I still own nothing. As much as I wish I did, I do not. All rights go to the folks to whom thy belong, you all know the drill.

The bar ended up a bust. How? "Closed for renovations?!"

Philip pats Qrow on the back. "Sorry I guess?" He shrugs. "There are probably other bars in Vale, right? If we look, we are bound to find one." Qrow slumps onto the ground. "Yeah but it's not the same. This place just had a certain charm ya know?"

"Because it had your name in the name?" Philip deadpans. "Pretty much." Qrow states. Philip scoffs. Looking around the area he spies a small convenience store down the block. If the obnoxious and obvious neon plastered all over the windows. "Hey. You said you'd chip in, right? Can I uh, borrow some cash? er… lien? Lein?" "It's called Lien. And yeah, here's a 50. Go crazy. And by that, I mean enjoy yourself, not lose your shit." Philip grunts an affirmative while Qrow gazes forlorn at the door of the building.

'Is that even enough? Whatever, the need for nicotine overrules the need for things to make any sense.' Philips walks calmly over the store, even though inside he is writhing. A tiny ding sound goes off as he opens the door. The store is the same as any other. That is top say aisles of junk food in colorful packaging, tube lights hanging from flimsy ceiling panels with strange stains, that are somehow on the ceiling. Lines of coolers on the backwalls filled with all manner of fizzy drinks, and caffeinated ones to sate your 2:00 AM cravings. It even had spindly looking employee being harassed by several thugs. 'Oh, blighted swamps take you all!'

"- look You, you need to leave, or, or I'll call the cops!" "And who will they believe, you or me you Half-breed freak!" Philip looks at the situation at hand. The attendant is obviously a Fuanus, one with some sort… tusks? Two off white ivory tusks protrude from the sides of the teller's mouth, reaching out several inches from his face, the ends stopped with small tassels, and intricate shapes and patterns carved, perhaps painted onto them. The man is scrawny which considering he appears to be an elephant Fuanus is ironic, and to the four racists, for what else could they be, hilarious.

Upon entering the attention of two of the thugs is drawn to the sound of the door alert, and they set eyes upon Philips scared form. One elbows the other, and they step towards the door. "Hey pal, stores closed." Philip leans to the side looking past the human wall of people taller than him. Not that it's difficult, being all of five foot ten, most people are taller than Philip. "Looks open to me. On top of that you're out of uniform. I need to speak with your manager."

Tweedledumbass looks over Tweedledipshit, as Philip thus dubs them in his mind. "Uh, what?" Philip pushes past the morons, bowling Tweedledumbass to the ground. He marches up to the register ignoring the entire situation around him. He slams his hands down on the counter. "You got Cigarettes?!" The poor sod nods just as confused as everyone else is at this development. "I'll take a pack." The employee licks his lips, glancing back and forth between the thugs and this weird looking guy with a glowing eye. "W… w… what brand?"

Philip pauses and turns his gaze upwards. "I have found God! I'll take that one" he says pointing at a random package. "Si… Sir? Those are Cigars. N… n-Not cigarettes." Philip's face splits open, teeth shining in the light. He claps his hands and then rubs them together viciously. "Will this cover it?" he asks holding up the strange plastic-like card. "Uh, yes sir." The attendant hands him the package and several other cards back. Philip looks down at the returned cards, the color different. "What's this?"

"It's mine now dumbass." A voice looms over his shoulder, followed by an arm reaching down and grabbing the chits. "And while I'm at it I'll take everything else you got too." Philip turns around looking up at the figure behind him. "Oh, you're still here? Go away, before I remove you." He reaches to grab his sweet, sweet Cigars of all cherished things, but that same arm reaches down and plucks them from his hand. A twitch starts up in his left eye.

Philip takes a breath and his shoulder tense. His voice cracks violently, turning to a piercingly high-pitched cackle, with words articulated heavily on the consonants. "I am going to hurt you now." An elbow blurs back slamming into an unprepared abdomen, and a gout of air is pushed from a pair of lungs.

Philip spins around, his cybernetic eye a vapid purple, with wisps of energy pouring out in an incoherent fury. No that wasn't it. Fury was too small in this circumstance! Nothing less than pure unmitigated Ire would do. The blow had the thug reeling, hunched over and gasping in pain for air. Two of the others are raising their fists, the last reaching into his jacket for something. They freeze slightly in fear, the glowing of the thermal vision mode, projecting in small store. Philip lunges, grabbing the taller man by the throat. He squeezes. Hard. A sad gurgling sound is heard as he slams the oaf into the ground, shaking the shelves and knocking merchandise to the floor. Something bashes him over the head. It breaks.

