demanded Jonathan's cooperation in the matter of her enrichment and legitimation in payment? Did Belladonna not cross the line by effectively legitimizing Raven Branwen? And, most importantly…

Wasn't Ozpin crossing the line by vouching for them in the face of James Ironwood?

James was an honest man of high moral standards, and he could not understand such hypocrisy.

Even if it was necessary to save all mankind, was there no other way out? And even if there wasn't, was that salvation worth more than defeat?

And so, when James discovered the signs of someone else's meddling in Atlas's affairs, Ozpin's words could no longer reassure him.

Ammunition, weapons, even Jonathan's bloody magical miracles don't come out of thin air, even if Jonathan can just teleport them, that still means that he created them beforehand.

But Ozpin and Jonathan haven't admitted this and… James Ironwood accomplished what may have been a turning point in the entire history of Atlas.

An army reform.

More accurately, army reforms were a regular occurrence around the world, in Atlas even more so. Obsolete weapons retired, new re-organization checking old commanders against their ranks.

But this time something had happened that had never happened before.

Vale's spies had been routed from Atlas's army.

Old friends and pawns of Ozpin, the ones Ozpin had once reported openly as proven men, not privy to the details of this world, but serving as a link between Atlas and Vale, between Ironwood and Ozpin. Created so that in a time of need, Atlas's army could still move even without James himself.

He removed the old passwords and workarounds in Atlas software once handed to Ozpin. Changed the composition of his secretaries and old deputies.

It couldn't be called anything other than a major rift between the two main protectors of Remnant's future, but who was to blame?

And when, it seemed, the ties between old friends and allies were threatening to break down permanently…

Ozpin reported that a horde of Grimm, comparable in size and strength to the one that had nearly wiped Glenn off the face of the Earth, was heading for Vacuo.

Vacuo was a much larger and more secure settlement than Glenn had once been, with many Hunters and an army in proximity. But still, the horde in Glenn had gone through the entire town in just a few hours, had it not been for Jonathan's intervention it would have been over before Vale even knew what had happened.

And in the meantime, Ozpin reported that a military coup was being prepared in Atlas, and none other than Jacques Schnee was to blame.

What was James Ironwood supposed to do in this situation?

Go to the aid of Vacuo, giving a soft underbelly to Jacques Schnee? Refuse to help Vacuo and condemn millions of people to death? Or was this all a ploy by Ozpin?

James Ironwood was not a man without a mind, but not without a heart either.

So all he could hope was that, even after what happened, Ozpin had not lied to him this time either.

Distracted from contemplating the view outside his window, James sighed and turned to his desk, where a handwritten urgent message was already resting, something that couldn't be trusted to be spoken over a scroll.

Arrest Jacques Schnee on charges of high treason. Signed - General James Ironwood.

Winter Schnee has always considered herself to be an outstanding girl.

Marked from an early age by outstanding physical ability and a good figure. With her Aura awakened at the age of twelve, and her father's fabulous fortune, first in line to inherit the entire dust mega-corporation of the Schnee, she wants for nothing. She was considered an example to all of Atlas' high society, even at such a young age, many predicted a great future for her, both her teachers and her acquaintances, or rather, the parents of her acquaintances.

Her younger sister, Weiss, also always looked up to her with admiration in her eyes, even if, for now, she was more interested in Winter's hair or her sparkling clothes than in her achievements. Winter Schnee was predicted to have a future as a first-class businesswoman…

This is what caused such a wave of confusion, shock, and horror when Winter Schnee announced that she would be joining the Hunter Academy.

A Hunter's status was high, but it was not an institution worth attending for the future heiress to Jacques Schnee's fortune. Atlas University of Economics? Any other Business academy? Maybe even Vale's Political Institute, but definitely not a Hunter's Academy.

The blow to society, however, when Winter Schnee was declared excluded from the line of succession was fatal, it would have been, had it not even been for the big news that came a little later.

Winter Schnee didn't go to Atlas, she went to Beacon!

