Clark and Ironwood watched as Winter Schnee walked into a room where an elderly woman was seated in a hospital bed with her back against it.

Her name was Fria, and she was the current Winter Maiden. Winter exchanged polite greetings with her, and then she was asked to do three very specific things.

First was to light a candle. Second was to make a cube of ice. Third was to charge up a capacitor. When she did, her eyes gave off a faint glow and Clark saw the flicker of magic between her fingers each time she did one of the tasks with his X-ray vision. However, to his senses, the candle, ice, and capacitor weren't magical at all.

Winter thanked Fria and then walked out the layers of doors which ensured that Fria saw no one but her. That was one of the measures Ironwood had taken so that when Fria died, Winter would become the next maiden.

When the Specialist came out, she handed the tray holding the items to Clark. "Here you are, Superman."

"Okay, let's see what happens." Clark began with the candle flame. He would have been more worried if he could see any magic in it, but it just seemed like normal fire. It had none of the telltale murkiness of magic. He extended his pinky finger and placed it in the flame.

He held his finger over it for a few seconds. "Nothing," he reported and didn't miss Ironwood's disappointment.

Clark continued with the ice cube and releasing the charge built up in the capacitor into his finger. His invulnerability still held up, and there was no damage from either. He allowed Winter to feel his finger to show that its temperature hadn't changed when brought into contact with the ice, and the little spark of lightning harmlessly passed over the surface of his skin.

"I thought magic was able to hurt you," Winter's words were both a statement and a question.

"It can, and it has," Clark said. "But as Ozpin explained, and we just confirmed, it depends on what the magic is doing. You asked Fria to make fire, ice, and lightning, and she did that. And as we showed, none of those hurt me, regardless of whether they were made with magic or not. Qrow can transform into a bird, but he can't hurt me as one, and earlier I punched the Relic pretty hard and it didn't really affect me either."

"But why were Cinder's flames able to harm you?" Ironwood asked.

"Ozpin said that she wasn't just making normal fire, she does something more to it with her magic. In addition to the physical heat, she puts her own hostility and hatred into it so that somehow it hurts me. She made knives too that were capable of cutting me."

That caught their interest, and Clark felt that he needed to add, "And don't worry, I'm sure Winter will be able to learn how to do that too."

Rather than denying what he was thinking, Ironwood said upfront, "You cannot expect us to ignore any methods of defending ourselves from you."

"I don't expect that, and in turn, you shouldn't expect me to always be so nice and play along while you look for weapons to use against me." With that, Clark left the building with a burst of speed that their eyes couldn't hope to follow.

While he didn't want Jinn's warning to set them against each other, Clark wasn't going to ignore it. He understood Ironwood's reasoning, but the general wasn't the best pick for the one who have the means to hurt Clark. That had been clear even before Jinn's warning.

\\

"This is incredible!" Dr. Milson, a middle-aged woman who was the head of Mistral University's biology department, shouted in excitement as she looked at a sample of Clark's cells under a microscope. Clark had seen similar reactions from professors of other universities around Remnant as they'd seen the alien structures that were visible in his cells with a simple table microscope.

"You really are an alien!" she said.

"Yes I am."

"But you look so human. The chances of an alien race developing such similar features, it's pretty much zero! How did it happen?"

"The universe I come from is quite a bit different from this one. There are forces and beings which influence the development of life, and one of them ended up making it so that the humans of my universe looked pretty much the same as the Kryptonians, which is what I am. Although as you can see, that's only on the surface." He gestured again to the microscope.

Clark allowed the professor to gush over the magnified view of his cells for a bit longer before asking for it back. As was usually the case, she requested that he leave the sample there for a little longer so she could run more tests on it, but he reminded her of the agreement he'd made with the university in exchange for the chance to verify his alien biology. Dr. Milson was accommodating, at least she hadn't tried to use sleight of hand to steal his cells like another professor.

When Clark made sure that he'd received the sample back with his own microscopic vision, he opened the window to fly out. The university staff had blocked off this section of the building, but there were plenty of students who waited outside eager for a chance to see him.

He exited the building at about the speed of a car. Many people were recording him on their scrolls and others were waving and shouting. When he was far enough, Clark shot up into the sky and headed to his next appointment.

It was earlier in the morning in Atlas, and he flew down to an abandoned snow-covered Dust mine that he'd been asked to clear out. It seemed like the word had gone out about him killing the Grimm in the area. There were several news vans waiting in the distance up on walls.

