SAPR: Volume 3 (RWBY/MLP) (2024)

They all stared up at the creature that rose into the sky. The enormous grimm that was so large that they could behold it here, just outside of Vale, though it was all the way in…

Mountain Glenn. It had risen from the southeast, from the direction of the dead city.

And yet there had been no sign of it when they were there, on either occasion. Had they been too insignificant to waste such a grimm upon? It seemed more plausible than the idea that it had been afraid of them.

A grimm so large as this, it seemed quite plausible that it had been held in reserve.

It was an enormous creature, a monstrous creature, a creature so large that when it rose before the moon, its wings, outstretched, spread out from side to side across the shattered silver orb.

It was like no grimm that Pyrrha had ever seen before.

She didn't think that any of them had seen a grimm quite like this before.

She looked around: at Penny and Jaune; Yang, Ren, and Nora; at Ruby; at Arslan; at the other huntsmen and huntresses from Beacon and Mistral stood nearby. All of them wore amazement on their faces. Jaune's mouth was agape, Arslan had recoiled a step, Ren's knees trembled, while Nora held on to one of his arms with both hands — whether she was seeking or bestowing assurance, Pyrrha could not say.

Even Ruby looked shocked, her silver eyes grown wide. Though she recovered faster than many, raising the scope of Crescent Rose to her eye and aiming the weapon towards the grimm.

"You can't possibly be in range," Yang said. "It's too far away."

"Sure, but I can get a better look at it," Ruby replied, closing the eye that wasn't looking down the scope.

Her mouth twisted in distaste a mere few moments later. "It's ugly." She paused. "It kinda looks…" She raised her eye from the rifle scope, opening the other, and looked at Pyrrha. "It looks a lot like the bones of that creature they've got in the museum in Mistral, you know, the big one with the big head."

"The dragon?" Pyrrha asked.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, that's it, I think. Big head, big jaws, wings, it looks just like that."

"But this is a grimm, right?" Jaune asked. "It's not some living thing?"

"Oh, no, it's definitely a grimm," Ruby answered.

"But many grimm are based on living things," Pyrrha said. "Wolves, bears, boars; why not on a creature that was living once, though it lives no longer?"

"Might have been better if it didn't live at all," Nora muttered. "Did you get a sense of how strong it is?"

Ruby shrugged. "Big doesn't have to mean strong, but you can see for yourself it's pretty big. It's…" She trailed off.

"It's … it's coming towards us," Penny said. "No, wait, it's not coming right this way; it's heading past us, I think. So long as it doesn't change direction, anyway."

"Past us how?" Jaune asked. "Past us specifically or—"

"No," Penny replied. "Past the whole battlefield."

"It'll probably change direction, then," Jaune muttered glumly.

"But if it does, then there's still no need to worry!" Penny declared. "Because Atlas will take care of it, with all the General's airships and lasers and missiles—"

Ruby grinned. "Penny opens her mouth, and Rainbow Dash's voice comes out." Her tone held no malice in it, only a little wry amusem*nt.

Yang snorted. "Or Blake's voice."

Penny's mouth worked silently, opening and closing. "Well," she said eventually. "Just because they're a lot sometimes doesn't mean that they aren't right about this."

"Are you having second thoughts about your school transfer?" asked Ruby.

"No," Penny said at once. "Not at all." She paused. "But if I could fight alongside all my friends and have a whole bunch of powerful airships backing me up, that wouldn't be so bad, would it?"

Yang laughed, planting both hands on her hips as her mouth opened wide and her laughter spilled out into the night.

Ruby chuckled too, and Jaune as well, and Pyrrha found a smile pricking up at the corners of her mouth.

"It sounds great when you put it like that," Ruby said. "But the things that you'd have to have to get that, the military and stuff, if you had all that too, then it wouldn't be … wouldn't be Beacon anymore, I guess. You take your choice for the kind of Academy, and then you've got to … live with it."

"Like we have to live with it now," said Jaune. He paused. "Without airships, without all the Atlas stuff, if that grimm turns on us as we are now, can we beat this thing?"

Nobody replied. Not only did nobody in their immediate circle and vicinity speak, but it felt as though the wider group of huntsmen and huntresses had fallen silent, too, and were eavesdropping on their conversation.

Nobody replied, though it was the pertinent question. It was the pertinent question, but that did not make it easy to answer.

It seemed a very large grimm, and aside from its great size, they hadn't even begun to see what it was capable of.

Any grimm could be killed — that was practically axiomatic — and there were many stories of heroes slaying grimm of monstrous size, but to do it themselves … they might find it was not so easy as for the heroes of the old tales.

Pyrrha found her eyes being drawn towards Ruby. Nor was she alone in that; Jaune, Penny, Yang, even Ren and Nora were starting to look her way, to a greater or lesser extent.

Ruby's eyebrows rose as she noticed their attention falling on her. "Oh, now, you look at me," she huffed. "Well … I don't know. I'm not just some optimistic idiot who doesn't understand when things aren't practical. I understand that there are things that we can't do, and I … I'm worried this is one of them. It's really big, and I … don't know if we can, any of us, do enough to bring it down. I'd love to stand here and say that I know we can do it, but I don't, not for something this size."

Arslan sidled a couple of steps closer to them. "What about cutting off its head?"

Ruby glanced at Crescent Rose. "I'm not sure we've got anything big enough to get through the neck."

"Did you see any sign of a weak point?' asked Pyrrha. "In stories, such large grimm often have one."

"I didn't see one," Ruby admitted. "But I didn't get a full view, I mostly only saw the front of it, and its weak point would be … somewhere on the belly or something, right?"

"Not necessarily," Ren said softly. "But possibly, especially if you didn't see it on the grimm's front. Assuming it has a weakness, of course."

Yes, that was quite the assumption, wasn't it? It was only a common motif in stories, which either meant that the stories were based on truth or that they were all sharing the same … infelicity with that same truth, or exaggeration.

But then, why invent such a weakness? Was it not mightier by far to kill a fearsome and powerful foe without the aid of such a convenient striking point?

That, at least, was Pyrrha's hope, though it was her lesser hope.

Her greater hope was that Penny was correct and the Atlesian airships would take care of it for them.

And let my ancestors weep to hear me think so, Pyrrha thought. For there is more at stake by far than my pride.

"Could…?" Jaune spoke tentatively, and haltingly, as if he very much did not wish to say the words emerging from his mouth like a baby bird making its slow emergence out of a cracking egg. "Could a grimm that size take command of a horde?"

His words crashed amongst them like the wreck of the Dingyuan. They reduced everyone present to a momentary silence.

"Well, thanks, Jaune," Yang said, through gritted teeth. "That's an image I really needed."

"I don't like the idea!" Jaune cried.

"But if it is possible, then we would be fools not to consider it," Pyrrha added.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Yang admitted, in a grumbling tone. "I don't know the answer, though; does anyone?"

Pyrrha did not. Professor Port had not made mention of such a situation; grimm hordes were rare enough, and the question of whether an Apex Alpha could be succeeded after death was even rarer. Generally, the horde would be considered broken, but in this instance, with the grimm still on the field…

They were like embers, embers of a dead fire, but if all the embers were swept together into a pile, might they not ignite once more?

Unless…

"Ruby was right," Pyrrha said.

"I was?" Ruby asked. "About what?"

Pyrrha nodded. "You said, before this dragon arrived, that we should attack and break the grimm before us. That may not be possible now, but if we winnow their numbers now, while they are divided, then we will only help ourselves once — or if — Jaune's fear comes to pass."

More silence, another pause from all concerned.

"You'll get no argument from me," Ruby said. "Seeing as it was my idea."

"Nor me," agreed Yang. "Seeing as we might have to fight them one way or another."

"Why would I object?" asked Nora. "You're speaking my language!"

"I hope Jaune's wrong," Penny said. "And I really want to believe that Atlas will stop that grimm … but it's a good idea, Py-Ruby. We should do what we can."

Jaune didn't say anything, he only gave a brisk nod of his head as he drew his sword once more.

Arslan slammed a fist into the palm of her other hand. "Alright then," she said. "Would someone care to do the honours?"

"'The honours'?" asked Penny.

"Is someone going to shout 'charge'?" Arslan explained, looking at Pyrrha.

Why me? Pyrrha wanted to ask, except that she knew of course why her, at least with so many Haven huntsmen and huntresses present.

If she had wanted it to not be her, then she should have thrown the match to Weiss.

Speaking of which, where was Weiss, anyway? Pyrrha couldn't remember seeing her since Beacon.

Gone with the Atlesians into battle on the other side of the field, most likely.

Pyrrha sighed and raised Miló, in sword form, overhead.

She licked her lips and softly said, "Ruby, will you join me?"

Ruby looked surprised for a second, and it took her another few moments of no response before the slightest smile appeared upon her face.

"Sure," she said, in a voice that was almost as soft as Pyrrha's own had been. "But what shall we say?"

"How about 'huntsmen, attack'?" Yang suggested. "Nice and simple."

Pyrrha and Ruby exchanged a glance.

Pyrrha nodded, sword still raised high.

Ruby nodded too, and swept Crescent Rose back behind her to strike.

"Huntsmen of Vale!" Ruby cried.

"Huntsmen of Mistral!" Pyrrha shouted.

"Attack!" they yelled together, and stormed forward into the battle almost as though they were still friends.

