They were taking a break, midway through one of their famous rooftop sparring sessions. Blake could smell the slightly acrid scent of sweat hanging over them as they both laughed at some inside joke one of them had shared. They looked all the world like a pair of dippy, lovestruck teenagers, lost in their own little love story.

Blake had to remind herself that she was looking at the odds-on favorite to win the Vytal Tournament. And… the future king of Vale.

She was used to reminding herself that with Pyrrha, that the person was nothing like her title. There wasn't a trace of arrogance, even as well-deserved as it might be, in her, as much as Blake kept expecting it. That sort of reminder with Jaune, though, was new. She looked him over, legs splayed out as he leaned against the wall. Still... he'd changed. Not just as a Huntsman, making slow, but steady, progress towards something respectable, but in their esteem. People treated him differently, now. He wasn't a joke anymore, and yet… he was still Jaune. Even Weiss had come to admit that, now that he'd spent an entire day standing up to her father and telling him off, there was something even she could call admirable about him.

And Blake, well, she'd practically gotten this whole ball rolling on that day. She certainly said she'd believed in him, in his ability to do good for people. But it hadn't felt real back then, just a piece of the usual Beacon craziness. She could say anything and everyone would forget about it in a week. But now… she had to actively make her choice and stand by it.

Well, she couldn't spend all day just watching them. She took a deep breath, and readied to take the plunge.

"Jaune. Pyrrha."

Jaune glanced up, lazily, but Pyrrha practically shot back into her formal celebrity stance in a panic at getting caught in a casual moment. Blake almost pitied her, and her inability to ever truly relax, even around her friends, but the icy glare she fixed on her for interrupting her personal time with Jaune was annoying. Make your move or don't, girl.

"I figured you'd want to hear about an update regarding the royal-"

Jaune's smile disappeared. "Blake, I told you back then: I'm not interested. I don't believe in monarchism, and I don't want-"

She held up her hand in front of his face to cut him off. "Jaune, I heard you then, and I respect your opinion. But there's been a new development." Jaune paused at that, and eyed her warily. He'd been extremely clear to her the day after that, while appreciating her support and vote of confidence, he absolutely would not do anything to take up the throne. And she respected that. It was annoying, yes, but she could respect someone's sincere principles, even if they were inconvenient to her. Which made this more difficult. "Not all the Sang Bleu members were as invested in making you king, and it seems that more than a few are still interested in pursuing monarchism, even with you out. And the buzz around you has gotten their interest. There's a faction pushing for establishing an electoral monarchy. And here's the big news: they might be winning."

"Okay…" Jaune answered uneasily, "but doesn't that sound, I dunno, better than making me king? Sounds better to elect a king, weird as it sounds."

Pyrrha sighed, "That's not… how that works, Jaune." Blake knew that Pyrrha was going to be an obstacle to her full plan, but for now, she seemed to realize the bigger issue at hand. Inevitably, the two of them would have to have a long talk about some things, but for now, Blake could see she had an ally on this point, if not any other. "An electoral monarchy isn't a democracy, and it creates unique issues for egalitarianism."

Blake nodded, appreciating that the champion of Mistral carried her people's passion for electoral politics. "An electoral monarchy would mean that the king is selected from a body of electors—mostly wealthy nobles. It emphasizes the powers of a decentralized aristocracy without any protections for the ordinary people of the kingdom."

Jaune just shrugged. "Still not seeing how that's better or worse than putting me in charge of everything." Okay, at some point they'd have to take a stab at getting this self-deprecation in check. Blake had passed the point where it was still cute.

But she knew what her angle was. She looked Jaune in the eye and played her hand. "What if I told you that the key noble family behind this was the Winchesters?" Jaune, as expected, froze at that name. "It's not Cardin, but it's not better. It's his father. Apple didn't fall far from the tree, and it's certainly got the Faunus community worried. Besides," she gave him a smile she hoped looked reassuring, "a constitutional monarchy isn't like an absolute monarchy. You're head of state, not head of the government—you could still do so much good for the people of Vale even in a symbolic role, and as a Faunus… I've learned that I don't have the privilege of taking principled stands when the other option is putting his old man on the throne."

There was a sympathetic pang that cut across his face, especially with that last line. But Jaune still looked uncertain at what she was proposing. It made sense—she could sell him on the comparative value of a constitutional monarch, but Jaune's issues couldn't be resolved by realpolitik. She couldn't account or declaim her way out of this; it was a matter of personal psychology. His question was simple: why should he be king?

