An Owl's Beacon

Chapter 6

Deep within the headmaster's office of Beacon Academy, mixed with the grinding of gears is the slow, weighted breathing of three teachers, two of which are headmasters, one of the two is a general. All these and yet the burden is one they might as well physically share.

How exactly do you explain the disappearance of a team of four girls to their families, friends, and the tournament officials without inciting tension and confusion abundant enough to hoard Grimm?

Ironwood's concern is the clearest by far with the deep crease his forehead is making as he furrows his eyebrows. He is, after all, the one who brought the machine responsible for this dilemma. And though it is not his direct action to send them into the unknown, he has been ignorant to leave the machine without guards to watch over it.

Glynda's stress is nothing to scoff at despite seemingly the least to blame for this. Her uptight demeanor and disciplinarian persona nearly breaks at the seams as she considers the students who will ponder near-endlessly while they fight other competitors. It is enough trouble to be the stricter voice between her and Ozpin, but she will do her best to not lose composure when facing them.

As for Ozpin, the headmaster who is as mysterious as he is collected, with a voice that resonates experience, he is undergoing one of the few times his stare has bored deep into the metaphorical abyss under his clasped hands. With such an unpredictable element involved, he will have to prove once more that he has it under control despite this lack of knowledge and foresight. It seems that he will have to bend the rules once more if it means bringing back team RWBY.

Still , he asks himself, is the 'ichor' really that recent and subtle that I myself would not have heard of it, much less learn about it? If this were to be true, then it is just as likely that she would not have discovered it as well.

"Three academies went out of their way to practice and partake in the tournament. We can't cancel the festival over a missing team."
"But we need to make sure the tournament will continue as is, get the machine running long enough to get them back, and discover who the infiltrator is, all while not letting everyone else worry."
"We can still change the roster for the tournament, but what about their friends? Ruby and Yang's father?"
"Well, we can't just straight up say that they messed with experimental technology and got themselves sent to who knows where."
"Then what are we going to say? Lying to their families isn't going to end well."

Ozpin turns his chair to the view looking out to the academy, with the Amity arena floating nearby, he stands up and walks toward the window as he brings up a scroll and looks through the roster.

"There is a way to buy us some time. Maybe even enough time so we can fix this leaving none the wiser, especially our infiltrator. We can give them a vague truth, something plausible, enough room to lead them to their own conclusions."

Ozpin finally finds team RWBY and changes their status to unavailable, he then swaps it out with an entirely different team. One from Shade Academy.

"Though maybe Taiyang deserves the full truth, he'll find it more suspicious if we do otherwise..." He mutters before asking, "Glynda, we still have available teams in this academy, yes?"
"Yes, some of the seniors that are sitting out on the tournament, why?" She replied, pushing up her glasses and focusing her gaze to his general direction as she pulled up her own scroll.

"Get one ready to embark on a mission in Vacuo..." He says before contacting the headmaster of Shade Academy. The other line picks up the call after a few rings.

"Theodore..." Ozpin starts, "do you still have that one team that was pulled out from the tournament for a mission in Vacuo?"

"I do. The same team with the leader you sent from your academy. They are to be dispatched soon. Why do you ask?"