One-sided pleasantries began not long after Opher and Ozpin began the trip up to the Headmaster's office. "I know Glynda already called to apologize, but I would like to add my own regret in person. Argent Wright – the student whose actions accidentally downed your airship – is incredibly distraught," he stated, both hands on his cane and the courier off to his right, stone-faced and silent. "I would like your input, as well as Miss Stahl's, in regard to how we should proceed with any potential consequences."
"Why?" was all he said.
He subtly raised a brow. "Well, you were her victims, and we can't exactly ask the pilot of your shuttle for her opinion."
Opher's dull green eyes briefly met the brown ones across the way. "If my boss is angry about it, she hasn't mentioned it to me or her best friend. I personally don't give a damn. Accidents happen. If she's so upset, then that's enough for me."
"I see. I appreciate your forthrightness in this regard." Tap, tap, went his cane against the polished floor. "By the way, how did you manage to return to Vale? I do believe our airspace was closed by the Air Force until 5 AM – not to mention the lack of airships and pilots on campus." He regarded the toothy grin on Opher's face with confusion.
"We flew back, obviously," was his answer.
Ozpin cocked his head subtly. "Via… via airship?"
Something about this guy made him antsy – Opher masked his feelings with an application of scowling, nuclear sarcasm. "No, we sprouted wings. Like a bird."
Up went his brow. "I see." They arrived a moment later and walked out into the gear- and window-laden workspace, where the clock mechanism clicked away gently all around them. Once seated in his high-backed chair, he said, "Even though you were advised to come back here by Glynda."
Little squeaks came from the soles of Opher's sneakers as he shuffled around the office. "It wasn't necessary. I wanted to get Indigo home and I didn't feel like waiting around here."
"Hmm. I suppose the bigger problem is that you attacked two of my students."
"Yeah, and the girl that put a gun to Indigo's head is lucky she isn't dead right now," he said, gripping the back of one of the chairs.
"I can't say I appreciate that sort of honesty quite as much." A sip of coffee came and went. "Coco Adel was following her best judgment in regards to the safety of her classmates. And to be fair, you two are even more fortunate that you passed exposure checks, given the amount of Grimm my students fought that night." His cool demeanor receded enough for a light frown to appear. "I saw you kill quite a few via means I have yet to find explanations for. Care to fill in the gaps?"
"Ugh, I knew she had a camera." What was it about this shriveled-up old man that had the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight? Opher squinted at him as long as it remained feasible before directing a glance toward at the gears directly above. "You don't know?"
"I wouldn't be asking if I did, Mister Riese."
Something was deeply wrong here, but Opher couldn't figure out what. He turned his back on Ozpin while grappling with the tremendous shriek of his instincts. "How could you not know? You're the Headmaster of Remnant's best combat school, or so the advertisements say," he stated, though some of those words felt as if they weren't wholly his own. The logical sections of his mind bickered with more primal areas bolted directly to his outlandish Aura for reasons beyond his grasp. "I mean, surely you have more experience than everyone here. You must have come across what I've done at least once."
Correct on both points, but Ozpin only vocalized that about the first. "You're not wrong about my experience, but what you've demonstrated is a Dust interaction that is completely new to all of us," he replied, leaned back in his chair while watching every hitch and hesitation in the courier's body language.
Finally, Opher took a seat. What he said next wasn't exactly a deliberately constructed thought – no, this question would be launched forth by subconscious demands for information he apparently lacked. "Why?"
The surprise on the old professor's face was mostly authentic. "Why what?"
"Why doesn't anyone seem to know?" he clarified, throwing up his hands. After a few seconds of rubbing his eyes in silence, he added, "Forget it. What do you want from me?"
"An explanation about the process would be appreciated." Ozpin himself now bore reservations about his company, but unlike Opher, he proved far better at obscuring them. His placid, studious demeanor barely changed. "Here, I'll give you something to start with."
He brought up Coco's video so they'd have something visible to discuss, scrubbing through it until reaching a point where the technique was most clearly evident – not an easy feat with the shaky quality of the footage. Then he let it play. On screen was the end of the huge battle that had occurred just after Ruby, Pyrrha, and their teams joined up with Penny and Ciel, followed by the subsequent construction of the ice fortress suggested by Weiss to buy them some time. Dozens of ice crystals were flung by the students – without the characteristic glow which indicated they had been primed – and went off only after Pyrrha issued the vocal command "Do it now!"
Ozpin eyed Opher for his reaction to it all, but found a dearth of emotion instead. "I don't believe Dust is voice-activated," he stated lowly. "My brief chat with Miss Rose and Miss Nikos produced very little in the way of answers, so I'll ask you: how does this method work, exactly?"
"It's…" As with Pyrrha, he struggled to explain something that felt so basic. He threw his memory all the back to Carmine's demonstration, fifteen hundred years ago, trying to recall how he felt upon seeing it for the first time. Digging through that many recollections, however, was tantamount to hunting down one needle in a stack of needles – the task was made even harder by his inexplicable nervousness. "You just do it. You ask. Remnant answers. I don't know what science would tell you about what happens next."
"Remnant answers?" Ozpin leaned forward, resting his arms on the large glass desktop between them. "I don't understand what you mean."
"Big surprise." A deeply uncomfortable Opher straightened his hat with a powerful frown. "You know, Dust isn't exactly shiny coal. It has other traits." While he wasn't genuinely hot, his instincts prompted him to roll up his long sleeves to his elbows, exposing his tattoos as he went. "I've seen the questions. About how it works. Why it's inert unless primed to act by Aura, why its structure changes. Why it-" Two things shut him up: the new expression Ozpin wore, and the way his eyes darted back and forth as if he were reading something. When Opher finally deduced what by looking down at his left arm, he suddenly felt even more nervous than before.
"Oh, excuse me," he apologized, masking his bitter shock with a gentle smile. "I don't often see tattoos so intricate. My compliments to the artist. Please continue."
Opher stood up, covering his arms in the same motion, then stepped backward. His face twitched with uncertainty. "Why ask me to show up in person but not Indigo? She was there too."
"You're the one with the talent." Ozpin held his pose and smile. "This isn't the first time you've been in the Emerald Forest during combat, is it?" Silence, so he answered the question himself. "I know you left campus at the beginning of our second trial, Mister Riese. I also know you got back just before it ended."
His inexperience with technology had finally caught up with him; Opher silently cursed the existence of the scanner system and his own stupidity as he sat back down again. "Yeah, I went out there."
"Why? What were you doing?"
"Answering a question." A staring match broke out for several seconds. "Which happened to involve stopping several kids from getting killed as a bonus. Are you about to tell me why that's a bad thing?"
Ozpin's gaze hardened. "Civilian interference in Academy operations is forbidden, Mister Riese. We have these rules for a reason. If we allowed every concerned party out into the forest during combat, the body count would be immense. Parents would die with their children – and if they were lucky enough to live, they'd be cast out due to exposure. Which begs the question: how is it that you've exposed yourself to so many Grimm without any apparent consequence?"
"Does it matter? I passed the police scan," he fired back, squinting just as hard.
"Wrong. You have deliberately inserted yourself into Beacon's affairs. We are Vale's first line of defense-"
Opher couldn't stifle a chuckle at this. "Bullshit you are, the Army is." The humor on his face flashed out of existence. "You just have the kids try to take new territory from the Grimm. How well is that going?"
Irritation launched him from his chair; he leaned over the desk to appear more intimidating, though it seemed to have little effect. "I am not here to discuss such issues with you, sir, I'm here to figure out why you're getting involved in the business of my Academy."
"Oh, and you're welcome." Their stances were now matched, since Opher's agitation finally had an outlet – anger – which made him feel more comfortable glaring at his interrogator than trying to maintain decorum. The baffled look he got made him smile. "Everyone came back, didn't they? How often do your trials have a one hundred percent survival rate?"
"What are you saying?"
His wry smile grew. "What I've already said. You're welcome."
"Are you seriously implying you covered the entire area alone?" Ozpin asked forcefully, surprised about the admission, though not so surprised he could pull it off given what Coco's video showed. "Impossible."
