When Ruby and Yang came down the stairs one weekend morning, they were shocked to find Qrow waiting for them. "Aren't you usually another couple of hours from waking up?" Yang asked.

"Why is everyone always so surprised?" grumbled Qrow. "And after I went to so much trouble to arrange things."

"What things?" said Ruby eagerly.

"We're having a forge day," Qrow answered. "I pulled a few strings, and we've got us some time to ourselves in the student section of Signal's forge."

Yang punched her hands together; Ruby cheered. "Alright! Forge day! Forge day!" she chanted.

"You two have been thinking of ways to improve your weapons, right?" Qrow prompted.

"Of course," said Ruby, as expected, but Yang nodded too. "What about you? What awesome improvement do you have planned for Harbinger?"

"Nothing right this moment, he just needs some work I can't do here in the garage. So grab your weapons and some breakfast, we're heading out as soon as you're ready."

They dashed into the kitchen on either side of Qrow. His own breakfast, all prepackaged and ready-to-eat things that didn't invite his semblance into the kitchen, was already being digested. He left the girls to it and walked upstairs to check on Taiyang.

He knocked lightly and opened the door. He saw Taiyang sitting on his bed. "Hey," he called, "the girls and I…"

Taiyang hadn't reacted. His eyes were unfocused. He had one sock on and one sock off; the missing sock was in his left hand. He looked like a clockwork toy that had run down in the middle of dressing. From his ankles, Zwei looked up at Qrow and whined.

"Uh… Tai?" he tried again.

No response. No sign Taiyang had heard him. No sign there was anyone in Taiyang's head to hear him.

Time for a gamble. Qrow reached into his shirt, retrieved his flask, opened its cap, and walked forward to wave it under Taiyang's nose.

For a second, nothing happened. Then Taiyang's nose twitched. He blinked, sniffed, blinked twice more. His head drew back a fraction and his eyes crossed as he tried to look at what he was smelling.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Qrow said, drawing the flask back to himself.

Taiyang looked, startled, up at Qrow, then to the flask, then to himself and his semi-dressed state. "I… um… oh." If he'd had faunus ears, they would have been flat against his skull. "Sorry."

"No sweat," Qrow said lightly. "Hey, the girls and I are headed up to Signal to use the forge. We'll see you later."

Taiyang looked jerkily at Qrow. The words seemed to take several seconds to reach him. "Oh. That's… good. I'll…" He looked at himself again. "I'll get along. Eventually." He swallowed. "I'll have lunch ready for you, how about that?"

"Sounds good," said Qrow, and he left before Taiyang could feel any more embarrassment. Qrow didn't think Taiyang had much to be embarrassed about. There were worse vices. Frankly, Qrow thought to himself, he'd trade his alcoholism for Taiyang's occasional lockups any day… or he would, if he didn't like alcohol so much.

Huntsmen did seem to love that which killed them.

The girls were waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. "Good to go, Uncle Qrow!" said Ruby in sing-song fashion.

"Glad to hear it," said Qrow. He looked at Yang. "Can you drive Tai's car, or just that motorcycle of yours?"

"I have keys for Zippy," Yang replied. "You're saying you can't drive?"

"Never bothered to learn," said Qrow with a smirk. "Never needed it."

"Then you don't need me to drive you, and I can take Bumblebee," Yang shot back.

"I mean, we could," said Qrow. "Here I was offering to spend some quality time chatting with you two, but I can tell when I'm not wanted."

"No, we're all three taking Zippy," said Ruby, poking Yang in the arm.

Yang folded, but not gracefully. "Looks like that argument ended fast," said Yang, poking Ruby in the forehead hard enough to push the smaller girl away from her.

"Two out of ten," said Ruby, ducking under Yang's finger and poking her again.

"Hey, hey!" protested Yang as she slapped Ruby's hand away. "Only dad gets to grade my jokes. You're not quick-witted enough."

"Ugh, one out of ten!"

"Girls," said Qrow, sarcasm dripping from his voice, "as precious as the two of you are being, I'm not getting any younger. Are we gonna go or what?"

