With the Moon's shattered hemisphere pointed directly away from Remnant, it looked almost normal, its damage betrayed only by the debris field in orbit with it. The night sky was crystal clear, glittering stars joined by the navigation lights of airships at all altitudes either headed to or away from Vale, plus others much higher up making the marathon runs between Vacuo and Mistral, or Vacuo and Atlas. Ruby, perched on the cliff's edge very close to the airship pads, ignored the gorgeous view in favor of things in her lap. One of these was Crescent Rose in rifle format; another was a box of practice tracer rounds. Also on hand were several bullet-sized Dust crystals she'd managed to chip off of a larger stone, plus her Scroll, whose light she used to see in the darkness. Despite the late hour, students were still out and about on campus – she could hear them in the distance over her shoulder.

"Huh…" she muttered, comparing the size of the small Dust shards to the size of a Dust cartridge. "Erk… how can I get these in a magazine?"

Thinking about that challenge made her shake her head; better to find out if the effort would be worth it first. She manually loaded the round, then did a little fiddling with the charging handle and ejection port to load two of the small Dust shards along with it. After getting to her feet, she looked down into Beacon Lake, whose calm, transparent waters betrayed the wrecks of the Bullheads which had crashed trying to defend the campus from the Nevermore flock. Their shattered metal hulks gleamed dimly in the moonlight. Frowning, Ruby set her gun down just long enough to issue a respectful prayer in memory of their pilots.

Then she took up Crescent Rose again, aiming down its scope toward the distant city of Vale while adjusting its focus for several seconds. Just before she could evoke Remnant's retort and pull the trigger, however, she felt a gentle squeeze on her right shoulder and looked back to find a grinning Yang. While Ruby was clad in her full combat ensemble, the blonde opted for something more casual – a garish lemon-colored tank top and baggy gray pants over blue and white sneakers. "Huh? What are you doing out here?"

"Stole the question right outta my mouth, squirt." After a huff from Ruby, she moved up to stand alongside and stare out into the dark vista. "Taking potshots at the city?"

"I'm finally gonna test a supercharged load." Ruby closed one eye to aim her shot, but proceeded no further. "What do I ask for to set off this Dust the right way? Um…"

"Hell, just say it straight out and see what happens."

"Hrmph." More aiming, more stalling. "I guess it can't hurt. Look, stand over there, okay? If this blows up in the chamber, then-"

Yang ruffled her black hair. "Just take the shot, Ruby, you're thinking too much."

Flashes of her failure to pull the trigger just before their imminent death in that round clearing rattled uncomfortably in her head – the images were somehow too fresh while feeling years old at the same time. A grumpy "Gods, fine," emerged in response. She issued her silent request first, then waited a second or two to pull the trigger. The round flew from the muzzle and into the night air, striking an empty sandbar on the western side of the lake – a path which she tracked through her scope – with enough force to eject a spray of sand into the air.

"Neat." Yang – once the ringing in her ears faded enough – looked to her little sister for context. "Well?"

"That was really fast!" she whispered hastily. "I could stack three of these behind a capped AP round and punch through all kinds of things! Oh, oh, oh, what if I put Dust in front of a capped round?!"

A smiling Yang rolled her eyes. "Oh gods, here we go."

"Don't snort at me, dang it!"

After a bit of laughter, she let Ruby go back to poking at her rifle before dropping the real reason for her presence. "You haven't been sleeping too well lately."

Her movement hitched to a stop. "Eh?" she said while looking up. "How would you know?"

"Because this ain't the first time I've seen you out here. You think I'm dumb?"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh…" She turned her back and walked a few steps toward the airship pads. "It's no big deal, don't worry about it."

"And yet you're currently doing a Blake."

"That's rude!" she huffed as Yang sat on the grass. They stared out toward the dark, empty plains in silence. After a while, she added, "I… see lights."

These weren't the city's illumination, nor the dim, bouncing yellow lanterns of refugees seeking help behind Vale's walls, but the powerful, stark white glow of flood lights heading away from the seaside Kingdom. "Must be an expedition," Yang deduced quietly. "Looks like they're headin' north again."

"Yeah." Ruby plopped down on the ground as well, weighed down by the glimpse at their future.

"You having more weird dreams or what?" Yang grinned at the uncertain look she got. "You didn't even tell me about the first."

Resisting her maternal air was impossible, but Ruby tried anyway, busying herself with loading another tracer round and some extra Dust shards. "Not much to tell."

"You still remember it?"

"Well, yeah." She didn't need to look up to know exactly what expression Yang wore now. "It was just a dumb dream." Silence. "You're not leaving until I talk about it, are you."

"Nope!"

One heavy sigh later, Ruby gave up fussing with Crescent Rose and set the weapon in her lap. "I was alone. There was a forest. There were Grimm. Then the forest was the Grimm. I can't really explain it. Then…" A frown pulled at her lips. "There was someone else."

Yang cocked her head. "Huh? Who was it?"

"Dunno. Looked kinda like another girl, taller than me. White cloak? Glowy eyes. I think they were eyes. Silver. Like mine. She didn't have a face, there was just black under her hood." She looked over just in time to watch Yang produce her Scroll from a hip pocket, but no words were said as she tapped at the screen, nor when she handed it to Ruby. Displayed was a picture of her mother she'd never seen before; Summer Rose, holding a tiny, swaddled Ruby, stood next to a taller blonde man with a cocky grin and a failed attempt at a goatee – Taiyang Xiao Long, their father. A little girl in cute purple overalls and a red t-shirt was on his shoulders, bearing the same kind of smile – Yang, her yellow hair tugged into haphazard twintails behind her ears. Summer had on much the same style outfit as Ruby currently wore, but her cloak was a brilliant white. The hood was up too, betraying just how camera shy she was. Something about the way it was cut to fall over her mother's forehead startled her a bit. "It… it looked like this," she finally murmured. "I think? But…"

Yang took her Scroll back. "Did she say anything?"

