Friday, May 12th

"Salem." Qrow said casually as he leaned back in his chair, gesturing to the gathered members of the Shadow Hunters. They were seated once more in the small gathering space on the first floor of the dorms. Ruby sat immediately beside Qrow, then Weiss sat next to Blake, while Jaune and Pyrrha occupied a couch together.

"That's what Ozpin called them too." Jaune said. "He said your sister joined… the bad guys?" Jaune's brow furrowed as he spoke, and he leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs, hands cradled together. "He said they're not with the Shadows, just…" he looked around the room, making brief eye contact with all of his teammates. "Just against us."

"Against us?" Weiss raised her brow and voice at the same time. "Why would anyone want to stop us from defeating Shadows?" She crossed her arms for a brief second, then immediately threw them into the air. "They hurt people, for crying out loud!"

"Precisely." Qrow said calmly. "And hurting people ain't exactly something that Salem's against." Qrow looked around the room, seeing nothing but innocent eyes staring at him. Eyes that were about to lose a hell of a lot of that innocence if he continued speaking. "That's probably something for another time though, it's late."

He moved to stand, and immediately found Ruby's hand wrapped around his wrist. She stared up at him, her silver eyes pleading. "Uncle Qrow… we're not kids anymore." She said calmly. He moved to pull away, but her arm stayed gripped on his, steadfast. "You can tell us everything." She looked around, gesturing to Pyrrha, Jaune, Weiss, and Blake in turn. "We're all putting ourselves on the line here." She stood up, keeping eye contact with Qrow the whole time. "Yang too. We deserve to know what for."

Qrow stared at his niece as a very pregnant silence filled the room. No one spoke. No one shuffled. All eyes centered solely on Qrow and Ruby. Qrow took a look around the room one more time, and noticed that, sure, they were innocent… but they were also passionate. They had a fire in their eyes… the same fire he had. The same fire they all had…

"You win." Qrow sighed, finally. Everyone let out a sigh as Ruby let go of Qrow's hand and plopped back down into her seat. Qrow gently eased himself back to his seating position, shuffling momentarily to find a comfortable spot. "You're just like your mom, ya know." Qrow said calmly. "Keepin' me on my toes."

Jaune noticed Ruby's face show a brief bit of glowing pride.

"Guess there isn't gonna be a 'see ya next time' for this one." Qrow pulled a flask out of his shirt pocket and took a very long drag from it. Everyone was keenly aware of the sound of him gulping the stuff down for seconds, before he let out a deep sigh and returned the flask to its hiding place. "I'll answer all the questions. I'll do it straightforward. No more holdin' back. Where do we start…"

"Qrow, look there."

The speaker was a pale woman with long, luscious black hair that fell in waves behind her. Her crimson tinted eyes matched Qrow's own. Her blood-red cardigan was pinched tightly around her torso. The black leather holster on her hip held an Evoker, the tell-tale sign of a persona user. On the opposite end was a slender black sheath, presumably holding a slim sword.

She was leaning back against an alleyway in the darkness of the city. Her finger pointed to the sky as the world transformed before the pair's eyes. Everything in sight turned a sickly shade of green, and the brick wall beside her started to drain a viscous red liquid onto the street. Qrow remembered thinking it looked like the world itself was, somehow, wounded.

" Same old same old." Qrow said calmly as he stepped out of the alleyway. As a teenager, his hair was extremely clean, cut short. He wore his Beacon uniform with the blazer slightly open, revealing a vest underneath. Every part of him looked painstakingly put together as his loafers tip-tapped onto the asphalt. He held his evoker in his hand, at the ready.

"They seem to be getting closer together." The woman said with slightly pursed lips. "The bigger shadows, I mean." The two stepped out of the alleyway, both glancing throughout the dark street with practiced precision. "I wonder if it's supposed to be heralding something?"

"Don't be crazy, Raven." Qrow lowered his Evoker after the cursory glance down the deserted road revealed nothing. "That's the kind of crap I'd expect from Tai." As his gaze returned back to Raven, he saw a Beowulf shadow emerging from an alleyway. His Evoker immediately came to his chin and he fired.

"Huginn!" His Persona appeared once more, in all of its opalescence. The black hooded figure atop the raven fired its arrow at the Beowulf, causing it to explode into particles of black dust.

"Guess the party's started." Raven said with a small smirk as she and her brother turned, seeing a small horde of Beowulf shadows approaching them. "Guess I'll get in on the fun too. Muninn!"

Raven's persona manifested behind her, a swirling torrent of feathers coming to form a single humanoid body. Like Huginn, Muninn at first appeared to be giant gem-carved raven, save where Qrow's glistened in crushed opalescent blues and greens, Muninn burned as a bright multi-faceted ruby that seemed carved to perfection. Small flames seemed to dance inside its body as moonlight shimmered across its surface. Once again a humanoid sat atop it, cloaked in blackness, but Muninn bore two large blades, one in each hand. Muninn crossed its blades in front of itself, and a gargantuan circle of darkness appeared underneath the approaching horde of shadows. The circle spun on itself, creating a giant eye on the ground. The eye blinked. Without any trace that they had ever been there, the Beowulf shadows were gone.

