Opher couldn't understand why Yang hadn't shown up or called at all, but he was glad she hadn't. With a decent night's sleep between him and the battle, he was beginning to regret the macabre show he'd put on. Maybe that's why no one had gotten in contact with him. They were too afraid. A part of him wanted to call her; whether it was out of guilt or concern he couldn't decide.

Despite his remorse, one thing stopped him. If he got in touch with Yang, she'd ask awkward questions, and his peace and quiet would go right out the window. If he could reach Diamond Dust without anything stupid happening, then perhaps Indigo's presence would deflect their questions if one of them showed up there.

Unlike his mood, the weather was sunny. Opher threaded his way through the crowd that always filled up the shopping district when the mornings were so nice. Upon arrival, he found Diamond Dust's front door was still locked. Looking through the chromatic glass was useless; both panes were too dark to see through. He decided to go around to the back. The rear door was bracketed by two black flower pots, each bearing a bush with orange roses. A key was hidden behind the left pot. "Indy!" he called while unlocking the door. "Don't shoot!"

No bullets flew, but she didn't respond either. He flipped on the light and blinked at her sleeping form, curled up against the safe. The assault rifle was in her lap. She only awoke after Opher tapped her thigh with his sneaker. "Unh? Who-" With a start, she grabbed her weapon, but didn't get it fully aimed before recognizing him. "Damn, man, you scared the hell out of me. Is it morning already?"

He proceeded ahead into the main area. Once he reached the counter, he manipulated a set of switches to make the windows transparent again. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Smartass." Indigo hopped to her feet and brushed at her clothes. "You wanna mind the store while I go home and shower real quick?"

Opher shrugged his acquiescence as she walked past. "Fine. Bring me back some coffee, would you?"

Indigo paused at the front door to wave and smirk. "Yeah, yeah. Iced, right? God, you're such a pussy."

"Aren't I?" he replied, grinning just as wide. When she left, his good mood departed with her. "Damn it. if I knew things were gonna end up like this, I'd have gone back to Vacuo instead." He rested his chin in one hand and tapped the glass top with the other and weighed his options.

He didn't have much time for this before his Scroll emitted a pleasant chirp. Opher was immensely reluctant to check why, but after a minute of stalling he tugged it from his pocket and slid it open. New Contact Request, the screen said. A silver-eyed girl with reddish black hair smiled brightly at him. "Who the hell is this?" he asked her picture. "Ruby Rose?" Her face seemed vaguely familiar, but that was all. After a moment's thought, he accepted the request and set his Scroll aside to go into the back room, but it started ringing almost instantly.

Upon tapping the screen to answer, Opher heard a surprised, "Oh! Oh crap, he answered. Yang? How do you say his last name? I can't think about his first name without laugh-I mean, never mind. Hello?"

"Hi," he replied, brow furrowed with annoyance. "You're one of Yang's friends from last night, aren't you?"

"She's my sister, actually, but yeah. Seriously, how do you say your last name?"

"It's…" Opher paused to rub his eyes with a sigh. "Like 'rye-see'. Emphasis on the 'rye' part."

"Riese. Got it. Okay. I'm just going to call you Mister Riese for now. Sooo… uh… about the, you know, thing."

Now that he knew who she was, Opher expected the worst. He wanted it over with as quickly as possible. "Get on with it," he said evenly. "And if Yang is there, why isn't she the one having this conversation with me?"

"'Cause I made a decision as team leader." Ruby paused to say, off to the side, "Um, I think he wants to talk to you instead."

Opher could barely pick up Yang's reply. "Are you sure?"

"I'll ask." Ruby's voice got clearer again. "Do you want to talk to-"

His patience was beginning to wear thin. "I don't want to talk to any of you, to be entirely honest. Get to the point."

"Wow, okay. Harsh." With a breath, Ruby collected herself and continued. "We do need to talk. In person. You wanna come here, or should we come to you?"

The thought of traveling to Beacon made his eyes narrow. While his reluctance to meet them was great, Opher saw no other way out besides changing kingdoms again, but he'd just gotten finished with that process. Starting over again so soon wasn't an appealing idea. "You can come to me, I guess. When and where?"

