"I need to ask," started Penny. "Why do you continue to wear that mask? You have been incorrectly identified as a member of the White Fang on two separate occasions because of it."

"You were only there for the last one. How do you know about the other one?"

"432 and 437 thought you were a faunus at first."

"But not Skink?" Started Dove, before he deadpanned, "Of course he'd know. Or at least he'd be able to convince me he knew all along. But I didn't know about them thinking otherwise."

"Then what was the other occasion where you were thought to be ex-Fang?"

"508."

Penny paused. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"You ever wonder how he is doing?"

"No." Answered Dove without any bite. "But I think he's doing fine."

"That makes sense." The two strode forward in silence. The skies were surprisingly clear, and the milky grey-blue sky loomed over them. Just a sole white figure strolling the icy desert. "Why is it then that you wear the mask? Technically speaking."

"As in more than," Dove armed his fingers with air-quotes. "It's just a really convenient mask?"

"Affirmative."

"Do you know how hard it is to find face plates that are half an inch of cold steel, with sun-glasses built into them?" Before Penny could even processing a response, Dove continued. "It's almost impossible! No one makes steel face plates with protective eyewear. The baskets the soldiers wore left giant holes where their mouths were, and had so many joints, it would make a centipede jealous. They were practically asking to be stabbed through the mouths! And the basic Fang grunt plates are basically the same thing, but with the glass and a solid plate, rather than scale mail on your head!"

Penny watched as he was literally steaming in the cold weather. "Then how did you get this mask?"

"I pulled it off some elite." He hissed out a cloud of steam. "Just typical. Let's give all of our armor to the guys who can already defend themselves, but none to those who can't. We can always recruit more."

"You speak as if you were one of the grunts." Analyzed Penny.

"Probably would have been if I didn't go to Beacon. Not Fang, but in general." He took a swig from his canteen. "I just hate how disposable they made people. How they all made people. Every one of them, making they people simple numbers, statistics."

"As the leader Storwin was once attributed saying, Death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic."

"Didn't they find out that he starved millions of his own people?"

"Does that take away from his quote, or only further cement it?"

Dove paused. "Touché." Another long sigh, lingering in the icy desert. "I hate this. This, this baloney. Everyone's just a number. Waiting to be subtracted."

"But you know better."

"I'd like to think I do. I'd like to think everyone has at least some inherent worth."

"Is that why you took a picture of the truck with the names you know written on the car door?"

"Yeah. Least I could do."

"You really care, don't you?"

"Probably."