"That takes care of that." Raven said calmly as Muninn vanished. She clapped her hands together as though cleaning them of dirt, and calmly meandered forward.

"Showoff." Qrow said politely as he came up behind her. "Guess that just leaves the big guy, wherever he is."

"I suspect he's… g…hr…." Raven stopped mid-sentence, hitting the ground hard with one knee as she inadvertently knelt to the ground, gripping her head in both hands. Qrow immediately rushed to her side, hands on her shoulders. There was a long silence filled only by Raven's deep breathing. Qrow remained calm next to her, closing his eyes and keeping his hands there to support his sister as she let out small, labored gasps of pain.

After several seconds of Raven kneeling, her breathing normalized. She stood – awkwardly at first, but then brushed off her brother's hands as she came to her full height. She looked at him. "I'm good. It's ok."

"They're getting worse." Qrow stated, bluntly. Raven glanced away for just a telling second, and he knew that he was right. "If you need to stop, that's fine. We don't have to go in every ti-"

"I'm not going back." Raven set her shoulders, and simply kept walking forward. "It's going to take more than a little headache to stop me from finishing this mess."

"But Raven…"

"That's final." Raven didn't even turn to look at Qrow, who looked at her pleadingly, and he knew that she was right. There was no point in arguing with her once she'd made up her mind. She was going to see this through, no matter what. Even if it killed her.

"What was wrong with her?" Jaune interrupted, looking around the room. Everyone was so entranced in Qrow's story that they had to rub their eyes briefly, barely aware of their surroundings. Ruby glanced at Qrow and then back at everyone else.

"She was sick." Ruby said, finally. "Dad told me. She would get terrible headaches, ever since she was little." Ruby rubbed her hands together. "He was really glad when Yang didn't get them too."

"Do migraines run in your family?" Pyrrha asked, levelling her eyes at Qrow. "You've never mentioned them."

"I don't get'em as bad as Raven did." Qrow said, calmly. "But it's a pretty normal side effect for us… ain't exactly genetic, though." He reached his hand up to his head, massaging his temple. "Raven and I aren't… well…" he sighed. "We aren't exactly like other Persona users." He shuffled in his seat and messed with his holster for a moment. Then, he held his evoker out, playing with it idly in his hand as he spoke.

"Truth is, don't even need this." He put it on the coffee table that sat in the middle of the group. "Could summon Huginn all by myself, if I thought about it hard enough… hurts like hell, though." He added. He had a captive audience at this point. Everyone stared at him as though he could do it on the spot. "Only during the Grimm Hour, mind you." He hastily tacked on.

"How is that possible?" Weiss said, holding her own Evoker in front of her. "Even Blake and Jaune needed someone else's evoker to summon their personas."

"'cus their Personas came from within them. They came willingly." He gestured idly with his hand to Blake and Jaune, who glanced at each other. "They found that strength within, overcame their personal struggles, all that soft and mushy crap about being stronger for it."

Pyrrha crossed her legs and leaned back in her seat, eyes never leaving Qrow. "In such a case… something different happened for you."

"That's a good way to put it. Different. Like that word." Qrow said, hunching his shoulders and leaning into himself. "Raven and me… we didn't quite get ours like that. For us… our Personas… they were forced out of us."

There was a silence, and Ruby gasped. They all looked at him with confusion and worry.

"Which means… what, exactly?" Jaune said, looking at him. "If they're a part of us, how do you force it out?"

"Medicine." Qrow said, calmly. "Well, one particular kind of drug." He held his forefinger and thumb out, stretching them a bit. "We got it from your family, back when we didn't know what we were doin'." Qrow said, calmly. "Guy who invited us on, representing the Schnee company, said somethin' bout our DNA made us a good match for a miracle drug. Somethin' that would make us strong. Make us able to do amazing things."

"The Schnee company… experimented on you?" Blake said, casting a worried glance at Weiss, whose face had become downcast. "With some crazy… medicine?"

"Experimented is a bad way to put it." Qrow stated simply. "We went willingly. Thought it was the coolest idea in the world. Become awesome, amazing fighters with just one little vial. Worked, too, just… there were side effects." He sighed once more, shuffling awkwardly in his seat as he leaned back in his chair, becoming less tense and resuming his casual pose. "Raven was never the same afterward. Guess it was too good to be true, though."

"Did it… have a name?" Jaune said, looking around the room. There was another pause as every eye fell on him. "The drug, I mean."

"Dust." Weiss's face was grim as it came up to meet the others. "We call it dust."