The heiress of the richest and one of the most prestigious families in Remnant had not only chosen the craft of Hunters, but had enrolled at Beacon and been disinherited for it!

Oh, all the housewives of Atlas must have had their brains melted by now, pouring over this information from end to end.

Winter would also like to speculate on why such a promising lady would do such an act!

Unfortunately, Winter was well aware of the reasons for such a thing.

Jacques Schnee did not turn into a monster overnight, falling asleep as a great father and waking up as an absolute bastard.

No, Jacques had once been a great father to Winter, or at least that was how she saw it, the truth of the matter was entirely different. Jacques had always seen her only as an 'heiress', someone who would accept his wealth and increase it, singing praises to Jacques Schnee, as the greatest genius of all time.

She wouldn't be surprised if he had already ordered a gold cast of his own bust…

Just gradually, day by day, Winter has seen more and more cracks in the perfect father she knows. Questionable deals here and capital injections there.

And Winter became disgusted with Jacques, slowly and drop by drop, until one day she looked at him and realized something.

The man is not my father.

After the hundredth collapse in his mines? After the thousandth escapee captured by the always vigilant security service? After the ten-thousandth time, Jacques told her how much he expected her to excel?

At some point, she could no longer stomach seeing his face.

She couldn't stand it anymore, not the hypocritical smiles, not her father's words, not all those expectations placed on her.

And then, Jacques Schnee's empire crumbled like a house of cards.

Winter had seen it coming, Atlas had seen it coming, hell, all Remnant had seen it coming, but not Jacques Schnee. He was like a man possessed.

For over a year she had hardly seen her father, as he had surrounded himself with several rows of mechanical guards, and locked himself in his office like an obsessive. He no longer showed up for his appointments, appearing only on the dinner table in the morning, only angrier and more tired.

And finally, when Jacques Schnee's empire finally collapsed, Winter could breathe a sigh of relief.

No more pressure on her. No more inheritance or her to manage.

And even if what had collapsed on the ground had been her grandfather's life's work, in the end, Winter could only breathe a sigh of relief.

She was free at last.

But when Winter was already contemplating going to Atlas for her hunter's license,

Jacques Schnee began planning a power grab.

And what was most disgusting to Winter was that Jacques Schnee had not decided on his insane plan to seize power through force initially. No, Jacques understood that he was surrounded, and his company was fragmented, so the most logical way he saw, was by putting pressure on Winter to force her into the army after her training as a specialist!

Of course, Winter would not agree to such a thing. And so, contrary to the gossip of the housewives, her disinheritance happened before Winter, finally tired of Jacques and his machinations, rushed from Atlas away, to Beacon.

Had the situation been somewhat different, Winter would have had to stay in Atlas, but now that the government had securely tied Jacques's hands, she was no longer afraid to leave her family in Atlas and go away. The government now had Jacques securely in its grip, and there was simply nothing he could do to his family without risking immediate punishment under the full force of Atlas law.

And so, free of all past memories and obligations to her father, no longer troubled by their expectations, Winter was finally able to break free from her cage, and had found herself in Vale for the first time.

For two months now, Winter Schnee has been a model student at Beacon Hunter Academy, leader of team SWBE, Strawberry. And in those two months she has felt like she has seen more of the world than she has ever seen when she was in Atlas.

It turns out that people without servants buy their own groceries! And even cook, by themselves, too! And also, when they are short of money, they take on part-time jobs!

Isn't that amazing?!

And people outside of Atlas really think differently.

It turns out that in Vale, many people thought King Osmond was a hero, not a criminal. Even the existence of Menagerie was highly accepted!

And the faunus, it turned out, weren't like wild animals at all! In Atlas, it was extremely rare for her to encounter faunus, but in Vale it was very different. She had seen a sticker stating that the shop did not serve faunus just once, and it was not even a supermarket, but a small shop.

She had even seen fauna behind the cash register in the shops!

And though, in the end, Winter Schnee still missed her home… In the end, the world opening up to her from the heights of Beacon, seemed far more appealing than all that she had left behind.