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So it is done
🕑 Added 2022-01-13 23:05:52 +0000 UTCAs Jonathan watches Ozpin’s figure on the other side of the scroll, slowly sipping a drink from his mug, either coffee or cocoa, without answering, Jonathan can’t help but feel nervous.
Thankfully for his budding plan, Ozpin’s passive face cracked as he took a long sigh. “I understand. Will you be coming to Beacon?”
“I guess so, not like the subject I want to talk about can be discussed by a Scroll call.” Jonathan sighed, looking at Ozpin's serene figure on the other side of the screen. “I’ll be there… In a few minutes.”
“I'll be waiting in my office,” Ozpin nodded slowly, whereupon the scroll conversation ended and Jonathan stuffed the scroll into his pocket.
Ghira and his family had already left Glenn, heading straight for Menagerie, so the amount of business Jonathan had to deal with in the current circumstances was also greatly reduced. Not that he could enjoy the free time, since he now has to deal with the looming diplomatic crisis.
Although officially the assailant had been neutralized for fear that they had accomplices, Jonathan and RATS knew otherwise, Marcus works alone after all. Still, RATS continued to swarm around Jonathan and his family to keep the pretenses up. With up to three kinds of surveillance around his house, an official bodyguard lurking around him always, and a car parked nearby with several operatives in plain clothes, it was a bit of an overkill in his opinion. Though the possibility of a follow-up attack existed, so the security around Jonathan allowed him some levity, at least. Not to mention the fact that he trusted Cinder and Neo's abilities… to a certain extent at least, not that want to risk their safety anyway.
In the same way, security had been beefed up not only around him, but also around Aisa, various significant government representatives, around strategically important facilities, TV stations, communications tower, airport, and even at the Glenn border… It was almost as if they were preparing for war.
Luckily, it was not so serious as to call general martial law, but for the first time in a long time, RATS operatives were recalled from other countries and cities. The RATS agents were distributed around the city with orders to maintain vigilance and immediately report all suspicious events and individuals within the city limits.
While everybody in the know knows that, right now, the likelihood of a second attack was unlikely, the increased security was still a calming balm for Jonathan.
At least calm enough to leave Glenn for a meeting with Ozpin.
Cinder and Neo, who were crowding around him right now, of course, continued to look at him with some concern, with Cinder sporting clear curiosity, clearly expecting him to tell her more about magic and himself…
Jonathan wasn't sure where he could start…
‘Speaking of which, your world isn't real. Well, it is real, but not really. Yes, there are many worlds in general and there are actually an infinite number of worlds, including an infinite number of worlds similar to yours, but wildly different in some ways… But I come from a very different world where there are mages. Well, more accurately, we sort of don't exist, but we do in fact exist, we’re just not called mages, and we don’t practice magic. Well, most people don’t call it magic, there are others who call it magic, but we can't exactly say what magic is… Ahem, it's a bit complicated to understand. Speaking of which, I don't know for certain, but it’s very probable that your world may have been created by mages too… Or by mages who didn't know they were mages… Yeah, Mages can do that, and no, I can’t… yet.’
Jonathan sighed, he couldn't even think of a proper explanation in his head! To the very simplest mere fact that he had come from another world… How do you explain that? No, in the first place, should he even talk about it? Wouldn't that lead to further problems? If the others, say Salem or Ozpin, found out he had come from another world, then… Then what?
All Jonathan knew was that whatever facts he divulged, he was clearly in for a very big and confusing conversation with his… Ha, with his adopted daughters.
Do any of the other mages ever find themselves in the same circumstances as him? Probably, given the infinity of scope that is time and space… Too bad they didn’t leave any notes on things like ‘simple instructions, how to tell your children that you're a mage from another world’.
Actually, I wonder… was there anything like that in the Peripheral Corrigenda?
“I'll be back soon,” With nothing resolved, Jonathan just ended up sighing, with Cinder and Neo, right now gathered in his room, sitting on his bed across from him, “And… we’ll have a very big conversation ahead of us.”