Opher broke their standoff first by plopping back down in his chair. "I'm just saying that some weird shit can happen when I get motivated."
"And what exactly motivated you so?" No answer came, forcing Ozpin to lean even farther forward to try and frighten an answer out of him. "Silence is not an option. You are already skating on thin ice by violating rules which I have the power to enforce, and I can judge you instantly. I do not want to have you removed – you clearly possess knowledge which could help my students succeed – but your unwillingness to be candid about anything gives me tremendous pause." Again, silence was his reward. "I cannot help but feel you are hiding something from us, Mister Riese."
It struck him with amusement to find Ozpin just as agitated as he, something he displayed with a weak smile. "You're not wrong. But you know what? It ain't just that. Even if I was willing to show off to every person that wanted to look, I can't. I don't know if they'd be ready to see it."
Ozpin sat down next, weighed by racing thoughts about what else this man could possibly have up his sleeve. He used that last sentence to start backing away from the cliff's edge. "I may agree with you. What little I have seen of your talent is life-changing at best and possibly destabilizing at worst. This doesn't even include the new variety of Dust I saw you use. The blue fire… some kind of plasma-based species, perhaps? Publicize where you found it and I am certain the Schnee family will pay you a claims fee beyond your wildest dreams." Once again, Opher's lips remained sealed. "Unless it's something you found as a surveyor for the company? Give us something, Mister Riese, please. We can work together for the betterment of everyone involved. I only need to know what I would be getting myself and my Academy into."
"Nah. I don't think you're ready yet. I'm not sure anyone is." Admitting it out loud drained him of much of his snark; Opher felt a trillion years old, and suspected he looked the part too. That was the end of their chat, so far as he was concerned, so he stood up and prepared to leave. "Let the kids do with it what they will, there's nothing left I can teach them about Remnant's retort anyway. And if you're worried about danger, I mean, if they haven't managed to kill themselves with it yet, you know it's gotta be safe, right?" An adjustment of his hat was in order. "I'm gonna go finish dealing with my shipment, then I'm going home. I won't interfere in your fights anymore. Just leave me alone."
Remnant's retort. His usage of that phrase froze Ozpin's blood solid. "Wait!" he snapped as Opher made it halfway to the elevator. "Answer me one thing. Just one. How did you discover this?"
He turned to look over his shoulder, and, figuring it was safe to name-drop his lost love since her death was so long ago, decided to be halfway honest. "I didn't. I hear the concept came from a woman named Carmine Tanager a long, long time ago. Don't ask me why she ain't famous." He stared at the elevator controls. "Uh… what button do I…?"
"I'll open it." One tap on his desktop opened the doors for Opher – his other hand was busy with his Scroll out of sight while he frantically tried to get into contact with Olivine. "We're not done. I'll be in touch."
"Figures." The doors closed just after he entered the elevator and he was gone.
The Headmaster finally lost his infinite cool. "Damn!" he snapped. Since texting failed, he called his Maiden, but even that required two attempts to succeed. "Olivine, where are you?"
"At dinner. Why are you blowing up my Scroll, old man?"
He let his audible lack of calm do most of the talking. "Come to my office, please. Quickly," was he all said before hanging up. "Damn!" exploded from his lips again. "She is still causing us problems!"
Minutes passed before the elevator disgorged a grumpy Olivine, dressed in her hunting outfit, but unarmed. She carried a plate in her hand with slices of pizza and ate even as she walked toward his desk. "The fuck crawled up your ass?" she demanded, losing her irritation when she saw Ozpin's current state. "Oh gods, this can't be good. You look like you saw a ghost."
"Apparently we've missed yet another clutch of Lady Tanager's followers, but this time one of them knows the true art and is in a Kingdom!" he gripped the edge of his desk while formulating a plan. "We need to subject him to a more thorough interrogation than is possible on campus."
Olivine, brow creased with concern, set her plate down to think. "I could ambush him, knock him out, and send him to Mountain Glenn. They know how to get info outta people. And if he fights back… they're easy to replace."
"I agree with sending him there, but I have serious doubts about their ability to restrain him for more than a few minutes. No… they'll need help." He looked up at her, face hard with worry. "Have Emerald search for him in the dorms and bait him to the south end of campus by whatever means she can think of. Lady Grace will capture him and assist with questioning. If he can sense her magic out in the wilderness, it won't matter. There won't be anyone meaningful for him to tell."
"I'll go get her myself. She might not know enough to make a very good illusion, though, shouldn't we send Qrow?"
Ozpin shook his head at this. "I would if he hadn't been speaking to the fool on Fraidich night. His stupidity limits my options as far as keeping us separate from this process are concerned."
"Aren't we just gonna kill him anyway?" No response; she looked over at him curiously. "Unless—you don't think he could get out of it somehow, do you?"
With a sigh, he shed his glasses, then rubbed at his tired eyes. "I'm not entirely sure what to expect. For one thing, I don't know what his Semblance is. For another, there is cuneiform tattooed on his arm. Very close to the Old Script, based on what I read of it – including some words I've not seen in many, many years. That would insinuate someone passing down an almost unbroken chain of knowledge thousands of years long. I don't want to risk him fleeing – and while the Malachite syndicate is resourceful, they're not strong enough to stop someone who knows the true art. I can't even be sure that he's operating alone."
"Damn, that's a good point." Olivine smoothed back her green hair. "Maybe I should go with her."
"One cook in this kitchen is enough – and you make Beatrix's daughters too nervous. Besides, even if he has help, no human or Faunus alive can stand up to a Maiden. I just want to be sure that we know what he knows before she disposes of him permanently." He put his specs back on and retrieved his Scroll before sitting down. Something roughly like a smile was on his face again. "At any rate, I'll need your help with relaying information to Salem once we figure out how big the problem truly is. Be sure you're available for a few hours at least."
What was left on his pallet seemed to belong to the teachers or staff of Beacon, so Opher left the hustle and bustle of the dorms behind and made his way toward the relatively quiet faculty area as evening started to yield to dusk across the eastern sky. There were still kids around – a few of which asked him if he knew where such-and-such professor might be, a question at which he could only shrug. After staring at the manifest again, he trundled along the pavement with his load in search of where to drop off the remainder of it. Once he reached the blue flagstone buildings, however, he came to a stop to eyeball the manifest once again. "Can't I just leave this here and let them sort it out?" he mumbled.
An indigo-colored flash, out of the corner of his eye, made him look up. He saw someone with his boss' hair color walking away from him, though the style was all wrong, as was the outfit – this person wore pants, something Indigo would never do to herself with such heat still in the air. Opher discarded it as coincidence and went back to work, dragging his pallet into one of the buildings. As he sorted out what was left in silence, someone else entered through the double doors. "Excuse me," she said. "I saw your pallet, are you a courier?"
To call this woman's looks nondescript would have been generous; she was all brown hair and brown eyes, with a plain face and equally demure clothing in the form of a long, gray skirt and a simple, button-up powder blue blouse. After a second of examination, he placed her above the age range of a student, but not by much. Still slightly agitated from his chat with Ozpin, he couldn't match her smile. "Yeah, why?"
"Can I borrow you for a second? We've got some outgoing stuff and we're not sure how it needs to be set up on our pallets. You're the only courier I've seen out here all day." Emerald, with a hand to her throat to help alter her voice for the illusory woman she projected, examined her unwitting prey for any sign her Semblance wasn't working. After finding none, she pressed ahead with the plan. "We'll get yelled at by Goodwitch if we don't do it right. It shouldn't take long. Please?"
Thanks to Emerald's prudence in ensuring the illusion was always at her current actual position, the resulting distortion in his Aura matched where the sound was coming from. He had little reason to suspect anything wrong. "I don't know if my boss will like me leaving this stuff unattended…"
She projected a full-intensity smile on her mental puppet. "I promise I won't keep you. Besides, nobody's going to steal anything, they'd get in serious trouble and the whole place is armed to the teeth. You'd have to be real dumb to try anything here."
"Hmm…" Opher was already messaging Indigo with his Scroll to seek her thoughts on the matter. "You a teacher, or what?"
"Oh, no, I'm just an assistant. Basically I run around and do the menial work for the professors on campus. Kinda like an office bitch."