They charged forwards, and their friends joined them: Jaune and Arslan were at Pyrrha's side, and Yang was at Ruby's with Ren and Nora on her right. Penny was just a little behind, providing support with laser and sword from a slight distance. They charged, and soon, they were joined by others too, the huntsmen and huntresses of Beacon and Haven, Mistral, and Vale — although to frame it thus might have given insult to those who attended Beacon or Haven without being from either Mistral or Vale — following them into battle with loud war cries ripping from their throats, swords drawn, guns firing.

They charged into the grimm like lionesses erupting out of the tall grass to take the herd of placid wildebeest by storm. The moonlight glinted off the blade of Crescent Rose, made Crocea Mors shine silver, and caused Miló and Akoúo̱ to gleam like gold as they tore into the grimm, scattering smoke and ashes before them as they cut a swathe through the ranks of the monsters.

Yet, the grimm were not so helpless as the wildebeest would have been when the lionesses burst from hiding to assail them. Though their Apex Alpha was dead, though they were no longer a horde — or not a horde for now, at least — they did not run, did not scatter in flight, but fought back against the huntsmen and huntresses as best they could. But it was an uncoordinated fight, each pack of beowolves or nest of creeps fighting under its own alpha, ursai fighting alone or in small groups. It was as when an army is broken and the soldiers are reduced to making their last stands here and there about the battlefield, so it was with the grimm who fought on singly in their several small groups, none assisting the others, no effort to combine their vast forces, just individual groups, all of them easily cut down.

So it was that the huntsmen and huntresses carved a way forward, and grimm fell before them like ears of corn felled by the sickle of the labouring tenant who toils and sweats upon the fields of their great lord. But the grimm were so numerous, and in their great numbers spread out all across the battlefield, that the huntsmen could not simply press inexorably forward with their great charge; they were too few in number by comparison, they occupied too narrow a front. When the Red Lion had slain the Apex Alpha before Kuchinashi, the army that had swept the leaderless grimm away had been thousands strong, a muster of Mistral's nobility and their sworn households, levied troops, mercenaries from across Anima. Now, Polemarch Yeoh's forces were still out there, somewhere, present but unseen, but they were but a comparative handful of students, fewer than a hundred in total, and they were a dagger rather than a great blade. They could penetrate and inflict real harm, but they could not retake the Green Line, and if they had tried to reach it, they would have swiftly found themselves alone in the midst of grimm on all sides.

Therefore, instead of stabbing deep into the mass of grimm, they made many short but rapid thrusts, their assault ebbing and flowing like the tide. They would attack, slaying many grimm, as many as they were able to, and then they would retreat before they penetrated too deep into the mass of grimm — too deep to get out again. They would retreat, falling back close to where they had started, around the wreckage of the Dingyuan, before attacking again, in a slightly different place and direction, subjecting the grimm to the same treatment they had meted out elsewhere.

In that way, they wreaked a great deal of damage, or at least Pyrrha hoped that they were wreaking a great deal of damage, for she had to admit that it was hard to see a vast difference being made by them. They went forward so many times, struck down so many grimm of so many different types that her arms began to weary of endless cutting and thrusting, despite her aura, but for all that, for all the exertions that she could see on the faces of her friends and companions, they seemed no closer to cutting through the horde.

They had attacked so that they could weaken the grimm if — in case — the dragon that had appeared from the southeast made the efforts of Jaune and Penny and the others meaningless and took command of the horde, but were they doing that? They were killing grimm — that could not be denied — but there always seemed to be so many more left that were they actually making the horde meaningfully weaker? Or were they just weakening themselves, tiring themselves out before the battle had been renewed in earnest?

If I let my thoughts go down that road, then I shall despair. Every grimm we slay is one fewer grimm that will assail us with renewed determination if the dragon assumes command over the horde.

She hoped that it would not come to that, that the dragon would be unable to do so, or that the Atlesians would strike it down with their array of weapons; and yet, as Pyrrha retreated during the ebbs of their advances, as she had a few moments to turn her gaze towards the sky before they went forwards again, she could not help but notice with a sinking sensation that the Atlesians did not appear to be getting any closer to slaying the dragon.

Rather, the dragon itself seemed to be getting closer to the battlefield in spite of the lights of the Atlesian lasers that illuminated the night sky around it, at first far off and then closer as they tried to hold it back. When Pyrrha looked again, after going forwards more than once, cutting down more grimm alongside the others, she saw that the dragon was closer still — and then it was upon the Atlesian lines, and yet more lasers illuminated the night sky as the Atlesian warships, their flanks flashing with red and green lights so that they could be seen by other airships, brought their powerful weapons to bear upon this great new challenger to their supremacy.

And the dragon did not fall.

Pyrrha watched — Pyrrha could not look away from — the battle that, though it was far off, was nevertheless almost as clear as day to her, lit up by the light of the lasers and the explosions of the missiles. So much of what was happening on the other side of the battlefield was hard to make out, little more than the sound of cannons firing and the flaring up of half-concealed explosions, but now, up in the sky, the fighting was vivid and visible.

Vivid and visible and not at all good news, as the dragon absorbed the fire of five or six — Pyrrha counted them, but the way they were arrayed made it hard to be certain of the count — Atlesian cruisers without perishing in the flames, all the while diminishing the number of ships assailing it. Two of them were destroyed, and a third was damaged; at least that was the only conclusion she could draw from the fact that it started crawling away while its fellows tried desperately to protect it. Six cruisers, there must have been six, because there were only three left now; the dragon had destroyed or driven off the rest to become the master of the skies.

Even from this distance, with its sounds muffled by the great gap between there and here, Pyrrha found the dragon's shrieking sound sent shivers down her spine and made her fingers tremble. Its roar was not quite so immediately affecting, but even so, it was a wicked noise, and Pyrrha wished she did not have to hear it.

Judging by the expressions of her friends, she was not alone in that.

"They … they lost?" Penny asked, as the dragon swooped down towards the ground, ignoring the surviving cruisers in favour of … Pyrrha did not know what, she couldn't see; the dragon dropped out of sight as it dropped out of the sky. "But … but how? It-it's just a grimm, how could it … how?"

"Because it's really strong," Ruby declared. "That's all there is to it. It's really, stronger than anyone … expected."

Penny frowned. "Why did you hesitate?"

"Because," Ruby began. She shook her head, "it doesn't really matter, I guess, but there are stories about a monster that lived under one of the mountains to the east, the one called the Dragon's Fang. Only it's supposed to be dead. The stories say that Percy killed it. The versions of the stories that I preferred, anyway."

"Looks like the versions that you didn't like so much might be more on the money," Yang said in an off-hand manner. "I don't suppose the stories say how she killed it?"

"Since we've established that that part is false, I fail to see how that would help," remarked Ren.

Yang paused for a moment. "Good point," she admitted.

Penny clasped her hands together above her heart. "Do you think … what do you think it's doing now?"

What it was doing now, as its roar echoed faintly across the land towards them, was rising up into the air once more. It ignored the remaining Atlesian cruisers, ignored the airships — they seemed to be preoccupied with something, perhaps the other grimm in the skies — and circled lazily over the battlefield.

Has it done enough harm already? Pyrrha thought. Has it done so much that it feels no need to do any more? Perhaps the notion of a lazy grimm, one that was satisfied with 'good enough,' should have brought her some comfort, but it did not. Instead, perhaps because she could not imagine a grimm being satisfied with 'good enough,' it made her fearful for the Atlesians, for Blake and Rainbow Dash and all the rest.

Her fears were not alleviated when the dragon descended on the battlefield again, mouth agape to breathe out that weapon, that beam, that destructive power that so resembled a laser down upon the battlefield.

Penny squeaked in alarm, covering her mouth with both hands.

So proud, Pyrrha thought. They were so proud, one might almost call them vain.

Atlas does not have a monopoly on pride, still less on vanity.

Is this grimm a punishment for our hubris?

A punishment from who?

Would that it were a punishment from some heavenly power; at least then, it could be placated. As it is, if Salem has sent this monster, then it wants no punishment but our destruction.

The dragon rose up and once more turned away from the battlefield; this time, however, it did not circle over the Atlesian positions, amongst the wreckage of their air defences, but rather, it flew away, back in the direction that it had come.

And then it turned once more, flying over the abandoned Valish lines, and headed straight for them.

The Atlesian technological might, the new weapons, ingenuity, and prowess of the north, had failed; now, it seemed that it would be the turn of the old Mistralian valour and their warrior ways to stand up to the same punishment.

Pyrrha looked around. Everyone had seen what she had seen, everyone had seen the dragon in the sky — it could hardly be missed — tearing through the ranks of the Atlesian air fleet, destroying great ships like they were toys of a careless child, descending on the ground with worse than fire.

Everyone had seen it, just as they all had seen, and in their faces now, Pyrrha could see the same…

Fear. It was fear that made her tremble, there was no denying it.

There was no purpose in denying it.

Denying it would not banish it.

Saying 'I am not afraid, I am the Champion of Mistral, and I laugh at death' would not banish fear from her own heart, and it certainly would not banish fear from the hearts of Arslan or Violet or Neptune or any of the others.

And yet, someone would have to. Someone needed to put courage back into the hearts of the huntsmen and huntresses, or else…

Or else the dragon would fall upon them and devour them while their swords hung from their trembling hands.

Someone…

Someone being…

Pyrrha closed her eyes for a moment.

Arslan had told Penny that all one needed was a knowledge of the classics; Pyrrha had that, if nothing else, so it seemed that they might see if Arslan was right.

It was to Arslan that Pyrrha turned, because she instinctively shied away from a grand speech, delivered as a speech, raising her voice to let it echo out across the field; she feared it would sound false, artificial, the intended effect undercut by the perceived air of self-importance.