Cinder nodded slowly but surely, while Neo just shook her head from side to side, not really that interested, just going along with the mood.
Jonathan nodded and then, reflecting on the fact that the frown on his face was clearly not what Neo and Cinder needed right now, he smiled slightly instead. "Don't worry. The conversation is going to be big, but… I guess it will be interesting at least.”
Noticing how Neo raised one eyebrow at his words, Jonathan smiled. “Ah, right, you shouldn’t leave the house, there should be everything in the fridge for a couple of sandwiches, but you'd better not leave the house just yet.”
Then, after waiting for a nod from the both of them, Jonathan grabbed his cane a little more comfortably and, striking the ground lightly, headed for the door that leads outside. Or, in this case, straight to Ozpin's office.
However, as he reached a hand to the door knob, an unexpected thought suddenly emerged in his mind.
If we are slowly starting to take steps to figure out ourselves and our morals, then… Hmmm, have you ever wondered what Aer is?
The parameter of movement.
A response arose in Jonathan's mind so quickly that one could call it something of an unconditional reflex.
As one trains in the Order of Hermes, it did not contribute much to free interpretations of the doctrine of Ars Hermetica, but it was certainly very detailed. So much so that one could literally find the paradigm of the Hermes Order mage at the very core of the mind, next to basic reflexes like breathing or blinking… Or at least, that was what the Order's mages who concentrated their efforts in the Ars Mentis claimed.
Perhaps, but to be more precise… It's not a physical quantity, is it? It is, to describe it more clearly, an imaginary metric, isn't it?
I suppose it is.
And everything possesses a measure of it, doesn't it?
It's the first thing they teach in the Order.
In fact, a thought, or a physical object, even time itself, all amount to the same thing, is what is hammered in a young mage's training. After all, it all originated from Quintessence, some perfect first entity that underlines the existence of everything, from atoms to space, from information to destiny. From this point of view, it could be said that the Quintessence was a kind of perfect denominator, bringing all existing phenomena into one.
From Quintessence, everything could be created, matter, space, and mind ex nihilo… well, ex nihilo nihil fit, you still need Quintessence in the first place.
That was why Quintessence was so prized by magicians. And that is why Jonathan could not believe his eyes when he found so much Quintessence in Remnant, in the form of tass that is, Dust.
And Will is… Quinta Essentia?
Undoubtedly.
The relationship, though, of Quinta Essentia and Quintessence was very complex. Will is our magic, and Quintessence is also magic in a sense, because the very shell of magic, thought, movement, burning candles, chalk pentagrams, is the hypostasis of Quintessence taking form. But at the same time, in spite of the similarity, and it logically being the same, Quinta Essentia, Will, is not quintessence… Or is it?
Such a paradox has preoccupied the minds of thousands of mages before me, and I did not think I would be the one to answer it.
But Will is not Thought. The Will of ‘I wish to teleport’ is not always related to the thought, ‘I wish to teleport’, is it?
It is… but that was an even more complicated question.
I mean, it's certainly taught in the Order of Mages that a mage's Will is not equal to his thoughts. If, for example, a mage had a thought of ‘now I will perform a ritual’, but his Will says ‘now I will create an artifact’, as strange as that might sound, nothing will happen. That was the whole point of a ritual. Rituals, spells, and mnemonics are actions that are necessary for a magician to concentrate himself, to actually direct their Will in line with their thoughts.
In other words, magic occurs not when the magician directs his Will, but when the magician’s thoughts and their Will are directed equally in one direction.
It is much easier to understand if one likens the operation of magic to vector equations. In such an equation, when vectors are directed along a single axis, their force is summed up. While when the vectors are directed in different directions, not only will the force be weaker, it might even go sideways entirely… Anyway, not really important to the thought exercise.
That is, even though a Will may not correlate with the Aer, the parameter of movement…
Grasping the doorknob, Jonathan was stopped suddenly by a realization.
Won’t the thought, the intention to teleport… already carries Aer? The parameter of movement?