"But the real reason, Jaune…" her voice was low now, not for rhetorical emphasis, but the simple, honest truth that she had been legitimately humbled by this experience, "You… weren't on the grounds, on that day, and I know you've been trying to let this all pass, so you haven't been following up on things, but… a lot of people really believed in you, Jaune. There's a lot of us who think you'd make a good king."

He looked pained at the sincerity of her words, but Blake was now watching Pyrrha's reaction. Nobody at Beacon had a higher opinion of Jaune than his partner, but Blake knew Pyrrha was… ambiguous that day on whether she supported Jaune on this. She seemed apprehensive, but she also saw something in her eyes, that glimmering spark of her faith in her partner. "Jaune…" she started, slowly, a blush forming across her face, "She's not wrong. It's your choice of course," she quickly corrected, "But… I don't think you realize how many people… really did think you'd make a good king."

As oblivious as Jaune was every other day of the year, Blake got the feeling from the matching blush he now wore that he was reading between the lines there. "I…"

A good sign, but Blake did not have time for awkward teenage romance when politics were on the line.

"The situation" she announced, "is this: there are two special initiatives. They're… weird, like all Valean politics, but the short of it is, one establishes a constitutional monarchy under the Arc line, the other, an electoral monarchy. If either gets at least 50% and one vote, they're the law of the land."

"What if both pass?" Pyrrha asked.

"Decided by sword duel." Jaune boggled at that. "What? I told you Vale's politics were weird. The constitution contradicts itself in half a dozen ways on this and nobody's quite sure what that means, but a rough framework's been established for this case."

He sighed. "Well, I guess winning a fight wouldn't be a crazier job than winning an election. Still," he looked at her quizzically, "feels weird that we're voting for a king."

Blake shrugged. "Technically, the people of Vale are voting to request you and your family step in to take charge of the government. But before you make your decision, I think there's some people you might want to talk to," she gestured that they should follow behind her as she turned to leave, "I've assembled a team of people who are invested in seeing you succeed in this. Meet them—then tell me what you think."

Jaune looked to Pyrrha, who gave him a small, almost imperceptible, nod. He looked back to Blake, a small, apprehensive look creeping across his face, but he suppressed it under a smile. "Alright, I'll hear 'em out."

Blake didn't know what Jaune expected, but he certainly didn't seem surprised when he saw Nora, in a suit and dark sunglasses, standing besides a door to a Beacon conference room. She supposed that shouldn't surprise her—he'd probably long since learned to expect anything when it came to Nora.

She put a finger to her earpiece. "Ren, this is The Falcon. The Falcon is inbound, with The Falcons."

Pyrrha stared at her teammate for a second. "…Is 'The Falcon' everyone's codename? That seems… confusing."

She laughed. "No, silly! Not everyone's. Ren's codename is 'Ren!'"

"But everyone else has the same codename?" Jaune clarified.

"Well, yeah," she replied, slightly confused, as though her naming decisions were obvious, "I'm not going to give my best friends a lame codename."

"Fascinating as this conversation is," Blake drawled, "I think it's time to meet the rest of the team." And with that, she opened the door.

Beacon had a number of conference rooms that could be reserved through either a labyrinthine process or just taking one and assuming nobody would stop you. Blake preferred the latter. And so she had gathered a trusted inner circle now arranged around a table, the executive staff of her plan to restore the Monarchy of Vale.

Jaune gawked to see it, but she'd been hoping for that. Jaune didn't back down when he knew people were counting on him. "You know most of the team. Nora's your bodyguard, Ren," his dark haired teammate nodded when he heard his name, "is your speechwriter. He already has a few drafts for you to look over should you announce today. Weiss is our treasurer," she gestured to the Atlesian girl, seated so stiffly that she looked even more like an icicle than she usually did.

She fixed him her iciest stare. "I'm only doing this to show up my father, and," her voice dropped to a half-mumble and Blake saw the trace of a blush across her cheeks, "because I think you might actually be a good leader," but then her voice snapped back to her usual, brusque tone, "so you'd better not think you can use this to ask me out, okay!"

Jaune, panicked, nodded. It had taken a while for Blake to win Weiss over to the team, and that last note had been the key demand. "She'll be handling our books as well as being your liaison for our wealthier backers. And," here was the tough one, "I don't believe you've met her before, but we needed someone to handle the unexpected aspects of campaigning, our spin doctor, if you will. Jaune, this is Cinder Fall."

