They built a makeshift stretcher for the pilot, crammed as many supplies as they could into a single case, and brought both through Raven's next portal.

Raven was not pleased by that. "You said you were just going back for some supplies," she charged.

"Qrow was fending off grimm all day," Summer replied. "It drained him dry. I'm not going to let us be separated. I'm not going to leave him like that."

"We talked about this," said Raven weakly. "We talked about how much this'd slow us down."

"Then we'll go slow," said Summer. "And if the grimm come for him and the pilot like they did today, we'll face them together. Our fates will all be the same."

Raven's face was full of conflict at those words, and she could muster no coherent response. Instead she turned around to hide her face and raised her scroll. She pulled up the team's Aura readouts as if to confirm Summer's words about Qrow. What she saw set her off like a bomb. "Your Aura broke?!"

Summer sighed.

"You were at 70% when you went to visit Qrow," said Raven furiously. "What happened?!"

Summer looked at the pilot. Qrow could see the pilot had passed out, though from exhaustion or pure terror he couldn't tell. The sight seemed to bolster Summer's resolve, and even as her expression turned sheepish her posture firmed up.

"When we first met, and I said I didn't have a semblance, I wasn't totally truthful," said Summer.

No one dared speak.

Raven had used the time waiting for her team's return to clear the area for small campfire. Summer sat close and looked deep into the heart of the fire. The firelight flickered in her silver eyes. "You know how we all use our Aura to buff our strength and speed, right?" said Summer. "We move faster, jump higher, and hit harder than normal people because our Aura amplifies our physiques."

Qrow nodded. Everyone knew that. Aura was the strongest steroid on Remnant.

"But there's only so much you can add at a time," Summer continued. "You can only be so much stronger, so much faster, so much more agile. We all have limits to how much Aura we can push into a single jump or swing or sprint.

"We all do… except for me."

Qrow felt like he'd forgotten how to breathe.

"My semblance," she said more quietly than ever, "isn't an extra power or passive effect like most. My semblance is Burnout. I have no limit on how much Aura I can use to buff my feats. I can put as much Aura as I want into each move."

She looked up at Qrow wryly. "If I get carried away... I can burn all of it all at once."

Like jumping five times her height while swinging hard enough to slice through ancient grimm armor to cut Qrow free in under a microsecond.

He shivered.

"That's awesome," said Taiyang. "Does that mean you can beat anyone in one hit? Trade all of your Aura for all of theirs?"

"There are diminishing returns," said Summer, shaking her head. "Another 10% Aura burned doesn't make me 10% stronger. It's less efficient the more power I use. And it's really hard for me to judge how much I'm using a moment. There's no dial or knob. It's all… emotions, feelings. 'Instinctive' is the wrong word because that implies that I know how to control it when I really don't."

She gave a small laugh. "We figured that out the first time I got into a fight after my Aura was unlocked. I was ten, I got angry, and without even realizing it I put my entire Aura into one punch. It broke the boy's jaw… and my Aura. And every bone in my hand."

"Every… no way!" said Taiyang. "Do you even know how many bones there are in the hand?!"

Summer's smile was a wretched thing. "Twenty-seven."

Taiyang gaped at her.

"So all those times you sparred," said Raven, "you weren't using your semblance at all. You really were operating at your bare minimum. It wasn't because you couldn't do more, it was because it would be dangerous for you to go harder."

"For me and the other person, yeah," said Summer. "My biggest goal has always been to raise my baseline, to find where I can be most efficient. The more that I can do without pushing and getting reckless, the harder I can go when it counts."

"But then—that one spar, with me—" Raven said in astonishment, "when you were so fast and strong and—and—"

Summer shrugged. "Maybe I was deciding you all were worth it? That it was worth… putting myself in danger, hurting myself maybe, for your sake?"

Raven turned away, and even in the firelight Qrow could make out a scorching blush on her cheeks, but Qrow couldn't tell and didn't care what that was about. He had been swept up by the enormity of Summer's words. "When it counts?" he repeated.

Summer nodded, still looking blankly into the fire.

"You blew your whole Aura in one shot to save me?"

Her eyes focused for the first time in a while and she gave him a small smile. "My Aura will come back," she said, "but there's only one Qrow. And I kinda want to keep you around."

Qrow's knees buckled. Overwhelmed, overcome, he collapsed into an ungainly sitting position. "You shouldn't," he muttered.

"What's that?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Raven frantically shaking her head. She knew where he was about to go with this and wanted to wave him off. Well, forget that. Summer had shared, and he'd once promised he would share with her back. "Turns out I have a semblance after all," he said.

Summer and Taiyang's faces whipped around, while Raven groaned and turned away.

"It's not something I do," Qrow said. "It's not something I turn on and off. I wish I could, gods I wish I could. Because me… I bring Misfortune."

His teammates' face scrunched up as they tried to process this. "Your semblance is bad luck?" said Taiyang, and Qrow could hear the skepticism in his voice.

Qrow, unable to bear their gazes, poked his finger into the dirt. "Did you notice I never once attended the game nights Team TRMC put together? Forget playing, I didn't even go?"

"I thought that was just you being antisocial."

"And the time you forced us to play that party video game, and fifteen minutes later you were saying it was the most cursed game you'd ever played?"

"That sort of thing happens, it doesn't mean…"

"And your favorite hat went in the laundry and got ruined?"

"That was just careless-"

"They why'd our ship crash?!" exploded Qrow.

Taiyang had no answer for that.

Qrow collapsed back into himself, feeling more despicable than ever. "Sometimes bad stuff happens to good people, sure. But not around me. Where I go, all the bad stuff happens. Everything that can go wrong does."

Taiyang gave one more shot at rallying. "It can't be going too wrong. We're the top team at Beacon!"

Qrow looked up at Summer, and Summer looked back at Qrow, and though they had different reasons for thinking this, Qrow knew their minds were as one.