He snorted at this. A moment later, Indigo's replay arrived. Go for it, she said, Makes us look better to Goodwitch and gets us more work, right?
"All right, I guess I'm in." Away went his Scroll while his other hand motioned at the pallet jack. "Do I need this?"
"No, the shipment isn't going out today. We just need some help getting it ready." Emerald and her projection held out their collective hand for a shake. "I'm Abilene, by the way. Thanks for the help."
"Call me Opher." He obliged her with a brief handshake, then followed her back outside and down the quiet walkway. "I have to warn you, I'm still a little new to this job, so my stacking prowess may not be the best."
"If you have any at all, you're already doing better than us. We don't usually do manual labor." Emerald constantly checked the stability of her unseen connection with his brain. The characteristics of his Aura confused her a bit – she could usually sense the magnetic fringes of a person's Aura, but not his. Whatever the difference was didn't seem to affect her Semblance, so she shrugged it off. "I wish the warehouses were closer. Takes ages to get anything to the airships."
"Hmm." Opher cast his eyes up toward the early evening sky, not interested in small talk. "How much stuff are we talking about here?"
Emerald's false persona rubbed her arm awkwardly. "Three or four lots. Most of it is items we're sending back to family of… you know."
That killed their desire to speak for some time – at least until Opher looked back and saw how far they had gotten from Beacon Tower. The south gate stood not fifty meters ahead of them. "Where the hell is this place? I don't have all day."
"Sorry, it's over here." She led him off the main walkway and toward a bland, white building with an angled metal roof. The structure was smaller than an individual dormitory, especially from a height standpoint – it was only one story tall, not three. Emerald pressed a button to activate the vertical door so they could get in, then hit that switch again to close it behind them.
"Got any lights in here?" he asked as the outside glow departed. While suspicion had crept in by now, actual fear was far, far away. When he failed to hear his companion moving around in search of a light switch, Opher looked toward the distortion in his Aura caused by her presence. "Hello-" It was already too late to react once he registered the magic flying toward him. Amber drove a cloud of air directly into his lungs, laced with heavy sedatives; so powerful was the chemical that even as his Aura realized what was happening and tried to counteract it, it was already knocking him out. Seconds later, he toppled to the ground, unconscious.
Emerald used her Scroll to light up the scene. "That was easy," she remarked to Amber, who stood next to her while gazing at his limp body.
"For you. My work is only just beginning." A thankful smile appeared regardless. "You did great, though! Really smooth."
"One does try their best," she replied, tossing one of her long locks. "You want to move him out now?"
Amber suspended Opher on an uneven bubble of air and nodded. "Yes. Spot for me?"
"You got it." Emerald opened the door again and peered around the corner toward campus to check for unwanted eyes. "Clear. I'll report back to Miss Duprix, you just get outta here."
"Thank you, Emmy." Amber wasted no further time, draping Opher's frame on her shoulder – an awkward fit, given his height difference – and darting out on the back of another expulsion of wind magic. Her boots scraped fiercely on the stone. In five seconds, she made the south gate; in ten more, she was over a hundred meters into the woods and well out of sight of the campus or anyone in it. Now safe, she roughly deposited him against a tree trunk to stretch her arms. "Well, well," she sighed, looking down at him as the birds resumed singing nearby. "
A search was in order. She rifled through his pockets and found his Scroll in one, his ID chip in another, then a whole collection of small Dust crystals in those pockets attached to the legs of his forest camouflage cargo pants. Her interest went to the device immediately, where, to her surprise, she found a grand total of three contacts in his list: Indigo Stahl, Schwarze Voss, and a therapist's office apparently run by someone named Cynthia Ives. "Three people? That's a little odd," she mumbled to herself. A more thorough investigation could wait, but she did hesitate long enough to examine the tattoos on his arm for a moment. Unlike Ozpin, Amber couldn't decode any of the writing – but the Maiden attached to her soul creaked with gentle, wordless unease.
Unfortunately, that feeling would have to sit there for a while; she needed to get her prey to Mountain Glenn. Amber put his stuff back into his pockets, hefted him onto her shoulder, then twisted the early autumn breeze into a set of invisible wings which she used to coast through the forest and toward the southern part of Carnforth Plain.
Enforced sleep was a magical land which Opher's mind hadn't occupied in so long that neither it, nor he, knew exactly what to do at first but merely exist within its bounds. He knew his body was moving, but by what means he had no idea, nor did he know where it was going. While his Aura continued to struggle with modern chemistry, it detoxified bits of him by brute force, which meant magnetically ejecting molecules of the sedative from his skin in beads of sweat. This allowed his brain to turn parts back on piecemeal – the first to reactivate had been his sense of balance, which was why he knew he was in motion in the first place.
He dreamed because his brain saw the chance to. Indistinct smears of color on backgrounds just as devoid of detail, swirling around him as though he stood in the eye of a cyclone of memories tens of thousands of years across. Most of these sights were skeletons of things, or concepts of people whose faces were as lost as their lives. Some of them, though, were beyond even waking reality in their exact replication. His parents flew by. A lanky, pallid man with a smile that never stopped and lustrous green eyes. Next to him, a taller woman with chocolate skin and golden eyes like faceted gemstones, who seemed content to wear a light frown. Both figures vanished into dust when he reached out. More solid people filed past – the other residents of his village from years more distant than the stars in the sky. The loves before Carmine that he'd lost were next, then, finally, she arrived, taller than even Pyrrha Nikos. Her jade eyes glittered playfully. A giant spear was in her rosy hand. The holy glow of her power surrounded her like a halo. Seeing her again made him notice something about the memory of the magic attack from just before he blacked out – it had that tinge. Not hers, exactly, a minty inferno whose tenor and tone he'd never forget even if the planet crumbled to nothing, but it held the same intensity. The finest expression of the true art he'd seen since the war before – a star among flickering candles. Carmine, was it…
I never did get along with my sisters. She was gone a second later. Everything went with her, people, ghosts, and what little well-defined dreamscape remained. He was alone.
Some breaking news from his inner ears arrived: Opher's body had come to a stop. Thought ceased in favor of observation. Full hearing came back to him moments later. "What is this wet stuff on his skin?" asked a female voice – young, perhaps a teenager. Her speech was smooth, but not monotonic. "I don't think sweat is usually red. Did she beat him up or something?
"Not our problem. Don't touch it or mom will throw a fit." For reasons beyond him, it sounded exactly the same as the first.
Am I hearing things?
No, his Aura replied, there were two distortions here. He could feel the sedative pooling in seemingly-random spots, kept there so his essence could study and protect against future encounters with it; an immune system above and beyond what white cells existed in the fluid pretending to be his blood.
Twins, then. Motor functions returned. Legs were operational. Arms too – a twitch of his wrists revealed that he was restrained. He was seated in a chair. Air – wind, perhaps – moved around his body. Smells reached his nose, earthy, woodsy, with a hint of flowery perfume, cut by the rusting of steel and concrete dust. The return of consciousness shifted from a trickle to an avalanche. Seconds later, his eyes popped open. Two girls stood in front of him, pale identical twins in similar dresses and cross-laced thigh boots, though each had their own color motif – red on his left, white beside her. Fur stoles – black for the red girl, and a strange bluish-white for her twin – were wrapped around their necks. At first blush, they seemed to be about Indigo's height. Both had jet black hair, though white's was long and red's barely reached her shoulders. Both were also armed; red had a pair of black claws strapped to her forearms, while white's boots were decorated with ornate, bladed heels.
"Awake already, huh," white said.
"I'll let mom know," red replied instantly. "Watch him." She left the room via a doorway with no visible door attached.
Tracking her there spurred Opher into examining the rest of the room. Dilapidated wooden planks made up its walls; gaps in the shoddy construction allowed him to see slivers of faint evening sunlight. Another look out the doorway confirmed it – he was in some kind of shack. A single operating light fixture hung above, and since he didn't need to look up to notice this, that meant something was missing. "Where the fuck is my new hat?" he spat at white.
She peered at him down her nose to reply. "Behind you on the floor, but I'm pretty sure that's the least of your problems."
