Chapter Text
Ozpin raised his head as the door leading to his office opened and a familiar figure greeted him.
"General Ironwood, it is nice to see you my friend." Said General and himself shook hands while smiling.
"A pleasure to see you too my friend and please, I told you to call me James when the rest of the Council isn't here."
"Forgive me for forgetting James, it has been a while since we've last talked, how's life?" Ozpin offered him a cup of coffee, no cream, no sugar, no nothing, Ozpin himself didn't call it coffee but what did he knew, his cup was filled with hot chocolate.
"It is doing good, great even. The Atlas military helps people all around the world, I haven't heard of Jacques Schnee in the last two years and I have even stopped White Fang members from apprehending one of the SDC's convoy. What about you old friend?" Ozpin sipped from his cup and lowered it with a 'hum' of acknowledgement.
"Well Glynda as always proved herself to be essential to Beacon, our professors, and doctor, are teaching to our students the life of Huntsmen and Huntresses and we've even accepted Summer Rose as a new professor here."
"Summer Rose? The leader of team STRQ?"
"The one and only. She has proved herself as an already exceptional Huntress and told me that she wished to work somewhere close to her home and I gave her the option to try teaching here in Beacon. She was skeptical at first but I do believe that she proved herself to the other members of the staff as well as the students." James let out what was supposed to be a laugh but sounded closer a dog barking.
"Ozpin this is only the second week since school started and while I don't doubt that Miss Rose is a good professor, I do think that one week isn't enough to judge one's performance." Ozpin raised an eyebrow and smirked.
"I don't believe that I agree with you James. After all it only took one week for Summer and team EBBN's members to prove themselves as promising teachers and future Huntsman and Huntresses."
"Team EBBN?" James asked before taking a small sip of the monstrous beverage. "Is this a new team of first years? I do not remember hearing of them the last times I met with you."
"You're correct, they arrived this year and already displayed the qualities necessary for their future line of work."
"Mmh, tell me more about them. Don't worry I won't try to steal them from you, unless they really are as promising are you're selling them out to be." The two headmasters looked at each other in silence before they ended up laughing at the fake threat.
"You will understand when you will see them. Their team is composed of Emerald Sustrai, their team's leader, Blake Belladonna, Mercury Black, and Neopolitan."
"Wait, Belladonna? You mean the daughter of the Chieftains from Menagerie."
"Do you know another Belladonna?"
"No, I suppose I don't. I just didn't expect for her to go to Beacon. I heard rumors that she had joined the White Fang and not the one her parents founded."
"Well she did, it was in her resume." James spat his "coffee" on Ozpin who looked unimpressed and used a towel retrieved from a cupboard while James successfully stopped his coughing fit.
"YOU BROUGHT A TERRORIST INSIDE OF YOUR SCHOOL!?"
"What? No! I would never." James took a deep breath and readjusted his tie. "She left them so she's an ex-terrorist." He almost strangled himself with his tie.
"Stop doing that! And why would you bring a member of the White Fang inside of your school!? What if she was a spy!?"
"Why would they need a spy inside of my school?"
"I don't know! I'm not a terrorist!"
"In any case, Miss Belladonna has proven herself as a trustworthy student and member of team EBBN and I will not let you ruin her second chance in life."
"I, very well. But I want you to promise me to keep an eye on her."
"I will, but it is unnecessary."
"Ozpin."
"But I will." James reached for his cup to calm himself but noticed that it was empty.
"What about the other members of the team?"
"We have Mercury Black, the only male member of team EBBN. He is a melee fighter but he does relies on his legs a lot, they're prosthetic legs."
"Prosthetic? And here I thought I was the only one. What happened to him?"
"From what little he told me, he and his father Marcus Black fought and his legs were lost during the fight." Ironwood slapped his hands on the table separating the two ready to say something but Ozpin raised his hand. "Do not worry, Marcus also died during the fight so Mr Black won't have to face him again."
"ARE YOU MOCKING ME OZPIN!? MARCUS BLACK! THE INFAMOUS ASSASSIN LIVING IN VALE!"
"You heard of him?"
"WHO HASN'T!?"
"I didn't. Plus he's not living in Vale, he was living in Vale until his son killed him."
"I can't believe you Ozpin. At least it was self-defense. Dammit, this is only half the members of the team and we already have a terrorist and the son of a renowned assassin. Who else is next?"
"Next up is Miss Neopolitain."
"Isn't that her first name? What's her last name?"
"...I can't say."
"You can't?"
"You will be angry again."
"I won't be angry, I promise." Ironwood lied and Ozpin was silent before he told him.
"She told me that she doesn't have one but that if I wanted to I could call her Neopolitan Torchwick." The mug shattered on the wall behind Ozpin. "You promised!"
"I'm calm, I'm the definition of calm why look, I'm even smiling." Ozpin readjusted his glasses to see the bullshit better.