Qrow grabbed his jacket off the couch to ward against the early winter chill. It briefly caught Ruby's eye before she went back to bickering with Yang. The three of them made their way out towards the car, the girls engaged in their usual back-and-forth, and Qrow enjoying watching it more than he cared to admit.

They took a break as Yang put the car in gear and got them on the road. Qrow let his eyes wander. Most of the trees that were going to lose their leaves had lost them by now, though a few holdouts lit up the scene with reds and golds. Above them, the sky was overcast, without a hint of blue. It would have made Qrow gloomy without the prospect of forge time ahead.

With a jolt, he realized he'd been at Signal for over three months without major catastrophe. When had that happened?

This thought was so preoccupying he almost didn't notice the quiet. Ruby, sitting alone in the backseat while Qrow rode shotgun, was silent, her eyes elsewhere. Qrow didn't like that look on her. "What's eating you, pipsqueak?"

She looked at Qrow via the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were moist and doleful. "Uncle Qrow, are you going to leave again soon?"

Qrow blinked. "I… well, eventually," he said, hedging. "I was never gonna stay forever. There's a lot for me to do out there—you can't expect me to just hang around Patch."

She fidgeted. "So you want to be sure you can leave at any moment?"

"Huh?" Qrow turned around to look at her. "Where's this coming from?"

"It's just you always sleep on the couch," Ruby said, and the words started to rush from her as the dam broke. "And I thought, Why does he always sleep on the couch? I've slept on the couch before, and it's not more comfortable than the bed, and there's a perfectly good bed upstairs in its own room…"

Oh. "Ruby, stop…"

"…and I thought, Well, maybe he doesn't care about privacy, but you do, and you don't like being woken up in the morning, but sleeping in a public place doesn't make sense when we all wake up earlier than you most days, then you're sure to get woken up whether you like it or not…"

"Ruby," Qrow tried again, "you've got it all…"

"…so the only thing I could think of is, well, you don't want it to seem like you're here for very long," she finished weakly, her voice giving out. "I think you sleep on the couch so it always feels temporary. You don't want it to seem…"

"…like you live here," finished Yang, and there was an edge to her voice that was absent in Ruby's.

Qrow took a deep breath. In truth, he might have to leave with no notice, if one of his enemies came looking for him, or if he got a call about The Mission. He couldn't just say that, though. It wasn't the real reason anyway.

"I sleep on the couch because the other room isn't mine," he said cagily.

"Whose is it?" asked Yang, speaking the question Ruby was clearly thinking but struggling to voice.

Qrow made the mistake of meeting Ruby's eyes. He knew those eyes. They pierced him, just like Summer's always had.

The truth, then.

"Raven's."

Yang slammed on the brakes. Zippy came to an abrupt halt—if he'd been in that frame of mind, Qrow would have admired how well Taiyang maintained such a junker. Instead, he was jostled about, and turned an ornery face on Yang.

Yang's eyes were blazing red and her hair was starting to glow.

"My mother's?" she bit out.

"I don't know any other Ravens," Qrow said coolly. "And you'd better be careful, Tai'll be pissed if you burn up his car."

Yang took a deep breath. Her hair dulled, but her eyes stayed as heated as before. She put Zippy in park. "Start talking," she demanded.

Qrow shook his head. "You got your temper from your mother, and I hated dealing with it from her, too. Chill out or my lips are sealed."

"Yang," pleaded Ruby, "I know this is a sore spot for you. But… well, I bet Uncle Qrow doesn't like talking about it, either." (He wouldn't admit it, but she was right.) "So let's do what he says, alright? Can we… think about the forge for a minute? And what we're gonna do when we get there?"

Yang gave Ruby a look that suggested betrayal, but her face softened when she actually saw her sister. Taking a deep breath, Yang looked forward, out of the car, away from Qrow.

For several moments, the only sound was Zippy's engine idling. Then Yang took a longer, louder breath, and blinked. When her eyes opened again, they were lilac once more.

"Uncle Qrow," she said, voice carefully even, "can you explain about the bedrooms?"

Qrow nodded. "Y'know, that's not an easy trick you pulled just now."