Cute; maybe he'd let her live, so long as she didn't get in his way whenever he chose to leave. Meanwhile, he sat still, feigning weakness in order to figure what the hell was going on. Red showed up again a couple of minutes later with a portly middle-aged woman in her wake, who had short, neatly-trimmed blonde hair, plus blue eyes, with a layered purple and white dress and corset. Frilly detached sleeves covered her arms from wrist to bicep. A tattoo of a spider in its web spread across her left shoulder, artwork so large that some of the web reached her neck.
"Goodness me," she said, drawling her words with an accent he couldn't place, "It's not often I have strangers dropped into my lap so… unceremoniously." She paced around him in slow circles for examination. "Oh, sweetie, I think this is yours." Here she paused to place his hat back on with a sarcastic smirk. "Allow me to be the first to welcome you to Mountain Glenn, your new home for… well, I suppose that depends on you. Don't worry, though, honey, we'll treat you right." The faintly red beads of fluid on his face, neck, and hands caught her eye. "Hmm? You feelin' all right? Didn't think it was hot enough to sweat blood."
"Shouldn't we get to work, mom?" red asked.
"Oh… I reckon that's a good idea. Our Lady seems a little more irritable than usual. Let's not test her patience." White stomped one foot; this ejected a concealed knife from her boot into her ready palm, which ended up against Opher's throat. A claw on red's arm joined it shortly afterward as she started the interrogation. "To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"
He was more interested in the fly buzzing around his improperly-fitted hat than the weaponry against his neck. "Opher."
Peals of laughter escaped white's thin lips. "That is so stupid!" she gasped.
"Save your giggles for after we're done, Melanie." With one hand, she reached behind her back and produced a tan-colored folding fan to wave more air against her round face.
"Hey, mom, there's something on his arm." Red dutifully rolled up his left sleeve to display more of the tattoos underneath. Their ancient, precious knowledge was completely incomprehensible to all three women. "What are these things?"
When no answer came, her mother's wry smile flattened. "I suggest you answer Militia's question, sweetheart, otherwise you're gonna start leaking inconvenient fluids from inconvenient places." Her twins pressed their blades harder into his throat, but he said nothing. "Oh my, what a hard man you are!" She nodded to Melanie, who immediately drove her weapon into Opher's right forearm. "Not so tough now, are-"
He only glanced at the knife. Despite the wooden walls of the shack dulling his ability to detect the presence of any other people outside, there was a magical pang some distance away which shone with the intensity of a lighthouse. A little smile now rested on his face, at which the mother and her twins exchanged surprised looks.
"Oh, great, he's like Tock. No wonder she's pissed off," Melanie complained. "I'll go get the Dust."
"Do be quick about it, I don't want to waste time breaking his Aura." The rhythmic beats of her fan intensified since the air felt just a little more stagnant – the way he kept smiling with a knife sticking out of his arm wasn't helping her nerves. Once Melanie departed, she added, "Enjoy it while you can, sweetheart. When we're done with you, you'll never smile again."
"Uh huh. I'd like to talk to the people who actually kidnapped me, because it sure as fuck wasn't you three idiots." The next thing he said was screamed out the nearby doorway. "Show yourself, asshole! I feel your power!"
Militia's eyes widened a little before she looked to her mother for answers. "Wait, what does he feel-"
"Shhh. Wait outside for me, okay?" She watched her daughter obey, yanking the knife from Opher's arm as she went with no visible reaction from him. She again locked eyes with her captive. "Now I understand why she's so antsy… then again, your eyes ain't silver. How very strange." She soon realized the wound from Melanie's knife was completely sealed over. All that was left was the hole in his long sleeve. "Patched up so soon? What is your Semblance, exactly?"
"You're looking at it." Opher peered at the thick iron shackles which secured his wrists to the heavy chair. Seconds later, they glowed red with the heat input of internally discharged fire Dust. Seconds after that, they were malleable enough for him to yank his hands upward. His flesh sizzled for only a moment before it healed over too. Never mind that the woman's bladed fan had been raked against his chest during the escape; it dragged rips only through his shirt, while his iron Aura defeated the steel tips with a small amount of sparks. "I'm beginning to get irritated," he growled while rising to his feet.
"Don't you move!" she warned him loudly, the business end of her fan aimed at his face. "Maybe you're a tough nut to crack, but we've got your Scroll, sunshine, we know about your lady friends. Being uncooperative will have consequences for them – don't think just because they're snug as a bug behind Vale's old wall, that means they're safe."
Annoyance sublimated into fury, though not the type of anger she could see on his face. Opher raised his left hand, folded the tip of his middle finger under his thumb, then flicked the woman clear out of the shack through its rickety wall with an emission of the true art's breath – a deliberate choice to attract the other magician outside. She flew, screaming, through the air, out of his vision. A moment later there was a tremendous crash, vocal outbursts of horror, plus the terrified shrieks of her two daughters. Melanie was the first to defend her mother; she barged through the new hole and lashed a sweeping kick at the side of his neck with the blade heel of her boot – only for the metallic injection of his essence to stop her momentum cold. As she stumbled out of the way, her sister arrived, driving the giant claws attached to her wrists directly into his breastbone. Their tips broke off with impact – the remainder of the kinetic energy went up Militia's arms and sent her stumbling backwards, numb with pain.
The horror in her eyes drove Melanie into a deeper rage. "You fucking bastard!" she shrieked, pushing herself off the nearest wall to gain energy for another roundhouse aimed at his head. This one he caught with his left hand. One flick of fingers on each hand ejected the girls out of the shack through different walls; now too damaged to stand, the unstable building collapsed on his head in a cloud of dust and splinters.
Amber dashed around the corner of another edifice just in time to see the shack topple. Malachite family members were scattered everywhere as their purple-clad cohorts aimed all manner of firearms and bows at what was left of the structure. She found the matriarch slumped against the base of a different building – a half-collapsed, dull structure with pharmacy signage – a few meters away. "Beatrix!"
"Ma'am…" Getting herself on her feet required Amber's strength. Wood splinters littered her hair and clothing. "We got a bit of a problem." The sight of her unconscious daughters caused a squeal of anguish. "My babies!"
The shack's remains shifted – one section of roof which had struck Opher in the skull and lingered, hiding him from sight, finally tilted and dropped off. He smacked it aside with his hand, which was enough reason for one of the purple-clothed underlings to open fire with her shotgun. All her colleagues followed suit. Volleys of steel slugs, Dust bullets, buckshot, and arrows flew toward him. The slugs and pellets bounced off of him uselessly, leaving more holes in his clothes, while the Dust-laden rounds blew up too soon to reach their target due to enforced detonation by his immense Aura. The arrows he let sink into his flesh, but he ripped them out directly afterward – if they weren't in easy reach of his hands, he set them on fire and let them burn away instead.
"No, stop shooting!" Amber yelled. "I need him alive!" When they failed to heed her, she produced her staff, extended it to its full length, and held it above her head. The gale she summoned blew everyone off their feet backwards, ensuring any further shots went skyward. Even Beatrix ended up on her rear once more.
Opher did not fall. He stepped out of the obliterated shed and found himself on the outskirts of a clearly unfinished settlement much larger than a village; it even had ruined skyscrapers, as well as bare steel frames of equal height that never received their exterior walls. Almost all of these buildings leaned dangerously. There were streets that ran between them, too, broken and grass-infested, plus the beginnings of a city wall whose shattered remains displayed bent steel re-bar inside broken concrete. Behind him, however, stood the untouched forest. Wood crunched under his sneakers as he walked. "Caramel," he said to Amber, describing what her magic tasted like to his ancient senses. "Wood smoke and sea salt. Huh. So she wasn't lying."
She pointed her staff at him while Beatrix scrambled on hands and knees over to Melanie's motionless body. "I think you're concussed. Stop babbling at me." The lack of visible injuries from the slugs caused, at first, confusion, then bitter hatred. "And stay where you are!"