"She-" Ruby had to hunt for those four words. "She said 'they will revile me'." Now her own Scroll emerged from a pocket as she tried to figure out what revile meant. "Erm… hate me? Who?"

"Well, if it was just you, her, and the Grimm, then it must be the Grimm."

"I guess." Ruby shrugged Crescent Rose from her lap and hugged her knees. "You think it was… mom?"

"Pff, I wouldn't even know where to start to figure out what it means. Hey, ask Blake. She's got a whole book about dreams and stuff."

"Huh. Maybe I should." Both girls watched the white lights of the departing expedition as it trundled ever farther away from Vale. "But if that was mom, then… huh."

"What?"

Her knee-hug grew more intense. "Do you think she's watching over us?"

"Yeah." Yang cast a look up into the starry sky. "I know she is."

Silence followed one last thoughtful mumble from Ruby as they watched the white lights proceed forward across the empty plains. Ages passed before she found the power to speak again. "I hope those guys make it."

"Give us a few more years and we'll make sure they do. Personally." A long, low sigh emerged as fog from her mouth. "Hey, I can see my breath."

"We won't be helping anyone if you freeze to death, you big dummy." Ruby took up her weapon again, fed it a cartridge and three shards this time, then locked the bolt in battery, threw up her silent prayer, and aimed. This shot was even louder than the first – it streaked into the night, trajectory flat for hundreds of meters before curving down as the tracer glow expired. "Geez! That sucker went so far!"

"Wonder how much armor that would have gone through."

"Yeah! That's what I'm saying!" Too excited to stay on her butt, Ruby jumped up, hopping around as she thought of the possibilities. "You could put sooooooooooooo much distance between yourself and the Grimm with this!" Just as abruptly, though, she deflated a little and fell still. "Wish we could teach the new guys about it."

"Eh, let the teachers figure this out. Don't forget that Penny can't even do it," Yang said as she got up, rubbing the back of her pants to shed any persistent blades of grass.

"Penny doesn't need it."

"I mean, yeah, but-" She fell silent as a shadow approached from the airship pads, lit up from behind – not that she had any trouble discerning who it was, because only one person had that combination of height, muscle, and flowing ponytail. "Yo, Pyrrha! You sneaked up on us."

That was because she wore a set of casual clothes not unlike Yang, save for color and shoe style, and not her clanking golden armor. "Aha, I apologize. I heard quite a noise just now."

"Whoops. Sorry, that was me!" Ruby admitted, raising her left hand. "I've been trying the thing to add propellant to my Dust bullets. Seems to work really well!"

"Ah. That's good!" Pyrrha nodded once, but her smile was already on the way out. "Speaking of… we might be getting a chance to show it off to someone who really matters soon." She patted the Scroll in her hip pocket. "Miss Goodwitch just sent me a message. The Army wants to speak to us. About remote priming… about him."

Yang scratched at her fluffy blonde hair. "Wait, Opher? Where even is he? I haven't seen him do delivery runs since the… yeah, that happened."

"I got a message from him too. The same thing is happening to him. I suppose we've all got their attention now."

"Dang, about time. He's been quiet for a little bit." Ruby tilted her head in thought. "So, then… what? Is there something he wants us to tell them?"

Yang, brow knitted with mild disdain, cracked her knuckles and discarded that concept right away. "I don't care if there is or not. We already covered for him once and you saw what it did. I'm not lying to the military for a guy I barely know, even if he saved our asses once and helped us twice."

Pyrrha waited for Ruby to gather her things before leading them all back toward the main walkway. "Actually… I asked him myself, and he wants us to tell the truth and direct any questions we can't answer to him. Apparently Miss Stahl went through the same thing a couple of days ago."

"Oh." Yang blinked once, then put on the barest hint of a smile. "So he's finally coming clean, then? Neat. Maybe he can start teaching us for real, 'cause I still wanna punch the ground and make ice fly out."

"Hmm."

"Oh, I know that noise," Ruby said on her way up to Pyrrha's right side. "What's the problem?"

"Just thinking," she replied, thin brows knitted. "Why is he so willing to talk to them, but not to Beacon's staff? Or to us?"

"I mean, it's the Army, Pyrrha. He'd be stupid not to. They can exile him. They can kill his ass."

That earned Yang a little frown. "Yes… still. I can't help but feel like he's trying to…" The exact words evaded her; she looked up toward the brilliant Moon to find them.

"Huh? What?" Ruby bounced in front to catch her eyes again. "What?"

"Not keep something from us, but keep us from something. For our sake." She gauged their expressions for a quiet moment. "Someone was willing to take him by force. Perhaps he's been silent so we're not of interest to whoever did."

Yang waved her off and started walking again. "Eh. If anything was gonna happen, it would have by now. Whatever." She rested her hands behind her head with a rude yawn. "Let's just get some sleep. It's way too cold to be out here."

Pyrrha shook her head with a smile and fell in beside them, walking past several former Haven students who were out enjoying the lack of a set bedtime. "Oh, but I love the fall… ah, well. I'm glad he's finally talking to someone, at least. That can only be good news."

"Maybe…" Ruby's eyes darted about as they walked toward the courtyard. Something which occupied the shadow between two lamps caught her eye – a shape in the bushes that instantly registered in her mind as not human. Her head snapped around to focus on it and she found, to her horror, a Grimm; some type that she'd not seen before, quadrupedal and stubby and round with white spikes on its back. Crescent Rose snapped into her hand in a second, half-unfurled into its rifle form. "What the heck?!" she snapped, finger on the trigger.

