Despite knowing time was running out, I couldn't help but get swept up by the enthusiasm most of the first years were showing at getting their first assigned missions.
It was hard not to. Every student here had come to Beacon with the goal of becoming Huntsmen and for many this was the first step towards the kind of Huntsman or Huntress they wanted to be. They were beginning to choose what kind of protector they wanted to be.
Some were shadowing local law enforcement teams to learn investigating tricks in an urban environment, some were going to farming communities to act as guards against Grimm attacks, and some were choosing to go out and more proactively hunt down some of the dark creatures.
Naturally Beacon wasn't going to knowingly throw first-years into truly dangerous situations so most of them would probably be disappointed on some level compared to whatever fantastic scenarios were going through their heads, but hearing so many of them speculating on what adventure they would be going on was making me itch to go out and explore more of Remnant myself.
I truly enjoyed having access to workshops more advanced than a medieval blacksmith's forge once again, but I wasn't the type that could live in one without eventually burning through my motivation to keep working. The Azure Horizon wasn't in danger of dropping out of the sky anymore even if it wasn't completely fixed and while my version one devices were nowhere close to what they could be, I also had no desire to jump into making the version twos at the moment. No doubt I'd get the urge to work on them again eventually, but for now I was content with what I had.
But with all of the students leaving the academy for several days, I had a bunch of free time on my hands. And with Cinder's plan to attack the city coming up soon, unless I'd managed to butterfly that somehow, I was planning to use that time to help soften the upcoming blow where possible. Which meant my first trip was going to be to a bookstore.
-o-
"Welcome to Tuks– oh, it's you."
I smiled at the suddenly grumpy Faunus behind the counter. "C'mon Tukson, is that any way to treat your best customer?"
"You bought one book from me a few weeks ago. At this point calling you a customer is pushing it." Tukson huffed but waved me over all the same. "I assume this is another check in?"
"Maybe." I replied while I flipped the sign on the door to 'closed' and walked over to him. Tukson was an example of how even my fairly minimal meddling in the city had started producing butterflies.
Originally, the bookkeeper was supposed to be murdered by Emerald and Mercury for his desertion from the White Fang in what ultimately ended up as a petty act of evil. But after I had repeatedly planted that seed of doubt of the White Fang working with Grimm cultists… suddenly a lot of the newer or potential members wanted nothing to do with the group until they could prove I was lying. And since the leaders couldn't adequately explain why they were working with Torchwick, who was blatantly taking advantage of them while spouting racist remarks, or Cinder, who no one knew where she came from or why she was in charge, the local White Fang was bleeding members.
And this time those members weren't just disillusioned individuals or 'traitors to the cause' that could be isolated and ignored.
Now there were people that would see an ex-member murdered for simply leaving the group and would take that as confirmation the Fang was working with a death cult.
Incidentally that meant Cinder's two minions couldn't simply murder Tukson and I managed to gain an inside ear to the city's Faunus population. Although that was mostly luck on my side. I hadn't actually remembered Tukson existed until I'd wandered past his bookstore one day and realised it should have been closed by then.
"Or maybe," I continued once I was in front of the store owner, "I was just dropping by for a new book. You don't happen to have a copy of Bessemer's Metallurgy Theory vol. 4 in here, do you?"
Tukson blinked at that. "Not off the top of my head, but I can check. Though that sounds like something your fancy school library should have. Did you check there?"
"I did, but they only have volumes one through three." I sighed. "Apparently the last two are really only useful in describing industrial applications so they don't keep a copy. Don't worry if you don't have one either, I can order it later if I really want and you were right about me wanting to check in. Anything important your fellow Fang outcasts want passed along?"
"The normal stuff for the most part. How people are being told that everything will be cleared up once Adam Taurus gets here, that there is a plan in place, and that there is no proof the Fang is working with a cult." Tukson said. "The part you might be interested in is that some people are being told to avoid downtown for the next week if they can help it. Nothing overt, but just mentions that they shouldn't be there. It came up enough that you might've wanted to know."
That would be where Cinder was planning to have Torchwick ram a train straight through a sealed up plaza and release a bunch of Grimm into the city. I guess it made sense that some of the people still in the White Fang would want to pass along warnings to friends or family.
"It matches up to some other things I've heard, but just like you – nothing specific." I blatantly lied. "If I were them, I'd take the warnings seriously. Maybe pass them along to anyone else they can if possible."
"I can do that. Should I ask around to see if anyone has dug up something about what might be going on?"
I shook my head. "No. I already planned to look around there myself tomorrow. If no one knows what's going on there already, I don't want to risk them poking around and getting hurt."
We moved on to some lighter updates after that. Mostly Tukson telling me about other Faunus leaving the WF or rumors he'd heard, but towards the end I did end up asking him for an actual book recommendation and walked out with a popular trilogy for myself and a supposedly highly recommended drama for Leona.
The important thing was, I'd confirmed the train plan was unchanged despite my interference. Now I could begin my other preparations.
-o-
The problem with trying to hide magical sigils in a section of a city as busy as downtown Vale was that it was nearly impossible to do without acting obviously shady.
All I wanted to do was lay down a few bounded fields I could activate later to ensure no one was in harm's way when the train crashed. But for nearly every single one at least one of the corners was in the middle of a major walkway, or vendor stall, or under a parked car, or something else of that nature that made placing them awkward at best.
And the parts that weren't obviously out in the open? Still visible enough that people might object to someone standing around drawing random looking symbols on things even if they appeared to vanish once I was done.
Maybe especially because of that because I already had a few people starting to watch me as I made my way around the plaza and one of them might be calling the cops on me.
And while I doubted I could actually get charged with anything considering I wasn't leaving any evidence behind, I had no illusions of Professor Goodwitch being happy getting a call to come bail me out of jail if I did get taken in.
So while I hadn't gotten everything I'd wanted set up, once I'd managed enough that I should be able to contain anything that came out of the breach I decided to head back to Beacon for the day. Apparently just in time too because my actions had attracted a small group that followed me almost all the way back to the bullhead station. Two of them were even angrily talking on their scrolls, hopefully not with a police dispatcher, and all of them stopped following me only after I stepped onto one of the airships.
Hopefully I wouldn't get a visit from Goodwitch later about suspicious girls loitering around the city once I got back to the academy.
But even with my unexpected followers, I'd managed to get most of what I'd wanted to do today done. Now all that was left was making sure I was in position for the main event.
I was looking forward to it.
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