"What the-" The exclamation is cut off, as Philip sweeps out with his legs, spinning on one hand, turning break dancing deadly. He shifts his weight to his other hands and pushes off the ground, spinning in the air to land on the pads of his feet. "Shit! He's a Huntsman!" The prone thugs pull themselves off the ground. They try to run, only for Philip to shift over to the door. His face twists, smile seeming to reach his ears. He speaks once more in the horrifying high voice. "Not so fast boys. We are going to play a game. It's called I break your bones and take back what's mine! It ends when I hear sirens!"

The facade has cracked, and Philip feels his reason slipping away. But does it matter, he wonders? Even his rage could be controlled, but the desire to inflict pain like this is new, and mildly concerning. Concerning because it feels so very familiar… Blood dripping down the back of his head, terror in the eyes of those before him. A sense of rightness flickers in his mind. The leader of the thugs raises his hands above his head. The others do the same, fear in their eyes. Philip takes a breath. 'What am I doing?' He smacks the side of his head, the glow fading as his eye switches back to normal. 'Dam thing keeps acting up. I'll have to check it out back at camp. Beacon, I mean.'

"Hey." He says startling everyone in the building beside himself. His voice returned to normal, he looks over at the cashier. "Do you carry rope? Or have any duct tape?" The scared Fuanus shakes his head rapidly. "Great. How does this sound folks? Give me back my money, my cigars, and we call it good. I let you leave, and you get to keep your injuries to a minimal."

"Uh, sounds great. Here!" The leader of the toughs throws down the items, and Philip steps aside letting them leave. They flee rapidly, the last one out tripping in the door. He hits the ground hard but scrambles to his feet and follows the others. Philip picks up his items and turns to regard the Fuanus at the register. "So, what was that all about anyway?"

The elephantine man stirs from his stupor. "The big one was trying to buy some beer." He points on the counter at a case of the afore mentioned liquor. "He gives me a ten, I tell him that's not enough. Next thing I know there are four of these guys, and they are all saying he gave me a hundred and demanding that I give him change."

Philip grunts. "Creative way to rob a place, if nothing else." The cashier scoffs. "I was going to call the cops you know. But that works just as well, I suppose. Tell you what," The Fuanus gestures to the eight-pack of glass bottles. "He left without this. You can take them. You look like you might need them."

"Thanks. How much did he have left to pay anyway?" The cashier laughs. "No just take it. Consider it a gift since you saved me the trouble. The security panel is a bitch to reset." Philip notches an eyebrow and glances at the ceiling above the counter. His vision mode cycles following his curiosity. Electromagnetic. Yet another vision mode he now realizes he never bought but has proven useful. The glow of an automated cage system meets him. "Ha. Go figure. Have a good one sir." He reaches out and grabs the beer. "I know I will."

The door closes behind him as he works his way back over to Qrow. He takes a breath of the air, marveling the similarity of it to how DMC smelled. Again, it astounds him just how similar it all is. 'Murphey?' Glancing side to side he checks for some random thing to go wrong. Nothing. Pulling up the pack of Cigars he looks at the colorful packaging. Huntsman Special The Only Self-lighting brand designed entirely for those who guard us from the Grimm! *New* Built in Fire dust lighting, just use your aura and burn away! 'Just focus my Aura and it should light itself, huh?' Philip reaches for the mystical energy that comes from his soul to draw it manifest.

He snaps his fingers trying to see if he can use his finger as a lighter. Nope. Grumbling he reaches into his back pocket for a box of matches to light up. The striking of a match draws forth a small flame, burning in the low evening light. He draws it in breathing the first trickles of sweet, sweet nicotine in about a week. "Ahhhhh. Wow this cigar is terrible." He pulls a second draft of the smoke. Little better than the first. "Suppose this will take some getting use to." He exhales, blowing a perfect ring, chuckling to himself.

A few more steps and he's back. "Oi, Qrow!" The sadly sober drunk, turns over to the voice. Then he sees what Philip hold in one hand. "Heads up." Philip tosses a bottle over and Qrow deftly catches the middle-tiered beer. Looking at the label only long enough to see what brand it is Qrow grins. "Third favorite stuff here. Nice." Popping the cap with an aura enhanced thumbnail Qrow takes a drink. "Ahhhhh." He lets out sigh of contentment, Arm raised in a toast to the bringer of the beer. Philip cracks half a smile, before letting a wave of smoke out his nose. "Not a total bust tonight then, eh?" Qrow nods agreeing. "How do we get back?"