But one thing that a knowledge of the classics taught — the same knowledge that Arslan claimed was all that was required — was that there was more than one way to give a speech; the great speeches of the Mistraliad were not delivered out to the world; rather, they were delivered in conversation between two warriors on the field of battle, said battle and the war and the world itself slowing for the delivery of weighty words.

With good fortune, the battle and the grimm would slow their progress for Pyrrha to speak to Arslan — in such a way that others would hear her too.

Certainly, she did not keep quiet, did not lower her voice; rather, her voice was high enough that it carried, even though it was solely at Arslan that she looked, and only to Arslan that she apparently spoke. "Arslan, can you use your semblance on yourself and embolden your own heart?"

Arslan looked up at her. "That would be a fine thing, wouldn't it?" she replied. "But no, it doesn't work like that." She said it with certainty, as though she had tried in the past and found her semblance wanting; Pyrrha, who could not remember a time in all the tournaments in which they had both competed when Arslan had seemed nervous, was left admiring her ability to hide the fact.

But, since you cannot breathe upon yourself, then let me breathe on you, as it were. "That is a pity, that you cannot embolden yourself and then, thus bold, give heart to the rest of us," she said. "But then, perhaps you should take heart rather from the fact that…" Pyrrha was forced to pause for a moment, because it would be as well for her to have thought through why things were not so hopeless before she said 'things aren't so hopeless' and invited demands for an explanation.

That took a few seconds' thought, because on the face of it, there wasn't much to take heart from. The Atlesians had failed, their immensely powerful weaponry, stronger than anything in the arsenal of the huntsmen and huntresses, had failed to bring down the immense and mighty grimm opposed to them. Penny's laser, when it was fully charged, was about as powerful as a single one of the cannons on an Atlesian cruiser — Pyrrha remembered that because she had heard Rainbow Dash boast as much — and thus it was the mightiest weapon that they here possessed. But many laser cannons on several Atlesian cruisers had fired on the dragon, illuminating the darkness with their red beams, and the dragon yet lived.

Lived and roared and came towards them, where it might sweep up the embers of the grimm horde into a blazing inferno.

I am supposed to be devising cause for hope, not reasoning myself into despair.

But we are so few, compared with…

So few…

"Are you going to remind me that ten thousand fates of death surround us, which no man or woman either may escape or avoid?" Arslan asked, a trifle sharply but not unkindly for it.

Pyrrha would have chuckled under different circ*mstances, but she only shook her head. "No," she replied. "No, indeed. Rather, I would have you put thoughts of death aside and take heart from the fact that things are not so hopeless as they appear. We are few in number, perhaps, compared to the strength of the Atlesians upon the other side of the field, and the size and strength of that grimm — what we can tell of it — makes us seem mere vermin or insects by comparison—"

"I feel better already," Arslan muttered.

"But being few, we have great freedom," Pyrrha told her. "We are not bound to a line, or a tight formation from which we cannot escape, and being so much smaller than our enemy, we may be so much more nimble. When the dragon descends, before it we may scatter like rats — no, that's too big, something smaller—"

"co*ckroaches?" Arslan suggested.

"Yes, thank you, like co*ckroaches," Pyrrha said. "Like filthy co*ckroaches, we may scurry about the floor and thus evade the lumbering feet that try to step on us."

As someone who had never, to her knowledge, suffered co*ckroaches in any room of her extremely well-maintained house, Pyrrha hoped that she hadn't so mistaken the behaviour of the creatures as to render her point nonsense.

"That's all very well," Arslan replied. "But co*ckroaches can't kill the person trying to step on them, no matter how much they run around."

"co*ckroaches do not have weapons or semblances," Pyrrha pointed out. She stepped sideways to look around Arslan. "Umber," she called out. "Can you freeze the dragon with your semblance?"

Umber pushed her sunglasses back up her nose a fraction. A smirk crossed her features as she said, "So long as it isn't wearing its boyfriend's sash like a blindfold, Lady Pyrrha, I see no reason why I should not. So long as it has eyes, it should not be immune to me. Although if my concentration is broken by other grimm coming to the dragon's aid—"

"They won't get near you; you may depend on that and us," vowed Umber's teammate, the mouse faunus with the beret on his head.

"I'm glad to hear it," Pyrrha said. "And while the grimm is frozen, we can kill it."

"How?" asked Yang. "I mean, I'm sure it will be easier than killing it while it's moving, but all the same, Ruby said—"

"Maybe," Penny interjected. "If Jaune were to give Ruby a boost, then she'd be moving with enough force to cut its head off."

Yang folded her arms. "You know, at some point, that trick you're so fond of is going to get old."

"The fox has a hundred tricks, the hedgehog only one," Ren murmured. "But the hedgehog's trick is very good."

"What do you think, Ruby?" asked Penny.

"I think it's a good idea, except that Crescent Rose doesn't have a long enough blade to slice through the dragon's neck in a single stroke," Ruby replied. "It won't get all the way from top to bottom."

Nora shrugged. "If the grimm is frozen stiff, then you can take as long as you want—"

"Not too long, please," Umber interjected. "Keeping people frozen is not entirely effortless on my part."

"Or, after you've made a deep enough cut, maybe I can knock its head off," Nora said. "Or Pyrrha and Jaune can do the rest or … we'll figure it out. The point is, just because you can't kill it in one shot doesn't mean it's not worth trying. I think this is a pretty good plan, and I think we should go for it."

"And I, too," Umber declared. "We'll show those Atlesian dogs that a few brave hearts may do more than all their arms and ships."

Penny looked a little discomfited by Umber's choice of words, but she kept silent as others began to enthusiastically add their approval to the idea.

"We will do as you suggest, Lady Pyrrha," Violet Valeria vowed, half bowing in Pyrrha's direction.

"And Penny also," Pyrrha said, reaching out to put a hand on Penny's shoulder.

Violet ignored that, instead raising her voice to cry out, "Let old Mistral count for something still!"

A loud cheer rose from the throats of the Haven students.

"You guys do know how to make everything about yourselves, don't you?" Yang asked, in a tone that contained both amusem*nt but also the promise of eyeballs rolling in equal measure.

Pyrrha winced. "I'm afraid so," she said softly. She glanced at Penny. "Penny, I … I'm sorry if I, or that I … I hope you don't feel as though I—"

"It's fine," Penny assured her, raising her and placing it gently on top of Pyrrha's. "I mean, this just shows that there are people who would listen to you who wouldn't listen to me. And the important thing right now is that we have an idea for when that thing arrives."

Their eyes were drawn once more towards the dragon, still some distance off but getting closer, its bony skull a white point in the dark sky and aimed straight for them like a missile.

"That is true," Pyrrha murmured. "Nevertheless, if anyone has a better idea, I will not be offended, I promise."

"Nah, I think that'll work," Ruby declared, temporarily folding up Crescent Rose into its carbine configuration so that she could walk closer to them. "Although … some co*ckroaches do get stepped on, you know that, right? Or didn't you? I don't suppose you have a lot of them in your mansion."

"No, I must admit, I've never seen one in person," Pyrrha confessed.

"Nor have I," Ruby replied. "So I might be wrong too."

"But I suspect you are not," Pyrrha said softly. "But … is there another choice, beyond fleeing immediately?"

Ruby looked up at her, her silver eyes meeting Pyrrha's, almost boring or burning into her. "No," Ruby said, quietly and a trifle slowly. "No, I don't think there is." She snorted. "Thus kindly we scatter."

"Hmm?" Penny asked.

"A quote?" asked Pyrrha.

"I don't actually … never mind," Ruby said quickly. "The point is that this will work, if anything does, and it has to work, for the sake of Vale. After what that dragon did to the Atlesian line, what could it do to the Red Line if it got there? It's like you said, our big advantage is the fact that we're not on a wall or in a line; we're free to move however we like, even — especially — out of that thing's way. As much as we can." She paused and glanced down at Crescent Rose in her small, pale hands. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather be the one getting launched by Jaune? I'm sure the crowd would love it if their Champion of Mistral got a big strike on a big grimm like that."

"Actually, Pyrrha isn't the Champion of Mistral anymore; she's the Vytal Champion now," Penny pointed out.

Ruby didn't quite snort, but her nose did twitch a little as though she might. "Well," she said, "either way."

"I'm more concerned about the crowd," Pyrrha said softly.

A grin flashed across Ruby's face for a second as she jerked in her head in the direction of the Haven students.

Pyrrha arched one eyebrow.

Ruby shrugged, as if to say that she was right no matter how improper or impolitic it might be to say it.

Pyrrha decided to ignore that for now, instead saying, "Crescent Rose cuts deeper than Miló; you may not be able to take the dragon's head, but you can get closer to that goal than I." She hesitated. "Jaune," she said.

Jaune had been lingering upon the edge of their conversation, listening without speaking. Now, he looked at her. "Yeah?"

"When the dragon arrives and the fighting resumes, you should stick close to Ruby," Pyrrha said, with some reluctance that she hoped wasn't too obvious in her voice. "Since you'll be working together when the moment comes, it makes sense. For you to try and find each other amidst the chaos would waste time that we may not have."

Now it was Jaune's turn to look into her eyes, and Pyrrha was certain that he could divine in them that she was not thrilled about this. He reached out for her, and with her hand holding Miló, he closed his fingers instead about her wrist as he said, "That makes sense."