"Whoa!" Despite lacking her weapons, Yang's fists went up as she turned to face the source of Ruby's terror. An unarmed Pyrrha was limited to turning around in shock.

What they saw there caused them to drop their arms; not a monster, but a girl with minty green hair leaned against the base of a lamppost which was out of order, wearing a dark-colored hoodie over white pants and dark brown, strappy heels. A Scroll was in her hand. "You've got about five seconds to explain why you're aiming what I assume is a gun at me," Emerald said, tone low and dangerous as she ceased twisting Ruby's perception.

"I… I…" Ruby carefully lowered the muzzle toward the ground, breaths entering and leaving her mouth at a rapid pace. A few more looks at the general area revealed no beast. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry! I just thought I saw a… I mean, the shadow looked like a Grimm, I, uh…"

"I don't think Grimm have hair like this," Emerald retorted, waving one of her long green locks around. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Yang, hand on Ruby's shoulder, put herself between them as more attention fell upon the scene – other students, attracted by the racket, were wandering over to check things out. "She's just tired. Sorry. It's cool."

That hand turned her around so they could walk away quickly, leaving a stunned Pyrrha behind. It took her a few seconds of watching them rush away before she turned to Emerald – who's face was already back in her book. "She didn't mean it, I assure you. I—um..."

A grumpy Emerald waved her free hand. "Whatever. If it happens again, I'm reporting it."

"It won't. Ah, good evening." Pyrrha dipped her head then departed hastily, moving through the sparse crowd that had gathered around to figure out what had happened.

Her departure broke them up, leaving Emerald alone and smiling as she made some notes on her Scroll. "Well," she mumbled, "this oughta be easy."

"What the fuck do you mean he can't tell them anything?!"

Winter eyeballed a raging Indigo from across her sparsely-furnished living room – the unit looked much like Opher's, save for a much more demure set of window dressings than his unit – and crossed her arms. "This is why I didn't want them involved," she said to him.

Opher, seated alone on the small sofa, hunched forward with his face shielded by both his hat and his hands, refused to reply. The prospect of the true art's recession into nothing continued to drag his mood down, even days later. He had nothing to give – not anger, not even sass. Only uncertain, pained silence.

After firing a concerned, if vaguely annoyed, look at him, Indigo snapped for attention from Winter. "Hey! Answer me!"

"The situation would be touchy at best – and I have orders. We are keeping this to ourselves for now." She assumed her favorite posture – hands clasped behind her back, spine straight, and unintentionally looked at them down her nose. "There's nothing I can do. Our mission could strain relations between Vale and Atlas if revealed at the wrong time."

"Why the hell would that happen?! We're all on the same side!" No answer from Winter caused Indigo to growl; she looked to Opher and got even more silence, which incensed her further. "Damn it, say something!" she snapped, throwing her hands into the air.

Schwarze, who chose to occupy the fringes of their debate by hanging out near the kitchen entrance, finally made a move – literally, by walking over to the couch and sitting next to Opher. "Cutie," she whispered, leaning down to match his pose, "she's right. You can't stay quiet forever."

He dropped his hands at last, regarding her with lifeless green eyes. That gaze went to Indigo next. "They took me from the shop after you two left for the Government District."

All anger sublimated into various levels of confusion, or, in Indigo's case, abject, mouth-agape horror. She darted over to him. "Wh—who took you from the shop? Wait, what? Are you… are you okay? What the fuck?"

"And why did you wait until now to tell us this?!" Schwarze added angrily.

"Because I wanted to meet Winter first so we could arrange some way to help protect you two. Not my fault she's been occupied the past few days." Opher hauled himself to his feet, his movement slowed by the weight of every single one of his too-numerous years. "And I'm fine. It was someone with a Semblance that allows her to make portals… she took me who knows where. Oh, and she's another one of Carmine's sisters."

"Who is Carmine?"

He only glanced at Winter. "The woman that taught me how to use Dust the way I do." Immense relief flooded his chest when both of his friends chose to stand on either side of him, despite the tremendous worry which caused them to tremble. They struggled to regulate their breaths.

She produced her Scroll, ready to take down information. "Then I'd like to speak with her too. Where might I find-"

"In the afterlife. If Atlas can get there, fuck it, I'll do whatever the hell you guys want me to do with no questions asked."

"I'm… sorry to hear that." Just as quickly, however, she perked up again. "But you mentioned sisters. What about them?"

"Not blood relatives… and I'm gonna say they're probably not interested in being helpful, given that two of them have tried to kill me." Opher looked down as Indigo broke away suddenly.

"Wait. So you're telling me this woman can just… appear? And if she does, we're fucked?" She walked all the way around the room before managing to add, between rapid breaths, "From nowhere?! Without warning?!"

"Indigo, breathe," Schwarze said gently. She squeaked with surprise when Indigo darted over and seized her by the wrist. "Ah-"

"I'm done. Nope. That's it. I'm out." Her eyes went to Opher. "Listen. You're a good guy, strong, great lay – and you can fly, apparently! But they know where my shop is and you didn't tell me? If I gotta pick between you and us dying in our sleep because someone's pissed at you and we catch that bullet by accident, then sorry. No. I don't know what the fuck it is you've got going on with her, either, but I'm not interested. Bye. Good luck or what the fuck ever. This dumbass has to come first. And my family, too, who the fuck knows where this bitch can show up. No thanks. We're leaving."

"Wait a damn minute, this is why I brought you here!" he shot back, a hint of desperation in his voice. "So I'd have help to protect you!"

"Well, I'll help you help us. Bye." With that, she dragged her best friend toward the door by her hand, ignoring the mild resistance and "Indigo, hold on a moment!" which Schwarze yelped on the way. Their departure sucked all the air from the room.