After all, Aer, the parameter of movement, did not correlate only with physical movement. In its essence, it was more like a philosophical concept in itself. It is ‘movement’ as the very fact of directionality, evolution, change, moving from one position to another…
That is to say, strictly speaking, if you have already set out to ’aim’ to create movement, then Aer already exists. You don't have to rely on anything more than that, do you?
Jonathan paused, his hands stretched out without opening the door, then sighed and…
***
Ozpin noted, with some surprise, not enough, however, to show on the face of the millennial protector of Remnant, as Jonathan appeared not from behind the lift doors leading to his tower, but directly in front of him. Should he comment on the great act of magic? Having no trace, such a spell would be nightmarish to counter. Seeing the thoughtful look on Jonathan's face bordering on confusion, Ozpin chose the diplomatic option instead.
“Good afternoon, King Osmond Vale the Third, my dear and dearest grandson.” Hearing Ozpin's voice, Jonathan shed the pensive expression off of his face and finally looked at Ozpin, changing his expression quite quickly to one of near amazement. “Will I be hearing people addressing me that way every meeting now?”
“I'm used to being bored, most of my source of entertainment unchanged, sometimes for hundreds of years." Ozpin nodded, keeping his expression serious at the same time, but in a way that made it impossible to tell if he was joking or not, "So only two years? I haven't gotten tired of saying that yet.”
“But I am,” Jonathan sighed at the immortal’s sense of humor, then looked at his surroundings.
Ozpin's office is quite spacious, but it was practically empty. A few bookcases with books of various subjects strewn around the room and lastly one large desk cluttered with a dozen technological wonders of Beacon with a comfortable chair behind it, in which Ozpin himself was currently seated. And, of course, his mug, half-filled with something coffee or chocolate-like, with a small teapot on the table.
In the large empty room, Ozpin seemed almost alien, an aura that would make any person arriving at his office a little nervous, as if they had found themselves in a place they definitely didn't need to be in… Or maybe that just comes with this place being a headmaster’s office? Jonathan would definitely feel nervous if he was called into his own headmaster’s office.
Having no other chairs where other people can sit was a bit much, though, in his own opinion.
Of course Ozpin didn't like scaring people, but everyone in his inner circle could ignore such surroundings without any problem, and having the superpowered schoolboys on their toes, such simple psychological tricks worked wonders.
Sometimes, however, it did cause issues, like now, when after making the short way to Ozpin's desk, tapping his cane, there were no chairs for him to sit on. Jonathan stopped short of looking at the only seat in the office, Ozpin's own chair, occupied at the moment by the headmaster.
“I had hoped that the wise headmaster would at least give way to a disabled person with a cane,” Jonathan smiled slightly.
“Considering how much older I am and the fact that I also use a cane… " Ozpin took a sip of the hot liquid from his mug, "Besides, your visit was certainly unexpected.”
“I doubt it,” Jonathan allowed a little sarcasm into his voice, giving Ozpin the opportunity to nod. Indeed, in fact, the fact that Jonathan would come to Ozpin for advice on solving the concern that had arisen with Marcus, or more accurately, Jacques Schnee, could be deduced instantly. One only had to see Jonathan's speech and listen to its contents.
However, in any case, the fact that Ozpin had not prepared a place for Jonathan meant only one thing. Jonathan himself could also grasp this meaning. “I assume you already have an answer?”
At Jonathan’s question, Ozpin only shook his head slightly, keeping an unreadable expression on his face. "That depends… Are you maintaining your contact with Raven Branwen?
***
Jacques Schnee, having calmed his slightly heightened emotion with a glass of expensive brandy, was slowly regaining his usual calm state. Yes, he had failed to kill Jonathan Goodman. But, given that it was almost impossible to find a connection between Jacques Schnee and Marcus, Jacques had erased all the transactions and dealt with all the messengers in such a way that it was impossible to find his trail. He had lost nothing, simply returning to his original position.
Yes, as it turns out, Jonathan was beyond the reach of assassins, but that did not mean he was immortal or untouchable. There were plenty of ways to deal with any problem beyond hiring unskilled mercenaries, sure it might cost money or influence. But as everyone knows, Jacques Schnee certainly had plenty of money and influence to spare!