She felt Pyrrha stiffen as Haven's resident femme fatale reached her hand out to Jaune. "Charmed. I was quite impressed by your willingness to stand up to Atlesian power. Vale could use someone who won't be so easily pushed around."

"And I am your campaign manager," Blake opted to cut in. She didn't want to give Cinder too much time to get her hands on Jaune—no need to have that fight now. "This will be your inner circle, your senior staff for the campaign. Our job is to ensure that you take up your title, and look good while doing it."

Jaune still seemed overwhelmed, nodding to what she was saying. But he seemed to regain some of his sense looking around the room. "Okay… but what's Sun doing here?" He pointed to the monkey Faunus sitting at the far side of the table.

"Sun Wukong," he, for some reason, re-introduced himself as he stretched his arm out for a handshake, but then, before Jaune could actually shake his hand, jabbed his thumbs back to point at himself. "I'm your body double!"

Blake tried to pull him away. "Body doubles have to wear a shirt, Sun."

And yet, he was undeterred. "Special advisor on Vacuan relations!"

"Still have to wear a shirt."

"Food taster!"

Cinder moved into the conversation so smoothly, it almost seemed like she materialized next to her and Jaune. "We've discovered that ejecting Mr. Wukong from the room was only the first step of Mr. Wukong sneaking back into the room. It's best to just accept that he'll be involved in some capacity."

That got a laugh. But before the laughter had fully died down, Blake was surprised to hear Pyrrha speak up, in a firm, quiet voice. "And what will my role be?"

She hadn't expected that from Pyrrha. Jaune, she knew, would side with his friends if they asked him to help. But she had anticipated that Pyrrha would need to be won over, not that she'd be so quick to take up her own role. "Jaune, Pyrrha will be your Chief of Staff. We needed to make sure you had someone you could trust in that position, and," she noticed a glimmer in Pyrrha's eyes, "I don't think there's anyone at this school you trust more."

Jaune looked at his partner, nervousness mixed with admiration, "If… if you'd take the role, Pyr," she suppressed a smirk as his voice grew slightly hoarse, "I don't think there's anyone I'd rather have with me." Well, if he was accepting a CoS, it seemed like they'd won him over. Pyrrha, at a loss for words, just nodded. They were too damn cute together. Blake particularly enjoyed that, for once, it wasn't getting in her way.

"Well, if that's all figured out," Cinder cut in, "Our King-to-be has work to do. We need to get you to Coco, who's agreed to make you something presentable for a press conference. Weiss and Ren will brief you on your announcement speech—it's nothing big, you'll do fine—now, hurry," she said, shooing him out of the room. Blake watched as a gaggle quickly formed around the suddenly overwhelmed young man—Ren and Weiss with notes, Sun trying to also give notes, Nora trying to deflect Sun, but they all swiftly moved out of the room and to the first real step of the campaign.

She caught Pyrrha's arm as she tried to follow them. "Pyrrha, a moment?" Now, she was alone with Pyrrha. Well, Cinder was also there, but that worked in her favor. This was going to be difficult—she didn't mind having someone underhanded to back her up.

Pyrrha eyed her warily. She might have been won over to their cause by a mix of appealing to her overworked sense of duty and a decent helping of overt flattery, but she wasn't stupid. Blake knew that she'd gotten lucky in that she didn't need to bring any pressure, but a campaign was a long haul. And Pyrrha had Jaune's ear more than anyone—if she felt she'd been misled, she could so easily tear down everything Blake was trying to do.

"We're asking a lot of you," she started, "The three of us, we'll be the ones really running this campaign, and I want you to know that's what you're signing up for."

"We're running the campaign?" she shot back, skeptically, "And Jaune?"

"Jaune's our candidate," she lectured. Technically, Jaune wasn't even that—they were a committee to reestablish the monarchy and whether or not Jaune was part of it, or even supported them, was irrelevant, but there was no wisdom in telling Pyrrha that. "He's got to be likable and approachable 24/7. He'll have speeches, meet and greets, scheduled and unscheduled meetings with officials and members of the press. He has the final say on that, but he's not going to have time to handle anything more than the broad strokes and executive decisions. And even on those, he's going to be coming to us for advice."