-BREAK-

"What made you think this was a good idea?! You knew that was the last airship to the city for the night!" Philip bellows Qrow. He swings his machete into the skull plate of a Beowolf cleaving through the bone with startling ease. It cleaves bone and shadow-flesh through all the way into the ground. "Shit!" He yanks his blade back up and raises his opposite arm up to block the blow of an Ursa. It hammers into it dislocating his elbow. Qrow whirls around a tempest of swings and carnage parting the tide of Grimm like a farmer his wheat. Fitting it would seem as his dammed sword turns into a fragging Scythe. Philip roars in the face of the Ursa spittle flying from his mouth along with the half-gone stub of his cigar. He slashes with his blade embedding into the shoulder of the bear-like Grimm. He pushes his muscles grasping at his burgeoning Aura manipulation skill to try and enhance his physicality. The blade tears through the bone and sinew with a sickening feeling that just doesn't feel right.

The machete carves into the Ursa's ribcage shattering the bones more than cutting through them. The beast slumps down dead. Philip drops the blade and grasps at his left arm. 'Nothing is broken, lots of pain. Gonna hurt worse real fast.' Grabbing his joint he wrenches it back into place. The pain flares then, fades as all dislocated joints and limbs do. The surrounding Grimm eye him warily. Philip walks over to one of the Beowolves picking up his machete on the way. The beasts pause suddenly, their target no longer in sight, not even able to be smelled. Philip tsks in his mind. This ability of his easier to use than ever. 'Maybe it is my semblance? I need do some soul searching soon.' His face contorts in the space between spaces these shifts seem to take him. 'Bad pun. Blame Qrow later.'

Appearing behind the Beowolf as intended he hacks into its spine, using the same tactics he would against a Dogman. The blade slides right though the vertebrae paralyzing its lower legs. He cleaves off the arm of another, hacking with brutal abandon. A stocky two-legged Grimm that looks more jaw then body rushes at him. It bites down on his arm, taking the machete into its gullet. Philip screams at the pressure and hammers his other fist into the thick bone plating on its face. At first the blows do nothing, but as Philip begins to channel his aura into his arm and fist it begins to crack the plates. The constant pounding causes the teeth to tear into the meat on Philips arm shredding the muscles tissue down to the bone. Philip yanks his arm out of the dying Creeps mouth leaving parts of himself in its mouth.

"FUCK! Qrow I need a hand here, literally!" Qrow parts the tide in the sea of Grimm that linger around Philip slashing with his scythe. Standing at guard his weapon on his shoulder he parts a glance at Philip. "Oh, dam!" Philip is holding his arm ragged gashes torn out of it. His jaw is clenched, teeth bared. Smoke flows from his nose, the last bits from his lungs leaving as he grits trough the muted pain. A dim purple glow covers the wound, and the bleeding slows but then fades after it stops, nothing else happening. "What the hell? You need to figure out how to make Aura into a shield fast dude." He swings his scythe around his self, decapitating an Ursa that approached from behind him without looking.

Philip glares at Qrow pain in his face. "I've had worse." He looks at his wound. Chucks of muscle and skin are missing from the injury. Peering into the dissolving maw of the slain Creep he spies his missing bits. Grimacing he grasps the bloody pieces of his arm and slaps them back into where they once were. Qrow gags and moves over to a nearby bush. The smoke hovering around his body gravitates toward the wound, both from the dying Grimm and from the still lit stub of cigar lying in the distance on the ground.

With the Grimm dead Philip looks around the trail that they were walking on. It had seemed peaceful at first. Near idyllic even. Philip looks at his wounded arm watching the rent flesh knit itself back together. It is sickeningly captivating. "What's the matter Qrow? Thought you said you could hold your liquor?" Philip yells over. Qrow wipes his face with his sleeve, small quantities of sick stuck to the corners of his mouth. "Oh, I can hold my booze perfectly. That what I just saw was something else."