"Perhaps that was for the best," Winter remarked after a long, quiet while passed. "If these people are as strong as you say, we might not have been able to do much regardless beyond moving them elsewhere."

"Yeah. That sure did happen fast, though." Opher shed his hat while rubbing firmly at his eyes and silently cursing at himself. "And the knife never seems to get any duller," he added almost silently. An expectant gaze was his reward for looking back at Winter again. "What?"

"I'm going to need something to send back up the chain. We gave you a passport. You've not given us much in return."

Blank staring became a deeply annoyed glower. "You already seem to know about remote priming, somehow. What else do you want from me?"

Winter paced again, one foot in front of the other with all the speed of a snail. "You can fly? Semblance, I assume?"

Opher tugged his hat back on and sat down, hunched over in the same tired position as earlier. "No." More expectant silence – which he refused to meet with any information. "Indigo has a point. Why would any of this cause friction between Kingdoms?"

"That's not important."

"Then neither is everything else I know," he said while standing up to leave. Winter placed herself between him and the door; this turned a bad mood worse and he crossed his arms, glaring daggers. "You can't be fucking serious."

She weathered his unhappy growling with stoic discipline, spine straight and hands clasped behind her back as usual. "Hear me out. I'm in the dark about a lot of the mission myself, but I know enough to understand that it will help all of us when the time is right. The time isn't right yet." Some of his anger was replaced by confusion, encouraging Winter to press on. "And as for remote priming, I know of at least one person that can't do it. We're trying to figure out why."

That was enough to bring him away from his anger – even for him to blink with surprise, since it flew in the face of what he knew. "Hold on, what? I've never seen it fail for anyone that she taught or I taught."

"Carmine, you mean?"

"Yeah."

Winter relaxed for a moment to think. "Hmm. Was she part of some sort of tribe? If her 'sisters' are willing to resort to violence, then perhaps she was lying to you about-"

"Don't you dare insult her."

The sheer rage which boiled in his eyes stole Winter's breath. Normally, she would meet such emotion with frigid defiance, but something about his anger stung her instinct, not her consciousness. She rubbed at her rainbow choker as if trying to massage an apology from her throat, although a few coughs emerged first. "I wouldn't do that, I'm just considering every possibility. Whatever you've learned from her has the potential to save thousands – no, millions of innocent people. I promise, when we're done, everyone will know her name, but you have to help us make that happen."

The abrupt respect Winter showed his lost love made Opher a little suspicious. After a long, judgmental gaze to determine her sincerity, he turned his back on her and lifted his left hand, holding it palm up. A crackling tongue of blue fire sprouted to life.

Winter, immediately curious, stepped over to take a look. "How…" she mumbled, her brain suddenly full of questions that all fought to escape at once. "Your hand is on fire! Isn't it?" A closer examination proved this false; while the fuel appeared to be his own flesh, it betrayed no signs of harm. "No, but-" Every second widened her icy eyes further with confusion.

He closed his fist, extinguishing the flame, and dropped his arm again. Instead of delivering an explanation, however, he looked back at the front door.

She did the same with a gentle "Hmm?" before getting the message a second or two later. "Ah. Give them some time, perhaps."

"I've sure got enough of it lying around," he whispered to himself. His next words were directed to her. "Can you give me some context about something?"

"I can try."

"I want to know what science thinks Dust is."

The phrasing itself raised alarms. Winter motioned at the couch; he only sat down several moments after she did, occupying the opposite end and staring at her from underneath his red, white, and black hat. "Having the question means you've surely already looked for an answer," she replied, polite, if cagey.

His stony gaze remained. "Humor me."

She cleared her throat. "Dust is a crystalline material which retains electromagnetic energy. Each species has a different molecular structure, which is why each type has a different color – the color of light reflected depends on how those molecules are arranged." Winter paused here to look for a reaction – which she didn't get – before moving on with a tug at the collar of her white blouse. "The crystal itself is something like glass, but we're not sure exactly what geological process creates it…" Now she tilted her head. "Don't you already know this? It's basic knowledge. Even children-"

Opher's raised hand shut her up. "I did live way out in the sticks, you know. There are seven species… wind, fire, water, ice, ground, electric, and gravity. Right?"

"Yes."

"Hmm." The curiosity on her face forced him to smile just a little. "So you're telling me it's electromagnetism – again, which is why I assume you need to prime it with your Aura, since it's basically the same force." Only a nod from her this time. "And that accounts for all of its effects?"

Another nod. "The discharge can rapidly heat air to burn it, or strip water vapor from the atmosphere, or even convert the crystal to something that resembles soil, for a few examples. Where are you going with this?"

Opher had reached his goal – a glimpse at how modern society attempted to twist the true art into scientific explanations. If this was any indication… a deep scowl marred his face. Thinking about the sorry state of the power of Carmine's sisters made it worse. Still stung by the rapid exit of his friends, he decided to blast holes in Winter's understanding – a plot which required another blue flame in his palm. "Explain this, then."

"I'm no scientist…"

"And I'm sure you're no idiot, either."

She watched the flame leave his palm entirely and float gently toward the ceiling – it seemed like a good idea to record it with her Scroll, so she did, with no objection from Opher. "Intense concentration of your Aura to excite air molecules?" was her first guess. Then the flame wandered all the way to the windowed corner of her living room, more than a few meters away. "Wait, your Aura can't be that large…" Now the fire executed wild zigzag motions all over the place, which made it hard to keep in the frame as she frantically moved her Scroll around. "What on Remnant is this?!"