"No," Ruby said. "No, it … okay, yes, it makes sense, but that doesn't mean that we're gonna do it. First of all, Jaune can't keep up with me while I'm using my semblance, so I'll have to slow down for him, which wouldn't be so bad because I get that we're going to be working together for the big strike, but more importantly than that is I don't want to be the one responsible if Jaune is the co*ckroach that gets stepped on!"

"Huh?" Jaune asked, his voice alarmed.

"No offence," Ruby said.

"No offence?!" Jaune squawked.

"I don't care what you think about me, Pyrrha," Ruby said. "Just like I'm pretty sure you don't care what I think about you. But that doesn't mean that I want to be blamed for Jaune dying, hated for it, or treated like it's my fault because I didn't protect him so you can both stick with me if you want to, and then you can feel as guilty as I will—"

"Will you stop talking about me as though I'm going to die?" Jaune requested.

"I was going to say 'if', not 'when,'" Ruby insisted.

"We'll all stick with you, as best we can," Penny declared. "As though … as though we were a team."

Ruby looked at her. "Okay," she agreed. "Stick with me as best you can, try and keep up and … try and keep up." She turned away from them, taking a few short steps away but not too far. Her red cape, hanging from her shoulders, wafted gently in the night breeze as she looked up at the dragon as it grew gradually larger in the night sky.

Pyrrha felt Jaune squeeze her wrist.

"I suppose I should thank you for having a little more faith in me than Ruby does," Jaune said.

"She didn't make it sound like a question of faith so much as…" Pyrrha trailed off without saying what Ruby had made it sound like. "Would it affect your gratitude if I told you I was happier with her insistence than with my suggestion?"

Jaune managed a very soft chuckle in the circ*mstances. "No," he said, "You're good." He paused for half a moment. "That wasn't a bad speech back there."

"Hardly a speech," Pyrrha replied. "More of a—"

"Whatever it was," Jaune said. "It worked."

"So it seems," Pyrrha agreed, speaking quietly as she, like Ruby, turned her eyes towards the dragon.

My words worked, but will my plan?

It must, as Ruby said. It must work, for we have little else.

XxXxX​

The dragon, it must be conceded, had been quite patient with them; or else it had simply had a fair distance to go to reach them, flying as it did not straight across the battlefield from the Altesian lines but back, out across the field from which the grimm had started their attack and then across it towards them from the front, the direction in which the grimm had attacked before.

Whether it had simply no choice or whether it was not displeased by the fact that the huntsmen and huntresses had time to observe its coming and to dread its arrival, the fact remained that the dragon's arrival had not been immediate. It had given time to its enemies, time to gather their courage, time to think, time to prepare mentally and spiritually, if not in any physical sense, time that would perhaps have been denied to them if the dragon had travelled by a more direct route or flown more swiftly.

Time that, Pyrrha hoped, it would rue granting them in the short time that it had to think about it before it died.

Nevertheless, patient as the dragon might have been or forced to patience by immutable distance, the dragon closed the distance between them. The beats of its wings seemed lazy now, a substantial interval between each beat, but nevertheless, the dragon came on and seemed to be picking up speed as it came.

Its roaring came before it, cutting through the air, devouring the silence, drowning out the sounds of the lesser grimm as the dragon heralded its own coming. Each roar was louder than the last, rang more in the ears of those who heard it.

And it was not only the roaring that came on before but the grimm too; Jaune's fears were confirmed, the grimm of their horde, the grimm that had been rendered leaderless by the death of the Apex Alpha, were now rallied under the new leadership of the dragon. Indeed, that — more than to frighten the huntsmen and huntresses — might have been the point of the roaring, to rally the grimm or place them under its command or simply to give them an order in the language of monsters.

Whatever the case, the dragon roared, and the grimm answered; even as the dragon still winged its way towards them, the grimm of the horde had already returned to the attack, hurling themselves forwards against the students of Beacon and Haven with all the abandon they had displayed before Jaune and Penny and the others had completed their missions. The students were spread out to avoid the dragon, ready to scatter in all directions, but as the other grimm returned to the attack, they began, consciously or otherwise, to bunch together to better fight back against the swarming beowolves and ursai and boarbatusks, the creeps and the stormvermin.

Was that what the dragon had wanted? Had it seen their strategy already, though it was still some distance off, and moved to counter it? Or was it a happy side effect of its natural inclination to order the grimm forwards in advance of itself?

They were very fortunate that the attack was being led by relatively small grimm, with no goliaths or cyclopes having come up yet to take their place anew on the front line; these smaller grimm, even including some of the big ursai, were nothing they could not deal with, and while it would make things a little more difficult, they would not stop the huntsmen moving.

But it made her glad — and no doubt made Arslan even more glad — that they had sent the wounded away. Reese Chloris had found a tractor in a shed that was part of the cluster of farm buildings behind them, and she was not so badly hurt that she couldn't hotwire it and drive it, with the injured students resting in as much comfort as could be found in the circ*mstances aboard a trailer, pulled by the tractor as it made its noisy, ponderous way down the road towards the Red Line. So long as the huntsmen and huntresses stood firm, the grimm should not overtake them.

They could rely for assistance with the smaller grimm on the Mistralian troops under Polemarch Yeoh. Pyrrha still had no idea where they were — Polemarch Yeoh had really hidden her forces very well — but she could just about hear the sounds of their gunshots over the roaring of the grimm, at least when the dragon was not roaring — and see the grimm falling to the fire on their flanks. So long as it kept up—

The roar of the dragon drowned out all other sounds. The great grimm, sprung from the mountain depths, was almost upon them now, and the sound of its roar rang in their ears, making the very ground on which they stood seem to tremble with the noise of its approach. The huntsmen and huntresses scattered left and right, east and west, cutting or gunning down grimm frantically in their efforts to keep moving. Pyrrha, Jaune, Penny, and Ruby, they were all on the move, with Pyrrha leading and Penny bringing up the rear and Ruby and Jaune, the two who were necessary for the second stage of the plan, in between the two. Crescent Rose roared from behind Pyrrha as she cut a swathe through the ranks of the grimm, tracing an indirect route through their black masses that would, she hoped, confuse the dragon and prevent it from predicting their path. It was like a puzzle, one of those puzzles for young children to follow a line through a mass of squiggles that looped and doubled back and intermingled to an end point on the other side. Pyrrha wasn't sure of the endpoint yet, but she could double back and loop around and everything else that made those puzzles hard for a young girl to follow very well as she carved a winding path through the grimm that sought to stay them. Penny's blades of Floating Array warded their rear, and Ruby's gun and Jaune's sword guarded her flanks, and they did not stop moving, not for anything.

Neither did the dragon. It roared, and it seemed that it would descend upon the huntsmen and huntresses, but at the last moment, it changed direction somewhat, turning away from the students fighting beneath it, heading away from them towards … what? Pyrrha could not say. Towards Vale, back towards the Atlesians, where was it—?

The dragon opened its mouth, and as it roared, that yellow beam that they had seen from afar erupted from its mouth. It was an even more terrible sight, far more terrible when seen up close than at a great distance. Its brightness made Pyrrha look away and shield her eyes with Akoúo̱, its heat spread out across the battlefield and passed over Pyrrha's skin, and the dragon did not even cease to roar as it unleashed so much power on…

On the Mistralian troops.

The fire from the flanks had diminished; on one side, it had almost stopped completely; the soldiers who had been hidden from Pyrrha's eyes had not escaped the dragon's senses, either its sight or its ability to sense the fear it spread in men's hearts, whatever the answer, it had found them, and it had descended on them, and the fire that had poured upon the grimm was in a single stroke almost gone.

The dragon's roar stopped as it wheeled in the air away from the scene of destruction, the smouldering fires along the ground, the copse of trees replaced in an instant with blackened stumps, the ditches destroyed by new carvings through the earth. The dragon turned away, and as its roar faded, the air was filled with screaming as men and women burst from their remaining hiding places, throwing aside their camouflage webbing, pursued by juvenile young grimm.

Young grimm sprung from the pools of black ichor that dropped like rain from the black cloud that was the dragon's belly and its neck; they fell upon the ground, then out of them rose yet more grimm to trouble them.

They had fallen amongst what had been the hiding places of the soldiers before the dragon's breath swept through them, and now, they pursued those soldiers that had survived.

Pyrrha charged to their aid, cutting through the grimm that got in their way and then tearing into the unprotected young grimm, drawing their attention away from the last surviving soldiers, cutting through unprotected black flesh as the troops escaped.

"Polemarch Yeoh?" Pyrrha called out as frightened soldiers fled past her and her friends. "Polemarch Yeoh?"

There was no answer but the dragon's roar as it repeated the trick on the other side of the battlefield, its mouth opening and its deadly breath sweeping across a seemingly empty expanse that nonetheless no doubt had also had soldiers concealed within it.

How much of Polemarch Yeoh's command, that had escaped unscathed from the fighting until now, had been destroyed in mere instants? Was Polemarch Yeoh herself among the slain?

The dragon circled over the battlefield, looking down upon the huntsmen and huntresses who scurried about beneath it like … like co*ckroaches, as Pyrrha had said, and with as much disdain as the irate householder shows for the infestation did the dragon look down upon them.

Now, Umber, Pyrrha thought. Now. Show this creature that we are not helpless.

But before Umber could use her semblance on the dragon — if she could have, from where she was and where it was — the immense grimm opened its mouth not to roar, not to let out another burning, bright yellow breath, but to shriek the shriek that, when heard far off, had set Pyrrha's teeth on edge and sent a shiver down her spine.

Now, up close, ringing in her ears from this short distance, it did far worse.