"It's taking all I've got," she said warningly. "Could you spit it out?"

He snorted. "Sure thing, Firecracker."

He'd hoped for an excuse not to talk about it. He was out of excuses now. Fine. "Tai didn't buy that house all by himself," said Qrow. "We all went in on it together."

"'We'?" Yang repeated.

"Cool it, I'm getting there," he chided. "Team STRQ, all of us together. We all pitched in. We had the idea it'd be our home base. We knew before we graduated that we'd be doing missions together. We had these plans about how we'd stay a team for a while. We were a tightly-knit bunch, coming out of school like we did."

His hand subconsciously went to his wallet, and the precious picture contained therein. It seemed like a lifetime ago, almost like it had happened to someone else.

"So we needed a four bedroom house," Qrow went on. "One bedroom for each of us. That's how we had it built. Of course," he said, grinning more to himself than anyone else, "it was pretty rare that we actually needed all four bedrooms, if you know what I mean."

Ruby nodded. "Because usually at least one of you was on-mission, right?"

Qrow found himself suddenly unable to word.

Yang, despite her clearly simmering anger, managed to crack a smile. She reached to the back seat and ruffled Ruby's hair, earning a whine of protest. "Never change, Rubes."

Qrow coughed. "Uh… anyway… eventually, things changed. Our little Team got shook up. We added one and… subtracted one."

Yang blinked rapidly. Her eyes changed colors with every blink.

"It wasn't a problem, though," Qrow said, stumbling. "At least, bedroom-wise, it wasn't. Yang was in with Tai, and everyone else kept their bedrooms. Well… after a fashion." He looked at Yang. There was nothing for it. "We always wanted to leave the door open for Raven. Tai… Tai and Summer never believed she was gone for good. They wanted to give her the chance. They knew they couldn't force her to come back, but they would always let her in if she knocked."

"Did she?" Yang demanded, eyes thrumming red.

"I don't know," said Qrow, shrugging. "Even then, I was the one going on the most missions. She might have dropped by while I was out. Not like she would have told me if she ever did."

"You left them?" said Yang. "You left mom and dad to take care of me, when they were already upset about Raven abandoning them?"

It was a rebuke. Qrow didn't take kindly to those. "I don't need to justify myself to a teenager," he said, and he could feel himself bristling. "There was a lot going on. You wouldn't understand."

"Try me," Yang challenged.

He couldn't.

Raven's flight had damaged more than just Team STRQ. With one of his eyes blinded, Ozpin had needed Qrow in the field more than ever. Summer and Tai had understood. Yang couldn't. She didn't know—at least, she didn't understand—that Qrow's constant missions were all part of The Mission.

He could almost hear James intoning some nonsense about how everyone makes sacrifices. The only thing that made him sicker than keeping information from his nieces was acknowledging James might have a point.

And when Qrow felt like crap, everyone got a slice. "Well, kid, who do you think was earning paychecks in those days? Tai didn't have his cushy 'professor' job back then. Our only income was from Huntsman work. Summer and Tai weren't in much shape to go on many missions, and we still had the damn house and a little brat to pay for. Then, well, with Summer and Tai already being so close, one thing led to another, and next thing you know Summer had a brat of her own in the oven. That planted her ass firmly on the bench. Guess who that left bringing home the bacon?"

"It must have been soooo hard for you," Yang said, mockingly.

"Yang…" said Ruby, trying to wave her sister off, but Qrow shook his head.

"No, Ruby, let her say it," he said, hackles rising. "I really want to hear this part."

"The people you say you loved so much needed you," Yang said, her voice raw and her eyes bright. "And you thought the best way to show your love was to leave. Is that about right?"

"I'm not Raven!" Qrow exploded. "Is that what this is about? You've got some hang-up about mommy leaving you and you think I did the same? News flash, brat: I didn't wanna go! I actually like you kids, in a way she never did, in a way I never…" He cut himself off, shook his head. "Why do you think I'm here, why do you think… I'm trying, okay? I'm trying!"