"Not until tonight. We've got classes soon."

There was jostling and a grunt from Ruby. "Classes for which we're going to be late if you don't hurry up," another voice said derisively.

Opher blinked at his Scroll. "Who was that?"

"It's just Weiss, ignore-I mean, uh… don't worry about it."

"What do you mean it's just me?!"

"Enough!" a fourth voice said angrily. A few seconds' worth of awkward silence later, she spoke again. "Ten o'clock tonight," she stated firmly. "Name the place."

Ruby didn't appreciate this. "Blake, I'm… I'm in charge. I wanted to say that."

On the other hand, Opher was happy that someone was in command of the situation. "The roof of my apartment building is good enough. Yang knows where it is."

"Fine." Blake hung up, leaving him to stare at the screen.

A few moments later, the door chime rang as Indigo returned. Large paper cups occupied her grip. "Just here to drop off your coffee," she remarked, setting Opher's coffee in front of him and walking away. She expected a reaction she didn't get. "Uh… hello? A 'thank you' would be nice." When she finally looked back at him, his expression stopped her cold. "New guy?"

"I might need tomorrow off," he said quietly, at last putting away his Scroll.

Her head cocked a little. "Why?"

"Well…" A million lies were at Opher's fingertips, but none of them were satisfactory enough for his liking. He frowned at her and picked one anyway. "Family thing. I might actually have to go back to Atlas."

"What?" Indigo put her hand on her hip and stared unhappily. "Why? What happened?"

All he could do was shrug. "Dunno much yet. I'll know more in the morning."

"Shit. I was just starting to like you." To hide the scowl on her face, Indigo turned away. "Whatever. Let me know as soon as you can."

"Yeah." Opher watched her depart in silence. Thoughts of the morning's news darkened his mood even further; he knew, via a press release about the events of last night, that some fairly high-ranking officials were at Beacon. His brow furrowed. If General Ironwood got his hands on him, there was no telling what the Atlesian military would do. Opher had no doubt that he could forcefully extract himself from such a situation, but the toll would be sky high.

And, after all, he wasn't ready to go to war with an entire kingdom. Especially not the one that was, more or less, his home.

A thankfully uneventful shift went by, though the specter of his possible departure had cast a pall over both Opher and Indigo's day. She continued to hide her displeasure with complaints about the financial aspects of the situation. "If you leave, how the hell am I supposed to get your last paycheck to Atlas?" she wondered out loud. "Can you transmit stuff like that over the CCT network?"

Opher plucked his hat off the rack and put it on. "Maybe you could just pay me for the week right now?"

His reply was a peal of laughter, followed by a hearty, "Yeah, no. Screw you."

"Oh? I thought I was too scrawny for that."

"You bastard!" she snapped, taking a half-mocking swing at him. After her punch missed, they stared at each other for a while. "Good luck with… whatever's going on." With a huff, she crossed her arms. "Since you were so forthcoming and all."

"Sorry. You know what I know." On the way to the back door, Opher put the Lien in his pocket under his hat. "See you tomorrow, maybe."

The evening was muggier than usual, at least in his brief experience with Vale's weather. Before he could retreat to the cool, dark confines of his apartment, however, there was an errand he needed to run. He picked a Dust shop at random and purchased a crystal of each element, though this store lacked white stones. Instead he settled for the glowing orange of lava, pocketed his purchase, and started for home. Clouds towered over the western horizon, choking out most of the sunset. They matched the gloom in his eyes. Once he'd departed the shopping district and the crowd thinned, Opher allowed himself to think out loud. "Wonder if it's just gonna be Yang and company." That was one thing that had spurred him to buy extra Dust: a possible conflict. It had been a long time since he'd been forced to fight a Huntsman of any caliber. Even if Yang and her team were simply in training, the prospect made his brow furrow.

Getting home was the easy part; now he had hours to kill before the meeting. Some of this time was spent arranging his new collection of Dust in the same way as the previous set. More still went toward a shower and dinner. Only an hour and a half was gone by the end of his usual evening chores. He could always run. Back to Atlas. Back to the Schnee quarry, where anonymity was as easy to find as the precious crystals.