With X-ray vision, Clark found the Geist that Atlas had reported. Before it even knew he was there, he tore through it in an instant.

Next were the centipede-like Grimm known as Centinels. These were considered one of the most troublesome varieties because they traveled by burrowing underground. Difficult to find and difficult to see coming, unless you had X-ray vision. Clark could see a large pack of them, dozens of feet long and about as wide as a person. He dove down into their home turf to wipe them out.

Clark couldn't dig through solid rock as quickly as he could fly through air or water, not without causing serious damage to the area at least, so the Grimm did notice his presence as he ripped through them. Even so, he was more than fast enough to kill them all quickly, especially when they had no thoughts of self-preservation and came at him rather than run away. Although they wouldn't have made it far if they'd tried.

One last check of the mine to see that it was empty of Grimm and then Clark ascended out of the mine. This time, he spent some time to address the media of Atlas. Both Ozpin and Ironwood had suggested that he talk to them often and smile.

Clark dropped down to the center of the vans. Eight cameras from various stations were already set up and pointed at him.

"Superman! Mr. Superman!" A male anchor managed to run up to him before the others. "Now that you've cleared the abandoned Schnee Dust Company Mine #2, what are your next plans for the Grimm?"

"Nothing specific. I do daily patrols around Remnant to see which regions could benefit from my help. If another request is sent to me, maybe I'll reply to that first." Clark then looked to the woman on the anchor's left for her question.

"Mr. Superman, this mine used to hire many faunus workers to dig for Dust. By clearing it of Grimm and making it possible to mine here again, are you making a statement of approval for the treatment of the faunus here?"

Clark raised his eyebrow. "That depends on whether the faunus workers here were treated fairly. I hope that if someone starts extracting Dust here again that they give their employees decent working conditions and proper wages."

He stayed to answer a few more questions. They weren't too important. A couple were about clarifications of the Superman Accords that they could have found online. One even asked what his daily routine was like, which he was vague about.

When that was done, he went up into the air and returned to the Fortress. It was time to do his Kryptonian homework.

\\

Ruby spotted Oscar in the cafeteria get a tray of food and sit by himself over in the corner. Normally she would have called him over to eat with them, but ever since the spirit in the Relic of Knowledge had told them about Salem and Qrow had started talking about mom it had gotten really awkward between him and them.

It was wrong, it was unfair. It tore Ruby's heart to see Oscar being shunned because of Ozpin, but she didn't know whether it would be better if he sat with the rest of them in awkward silence.

Yang in particular was angry with Ozpin after she'd heard him basically admit that he'd sacrificed mom. She wasn't the type of person to hold it against Oscar, but it was easy to tell that if she could, she would have forced Ozpin out of him for a talk.

Ruby wasn't mad though, even if she understood why Uncle Qrow and Yang were. More than anything, hearing what Ozpin had said made her want to curl up and cry. It wasn't just about mom's death, she'd accepted that a long time ago. No, it was that mom might have died for no reason. Ruby had always imagined that she'd died fighting to save people, that even if her death had been painful that it had meaning, but according to Ozpin and Uncle Qrow that probably wasn't true.

Salem was immortal, and any disadvantage she might have suffered because of mom would be made up in time. And it was up to Ruby to stop her, the pressure from that would have been hard enough to handle even without the new information about her mom. She'd have to get a lot of training in with Maria.

At least team JNPR could take her mind off of all that. Ruby chuckled as she saw what they were up to.

"Nora, I've never needed anything from you as much as I need you to win right now," Jaune said.

"Aye aye, leader!" Nora saluted and then put her arm on the table.

"Doesn't matter how much vomit-boy cheers you on, I'm winning this," Yang mirrored Nora's posture and clasped her hand. They were going to arm-wrestle. In their first days at Atlas Academy they'd gotten a few stares, but the other students by now just ignored any rowdiness their teams got up to in the cafeteria.

Ruby shouted, "Yeah, Yang, team RWBY's getting the first chance to spar Clark. Isn't that right?"

Weiss and Blake were being boring, so it took a little nudging from Ruby to get her team members to shout their support for Yang.

"Nuh uh, team JNPR's going first," Jaune said.

Ruby laughed as they egged each other on, wanting to hype up the arm-wrestle so she could really lose herself in it. Yang let off with some trash talk and then the arm-wrestling began.

"Go Nora, we believe in you!" Pyrrha raised her and Jaune's hand.