He faced away from her and looked out the windshield. His balled-up fist smacked against the car door. "If I thought I coulda made your lives better by hanging around the house twenty-four seven, I woulda done it in a heartbeat. But there's more to it than that. It's a shitty world we live in, and I have shitty luck, and that means I never get the things I want. Maybe, someday, you'll understand it, but Brothers help me, I hope you never do."

He threw open the door to the car. He heard Ruby beginning to exclaim "Uncle Qr—", but he cut her off with a slam of the door. The chill air didn't touch him when he was running this hot.

He took a few steps away from the car, jammed his hands in his pockets, and assumed his usual hunch. Damn kids. What did they know? Nothing, of course. They didn't know. They thought it was easy, they thought he could just do whatever he wanted, they thought…

They thought a lot of dumb things, and he was an idiot for expecting more. He should have known from this teaching gig that kids their age were so sure they could handle anything, when, in reality, their pea-brains couldn't grasp a fraction of the shit he'd seen or felt or been through…

He saw a loose rock and kicked it.

It was, as it turned out, not a loose rock, but the top of a deeply buried rock.

Qrow swore loudly and colorfully. His aura immediately went to work, but the pain remained. As it did so often for Qrow, the pain brought clarity.

It wasn't the rock's fault Qrow was hurting, it was his. The rock was just doing what rocks do. Blaming it was stupid. The root cause of all Qrow's problems was Qrow. Always.

If kids were like this, if they really were pea-brains that didn't understand, where did he get off being upset about it? They didn't know better. How could they? So why get angry about it?

He repeated those thoughts to himself as he started to circle the car. Once, twice, thrice he circled it, never looking into it. He knew that looking at either of the girls would derail his train of thought, so with (for Qrow) admirable discipline, he kept his gaze fixed to the ground while his anger boiled away.

When he was in a position the girls couldn't see him, he snuck a very small swig from his flask. Any more and he'd disqualify himself from forge work. Any less and the feels would sink him.

On his fifth circuit around the car, he felt calm enough to reach for the door handle again. He eased himself into the car more gingerly than he'd left it. Only part of that was due to the ache in his foot.

"Hold on," said Ruby before Qrow could say a word. "Yang has something she wants to say to you. Right, Yang?"

Yang shot Ruby a look too loaded with emotion for Qrow to parse, but the silver eyes refused to yield. After a moment, Yang broke the exchange, and looked sheepishly at Qrow. There was no hint of red in her gaze.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"…huh?" Qrow managed.

"I was being unfair to you," Yang said, and though she didn't sound enthusiastic about saying the words, they nonetheless felt sincere to Qrow. "You were right. You're not Raven." She swallowed determinedly. "You came back."

It was funny how three little words could be so loaded. They landed harder than any physical blow Qrow had ever endured.

It was all he'd ever wanted—not just a place to go back to, but people who wanted him to come back.

All at once, the tension vanished from him; he felt dizzy with how light he suddenly felt. "Yeah," he said, nodding numbly. "Yeah. I did. Whenever I could."

He didn't really believe those last words, as much as he wanted to. Looking at her, he saw that she didn't really believe them, either. But they were both trying. They wanted it to be so.

That would have to be good enough for now.

He was on the verge of maybe being able to smile when arms wrapped around both of them. "Aww, look at you two!" squealed Ruby, dragging uncle and sister into a hug. "Getting along like that, it makes me so happy!"

Despite both Yang and Qrow being much bigger and stronger than Ruby, somehow they could muster no defense against this attack.

"Alright, pipsqueak, lay off," said Qrow, brushing the girl away—though a few seconds later, perhaps, than he could have managed. "I busted my quota for heart-to-hearts in one day."

"Are you going to finish your story now?" said Ruby, letting go of the hug, but keeping her head between the two in the front seats.

"Only if Yang puts us in gear again," said Qrow. "We'll never get to the forge at this pace. We might as well have walked."

"You still can," Yang said teasingly, jingling the keys. "Or have you run out of motor-vation?"

Qrow groaned. "You Xiao Longs are killing me."

"But we're in the driver's seat, so you'll have to deal." She put Zippy back in drive and eased into motion. Qrow was relieved. Whatever hard feelings had surfaced during the blow-up, Yang had either let them slip by or buried them well. It was damn impressive.