"You wouldn't understand," said Qrow, "but us being the top team is the worst thing that could have happened."

"You're right," said Taiyang impatiently, "I don't understand. I'm glad you're talking about your semblance finally, but that's not all you're hiding. There's more, I can tell. I've put up with this for a while, for a long while, and I'm getting pretty sick of everyone but me playing I've-Got-a-Secret."

Summer must have seen Qrow's panic, because she shook her head. "Not tonight," she said. "It's been a long and stressful day, and plenty of secrets have come out already. We should focus on resting for now. We need to recharge our Auras, and we have a ways to go in the morning."

Every word she said was true, and also false. Because none of those reasons were the reason she was shooing everyone to bed now, at this time.

They were Team STRQ, after all. Hiding the truth was in their nature.


They were being hunted.

Qrow could feel it. He couldn't articulate why he felt that way, but it was a sure thing, he knew it to be. Someone was stalking Team STRQ.

And it was a someone, not a something. They were continuing to attract grimm, sure, but when the grimm came it was clumsily, without subtlety or restraint. This treacherous, nagging sensation wasn't the sense of the grimm coming after them. This was much more steady and methodical. That made it worse. Much worse.

"She's asleep again," said Taiyang from behind Qrow.

Qrow adjusted his grip on the stretcher the boys were carrying the pilot on. "Lucky her," he said.

"I wouldn't say she's lucky," said Taiyang. "I think she suffered some internal injuries. We need to get her proper medical attention as quick as we can."

"We're already moving as quick as we can," snarled Raven from ahead, where she and Summer were carrying the case with the team's remaining supplies. The case was getting lighter and therefore easier to carry as they went, but no one saw that as a good thing.

"At least with a river here we have a landmark," said Taiyang. Qrow supposed Taiyang had a point, because there was only the one river in the area. As long as they followed it, they couldn't get too lost.

The klicks crawled by as the four of them trudged through the thick forest. The river had mercifully few bends or winds that would cost them time, and they were getting a better sense of how far they were from their goal. It wouldn't be comfortable, but they thought they had just enough supplies to get there safely.

Even having to stop every couple of hours to stomp out some grimm wasn't too bad, and honestly was better than Qrow would have expected, given Qrow.

But the feeling was getting worse, and Qrow found himself wishing that whoever was following them would give up and go home or attack and get it over with.

"We're going to angle to the right some, that should let us cut across the bend here," Raven was saying from her position in front.

"I think that's…" Summer started, but Qrow hushed her.

"Listen," he said. The four of them went still and silent. Qrow thought he could barely hear something… something distant, but ominous.

"What is it?" said Taiyang.

Had the noise stopped? Had Qrow been imagining it because he was so on-edge? As the seconds ticked by he heard nothing more, so he started to suspect the latter. Ugh, could he just stop being Qrow for a while? Just a couple of hours?

He was choking down his pride to admit this when he heard it again: closer, more distinct, and loud enough this time to where the others visibly reacted to it.

The baying of a hunting dog.

The river was to their North, and a rare bend took it to the southeast before returning to its easterly course. This baying was coming from their west, from the way they had come.

"Maybe it's just a local hunter," said Taiyang vainly.

A second dog began to bay, to their southeast, from the direction they were hoping to go. With the river blocking them to their North, they were being hemmed in to the bend. Trapped, like any hunter would do to its prey.

"I think we're the ones being hunted," said Qrow.

"Well, we can't outrun them, whatever they are," said Summer. "Let's hunker down and see what's coming, see if we can have a talk with whoever this is."

"And if they don't want to talk?" said Raven.

"That's why we need to be in a defensible position," said Summer grimly. "It'll help if we're not carrying a person and the last of our ammo."

The team changed course through the underbrush towards the river, finally stopping near some sharp edges that led down to the bank. Visibility was good enough here, the trees tall enough to keep the underbrush under control and make it so the tree trunks themselves were the only real blockers of line of sight for some distance. The placed their pilot's stretcher behind them for protection, while Summer emptied their carrying case of ammo, stacking that behind them too, and then using the case as a firing position for her rifle.

All the while, the dogs were getting louder, their calls more frequent, like they were getting caught up in the chase and closing on their prey. Qrow knew with increasing certainty that they were the prey. Each bay of the hounds sounded like the ticking of a doomsday clock, counting down the time before the end.

They saw and heard evidence of the dogs before they saw the dogs themselves. Their howls were full of excitement now, closer and closer together, shorter in length as the dogs needed to howl while running. All the team members readied their weapons, wondering what would come next.

Brush rustled, very close now, and two large shapes careened through the forest before them until at last two brown dogs burst out of cover. They were large dogs, coming up to Summer's waist at the shoulder and probably weighing more than she did. The dogs didn't charge the team, but stood at an almost respectful distance, close enough that they could launch an attack with a single bound and lunge. All of STRQ had their weapons at the ready, but hesitated to fire, unsure what the dogs would do next.

"Well I'll be," said a voice. It sounded to Qrow like it was coming, absurdly, from both dogs at once. "I thought I was just dealing with some brats, but you're a real prize. Didja know that?"

Qrow looked again. The dogs were wearing collars, and Qrow thought he saw some small speakers attached there.

"Who are you?" demanded Summer.

"I'm a professional hunter," came the reply. "Naw, not a huntsman, none of that nonsense. I follow the old ways. I'm a man-hunter."

"What do you want from us?" said Summer.

"Well, that's the trick, you see? My orders were to pick y'all off and put you in distress to draw out the Huntsman in that village over yonder. Then I could hunt him proper. 'Course, that was before I knew who y'all were. So I'm gonna mix up my mission a bit.

"Listen up, you three. Gimme the silver-eyes girl, and I'll let you go."

Qrow couldn't help it any more than Taiyang or Raven. All three of them looked to Summer. Summer's eyes had widened and she looked close to panicking.