Spread out before his mind's eye was the frigid gray landscape that dominated most of Mantle, but his view was not of sparkling, modern Atlas. Nor was it the frigid pit from which the Schnee family excavated their fortune. This, instead, was a valley between mountains on which his heart was set, a bowl-shaped dent with a small clump of humble structures. His home, or what shadowy memories of it still remained. They grew foggier and more distant with every sunrise. Thinking on this too long only put Opher in a foul mood. Sudden knocking at his door broke the miserable reverie.

Behind it when he answered stood Indigo. The muzzle of her rifle peeked over her right shoulder. "You know," she began, shifting her weight to one hip. "Something's bothering me."

Opher cocked a brow, but did not step aside to let her in. "Okay. What?"

She pushed past anyway. "I dunno if I buy your story." The Dust crystals lined up on the TV stand got her attention. "Huh… I don't carry cuts like that. Where'd you get those?"

The TV was off just as soon as Opher could produce his Scroll, drawing all the focus his way. "What about my story do you not buy?" he asked, walking away from her.

Indigo tracked his retreat all the way to the sofa. "When you said I reminded you of your mom, that was the first I'd ever heard you talk about your family. People have reasons for that shit, man. What happened? Why do they suddenly want back into your life?"

There were no words at hand for Opher to fill the gaping chasm of his lie, so he stalled for time. "Your guess is as good as mine." He watched her eyes grow ever narrower. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Then Indigo folded her arms and said, "I'm not stupid, Opher. You're in trouble with whoever tried to rob me the other day."

It was as if she'd tossed him a rope to climb out from the hole. While her assertion wasn't directly correct, it was safe to assume that the White Fang wouldn't be happy with him killing six more of their members. Depending on whether or not they had caught and interrogated Violet as they did her cousin, he could be in serious trouble. Unbelievably, this was a better proposition to him than dealing with any sort of Academy-related entity. "Well…" he mumbled awkwardly, laying it on thick to enhance his cover.

Indigo wouldn't let him finish; with one fluid motion, she had her rifle in hand. "You expecting a visitor tonight? I bet this would surprise 'em."

As hilarious as Indigo and Yang fighting each other would be, Opher shook his head at her suggestion. "No. They're not mad at you. They're mad at me."

"So I was right! I knew it." Indigo was agitated enough to bare teeth as she paced. "Don't worry. I'll save you. Been too long since I shot at something that wasn't a paper target, you know."

"Indigo…" Opher rubbed his face with one hand and groaned. Then his eyes lit up with an idea. "I already have help on the way."

"Huh?" Indigo turned and lowered her weapon. Disappointment was written on her face. "Seriously? Who?"

Here was a chance to insert some of the truth, so Opher took it. "Yang."

Her face went blank. "The hell. Yang? Are you yanking my chain, new guy?"

"I'm not, no. She heard about it during her, uh, visit. And if I understand your stories correctly, she never passes up a chance for a fight." Opher's eyes wandered to the single window in the living room. "I guess she thinks she's defending our honor or something."

"Huh." Once again, Indigo shifted her rifle to her back. "Damn it, I was so hyped up for this, too."

Feeling good enough to smile and stand, Opher came over and gave her a pat on the head. "Sorry to burst your bubble. The next time I'm in trouble, I'll come to you first."

"Awwwww." With shoulders slumped, a frowning Indigo walked back to the door. "You still want the time off, or what?"

He nodded at her. "I'd better take it. I don't know how much of a mess I'll have to clean up tomorrow."

"Fiiiiiiine." She pushed open the door with a sigh. "See you Wednesday, I guess."

Opher moved over to see her out. "Sorry, Indy. Guard the shop again, maybe you can shoot someone there?"

"Then I'd have to call the cops to come clean it up. Ugh." Indigo threw up her hand in a wave and walked down the hall. "Later."

"Bye." Opher retreated into his apartment and quietly shut the door. "Phew. That could have gotten stupid." He reminded himself of the situation and glowered into the darkness. "I mean, even more stupid than it already is."

