First Interlude – James Ironwood

"What weapon was that?" He demanded at once, eyes focused on the feed they'd brought up. One of his assistants flicked quickly through a scroll, but he'd already crosschecked it himself as the White Whale flew on.

"It's not one of ours, sir," Pike said hesitantly. "Perhaps they modified the weapons?"

Ironwood didn't even bother pointing out the flaws with that statement—that they wouldn't, or at least shouldn't, have had the time to do such a thing, much less unnoticed—and simply focused on his flying target. One of his more experienced aids brought up a copy of the unknown weapon being fired without needing to be prompted and he shifted his gaze to scan over it.

It was a normal round—well, 'normal' may have been a more accurate description, given the enormous weapons the White Whale used. However, it was standard fair for the ship itself, but for the whirlwind that seemed to follow in its wake and cloak it. A gesture turned to another image, of the rounds effects on the pursuing craft; a hull damaged by mere proximity, yet not enough to explain its sudden fall. It was almost like…

"What do you think?" Ozpin asked, returning. He'd broken away to direct evacuation and security, as well as to make sure the two VIPs were seen to safety. Coming back however, Ironwood couldn't help but find his demeanor…grating. He didn't expect the man to be shaken, really, for rare few the times when he'd seen the Head of Beacon less than unflappable. Indeed, he and countless others had drawn strength from that, over the years. However strange things got, however dire, Ozpin would all ways be the center that held.

And yet, sometimes he wished the man would react, at least a little. With an investment of countless lien stolen, with one of the heads of the White Fang humiliating them with his escape, with one of his friend's children having just been held hostage, even still did Ozpin stand, casually drinking his coffee.

With the amount of caffeine the man drank, you'd think he'd be a tad more excitable.

Still, situational irritation aside, he trusted and respected the man, so he answered the question even if it gave him the bizarre feeling of a child being called upon in class.

"It's a Monachus round," He said. "Somehow bolstered with a wind-based enhancement. When it hit the FM, the damage had nothing to do with its sudden descent—it'd hard to tell with just a glance, but I believe it must have altered the wind speeds above and below the craft's wings, directly interfering with its ability to fly. Generally, I'd assume it was making use of some kind of Green Dust, but…"

"They shouldn't have had access to the ship long enough to make any major adjustments," Ozpin stated the obvious, peering at the screen. "And yet the ship itself seems rather more…agile than I anticipated."

Ironwood grimaced, unable to argue the point. The AS-WW was the first of its class, a cutting edge ship meant to introduce a whole new world of aerial travel. Despite its tremendous size, it was capable of speeds matching Vacuo's FCs, could carry hundreds of passengers from Vale to Mistral in less than a day, and was armed enough that it should have been the safest way to travel between the kingdoms.

But there were things it wasn't equipped for, things that should have been impossible for it from a pure mechanical standpoint, and yet also things that it was doing regardless. Before his very eyes, it was far surpassing even the top speeds it had achieved testing and when the pursuing ships managed to approach close enough despite that, they were attacked with weaponry the ship shouldn't have had. More alarming than that, however, was the maneuverability of the ship itself. Revolutionary technology or not, the White Whale was a gigantic monstrosity ill-equipped for the stunts it was now performing.

As one of the men who'd had a direct hand in its development, if you'd told him yesterday that the AS-WW could perform a Bell Tailslide at high-speed to cause it's pursuers to overshoot, he'd have said it was impossible. And then maybe shown them the math for why it was literally, physically impossible.

But he also couldn't argue with what he saw—and he'd seen it. Followed by another loop and a wingover. And too many other things that should have torn the ship apart. It left him uncertain whether the Hunter-bearing ships following it were honestly unable to approach or if they were just wondering what they were looking at. It was hard to imagine something with the size and shape of the White Whale to be so…graceful, yet here it saw, flying through the sky as easily as a Leviathan claimed the seas.

And it worried him. As a general and a huntsman, he knew the worth of knowledge, which is why he'd participated in the wonder's construction, had seen it pushed to its limits. He'd wanted the machine to be as good as they could possibly make it—and it had been. To push the machine passed that until it could do this…

He didn't even know how it could be done. Literally didn't know. They, the best minds in Atlas and from around the world, hadn't found a way, had thought it impossible with the technology currently at their disposal, but it was obvious someone had disagreed. And yet, to do this…

Bare minimum, it would have taken massive adjustment to the engines, jet, and converter. Extensive internal adjustment to the ship's structure to withstand the strain on such a scale, perhaps additional Dust converters situated throughout the design to aid in maintaining the ship. It's most likely need a better computer to assist with the calculations that would no doubt be required, too, and much of the storage space might need to be requisitioned or removed entirely and—

It was all guesswork, theoretical. He couldn't say anything for sure what would be needed because he couldn't be sure what would be needed—no one could. They couldn't build anything like that yet.

