“Okay, so,” Akelarre began. She was standing with hands on hips, her cloak pulled back behind her like a cape and her head turned up in a proud show of defiance. “This is going to be a very important meeting,” she declared.

Cinder nodded, Neo blinked like a disinterested cat and Adam blew air out of his nose like a bull.

“Very important,” Akelarre added. “Super important.”

“Yes. We know,” Cinder said. She looked around the hotel lobby as if expecting something interesting to show up, but it wouldn’t happen. Akelarre already had bugs on everything and everyone and there were no distractions to be had.

Which was too bad. The meeting was going to be boring. Just her, a few thousand bugs, maybe a couple of her newest creations and a whole lot of scared gangsters. Distractions would have been nicer. She contemplated creating a few then discarded the thought.

With a sign, Akelarre said what was on her mind. “I don’t wanna.”

Cinder stared. Adam stared. Neo looked down at her scroll.

“What do you mean, you don’t want to?” Cinder asked. It was, apparently, her turn to place her hands on her hips.

Akelarre sniffed right back. “It’s just so boring. Take over the criminal underground, take over the city, conquer the planet, blow it up. I’ve done it before and it’s not... fun.”

Cinder was developing something of a tick.

“So, that’s why I was thinking. Since you like this sort of thing so much, Cinder, I want to let you take the reigns here. Think of it as a, uh, test.” Akelarre nodded. “But don’t worry. I’ll be close... ish. My range is pretty big with my Grimmsects, so if things get weird just... scream I guess.” She smiled and placed a hand on Cinder’s shoulder. “I trust you.”

Cinder’s hands balled into fists by her side and the twitching in her eye didn’t stop. She looked, if Akelarre was any judge of character, a little conflicted. On the one hand, Akelarre was giving her exactly what she wanted. On the other, she was being given exactly what she wanted.

“So, do you want it? Because I’d much, much rather take a walk with Neo.” She flicked her thumb over her shoulder at her short friend who finally looked up from her scroll at the sound of her name.

“Fine,” Cinder bit out. “But I’m taking Adam with me. I’ll need his mooks to properly take over the underworld.”

“That’s the spirit!” Akelarre said. “What you can’t handle yourself can be drowned in a deluge of smaller, weaker creatures until it suffocates to death. That’s how I handle most of the bigger problems in my life.”

Cinder twitched again. “Are you implying that I’m a smaller, weaker creature?” she asked.

“On that note,” Akelarre said while turning away. “Neo and I will be going now. Neo stole me a cute jacket, so I need to return the favour and find her something cute to wear too.” She pressed a finger to her chin. “I should also probably find out where she stole it from and pay them back.”

Neo scoffed behind her and Akelarre had a sinking suspicion that getting that information out of her was going to be a challenge.

***

“We should attempt a preemptive strike.”

Ozpin gently swirled his mig and watched as the foam floating in the dark liquid spun around and around along the edge, stretching out but never catching up to its tail.

“That would be foolhardy, James. We are far more likely to catch it off guard if we hit while they’re in the middle of their meeting.”

He sighed and stopped, letting the liquid settle before taking a long sip. It was lukewarm. He shouldn’t have been surprised, they had been out and waiting to move since just before the sun rose. He had bought a thermos, most of them had except for the poor saps following Ironwood, but that hadn’t lasted all morning.

“You’re forgetting that attacking during the meeting will put more civilians at risk, Glynda,” Ironwood said.

Ozpin looked around in time to see Glynda frown and then nod. “You’re right,” she admitted after a moment.

The other members of his staff were nearby. Bart and Oobleck chatting with the Schnee girl that had followed Ironwood around all morning with terse whispers. The soldiers took up the back end of the lot, still straight-backed and ready for action, but obviously flagging. He wondered how much longer it would be before one of them gave up on the pretense of discipline and went to find himself a seat.

The robots, and there were plenty of those, were better suited to standing motionless.

Spending his morning in a parking garage that stank of industrial pesticides and burnt rubber wasn’t his plan for a good morning, but needs must. He couldn’t very well allow his staff to lead an assault against such a wily creature of the Grimm without attending himself. He could justify bringing a few teams of students even less, but here they were four teams of Beacon students, all hyped up on their own youth and ready to tangle with a creature they knew nothing about.

He took another swallow of his drink even if it was getting cold. Creature. He kept thinking of her as a creature. For all he knew that was the correct term. He could also be dead wrong.

There was a weight in his pocket. Heavy, burning, cumbersome. It was on his mind every time he moved and it pressed against his chest or when he stood still for too long and allowed it to rise to the surface of his thoughts.

He still hadn’t opened it.

“I said,” Ironwood’s voice cut past his thoughts. “We should prepare now while she’s out of the building.”