Pyrrha's eyes had that intensity Blake recognized from Goodwitch's class. It wasn't a reassuring sight to see, and now her voice was brusque, businesslike. "I'm not a politician," she replied, stiffly, "But if you think I'm going to let you two make him into your puppet…"

She was relieved to hear Cinder cut in. "That's why you're here, Pyrrha. You're Chief of Staff: you control his time, you approve his schedule, you decide who has his ear. You don't need to know policy, but you have to be someone who he can trust. You're here because he needs you," now Cinder was on the offensive, and Blake had to admire her directness. She could see that she had made a good decision bringing her onto the team: Cinder was in her element here, and she was damn good at bringing Pyrrha back around. "Like it or not, we're about to put him into the stressful, isolating world of national politics and, frankly, we are not his friends. Our job is to make sure he wins. We do what we have to do for that. Your job is to protect him."

That last line seemed to hit home. Pyrrha swallowed, nervously, her former severity now dissolved into girlish indecision. Blake wasn't particularly close to Pyrrha, but she did genuinely admire the girl. Honestly, she liked her. She didn't want to put her out of her comfort zone, but… there was too much riding on this. This was a matter of history, but even more so, this could trigger a seismic shift in the standing of Faunus rights as a global issue. She needed to win, and for that, she needed Pyrrha.

"Pyrrha," she started, "We need your help. We need Jaune, not just as our candidate, we need him to succeed. And to do either of those, we need your help. For Faunus rights, for the people of Vale, to keep Cardin's dad off the throne, I don't know what reason might stick with you. But I know you won't let Jaune get hurt and that's what we need right now. More than anything."

Pyrrha stared into her eyes, their emeralds burning with an intensity almost enough to make her take a step back. But Blake held her ground. She'd said her piece, and now it was time to see if they had her support or not.

"I'm in."

She rewound the footage back to the beginning and hit play for what felt like the hundredth time. As though she'd see anything different this time than any of the others. Blake didn't even know what she was looking for at this point—some mistake, she guessed, some hidden error that'd cost them everything months later. But as she watched Jaune's speech to the press, well… nothing was wrong. It was… rough, sure, but honest. Sincere. Some of his platitudes were vague, but she'd wanted it that way. He'd done a better job than she had expected, but even that wasn't enough to make Blake feel at ease.

When she was a kid, she remembered how much she idolized her mom and dad, sitting with a dozen other Faunus leaders around their tiny dinner table. They used words she didn't know, but sounded so important, alongside all sorts of names and places she struggled to piece together, her ear pressed to the door. There were arguments and agreements and, above everything else, a sense of some grand strategy, that everything was being figured out. There were scary times, when protestors would get beaten, houses got bombed, or when her parents would get detained, or even arrested, sometimes for days, when she wasn't sure what was going on or what would happen next. But around that dinner table… it felt like there was a plan. That everything was going to work out.

And when she painted signs, played with other kids outside town hall meetings, or clung to her mother's leg as she collected signatures, she knew she was part of something bigger. Something worthwhile. And she knew that, one day, she'd be the one sitting at the head of the table, figuring things out. When she and Adam planned heists, it felt right, because she knew it was in service to the larger cause. Even if she now knew that cause had been hijacked to wrong ends. This was her chance to do it right, to live up to the example of her parents. To be a real leader.

She wondered if they ever felt as lost as she did now.

"You can watch it a hundred times, but I don't think it's going to change."

She didn't even turn around. "What do you want, Cinder?" she asked, writing down a note for Ren about emphasizing the phrase "historic opportunity" in future speeches. They should emphasize that this is a moment, a thing that will be recorded in history books, that you'll remember being a part of decades from now.

She heard the woman take a seat next to her. She didn't dislike Cinder, even if most of her friends were a little off-put by her. She had a healthy respect for the woman's keen political senses and openness about her ruthlessness. It was the respect she'd have for a shark, though—let it do the thing it does so well, but don't be surprised if it ain't pretty and don't forget to keep a healthy distance. But Cinder seemed to understand, even welcome, that kind of respect. "I didn't want to work the phones, not when I can delegate that work to Emerald and Mercury."

"He must be loving this," she mused.

Cinder chuckled at that. "Yes, and it is very funny to make him squirm," Blake couldn't resist a small grin at that. She could imagine Mercury's ego struggling to have to talk up another man, especially one who was becoming increasingly popular with the Huntresses he clearly felt entitled to. "But I actually wanted to speak with you of a strategic matter related to our campaign."