Jaune said, "Yeah, with the power of love, victory will be ours!"

Pyrrha laughed at that, even though her face reddened enough to almost match her hair.

"Boyfriends and girlfriends break up all the time, but sisterhood is forever!" Ruby said. "Familial love will win!"

Nora and Yang were too busy groaning and straining against each other to say anything, but Ruby's smile widened as the balance was upset. Yang was winning.

"No no no. Dang it Ren, give Nora your love too!" Jaune said.

"Wh-what?" Ren spluttered, Ruby didn't think she'd ever seen him so shocked before.

"A kiss! I just need a kiss to win!" Nora said. Her single-minded focus on arm-wrestling had faltered.

"You heard the woman, Ren. Go!" Jaune playfully pushed Ren toward Nora.

Ren seriously looked like he was considering it, but his hesitation cost them the victory. Yang won.

Nora turned back to her team with her head low in defeat. "I'm sorry. If only . . . if only Ren loved me, then I would have won."

Pyrrha patted her shoulder. "It's okay Nora, we all know it's Ren's fault."

Ren rolled his eyes and played along with the joke. "I apologize for being so lacking."

They'd finished their meal a while ago and had spent the rest of the time talking, so they were good to spar now. They all left the cafeteria and along the way to their rooms they saw Clark walking in the halls.

"Clark!" Ruby said. "When did you get here?"

"Hey guys. I just arrived, had to ask a teacher to open a window to let me in." Clark grinned. "Wow, you all look like Ironwood's proper little soldiers in those uniforms."

"Yeah, Blake hates it," Yang said. Actually, Ruby didn't think anyone in her team or JNPR liked the uniform.

Which was too bad. Clothes were really important. After all, Clark looked really cool in his new Superman suit. Not that he'd looked bad before, but he'd been way too focused on a casual civilian look. Now he was wearing something just as awesome as he was. Like the red cape! Only really awesome people knew how great it was, and he wore it better than Uncle Qrow. In fact, it fit him almost as well as Ruby.

Both teams changed into their combat outfits, and team JNPR honored their agreement of agreeing to have team RWBY fight him first.

This was going to be amazing! Clark had never fought Weiss before, so her glyphs would be totally new to him. They might even force him to use super-speed. Usually he just kept his speed lower than Ruby's, which was really annoying to fight when she knew he could go even faster.

As they walked to the training rooms, other students saw Clark and each had one of a few reactions. They either stopped in their tracks and followed along from a distance, they did that and also took their scrolls out, or the few who were trying to look like they didn't care just stopped in the hall for an instant before continuing on their way as if they hadn't seen anything.

By the time they got to the training hall, they'd collected some spectators. They stayed out in the window while team RWBY explained to Clark how the training rooms worked.

Ruby began, because it was really cool and the others didn't appreciate it as much. "The room creates hard-light cubes which are set up in a bunch of ways. You can have a flat floor or put walls, pillars, and platforms all over the place. They're not completely solid, but they can simulate the hardness of lots of different environments. Rock, ice, steel, whatever."

"Hmm." Clark reached over to the side of a hard-light cube and crushed an edge with his fingers. It shattered from his grip and disappeared as it was programmed.

They usually took a hammering from Nora or a hard punch from Yang to break apart like that. Sometimes it was easy to forget just how strong Clark was. With a push from his palm he knocked one of them loose and it broke apart into hard-light shards which vanished.

"Is this how they're going to be set for our spar?" he asked.

"Yep!" Ruby said.

"Alright." He floated up about ten feet above the ground and backed up some distance to face them. "Ready when you are."

Ruby and her team brought their weapons up. This time they were going to surprise him.

It didn't take long for her to realize that she'd underestimated Clark. Now that he could fly, he'd gotten ten times more slippery.

The spar had started off good. Ruby created some distance so she could set up her sniper, Yang fired off some rounds at Clark and raced in to get in close. Meanwhile, Weiss and Blake were at mid-range ready to support Yang or tag in if necessary.

It was just weird adjusting their tactics for someone who could fly like Clark, and none of them could do it effectively in the middle of the fight. His maneuverability in the air was better than anyone could manage with recoil from their weapon. There was no delay between changing directions and all directions seemed to be equally easy for him to move in. Up, down, backwards, forwards, side-to-side. There wasn't any sign of a preferred direction.