Philip nocks an eyebrow. "Squeamish?" Qrow shakes his head. "Nah. I've dealt with gore before, but you have something very wrong with you. How in the name of Dust are you not screaming in pain right now?" It is Philips turn to shake his head. "Deadened nerve endings. Or severe nervous system damage take your pick. I was strapped into an electric chair once and zapped with enough voltage to kill a man." His eye glazes over a faraway look in his eyes. "It was at an insane asylum, or a mental institution either works as to what you'd call it."

Philip looks over at Beacon, the massive campus visible atop the cliff. "I was looking for answers, who I was, and why, always WHY!" Philip growls out, before he closes his eye. He lets out a breath before he continues. "The cult of the Blue Frog were all once normal people, maybe. I was scavenging in a city called Saginaw. I knew the risks about that place. Mad cultists, ridden with a disease called 'Blue Rot'. It was bad, and a killer. Vomiting, fever, and it led to the eventual destruction of the lungs. I saw people cough out pieces of their own organs into their hands."

"But," Philip continues, "It was worth the risk for those reasons." Qrow nods along. "Makes sense. A Reputation like that and folks would stay far away from that place." Philip nods. "That was the idea. I figured that I might be able to find some decent gear, anything I could use." He chuckles. "At the time I was using a freaking broken ended garden hoe as a spear. I wanted, no needed, something better. I though I would be safe because I had grabbed a sash from a dead cultist. And safe I was. But that was the problem. They knew I wasn't one of them. And they made me think that they didn't know. Next thing I know I get drugged with sleeping pills and dragged into an initiation ceremony." Philip runs his hand across two small scars on his head, on his temples. "They had three trials. The trial of water. The of trial fire. And the trial of light. Translated meaning waterboarding. Being tossed into a burning oven. And getting strapped into an electric chair."

"I saw seven men and four women die in these blight-take-them trials. I was one of two survivors. And to be honest I have no idea how I made it out." He drags his hand down his face, scratching at the growing stubble. "I went down a hall way. Just some random ass hallway, trying to find a way out before I catch the disease. I was desperate. Dove out a window on the third floor."

"And you didn't have any Aura?" Qrow asks. Philip shakes his head no. "Death by fall or death by illness. Least the one was faster." Philip chuckles. By now the two had made it to the cliffs surrounding Beacon. Philip reaches into his pocket for another smoke. Drawing out a book of matches he lights up another of the cheap cigars, chewing on the end. Tossing the burnt-out match to the ground he drives it into the dirt with his heel. No need to start a forest fire after all. "Yeah, well I didn't die though. No, I just managed to get some extreme scarring on my hands." He flexes his fingers. "Grabbed ahold of the side of the building, old brickwork, lots of loose pieces. Tore my skin to shreds, and I was dammed fucking lucky there weren't guards out and about in the area. Climbed down as fast as I could. Having a grip enough to crack a walnut open can allow ya that." He glances over towards Beacon looking at the sheer cliff face between it and him. He cracks his neck blowing smoke out his nose. "Let me show you even." He latches a hand to the stone, fingers searching for a hold. Finding what he's looking for Philip begins to scale the cliff.

Qrow laughs. "Nice technique." The drunkard lists to the side. He had consumed all the beers, bar one that Philip nabbed for himself. So, the nominally buzzed Huntsman is near fully inebriated, a good deal more drunk than normal. Thus, the next words out of his mouth would be no surprise to those who know how childish drunk people can be. Or for that matter, how immature Qrow is. "Wanna race?" And so, the great cliff climb began. The winner of which would forever be debated, if only for the sake of persevered dignity. Whose is to this day, up for debate. However legends say that someone's semblance went haywire due to being drunker than normal, and many attempts were needed to even get halfway up the thing.

-BREAK-

The trip back to Beacons infirmary is quiet and morose. 'I should be able to make a shield around myself with my Aura. So why can't I?' Philip wonders. He raps on the door to the location, the loud sound echoing through the predominantly empty building complex.

"Come on in Philip. I know it's you!" Eyebrow quirked Philip pushes the door open to see the woman known as Peach looking over a chart. "You were expecting me?" he peers at the chart something clicking in his head at the sight. That is a scan of his body. Or maybe it was. "You want to explain how all the medical records we had started to collect on you just up and faded away like they were never there to begin with?" "That, tends to happen… No idea why, but," He pauses scratching at the scars riddling his neck. He reaches for the pack of cigars in his shirt pocket grabbing one and putting it to his lips. He stops suddenly. Drawing one partway from the pack he pushes it towards the sword wielding warrior woman. "Would you care for one? Or do you not partake?"