For the second time in as many days, team RWBY was preparing for a nocturnal adventure. Unlike last night, however, they somehow knew both more and less about their target at the same time. Ruby was still grilling her sister for more information about Opher even as they prepared to leave. "How can you not know anything else?" she demanded nasally. "You've known him for two weeks! That's like an eternity for you."

Yang kept her focus on loading Ember Celica. "Sis, 'know' is kind of a strong word. I couldn't even tell you where he's from. Guy just doesn't talk much. Not to me, anyway."

An exhausted-looking Blake, seated on her bed, had been ready to leave for half an hour. She somehow maintained a patient facade. "Perhaps we should speak with his employer."

The blonde made a face at her suggestion. "Indy? Oh, man, I don't wanna drag her into this. We don't know how bad it is."

Ruby swallowed with her recollection of the gory scene. "He set one of them on fire, impaled another, and electrocuted the rest. It's pretty bad."

Weiss kept her own disgust tamped down, though a frown slipped through her defenses. "Whatever happens, we need to know where he stands. If he has this large of an issue with the White Fang, he might be an ally."

"Ally? I don't want friends like him."

Blake's venomous tone caused all three girls to stop cold and glance over. "Fair enough," Ruby replied with an uncertain smile. "He does seem kinda scary. But his name is so silly. Opher. Pff." It wasn't quite as funny as it used to be, as evidenced by her forced chuckle. The stony silence from her team caused her to wince. "Yeah. I'm not feeling it-" Ruby noticed their attention was on something behind her. "What?"

She turned to see a confused Pyrrha standing in their doorway. "I… ah, am I interrupting? Jaune wanted to know if..." she trailed off, blinking at their weapons. "Is something going on?" And then her brain processed the bulk of Ruby's statement. "Did you say Opher?"

"What? Naaaaah," Ruby assured her anxiously, with a wave tacked on for good measure. "We were just talking about the gophers! In the big garden out back. You know. The dumb things keep digging up the flowers."

Her explanation didn't hold water; all four of them were armed to the teeth and still fully dressed, despite it being night. Pyrrha took a few steps into the room and stood with her arms folded. "What's this about?" she asked, her tone somewhere between terrified and stern.

Weiss looked at her teammates for guidance. "Should we tell her?"

"I don't think we've got a choice now." Yang decided she had to be the one and stepped forward. "So, uh, something… happened last night."

"What?" Yang wouldn't explain further; she just stared at the redhead with an awkward smile. With every passing second, the horror in Pyrrha's eyes grew. It soon reached critical mass. "Give me a moment."

Yang reached out a hand as the redhead darted from the room. "No, Pyrrha! Wait a sec-" She was already gone. "Great. Let's just go before she gets back."

"That's a little cold, don't you think?" Weiss cocked a brow at their expressions. "Did I accidentally say a pun again?"

"I'm kind of with her," Ruby added, hopping from foot to foot. "I'm nervous enough. Let's do th-" Pyrrha reappeared in the doorway, fully outfitted for combat. "H-how did you change clothes so fast?!"

"Ah, well…" Pyrrha raised a hand. The black glow of her Semblance flickered to life around her fingers. "Practice and magnetite stitches," she explained with a weak chuckle. "Lead the way."

Yang slapped her forehead. "You don't even know what's going on!"

All Pyrrha could do was look off to the side and shrug. "True, but something tells me it's my fault."

The blonde's eyes narrowed faintly. "You always think that."

Once again, it was Blake who got things moving. "It's possible we might need the help. Someone can actually explain on the way," she stated, slipping past Pyrrha and walking out. The rest of her team was forced to follow; Pyrrha herself brought up the rear. "We should cut through the CCT park."

Ruby dashed out front to lead the charge. "Right! Let's do that. But let's do that because I said to and I'm the leader. We're going through the CCT park!"

"Uh huh. Great idea, little sister." Yang dropped back to walk with Pyrrha. "Okay. Here's the short version. Be warned, it's not pretty."

Mercury had lost count of the times he'd reached the very cusp of sleep, but as with each instance before, a sharp elbow from Emerald yanked him away. "Please stop," he complained, rubbing at his tired eyes.

She elbowed him again. "You're supposed to be taking notes."