His flame child streaked back toward him; he showed off by letting it enter his open mouth, which he then closed with a wry grin. "Dust is really dumb, you know. You prime it – whichever way doesn't matter – and a little while later it just happens. Despite that, though…" He motioned around at the apartment. "We were able to build all this stuff on that principle. I understand why you think it's so great. I just happen to know something better." More of the blue fire arrived, this time as snorts from his nostrils that disappeared quickly. "Dust is a descendant of a power I know as the true art."

Winter stared at her Scroll screen to ensure she kept his face in the shot. "A descendant of… a descendant?" One breath helped her catch herself. "Before we get to that, I suppose, what is this 'true art'?"

"I can't explain what it is, because not even I understand that part. But the energy locked inside of Dust crystals is a shadow of that power." Another bitter scowl darkened his face. "And based on my encounters with Carmine's sisters, I think that power might be dying."

"Wh—dying? How can you tell?"

Opher stared off to the side, eyes locked into the middle distance, for a long while. "Because everyone could do it once – or so I've heard. Now hardly anyone can. I'm one. Carmine and her sisters were others. They're… considerably weaker than the stories I've heard, and I don't know why."

A deep sense of dread seized Winter – emotion directly from the pit of her soul, not her logical mind. "I'd like to hear these stories myself, if you wouldn't mind."

"I don't feel like sitting here for eight hours." He hunched forward once more with a sigh. "I will say this: imagine Dust that costs no Aura to use, whose effects you can control with your mind. A hundred times more precise. Probably a hundred times more powerful, too, even when someone like me uses it." Out went his left hand. One snap of his fingers brought an ice sculpture into existence on her little glass coffee table; a figure of Winter standing in her current outfit, perhaps one-seventh scale, whose details were so exact that it was as if he'd cast a mold of her as she sat there beside him.

"Oh my gods," she breathed, fighting to steady her hands so the recording would be decent. "How did… my necklace… I can see the facets on the stones!" There were even hints of color in the ice which she only noticed after a moment. "My nail polish?!"

Opher chuckled at her surprise. Another snap sublimated the figurine into a cloud of fog, which faded away shortly afterward. He allowed a few of his most ancient memories to bubble up and escape as words. "This was one of the ways they trained us to control the true art – which is why it's called an art in the first place. We learned to create with it before we were trusted to destroy."

"Who is they?"

"In my specific case, I learned from my parents. Most of us did, I guess." He looked away. "Are you religious?"

She cocked a thin black eyebrow. "Not exactly, but I know enough about it. Why do you ask?"

Keen to make sure he got the words right, Opher brought out his own Scroll to look up the passage. "Hold on… here it is. 'And They clashed in the jungle with the consummate darkness, spending Their own bodies to destroy it.' Familiar?"

"Cataclysm. Verse 8. The Gods fought the Grimm and damaged the Moon according to the church." Winter eyed him for a long time, unable to read his blank face. "The whole story seems to reference an impact event of some kind – likely the one that created the Matsu Crater complex in Anima." His expression changed in a way that urged goosebumps to pop up across her forearms. "What?"

He smiled, but nothing about the expression was pleasant. Behind those dull green eyes, Opher fought to filter the experience enough to make it seem like a secondhand tale, not a crushing memory. This required remembering the damn thing. One image emerged from hibernation – a burning jungle, air choked by red clouds of acrid fog. In his mind, he waded through piles of the dead and dying, an ocean of anguish that came up to his hips. Claws sunk into his back; teeth, too, as umbral monsters tried their utmost to finally kill him, ripping and ripping and ripping at his body until his brain ignored the searing agony like a scent that lingered in the air for too long. When he looked down at his hands again, his mind's eye stripped them of skin and flesh. Back then, it dripped from the bones of his fingers, melted by the stellar heat of magic clashing with magic, of the world ending, of the sky crashing down with roars that repeatedly blew out his eardrums as fast as his mutated Aura could heal them. For thousands upon thousands of Their treasured children, it was the last day they ever drew breath.

For him, it was the first time he realized he would never be able to stop breathing.

"Ah… Mister Riese?" Winter said, unnerved by Opher's sudden trillion-yard stare. "You're… crying."

His perception snapped back to normal as he tried to cram that trauma back into its vault. "Am I?" He wiped his eyes with a sleeve. "Sorry. I guess I haven't had a good week."

"I understand. Take your time."

He did, several moments' worth, before finally returning to the conversation. "What's written in the book isn't the story I grew up hearing. The battle wasn't between the Gods and the Grimm; it was two armies fighting each other, each one full of soldiers with power like mine – the last battle of a war before Dust. Loooong before. My parents told me, their parents told them, and on and on for generations."

"Impossible. Any war would be suicidal, especially without the power of Dust." Winter fought the instinct to cross her arms – she was still recording, after all – and picked up the frown he'd just lost. "Besides, a large-scale battle would leave some sort of evidence." A sigh. "Not that anyone could check either way. Matsu is an exclusion zone."

"A what?"

She checked her Scroll's remaining storage capacity while explaining. "An area where a large-scale Grimm presence has been detected for at least fifty years. Matsu is one example. There's another southeast of Vacuo, and one which encircles the Kasserine Sea in Solitas. We don't know why they congregate in these places, but they're impossible to approach in anything but fast airships."

Opher's chest tightened when she mentioned the huge lake at the center of the northern continent, but by some miracle he kept that pain from reaching his face – at least now he had a modern term for the plague of beasts which defiled its shores. "They're hiding something."

Winter blinked at this. "What? They're Grimm. Mindless."

"Maybe not as mindless as you think." Her open-mouthed confusion caused a weak smile. "That's enough storytelling for today. How about something a little more practical? Two things you can act on right now, if you want."

"I'm…" Still a bit perplexed, she tucked her hair out of her eyes to stare at him. "I'm all ears."