"Why should I?" he asked, using his foot to nudge aside debris as he approached. Militia was in his direct path – one of the men felt compelled to defend her, snatched his rifle off the ground, and fired another shot at Opher. His reward was an outstretched hand, then an ejection of ice that slammed into his face, wrapped around his entire head, then froze it to the grassy soil once its impulse forced it to strike the ground. Panicked screaming erupted as others tried to bash the ice off of his face with their weapons. The howls of distant Grimm soon followed. Sporadic gunfire broke out again, though it did nothing to stop him from walking closer to Amber.
"No!" Beatrix screamed at her subordinates as she tried to shield Melanie from the ricocheting bullets. Militia, unfortunately, was much too far out of her reach. "You're gonna hit my babies!"
Unwilling to kill him without a successful interrogation, Amber reached into a belt pouch to prepare more of the red sedative powder as he drew nearer. Before she could fully charge the wind magic needed to launch it, however, he whipped a lightning bolt at her face and sent her tumbling through the air with a screech. She managed to catch herself via gravity magic just before crashing into the concrete wall several meters away, her outfit smoking faintly with the residual heat. "Damn you!" she snarled.
"You kids be quiet while the grown-ups are talking." Opher snapped his arms out to his sides to emit a wall of blue fire against those still stupid enough to shoot at him. Some, standing too close, were engulfed by the azure inferno and went up like matchsticks. The rest ceased their attacks and scrambled away toward the safety of the ruined city. One second's worth of pained screaming from those on fire passed before Amber tore through the conflagration, staff whirling like a propeller, straight at him. An injection of gravity Dust into her weapon slowed its rotation enough for him to grab it on contact; leverage applied by wind Dust allowed him to twirl it with her still attached, before a solid yank of his arms swept her over his head and spiked her into the ground.
Amber rolled forward on her shoulders as she landed, flinging bolts of uneven red fire magic at him the whole way – these he bent around himself with flicks of his wrists and even more wind Dust. They pelted the grass and all hell broke loose – spreading flames cast a ruddy tint through the early evening glow as the first of the monsters arrived. A whole den of Taijitu emerged from the treeline, tracing slithered paths in search of distress from the victims of the blue fire whom no longer existed. Only four detectable targets were on site: the Malachite family, now all conscious and huddled together in terror, plus Amber herself. She paid little mind to the Grimm; the moment her heels contacted soil, she launched forward again with a guttural roar, spewing wind and water from one hand as she used her other for attempted staff strikes against Opher's neck. He was always just out of her reach, guided to safety by gusts at his command, body always tilted and swiveled just enough to avoid the weapon while puffs of air swerved her torrent toward the Grimm that attacked instead. Every swing and motion came with an angry grunt from her lips.
Then Opher ejected a column of the blue fire directly into her unprotected chest.
She discharged enough water magic just in time to absorb the stellar heat – and before her Aura-propelled internal iron could conduct its thermal energy into her organs and cook her alive. The resulting steam explosion sent her bouncing across the ground. Each impact forced out a yelp of surprise – even pain – until finally she landed in a heap next to the Malachite women. Her nervous system tingled viciously, overwhelmed by the amount of incoming magic whose power it knew how to detect. "Agh…" she whined, struggling to sit upright. Like Opher, much of her attire was torn. Her frilly top and cloak suffered the most; the latter now looked much like Qrow's shabby old cape.
Melanie and Militia were armed with ranged weapons discarded by the gang members. They defended their mother from an encroaching horde of baby Ursae, shooting as fast as they could pull the triggers. "Miss Grace!" Militia called between shots. "What's going on?! Who is-"
"Get… get out of here," Amber gasped as she hauled herself to her feet. A wildly smirking Opher wandered toward them on slow, easy strides. "Into the ruins. I'll stop the Grimm from chasing you. I need you alive."
Beatrix herself managed to scuttle over, pick up a lost handgun, and fire at the little black nightmares. "I don't feel right leavin' you, ma'am – despite the, uh, extremely frightening circumstances," she said while aiming shots.
"I'm out!" Melanie gasped. She searched through the grass and smoke for a magazine that might fit her rifle. "Damn it! 'Tia! Cover us!"
"Listen, I appreciate your loyalty, but there's nothing you can do. All of you have to get out of here." One arm swept out to engulf the beasts in a tsunami of crystal-clear water; it drove them all the way back into the forest, extinguishing some of the fire and shattering tree trunks loudly in the bargain. "Now!"
"Amber… what exactly are you intendin' to do, ma'am?"
She grinned nervously at Beatrix, then glanced at the pouch of sedative powder on her belt. "Put him back to sleep. I'll come get you when I'm done."
At length, the Malachite family took their leave; the twins lingered to shoot at Grimm for a moment, then they too were gone – he let them leave without protest. Opher and Amber stood meters apart now, staring each other down as she tapped into her gift and he lingered there, still, waiting for a reason to care about it. The tornado she unleashed next acquired a crimson tint – every pounce of the powder streamed from its storage pouch and into the twisted maelstrom, before she shoved the cyclone at him with a visceral screech and a thrust of her staff. The surge of power which came next sent her nerves aflame. Her wind was now his, seized by an explosion of the true art not even her Maiden could fully comprehend. He twisted relentlessly, limbs guiding the air into a wall of sound and anger which swept up everything it touched, be it grass fire, shattered tree trunks, or the various Grimm which homed in on Amber's abject terror. They ended up at the center of this howling catastrophe; so immense was its wrath that the ground upon which they stood had been scoured to subsoil. Seconds later, even that entered the wall of wind. A smirking Opher said nothing – he only fell still, lifted his left arm, rolled up the sleeve, and showed her every unreadable word.
He's feeding his own magic into it. Amber acknowledged her senses and tried to take back her pet typhoon, braced, knees bent, both hands on her staff as she mentally fought with her own attack. Sweat dripped freely from every bit of her exposed caramel skin. Her power flowed into the atmosphere, a tidal wave of effort that snatched the air from her lungs. "This wind belongs to me!" she screamed over the freight train of wind in orbit around them. Every muscle in her body wailed with agony – but she managed to slow the gale after endless seconds of bitter, mind-searing concentration. "Gods damn you to hell! It's mine!"
Those words finally got a rise out of her mute opponent. "Then have it back, you selfish bitch," he growled.
"What-" She looked up just in time to see a red cloud of powder slam into her face. A freshly infuriated Opher motioned it into her open mouth before she could direct the magic to fight back; it filled her lungs to bursting with powerful tranquilizers and frigid air. Tectonic agony forced her to her knees, unable to exhale or even cough because he kept ramming more air in – her Aura could do nothing but harden her ribs, which only made her lungs suffer even more. Only when she ended up on her back, staff discarded, did the whole thing cease. The tornado departed. The fire was gone. Grimm plummeted from the air like meteors, splattering noisily into black and white plumes of ebony goo and fractured chitin. She coughed and rolled, hand pounded repeatedly against her chest as if trying to restart her breathing. "N… noooo…" was her first slurred protestation.
"You're not even half the warrior she was."
"Why… Hrruugggh…" The world grew dim and blurry – as did Opher's looming form. He stood above her, hands shoved into his pockets. Her Aura did better at resisting the sedative than his did, but he'd injected so much of it into her body that not even the Maiden's might could help Amber fight it all. "Hhhhgh!" she gasped out when he nudged her onto her back again.
"This is what you're doing now? Running mobs in the middle of nowhere and kidnapping people?" His pallid face contorted with bitter disgust. "How dare you."
"Thish… ishn't-" Her addled brain lost its conscious link to the Maiden's power – little spurts of wind and water jumped from her fingers in self-defense, but these did little more than move the brim of his hat and get his clothes wet. "...posshi… posshible…"
Opher's simmering fury boiled over again. He raised his shoe high and stomped on her head. Her Aura's internal protection flavored the sounds of impact with metallic echoes. "Why the fuck did you bring me out here?!" he screamed. She only groaned, so he raised his foot and slammed it down a second time. "Why are you using your gifts for this bullshit?!" No answer, so he thrust his foot into her cheek again, and again, and again, and again until her skull sank into the bare soil.
"Hnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaagh!" she groaned as loud as her gasped breaths would let her. Her hands wrapped weakly around his leg to make him stop. While not exactly in pain, this was the first time Amber had met her match since learning how to live up to the mantle – she had no idea how to process the sensation and only wanted it to end.