It chilled Pyrrha to the bone. It sent a charge through every nerve and fibre of her body. It rang like a great tolling bell within her mind, echoing back and forth within her and filling her head with such terrible thoughts … It was like Mountain Glenn all over again, it was like when they had confronted Salem, when she had played with them, ensorcelled them, when her words had been her swords to conjure visions that undid their courage. Just as Salem's words then, so too the awful shrieking of the dragon now.

Pyrrha dropped to her knees, the grimm around her seeming to almost disappear from view. Akoúo̱ tumbled from her grasp to land on the grass beside her; she barely retained her grip on Miló. Where … why did she half see Mistral before her eyes? Was she in the fields before Vale's walls, or was she back home, watching that home wreathed in flame, smoke rising from every part of the slopes? Jaune, Jaune lay before her, Jaune with his back bloody and rent with wounds, Jaune's bones visible sticking up through torn skin and shredded garments—

Oh Gods, take it away! Take it from my eyes and let me see it nevermore. Or, if you will not, take instead my eyes that I may never see such sights again, but do not let such horror linger in my gaze!

Forbid it.

Have mercy.

Spare me.

Spare him.

There was no sparing, no mercy, no one stepping in to forbid the sight; there was only Jaune in her mind's eye, lying before her, half dead or more than half, the victim of such savagery that it made Pyrrha want to wretch and vomit 'til her guts were raw. He reached for her with one feeble, frail, and trembling hand; his eyes — what she could see of his eyes, for one was covered in blood that had streamed down his face — were fixed on hers, imploring her to save him, accusing her of having failed to protect him.

He mouthed her name, though the word itself did not come from his silent lips.

Tears welled up in Pyrrha's eyes and began to fall down her cheeks.

Pyrrha knelt upon the ground, weeping, trembling, visions of horror dancing before her eyes. Sunset looked back at her with lifeless eyes; Soteria had been driven through her chest, and her arms were spread out on either side of her as though she had been welcoming the end when it came, but her mouth hung open with surprise, like a flopping fish, and gave the lie to any sense of welcome. Pyrrha's mother was curled up in a ball on the ground, like a babe, huddled for warmth, comfort, or an illusory sense of safety. Penny's cries were childlike as she was torn to pieces, sparks and bolts flying as her limbs were ripped asunder. Arslan lay like the Red Lion in the famous painting, surrounded by grimm who would not decompose, dead amongst her fallen enemies, but quite dead all the same, the wounds upon her chest and face attesting to it with so much blood that only her messy mane cried out that it was Arslan.

And from the burning streets, the piteous cry went up, demanding to know why their champion, their princess, the repository of all their pride and hopes had not saved them from this fate.

Because she could not save them. Because the shrieking of the grimm had stolen all her courage and her heart away.

Pyrrha knelt upon the ground with weighted limbs, still, rigid, held down by fear, and all around her, the valour of old Mistral withered, and the heroism of Beacon turned to ash in the flame of the dragon's shrieking.

The grimm fell back but slightly as the dragon landed, its wings beating heavily. It was still shrieking as it crushed Bolin Hori underfoot. The dragon surveyed the field as master of it. Pyrrha had sunk to her knees, while Jaune had thrown himself onto both hands and knees, crying out in horror as he shook and swayed and pounded at the earth with his fists as though he had seized with lycanthropia; Penny hugged herself while the swords of Floating Array lay limp upon their wires behind her; Ren was fled in terror, and Nora ran after him, crying his name; Yang was frozen, mouth open, eyes dead and lifeless; Arslan had fallen backwards and now scrambled back, hands scratching at the dirt, feet kicking at the grass, seemingly unable to get up.

Some fled. Others trembled. All were rendered harmless, none fired or attacked with sword or spear, none were capable of fight, all were undone by the vile shrieking of the dragon.

All save one.

Ruby alone stood her ground before it. She, too, trembled, just as so many others did; tears streamed down her face in vigorous rivers. Her breathing came heavily, her chest rising and falling. But she stood up, however much her lithe and frail-seeming form might shake like a sycamore tree buffeted by strong winds, yet she stood up, with Crescent Rose gripped tight in her trembling hands.

The dragon was still shrieking, the dread sound still coming out of its mouth, as it lowered its head to stare at her with baleful red eyes.

Ruby answered the dragon's shriek with a shriek of her own, a piercing cry torn from her throat that somehow managed to rise above the dragon's shriek to reach Pyrrha's ears.

Ruby shrieked, and she charged forwards, Crescent Rose drawn back, rose petals falling after her like drops of blood to stain the ground behind her.

Ruby charged, swinging her scythe as far as it could go; the dragon raised its head, the shriek dying from its throat, replaced by a mumbled noise of confusion; the dragon raised its head and its long neck up out of the Ruby's scythe as she rushed on, as undaunted as she was unboosted by Jaune's semblance, and instead of the neck, she slashed with Crescent Rose at the dragon's leg. She buried the blade of her scythe in the black of the dragon's flesh, but the dragon gave no roar of pain, no howl of outrage; it only snapped at Ruby, trying to close its enormous jaws around her.

Ruby darted away, leaving more rosepetals after her, some of them even landing on the dragon's bony head as its jaw snapped shut, to mingle with the real blood that stained the bleached white bone.

Not Ruby's blood. Not hers, not yet.

Ruby danced away, and as she danced, she twirled, her cloak a-flutter 'round her and slashed at the dragon's hamstring, or where that would have been if it had such. Again, the dragon made no noise of response; it only acted, starting to turn its bulky form around to keep Ruby in front of it instead of behind.

But Ruby was too swift; she was much too swift, and swifter still because of her semblance. The dragon might be swift in the air, it might even be nimble on the wing, but here upon the ground, it was a lumbering behemoth of a thing, trailing behind Ruby as it tried to keep up with her. Meanwhile, Ruby struck again and again, an increasing number of steps ahead as Crescent Rose lashed out here, there.

It wasn't clear how much harm she was doing to the dragon, but it was rather magnificent to watch nonetheless: the way she danced around it; the way the rosepetals fell behind her, swirled around her, the way they marked the pattern of her movements along the ground; the way Crescent Rose blurred into a red ring as she spun it around her hands; the almost idle fashion in which Ruby cut down the juvenile grimm that sprung from the puddles of ichor that dripped from the dragon without ever seeming to divert her attention from the dragon itself; the swift elegance of the huntress contrasted with the sluggish, ungainly totterings of the grimm that was too slow to—

The dragon's tail, tipped with three finger-like claws, whipped out with a speed unlike anything the dragon had displayed before to wrap around Ruby's waist.

The dragon laughed, a dreadful, cacophonous sound, as it lifted Ruby up into the air towards its face. She struggled in its grip but could not break it.

Miló flew through the air as Pyrrha threw it from her hand; the spear buried itself in the dragon's tail as Pyrrha rose from her knees and charged towards the dragon. Ruby's example had put courage in her; if Ruby could fight on despite whatever it was the dragon's shriek had filled her mind with, then so could Pyrrha. Certainly, she couldn't simply stay kneeling on the ground and watch Ruby die by jaws or by the crushing tail or by the dragon's brutal breath.

Miló buried itself in the dragon's tail, just before the tip where it held Ruby; it did not cause the dragon to relinquish its grip upon her, but it did cause the dragon to swing its immense head, larger than a Bullhead, in Pyrrha's direction.

"No!" Ruby shouted. "Pyrrha, get away!"

Pyrrha ignored her — as she had more often than not ignored Ruby, that had been a large root of many noxious flowers that had grown between them, but in this specific case, she felt herself more justified than she had perhaps been in the past; she flung out her hand, a black outline of Polarity surrounding it as she grasped for a large chunk of the wreckage of the Zhenshou, a lagged hunk of battleship armour plating. Pyrrha tore it from where it stood upright in the ground, and with her semblance, she hurled it through the air, slicing an ursa major in half as it went, towards the dragon.

She had hoped to, if not slice the dragon's head off with it, then at the very least to put a nasty cut on its neck equal to the brutal scar that marred the dragon's side; but as the slice of metal with so many sharp edges flew towards it, the dragon turned its head with a speed it had never displayed when chasing Ruby — that was beginning to look like holding back for its own amusem*nt — and chomped down its massive jaws upon the armour plate.

The metal crumpled, rising in some places and falling in others around the dragon's mouth where the grimm bit into the plate.

The grimm made no sound as it shook its head and threw the metal back at Pyrrha. Pyrrha leapt up, tucking her legs up beneath her, her whole body rolling, just managing to avoid the immense metal slab that flew beneath; it disturbed her sash with its passage, but it did not strike her, nor take any of her aura.

It did leave her in mid-leap, legs tucked up beneath her, whole body caught in a sort of roll as the dragon stretched out its neck and opened its mouth to swallow her.

The swords of Floating Array slammed into the dragon's neck just behind the armoured head. The wires were stretched taut as Penny hauled back on swords and on what the swords had struck alike.

For a moment only, she held the dragon fast, but a moment was all that Pyrrha needed to land safely on the ground and summon Miló back into her hand.

The dragon flicked its head, a sharp movement that would have pulled Penny off her feet if Penny hadn't withdrawn her swords a fraction of a second earlier. The dragon swiped its tail in Pyrrha's direction, but Pyrrha vaulted over it, stabbing quickly and lightly down into the tail with Miló before throwing Akoúo̱ into the head of a beowolf rising from a pool of ichor, killing it instantly.