Having come to this conclusion and finished arranging a meeting with Trophy, Jacques was practically at peace going back to his office where nothing could shake his fortunes.
On the contrary, Jacques, having received a new burst of energy from imagining Jonathan’s face, was planning to deal with several important administrative issues at once. And so, so high on his good mood, when he opened the door to his office, he did not immediately realize that something was wrong.
Jacques had taken another step inside the office before a low and even slightly hoarse, but no doubt female voice reached him. "Shut the door.”
Jacques paused for a moment, as if trying to make sure that his hearing was not failing him.
And it could not be said that this first reaction on his part was not justified, on the contrary, it was the most logical action on his part.
There were few people in the world, and in Jacques' opinion there were none at all, equal to him, or even superior enough for them to be allowed to address him in such a way. Or even dare to give him instructions in the first place! And, of course, it was also worth remembering that Jacques Schnee had only left his office for a few hours. The only people who had access to his office were only several servants, all of whom were aware of their position in relation to Jacques Schnee and would not dare to even enter his office without his express permission.
And, of course, there was not a single woman among these servants.
Jacques paused, trying to reconcile the current state of affairs before him with reality. But, as expected, his newfound companion was clearly not going to give Jacques that time. “I said shut the door.”
Then a sound followed the voice to Jacques' ears that a man with a less literary minded mind could have solely denoted as a ‘clicking mechanism’. But Jacques could tell by the noise that it was not so simple and innocuous an action.
Sitting on his desk and throwing one leg over the other was a woman, judging by her mature face, approaching her third decade. She had eyes of a piercing red that seemed to glimmer dimly in the unlit office, with voluminous but sloppily styled black hair running down her back and shoulders.
Her legs sitting on important papers and seemingly not even noticing them, putting one foot on the other, the woman was dressed exclusively like an escort, or a huntress. In her red short dress that not only emphasized her feminine but unmistakably trained form, showing off the very considerable muscles in her arms and legs, mottled with almost imperceptible scars. Her appearance made her look like a demon from an old religious book.
But it was not her appearance that Jacques Schnee was focusing on.
The strange clanking sound came from a huge pouch, or perhaps a holster, which the girl was holding lightly with one hand, resting the end on the floor of the office.
The rectangular metal sheath held a hilt of the sword, the source of the sound that caught Jacques' attention. Noticing Jacques’ gaze, the woman lifted the handle of her sword slightly so that Jacques could see the slightly flickering red blade beyond the hilt. The threat in the gesture was obvious.
Something especially effective, since Jacques Schnee could identify this device and blade at a glance.
A blade made of pure dust without a single drop of metal in its creation, ‘Project 8’.
A project once pursued by Nicholas Schnee, who hoped to create the perfect weapon out of dust, capable of demonstrating the destructive power of dust without destroying the intermediary, a reusable conduit for the power of dust.
Unfortunately for Nicholas, the weapon could never be perfected. Dust was nothing like metal at all, they were extremely brittle and not very hard, no matter how they were worked. Sure, it served as an excellent guide for Aura and wasn't completely dysfunctional, and could be made to hold an edge, it was extremely brittle. In order for the blade not to fall apart in a single swing against anything, the user of the blade had to use their own aura at the highest level, reinforcing it, and had to do so constantly.
So, the only person who could unlock the full potential of such a weapon, they had to be quite the accomplished Master of Aura and the blade at the same time. Not only do they need an almost perfect control of their aura, with huge reserves of it, and an incredible skill in handling the blade itself, which had the length of a full-grown man.
Nicholas himself never managed to master the blade they had created and bring it to fruition. And, after Jacques himself came to power within the corporation and found that no one could use the failed project with proper efficiency, he shut down the entire production line and laboratory. The project bled lien like a broken faucet, it also occupied the time of many researchers that could create more profitable inventions.
‘Project 8’, the latest and most successful prototype, was deemed a failure and hidden away in one of the many vaults of the Schnee Corporation. That is, until it was lost and stolen during a bandit attack.