"You disgust me." A pat at his cargo pants told him items were missing from his pockets. "Where is my stuff?" he growled down at her.
"Hrk…" Amber lost consciousness and her grip on him; she laid still with her arms splayed and his sneaker still jammed into her face.
"Fine. I'll ask your friends." To ensure their compliance, Opher punted her off the ground with a kick, then seized her by the throat to be dragged into the broken city. New Grimm arrived – mostly fledgling Griffons, hodgepodge beasts with the wings and beaks of eagles, but the bodies of lions – in pursuit of her misery. They were unable to see him; since Amber was unconscious and no longer projecting emotion, they wandered about while emitting uncertain growls. One finally caught sight of her and charged. The whole pack came with it, only to be treated as the meaningless inconveniences they were by his magic. He did not even dignify their presence with motions to discharge that power; blue fire annihilated them into vapor at the mere suggestion of his angry thoughts. One city block into Mountain Glenn's corpse, he decided to fully announce his presence. "Don't fucking hide from me!" he shouted, Amber's body suspended above his head by her neck as he walked slowly down the road. "Someone took my shit! Give it back!"
Some noise reached his ears after this. The cocking of weapons, the gentle creak of bowstring being drawn tight, the murmurs of terror, male and female. He kept on walking with the beaten Maiden on display until a smear of red caught his eye, just around the corner of the remains of some kind of market. Out went his hand and the gravity magic needed to snatch Militia Malachite mid-stride as she tried to flee. He roughly dragged her over to him on invisible chains, waiting for her screams to attract help. She lashed out at him with her claws the moment she got close enough, shrieking with fear. "Let me go! Let me go!" Their edges bounced off of his chest and torso until he suspended her out of stabbing range – so she kicked him instead, lashing her feet against his temples as fast as her muscles would respond to the urge. Repeated attacks on his sub-dermal iron armor only caused her pain, which built up in her feet until she had to cease. "Ow… ow… what the hell…" she whined, legs retracted loosely to her chest.
One twist of his finger turned her around in the air. "The woman that's in charge here has ten fucking seconds to show herself before I use this bitch-" He wiggled Amber's limp form for emphasis. "-to beat this other bitch to death." Now he indicated a sobbing Militia.
Beatrix appeared almost instantly with Melanie at her side – both came around the brick skeleton of an office block behind him. "Please put my baby girl down!" she pleaded, tears streaming from her blue eyes. "And Miss Grace too! You've made your point!"
"Where is my Scroll, and where is my ID chip?" he asked, his back to her.
"I've got them!" Melanie gasped, fumbling with storage pouches strapped to her thigh. "Just let 'Tia go!"
He flicked Amber away – she ended up halfway through an already somewhat-broken window in the ground floor of the apartment next to him – and showed them his palm. "Hand them over." Seconds later, they were back in his possession, but he kept Militia as well. "What is it that you people do for her?"
"I, uh, I don't think that's relevant to the-" Beatrix cried out with horror when Opher sent a pulse of electricity through her helpless daughter's body, causing first a scream, then dreadful, uncontrolled convulsions for a few seconds. "Stop! Stop, damn you, we gave you what you wanted!"
"Answer my question before I actually get angry."
Beatrix glanced between him and Amber. "We… we're… I don't think she'd like it if we spilled the beans…" Another jolt of electricity went into Militia. "Stop!" she wailed, dropping to her knees.
"Who are you more afraid of," he began, peering over his shoulder, "her in a little while… or me right now?"
"We feed her information from the outside!" Melanie blurted out. "Gathering intel from villages and expeditions for her. We don't know what she does with it, we swear. We didn't even know she could do… like… whatever the fuck it is we just saw."
"Melanie, don't tell him-!"
"Mom, I really, really don't want to piss this guy off again."
"She's a smart girl." Opher lazily tossed Militia at her twin, who tried to catch her with a surprised squeak but failed. Both girls ended up on the cracked pavement together. "Gods damn, I missed being mad," he whispered. After a check of his device and chip, both of which appeared to be in good order, he pinned down the trembling Beatrix with a fearsome gaze. "I don't appreciate you threatening my friends. If something happens to them – I don't care what – you're gonna be the first person I talk to about it. And if I can't find you here, I'll start looking. Twenty-four hours a day, eight days a week, four hundred days a year, across the whole fucking planet – I'll never stop. So, if I were you, I'd leave them alone."
Militia was still too dazed to hold herself up, so her mother did it for her. "Th-that ain't a guarantee I can make. It's her call."
"Then you should advise her against doing anything stupid." He turned on his heel and prepared to walk off. "Don't bother me again." Vibrations in the ground caused him to stop – he, along with all of the Malachites, turned to look together at their source.
"Goliath!" someone in one of the ruined towers yelled. "Incoming!"
The top of a truly gigantic monster came into view over the half-built city wall, trumpeting murderous intent from its long, obsidian trunk – a quadrupedal cataclysm in the shape of an elephant with a white mask and blood-red eyes. Its height rivaled some of the skyscrapers. Panic broke out around them as the gang members in the ruins fled for their lives. "Mom, we… hnnnnh, we gotta go!" Militia snapped weakly, unable to stand on her wobbly legs.
Opher, hands jammed into his pockets, shuffled past them and toward the monster in total silence. While the Geists with their Petra Gigas puppets were a sight to behold, this thing jutted even higher into the air. Every step it took sank a crater into the ground, shaking the windows in the ruins until some of them cracked or broke out altogether. The sound of footsteps behind him caused him to look over his shoulder. The Malachites were trying to flee with the rest of their gang. "No. You stay there. I want you to see this."
"Are you fucking nuts?!" Melanie screamed at him.
Out came his hands. He crossed his arms over his chest, unable to control the smirk that appeared, then looked up at the Grimm which was now only meters away, ignoring him in favor of the terror it felt elsewhere. "I need to send a message," he whispered.
Bitter wind swept down the streets, forcing Beatrix backward until she stumbled and her daughters had to come back to try and help her. They too were knocked off of their feet – all three tumbled toward Opher, clawing at the ground and screaming bloody murder until the gale dropped off without warning. It left them clustered around his legs, at the center of a peaceful bubble. All around them, however, the atmosphere howled, so fierce that its assault caused some of the wrecked skyscrapers to groan with protest. The Goliath could no longer move forward – it trumpeted its frustration and tried to bash the four of them with its trunk, but lacked the strength to swing down through the air pressure. It slid backward, feet tearing up the pavement.
"Gods above who part the stars…" Beatrix whispered, crouched with her girls, mouth agape.
Debris picked up by the air showed how it swirled in eddies focused on the monster and shoved it toward the city wall until, suddenly, everything fell still. A strange, white fog collected at its feet – which it could no longer lift, as they were frost-bound to the soil. Opher unfurled his arms in one quick motion as the Goliath froze solid, then toppled sideways – pulling up the ground to which it was stuck – and shattered across the street. He took a moment to straighten his hat before looking down at his gobsmacked company. "That, for the record, is how you use the power. She, on the other hand," he said, while motioning to Amber, "hasn't got a fucking clue what she's doing. I'm headed back. Like I said, don't bother me again."
"What, to Vale? That's a hundred kilometers away," Melanie replied while she helped her sister stand. "You'll never make it."
"I retract my statement about you being smart." He bounced once on his feet and sprinted away from them before detaching from the ground, rising like a particularly determined balloon in an arc toward the almost-dead sunset.
As the Malachite gang gathered reluctantly around their leadership, tracking him skyward, they saw something else instead – a gossamer, iridescent sheet of light which spread over part of the forest and the city. It featured bends and waves that moved as they watched, a translucent banner fluttering in the jet stream. "What the hell is that?" one of the men asked.
"Couldn't tell you," Beatrix replied. She tried in vain to brush copious amounts of dust off of her purple dress. "But I bet our Lady knows. Come on, let's get her out of there."
"Like this?"