A growl of irritation rose from the dragon's throat — and then stopped, abruptly, sound snatched away. The dragon froze, head turned towards Penny, mouth half open, Ruby still gripped in its tail, but nothing — not head, or tail, or wings, or feet — moving at all. The only movement from the dragon came from the black droplets that continued to drip, drip, drip like a leaky tap down onto the ground beneath it.

Umber Gorgoneion stalked forwards. Her sunglasses were off, held loosely in one hand; the flaps of her leather jack rose and fell somewhat with her steps. She kept her eyes fixed upon the dragon, staring right into its smouldering left eye.

"I can feel its resistance," she muttered. "I've never restrained something this big before." She raised her voice a little. "Any time you would like to kill it would be agreeable."

Their plan had been for Ruby to kill it, and Ruby remained held fast in the grip of the dragon's immobilised tail.

"Pyrrha, try and free Ruby," Penny ordered. "I'll do what I can." She began the swords of Floating Array around and around in a circle, the whirling ring of blades held perpendicular to her so that they formed a sort of saw, a saw which she aimed at the dragon's neck and began to move upwards through the air towards it.

Pyrrha did not have time to watch Penny work, though she hoped that for anyone with that luxury it would be an enjoyable performance. For her part, she leapt up onto the dragon's tail and scrambled up it where it curved skywards, using the little protrusions of bone for handholds and footholds, until she had reached where Ruby squirmed and wriggled in the grip of its claws.

"Ruby," Pyrrha said mildly, wrapping her legs around the dragon's tail and gripping with her knees so that he didn't fall as she grasped one of the three claws with both hands and tried to pull it away.

It didn't budge.

Ruby huffed and pushed against the claw herself. "You shouldn't have done that. Charged it the way you did."

"Should I have let you die?" Pyrrha asked. "Don't answer that."

Ruby grunted with the futile effort of pushing at the dragon's claw. "I don't want Jaune to hate me for your death any more than I want you to blame me for his," she said. "I don't want to live with that on my conscience the way that … I don't want to live with that."

Pyrrha pulled, gripping even tighter with her knees in the hope that if she only held on better, then she would have more leverage. It didn't work; the claw didn't move, not a single inch or less. "I'm sure that Jaune wouldn't…" She paused. Pyrrha swallowed. "Ruby, do you think that if I'd been more honest with you, then things would have turned out better between us?"

Perhaps if I had told you 'No, I disagree, and I'm afraid you cannot convince me otherwise,' then you might not have liked the answer, but you would have had no grounds to feel condescended to.

Pyrrha felt that perhaps the question of whether it was the condescension or the disagreement that had driven Ruby away was like asking whether it was the blade or the blood loss that killed Juturna, but at the very least, she thought it would have prevented some ill feeling.

You might still have wanted to leave, but perhaps under less of a stormy sky.

Ruby hesitated. "I think a little more honesty would have been better for everyone, yeah."

"Then don't be ridiculous, Ruby. The only way Jaune would blame you for my passing is if you shot me yourself."

Ruby let out a strangled laugh. "That's a little hard to do right now."

Pyrrha didn't respond to that. She was pulling on the claw that would not move. It was as solid as steel; worse, because with steel, Pyrrha could have used her semblance on it; this claw was … it was frozen solid.

Like the dragon, thanks to Umber's semblance.

Yang, Pyrrha recalled, had been similarly frozen, utterly rigid; Umber had been able to hoist Yang up by the neck and throw her out of the ring, but even when was picked up, Yang had remained stuck in the same posture in which she had been frozen.

Just like the dragon had been frozen, with its claws wrapped around Ruby.

But there has to be a way to get her out of here.

The grimm roared and howled as they came to the rescue of the embattled dragon, closing in from all sides as they fought to not lose their second leader of this one battle.

They were met by the huntsmen of Beacon and Haven, who once had scattered like co*ckroaches but now converged upon the dragon even as the grimm were doing, surrounding it with a ring of swords and guns to hold the grimm at bay, while others fought to despatch the juvenile that arose from the ichor that the dragon dripped upon the grass.

Some beowolves broke through, joining newborn beowolves around the dragon's tail, trying to climb up. Jaune attacked them, Crocea Mors raised high as he slashed down to cut the head off a juvenile beowolf and stabbed another squarely through the chest.

Well done, Jaune!

An older beowolf, one with some white armour on its black body, slashed at him with a paw, but Jaune took the blow upon his shield, turning the stroke and slashing down to slice the beowolf's arm clean off.

Another juvenile rose behind him out of a fast-disappearing pool of oily darkness.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha cried. "Behind you!"

Jaune turned, too late; the beowolf had already leapt upon his back, dark claws scrabbling up and down his body, mouth closing around his neck. Jaune cried out as he flailed wildly, and the other beowolves closed in.

"Go!" Ruby yelled.

Pyrrha went, letting go with her legs and dropping rapidly down from the dragon's tail. She flung Akoúo̱ towards the closest beowolf not on top of Jaune himself, then like a descending thunderbolt, she drove the tip of Miló through the juvenile beowolf's head without touching Jaune or his aura.

She tore through the remaining beowolves in short order, red sash whirling and gold armour gleaming, striking them down each with a single blow.

"Try and get up and help Ruby," she said to Jaune. "I'll stay here in case any more grimm get through. How's it going, Penny?"

"Um, it's a little hard to say," Penny admitted.

A quick glance from Pyrrha confirmed that it was as hard to see as it was to say: Penny's whirling blades were flying into the dragon's neck, but they did not seem to be cutting very deep; when or if she would sever its head was an open question.

They needed to free Ruby, if that was at all possible while the dragon remained frozen by Umber.

"I'll get her out," Yang said, falling back from the fighting, backing towards the grimm's tail. "I'm probably stronger than you are, no offence."

"None taken."

"Hang on, Ruby, I'll be right there," Yang said, and she fired her gauntlets down at the ground to launch herself up without the need to climb the tail as Pyrrha had done. Once she got up there, she held herself by the arm, not the legs, wrapping one hand around the tail while using the other to pull at one of its claws.

Her bicep bulged, but she seemed to be having no better luck than Pyrrha had enjoyed.

The grimm continued to push forwards, trying to break through the huntsmen and huntresses to reach the dragon, and even frozen, the dragon continued to disgorge new grimm — did it never stop sweating? — to attack the students from behind. There was soon more than enough to occupy Pyrrha and Jaune without being able to keep watch on Ruby and Yang.

The grimm pressed most fiercely against Umber Gorgoneion; were they intelligent enough to realise, to be able to work out, that she was the one responsible for the dragon's condition, and that if they could bring her down, then their champion would be free once more? It seemed strange to even contemplate it, but it was the only explanation for why they centred their assault upon her. Her teammates did their best to defend her: her mouse faunus teammate slashed at the grimm with a fencing sabre, and at one point seemed to disappear completely before reappearing, or regrowing to full size, underneath an ursa, impaling it through its belly from below; another mouse faunus, a girl this time, laid about her with a rope with a knot at one end, cracking the skulls of stormvermin despite the slightness of the weapon; her last teammate, a bird faunus with wings spreading out behind him, fought with both a spear and a golden sword. They all fought bravely and with skill to keep Umber safe and undisturbed while she pinned down the dragon, but the grimm were so numerous that a beowolf slipped past and slammed into Umber from the side, bearing her to the ground.

The dragon roared to life once more, thrusting its head up towards the sky and bellowing out its freedom to the battlefield.

Then it turned its gaze on Ruby and Yang.

Ruby was still caught within the claws of the dragon's tail; Yang was still holding onto that tail with one hand, trying to pull Ruby free with the other to no avail.

She was still trying even as she looked anxiously towards the dragon as it glared at them.

Pyrrha turned away from the battle and began to slash furiously at the dragon's tail, trying to cut it off, or at least make the grimm drop Ruby. Jaune joined her, his sword-arm glowing as he used his semblance to strengthen himself.

The dragon swished its tail, knocking Jaune off his feet and onto the ground; Pyrrha just about managed to leap over the swiping tail, but only just — with so little notice, she didn't quite make the jump, the toe of one foot caught a jutting spur of bone, and she, too, was sent flying. Pyrrha thrust out her arms and rolled on landing, turning on her toes to face the dragon once more.

Turning in time to see the dragon flick its tail furiously upwards, throwing Ruby and Yang up into the air.

It lunged for them both, jaws open.

Ruby had dropped Crescent Rose when she was first grabbed, but Yang still had her Ember Celica attached to both wrists, and she fired them both, not at the dragon but backwards behind her, blasting her through the air towards her sister.

The dragon's mouth came swiftly on.

Pyrrha transformed Miló into rifle mode and fired every shot in the magazine, but she might as well have been whistling for all the notice that the dragon took.

Yang reached Ruby where she flailed in the air, reaching out with one hand to bat her away as though she were the ball in a volleyball match.

There was a flickering black and red light within the dragon's mouth as it began to close.

Yang fired her Ember Celica once again, pushing herself onwards, and—

The dragon's jaws slammed shut.

The dragon's jaws slammed shut, enclosing Yang within the monster's mouth.

The dragon's jaws slammed shut on Yang.

And Yang was gone.

Yang was…

Yang was…

It had happened so fast, the dragon waking up, turning its angry look on them—

"You need to go! Jump!"

"Not without you!"

The dragon throwing them into the air by its tail, Ruby spinning wildly, wishing so desperately that she still had hold of Crescent Rose.

"Ruby, I've got you!"

Yang flying up towards her, driven by the blasts of Ember Celica.

The dragon's mouth rushing towards them.

It had happened so fast, and then … then it had been so slow.