Peach gazes at the offered stick of tobacco and dust additives. She rapidly shakes her head, a negative. "Well then I have no idea as to why it happens. I suspect I am haunted by some specter. Aside the Merga that's to say. My past, whilst hidden from my own self, I have discovered a few facts. My Ostracon." Peach nods at this revelation. "You think that something followed you through the…" She pauses a grimace on her face. "That portal? It makes no sense! The portal or you!" she gestures to the sheet, blanked of all it's information. "How can a world exist without DUST?" she emphasizes. "Man descended from Dust, or at least some studies say so. I don't believe that for a second but as a woman of science None of it should be possible."

Philip taps his metal eye. "Yeah well that's fine and all but I was hoping to get a few things looked at. Unless you'd rather talk about things I know little to nothing about instead we can do that." Peach stops her attempted tirade. "Fine." She pouts, "But we will have this conversation sooner rather than later. What was it you wanted to talk about then?"

Philip again taps his eye, the off neon green light flashing in response. He growls at the unwilling change of sight mode trying to glare at his own eye with the other. Sighing he re-focuses the optic on the person he was speaking with. "This thing. I don't suppose you know anything about cybernetics?" She shrugs. "More than most. But your tech doesn't run on dust, so I'd be going in blind."

A pause.

"If you expect me to respond to that pun, you'll be disappointed." Peach grins. "Was worth a shot. What's wrong with it?" Philip pushes in on the eye pressing it further into the socket until a loud clicking sound is heard. Holding his hand underneath, it pops out of the socket a slight sloshing sound to be heard. A trail of wires flows out and a few drops of either blood or a lubricant drip from the empty cavity. "It keeps switching vison modes on me. More to point it changes to modes that this model shouldn't even have installed."

Peach reaches into her desk, the neat stacks of paper at a disharmony with the absolute chaos of how the writing utensils were placed. Red pen next blue instead of having the black one act as a buffer? Madness at it's greatest! From a drawer Peach pulls a odd device. Buttons and dials all over the place and a small energy field sustained tow sensor wands emerging from the top of the instrument. Holding the optic device, she puts the eye in the field of energy, the device somehow able to keep it hovering in the air. A panel opens on the bottom of the device and a projection shines down onto the desk detailing an inside out view of the eye, the specs and the construction of it revealed.

"Hmmmm…" goes Peach. "HmMMmm…" goes Philip. "Any idea what we are looking at here?" He asks. "Nope." Replies peach. Ah. Well then. She pulls her eyes from the display to Philip. "Anything else bothering you? This thing may take a while to diagnose the issues. It is supposed to be a universal tool, or so Atlas tells us."

"Aside from random memory flashes that make no sense and never seem to have context involved, I find myself unable to externally project my aura into a shield." Peach grins. "I know a way to fix that!" Philip feels his hopes raise. "Really? What would that be?"

*minor break*

"A spar still was not what I had in mind!" Philip bellows as he ducks under a massive sweeping blade, wind brushing across his naked scalp. 'If I had hair, I wouldn't have hair after that swing. Is she trying to kill me?' He backpedals giving ground. Peach resets her stance, the giant of a sword held in front of her, one arm behind her back. She grins. "Well the best way to learn how to use Aura is in a situation where to be unable to do so would cause you harm." She lunges forward, a stab Philip only manages to avoid by the slightest of margins. "How in the lords name are you able to swing that thing with one hand?!" Peach ignores Philips question and instead powers on with her 'lesson'.

"Aura is the manifestation of the soul, drawn out to guard and protect us. It heals our wounds and strengthens our bodies. As Huntsmen and Huntresses, it is what makes us able to dispose of the Grimm!" She whirls around the massive Zweihander with ease, a series of downward chops wind milling forward like a demented side-ways lawnmower. Philip focuses with all his mental might on his arms bracing them with a X shaped block. The sword sinks into the thick layers of scar tissue and skin covering his arms but goes no further. Peach pulls her blade back toward her the motion cutting deeper into Philips arms drawing blood. He brings his arms down to his sides, shaking loose several drops of blood.

Peach looks over at the injury. "Anything that time?" Philip looks at his wound. Blood slowly seeps from a shallow cut, one that is rapidly closing with a plum hued vapor rising from it. "No. No shield. However, I managed to focus enough Aura into my arms that your blow didn't cleave my arms in twain. So that's something at least."