The pair were lying prone on a rooftop near the enormous transmit tower, and had been for over an hour. This was their second night of casing the area's security for Cinder. Emerald, looking through a pair of binoculars, was taking the job seriously enough for the both of them. "There go those two soldiers again," she noted. A glance down at her watch added more information. "Their patrol takes ten minutes."

"Ten minutes. Got it." Mercury scrawled this down on the notepad in front of him. The stillness beside him made him look over. "I wrote it down. Don't jab me."

"About time… wait." Emerald tracked five silhouettes along a pathway. When the glow of a street lamp revealed their identities, she raised up with surprise. "Uh oh."

"What?" Mercury watched her sit up fully and put a hand to the side of her head. "What?"

She placed a finger on his lips for silence. "Ma'am, team RWBY is leaving campus again. Pyrrha Nikos is with them, and they're in a hurry."

A moment passed before Cinder's voice filled their ears. "Pyrrha too? I dare not think about what they're going to break this time. I'm certainly not in the mood to hear Roman whine for an hour about dead Faunus and lost Paladins. Follow them and report. Mercury, return at your earliest opportunity."

He frowned at her order. "Why does she get to chase them?"

Her tone was suddenly displeased. "Because I trained her for these things, that's why."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm on my way." Emerald stuck her tongue out at Mercury before beginning her pursuit. Once off the roof, she dashed from object to object, toeing the line between keeping sight of her targets and staying out of theirs.

The chase proceeded off the cliffs along a sloping, dimly lit stone pathway. Eventually, they reached the top of Vale's wall, where the road became a coiled ramp that descended into the streets of the city below. Emerald had a harder time keeping track of them until she took to the rooftops. Twenty minutes of leaping from building to building proved to be a decent workout; by the time they stopped running and entered a building, Emerald was a bit out of breath. When she consulted her Scroll for a location, her eyes widened; there was already a map marker here. "Hold on, isn't this-"

Her eyes locked onto something on a roof across the street. A humanoid shadow, illuminated by the moon and clearly wearing some kind of hat. A look through her binoculars confirmed it; this was Opher, wandering idly as he looked at his Scroll. It was the light from its screen which allowed her to identify his face. A few moments later, he was joined on the roof by RWBY and Pyrrha. Emerald instinctively ducked out of sight behind an HVAC unit and placed a call to Cinder using her own Scroll. "Ma'am… I found out where they were headed."

"I'm waiting," she replied evenly.

Emerald shot a nervous glance over her shoulder. "They're meeting with our ghost. I can't eavesdrop without getting too close. I'm afraid he might spot me. What should I do?"

"A most… interesting turn of events. Return to our quarters. I need to think about our next move."

"Got it. I'm coming home." Before she left, Emerald lingered just long enough to watch their meeting commence and wonder what they could possibly be talking about.

Had she been close enough to hear, Emerald's answer would have been nothing. Each side regarded the other with uneasy silence; this sizing-up took several seconds before Opher opened the proceedings with a glare at Pyrrha. "You again. Why?"

Yang's explanation left her wide-eyed and worried. She frantically tried to voice her concerns. "I overheard your name and insisted on coming. I thought something had happened and it was my fault. I'm… sorry."

Ruby stared at her blankly. "Why do you say that so much?" she muttered.

The blonde herself still held out hope that someone else was responsible. "It wasn't really you, right? I mean, yeah, you flew away, but…" Her words melted into an unsure chuckle.

For a moment, Opher played along sarcastically. "Of course not. I'm just a shopkeeper." Then his jaw set and his eyes filled with the gleam that Pyrrha and Yang found so unsettling. "I see you came prepared. I guess I'd be afraid of me too."

"Nobody here is afraid of you," Weiss shot back. She glanced over at a nervous, hopping Ruby and glowered. "Stop that. Stand firm."

"Can't," her leader said brightly. "Too many cookies. So much sugar. Never going to sleep again."

Opher blinked at Ruby, then Yang. "Cute. You two are sisters? Which one is adopted?"

The blonde rolled her eyes. "Oh, wow, haha. Haven't heard that joke a million times already. Look, who are you, really? What's your deal with the White Fang?"

