Professor Arc

Chapter 39

"Come in."

Jaune stepped into the office as requested, closing the door behind him and briefly looking about the room. It didn't belong to the man. It was actually an office provided on short notice. But General Ironwood had already managed to make it feel like it lacked any touch of life or personality. The walls were white and lacking in any pictures or decoration, while a great banner depicting the icon of Atlas hung behind his desk. The man looked up from his desk, a brief expression of surprise on that chiselled face, before it was quickly subdued and killed, replaced with calm indifference.

"Professor Arc," the General said, "I had not expected you to come and see me. How can I help?"

"General Ironwood," Jaune nodded back, stepping forward and accepting a seat when offered. "I wasn't sure if I'm supposed to make an appointment or something, but since you're now officially in charge of security, I didn't want to wait to speak with you."

"A matter of Beacon security?" Ironwood perked up behind his desk, pushing the papers he had been signing aside. Jaune tried to see what they were about but the distance was too great. It also wasn't worth the risk of being caught.

"More of Vale," Jaune shrugged, "But I've got a feeling it might involve the Vytal Festival, so close enough." He had the General at that. Ironwood's eyes narrowed, his entire demeanour changing as he leaned forward on one arm. It was hard to maintain eye contact but he managed it, more because he was used to meeting Cinder's terrifying gaze than any personal confidence. Jaune glanced to the left, nodding back at the soldiers stood by the door. "Can we talk in private?"

"Not a problem." The man looked over Jaune's shoulder and nodded. There was a noise as the soldiers saluted, followed by the door opening and closing. "There," the General said, "I trust you have some information that will be worth my time?"

Jaune smiled and reached into the small bag he'd brought with him, bringing out a large folder and slamming it down on the desk. Ironwood's eyes widened as he looked down on it, no doubt seeing the sheer number of pages poking out from under the bulging material.

"And this is?" the man asked, lifting the manila cover and inspecting the first page for any clue as to the contents. Jaune knew what he would find; pages of typed text interspersed with scrawl in red pen. Once upon a time Jaune's handwriting had been so bad the general would have struggled to read it. Now that he was a teacher and needed everyone to be able to read it, the writing was in block capitals. It was still a mess, however. No amount of teacher training had managed to get past that.

"It's documentation of every crime the White Fang has undertaken within Vale in the last three months."

Ironwood's eyes widened. Where before he'd appeared curious, now he was at full attention – pulling off the top sheet and skimming through it, before grabbing the next in his other hand and comparing the two. His eyes caught Jaune's from over the top of the paper, narrowed.

"This is every dust robbery done by the White Fang and Torchwick?"

"No," Jaune grinned, reaching down. The look of distress on the man's face as he dropped an even larger folder down onto the desk was priceless. "That was just the White Fang. This is for Torchwick."

All of it meticulously sourced by his resident counter-terrorist operative, also known as personal secretary and reluctant patient, Blake Belladonna. He'd made sure to keep her name out of the files, however. There was no telling what Ironwood would do if he knew Blake had once been White Fang. Still, who would have ever thought all those late nights of listening to Blake rant about 'White Fang this' and 'Roman Torchwick that' would ever amount to anything?