"What do you want with Summer?" Raven demanded.

"There's a spicy bounty up for silver-eyed folk. Easy double what I could get for that Huntsman. To collect, though, ya need proof. I figure bringin' in her head's good enough. You can have the rest of 'er back, if you want."

Hate boiled up in Qrow. "Over my dead body," he growled.

"Suit yourself," was the reply. "Just figured I'd give you a chance, save some trouble. Oh, that reminds me. Y'all ever been shot with lasers before?"

Almost before the words had cleared Qrow's brain, Qrow felt an intense heat against his chest, felt his Aura surging to protect him. He yelped in alarm and turned Harbinger so its broad flat would protect him.

The same instant, there was a sharp whistle, and the dogs surged forward—along with two more that had approached, unseen, as STRQ's stalker had yammered on.

The closest got to Taiyang first. Taiyang raised a gauntlet, and the dog bit down on it, tying the two together. The next came for Raven, who kicked it mercilessly—only for the dog to shrug off the blow with a shimmer along its side.

"They've got Aura!" Raven cried as the dog sprang at her again.

Two more went for Qrow, and he found himself swiping at them to less effect than he'd hoped. Aura made them fast, Aura made them tough, and they didn't have the mindless aggression of a grimm. They were hunting dogs, after all, and they were trained to bait and wear down large game.

Even so… they were dogs, against humans with weapons. A dog whimpered as Raven kicked it hard enough to flip it over, and Qrow changed Harbinger to scythe form in time to nail another that had thought itself safe, and as Taiyang went to pulverize his dog—

-he screamed a curse and dropped.

Raven screamed, "Tai!" But the next second she was grunting in pain, bobbing and weaving and trying to block an unseen attack from an unseen attacker, and before she knew it a dog was snapping at her again.

Qrow wasn't science-minded, but he loved weapons enough to understand. Atlas had debuted a number of ships and drones with weapons that people called lasers—but those weren't lasers, they were particle beams. True lasers couldn't be seen.

They were also, compared to normal guns, bulky, clumsy, and small in caliber. They were nearly useless against grimm, not being strong or high-caliber enough to cut through those monsters' bulk and deal crippling damage. Only massive trauma made grimm stop, and lasers couldn't reliably deliver that to grimm.

But a human being was not a grimm. Much smaller, much squishier. A Huntsman—or even a trainee on STRQ's level—could deflect bullets with their weaponry. No Huntsman was faster than light.

Qrow whirled around again as the dogs came for him, snapping and thrashing. They needed someone trying to hunt this joker down, someone chasing him—they needed Summer on that, or at least Summer freeing up Raven to do that—

"Summer!" shouted Qrow.

He chanced a glance at her. One of her hands had gripped her rose emblem and clenched so hard around it she was drawing blood.

That's when the laser found their ammo pile.

The blast shook all of Qrow's senses at once and knocked him flat. For long seconds, Qrow couldn't do anything but cough and groan and clench his eyes against the haze and hot air of the blast. All he could hear over the ringing in his head was coughing and scuffling around as people tried to regain their footing.

Then there was a scream. Summer's scream. Qrow forced himself to his feet, drawn by her distress and determined to come to her aid, but there was a thumping and rolling by his feet, and then a second explosion sent him reeling all over again.

On his hands and knees he crawled out of the worst dust, coughing up a lung as he went. As he tried to blink his eyes free of dust and grime, he heard hacking coughs on his left from Taiyang, and saw a disheveled Raven stumbling free to his right.

No sign of Summer.

Energized once again, Qrow surged to his feet and rushed back into the blast zone. It was beginning to clear just a little, which let him take in several important details.

First, their ammo supply was vaporized.

Second, their pilot, after all the effort made to keep her safe, was dead.

Third, Summer was gone. Only her weapon remained.

Qrow bent to take it up. He knew how taboo it was to handle a Huntress' weapon without her permission, but he was doing so with every intention of returning it to her, so he was pretty sure he would be allowed. Solstice felt like it agreed. It still felt foreign under his fingers, the sense of other was strong with it, but it didn't make him feel sick, didn't feel like it was fighting to free itself.

He walked out of the haze to Raven and Taiyang again. Holding up Solstice told them everything.

"No," wailed Taiyang. "No no no, not Summer!"

Raven said nothing, but had gone completely bloodless and absolutely still.

They were all thinking the same thing. This man-hunter had promised to kill Summer, and he was probably looking for the right spot to do just that, now that he had her separated from her team. They'd never see her again.

"Can we track her?" said Taiyang in desperation.

"Track her how?" said Qrow. "I never saw this clown, and I don't think you did either. Don't know how they got in or out, either."

"The dogs all went in different directions," said Raven. "The hunter scattered them to cover his true path."

"We can't give up on her!" said Taiyang, eyes full of panic.

Qrow wasn't panicking. He had clarity. He looked at Raven with no fear. "Open a portal," he said.

Raven swallowed, but said nothing.

"A portal?" said Taiyang. "What good would that do? You're right in front of her!"

"Raven isn't just connected to me," said Qrow. "Her semblance gives her an anchor to anyone she's emotionally close to. That's me, sure. But she has a portal to you, too. Don't you, Raven?"

Raven started, looking for all the world like a rodent ready to bolt for cover, or a bird too scared to fly. "No," she said, "no, I can't… It's not like that, not with… not with them!"

"Bullshit," said Qrow. "I'm done with your emotional constipation. Open a portal to Taiyang, right now!"

Raven looked like she would rather jump off a cliff. From behind Qrow, Taiyang spoke up. "Rae," he said quietly, "if that's how it works, I know you can do it. If you feel even half for me what I feel for you… then you can do it."

Raven's eyes darted back and forth from Qrow to Taiyang, from Taiyang to Qrow. Raven was often a foreign country to Qrow, but at that moment he knew exactly where she was, knew how much she would struggle to admit this basic fact, because admitting she had portals to Taiyang and Summer would be admitting she'd gotten more attached than she'd ever wanted, that she'd let them in.