Pyrrha glanced over at Jaune, who did his level best to copy her ready stance. Both were crouched down with their respective shields up – though neither had their weapons – in the center of Beacon's combat arena. Opposite them stood Qrow, rubbing the stubble on his chin as he examined Jaune's posture. "Raise your shield a little more," she advised quietly.
He did as told. "Now?" Her nod made him smile. "Okay, Mister Branwen, I think I'm good to go."
"All right." Qrow kicked his broadsword off the floor and into his ready hand, then issued an overhead swing toward Jaune's heater shield. His blade stopped before making contact. "See where the tip of my sword is relative to your, well…"
Harbinger's edge was dangerously close to making relations with his nose. "My face, sir, yeah. I got it. Is my shield not high enough?"
"That's one problem, but not the whole problem. See Pyrrha's shield? It has a convex face. When something hits, it automatically deflects that contact off-center." Qrow retracted his weapon and straightened up. "Lots of Grimm are gonna swipe down at you from above. They catch the flat edge of your shield, they're gonna push it straight down into your feet. Not only does this make you vulnerable, but it also restricts you from being able to attack."
Jaune emitted a long, low, "Oooooooooo," while eyeing his heater shield. "So what's the right way?"
"Show him, Pyrrha."
"Yes, sir." Up went her hoplite shield, over her head and slightly forward, angled such that the side closer to her head was higher than the side pointed at the floor.
Qrow whipped a sword slash down onto it and held firm, pushing against the resistance she offered. "Look close, kid. This naturally puts you into a low center of gravity and makes you harder to move around by a single opponent. And see how much space she has for her other arm to thrust out?"
"Yeah."
"It also lets your whole body absorb the impact so your Aura doesn't complain as much. Spreadin' out the pain, so to speak. Look how hard it is-" He paused to grip his sword with both hands and try to force Pyrrha to one knee, a task which was much more difficult than he expected. "What the hell are you eating, kid, I've never had as much muscle as you do in my friggin' life!"
"I quite enjoy my protein, sir," she said through a tiny grin. Not only did she hold her ground, but she managed to force Harbinger back up slowly.
"All right, all right, stop showin' off." Qrow withdrew the blade again, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a sleeve. "What I was gonna say is that it's harder to get knocked down from vertical attacks in that stance, 'cause both your legs can resist the force."
Jaune was tapping notes into his Scroll. "Right. Leverage."
"You got it, kid." Qrow rotated his shoulder with a smile. "I wanna focus on shield training with you first, that way you can protect yourself out there. Don't try to fight anything solo, you got me?"
"Yeah, like the first trial!" Nora yelled from the bleachers. "When you decided it was a good idea to be Death Stalker bait one too many times!"
"I know, I know," he replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
The bipedal stick of dynamite wasn't alone – both she and Ren were there to offer support, as was Ruby and her entire team, save Weiss, who couldn't be bothered to tag along with her leg still somewhat gimpy. Yang chose to interject with a joke. "You tried to take on a Death Stalker alone? Damn it, there's only room for one blonde badass on this campus!" she yelled through her cupped hands.
"And to whom would you be referring?" a grinning Qrow fired back. "'Cause all I see is a glorified fist-based meat tenderizer."
"Why don't you come up here and kiss my ass, you old geezer?!" Off to Yang's right, Blake loosed a few quiet giggles. Ruby only rolled her eyes.
"Ooo, touchy." Qrow waved her off and got back to work. "All right, now when it comes to horizontal-" Something directly ahead of him, beyond Pyrrha and Jaune, caught his eye. "Uh, can I help you?"
"Hmm?" Pyrrha said. She turned and spotted a visibly distraught Indigo hesitating in the entrance tunnel. "Miss Stahl?"
Those in the bleachers gathered at the railing as Indigo shuffled up to the edge of the raised platform. "Uh, hey…" she mumbled, tugging ceaselessly on her thin ponytail, "This might sound a little weird, but have any of you seen Opher?" After some mumbled confusion, Pyrrha, Yang, and Jaune raised their hands slightly. "Hold on, what? Then where the fuck is he?"
"What's going on?" Ruby called from the bleachers.
She shrugged helplessly. "He never came back to the shop today! I've been calling and messaging him for hours, but nothing. Goodwitch says they scanned him landing with the shipment, then leaving through the south gate, then… then…" Her face twisted with misery. "I don't… I don't understand."
Qrow rubbed at his stubble in thought. "There's nothing near the south gate a courier would be interested in but the warehouse."
"If he left and didn't come back…" Pyrrha's lips pursed with unease. "Why would he do such a thing?"
Indigo's answer was instantaneous. "He wouldn't. Something is really wrong here." She looked over as Ruby hopped the railing and jogged over. "I've… been wandering around campus for an hour because I don't know what the hell to do."
"Hey, I could go with you and do a little sweep around the south gate?" she offered, rocking back and forth on her black boots. "I've got Crescent Rose with me."
"Now wait a second," Qrow said, arms folded. "You know you can't just wander off campus without permission."
"But…" Ruby glanced around as the rest of her friends arrived. She inhaled a breath and stared up at her uncle. "Uncle Qrow, I have something to tell you."
His face softened with worry. "Go ahead, kid."
It took considerable effort to hold her eye contact through the truth. "Opher helped us in the second trial. He killed the Geists. He saved all of our lives." His partially-genuine bewilderment caused her to wave her hands. "Look, man, he asked us not to tell anyone and after what we saw? We didn't wanna make him mad!"
"He fucking what?!" a far more surprised Indigo snapped after Ruby fell silent.
"It's… it's a long story..."
"What if he saw something bad going on?" Nora asked the group. "Maybe he got into trouble trying to help someone."
"Anything's possible, I guess," Blake muttered back. "But trouble? The way he fights?"
"The point is that he helped us, and Miss Stahl helped us too, and now they need help and I'm here and I should help them," Ruby blurted out with one breath's worth of air. "So, maybe you could give me permission? If I'm the only one that goes, I'm the only one that gets in trouble. Right?"
"Yeah, fuck that, I'm going too."
"Yang!"
"Okay, take a breath." Qrow rubbed back his spiky hair, staring off in thought. "All right, fine. You and Yang go with her to check things out. If you see anything shady, you call me."
"And me," Pyrrha added. "We'll all come running."
Ruby issued a grateful hug for her uncle and for Pyrrha before nodding at Indigo. "Let's do this." All three moved outside into the dusk, walking quickly away from the arena down one of Beacon's many walkways.
"Whew, getting a little chilly at night now," Yang noted, rubbing her arms. She soaked up the sight of the blanket of stars above them for a moment.
Ruby squinted at her. "Then, I don't know, try wearing pants?"
Indigo was too busy trying to contact her employee again to appreciate their banter. "Gods damn it, where the fuck could you possibly be," she sighed, frustration and worry contorting her features – emotion no amount of measured breathing could control. "This is bad. This is really bad. He wouldn't just—no. He's not like that." She cast glances at the two girls. "What do you mean he helped you before?"
Both sisters stiffened up. "Listen, we don't know why he did it. We don't even know where he came from – he must have been out there following us, I guess, but when we were about to die-"
"Please don't say it like that," Ruby pleaded quietly, her eyes tightly shut.
"-he barged in and saved our lives," Yang concluded. "He joked about being there to help your new favorite customers."
"Why the hell would he…" Her muscular arms suddenly hung limp at her sides. "Oh my gods."
"What?" Ruby looked at her, then down the walkway, then all around in search of the problem.
Mired in thought, Indigo's pace slowed to a crawl. "I… think he wanted to help Pyrrha."
Yang fired a confused look at her sister before asking, "Uh… why?"
Seeing a woman so powerfully-built act so fidgety caused Ruby and Yang more than a little concern, but neither tried to push her as she measured her breaths again. "Before he came to Vale, Opher worked as a Dust surveyor for the SDC. He fell in love with someone else on his crew – a woman named Carmine. And based on what he says, she looks a lot like Pyrrha." She walked faster after this admission. "Carmine and Opher had a child, but… the Grimm attacked during childbirth and she gave herself up so the rest of their crew could save her baby. Opher wasn't there – and given what I know now, if he had been around…"
"Oh. Wow." Ruby looked away so Indigo could wipe her misty eyes in peace. "That, um, that's bad."