"I said that very few people can use the true art… but they're out there. One of them goes to Beacon Academy. Her name is Ruby Rose." Opher found her surprise a little amusing. "You know her?"

Winter's brow knitted subtly. "She leads the team Weiss is on… um… how do you know she can use it?"

"'Cause I saw it in action. First piece of advice: find everyone you can that has silver eyes. They've got access to a type of power that I don't, and it seriously fucks up the Grimm. You want to wipe them out? You'll need their help."

"I see. We'll look into it, then." She ceased recording to tap out written notes instead. "You said your parents taught you, what about them?"

"They're…" He hunched over and hid his eyes again. "I'm the only one left from my village."

"I'm sorry." Winter set her Scroll aside briefly to cross her arms over her chest in respect. "Where was your village?"

"Far north Solitas. Even farther north than the lake, on the coast. We could take boats right to the North Pole."

Her eyes snapped open. "Impossible! Nobody could survive there. There's nowhere to grow food, the only source of fresh water is a lake thick with Grimm, even trying to fish would be-" Words left her when he met that gaze – snaking tendrils of blue fire trailed out from his green eyes.

"That's how powerful we were," he stated quietly. "We could melt the ice. Heat the soil, like Atlas does now. For a while… we could even resist the Grimm." The fire left his eyes and he looked away. "Maybe I should save this stuff for my therapist in the morning."

"Perhaps it's best if you vent to me about this particular subject instead." They shared a fleeting smirk. "You mentioned two things, what's the other one?"

A more hateful grin arrived on his pale face. He'd purposefully avoided contact with Beacon, but now that the Qrow and his friend – relative, based on how similar they looked – had apparently fucked him out of his relationship with Indigo and Schwarze, he decided to counterattack without lifting a finger. "The woman that attacked me at Indigo's shop wasn't alone. She had company – a teacher at Beacon, believe it or not. Come to think of it, the first time I got jumped, one of the staff was there."

Her typing came to an abrupt halt as she looked up. "Do you have names?"

Opher's smile grew so much that teeth began to show. "Yeah. Qrow Branwen was there the second time. I think he might be related to her – and I'm damn sure it's worth an investigation even if he isn't. Girl named Abilene was there for the first. Brown hair, brown eyes, maybe your height. About my age, maybe."

"Branwen?" she repeated, icy eyes wide. "Are you sure?"

"That's what he told me." His brow arched with curiosity. "What's the problem?"

"The Branwens are the Valesian Crown's representatives on Patch. They basically run the island." A bitter knot constricted Winter's stomach as she thought; this feeling encouraged her to begin the inquiry right away. The other person was a less-prickly bramble to dive into, so she navigated to Beacon's public network site to look for her. "Abilene... first name?"

"Yeah."

"Hm." She looked. And looked. "There doesn't seem to be anyone on staff there called Abilene."

"What?" He turned to face her on the couch. "She told me she worked for the Academy. What does that mean?"

"Not sure. Could be someone your kidnapper sneaked onto campus to help capture you. Academy security can, and often does, have holes. I'll do a little digging later. As for your Branwen..." She couldn't find anything on Beacon's own site, but a search of Qrow's last name – since the spelling of his first apparently wasn't the one she expected – led her to Signal Academy instead. "This might be him. Is it?" she asked, showing Opher the picture to confirm.

"Yep. His name is spelled with a Q? And people make fun of mine."

"Hmm." There wasn't much to glean from his public bio at Signal, but Winter saw enough to go looking in Patch's record system instead. Nothing stood out to her except for one little detail – a fraternal twin sister named Raven who was listed as deceased. A dip into her files revealed basic information, as expected, but two things caught her eye: her date of death, sixteen years ago, plus a picture that Winter decided to show him. "Does she look familiar?"

He took the device to examine Raven's younger face. Her red eyes weren't as weary, and some of the subtle lines were missing, but there was no doubt about who he was looking at. "Oh, good, even the corpses are trying to kill me now. Yeah, this is her," he confirmed while giving back her Scroll.

"Hmm." Winter's face softened with thought. "Influential families tend to prefer the label of dead over exiled." Her expression hardened again, causing Opher's head to tilt quizzically. "Never mind. Something clearly happened, but I'll need time to figure out what."

"Yeah. Now that I'm apparently out of a job…" he sighed, looking back at the door, "...I guess I can go snooping around myself. Maybe get some idea of why Carmine's sisters are suddenly after me."

"Be careful. I have a feeling my chain of command is going to warm up to you once they see what you've shown me. We'd hate for something to happen to you."

Opher stood up and adjusted the fit of his hat with a defeated smirk. "That should be the least of your worries. Are we done?"

She rose as well, smoothing down her skirt – the smile on her face was somewhat more professional. "For now, yes. Good evening, Mister Riese."

"Yeah." Out he shuffled into the hallway, but before he entered his own apartment, he took a long, silent look at Indigo's closed door, then Schwarze's. Bowed by helplessness, he leaned on the wall and emitted a long sigh. "I guess I'll just let them sleep on it."

Morning brought a harsh red sunrise to the Branwen tribe's camp, thanks to a sky thick with industrial haze produced by the giant city north of them. The whole group was awake with the sun, shuffling around camp, faces covered to blunt the acrid punch of the smog from Vacuo. As heavy as the air was with that noxious cloud, something else dominated the camp's atmosphere: nervousness. Cinder glided among the crowd like a ghost, compelled to gauge the mood of the tribe by the woman who commanded it. As she went, she informed the adults about a meeting to be held shortly.

