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Raven wasn't gentle with where she dropped me and my captor off. Vernal, was it? Have to keep an eye on that. The name just shouted for me to be suspicious. How obvious could you be? I mean my name is Qrow.

True to her orders, though, Vernal let me go with my weapon and set me on my way. I was lost for a bit, however, and by the time I found Ruby and her friends, or where they should have been, GaiLong or whatever, the entire place was GaiGone.

At least I was pretty sure this is where they had been staying. I crouched down beside the destroyed buildings, trampled lanterns and trees all around. I reached into the mud and traced a hand over the Grimm foot prints.

They were large, large enough to make me panic. Okay, not panic but a little worried. Perhaps concerned, even. Not panicked though. If whatever this was got Ruby because I'd been chatting with my sister then I'd-

Well, I'd never forgive myself, to say the least.

What else had I missed while Raven and I had been chatting? One of Salem's agents could easily have attacked her while I was gone and I cursed at the raw nothing and took a swig from my flask.

Salem, as ever, seemed to have every advantage. Pain lanced at my side where I'd been gripping the cane hard. Where was Oz, really? Evidently I'd gripped the thing hard enough to draw blood from my own nails. Untrimmed and untamed out here. I'd have to be careful to avoid infection. I dumped a bit of liquor from my flask across my hand to disinfect it.

A stray beowulf, attracted by my pain and lingering by the disaster tried to creep up on me but I waved my weapon in its direction and a focused beam erupted from the blade and tore the creature down.

Ruby… Ruby was all that mattered. I refused to be too slow. Not this time, never again. I'd slay this Grimm by myself and then Ruby and her friends would have no choice but to press on. That's why they were staying right? The waitress had said so, at least. Uff. Too many distractions, I'd lost focus on what was truly important.

If they had another reason to stick around, I'd have to convince them. I needed to get Ruby to Mistral no matter the cost.

The Grimm I'd hit with blade beam went down and stayed down, but it didn't start to disintegrate. Feigning death would only work with a less experienced hunter and rather than attack it with another beam of aura from my sword, I shot it. The shotgun finished the job and the wolf fell into pieces and disintegrated. Getting close was a risk I wasn't particularly interested in, if it really was displaying smart behavior then I wanted none of that.

Too many huntsman had been killed by a small smart Grimm which took them by surprise. Of course I couldn't get an exact number because they were fucking dead now. I wasn't going to join them by underestimating even the smallest of Grimm.

I didn't get to be where I was hunting this thing by being stupid like that.

I just couldn't count my semblance out.

Tai had once experimented with the range of my semblance. Tempted fate. I called it that then and I called it that now. In the end I'd gotten my own room in a closed wing of Beacon. It was a necessity. We'd thought the range of semblance was twenty feet, then thirty, then we realized we really couldn't pin the range of it down at all.

It was much like Raven's in that regard. Perhaps both of our semblances were rangeless.

I honestly couldn't rule out that my semblance hadn't cut this butterfly's wings and destroyed this town, just because it had been on my mind. Luck was hard to characterize. Who knows how one thing had affected another to send this small idyllic town toppling down.

I really was just that unlucky that I could have killed my niece and her friends too I guess. Not to mention all these people. I was responsible. I couldn't forget that, and what I'd done.

I transformed and felt the wind beneath my wings. Oz just had to turn me into a crow. Raven got to be a raven. All elegant and nearly regal and I got to be a crow. It really was like that. I could only assume he didn't have total control over the magic responsible and that my semblance had interfered somehow.

I could only assume he had to let the magic do it's thing, regardless of the outcomes.

My semblance was a lot like that. It was as permanent as death or mental illness. It lasted forever or close enough to it to be indistinguishable. That's the real reason I didn't travel with Ruby. I could kill her just by being close to her. Just by thinking about her was perhaps enough to do it.

How my semblance worked for real was a mystery to me. It didn't come with a guide book and was vague. It was so vague I couldn't really see it growing in power over the years, but it was, I felt it. It acted further, faster, and more potently than it ever did in my teenage years now.

It had stopped growing in power in my thirties but by then it was so strong that I knew I could never have a team or a family ever again. My power was like that. I was like that.

I flew through tree and dodged branches until i made it out into the open sky. I flapped my wings and experienced a sheer joy that no human unaided by semblance could accomplish. I'd heard of some faunus who had the power of flight but they were few and far between.

I was also somebody capable of tracking a Grimm across dozens of miles, and fast, too. It wouldn't escape me just to destroy another village or hurt Ruby; assuming it hadn't already. I mean look at the size of this thing. I could end this myself and get my revenge if needed. I could end this all by myself.

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-WG