"You can't put her in jail."
"And why's that, old friend?"
"Two reasons, first, she has never been caught on cameras meaning that there is no evidence against her whatsoever. And two, she can escape from any cell you will try to throw her in." James' eyebrow raised.
"What do you mean?"
"We put her inside of our school's simulation program at the hardest difficulty and she managed to escape her adversaries. No one has ever been able to do that. Even I haven't been able to do that James."
"And is she going to be a problem while she's here?"
"No I don't think so."
"Did she explicitly tell you that?"
"James! How can you say that about her!?"
"What do you mean?"
"She's mute and I will not stand to you mocking one of my student."
"I didn't even know that!"
"Learn to be accepting!"
"How am I supposed to accept something I didn't know about!? Just move on to the last member please, I don't ever wanna hear about them after that." James rubbed the bridge of his nose in annoyance and Ozpin finished his cup.
"The last member is Emerald Sustrai, the leader of the team."
"You said that already. Any particular quirks I should know about?"
"She's an orphan and has lived on the streets far as she remembers." James closed his eyes and let out a tired sigh.
"I'm saddened to hear that. But she managed to get into Beacon, surely something happened to help her situation."
"Indeed, she told me that she and Mercury met each other one day and the two of them stood together ever since."
"Perhaps I've judged Marcus' son simply because of his name."
"She tried to pickpocket him and he caught her, he was about to kill her when he noticed that she was as young as him."
"Aaand you ruined it. So let me get this straight, your best team of first-year is composed of an ex-terrorist, a murderer, Torchwick's associate, and an ex-pickpocket?" Ozpin was silent and Ironwood stared at him.
"No you've got it wrong. She stole my wallet yesterday so she's still a pickpocket." Ironwood's head slammed against the desk.
"I hate you Ozpin."
Team EBBN were in their dorm, each participating in their own activity. Emerald was doing her homework, Mercury was playing a game on his Scroll, Blake was trying to read a book and Neopolitan was trying to read Blake's book with her chin on Blake's shoulder. The two turned to Emerald when she let out a groan.
"What's wrong?"
"It's this stupid homework from Port."
"You do know that he'll give us a good grade as long as we give him a paper with something written on it? You could literally write how you hate him and he'll give you an A for it."
"Well excuse me for taking my education seriously."
"You're forgiven." Blake ignored the finger aimed in her direction and went back to reading, or at least trying to, Neo's arms were forbidding her from turning the pages until she too was done reading them.
"You lose!"
"Fucking stupid game!"
"Merc stop you'll hurt the game's feelings."
"I was so close to winning! The finish line was in front of me but some asshole threw a shell and it hit me. If I find who SB_Sunrise69 is I'll kick their ass."
"I doubt that you'll be able to kick their ass irl if you weren't able to beat them in a game."
"Please Em, I'm a Huntsman in training, they're not."
"And how would you know that?"
"Call it intuition."
"You win!"
"Yeaaah suck on these RobotLegz!"
"Yang Xiao Long, I swear on the Brothers that if you keep shouting like that I will shove your Scroll where the sun doesn't shine."
"Pshh, I'd still kick their ass."
"Sure and I'm not the team leader. Now shut up or-" The door to their dorm opened and a tall man entered the room with a displeased expression on his face.
"Hello team EBBN, I am General Ironwood from Atlas and I came here to check on you, I'll simply ask you some questions and depending on your answers I can leave without causing any troubles or I can and will put you in a cell in Atlas." He didn't fail to notice Blake's frown at the mention of Atlas.
"Uhmm, okay. I'm Emerald Sustrai and I'm the team-"
"No need to present yourself, professor Ozpin already told me about you all." Emerald bit her lip to refrain herself from insulting him for cutting her. "Miss Sustrai, what brings you here in Beacon?"
"Well the walls are pretty nice, oh and the water too. And you know, not having to pay for any of it."
"No you misunderstand, I meant-"
"I know what you meant." Score 1-1. Ironwood moved on to Mercury.
"And you, I've heard that you were raised by an assassin and that you killed him, would you kill someone again if you could?" Mercury opened his mouth to answer but Blake beat him to it.
"YOU KILLED SOMEONE!?" Ironwood rolled his eyes.
"It's a little hypocritical coming from an ex-member of the White Fang." Emerald turned to Blake with wide eyes.
"YOU WERE IN THE WHITE FANG!?" Mercury put his controller down to look at Emerald.
"You were a pick-pocket Em, I know that's not on the same level but you're not exactly a saint either."
"Enough! All of you are criminals and I will not let you roam around a school without being sure that the other students will be safe!" The three blinked and Emerald spoke first.
"What did Neo do?" They all turned to Neo who still had her head over Blake's shoulder and she looked at them back before shrugging. Blake shivered, Mercury laughed, Emerald facepalmed and Ironwood wished he was being paid more to deal with Ozpin's students.