Mantle's Central Station was nothing like the smooth and well-trimmed landing area where their military-chartered airship had touched down before the trial. Instead it was all old, crumbling brickwork and suspicious stains.

The four of them poured out of the airship into a bustling mass of people. City smells and a faint trace of brine stung at Weiss' nose, and she instinctively shied away from the noise. At least now she could flare her wings whenever someone bumped into her without getting a cramp or risking outing herself. She kept them partly open, which created a small eddy in the flow of foot traffic out of the station.

They passed beneath a faded archway and turned left at Penny's direction, wading through a crowd of recent arrivals from Argus before veering off down a narrow side-street. A clammy drizzle made Blake huddle under Yang's arm, and Weiss spread her wings a little wider to block the worst of it. Ruby walked ahead of them, chattering excitedly with Penny—and then in a blink she was flat on her face.

"I'm fibe!" she said, sitting up and massaging her nose. "Just slibbed."

"What?" Yang took a step closer, and might have followed her to the ground if Blake hadn't caught her arm as her foot skidded out from under her. "Oh."

Weiss looked around. Sure enough, the heater just across the street was dead. The rain that covered the pavement had frozen all the way across, leaving a layer of ice that was completely invisible until it caught the light. "Should we call someone about this? What if someone tries to take a car down this road?"

"Well, now," said an unfamiliar voice from right behind her. "It's nice to see such civic-minded young people about."

Weiss nearly jumped out of her skin. Whirling around with her wings mantling in alarm, she came face to face with a tiny old lady leaning on a carved staff. The woman was wearing a pair of brilliant blue goggles—and then she blinked, shutters clicking closed, and Weiss realized that they weren't goggles at all, but a pair of prosthetic eyes.

"I don't suppose that would cover helping an old woman across?" She tapped her staff on the ground. "I do have time to go around, but I can't say I relish the idea of being out in this miserable weather any longer than I have to."

Yang offered an arm. "Sure thing, Miss, um...?"

"Maria Calavera." She reached up to take Yang's forearm.

"Here," said Weiss, and made a bridge of glyphs to the next working heater. "These should have better traction." She wasn't sure she trusted Yang's footing either.

They picked their way across, Blake glaring resentfully at the broken heater and pulling her coat tighter around herself as she went. "That really doesn't look safe."

"I have submitted a report to Mantle's department of infrastructure," Penny announced, holding up a scroll Weiss doubted she'd actually used.

"Do you think Doctor Polendina will know how long it's been broken?" Ruby wondered. "It's pretty close to his clinic."

"Ah! You're here to see Pietro, are you?"

"Wait, you know him?"

"Know him? Who do you think made these?" Maria tapped her eyes. "I come here for a tune-up every ten years or so."

Penny bounced on the balls of her feet. "This is so exciting! I don't get to meet many of my father's friends."

"Your—" Maria looked genuinely taken-aback for a moment, before she broke out in a wide smile. "Well! That is interesting. It seems I've missed quite a bit while I've been gone." She peered at the rest of them. "Hm. I'd wondered what brought the four of you all the way from Beacon."

Blake's ears flattened. "How do you know we're from Beacon?"

"I do get the news, you know." Maria got ahead of them as they stood there staring at her, and beckoned impatiently for them to keep up. "Too much of it, lately. I almost put off taking the trip up here until next year."

Weiss cringed. "We've... seen a little."

"Mm. Well, here it is—let's hurry up and get out of the cold."

The building Maria ducked inside looked just as shabby and run-down as everything else on the street. One window was duct-taped around the edges, as if to contain a persistent draft. It was strange to try to reconcile this place with the man who must have worked with millions, maybe even billions of lien to make Penny. Then again, this practice probably wasn't funded by the military.

Weiss hesitated in front of the open door as the stinging smell of antiseptic set her heart racing. But her appointment was in only a few minutes—she didn't want to dawdle too long and cut into Maria's time, especially since it sounded like she'd also traveled from another kingdom just to see Doctor Polendina. So she stepped inside, wings hunched around her shoulders, and found herself in a cluttered office. Part of it was cordoned off by a curtain that ran from floor to ceiling.

"Ow," said a child's voice from behind it.

"Only one more left," someone else replied. Then, louder, "Just a moment! We're nearly done here."

After a moment, a woman with long red hair and fox ears stepped out from behind the curtain with a little boy on her hip. It wasn't hard to guess why they were here—there was a large bandage on his calf that looked new. He blinked a few times, then pointed at Ruby. "Your nose is all red."

"Heh, yeah..." She rubbed the back of her neck. "I sorta fell—oh! You should be careful, actually, if you're going south. There's a heater down and ice all over the road."

"Gods damn it," his mother blurted, then winced and covered her son's ears, much too late. "Sorry. That's been happening a lot lately. It's how his leg got cut." She smiled at Ruby. "Thanks for the warning."