“Raven Branwen,” Jacques chose to comply with the woman’s demand across from him and closed the door behind him. “So you’re who stole the failed project…”
The hunter team, STRQ, were quite famous, for Hunter teams that is. Not superstars whose lives were watched non-stop by housewives who had too much free time, but they were an exemplary team of Hunters with several high-profile missions under their belt.
Such personalities attract attention.
But Raven Branwen's name was much better known than that of the team. It wasn't every day that a rising Hunter star, who just yesterday was predicted to have a great future, became a bandit, one of the most famous and ruthless bandit bosses at that.
“What a surprise,” Raven Barnwen said mockingly, lowering the hilt and the blade into her scabbard, clearly letting Jacques know that she had not come to his office to kill him. “ It seems that my fame precedes me…”
Jacques Schnee did not allow himself to react to these words as his mind was desperately trying to find a way out of the situation.
Jacques Schnee was a man of great intelligence and charisma, and was not bad as a fighter in his own opinion. But against a huntress, and one that is as ‘accomplished’ as Raven, armed with a prototype weapon with some defects, but still a weapon, his chances were so small that they were not even worth mentioning.
Of course, he could rush out the door behind him right now, but the nearest mechanized guards to his mansion were outside the main doors of the mansion, hundreds of meters away. Jacques would not even have time to give them an order before he was cut down. Though Jacques doesn't think that Raven would even give him the chance, he’ll probably be cut down as soon as he turns his back to her.
At this moment, he cursed the lack of an emergency alarm in his office. It was not his fault! Who could envision someone breaking into his office, deep inside the Schnee Estate, without having to go through the many security features of his Mansion!?
Anyway, he saw that the only sure course of action at the moment was attempting to proceed to negotiations, something where his victory is all but assured with his great mind.
“A surprise visit…" Jacques clenched his teeth until they were almost crumbling before he could continue, "Miss Branwen… So to what do I owe the occasion?”
“Let's just say I heard an interesting rumor." Raven didn't budge, apparently not going to ask Jacques to sit down or bother moving from his desk, "That some old white-haired shithead wanted to finish off my boy toy in charge of Glenn… You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?”
***
“I mean…” Jonathan thought for a second. “It’s not like I mind, but what can we achieve if we say I'm Raven's servant and her puppet?”
“Raven has a portal-creating ability," Ozpin continued, his expression unchanged, "But it's more limited, not as powerful as the magic you possess, but it's a secret that only Qrow and I know. At the same time, her teleportation ability itself is, in fact, an ‘open secret’, it's registered in the official semblance registry that is under close scrutiny… Or, well, it should have been.”
“I mean…” Jonathan thought for a moment. “ I guess we could say that all the teleportation tricks are not to my credit, but…”
***
“Raven Branwen,” If Jacques Schnee knew how to kill with a look, even the famous Raven Branwen would have been dead long ago, drowning in poison. “Of course I should have known that such a wretch like Jonathan can't teleport… It was you all along…”
“When you want to draw conclusions, draw them when you're not wasting my time.” Raven almost yawned, as if she were intentionally going over all of Jacques' sore points, making it clear that it wasn't Jacques who had the power here. It seems that she has done her research well, it took all of Jacques’ not small amount of willpower to stop himself from trying to throttle the woman.
“Jonathan is in a very good position, and I do really hate it when shitheads like you try to get my guy out of that position…”
***
“But even so,” Jonathan pondered. “What about the other problems? Summoning meteorites, the miraculous medicine… the fact that I robbed one of his bank?”
“The latter would be attributed to Raven's teleportation abilities, of course, and it would also serve as the main reason why you robbed him," Ozpin said again, not allowing a muscle to twitch in his face. "And for the first two… If we were talking about someone else besides Jacques Schnee, I would keep worrying about that, but then again it’s Jacques. He’s too nearsighted to care about things he cannot explain, now that he has a concrete target in Raven Branwen, he wouldn’t care about anything else. According to his belief, destroying Raven Branwen would also hurt you, and therefore stands higher in his queue of priorities than actually destroying you… Or rather, it would.”