But every second took Summer further away from them, and Qrow was out of time to wait for Raven to grow up. "Raven!" he hissed.

She twirled away from him, and for a long moment he thought she was going to flee. But then she drew her sword and in one motion slashed through the air. A fissure in reality opened next to her head.

Qrow heard another one opening behind him, too far for him to be the anchor for it. No, she was using Taiyang.

"Woah," said Taiyang in awe. "I love you too, Raven."

"Shut up!" Raven said, turning in her fury and no longer able to hide the tears on her face. "Just shut up!"

"And you've got one for Summer too, don't you?" said Qrow.

"I… can feel the anchor," said Raven, though it looked like it took all her strength to say it. "I can do it."

"Then we can still save her," said Qrow. "We can still save Summer."

"That man-hunter wrecked us and we never even saw him," said Raven. "Do you think we can win?"

"I know we can," said Taiyang, moving up alongside Qrow.

Raven looked for a moment longer, as if waiting for either of them to show weakness or doubt, but when they didn't, she wiped her eyes dry gathered herself. "They're on the move," she said. "Even with her captured, he still has to stop and work at it to break her Aura. The moment he stops, I'll open the portal."

Taiyang smashed his gauntlets together. "Ready."

Qrow put Solstice on his back stow and transitioned Harbinger from sword to scythe, losing defense but gaining reach, a symbolic gesture that said it all.

"Okay," said Raven, and she closed her eyes.

Qrow couldn't see or feel what Raven was seeing and feeling. He had no way to know how accurate his sister's sense of their teammate was. For all he knew, Summer was already dead and Raven was playacting under peer pressure.

No. He had more faith than that. Faith in his sister, faith in Summer. His cynicism ended with them. He believed in them more than he'd ever believed in himself.

So he waited, never letting his readiness slip, not even for a second, so that the instant the portal opened he'd be through it.

Raven's eyes snapped open. Her sword hand sliced the air. Space and time split apart.

Qrow was through in the span of a heartbeat.

He came out almost on top of a heavily built man with burly arms and camouflage gear. There was barely time for him to register surprise before Qrow was running into him. Qrow didn't try to pull up or dodge; instead he leaned into it and body checked this new enemy.

For as much as the hunter was caught off guard, his instincts were razor sharp, and even as they fell he pulled a leg between them to catapult Qrow off as they landed. Qrow's world spun and kept spinning even when he stopped.

Qrow, gasping, rolled over, trying to get to his feet. The hunter had gotten there first and grabbed at his laser—but he didn't aim it at Qrow. He whirled instead as Taiyang barreled through the portal like a wrecking ball.

The laser fired, and this time Qrow could see it marking against Taiyang's chest, it should have burned a gaping hole in his Aura and maybe his chest—but Qrow had seen the shimmer of Taiyang's semblance activate first. Immolation made him immune to heat transfer, and lasers did all their damage by heating the target.

Instead of suffering any ill-effects, Taiyang closed on the hunter and punched the weapon clean out of his hands in a burst of flame.

Once more, the hunter reacted brilliantly to a change in circumstance. Instead of looking after the laser as it flew away or lunging to regain it, he let it go and spent the time drawing knives from his belt—hefty, broad-bladed ones, the sort that can be used as tools as easily as weapons.

Taiyang pressed his attack, certain he had the edge having disarmed his foe, only to see his Aura spark beneath lightning-fast slashes from every direction. Taiyang, stung, fell back—

-and Raven darted in from the side, face twisted in a snarl.

Even as the hunter went to block her vicious assault, Qrow reentered the fray, scythe twirling faster than a drum major's baton.

And hitting nothing.

For as thickly built as the man was, he moved like a mongoose, like a dancer, like liquid—darting speed and consummate grace, causing attack after attack to slip wide before retaliating viciously. He out-skilled them, badly; prodigies they might have been, but he was older, more practiced, and vastly more experienced. He clearly knew everything there was to know about pushing his Aura to its limits, and no attack they threw at him seemed to surprise him at all.

He was faster than them, stronger than them, fought dirtier than them, and reacted more quickly than they could act in the first place. He punished them, taking chunks from their Auras with knives and hands and feet.

And yet… they punished him right back, tearing away at him with terrible fury. There was a reason he'd kept them at long range before, and why he'd separated Summer from them to not have to fight them all at once. For as many advantages as the hunter held, it was still three on one, STRQ had been operating as a team for three years, and they were all fired with desperate determination to save who they loved.

The thought burst through Qrow's brain like a firework without leaving any room for doubt. Then it was gone again, a victim of the moment, as the hunter slipped around a swing of Harbinger-scythe and closed inside Qrow's guard.

Qrow had learned from fighting Taiyang, though; instead of being a victim of his larger weapon, he swept out with a kick. The hunter hurdled the kick and sent Qrow sprawling; the knives were lifted to plunge down—

-but a blast of fire from Taiyang, the last of his Burn Dust, knocked the hunter off course and completely ruined his vision.

Qrow scrambled away in time; the hunter let him go, turning to deal with Taiyang, only for Raven to meet him mid-way with a new yellow blade locked into Omen, and when he raised a knife to block her swing, he yelled in pain as Lightning Dust discharged into him. His spasming hand dropped the knife, breaking the connection…

But that left the hunter a free hand, and that hand whipped to his belt, before Qrow could really register what it was gathering—

Another explosion, this bomb packed with smoke to obscure as much as it damaged. Raven expended a Wind Dust blade to clear it out—and froze.

The hunter still had one knife, after all, and that knife was pressed against Summer's neck as he held her in front of him.

There was no way for them to know how much Aura Summer had left. No way to judge how long it would hold against that blade if the hunter pressed.