She walked out the door. There was a shuffling sound, and the click and whir of Doctor Polendina's chair stepping out into the main office. "Penny, you made it! It's so good to see you." He put a hand on her shoulder and beamed at the rest of them. "I don't think we've met. At least not officially." He coughed into his fist. "But I believe I've had the honor of being carried out of a burning building, Miss Xiao Long?"

"Nice to see you when things aren't on fire, I guess," she said, grinning and shaking his hand. "And Yang's fine."

He chuckled, then turned and extended his hand again. "And Ruby Rose, of course. I've been hearing quite a bit about you!"

"Oh! Uh, cool!" Ruby scuffed her boot on the floor, flustered.

Blake stepped forward to introduce herself, and got a bit more than she bargained for when he grabbed her hand to shake, too. Then, at last, he turned to Weiss—who hadn't managed to move since he'd come out from behind the curtain. "Weiss Schnee. The one with the appointment, yes?"

She nodded, feeling vaguely nauseous.

"Very good, very good—" His brow furrowed as he turned to look at Maria. "And, ah...?"

"Cybernetic optical implants?" she prompted. Recognition finally dawned.

"Oh, yes, of course!" He chuckled again and started puttering about at his desk. "My, has it been that long already? The years keep getting away from me." A light frown passed across his face, deepening the laugh lines around his mouth. "I'm sorry to say you haven't come at the best time. We ought to get started, now the pleasantries are out of the way—I'm sure I'll have more walk-ins by the time we're finished. We've been very busy, lately. Very busy." He pushed his glasses a bit higher up his nose, took a deep breath, and marched his chair towards the curtained-off examination area. "Right this way, if you wouldn't mind."

Weiss hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at the others. "Can they, um...?"

"Hm?" Doctor Polendina blinked at her for a moment, before he seemed to realize what she was asking. "Oh, you can bring whoever you like back here. We only have the curtain for privacy's sake."

They left Maria on the other side of the curtain and moved to the back. The hospital smell was stronger here. Weiss boosted herself up onto the examining table, the thin paper mat crinkling under her weight. Her wings kept twitching as though they couldn't decide whether to curl over her shoulders and hide her, or flare out wide as a warning.

Doctor Polendina pulled on a pair of latex gloves with a snap that made her jump. "Penny tells me you wanted your wings looked at. Is that right?"

"Yes."

He reached out, and she flinched.

"Don't—I mean—couldn't you warn me first?"

"Ah, yes, of course!" He approached again, this time more slowly. "May I?" He held out a hand, and let her place the wing into it. Her feathers stood on end. But his skin was warm even through his gloves, and he was gentle as he lifted the wing until it was fully extended. Then he hummed and asked her to flex her joints. His frown deepened.

"I've been trying to exercise them more, recently," she told him nervously, though he hadn't said anything. "I suppose... I've been wondering what I could do to help them support my weight in the air. Or if that's even possible."

"Well, you've done a fine job, but I'm afraid there's still some atrophy. It'll take time as well as exercise to bring all your strength back. And good nutrition, of course! Beyond that, I can't tell you anything for sure." He moved over to a file cabinet and withdrew a sheaf of papers. She felt an odd pang when she recognized his anatomical sketches. "I doubt we can do anything for these bones, here." He traced the arc of the longest part of her wings, which had grown in slightly curved. "At your age they'll have finished growing."

"Oh." She swallowed hard. "But..."

"That doesn't mean we're out of options." He flashed her a beaming smile, and looked so much like his daughter as he did that she was convinced he'd managed to pass it down somehow, even though Penny didn't have genes. "We can still work on these joints. I'll need a few x-rays first, to get a better idea of what's going on."

She fidgeted through the whole process, which made it far more difficult and time-consuming than it needed to be. Doctor Polendina never said a word about it. He chatted, with Penny especially but also with her teammates, and Weiss herself when she wasn't too busy keeping a wary eye on all his tools.

When the x-ray was finished, he told her he needed measurements. That was a little too familiar—she bristled, and asked if she couldn't handle those herself. It turned out she couldn't reach, but he agreed to walk Ruby through the process instead.

"Thank you," she said, as Ruby poked her tongue out and measured the distance from one joint to the next. Even now she couldn't seem to stop tensing every time he moved, and he'd been so overtly friendly that it was making her feel ridiculous. "For, well, all of this."

"It's no trouble at all." His smile faded a little. "This isn't the first time I've had a patient who gets a little jumpy in hospitals and the like." He took a deep breath and glanced over Ruby's shoulder. "I think we're nearly finished."

"Pietro!"

Everyone in the office jumped. Weiss flinched so badly that one of her wings knocked a rack of tools off the wall and sent them clattering to the floor. The voice had come from outside, and seconds later the door banged open. Yang ripped the curtain aside to reveal a tall dark-skinned Huntress carrying a limp body over the threshold.