She could remember every detail on Yang's face. She would always remember. Every line on her face, every strand of her hair, every glimmer of light in her eyes. Every fold of her clothes. The way her hair, so long and thick and lush, flew out behind her as she flew.

The way the fabric of her fingerless glove was stretched across her hand as she spread her fingers out and reached out to push Ruby away.

The look of relief on her face as Ruby was shoved out of the path of the dragon's jaws.

While she was not.

Everything had been so slow. Slow enough for Ruby to take in everything, every last little thing.

She would never forget this moment, this second.

It had been so slow, and then it was so fast. The dragon's jaws slammed shut before Yang, having saved Ruby, could escape herself. They closed around her and now…

And now…

Yang was…

Her sister was…

Ruby landed heavily on the ground, bouncing once, landing on her back, looking up at the dragon.

The dragon that had just…

That had just…

The dragon that had devoured her sister.

Yang had been … Yang was.

Dead.

Yang was dead and gone and—

Not yet. Not yet!

The dragon's jaws had closed on Yang, but that didn't mean that she was gone, not yet. Sunset had been swallowed by those grimm worms underneath Mountain Glenn, but they'd gotten her out again because just because a grimm ate you didn't mean that you were necessarily dead just yet, not if you still had aura. Yang would be unconscious right now, paralysed, unable to free herself, but that didn't mean that she couldn't be freed; if they could kill the dragon quickly, then she still had a chance.

Kill the dragon quickly.

Kill the dragon that they couldn't even seem to really hurt, that hardly felt anything that they did to it, that Penny's best shot could barely scratch.

Kill the dragon that all the power of the Atlesians couldn't put down, that had destroyed their airships and maybe more, probably more.

Kill the dragon, or Yang…

Or Yang would be lost.

Yang would be dead.

Yang would be gone and all…

All her…

Yang…

They couldn't kill the dragon, their weapons weren't strong enough; in fact, far from being able to save Yang, it was looking like they might not be able to save themselves, with the grimm all around them and the dragon in the middle of them.

Ruby was looking right up at the dragon as she lay on the ground, looking up at the grimm that had swallowed Yang whole, the dragon that they had to kill to save Yang and yet could not kill though their lives depended on it, the dragon that would kill them all.

The dragon that was laughing, laughing triumphantly, making that sound that grated Ruby's ears—

Yang's laugh had been so sweet, like honey trickling off a spoon into the porridge bowl beneath; and like the porridge itself, it had been warm, too.

The dragon stopped laughing and looked down at the huntsmen and huntresses fighting below.

A yellow glow began to fill its mouth.

The beam. The beam that would kill everyone.

And Yang would die, unless…

Ruby felt power rising within her, felt a light from within herself glowing brighter and brighter, rushing up and out from the depths of her soul towards her eyes. She heard the song within, a fast song born of desperation, all rapid strings just this side of discordant, playing in the pitch of the scream of fear and anger that ripped from her mouth.

The light rose up within her and shone so brightly it consumed the world.

Nothing but the light, nothing in view, just brightness, and no sound but the pained cries of the—

Ruby felt something heavy strike her on the head, and then everything went black.

"Ruby! Ruby?"

Ruby groaned softly, shifting her body a little; she felt a little uncomfortable where she was, wherever that was now.

Where am I?

Ruby frowned, though her eyes remained closed. What she remembered was…

Maybe I dreamed it. Maybe I'll open my eyes, and I'll be in the dorm room, and the last day of the Vytal Tournament will be about to start. Maybe I dreamed today, and all tonight, and I can ask Pyrrha if Cinder said anything about Amber, and ask Amber if there's anything she'd like to say to us.

Maybe I dreamed more than that. Maybe I dreamed it all, and I'll wake up in my own bed back home, and Yang will tell me that it's time to catch our flight to Beacon.

Maybe I dreamed all of this, and I can wake up and do it better.

That would be wonderful. That would be the greatest gift, the greatest thing, that I could possibly imagine.

But this place, wherever it was, felt less comfortable than her bed. Maybe, maybe if she shifted a little bit.

"She definitely moved that time! She's waking up!"

Penny.

"Ruby? Ruby, can you hear us?"

Jaune.

So it wasn't a dream. Beacon hadn't been a dream. Jaune and Penny hadn't been a dream, they were real, and they were with her.

Unless this is still a dream.

No. No, it's not a dream. It's my life. It's all been real.

Unless…

Ruby opened her eyes. There was no Beacon dorm room ceiling above her, just a starry sky and a few wisps of cloud and Jaune's face above her looking down and Penny beside him.

"Ruby!" Penny cried. "You're back! After what happened at Mountain Glenn, Jaune was worried that you were going to be sleeping for a while."

"Well, I didn't know how long you'd be out for," Jaune said. "It was a while last time."

Ruby realised that the uncomfortable position that she was in was being carried in Jaune's arms, bridal style, being bumped gently up and down as he carried her; the sky, the stars up above, they were moving, or rather, she was moving, being carried westward, in the direction of Vale.

"You're carrying me, right?" Ruby asked softly.

Jaune nodded. "You weren't exactly in a position to walk anywhere."

"Right," Ruby murmured. "But I think you can put me down, now."

"Oh. Yeah, right," Jaune said, stopping to let Ruby down out of his arms and put her down on the floor.

Ruby felt a little unsteady when her feet touched the ground; when Jaune let go of her, she swayed just a bit, and Penny grabbed her by the arm to steady her.

"I'm fine, Penny," Ruby insisted.

"Are you sure?" asked Penny.

"Yes," Ruby replied. "Thanks, but I'm okay."

Penny hesitated for a second, before she said, "Okay."

Penny let go, and Ruby took a step away from her. She felt … she felt light-headed, like she hadn't slept well the night before, or she hadn't eaten enough, or like she was coming down from a sugar high. Her head was spinning, or rather, her mind felt like it was spinning in her head, making balance a little more of an effort than usual.

That cleared after a couple of seconds, but Ruby was left with the light-headed feeling, the sensation that might become a headache or might be all that remained of a headache, the feeling of needles in her head, the feeling of sort of fuzziness chafing at her mind, making thinking straight … not hard exactly, but harder for sure.

Ruby wouldn't say that it hurt, but it certainly wasn't pleasant either, and Ruby wished that it would go away as soon as possible. She needed to be able to think clearly, especially now, especially if…

Ruby looked around. All around her, around them, were the huntsmen and huntresses of Beacon and Haven. With them, too, were a few Mistralian soldiers in their blue uniforms; they still had their weapons, but they had hollow looks in their eyes, they glanced around furtively, they started at so much noise as the snapping of a twig under foot. They looked scared, they looked worse than scared, they looked shattered, and Ruby thought that it was likely that if anything happened, they would run, the same way that the Valish soldiers had run when the grimm attacked.

Considering what the dragon had done to them, the Mistralians had at least as good an excuse as the Valish did, and Ruby hadn't thought the Valish were to blame at all.

As for the huntsmen and huntresses, as for the students of the two schools, they didn't exactly look free from fear themselves, or like paragons of enthusiasm. Nobody looked as though they were burning with eagerness to return to the fray, wherever that was. They were all moving towards Vale, not away from it, but at the same time, they were all moving that way without any sign or sound of the grimm. Nobody was fighting, nobody was even firing a weapon, they were all just moving westwards like a migrating herd.

But they didn't look broken. At least Ruby didn't think they did. They didn't look as frightened as the soldiers, and Ruby really hoped that that wasn't just wishful thinking on her part, that they actually were more stalwart, that they still had courage in them.

Although what they would do with any courage that they possessed … standing their ground and fighting hadn't done them a lot of good the last time, had it?

Or had it? Ruby didn't know. She didn't know why everyone was moving back to Vale, she didn't know what happened between the light and the darkness and her waking up. All she knew was that she couldn't see Yang anywhere.

For that matter, she couldn't see Pyrrha either, though she looked all around for her.

"What happened?" Ruby asked. "Where's Pyrrha?"

"Pyrrha's behind us, with Arslan, Ren, and Nora," Jaune said. "They're the rear guard." He put a hand on her back, and gently nudged her westwards. "We should keep moving."

Ruby consented to be nudged, and then walked forwards so that didn't need to be nudged anymore, but kept her eyes fixed on Jaune, with the odd glance towards Penny. "The rearguard," she murmured. "What did I miss?"

"There was a bright light," Penny said. "Coming from your eyes. Like wings of light."

"You were trying to use them, right?" Jaune asked. "Your silver eyes, you were trying to use them?"

Ruby nodded. "I thought that if we killed the dragon, then we could pull Yang out of it, still alive. And I was afraid that if I didn't kill it, if someone didn't kill it — and that someone was going to have to be me since it felt like we'd tried everything else — then everyone else was going to die." She paused. "Then I felt something hit me on the head."

"The dragon," Jaune said. "It whacked you with its tail before you could … it was hard to see; it looked like it might have had little bits of stone growing on parts of its body, but not enough."

"But you turned a lot of other grimm to stone!" Penny informed her. "If you hadn't, then it might have been a lot harder for us to get out, but thanks to you … I'm pretty sure it's thanks to you that we've been able to get away. The grimm are scared of you."

"'Get away'?" Ruby repeated. "So, the dragon hit me and knocked me unconscious?"

"I guess so," answered Jaune. "Which might be why you woke up so fast, compared with how long you were unconscious when you used your eyes in the tunnel under Mountain Glenn." He frowned. "But shouldn't your aura have protected you? Taken the hit from the dragon and let you carry on?"