Summer, for her part, was stiff in his grip, her arms wrapped in gravity-Dust bolas, the good ones they'd read about that Atlas was so proud of, enough to immobilize even the strongest Huntresses.

"Hold up right there," the hunter hissed at them. "You don't want nothing to happen to her pretty little head, now do ya?"

"You want to kill her anyway," Raven spat.

"Sure do, but the question is, are you willing to let me?" the hunter said. "D'you want it to be your fault my hand slipped and pushed this knife through this soft skin of hers?"

Raven vibrated in place, furious enough to melt steel with her eyes, and the hunter met her with cool, if winded, control.

Qrow wasn't looking at either of them. His eyes wandered to what mattered. They wandered to Summer.

Summer's eyes were open in terror, but they were drawn to his. For a moment, there was a connection.

For a moment, they understood.

It wasn't about how much Aura Summer had left. It was how much she'd regained as the battle had gone on.

How much she had available for this moment, now.

"So what's gonna happen here," the hunter said as he started to backpedal, "is we're gonna slide out nice and easy…"

Misfortune had no trigger. It had no control. It just was.

But Qrow had learned a little from living with it for so long. He'd learned that it was stronger or weaker depending on his Aura. It was off completely when his Aura was broken; it was at maximum power when his Aura was, too.

So Qrow, even while not moving, was still attacking the hunter, because he was cycling his Aura through his body faster and faster, concentrating and summoning it up into his body until his muscles ached from containing it, throwing it forth into his shields until they visibly glimmered.

Burning it out of him.

Just like Summer.

Summer took a deep breath and jerked her arms—and the bolas tore, rent apart by a burst of strength the designers hadn't thought possible. She jerked in the hunter's arms; his knife lifted from her throat at the jolt.

Instinctively he stabbed back, but he couldn't see what he was doing at that angle, and, for the first time all fight, his aim was false. Just a slight slip of the pinkie, but it was enough: the knife, instead of plunging into Summer's throat, glanced off the side of it and stuck into the hunter's own chest.

Yelping at the impact against a shimmering Aura, he pulled the knife away, dropping Summer—and Summer darted away and tumbled safely out of his grasp, Aura flickering dangerously.

The hunter stumbled backwards, dropping his knife, but seeing his laser close by. He made a lunge for it. Taiyang met him, a full-blooded haymaker rounding at the hunter, who raised the laser to deflect the blow before kicking Taiyang away from him.

It worked, but also didn't. Qrow, his own body draped over Summer to protect her, could see the laser was damaged, sparking in the hunter's hands as the hunter raised it at Summer one last time.

With it damaged and firmly in Misfortune's grip, this could have only one result.

Taiyang knew it, too. "Don't try it," he said to the hunter.

"I gotta try," the hunter said grimly.

"You said this was for a bounty," Taiyang said. "What's the point of money if you're not alive to collect it?"

"The money's only half of it," said the hunter, and his cool was vanishing. His eyes had widened and dilated, like he had white marbles in his sockets. "An' not the half that matters. I have orders, y'see."

None of Team STRQ could respond to that, none of them understood—but Summer seemed to curl up a little more beneath Qrow's aegis.

The hunter noticed. "Y'all don't get it, do ya?" he said, and there was a hint of insane laughter in his voice, like it was crazy he knew something that they didn't. He looked at Summer. "You don't even know why I'm after ya."

"Doesn't matter now," said Raven fiercely. "You've failed."

The hunter's eyes were wider than ever, his expression more manic still. "You don't just fail The Witch," he breathed.

His gaze locked on Summer.

Qrow stared back with all the hatred—and Aura—he could muster.

The hunter pulled the trigger.

His weapon misfired.

His head vanished in a blaze of fire.


Two days later, exhausted, wounded, half-starved, and completely out of ammo and Aura, Team STRQ stumbled into their assigned village.

Their Huntsman was shocked at all they told him, more shocked when they showed the pictures they'd taken of their attacker. They were gruesome to look at, but Raven had the stomach for that sort of thing, and had taken care to capture as many potentially identifying details as possible.

They'd looked for a wallet or any form of identification, but, unluckily, hadn't found one.

The Huntsman handed them off to the village doctor for treatment while he stepped outside "to make a call to the Headmaster".

Team STRQ didn't think much of that at the moment. Their perspective changed four hours later, when a new airship appeared at the village bearing Beacon heraldry.

Three and a half hours after that, the members of STRQ were back at Beacon.


"Your attacker has been identified," said Professor Ozpin. He was on one side of the desk; STRQ was on the other. They were cleaned up but, somehow, even more exhausted, having not gotten a chance to rest beyond some stolen shuteye onboard the airship, except for Qrow, who didn't dare sleep because he was sure his semblance would crash this airship too if he gave up his self-control for even a microsecond…

They were a mess.

More than usual, even.

And Ozpin had still pulled them up to his office the moment they landed for a personal debrief.

"Cypress Jackson, professional alias 'Graz the Hunter'," Ozpin recited as his scroll displayed a picture and a bio. The picture was almost a perfect match for their attacker, aside from not having half his face melted off. "Wanted in three Kingdoms and five municipalities for various severe crimes, most prominently murder. Known to have killed four Huntsmen, person of interest in the deaths of seven more."

Summer squirmed at the sight, and Qrow felt anger surging up within him. That was the last picture he wanted to see right now, for Summer's sake as much as his own.

Ozpin, seeming to recognize this, sighed. "I understand this isn't easy. I wish there were a way to spare Miss Rose's feelings. If I thought it would help to delay and put this interview off, I would. But it's vital we get this memory out now, while it's fresh, before it gets blurred by distance and colored by hindsight. I need to know everything that happened on this mission, as best as you remember it."

Qrow was taken aback by the earnestness of the request. For as much as Ozpin's words could have been heard as an order, they were at least as much a plea, a petition that they treat this incident as seriously as he did.