He didn't answer her at first; instead, his eyes went to a tense, silent Blake. She averted her gaze, so his went back to Yang. "They kind of keep robbing and/or trying to kill me. Maybe that's a question you should ask them."

"Have you fought them before?" Ruby asked, still jumping from foot to foot. "I mean, maybe they've got a grudge you don't know about."

He prefaced his answer with a shrug. "I honestly wouldn't be surprised. I was attacked. I defended myself. That happens to me a lot."

Weiss jumped in before Ruby could say anything else. "Have you crossed paths with Roman Torchwick, by any chance? He and the White Fang seem to be working together."

"I haven't, no." The question made Opher curious. "Why? Did you come here to ask me for help?"

Yang rocked back and forth on her heels with a smile. "Hey, you've got skills. And it would kinda be nice to have someone on watch in the city all the time. We can only get out of Beacon at night. Or on weekends."

"This is absolutely ridiculous," Blake hissed lowly. She spun on her heel and walked toward the far end of the roof.

"Ah, excuse me?" Everyone looked toward Pyrrha, who had her hand raised. "If you all wanted help, why didn't you come to us? Jaune would have been happy to assist." She sneaked in a pointed glance at Weiss, too quick for the heiress to notice.

"We didn't want to get you guys involved," Ruby explained. "It's pretty dangerous. I mean, Yang had to punch a giant robot in the… face, I guess?"

"Which was freakin' amazing!" Yang added as she threw her fist cheerfully into the air.

They were giggling at each other, but Ruby had just backed herself into a corner. A grinning Opher sprung his trap. "Oh, so it's too dangerous for her, but you have no problem asking me to throw myself to the Beowolves. And we just met."

With hands waving frantically, she tried to clarify her statement. "Wait, no, that's not-I mean… oh boy. I wouldn't ask-" This situation required a silver tongue that Ruby lacked; she cast a helpless gaze at Weiss. "Uh, Weiss? You're smart, please help me with words."

She obliged, her reply soaked with a proper, polite tone and a little too much charm. "What Ruby is trying to say is we assumed a few things about your relationship with the White Fang. They were apparently incorrect." A chilly gaze at her leader and Yang helped drive the point home.

"That's not helping!" Ruby exclaimed with horror.

The whole exchange was funny enough to make Opher snicker. "Assuming? Yeah, that happens to me a lot too. Okay, fine. You thought you had a lead but you didn't. Mistakes happen. As long as you're not gonna try and arrest me or anything, let's just move on."

Ruby stroked her chin as she considered his last statement. "Um… shouldn't we, though? You did kind of murder six people. That's a pretty arrestable offense. Is arrestable a word?" Her face went blank. "Arrestable…" A stiff poke from Yang snapped her out of it. "Ow!"

"I don't think we have that kind of authority. We're not even full-fledged Huntresses, much less police." Pyrrha looked back at Blake, who stood some distance away now, with a frown. "Is she all right?"

Yang cast a glance that way as well. "She's tired. And stubborn. Anyway, Ruby's got a point. You did kill those guys."

"In self-defense, yes." Opher's eyes darted between the four girls. "Are you really considering trying to bring me in?"

Ruby shrugged at him and smiled weirdly. "I don't really know. There are five of us and only one of you. We could totally do it." A burst of laughter from Opher was the thing that finally got her to stand still. "What's… why is that funny?

"I'm sorry," he said between breaths, using a hand to wave his chuckles away. "Just some deja vu. Anyway, if we're done here-"

"We're not," Weiss interjected. "How did you get away last night? People can't fly." Once more, she looked over at Ruby and Yang. "Unless they make a lot of noise and expend a lot of ammunition."

"You're just jealous 'cause my fists go boom," Yang replied with a smirk.

Opher rolled his eyes at the blonde. "Dust. I'm sure you can do the same thing. I see the vials in that sword."

"Yeah, but you just did it. Weiss needs glyphs. How did you…?" Ruby trailed off as she began comparing his escape to another incident: her fight against Roman's female associate with Glynda Goodwitch. "Hold on, do you have Dust woven into your clothes or something?"