If she could joke around with her emotions raw, Qrow could too. "Psh, cars," he said dismissively. "They're overrated. All they're good for is carrying luggage."

"And passengers," said Ruby, frowning.

"That's just squishy luggage," Qrow insisted.

"You're distracting me again!" said Ruby with a shake of her head. "Bedrooms?"

"Oh. Right." He'd almost forgotten how all of this had started. He raked a hand through his hair, searching for where he'd left the thread of the story. "Well, the short version is, it's your fault."

"My fault?" protested Ruby. "What did I do?"

"You got born," said Qrow, pinching her cheek. (She shook away from him and glared daggers.) "Seriously, if you'd just stayed put, everything would have been fine. But noooo, you had to do the whole 'I want out' bit."

"I don't blame mom," said Yang. "You try keeping Ruby cooped up sometime."

Qrow's brain hiccupped when Yang said 'mom'. It took him a moment to realize she'd meant 'Summer'. Damn, Raven really had screwed the pooch.

"Well," said Qrow, trying to regain momentum, "Summer and Tai could share a room from that point, no problem, so that moved you, Yang, into Summer's old room. But when Ruby was old enough that she needed a room of her own, well, we didn't have many options left.

"One day I sat Summer and Tai down and we talked about it. We all agreed we wanted to keep the open door for Raven, even if it'd been two years by that point. And, well, I was gone all the time, and I didn't have much in the way of stuff—never did, still don't, so… it was easiest this way."

"Which way?"

"I gave Ruby my room," said Qrow. "And I moved to the couch."

The girls looked at him. "For good?"

He looked into the distance. "Yeah, I guess. Until something else happens, I mean. And a few years later, once Ruby was sleeping through the night, we knocked down the wall between your two rooms, and that's the last major change we made to the bedrooms. Now we've got the room for you two, and Tai's room, and the Raven Memorial Bedroom. So it's the couch for me."

"Don't you get tired of sleeping somewhere so uncomfortable?" asked Ruby.

"Nah, I've been roughing it almost my whole life. My typical sleeping arrangements are worse than that."

"Sleeping bags?"

"Sometimes." Tree branches, usually, he thought but didn't say. They were convenient and inconspicuous, but less than cozy.

Ruby sat back into her seat. "It's not right," she said after a time. "You deserve better than the couch."

"I don't need it," Qrow insisted. Something clicked. "Ah, I get it. You're trying to do the opposite, aren't you?"

Ruby's eyes darted around. "The opposite of what?" she said, trying to be evasive.

Qrow chuckled. "Ruby, promise me you'll never play poker, okay?"

"Uh… I don't see what that has to do with…"

"You want me to feel like I live here," said Qrow. "If I have a place here, I've gotta come back, right?"

She crossed her arms and huffed. "Well, can you blame me?"

Qrow was incapable of answering that question.

Zippy slowed as Yang eased towards Signal's gates. She looked to Qrow. "You set this up, right? We'll need your instructor ID. My student pass doesn't work on weekends."

"Huh? Oh, right." Qrow fumbled it as he got it from his pocket, then botched the exchange with Yang, dropping it onto the floorboard. He went to retrieve it, but Yang did at the same time, and their heads collided with a thud.

Ruby winced. "That looks like it hurt."

Yang, rubbing her noggin, still managed a grin. "I guess after so much time butting heads figuratively, we were bound to butt heads literally."

Qrow didn't respond to that, even to groan. It was his fault, anyway, though minor head trauma was benign by Misfortune's standards. He was amazed Zippy hadn't collapsed on itself from his presence alone.

He made a point of distancing himself from the car as quickly as he could while staying casual.

"You gonna be okay?" he asked Yang.

She gave him a curious look.

"Think you can focus?" he said. "It got pretty intense back there. It's crazy to work in the Forge when you're distracted."

Somehow, she smiled. "I always run hot. Doesn't mean I'm gonna blow up."

Qrow would have found little comfort in a good joke, never mind a bad one. He sighed, walked for the door, and badged the three of them inside.