Qrow wasn't sure how much more seriously he could have taken it.

Still…

He might have wanted to talk about it, but he also didn't. Everything about it had fouled up, and more than a few secrets had come out during it, and he wasn't sure how to navigate all that.

Lacking understanding, lacking direction, he turned to Summer.

Only to discover the rest of his team had, too.

It was Summer, Qrow realized, who had the most at stake here. Graz had been after her, specifically—not at first, but by the time he engaged them. They still didn't know why.

Summer's usual impassivity held strong, even in this company. Qrow had no idea what she was thinking.

"On one condition," she said.

Ozpin raised an eyebrow in question.

Qrow was amazed at Summer's boldness, and he kept on being amazed when she spoke. "We'll answer your questions. At the end, we'll ask you one, and you'll answer it."

Ozpin went quiet, and for long moments the only sound was the meshing of giant gears above their heads. Qrow imagined the same was going on in Ozpin's head. The man's face still looked sympathetic and compassionate, but there was something calculating in his eyes. It was like he was trying to determine how much compassion he could afford, how to ration his sympathy.

"I can't answer every question," he said warningly. "There are things I don't know, and there are some things you don't want to know."

"I'll be the judge of that," Summer said.

Ozpin watched her another moment, and a new emotion flashed across his face. It was gone before Qrow could get a good read on it, but it had seemed almost like pity. There was no trace of it when he spoke, though. "Very well. Let's begin at mission start."


The debrief lasted, it felt to Qrow, longer than the mission. Maybe that was fatigue catching up with him. It felt like he didn't so much answer questions as let words ooze from his mouth.

Only Raven didn't speak much, except to chip in occasional corrections. The rest answered as best they could, as best they could remember. Ozpin had said this was the best their memories would be, and the thought terrified Qrow; if he was having trouble keeping things clear now, what would he remember about it later?

Ozpin didn't appear to have the same worry. He just watched and listened, not even taking notes. Qrow wasn't fooled. If there weren't two cameras and three microphones picking up everything they said or did, he'd eat Harbinger.

Step by step they walked him through, from the flight to the crash, from their splitting up to their reuniting, from the first sign they were being hunted to their final face-off with Graz.

Summer was speaking at that point, and, to Qrow's surprise, she didn't mention Graz's final words to them. She just said his weapon misfired and killed him—which was true—and left it there.

Ozpin must have suspected something. "Did he say anything first?" he pressed.

"I'll tell you in a minute," she said.

From there they told how they'd managed to get through the rest of their journey, but they were fading and Ozpin seemed far less interested in that part, so they went into less detail and he didn't ask them for more.

"That does seem quite harrowing," said Ozpin when it was over. "You all have a week off from classes to recuperate."

Seeing as they weren't supposed to have returned from their mission for another five days, this wasn't quite the blessing it could have been, but they greeted it with relief all the same.

"I am truly sorry you all had to go through that," said Ozpin, and he sounded sincere to Qrow. "If I'd thought someone as dangerous as Graz was in the area, I wouldn't have dared to send students there. As is, you survived a situation that would have killed licensed Huntsmen. You should be proud of yourselves."

The words were a campfire in Qrow's chest. They had done well, hadn't they?

"Now," he said, his eyes tracking over to focus on Summer, "you had a question for me, I believe."

She met his gaze evenly, as composed as ever—a feat, considering Qrow was tensing up in anticipation and he wasn't even the one saying anything.

She spoke.

"Who is The Witch?"

Ozpin's jaw fell a touch, and his eyes widened, and then all those reactions were smothered. His face closed. His eyes filled again with calculation, but this time with added urgency.

"Graz said, 'You don't just fail The Witch'," Summer went on, her silver eyes boring into Ozpin. "Who is that?"

Ozpin clasped his hands. "You may not want me to answer that question."

"I do," said Summer. "I really, really do. Because he said it was The Witch who had a bounty out for silver eyes."

Ozpin said nothing.

"This is why I barely knew my father, isn't it?" Summer said.

Ozpin said nothing.

"And why my mother moved us around like she couldn't stand to be in the same place, like she was… like she was running from something," Summer said with more heat than ever.

"Those things are all tied together, yes," said Ozpin at last, with barely any voice to the words.

"So answer the question," demanded Summer.

The moment stretched out. Qrow thought he'd forgotten how to breathe.

"You might not want me to," Ozpin said.

Summer sprang up from her chair with such force it clattered to the floor behind her. "I do, I swear I do!"

Ozpin wasn't cowed, and met her evenly. "I will give you eighteen hours," he said. "Eighteen hours to think about it, and a warning. If I answer your question, it will mean bringing you in to deep secrets. It will mean involving you in the greatest dangers this world has. It will make you marked for the rest of your lives. There is no escaping this fight once you're a part of it.

"I tell you this not to scare you, but to help you understand," Ozpin said. "If I answer your question fully and truthfully, it will impose demands upon you, obligations—not later, not when you graduate, not years from now, but right now. I won't have you stumbling into that. If you join this fight, it will be because you chose it. I won't have you making that choice under duress… or with compromised judgment."

He stood, not to threaten or exert authority but to announce the meeting's end. "Get some sleep. Decompress. Talk. Think. We will meet again in eighteen hours, and you will have the chance to either retract your question… or reiterate it.

"Goodnight, students."


How they managed to get back to the dorms, Qrow would never remember nor understand. It was just a blur of shuffling, smears of color, nothing hitting his brain. They might as well have teleported there.

Somehow, some way, they managed to keep it together until they got into their room. Summer led the way, and she walked almost to the other side of the room, like she was trying to put some distance behind her—or between her and them.

Qrow's chest squeezed.

Her head was bowed and her back bent forwards, like she was collapsing in on herself, like some invisible weight was pulling her down and she couldn't bear it.

"You don't have to come."

Qrow could barely hear the words. He could tell Summer could barely stand to say them.