Not to mention that the way he'd dodge was completely different from what they were used to. He would look cornered by walls to their eyes, and any other opponent would probably take time to build up strength before breaking down a barrier, but he just went through the hard-light cubes without blinking. Sometimes when Ruby thought they had him, he just went down into the ground made up of hard-light cubes, which exploded into pixels of hard-light against him, and then tunneled back out a few feet to the side of where he'd just been.

Weiss' glyphs did add a new dimension to the fight, as Ruby had expected, but not enough to let them win. Clark usually went around any glyphs she put in the area to slow him down, even though he could brute force his way through them anyway. A couple times he cut her summons apart with his heat vision, which made Weiss mad and Ruby chuckle. After that, Clark let her get one good summon in.

It was a shining white Boarbatusk which Clark kicked into Blake, who yelled at Weiss to get rid of it. Weiss did, with a scowl at her summons not having their moment in the sun. Really though, Weiss liked her new move too much when it took way too long for her to get it ready.

Since it was Weiss' first time fighting Clark, it seemed like he was going a bit easy on her. One time when she had a shield glyph up and he'd broken it with a punch, he could have capitalized on that and taken a good chunk of her aura. Instead, he let Blake come in and fend him off.

He was less forgiving when Weiss made another attempt on him though. At that point she was getting frustrated and tried to rush him with her speed glyphs, her rapier aiming straight at him. She missed and got one of Clark's trademark aura-draining punches in response. Not hard enough to take all her aura away, but Ruby estimated that it had taken a good forty percent. Weiss became a lot more cautious after that.

Anyway, the spar ended with their auras pretty deep in the yellow, close to the red. They were sweaty, red-faced, and breathing heavily.

Clark didn't even have a hair out of place. He set his feet back down on the ground and approached Weiss. "Hey, no hard feelings, right?"

Weiss nodded. "I admit I became rather heated, but it was a good spar. I learned much." She shook his offered hand.

While it might have been fun to watch as team JNPR got the Clark treatment, Ruby needed to shower. Her team agreed.

After they finished showering and putting on their nightclothes, Ruby saw a message from Jaune in the group chat.

Jaune Arc: We're done getting beaten by Clark. But I timed it and we lasted half a minute longer than you guys.

Ruby Rose: He was going easy on you guys.

Jaune Arc: Tell that to my back. Clark literally stepped on me.

Clark Kent: I kicked you into the ground. These things happen when you have more aura than the others.

Jaune Arc: I didn't see you stepping on Yang.

Clark Kent: Next time.

Ruby giggled at the image of Yang being stomped into the ground by Clark.

Clark Kent: Brb, gotta ask Weiss something.

Ruby didn't have long to wonder about that when someone knocked on the door to team RWBY's room. Clark was on the other side and she let him in.

"What do you want to ask Weiss about?" Ruby asked. That made Weiss sit up from her resting position on her bed.

"I received a message from her dad and I'd like her opinion on it," Clark said. He then faced Weiss directly. "Do you mind?"

Weiss stood up and nodded. "I'd prefer not to see his face again, but go ahead."

Clark took his scroll off his belt and showed her a hologram of her dad.

Jacques Schnee's face lit up with a smile. "Greetings, Superman. I hope this message reaches you soon. First, I would like to thank you for removing the Grimm from one of our company's abandoned mines. Those creatures had made it unfeasible for us to resume operations there, but now it looks like a promising venture."

The man cleared his throat, which looked really rehearsed. From the way Weiss rolled her eyes, Ruby assumed that she was right.

"Secondly, I would like to offer you an invitation to discuss business opportunities. You've certainly made a name for yourself and have formed relations with the Kingdoms, but I assure you that the private sector has the most to offer you. I wouldn't wish to set anything in stone, but in general terms I have in mind an arrangement of you providing services in the form of endorsements and advertisements for the Schnee Dust Company and the company providing ample monetary compensation in addition to other benefits. For example, I can open many doors in the corporate and political spheres."

Jacques leaned back in his seat. "My contact information should be attached to this message. While I am a busy man, I'll be sure to answer as quickly as I can if I am preoccupied when you attempt to contact me. Please consider this offer carefully."

The message ended and Clark put away his scroll. "Well, what do you say?"

"Jacques Schnee is a greedy, opportunistic, untrustworthy individual," Weiss said. "If he comes to you with a contract, have it looked over by a lawyer. Preferably one who doesn't practice in Atlas."

"Do you have any specific advice about him as a business partner?"