"Seriously?" He looked down at his t-shirt and cargo pants and blinked. "Does it look like I do?"

Yang tapped her chin in thought. "They'd glow. Hey, do something fancy."

Whether or not it met Yang's criteria for fanciness aside, Opher snapped the fingers on his left hand and caused a flame to hover above the tip of his index finger. It danced gently in the mild breeze. His clothes, however, did nothing. "Satisfied?"

"Certainly no Dust in his outfit," Weiss noted quietly.

"What about your tattoos?"

At first, Pyrrha's question seemed like an obvious answer, but Ruby was quick to shoot her down. "They didn't glow either." She glanced over as Blake returned. "Feeling better?"

Her answer was as blunt as it was flat. "No. What's he doing?"

"Just a little Dust work." Opher blew out the flame and watched a wisp of smoke curl away.

"I don't understand," Pyrrha admitted, her brow furrowed in thought. "Where are the crystals or powder you're using?"

Her confusion was amusing enough to make him smile."I've got the Dust, you just can't see it. So, are we done?"

"For now," Ruby said, her eyes narrowed in an attempt to look serious. Yang snorted at her expression. "I still don't know what to do about you being all… murdery."

Both his hands went up slightly as he said, "I'm not gonna kill anyone that doesn't earn it."

"Oh, that's really reassuring. Just try not to commit any more murders for now, huh? Vale's got enough to worry about." Yang furled up Ember Celica and waved to her teammates. "Let's roll!"

Blake and Pyrrha lagged behind, the former walking right up to Opher with a vicious glare. "Did they really earn it?" she asked lowly.

Instead of meeting her question head on, Opher used a realization to knock her down a few pegs. "I don't know what you think you're hiding with that bow." It worked to perfection; Blake stepped back with shock. "I knew you looked familiar. I saw you going into that building last night. Cat ears, right?"

Flustered and tired, Blake decided to end the conversation and walk away. "If we have to come out here again because of you, I'll…"

Opher watched her until she got to the roof access door. "Hey," he said, making her turn around. "Yeah, I've killed a lot of people. And Faunus. But you know what? I've spared even more. If you still think I'm a threat, well, you know where to find me." All she did was stare at him for a moment, then depart.

Pyrrha, however, remained behind. "I was right," she said quietly. "You've seen much bloodshed."

"Yeah. I have." Opher pushed up his hat to eye the moon. "I find it interesting that you were worried enough about me to make the trip."

This made her her laugh a bit. "I worry about everyone, all the time. Or so Nora says." Quickly, her face became grave. "Your Aura-"

A growling Opher cut her off before she could tread on this subject again. "Haven't we been over this enough?" he asked firmly. "Yes, it's different. It's the only one of its kind, just like everyone else's."

For once, Pyrrha met someone's ferocity with a fraction of her own. "No, it's not." As if to prove it to herself again, she shed one of her gloves and took him by the hand. The ashen ghost flared up around Opher's frame in her other sight, twisting around his chest like a snake. The longer she stared at it, the more it squirmed and changed shape. Soon, it became humanoid, a shadow standing at once behind and in front of him. "It's… what is it doing?" she whispered, unable to tear her eyes away.

Opher broke her grip and stepped back. "Leave me alone, already."

"I'm…" She wasn't sorry, really, and didn't bother finishing the sentence as she slipped her glove back on. "Your Aura is unique. It may be dangerous."

"Oh, wow. That only applies to about 50% of the population," Opher fired back, clearly becoming fed up with her.

She stood her ground, staring at him with stern eyes. "I'm sorry, but between your Aura and what you've done, I cannot ignore this any longer. I'm going to Professor Goodwitch in the morning." Before he could explode at her, Pyrrha leaped from the roof to catch up with RWBY.

Opher walked to the ledge where she'd jumped and looked down, fists clenched with rage. He couldn't spot them anywhere on the streets. It seemed his nightmare was on the cusp of coming true. "And sometimes," he growled lowly, "I spare people I shouldn't." The broken moon above attracted his attention while he dealt with his emotions. "You know what?" he said lowly to it, "I think I'm done running, anyway."