"Forge" was the oversimplified term for Signal's Weapons Fabrication and Maintenance Facility, although comparing the two titles explains why the unofficial one was more popular. Almost all of the building was a single, open, circular room, divided into two sections by rope chains. The larger section had more and simpler machines, and several copies of each one; it was obviously the section used by students just learning their way around an industrial environment. The smaller section had only one copy of each machine, but those were more powerful and complex, the better to aid licensed Huntsmen in the maintenance of their weaponry.

The far end of the building was squared off, and filled wall to wall with storage lockers which contained everything from reagents, raw materials, tool sets, and commonly-used molds to small cylinders of Dust, the latter in sealed containers accessible only with a Hunstman's license.

In the middle of the building was the titular forge and its quenches. Industrial production of Huntsman weapons was possible, and did happen in some places (mostly Atlas). It was the exception, not the rule. The variety of semblances and fighting styles, the fickle and unique nature of auras, and the different preferences and affinities for Dust meant that most Huntsmen needed a weapon as distinct as their fingerprints to fight at full power. Those distinctions went as deep as the exact adamant alloys used to build their weapons.

A forge, therefore, was an absolute necessity. It stood, Dust-fed and ready, like it was holding court over the rest of the facility. None of the other machines could even begin until the forge had its say. And what machines they were; the full range of a machine shop was present: grinders, saws, presses, drills, etchers, millers, lathes…

Qrow couldn't help the smile that came over his face at the sight. On his list of reasons he'd left the Branwen Tribe, 'not having to murder anymore' was always number one, but 'access to Kingdom-financed forges' was in the top five.

All three of them took care in donning protective gear. Yang put her hair up, a look Qrow rarely saw on her, but which made absolute sense in a place like this. Soon they all had in place gloves, aprons, and eye and hearing protection. Qrow double-checked them all, a habit driven into him by his mentor at Beacon. Carmine Eitri hadn't known Qrow's semblance, but her rules had done well keeping it in check, for which he was eternally grateful.

"Alright, Firecracker, what's on your mind?" Qrow asked Yang when everyone was safe to his standards.

"I want to replace the middle telescoping section of Ember Celica," she replied, unfolding her gauntlets to full size. "I think I can use two smaller sections instead. Then I could reduce the 'stored' size even more."

She walked over to a monitor on the wall and inserted her scroll into a socket. It displayed instantly on the monitor: the blueprint for Ember Celica. She tapped a button, and a new, modified version popped up.

Qrow looked at it with a critical eye. "It's an extra point of contact for the meka-shift assembly. Did you account for that?"

"Yeah, look here."

"It's just that more complexity is more chances for things to go wrong."

Yang was not suffering that critique. "Says the man who built Harbinger!"

"That's fair. Why, though?"

Yang pressed a button. The on-screen image collapsed into its "stored" form, which was barely larger than a bracelet. "I figure there'll be times when I don't want to advertise that I'm armed. A stored form this small is super easy to miss, and even if it's seen, it doesn't exactly scream 'weapon'. I figure, in a dangerous situation, every extra second where I look harmless is golden."

She shook her head, which, if she weren't in protective gear, would have waved about her magnificent mane. She realized too late that having it up thwarted that gesture. "Darn, I was saving that joke."

"Well, the grimm won't care if you look unarmed, but you're savvy enough to know Huntresses don't just fight grimm," Qrow acknowledged. "Alright, looks good to me. You're using the same formulas as before, right?"

"Right."

"Start your draws, then."

Smiling, she pocketed her scroll and headed for the lockers in the back. She'd need their raw metals to feed the forge.

Qrow turned to Ruby. "What about you, pipsqueak?"

Ruby already had Crescent Rose on a workbench, unfolded to its full size, unloaded, and open-chambered. Qrow was amused by how ready she was to talk weapons. "I want to replace the firing chamber," she said, tapping it with the head of a screwdriver.

"What ammo is it rated for now?" Qrow asked.

"Five Hundred," Ruby replied instantly.

Qrow whistled. "That's some artillery you're packing." He frowned. "I know the sound of Five Hundred. That's not what you've been using, is it?"