Drying those tears required a handkerchief from the pocket of her intense pink and black skirt. "It sucks 'cause he doesn't even have any pictures of her. He lost his old Scroll. All he has is memories. If Pyrrha looks as much like Carmine as he says she does, then I wouldn't put it past him to try and help her. I guess… I guess I would feel the same way. She was the mother of his fucking kid. I'd never get over it."
"Damn." Yang, chest tight with empathy, looked up as they walked past the closed warehouse. "I guess we're almost there. What should we look for?"
"I wouldn't even know where to st-" A chime from Indigo's Scroll brought all three of them to a halt. After checking the message, she bolted away from them toward the gate.
"Whoa?!" Ruby squeaked, using her Semblance to catch up. "What? What happened?" she added between breaths.
"It was him!" It-" A Scroll flashlight in the woods beyond campus caught her eye, then Ruby's too – both shined their own lights back in response. "Hey! Hello?" she called, jumping up and down as Yang slid to a stop beside her.
"Oh, calm down," Opher called back, his voice echoing through the trees. A few moments later, he wandered through the gate and walked up to them – his clothes were not the same ones he'd been wearing when he left Beacon several hours earlier. Gone was his favored ensemble of long-sleeved shirts and cargo pants, replaced by a short-sleeved orange tee and black pants which lacked leg pockets. His original hat and shoes, however, remained. "Whew. Didn't think I'd be here this long-" The rest of his thought was lost to Indigo's tackle-hug. "Ow."
"Where the fuck did you go?!" she yelled, physically lifting him off the ground by his waist and carrying him away from the gate. "You asshole! I've been calling you! Schwarze has been calling you! And wait, why are you wearing different clothes?"
"I know, I'm sorry, I just got back into range," he said, one finger pointed at his Scroll. "And one thing at a time. Put me down, please." He blinked at Yang and Ruby. "Uh, hello, I guess."
Indigo relinquished him to catch her breath, then followed him to the bench where he sat. "Explain," she demanded.
"I guess we're all good then," Yang said, "So, uhhhh… we'll give you guys some space."
One word from Opher brought everything to a halt. "No." After gauging the uncertainty on each of their faces, he added, "Stay. You need to hear this. So does Pyrrha."
"What's going on?" Indigo asked, posture now stiff as a board.
He thumbed over his shoulder at the warehouse. "Someone jumped me in there. Knocked me out with—sleeping powder, I think. I'm not totally sure what it was." When she began to whine like a tea kettle, he pressed a finger to her lips. "There isn't a scratch on me, by the way. You can check all you want once we get home." He continued once his boss fell silent. "They took me to a place called Mountain Glenn."
"Holy shit," Yang blurted out. "Mom used to take missions around there. Lots of expeditions would use it as a temporary hideout." Now it was Ruby's turn to whine briefly. "Shhh. I know," she whispered, seizing her in a hug.
"Mountain Glenn? Fuck me." Indigo's blood felt rather icy; her eyes darted around in search of reasons why someone would kidnap him. "Why—why would anyone… did you make some enemies or something?"
He shrugged. "I was told I know something I'm not supposed to. Three guesses about what that might be."
More uncertain looks were exchanged before Ruby's eyes widened. "Wait, the remote priming thing? But everyone should know that! What the heck?"
"At least one person seems to disagree." Opher hunched forward, arms on his knees, to stare at the walkway. "I was restrained, but not for long. There's an organized gang of people that lives around there now. Fought them off. Then someone else showed up. Someone that can do what I do. Beating her ass took me a little longer."
"Oh my gods-"
"Easy, easy." Opher paused to pat a frantic Indigo on the head for a while. "Anyway, I got out of there, found a village and did some bartering for some new clothes, then came back. How many people know about what I showed you?" he asked Ruby.
She counted that number off with her fingers. "Uhhhh, my team, Pyrrha's team, Coco, Penny and Ciel, and Miss Goodwitch. I dunno if you could figure it out by watching the video Coco recorded. Professor Ozpin probably knows by now too."
"Yeah, he knows. He asked me about…" Gone was his voice. He stared up at the twinkling stars.
Wait a damn minute.
"Hello?" Yang said, waving her hand in front of his face. "Yooooo? Remnant to Opher?"
Opher had to stand up and walk around to think. Carmine was one of those four. He'd just met the descendant of another. Their power was derived from… he stopped and stared at Beacon Tower. Only two people on this planet could command those Maidens. One only person could issue commands they'd actually listen to: the Aspect of Light. The man whose God took everything from Opher and gave him eternity in return by sheer accident. The other man that refused to die.
"Hey, you're making me nervous," Indigo advised from her seat. "More nervous, I guess."
He couldn't reassure her with his brain racing like this. Perhaps his kidnapper was acting alone, but what he knew of the Maidens Four from experience – and Carmine's own stories – didn't jive so well with the loose-cannon concept. They were the Generals of Ozma's ancient armies. They obeyed him nearly without fail – or they did, based on his foggy recollection of the final battles of the war before. Perhaps their loyalty to him had faded even more since the discovery of Dust, as did humanity's and Faunus' knowledge of the truth. "Listen to me," he finally said. "These people threatened you and Schwarze. Was it an empty threat? I don't know. If not, then they must have some kind of help somewhere to make claims like that."
"Pfff, they'd never get close to Vale," Yang said, hands on her hips. "Nobody in their right mind would help them even if they did."
"You're wrong. They do have some help." Opher doffed his hat. "The woman I fought was, for lack of a better term, one of Carmine's sisters. She seems to be in charge of that gang."
"E… excuse me?"
He looked at a dumbstruck Indigo. "Not sisters by blood. Carmine… she's the one that taught me what I know about Dust. She mentioned other women like her. Her 'sisters'. They didn't get along very well."
Ruby waved her hand for attention. "Hooooooold the heck up. Would they have some kinda reason to come after you?"
"This morning I would have said no. Now, I'm not so sure." His eyes remained locked on Beacon Tower. Ozpin… A section of shared name he could brush aside as coincidence, but the way his Aura shrieked in Ozpin's presence was much harder to disregard. Even the timing of events seemed a little off in hindsight. "Huh." On went his hat as he addressed his company. "Let's get outta here. By airship, this time, my story is going to be complicated enough."
Indigo stood, her jaw slackened with surprise. "Whoa, don't you want to talk to the administration first? Someone snatched your ass off of the fucking campus! What if they come back for someone else, like, I dunno, students?"
"They would have before." He looked to Yang and Ruby. "Has anything happened like this since you've been here?"
"What? No way," Yang answered. "We're all armed, we'd all put up a fight. Then again, if they were strong enough to take you, I guess we wouldn't do too well… fuck, we'd sure as hell make a ton of noise, though."
"And I'm really good at screaming," Ruby added with a nod. "Seriously, are we, like, in danger?"
He crossed his arms. "Indigo and Schwarze might be, yes. As for you kids… I don't know. I guess I'd just tell you to keep everything among yourselves for now. If Goodwitch and Ozpin don't tell everyone about what you've learned, you shouldn't either." The fact that their silence on Remnant's voice would indicate a bigger problem was something he kept to himself. He turned to his profusely-sweating boss. "I'm not sure what the three of us are gonna do."
"Call the cops, maybe?"
"It probably wouldn't work," Indigo said while tugging at her blue hair. "They don't have jurisdiction out here. Nobody really does, except the military, and even that's kinda tenuous. The Academies police themselves." A few seconds later, she was at Opher's side. "Actually… wait. It's not gonna help us either. We can't just tell them that you ended up in Mountain fucking Glenn and somehow got back here in a few hours. The fact you came back at all would be hard to believe."
"Yeah." Opher's face darkened with unease. "I'm not really worried about me. I'm worried about all of you. None of you asked for whatever the hell this is."
"Well, they do say that Hunters should expect the unexpected!" Ruby chirped as optimistically as she could manage while rocking on her heels. "But, um, between us, what kind of unexpected are you expecting?"
He couldn't help but snort. "I wish I knew." One more long look at the tower. "All I'm certain of right now is that I'm at war with someone and I have no idea who it is."