One couple stopped her near the enclosure meant for the bait children. "Ah, Miss Fall? We haven't seen Miss Branwen leave her tent in days," said the young man as he brushed away his deep gray hair. "We're, um, we're a little concerned. And, like, where is Emerald? The kids are getting upset that she hasn't been around to read for them-"

"She's in charge of doing scouting for raids too, isn't she?" said his visibly pregnant partner. Her lustrous gold locks fluttered in the morning breeze. "I'm worried about my baby."

Cinder donned her brightest smile – an expression which barely moved her thin lips – and placed a hand on the woman's shoulder. She had to raise her voice to ensure it would carry over the wind, but it remained rather monotone regardless. "Emerald's skills were needed by one of Lady Branwen's sisters; I'm sure she will be back shortly. As for raids, that's why we've been training our new friends. No need to worry, Maize. Such unease isn't good for your baby either."

"Easy for you to say, you never look worried about anything." He tensed up a bit when she directed her yellow eyes his way. "Ah, just a joke, ahahaha. We all appreciate your calm. Yep. Sets a great example!"

"Ever the comedian, Rucio." Her focus went back to an antsy, restless Maize – whom she knew was a total gossiper – to use her loose lips to help spread an important message. "We're going to have a whole-tribe meeting shortly, perhaps thirty minutes or so. I'm sure Lady Branwen will be happy to hear your concerns."

"Oh!" Out came her Scroll immediately so she could tell her closest friends about this bit of news. "Good! I was worried that she was sick, or something, like geez. This air is awful."

All three of them, plus the other passersby, came to a halt or ceased what they were doing when the wind abruptly shifted. A terrific gale swept in from the south end of the camp, strong enough to rattle the tents. Some of the smaller members of Raven's flock even stumbled, although others were there to keep them upright or get them back on their feet. In seconds, fresh air swept out the fumes, but the higher cloud deck of pollution remained. As the wind calmed down, some were confident enough to remove their masks and sniff the air, including Rucio. "Hey! What do you know?" he chirped happily.

"Providence strikes again," Maize added, head bowed and arms crossed in prayer. "May we ever be in Their favor."

Cinder stared toward the big top, eyes squinted slightly – she had a distinct suspicion that the gods weren't to blame for this one. "Yes… may we ever be in Their favor. Excuse me," she said, turning away and walking toward the big red tent.

What she found upon opening the entrance flap a few moments later proved to be no surprise: Amber, staff extended and eyes closed in concentration as she used the true art to cleanse the camp of its polluted fog. She stood near the inactive fireplace at the back of the tent, holding her weapon horizontally out before of herself with both hands. An exhausted-looking Raven sat at the low oaken table to the left of the area. "Weren't you told not to use your power unless it was an emergency?" she chided Amber. "This asshole can fly across continents. Fuck, he might be anywhere."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let Vacuo's hubris damage even more tiny lungs." Her staff retracted with a satisfying series of clicks. Cinder received a blank look as she put the weapon away in its holster. "Well?"

"Concern. Not yet fear. I told Maize about the meeting – the whole desert will know of it soon."

Raven took an unsteady sip of tea to help calm her nerves. "How much time did you give us?"

"Half an hour."

"Fuck." She hauled herself to her feet and stretched obnoxiously. "We better get our shit together fast, then-" Another staring match between Amber and her most trusted lieutenant replaced Raven's words with a bitter growl. "Gods damn it, you two, get over it! You're going to be sisters soon!"

"I cannot believe we are trading Lapis for you," Amber spat, ignoring Raven's displeasure. "You're… you're a monster. No better than the Grimm."

Raven could only roll her eyes at this. "Oh, like we aren't?"

"At least I cry." More sneering from her caused Amber to bare teeth. "Just because you two are happy to swallow your guilt doesn't make you better than me. Olivine and I were born to accept the mantle. You're both just-" Raven shut her up by storming over and staring her down, nose-to-nose.

"Perhaps we should save this for after the meeting?" Cinder offered, hands clasped behind her back. Despite the fiery tension, her pale face remained as blank as ever.

"No, let her get it out of her system. She's been pissed off for days." Her staring match with Amber continued. "Someone finally knocked you out of your ivory tower and now you wanna pitch a fit. I can take a beating. So can Cinder. Apparently you can't."

Amber's glare became so narrow that she might as well have closed her eyes. "Let's put that to the test, shall we?" she growled, citrine orbs fulgid with the power of her ancient magic.

"I don't think we can fight this enemy and each other at the same time." Cinder's advice went unheard – both Raven and Amber were too busy snarling at each other to heed it. With a tiny sigh, she stepped to the side of their confrontation. "If you attack Lady Branwen, I will come to her defense."

"And I'll scatter your bones across the desert," she snapped.

"Then you'll answer to Salem for killing the successor, won't you?" This fact brought a chilly pall over the showdown; both Maidens took a few uncertain steps back from each other. "I'm not sure you'd escape punishment either," she added, looking at Raven.

With one more snarl, Raven chose to yield first, turning on her heel with a flip of her ebony hair. She couldn't resist a barb on the way back to her seat at the table, however. "Leave it to the exiles to be bigger women than a fucking Maiden."

"That's rich, coming from someone who threw away her own daughter."

Cinder took one step back as Raven dashed over and tackled Amber to the floor. Both of them wrapped their hands around the other's neck. She let them struggle for a moment before a few precisely-aimed launches of primed wind Dust from her red dress induced a forceful separation – Raven tumbled into the pile of cushions, while Amber came to rest dangerously close to the prized pottery collection. Both regarded her with surprise, but Amber alone bared her teeth again. "Do it," Cinder dared her, as unmoved as the huge wooden beams that supported the tent, "sign your death warrant."

"If it gives the Summer Maiden a chance to find someone better than you, gladly," she hissed, hauling herself up and extending her staff in the same motion. "I'd rather transfer her power to Emerald than allow it within a million kilometers of you, you frigid bitch."