"No, I've been using Four Hundred." She looked bashful. "I have a hard time keeping steady with Five Hundred. Even with aura to help me brace, the recoil is too much. I figure I'll keep using Four Hundred until I get bigger and buffer."

Qrow raised an eyebrow as he glanced at Ruby. He'd known Summer Rose, and Ruby was following her build almost exactly, which meant "bigger and buffer" was a forlorn hope.

Still… "I think you should start working with Five Hundred."

She looked up at him. "Huh? Why?"

"You're looking at this the wrong way," said Qrow. "There are two ways to deal with recoil. First, like you said, is to use your body and your aura to brace it. You'll get better at that as you build your aura, and using Five Hundred will be another exercise for you. The other way is to make the recoil your friend. Let it push you."

She cocked her head, not quite getting it.

"Your body can only push off a surface," Qrow said. He pointed down at Crescent Rose and ran a finger along its length. "But fire off a shot, especially a big ol' Five Hundred, and you get a big push in any direction. Don't brace it with aura at all, and it can shove you in new directions. You can pull maneuvers you'd never manage with just your body."

"You're saying," she said slowly, "that I should use Crescent Rose like a meka-shift pogo stick?"

He huffed. "When you put it like that, it sounds kinda…"

"…awesome!" said Ruby, clapping her hands together. "This is how I eliminate my dead zone! As great as Crescent Rose is, if someone gets inside the arc of the blade, I'm stuck!" She shot a glare at an unsuspecting Yang, who was counting out ingots. "This way, I can always have a way to disengage other than my semblance!"

"Or climb to new areas," Qrow agreed, "or accelerate your next swing, or attack from a new angle… really, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination and your ammo supply."

"I'll do it," said Ruby, making a fist.

"Careful, now, it takes a lot of practice to do it safely," Qrow cautioned. "I'll show you some basics and give you some tips when we get home." He frowned. "So, if your chamber's already rated for Five Hundred, what upgrade were you planning?"

"I want to make the chamber Dust-rated," she said.

Qrow whistled. "Ambitious. That's a big step. Even Harbinger isn't rated for Dust rounds beyond your standard-issue propellant."

Her expression became gleeful. "You mean I can maybe do something cooler than you?!"

He laughed. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Show me your formulas."

As Yang had done, Ruby put her scroll into a nearby socket and pulled up an image. This wasn't a blueprint; this was a chemical breakdown of the alloys she intended to use for the upgraded chamber.

Qrow leaned in close and inspected Ruby's work. He devoted his full attention to the task. Working directly with Dust was always a tricky business. Different types of Dust interacted with different metals in strange, often inexplicable, and sometimes contradictory ways. The more types of Dust an alloy had to interact with, the more complex the alloy had to be.

Which meant utmost care had to go in to making those alloys. The history of metallurgy on Remnant was long, torturous, and filled with explosions.

"Got your references loaded?" he asked.

She pulled up more documents on the monitor. Qrow worked his way through her equations, occasionally checking something in one of the other tabs. It took him a fair amount of time to check everything against his own knowledge and the references Ruby had loaded. Qrow made sure they were up-to-date ones—and paused. "Signal has copies of Braum's?"

"Yes?" said Ruby cautiously.

"I didn't expect that. That's a pro-level book."

"It's not taught here," Ruby specified. "I think it's just for completeness. I… may have read ahead a bit."

"A bit," Qrow repeated. "I think it was… second year at Beacon, when we got into Braum's? Maybe early third."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her becoming bashful. "Well… I just… really like weapons."

Qrow grinned. "Me too, kiddo." He made two minor edits to her formulae and stepped back. "You did a hell of a job with this. That new chamber should be able to handle the major types of weaponized Dust, and still keep its rating for Five Hundred-series ammo."

"Yes!" hissed Ruby, pumping her fist.

He did some mental math. "It'll take your whole materials budget for the semester, though."

"And some of my birthday money," Ruby agreed. "But my baby's worth it."

"Some 'baby'," Qrow said, amused. "Crescent Rose will be a weapon worthy of a Huntress."