Taiyang apparently couldn't. "What?"

"You don't have to come," she repeated with no more energy or volume, still facing away, still… still hiding. "Whatever this deep, dark secret is that Professor Ozpin has, you don't have to be a part of it. You can stay out. You don't have to be involved. You can stay safe, stay in school, do whatever you want with your lives. It can just be me that goes. That gets involved."

In a voice so small and fragile it broke Qrow's heart, she added, "I'm used to that."

Even the idea of Summer facing this, any of this, alone… it cut Qrow to the quick. His feelings had never been more clear; his priorities had been permanently rearranged.

There was no way to say this with words, and those flimsy sounds could only get in the way. So he stepped forward instead.

Raven somehow got there first and pulled Summer into a fierce hug. But that didn't stop Qrow, nor Taiyang, who was right beside him. In a moment, Summer was wrapped up in the arms of her whole team.

Exhausted they were, burned out on fear and adrenaline and not enough sleep and soul-deep exhaustion, but if Ozpin had worried that this might compromise their judgment, he was wrong about that—at least as far as it concerned Summer Rose. Because Qrow knew, and knew his teammates knew as well, that they loved Summer far too much to have doubts about this now.

Summer went limp in their arms, sobbing, sobbing, and they held her tight and cocooned her in their arms to ward off her fears. The defenses she'd held up against them from the beginning, that concealed her fear and her past, were tumbling down, and her team rushed in like a flood in their wake. The worst of Summer Rose was visible now, and they embraced her all the same.


All the walls fell that night.

The twins confessed their real surname, Branwen, the bandit tribe of Mistral. They admitted to their mission even as Qrow swore that the mission didn't matter anymore, that a new and more important one had replaced it.

And Summer talked and talked, more than she'd ever talked before, the ball of secrets she'd been sitting on for so long finally unraveling with all force: about her silver-eyed father whom she barely remembered, and who wasn't in any active memory she had past age 10. About her mother, Ann Rose, who had moved Summer from home to home and continent to continent her entire childhood, as if petrified that something would catch up with them if they stayed put, who Summer remembered as being loving but full of fear, who taught Summer how to keep and hide secrets from before she understood the word.

She talked about how all that running and all that caution didn't keep her mother from not coming home one day, to be replaced instead by a man and a woman in combat gear who were willing to offer Summer a place at combat school on a scholarship reserved for orphans.

Finally, with all of them all talked out, they pushed their beds together and slept in a heap, wordlessly agreeing that none of them would let the others be alone, that no one in STRQ would stand for Summer to be alone and unguarded that night.

It would be poetic to say that their teammates' presence helped lull them all to deep and desperately-needed sleep. It would be a lie. They slept fitfully, with frequent starts and disturbances, with echoes of fear and pain pulling them back to consciousness again and again.

What the team pile did was help them get back to sleep—providing the reassurance needed to relax again, to understand that others who cared were around, that none of them were alone.

It made all the difference.


Eighteen hours later, fed, refreshed, patched up, but wary as a mouse in a rat trap factory, Team STRQ was once again in the headmaster's office.

Ozpin, ever patient, didn't rush into it. He looked at them over clasped hands, though what he was looking for Qrow couldn't tell.

And Summer, inscrutable and resolute as ever, looked unflinchingly right back.

"Have you decided, then?" said Ozpin.

"I'm in this whether I want to be or not," said Summer. "If I'm going to be hunted, I might as well know why."

Ozpin and shook his head. "That's not enough. It must be a positive choice, from you and your teammates."

Summer hesitated, and Qrow understood why. She was sure, he had no doubt of that; after what he'd heard about her father and mother last night, after what he'd seen from Graz, there was nothing she could be but in. But she wouldn't speak for her team. That was too far.

It wasn't too far for Qrow. He knew to the marrow of his bones that he wouldn't let Summer face this alone. If Raven wanted to take him to task about that later, so be it. Qrow was on familiar terms with suffering; a little more was a small price to pay.

"We want in," said Qrow. "We're in."

Ozpin's eyes, for the first time this meeting, tracked over to Qrow, and he gave an appreciative look. "That's a courageous decision. That sort of moral fiber will serve you well."

Qrow could distantly feel Raven's outrage at the generous compliments, but only distantly. Was this… someone seeing virtue in Qrow? True compliments were very nearly a foreign language to Qrow; words that spoke to his character and not just his performance at some task were alien.

Even as Qrow felt like he was floating, Summer seemed to draw strength from the exchange. "Qrow's right. We want in. We want to know."

Ozpin regarded them a bit more, silently, as if the only conversation he needed to have was going on inside his own head. It went on so long that Raven and Taiyang both started to squirm uncomfortably, and Qrow felt himself getting restless.

Had Ozpin heard them? Did he not believe them? Was he waiting for someone to panic or crack, or for the others to chime in as well?

Only Summer kept her eyes steadily on Ozpin with measured intensity.

Ozpin sighed, reached to an unseen part of his desk, and pulled out a tray. On the tray were five mugs that smelled strongly of cocoa.

"In the spirit of fellowship, take this," he said. "I have a lot to tell you, and this will help."

Qrow and Taiyang took their mugs, but made no efforts to raise them. Raven looked at hers with open distrust and turned away completely. Summer didn't move.

"It's better when it's hot," said Ozpin, as he himself settled back in his chair with a mug of his own, but when no one reacted he insisted no more. Instead he took a breath that felt like the opening of the gates of Hell.

"Have you ever heard the Story of the Seasons?"


The cocoa was stone cold.

On and on Ozpin had spoken, spoken of gods and relics, Maidens and academies, magic and curses and immortality. It seemed fantastic, impossible to believe, and Qrow could feel Raven's growing skepticism even more deeply than his own.

It was the discussion of silver eyes that piqued Summer's interest, and through her Qrow's. Because this part, at least, made perfect sense.

"So… this woman," Taiyang was saying.