Weiss shook her head. "I can say that he won't be stupid enough to violate any contract with you unless there's a chance for a lot of profit. Enough to make up for tarnishing the SDC's reputation and pushing away possible business partners. Otherwise, there's not much I can say."

"Oh, I thought since you were the heiress of the SDC, you'd be really in the know about the business."

"I was the heiress. I doubt that's the case any longer after I left Atlas on my own."

"Sorry, I don't want to interrupt," Blake said, although she didn't really look that sorry. "But Clark, are you really considering doing business with the SDC?"

"I am."

Blake narrowed her eyes. "Have you heard about how faunus are treated in the Schnee mines? Or the wage gaps in the SDC between humans and faunus? I don't want to be rude, but it seems selfish and uncaring to use your fame to work with a company like that."

"To your questions, yes and yes. I am aware of the issues the faunus face. I think it's reasonable that when the richest man in Atlas and the CEO of the company with the highest rates of faunus employment approaches me, I consider his offer rather than turn it away immediately. Your opinion on the morality of a partnership with the company is noted."

Clark turned back to Weiss before Blake could respond. "If you're not the heiress of the SDC, do you have an idea of who your dad will pick instead?"

"Yes. My brother, Whitley."

"If I managed to convince Jacques to support more pro-faunus policies in the SDC, can you say how likely it would be for Whitley to maintain them?" At Clark's question, Blake's ears drooped a little and her face flushed.

"It depends. Whitley's tried to turn himself into a miniature version of our father. If he becomes CEO, the company and its profit margins will be all that matter to him. Not whether its employees are being treated fairly or not. He may help the faunus if it gets him good publicity, but otherwise you shouldn't expect much from him. If public opinion were to turn the other way, he'd be just as willing to cut them loose."

Clark sighed. "Of course, it would be too convenient if he wanted to help faunus too. What about you, Weiss? What kinds of plans did you have for the faunus when you were still an heiress?"

"I wanted to help them, of course. Blake and I wouldn't stay friends for long if I didn't. I had plenty of ideas: equality for faunus and human workers, using my money to do something about Mantle, donating to faunus communities and paying for scholarships, but that's all over now. I won't be able to help as much as I could as I could as the CEO." Weiss gave Blake an apologetic look.

Clark was silent for a moment. Then, Weiss' eyes widened. "Are you planning to make my father reinstate me as the SDC heiress?"

He frowned. "I'm not planning on making anyone do anything. What I am planning to do is find some way to convince your dad that you're a better choice than your brother to run the SDC."

That broke through Weiss' usually composed demeanor. She stood up and smiled at Clark. "Really?! Oh thank you thank you thank you. I'll help you however you need."

Clark seemed surprised by Weiss' excitement at first, but soon Ruby saw the amusement in his eyes. It was always funny when people first got a glimpse of the real Weiss behind the calm and polite exterior she kept up strangers. Not that Clark was a stranger, but he hadn't known Weiss for that long.

\\

Arthur Watts smirked as he accessed the Mantle section of the computer network which extended to the floating city of Atlas. It was far too easy, Ironwood hadn't even bothered to update it after Arthur had taken his genius elsewhere.

Unfortunately, Ironwood wasn't completely stupid, so he'd added more security to the Atlesian zones after Arthur had exploited its vulnerabilities for the Vytal Festival. How irritating, what had Cinder even accomplished with that? Nothing that the Superman hadn't reversed by the end of the night.

Arthur would do better. He would produce a spate of destruction and fear that it would make the attack on Vale look like a minor footnote, and he would achieve it regardless of whether an alien protector was present to prevent it.

Of course, even for a man of Arthur's intellect, such an endeavor would take time and effort. Especially when he couldn't even stay near the city of Atlas for fear of being detected by Superman's senses. Thankfully, in the modern age, there was much that one could accomplish remotely. He had settled in a town with a good web connection a few hundred miles from Atlas to carry out his work.

Atlas had been the harshest on the White Fang, so even at their most active their numbers in the city were low. Nevertheless, there were many angry and disillusioned faunus that Arthur could find in Mantle, and quite a few even had jobs that took them to Atlas and put them in useful positions.

There was also a group called the Happy Huntresses, who seemed to be a pack of idealistic fools, but Arthur was sure he could find some use for them.

Ah, and there was the most promising connection Arthur possessed. A certain CEO who would leap at the chance to have Arthur's services at his disposal regardless of their legality.