"My word!" Doctor Polendina rushed forward, gesturing frantically towards the examining table. Weiss caught a glimpse of the man in her arms—pale-faced, glassy-eyed, blood matting his hair and the shaggy brown fur on his bear's ears.

"What happened?" Ruby demanded. "Did a Grimm get in, or—"

"Nope." The Huntress set her burden down gently, nodded to Doctor Polendina, then turned and headed for the door.

"I'm sorry to cut your appointment short," he told Weiss, though his focus never left the man on the table. "We were nearly done—just send Penny the circumference of the join between wing and back, and I'll get to it as soon as I can." Penny was already at his side, keeping pressure on the wound while he rummaged through a cabinet.

Weiss thanked him one more time before she took off after the Huntress, her team right beside her. The last she saw of his little clinic was Maria rushing over to another cabinet to hand him more supplies.

"What's going on?" Ruby shouted after the Huntress.

She did a double-take, as if startled that they'd followed her. "Not sure. Gus called us about someone skulking around in the Crater. He was knocked out when we found him, and someone took off running." Then, as they whirled around a corner, "Skate!"

Before any of them could ask what on Remnant that was supposed to mean, the Huntress had already jumped. She crouched as she landed, so that she could keep her balance while she slid across a patch of ice. They did their best to mimic her. Weiss had to pump her wings a few times to correct her balance before she reached the edge of the ice and took off running again.

A hooded figure darted across an intersection several blocks away. Seconds later another much smaller figure went tearing after it, shouting, "Get back here, you little shit!"

Weiss caught a glimpse of something tucked into the hooded figure's sleeve. Something that glowed a ruddy red. "Stop!" she cried out. "There's fire Dust, it's going to—"

The runner flung out an arm, and a Dust canister went sailing into the air, trailing twin severed wires. Ruby burst into motion. A red blur smashed into the pursuer, knocking them both into a wall half a block from where they'd been standing just before the canister exploded. A massive burst of flame left a crater from sidewalk to sidewalk.

Weiss got her first good look at the pursuer when she pushed herself up onto her elbows, sheep's ears folding back as she sighted down the length of a crossbow-staff and fired. The bolt struck the hooded coat and pinned it to the ground, neatly clotheslining its owner. They went down with a grunt and started struggling to pull it out.

"Fi!" The first Huntress skidded to a stop beside Ruby and what had to be her teammate. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine!" She struggled to her feet with a wince. "Help me grab him!"

Her teammate caught him by the scruff and yanked him into the air, sending the crossbow bolt skittering across the street. She dragged him kicking and squirming over to the rest of the group, where he eventually gave up and hung limp from her hand. A lock of his brown hair flopped down onto his forehead, and he glared at them through square-framed glasses. His plain clothes screamed civilian.

"So," said Fi. "Want to explain why you were running away from an unconscious man? And why you threw a bomb at me?"

"Um." Ruby held up a piece of twisted metal. "I don't think this is a bomb? It has the SDC snowflake on it."

Weiss glanced over her shoulder and sucked in a breath. "That's a power source. Probably from one of the heaters."

"Which means there's another broken one." Fi heaved a sigh. "I'll go set up signs. Joanna, can you handle him?"

"Yeah."

"Hey!" The man started squirming again. "What's that mean? You're not military, you can't arrest me!"

"You're right," Joanna agreed. "Maybe I should bring you to the cops so we can have a chat about you trying to blow up my teammate."

He paled. "Wait, no—"

"Or we can talk about why you're stealing the Dust out of heaters," she went on, voice still perfectly level. "And keep that part between us. Your choice."

Scowling, he folded his arms across his chest. "Fine."

Joanna set him on his feet, her grip on his collar never loosening. "Come on, then." She glanced over her shoulder at them. "We appreciate the help."

"Wait!" Ruby darted in front of her, scattering rose petals everywhere. "Someone's sabotaging the heating grid? Can't we do more to help? I mean—" She winced, glancing at Weiss. "I guess... we might not have a lot of time before we have to go back to Vale..."

Weiss rolled her eyes. It would kill Ruby to leave this alone—and she wasn't too keen on the idea herself. "We'll help," she decided.

Joanna shrugged and jerked her head down the street. "Follow me, then."

"Hey! Hey!" The man she was dragging tried to dig in his heels and stumbled. "Where are you taking me?"

She glared down at him, hard enough to make him cringe. "I'm sure Robyn would love to know why so many heaters up and died all at once, and only in the crater."

"Robyn? As in Hill?" Weiss' eyebrows shot up. "The one who's running against my father?"

Joanna gave her a searching look. "That going to be a problem?"

"No," Weiss lied. "Not at all."

It was about to be someone's problem.