Peach shakes her head. "Still nothing? At this rate I'm beginning to suspect that your Aura might be broken." Philip stares at the wisps of energy floating off his injury as it knits itself together again. "Broken how? None of the books I read through had that term in them."

Peach sits down on a bench of the sparing arena. Pulling a chilled bottle of water from a cooler she chucks one at distracted man. The object rushes at him as fast as a baseball despite the non-aerodynamic nature of its shape. However, he currently lacks 50% of his visual abilities totaled, and 100% of those abilities from the side the bottle was thrown from. But one conclusion could transpire from such an action. Unless you considered the level of paranoia a scav has.

Philip shifts in place the air displacement betrayed by an odor of tobacco smoke, and wisps of purple hued energy. A silver eye glares at the pink ones that seem to crinkle with suppressed mirth. His empty socket coughs out a few sparks. He snorts, before reaching into his pocket to grab some matches. Striking one against the box he lights the fresh cigar resting in between his lips. Taking in a breath he glares at the woman, before waking over to the discarded bottle at the other end of the room. Draining half the bottle he hurls it back, only for it to go sailing off to the side by a significant margin.

"Ffff…" Philip starts before looking at the figure sitting on the bench laughing at him. The female figure. "Rench fries." He exclaims. Peach laughs all the harder. "French fries? What kind of cuss is that?"

Philip sighs. "I remember little things. You know, small stuff. I was raised to never curse in front of a woman. To do so was to debase myself." An expression of melancholy graces his battered face. "Little things. And nothing more." He exhales before drawing another breath on his cigar. The smoke calms his nerves. The smoke that defined over half his goal of survival. To find more.

He blinks. All the little things huh? The way the smoke calms him. How his Aura seems to have it as an effect after use. Even when his wounds heal the smoke, not vapor bleeds from it. He looks over to his arm, the one that was savaged by the Creep the night before. His own flesh had knit itself back together after exposure to smoke. He coughs, the revelation striking him suddenly.

He blinks forward and twists to watch his own trail as he moves. More smoke! Always with the smoke, to critical to his very psyche. Without it he rages, and weeps, going in cycles of vapid emotions, paired with a pain that lingers in his scars.

"Ha. Ha. Hahaha" He begins to laugh the timbre of it having an echoing quality to it. It distorts and twists. Peach looks on curious. Philip whirls around, a swath of smoke billowing from his body. It sinks to the ground, before billowing out around him, as if a dark cloak.

"I think-k. I have found my semblance-lance" he echoes out. A feral grin creaks over his face, purple smoke seeping out of the empty socket that would otherwise hold an eye. The smoke alternates color, in all shades of gray and a deep purple. Until it sputters and loses it cohesion.

*Clang*

Peach gasps and her hands cover her mouth in shock. Philip grit his teeth. "Well. That happened." He glances down at the cybernetic mount of his eye. The metal plate sits on the floor little bits of dried blood on the inside. He reaches up to touch the exposed bone of his skull. Running his fingertips over the gouged and scarred bone he grimaces. "There goes that handy little thing."

Little drops of blood begin seep out of the exposed muscles of his cheek. Philips mind stirs, for if the smoke of his semblance can heal new wounds what about old ones? Grasping once more at his nascent control he guides the smoke towards his eye socket, and simply waits.

The smoke hovers there, both Philip and Peach waiting to see if anything would occur. Time passes, one minute. Two. After nearly five minutes of nothing, only then does Philip release his control of the fumes. He gasps for breath as a wave of fatigue hits him, and he falls to the ground. Peach rushes over. "You okay Phil? While that wasn't the most dramatic unlocking of a semblance I've seen, it was certainly the weirdest."

Philip looks up at her, his face devoid of emotion. Where there was once an empty cavity of bone, devoid of skin and muscle, now sits raw flesh and stretched skin. He slowly draws his hand up to his face. The scar is still there. And yet his face is made whole again, even if he still can't see. He pokes a finger into his empty socket teeth clenched at the pain of fresh nerve tissue being exposed to a foreign digit. But there is no whole eye inside.

"Well at least I have my good looks back." He jokes. Peach grimaces. "No, you don't." Philip deadpans. He staggers to him feet, Peach helping him up. His face has skin again, but the cruel scar still sits over his head and into his hair line, but it is faded. It looks more as if it had happened ten years ago instead of one.

Philip wiggles his finger in his empty eye socket. "Does remnant have cybernetic eyes? Or am I going to need to look like some garden variety pirate?" Peach shrugs. "Atlas has them. Vale? Not so much."