“Out of the building?” he repeated. Judging by all the looks directed his way, he had missed something important. “She’s not heading to the conference room?”

Glynda, as usual, had all the answers. “Her accomplices are. The Grimm Girl and one other are moving out on foot. They’ve left the hotel already.”

“Where are they headed to?” he asked.

Ironwood shook his head. “No idea. She didn’t do us the courtesy of calling out her plans so our informants could hear them. For all we know she’s heading to the council building to eat Vale’s leadership.”

“If only we were so lucky,” Ozpin said. He didn’t dare laugh at his own joke, but he did meet Ironwood’s eye and knew that it was shared. “Well then, let’s prepare to relocate this group. Your men can intercept her? You could act as the anvil to our hammer.”

“Hrm,” was Ironwood’s reply. “I’ll see to it. We’ll have to coordinate with our eyes in the air. It’s out in the open so tracing its path will be a damn sight easier.” He snapped around and looked at Winter. The girl was instantly at attention. “Prepare to move out on the double. We’ll have to position ourselves while the target is on the move.”

“Yes sir,” Winter said. She turned and moved over to the soldiers, her voice growing quite a bit firmer and a whole lot colder as she started ordering them about. Soon the quiet of the garage was interrupted by shuffling feet and excited murmurs.

“We should head out too,” Glynda said. “If we’re truly going to act as the hammer then we’ll need to be able to move in quickly. Oobleck was already on the line with the VPD. We’ll see to clearing the area of civilians as quickly as possible.”

“That’s a good idea. It wouldn’t do for a citizen to be hurt by a stray Atlesian bullet, even if it was in the defence of the city,” Ironwood said.

Ozpin nodded along. “Can you take care of that for me, Glynda? Thank you.” He turned to Port and gave the man a quick nod. “Watch over the students would you? I have a little last minute thing to look into.”

He walked away, ignoring the looks at his back as he moved towards one of the stairwells leading to the upper floors. He needed a little privacy for what he wanted to do.

The hotel lobby, when he arrived, was quite empty. The staff having been reduced to a skeleton crew that was ready to leave at a moment’s notice. That was fine by him. Ozpin moved to a corner occupied by a few couches and low tables, an area where the sun’s light, filtered by a small indoor garden, splashed yellow and gold across pristine furniture.

He sat, taking weight off aching feet.

Even now he hesitated before sliding a hand into his jacket and pulling it out.

The letter was inconspicuous. The sort of parchment that might raise a few eyebrows, but that wasn’t beyond the reach of anyone with enough lien to spend. His name, his real name, was scrawled on the front in a hand that was at once hurried and yet beautiful. Four letters, but enough that he recognized her hand.

He broke the seal with his thumb and unfolded the letter.

"Ah,” he said as he realized that not opening the letter sooner might, perhaps, have been something of a mistake.

***

Akelarre stared.

The big man in the white trench coat stared right back.

Neo pulled out her scroll and started browsing a fashion site for one of the local chains. She was looking for sweaters.

“Could you repeat that?” Akelarre asked. She reached up to scratch her nose, but that made all the soldiers, and there were quite a few of them, twitch. She let her hand drop and allowed a tiny fist-sized bullet ant to crawl out from her collar to rub the itch away with its teeny-tiny mandibles. That didn’t seem to help any, but she was beyond caring.

“You and your accomplice there,” he said, then paused as Neo looked up and pointed at herself, her head tilting to one side. “Are both under arrest.”

Akelarre looked back down the path she had been walking, then back to the man. “Did we jaywalk?”

“Under the authority invested in me by the nation of Atlas, I am placing you under arrest. Please do not resist,” the big man said.

Akelarre tilted her head to the side, a frown creasing her brow. “We’re in Vale,” she said slowly, as if explaining it to a child. “Why would your Atlesian authority matter?”

She never let her gaze wander from him, but her bugs were seeing plenty. Plenty of soldiers and bipedal robots, that was, all of them standing in a semi circle before her or using the nearest buildings and cars for cover. A few VPD officers were around too, though not nearly as many as she would have expected. Those were focused on moving the civilians away.

The man grit his teeth. “Surrender now or I will have to make you.”

With a snort and a dismissive wave, she ignored him. “You and what army?”

He stared at her, then gestured at the thirty or so soldiers who looked like they were just waiting for an excuse to start shooting at her. “This one.”

Akelarre smiled. It wasn’t her smile, but one she borrowed from her mom when the woman was talking about the good old days where she crushed armies underfoot. “That’s not an army, mister,” she said.

The air filled with a low thrum. Cars honked, alarms rang.

A siren started to wail in the distance. Its cry growing louder, more desperate with every passing second.

“Let me show you what an army looks like.”