Sunshine

Chapter 24: Beowulf on Fire

He'd done it before.

Arriving back at the Happy Huntresses Base, looked at Deery and she looked back and when she saw his look, he knew what he was going to do, and she simply nodded and prepared herself for what might come.

"Hang on, all of you... There's something I've got to tell you," Jaune told the four huntresses.

They all turned to him with confused looks, wondering what he was going to tell them.

"This involves the mission, but the only reason I didn't bring this up at the meeting was because Winter and Penny were there," He told them, "Deery is Ex-Fang, she fled here and is no doubt one of the deserters being hunted," He told them.

Fiona, Joanna, and May were surprised to hear this, and Jaune saw that Robyn was composed, not knowing if the information shocked her as well, but if it did, she didn't show it.

Robyn turns to the newest member of the Huntresses with a calm expression, "Is this true?" She asked Deery.

Deery nodded slowly while looking at the ground.

Robyn pinched the bridge of her nose, "Ugh, things just got a lot more complicated," She said.

"Don't get mad at her," Jaune said quickly, "If you knew her past would you still let her in?" He asked.

"Yes," Robyn replied, "If she joined because she wanted to redeem herself I would have let her, Everyone deserves a second chance, but now if Ironwood or Winter find this out, they will think that we've withheld vital information, we could be arrested," Robyn told Jaune.

Jaune shook his head, "Not gonna happen," He said, "Ironwood and I made a deal, and he needs you right now because, without you, his soldiers would just come down and make things worse, but with you here, the people are willing to talk to you and help you out, he arrest you now, he won't find anything about the Fang,"

Joanna nodded in agreement, "He's right," She said, "Ironwood needs us to make this mission easy, if it was just Schnee and those two cadets, everyone down here would remain quiet,"

Robyn nodded, "Very true, but once this is all over, how do we know he's not just gonna arrest us after?" she asked.

"I don't think he will do that at all," Jaune said, "If word gets out that you helped Atlas take down the Fang here in Mantle, people will see the Huntresses as heroes, but if Ironwood arrests you all, the hate Atlas grows more and because you're arrest, Mantle may riot, and that's the last thing Atlas needs right now," He said.

"True, the last thing Atlas wants right now is more bad publicity," May said, "The Other Kingdoms have heard what's happening here and because Atlas isn't doing anything, they're looking bad, bad enough that the council of Atlas might be forced into a renewal," May said.

Jaune was surprised to hear this. Renewals in the councils were rare and almost never happened. Basically, a Renewal was when a council of one kingdom was forced by the people and the other three councils of the other three kingdoms forced the current council of the said kingdom to resign all positions and allow new candidates to run. If things were getting so bad that the other Councils wanted Atlas to do a Renewal, and Atlas knew about it, it meant they were going to have to come up with something to make them look good.

'Ironwood would know about this... and since he does, is using the huntresses to help him a stunt to make Atlas look good?' Jaune thought, 'No, that wouldn't make sense, Everyone knows that Atlas already declared the Huntresses fugitives despite what most knew and for them to suddenly call them heroes would be fishy... so what is that guy up to?' Jaune asked himself.