Here it is, Blake thought as she made a point to keep writing in her notebook. She jotted down a question for Coco if there was anything they could do about his hair (knowing that obviously they couldn't) and hoped that her silence would convey to her to just say what she wanted so Blake could shoot it down and they could move on.

"It's about our Queen question—I think we might want to think more aggressively on that, as I anticipate-"

"Putting your hat in the ring, Cinder?"

Cinder laughed, but Blake knew the difference between real humor and a rhetorical gambit. "No, I don't think our boy King might survive a relationship with me."

Blake had to admit that did get a smile out of her. She would give her credit: for all Cinder's guile, she was, in her own way, an admirably honest woman. "Well, Weiss is out, we know that, and forcing the issue puts us on thin ice with Pyrrha, who we've both agreed is someone we're not risking. So I don't think we really have that much to discuss right now."

"Well, surely we should be thinking of a Royal Marriage in terms of political alliance. It can do a lot for his weakness on foreign policy."

"Once Atlas gets a King again, I'll be sure to see if he has any daughters," she replied dryly.

"Do we really need to wait? After all, I seem to recall that the Chieftain of Menagerie does have a daughter?"

Her fingernails dug into the armrests as the hairs on the back of her neck stood right up. She snapped her head over to look at Cinder, who, judging from that satisfied smirk, had evidently gotten the reaction she'd been fishing for when she dropped Blake's secret like that. She scowled. "What do you want Cinder?"

"Nothing," she purred, "nothing other than what we all want. To make that man," she pointed to Jaune, speaking on the screen, "the King of Vale. Everything else is just… advantage."

She stared at the woman with an unsettling sense of horror growing in her. Her calm, almost amused delivery as she revealed she knew who Blake really was conveyed everything: I know who you are, I know your secrets, but I'm not doing anything. Yet. She knew Cinder wasn't like the rest of them: she was an older student, who nobody seemed to know anything about, and always seemed to be searching for an angle. She was crafty, strategic, and clearly someone with her own agenda. Blake knew that, from the beginning. She was the one who went to Cinder, after all. But now she realized she was seeing the reality of what she'd sought, feeling the shark bearing down on her, and she… wasn't sure if she liked it anymore.

She fixed her face into something resembling annoyance. "Fine," she snapped, "Like I told you before, as long as you don't interfere with the campaign, whatever you're after, I'm not getting in your way. If that's what you wanted to hear, then-"

She was fortunately cut off from the familiar sound of a teenage girl slamming into a doorframe at top speed.

"Ruby do you need-"

"Weiss… sent me!" she panted out. Blake raised an eyebrow at that—it wasn't rare to see Ruby overexert herself in excitement, but this much was rare, and seemed to suggest that she'd really pushed herself to get there fast, even by her standards. She braced herself on the frame and continued, "Phones… going crazy. Everyone's excited… People really like Jaune!" She gave the both of them a wild, thrilled smile. "Weiss wanted you to know… we've already got Council endorsements!"

Well.

That was the plan, wasn't it? That was what they had hoped for, right? The speech was good. Well received. Weiss didn't think they needed a fallback plan or damage control—they needed to swing for the fences, to push the advantage. She looked up to Ruby, practically beaming with excitement, "Ok. Tell Weiss I'm on it. I'll… be down there shortly."

And then, in a burst of rose petals, she was gone. Blake and Cinder exchanged a glance—Cinder more bemused and Blake more apprehensive, but the both of them had the same thought in mind: Now it's happening. Now we're here. So what's the next step?

Blake opened a binder she had on the table, already prepared for the next step. In spite of how much work she spent developing this, of telling herself to prepare for success, it still felt unreal. There was work to be done. Messages to be sent, meetings to be had with key members of the team.

"Cinder, I want to capitalize on this moment, and I want to send Winchester reeling." Despite the earlier needling, Blake knew there was no point wasting Cinder's talents. Keep the shark pointed away from her and deal with whatever she wanted later. "Keep it clean, but if you don't tell me what you're doing to achieve that, I won't ask any questions."

"Consider it done." She smiled, but this one seemed… neither false nor predatory. Like a sign of camaraderie. Whatever they had between them earlier, they were here to win.

They had work on their hands. One good speech wouldn't be enough. Journalists would want interviews. Volunteers would need direction. There were rallies to plan, endorsements to secure, and policy statements to draft. And… Jaune would need guidance. And he was damn lucky he had Blake for that. She'd been born to politick, raised at rallies, and had all the tools she needed to change the course of a nation.

She had work to do.

He would be King.