"She's no woman," said Ozpin, "not like you understand women. You can call her the Queen of the Grimm, the Witch, or you can call her by her name of Salem, but she is no woman."

"This Salem, then," he said, perturbed at being thrown off track. "She can recruit human followers?"

"Yes," said Ozpin. "She is gifted at persuading people that her powers can meet their needs."

"But the grimm want to tear civilization down!" said Taiyang. "Who can take their side?"

"People who have no use for civilization," said Qrow. If even half the population of Mistral was scattered across the countryside instead of huddled behind the kingdom's walls, the Branwen Tribe would never want for prey. It made him wonder if Salem had ever tried to work with the Tribe before. If she hadn't, he was certain she would at some point.

Qrow felt sick.

"And she hunts silver eyes because they can stop her grimm?" Taiyang said.

"Yes," said Ozpin. "I believe that's the fate that befell Miss Rose's father. Her mother understood the risks, when Summer was born with silver eyes, and did what she could to mitigate that risk, if I understand her background properly."

Qrow silently agreed. All that moving around wasn't paranoia if someone actually was after her.

Summer's face suggested she understood this too.

"Is that why you surrounded Summer with the strongest students?" said Raven out of nowhere. Team STRQ's heads whipped around at her, but Ozpin sighed.

"You made this suggestion once before, and it's not any more true now. Need I remind you that you teleported to Qrow and met his eyes before anyone else even hit ground? How am I supposed to rig that?"

"By manipulating the trajectories of the cliffside launchers so that the four of us were in the same sector and everyone else was a klick or more away," Raven shot back. "I asked around about where people fell. We were meant to form a team, weren't we?"

Ozpin's voice was weary. "There are times when I can place a thumb on the scales of fate, but if it seems like I'm doing it all the time, you think more highly of me than I deserve. Believe what makes you feel better."

Raven huffed and turned away. Qrow thought she might have a point. It did seem a powerful coincidence that the three students most capable of defending Summer had all ended up on her team.

Except that Ozpin had misunderstood one thing. "If we're supposed to defend Summer as a group," said Qrow, "you messed up by placing me on the team."

"How so?" said Ozpin.

"My semblance, Misfortune," said Qrow. "Bad things happen to those around me. If you keep me around, Summer will never be safe."

"I disagree," said Summer with heat in her voice. It threw Qrow for a loop, even more so when Ozpin nodded in concurrence.

"Misfortune or no," said Ozpin, "Miss Rose will benefit from your presence far more than she would your absence."

"It's not benefitting her now," said Qrow. "The only reason we're in this office is because I crashed our airship."

"You believe that?" said Ozpin. "Well, I hadn't meant to get to this because we had more pressing topics at hand, but I have gotten reports from my man in the area. He says that the damage to your airship is consistent with attacks from a laser."

Qrow would have been less surprised if Ozpin had hit him in the face with a brick.

"Like I've been telling you!" said Taiyang. "Graz shot down our airship as part of his plan to draw out our Huntsman, it was never you at all!"

"The evidence certainly points that way," said Ozpin.

The feeling these words left was miraculous. Qrow felt lighter, freer than he ever had before. It was like someone who lived in a cave had finally stepped into the sun; like someone who'd been wearing chains was finally set free.

Qrow had difficulty following the rest of the conversation because of the distraction of the feeling, but he got the gist of it: now that Team STRQ knew what they knew, Ozpin would be bringing them into the war more directly. They would continue attending classes, of course; there were still new levels of power and understanding for them to reach within Beacon. But, as dangerous and high level as their advanced training had been, what came next would be even moreso.

Qrow was not afraid. He was excited. This was so much of a better life than banditry, than a shuffling-by of violent parasitism. This would let him do something meaningful for the sake of these people he cared about. That last thought stayed with him long after the interview ended, and made him ponder what it meant for the next few days.


Clarity came while the team was doing weapons maintenance. Summer was repositioning a small mirror to get a better look when it slipped from her fingers, tumbled from her workbench, and shattered on the floor.

Summer, probably without meaning to, glanced at Qrow.

It felt like a stab. Before, Summer hadn't realized or appreciated how much danger Qrow was inflicting on her with his presence. Now she would start to see.

As much as Qrow wanted to help defend his team, he was afraid of what his being around them all the time would do to them.

With that in mind, he went to Professor Ozpin's office that very night.

"It's a matter of perspective," Ozpin said. "I can appreciate more than most how power can feel like a curse. I encourage you, however, to consider what good Misfortune can do when inflicted on our enemies. Salem's lackeys could do with a little bad luck, don't you think?"

"Sure, but I don't spend most of my time around my enemies," said Qrow. "I spend most of my time these days around my friends, and it doesn't do them any good. I'm just saying… when it counts…"

"But we don't want to distance you from your team, either," said Ozpin. "We lose our way when we forget who we're fighting for."

Qrow shivered. Was he that transparent?

Because that was the crux of Qrow's problem. He wanted to be with his team as much as possible, and that was the most dangerous thing he could do to them.

Ozpin looked discerningly at Qrow. Possible futures, entire worlds, were dreamed into existence and discarded equally quickly. Then Ozpin smiled. "I'm always in need of information, but spying is tricky business. It's difficult, and everything about it takes so much time. You know full well how long it takes to conduct a proper infiltration."

Qrow swallowed.

"What if we could cut down that time and, simultaneously, give you more mobility?" said Ozpin. "What if we could let you gather information without all the mess of infiltration, let you go anywhere, hear anything? What if we could let you ruin the enemy's plans without fighting, just by being around?

"And what if we could do all of that while still letting you come back and be with your Team?"

Ozpin looked so proud of his notion, of his dreams of what Qrow could be, the good Qrow could do, and that was something Qrow was completely unprepared to deal with.

Qrow felt again that deadliest of all emotions: hope.


Next time: Qrow, Part Three