"I'm not the one killing Lady Stavros. Why not fight Salem instead?"

Three statues regarded each other in dead silence. Raven's hand rested lightly on the mechanism to activate her sword in case Amber – frozen in a ready stance to charge – actually made a move to attack Cinder, who remained in the exact same posture she held when the conflict started: straight as a board, hands clasped behind her back, and entirely stone-faced. She gazed down at both of them with one yellow eye. Nobody moved.

"Self-preservation," she concluded at last, her unblinking sight locked onto the subtly-trembling Amber. "The same reason as Lady Branwen and Lady Duprix. I'm not judging you. It simply is what it is."

"Then the same applies to you, you hypocrite! You rolled over the second she even whispered about choosing you-" Her words ceased when Cinder's lips bent, just barely, with a smile.

"Cinder…" Raven warned, comfortable enough to stand up, but not to move. "She can kill you, stop provoking her." Both watched as she produced and tapped at her Scroll, then held the device out to Amber. "What are you doing?"

"Look at it," she said directly to the agitated Fall Maiden.

Amber snatched it away from her with an outstretched arm and a hint of gravity magic, glaring all the while. On its screen was a picture; a slightly younger Cinder, with her hair slicked back and a huge, toothy smile on her face. Those yellow eyes shone with glee – she was even cheerful enough to throw up not one, but two V-signs with her hands. After a few glances between the picture and the young woman herself, she still couldn't believe they were the same person. "This is…" she mumbled, realizing where the buildings in the background were, "...you… you went to Shade Academy?"

"Yes." Another expert flick of wind Dust shards knocked the Scroll out of Amber's hand and sent it flying back into her own. Once she put it away, she reached up in preparation to lift the locks of dusky black hair that covered the left side of her face. An exclamation of protest from Raven caused her to hesitate only briefly. "My sister should know this." She flipped up her hair after speaking.

Amber needed a moment to let her sight adjust in the dim, flickering light of the tent's lanterns. Cinder's dull left eye caught her attention first; it lacked even the glassy sheen of her right, which looked dead enough, but the longer she looked at that region of her pallid face the more something seemed off. One step forward helped her deduce the problem – there was a visible dent in the forehead above her left eyebrow, a roughly circular spot where some sort of impact had depressed her skull. As she watched, Cinder ran fingertips through it, showing just how deep it was. "Wh-what is that?" she finally stammered.

"There was an accident at the Academy. What it was I no longer care to remember." She returned her hair to its usual position. "My Aura tried to protect me, but the impact was so violent that it caused spalling in my skull. Fragments of metallized bone sheared off and traveled into my brain." Here she paused to stare at the picture one more time, then turn off her Scroll. "I woke up a different girl than the one in this photograph."

A thunderstruck Amber retracted her staff again and turned away to think. "And then they exiled you."

"Yes. My reduced affect and apathy did the same thing to the other students that it does to you – that it still does to some members of this tribe. I was ejected on, as I recall, 'safety concerns'." She watched Amber sit at the low table; with most of the tension gone, Raven joined her soon afterward.

"Does Salem know this?"

"Yes. We made a mutual agreement. I know what accepting the mantle does to one's Aura. Perhaps…" Sadness clouded her gaze for a split second. "I still remember flashes of the girl I used to be. Perhaps the Maiden's might can bring her back."

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Amber sighed, face hidden by her left hand.

"I wanted you to come around on your own, but I think we're outta time," Raven explained, giving her a pat on the shoulder. "At least she got us to calm down. I'm sorry about choking you out."

"I… probably deserved it." She wiped her eyes with a sigh. "I've never been, just, I don't know, beaten up before. Tock never stood up to me like Riese did. I don't know what to think right now."

"Yeah. We – our Maidens, I mean – probably haven't had an opponent like this for a while. Mine straight up just... quit. I want his ass for what he did to Vernal, but..." Movement at the front of the tent caused Raven to cut herself short; Mercury poked his head into through the entrance flaps with a typical grin plastered across his face. "Oh, gods, what exploded?"

"Got a buncha people out here wonderin' where the actual meeting is, chief," he said, inviting himself inside. Raven and Amber's slightly disheveled states caused an arched brow, as did the missing shards in the Dust pattern on Cinder's red dress. "Uh…"

"Focus, Mercury," Cinder advised tonelessly; one look over her shoulder caused Raven to issue a half-shrug, telling her to say whatever she felt like. "Have them gather at the north gate."

"If you say so. I think they're all ready, so, you know. Whenever you wanna start." He flipped them a wave and ducked right back outside, where they heard him whistle for attention from a crowd they couldn't yet see.

"Showtime." Raven stood up again, kicked the great gray sword mechanism into her ready left hand with unnecessary flourish, then offered her right to help Amber stand. "I hope they buy this shit."

"They will believe whatever you tell them," Cinder said, busy with replacing the spent Dust in her embroidered rainbow of pain. These reloads came from a pouch strapped to her right thigh, usually hidden by the golden hemline of her dress.

"I know, but this is a lot of change in a hurry." She eyeballed the notes written on her Scroll, free hand ran through her ebony locks over and over for comfort.

"We're at war," Amber noted, face solemn. "Again. I don't think her gospel ever attracted anyone like this, though." She walked toward the flaps with Raven at her side, although they hesitated when Cinder didn't follow. "You're… not mad at me, are you?"

One shake of her head. "I've no time for anger. I'll follow you once I'm done reloading." Once they were gone, however, she stopped inserting shards into the empty spots and took out her Scroll again to look at the same picture she showed Amber. Her eye lingered on the image until it shed a tear, which ran down her expressionless face.