“Okay, that might sound good, but what would make Raven even want to confront Jacques…” Jonathan was deep in thought. “Actually, why would Raven even show up on his doorstep right now and reveal everything to him for some reason? And above all that, what if even Raven's appearance wouldn't provoke him into targeting her?”
“About that…” Ozpin just took a sip from his mug. “I don't think you need to worry…”
***
“And as for why I showed up here today?" Raven sighed, "I demand compensation.”
At those words, even with an exertion of resolve, Jacques winced, but the realization that he was still facing one of Remnant's most powerful huntresses forced him to calm himself and whisper his response angrily. "Compensation?”
“Yes," Raven sighed, "You didn't mind your own business, and almost damaged one of my investments, I want compensation.”
“If it’s Lien you want… I can write you a check." Jacques nearly bit his tongue, muttering with hatred. Giving away his Lien was one of the things he liked the least, but to his immense surprise, Raven only shook her head from side to side.
“Are you really that dense? I can get all the money in the world without your paltry check." She smirked before continuing. "The resale of the stolen dust from your trains has already brought me more than you can collect for me now.”
Jacques Schnee was both outraged at how low Raven's estimate of the funds available to him was, and somewhat relieved and even confused. What, then, would Raven demand? Hadn't she arrived here for compensation?
Regardless of Jacques’ visible confusion, Raven continued. Lifting one of her feet off Jacques’s table, she then held it out towards Jacques, “Kiss.”
***
“Any physical injury of any kind is unacceptable… At this time at least.,” Ozpin shook his head. “It would be too easy for Atlas’ people to put two and two together as to who had orchestrated the attack. They wouldn’t care that it was in retaliation to Jacques’ aggression… How that man thought that no one couldn’t put Marcus’ attack with his involvement baffles me. No, all they would see was Jacques himself telling them that he was attacked by Raven Branwen, with him screaming for your head. No, to get rid of him out of his position as head of the SDC, something much more subtle is needed.” Ozpin paused to wet his throat before continuing.
“It must be understood that for a quiet takeover of the Schnee Corporation, Jacques himself had to be distracted by something else for a long time. Something which physical injuries won't give us. However, a severe enough humiliation would not only prevent anyone from figuring out the perpetrator. Given that Jacques himself would not be at all prepared to tell people about it as humiliation is invisible to the mere eye, it would add a layer of separation from you with Raven. The fact that Jacques himself would be distracted by pursuing Raven, who had just dealt a crushing blow to his pride, is an additional factor necessary in the current situation.”
“I understand… " Jonathan finally exhales, "Many birds with one stone… But, what about payment? Raven is clearly not going to accept my offer so easily…”
“That… " Ozpin took a small sip from his cup, "I’m afraid, is something that only you can solve…”
Jonathan could only sight at Ozpin’s glibness. It’s the only advice he can offer though, seeing as Ozpin doesn’t really know fully what Jonathan can do.
So, working with criminals, huh? It's as if we are going back to our roots…
Working with a known hunter… Well, ex-Hunter, a criminal who has ruined an innumerable number of lives… Furthermore, with an unknown cost in front…
Hmm, but we already have an answer to that, don't we?
Good and right…
Was using Raven a good thing? Of course not.
But was it the right thing to do?
Could we do otherwise? Could we find another way to get things done?
Jonathan did not see it. Another way to solve this issue without plunging Remnant into war, killing even more people. Which means…
The world of politics really is a dirty place, and you're starting to sink into the mud. This is just the beginning, after all. You'll have to go on and on, making more and more bad decisions. Only in the end, whatever it may be, would you then be able to see whether they were right or wrong, won't you?
I suppose so…
Aisa. Laws. Diplomats. Grimm. Politicians. Criminals. Elections. Decisions. Victories.
Defeats…
Jonathan smiled sadly as he looked into the sunset through the windows of Ozpin’s office, the slowly disappearing sun staring at the world with a dispassionate eye.
Indeed, the Order's wisdom could not be overestimated.
So it is done.