She slugs him inn the shoulder. "But hey! You sir have just unlocked your semblance. Some sort of smoke manipulation, and from the looks of it smoke can heal your injuries." The woman gets a gleam in her eye. "Is it only tobacco smoke or could wood smoke work as well. Oh! Maybe even chemical smoke! We can try all sorts of things to test it, we have the facilities here after all." She pouts suddenly. "Lucky! Some of us still don't know our Semblances yet and have been trying to find them for over a decade-and-a-half." Peach continues spouting random bits of trivia about semblances as Philip looks at his own self. 'This woman may be bi-polar.' He muses. He lights up another of his cigars, the smoke wafting from the match right into his lungs. He inhales deeply before exhaling. But when he does no smoke emerges from between his lips. Plugging his nose, he grins. He pushes the smoke from inside his nasal cavity through his eardrums making the smoke leak out his ears. The feeling is strange, like a pressure behind the sides of his skull, but he laughs. 'I am literally blowing smoke out my ears.' He chuckles amidst Beacon's Head od Medicine ranting. "What a day."

-BREAK-

A light tinkling sound chimes in the distance.

Philips eye snaps open. What feels like a time and a half ago he would have whirled to his feet, knives bared, a roar upon his lips. But now? 'Uhh. Mornings.' A hand flails out and smacks the offending alarm clock. The impact sends the device flying into a wall opposite the end table it had rested upon shattering the fragile, but cheap and easily replaceable machine. Philip sits up his body creaking in protest.

It had been a week since he had unlocked his semblance. Five days since he had agreed to Ozpins terms, becoming Beacons new Head of IT and the wilderness survival instructor. Two days since he figured out his semblance was finite, only letting him draw on smoke he had already absorbed, and that rebuilding his face cost him an entire years' worth of campfires and cigarettes from before he fell into Remnant. And now this morning? He figured out he was going native.

But that might not be a bad thing. Stumbling over to the kitchenette of his teacher's dorm, he sets up a pot of tea. A few dozen white pine needles that had dried overnight, boil up the water and let steep, while he prepares the rest of breakfast. Normally this would be some dried meat, or even just a handful of berries and some edible mushrooms. But now in true functional civilization? Oatmeal time. Setting a second pot on the stovetop he pours in some more water and sets this up to boil as well. Tossing in several handfuls of oats he leaves that to cook.

Going over to his fridge he grabs two eggs out of a carton and cracks them open into a glass, filling it up with some (Maybe cows?) milk. Stirring it to a froth with a fork he downs the power drink. 'I haven't had one of those since… since…' His face contorts in frustration. "Amnesia is fucking asinine. You think you know something and then poof." A light smell in the air lets him know the rest of his breakfast is ready. Sitting down at the table he looks at his prepared food.

"Hmm… I uh, I don't know if you're there God, but er… Here? If you're here? Like in this world." 'Or would it be dimension?' Philip thinks. "Anyway, uh, been a while. Thanks for keeping me alive, I guess. Must have been crazy to do that, am I right? Uh… Amen then I guess?" While not in particular in a man of faith, recent events, say all of them, have made him wonder. What is This? All of this around him One day he was simply just looking for a military base to upload a data drive for unknown reasons for a guy he has only met seven (or was it eight?) times, and that was only so he could find out why (and how) his memories were stolen and why he was being haunted by the Merga… actually this may be par for the course really. "Go figure." Philip mutters.

Breaking free of his musings Philip finishes his meal. He glances over to the door halfway expecting someone to randomly burst through it. Then again if they do it would set off the combination noise trap and net gun launcher he has jury-rigged to the top of the frame. Paranoia thy name be Philip Kindred. Opening the window to his room he sits down on a stool he set by it for but one purpose.

A good smoke is the best way to end the morning routine Philip aimed to set for himself. And so he does. Overall this has been a good morning. But soon it will cease being so. For if one does teach, one must have a course planned out. Soon it will be time to craft a thing of torture and pain and sorrow. For the students anyway. " A syllabus."

A/N: This has been sitting on my computer almost done for far too long. I make no claims to publish on a consistent basis, nor will I ever, as such would be a lie. With that in mind, enjoy the chapter. Another will be out sooner or later. Until then try a nice soothing tea. What? Why are you all looking at the page like it grew a second head? I drink both coffee and tea, big deal. Sue me.