But obviously someone could. Someone had. Worse, they'd done it without them knowing, to a ship they owned, in a timeframe they could only speculate on. It should have been impossible. He wanted to say it was impossible, but the evidence was all but laughing in his face.

How big of an operation was this, if this was the result? How could such a thing happen without them knowing? He'd checked the ship himself just this morning, making sure everything was in order and everything had been normal. How…?

It didn't matter. In the end, no matter how much it bothered him, it didn't matter. He knew that sometimes he got hung up on the technology side of things, on the desire to learn, know, improve, but there was a time and place. Here, now, his concern wasn't how the ship was flying, but to make it stop. He could look through the wreckage later, if so needed.

"Do we have anything like a positive ID on that man yet?" He asked his more experienced assistant.

Pine shifted the scroll in his hands and shook his head.

"Nothing yet, sir," He said. "He must have been laying low until now; we've never seen him before. Or if we have, we can't tell through his disguise."

He hated unknowns. Hated them. But that also wasn't his concern right now; if he could be captured alive, they'd figure things out. If that wasn't possible…well, he'd live without knowing, he supposed. In this case, all he needed to know was that there was a powerful member of the White Fang involved with what must have been a major operation. Unknown powers, unknown goals, unknown man—it didn't matter, because what they did know was that he had to be stopped.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Ozpin murmured as he raised his cup to his lips once more. At his sharp glance, the Headmaster of Beacon gestured vaguely at a screen with his cane. "Who's flying the ship? And, perhaps more importantly, how?"

It was a good question, he acknowledge, and one he'd skimmed over. The trained pilots and backup pilots were all accounted for, though they'd found their pilot of choice thrown out with the trash. Whoever was now flying the ship was an unknown, someone they hadn't trained. No mean feat because the sheer size and complexity of the ship was such that they'd had to build a specialized cockpit for it. Later models were intended to have a more streamlined design, but it was difficult because of the simple amount of things the pilot needed to be able to control and the number of situations he had to be able to address—they'd barely managed to keep it flyable with one pilot and strongly recommended two. Even what controls were the same were still commanding something very new and very large.

It wasn't something just anyone could hop into and expect to fly. That hadn't really stood out to him, though—still didn't, really—because it was a minor impossibility, relatively speaking. If they could rebuild the entire White Whale, then it wasn't hard to believe they could figure out how to fly the thing. Although…

"They'd need to know a lot about the ship," He mused aloud. "Both to fly it and modify it—and to disable the security on it, of course. To do that…"

He didn't bother finishing, instead sending a message to the Schnee Company Headquarters and the Science division in Atlas, looking for any thefts, any leaks. Ozpin waited silently as he worked, watching the skies.

In the end, he snarled in annoyance.

"Nothing?" Ozpin asked, probably guessing what he'd done.

"Nothing," He confirmed, annoyed. "No reported thefts of anything related to the White Whale, here or abroad."

He wasn't surprised, honestly; if something big had happened, he'd have been informed, after all. But…

"Not knowing you've been robbed isn't the same as not having had anything stolen," Ozpin noted.

"I know, but they covered their tracks well, whatever they did," He replied. "We'll conduct a more thorough investigation later. For now, though, it's a dead end. Still…"

He frowned, watching the ship on screen again. Several ships were arranging themselves around it—or at least, trying to in-between more of those air shots. One tagged a nearby ship, causing it to fall suddenly behind, creating an opening for the White Whale. Before anyone could do anything, it rolled to the side, spiraled in the air for a moment before turning so that its belly faced the direction it had formerly been traveling. The aerial behemoth banked, flying downward as it turned hard to go a completely different direction. The whole maneuver had barely taken a breath and the mechanics of it made his head hurt.

"The Faunus boy we let go seemed to be the muscle," He said aloud. "And there was evidence he sabotaged some of our ships. Then there's that man with the Nevermore mask, who we assume is the leader. There must be a pilot and a programmer and maybe someone to steal the information about the ship, though that could have been one of the other ones. And an engineer, even if I still don't know how."

Ozpin said nothing, causing him to frown.

"Don't agree with me all at once now," He said. "Anything you'd like to add?"

"You always get wrapped up in your work, James," Ozpin said, though not really chidingly. Because it was Ozpin saying it, he wasn't sure if it was even connected to what he said next. "They're flying towards my cliff."

"…What?"