Ruby positively beamed. "Thanks, Uncle Qrow! It means a lot to hear you say that!"

"Just being honest. If it were crap, I woulda said so."

"You're just saying that," Ruby said. "My first weapon was complete garbage, and you said it wasn't that bad."

"I said it wasn't that bad for a beginner," Qrow replied, smiling. "Which was true. See?"

"Hey," said Ruby with a mischievous gleam in her eye. For a brief moment, Qrow saw Summer—that was the gleam Summer got when the game was afoot, when she had—

Qrow blinked, and it was gone. He had to look away from the face to break the spell. Summer's cloak had been white, not Ruby's red. "Huh?"

Ruby glanced around. "I said, it'd be really neat if we could use some of the advanced machines, wouldn't it?"

Qrow laughed, dispelling the last of the lingering illusion. "Guess I've been a bad influence on you," he teased. He looked around all the same. "Well, I don't see any pros using the good stuff this morning, and it's not like Boq-Boq is lurking behind the grinder, waiting to jump us if we use the wrong machines." He gave her a wink. "I won't tell if you don't."

"Yes!" said Ruby with a triumphant fist pump, but she quickly became serious. She held up her hand. "Pinky swear."

Qrow affected offense. "What, my word as a Huntsman's not good enough?"

"It's not as sacred as the pinky swear," said Ruby with full sincerity.

Qrow rolled his eyes, but he clasped fingers with her anyway. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Hooray!" Ruby snatched up her materials and rushed off, rose petals fluttering behind her.

"Hey, hey!" scolded Qrow. "No semblances in the forge!"

And he was fully aware of the irony of his words.

BANG. BANG BANG.

"Really?" Qrow said to the world at large.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Each blast was a hammer to the skull. Qrow tried to roll over and bury his head to block out the sound. He rolled right off the couch onto the floor.

Now thoroughly awake and even more thoroughly annoyed, Qrow tried to piece together what was happening.

Gunfire?

Somehow he staggered to his feet, grabbed Harbinger, and headed for the door. Whatever was causing this, he was going to give it a piece of his mind and an even bigger piece of his sword up their-

BANG BANG.

Eyes watering and squinting, temper high, headache eight out of ten and rising fast, Qrow threw open the door.

BANG.

…and saw rose petals whipping past him.

"Hiya, Uncle Qrow!" came Ruby's voice, fully in Doppler's grip as it sped past him.

BANG.

And now she rocketed off ninety degrees from her earlier course.

BANG.

The scythe came around against a yellow shape—Yang, Qrow realized distantly—who, unable to keep up with the red blur, had been turtling and waiting.

Yang blocked successfully, but before she could retaliate, another BANG took Ruby back out of range. She took one more gratuitous twirl before coming to rest, facing Yang, glee on her face.

"I mean, sure, if you're willing to waste that much ammo," said Yang, but though she tried to sound dismissive Qrow could hear her frustration.

"You're just angry because you haven't got a hit on me so far this morning," Ruby teased.

"You've spent the whole spar dancing around, of course I haven't landed anything," Yang retorted, as her frustration boiled over.

"Well, that's the next thing you'll have to figure out!" said Ruby.

Yang frowned deeply and said nothing for several seconds. Then she broke into a run, headed for Ruby. Ruby hefted Crescent Rose, clearly planning her next move… but then Yang's hands, which she'd allowed to trail behind her as she ran, tightened into fists.

B-BANG.

Yang zoomed forwards—unsteadily but unexpectedly quick. Ruby, panicking, fired off Crescent Rose for the thrust, which put her just outside Yang's wild body-check, but after a short stumble Yang planted and whirled and threw a haymaker at her sister.

Which meant now both of them were using recoil for maneuvering.

BANG BANG BA-BANG.

Qrow couldn't marvel at how quickly Ruby had picked up the technique, or at how amazing it was that Yang had pirated it. He could only wonder if he shouldn't ever teach anyone anything again.

There would be no more sleeping in for him, would there?

Headache climbing to nine out of ten, he headed back inside to brew coffee and cuss himself out.

Next time: Frigid