"You'd think, wouldn't you?" Ruby muttered. "Maybe … maybe my silver eyes weaken my aura, suppress it, or—"

"If your aura was being suppressed, the dragon's tail would have smashed your skull," Penny pointed out. "But you don't even have a bruise on your face."

Ruby reached up and rubbed her forehead with one hand. "I … well, I don't know, then. I guess it doesn't really matter; it is what it is. It seems like I'm just vulnerable when I use my silver eyes, just not vulnerable enough to kill me. It's not great, but … can't argue with it now. But what happened after that, after I blacked out?"

"The dragon took off," Jaune told her. "Literally. I think you must have hurt it, even if you didn't kill it, and it didn't feel like being around anymore. It shot up into the sky and headed back the way that it had come. We haven't seen it since."

"'Since'?" Ruby asked. "How long have I been out?"

"Ten? Fifteen minutes?" Jaune guessed.

"Eighteen minutes and thirty-six seconds," Penny clarified.

"Like Penny said, you might not have got the dragon, but you did turn a lot of other grimm to stone," Jaune explained. "So we grabbed you—"

"And Crescent Rose this time," Penny said, holding the weapon, folded up into its carbine configuration, out to her.

"Thanks," Ruby said softly, reaching out to take the weapon from Penny's hands. It felt heavy in Ruby's grip, heavier than normal; Ruby put that down to the light-headedness, to the post-nap unease and discomfort that she felt, and hoped very much that it, too, would go away. "You were saying?"

"We smashed our way through the grimm behind us, and since then, we've been moving back towards Vale," Jaune said. "We picked up the survivors of the Mistralian forces, but no Polemarch."

"And no Yang either," Ruby said softly, her voice little more than a whisper.

The faces of Jaune and Penny fell, but before either of them could speak, there was a sound, the crack of a gunshot, Miló being fired in its rifle mode.

Jaune, Penny, Ruby, and all the other students stopped as well; the soldiers too, though they looked ready to run, while the other huntsmen and huntresses looked — more or less — ready to fight.

They waited, expectant, for more gunshots, for calls for help or wordless battle cries, for something, anything. But there was nothing. The sound of the gunshot faded, and the silence returned.

"The grimm are pursuing," Jaune explained. "But slowly, cautiously; they're not coming in a big rush. That's why Pyrrha and the others can hold them off; they're playing it safe. I think we have you to thank for that." He paused, glancing away from Ruby. "But … yeah. You're right. Yang … maybe if the dragon had died, then she would have been … but the dragon's gone, and…"

"And Yang's gone too," Ruby said, as quietly as the beating of a bird's wings.

Because she was. There was no doubting that now, no arguing with it, no hoping that it might be otherwise. The dragon was gone, which meant that Yang was gone too. You didn't get that many chances to save someone who'd been swallowed whole by a grimm; it was really only if you could get them out straight away, or near enough, otherwise … Yang's aura would be gone, and Yang…

Ruby didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about how Yang had died, how her sister had been lost to her; it was bad enough that … it was enough that she was gone.

Yang was gone.

Yang was dead.

"Ruby," Penny began, reaching out to her.

Ruby took a step back, holding up her hands. "I just…" she said, trailing off. "I need to … I'm sorry."

She turned away, her pace quickening for a few steps as she walked away from Jaune and Penny, moving forwards amongst the retreating mass of huntsmen and huntresses and hollow-eyed Mistralian soldiers who trudged their weary way west towards the walls of Vale and its Red Line.

Was she as hollow-eyed as those soldiers? Ruby didn't know. She couldn't see herself, she had no mirror; even if she had one, she might not have wanted to look.

Yang was dead.

Yang had died for her.

That … perhaps no one else would have understood this, perhaps no one else would have wanted to hear it, perhaps Ruby was weird or strange for feeling this way, but that was the part that stung the most, that hurt the most, the thing that stabbed her heart and twisted the blade inside the wound was that Yang had died for her.

Died for Ruby.

Death, to die … Ruby wouldn't go so far as to say that to die would be a grand adventure, but nor would she, like some people, fly from it in terror and disgust. Death was not something to be sought, but nor, in the right circ*mstances, was it something to be shrunk from. Death was, sacrifice was, to give your life was sometimes necessary. That was the old truth, that it was sweet and fitting to die for … for Vale? Perhaps, if Vale was being well governed and the people were happy with their lot and land. For Beacon? In as much as Beacon represented the future of huntsmen and huntresses who would take up the torch when you were gone, then Ruby supposed so. For the people? Yes, always, always for the people, to sacrifice for the people was indeed and without doubt sweet and fitting, the sweetest and most fitting sacrifice that could be made, perhaps the sweetest and most fitting thing that could be done.

But for Ruby?

Death alone, death in the right cause, death for a good and necessary reason, the mere fact of death or loss was no cause for … Ruby would not say it was no cause for grief or sadness; that would be too much. It was too much; it was too much for herself; even had Yang perished in the most noble, valiant, fitting, proper, and all things righteous manner imaginable, throwing her body between ten thousand innocents and the path of harm, even then, Ruby would have been sad. Even then, there would have been an emptiness in her, an absence. Even then, grief would have filled up Yang's room, walked up and down with her, filled out her clothes and remembered Ruby of all her sister's best qualities. Remembered Ruby and her father too. There would have been a stone, on the clifftop, besides Mom's memorial, a remembrance that would last while they themselves should live, and afterwards, until their cabin should crumble and strangers would come to the cliff and wonder at the names of Summer Rose and Yang Xiao Long, who they were and when they lived and how they lived and myriad other questions besides. Until the stones were overgrown, covered with vines and weeds, cracked by the wind and rain and the words no longer legible.

There would be sadness; there would always be sadness, no matter how Yang had died, no matter how nobly and well she had met her end, no matter what Ruby would be sad. How could she not, her sister being…?

Tears began to trickle down her face. Ruby did not trouble to wipe them away, knowing that even if she did so, more of them would be along in a moment.

Her heart was not made of stone. She had a heart, as others did, though unlike some, she was not governed by its impulses. She had a heart, and in her heart, she felt … joy, anger, courage, even fear sometimes, though she flattered herself that she felt less of it than other, lesser people.

And sorrow. She felt sorrow also, having a heart and cause for sorrow.

She would feel sorrow, though Yang had died so well, though the wellness of her passing might have dulled the sorrow a little.

If she had, if Yang had died in a manner that Ruby might be proud of, no, that was wrong, the pride came second; if Yang had died for … if Yang had died well, died better, died full of the glories of a huntress, fulfilling the purpose of a huntress, died in a manner befitting the best of huntresses, then Ruby would have felt pride as well as sorrow. Dad, too, could have felt proud, for it was no shameful thing indeed to send your daughters out to die for the people, facing the monsters that dwelt in darkness. It was something to raise your head and take great pride in, as it was when your mother had walked that road before.

Yang would have given them reason to be fond of grief, had she died well.

But Yang had … Yang had not died well.

Yang had died for Ruby.

Died … for Ruby. Died for Ruby.

Died …

What … what madness was this? What foolish folly, to die for Ruby Rose? Of all people in Remnant? To die saving but one life, and that one life … hers.

Her life worth saving. Her life worth sacrificing another life to preserve, Yang's life. Why?

Why?

What … stupidity.

You idiot! Moron!

To die for Ruby, of all things, of all people.

Ruby could not feel pride in this, could not hold her head up high, no; she couldn't even feel only sad about this; she felt angry! Furious! Angry at Yang … and angry at herself.

How could she be worth saving? How could she be worth Yang's death? Yang was … Yang had been the sun, the light and warmth to which the flowers turned and opened, blooming in their radiant beauty; look at Nora, look at Ren, how Yang had made them hers.

Yang had been the sun, while she, while Ruby, was moonless midnight's witching hour, black and lightless, when and where no sensible soul would stir but lock their doors and keep the dust lamps burning. Love, which came so easily to Yang, had forsaken Ruby. Who would say to her, honestly, 'I'm glad that you're alive, though Yang is dead'? Would even her own father see it so, or say it?

Why should the sun sacrifice itself for moonless night? Why should the night endure while the sun perished? Who loved the night? Who preferred black night to sunny day?

What light would chase away the dark now that Yang was gone, and who would thank the night for enduring her absence?

All preferred the sun, the rising sun, the setting sun, the bright sun that illuminated the blue skies, and yet, the sun had died for darkness, which no one wished to see but to see gone.

The sun had died for her.

Why? Why was I worth that, why was I worth you? All my worth is as a huntress, and as a huntress, you should have let me die.

To die trying to kill that grimm and save everyone,

Instead, I have to live with the fact that I'm the reason you're not here.

How am I supposed to do that, Yang? How am I supposed to live with your weight on my shoulders?

There was no answer from Yang, no ghostly response from out of the clouds, no reply from any god above or below, no crash of thunder, no still small voice, nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing but Ruby herself, her thoughts, her feelings, her whirl of feelings, her forceful feelings, her overwhelming feelings, her feelings that she dared not think aloud lest she be thought a monster.

Yang would never answer her again. There was no one she could turn to but herself. Ruby closed her eyes, and sank to knees on the cold ground, grass crumpling beneath her weight. She bowed her head, chin resting on the chest of her black tunic.

I hate that you loved me enough to do this, but not enough to let me go.

Strong arms enfolded her from in front. At first, without seeing, Ruby felt it must be Jaune or Penny come to offer her some misguided comfort, but the arms that had closed around her felt stronger than Jaune's, while at the same time, they didn't feel like Penny's grip; it wasn't so tight, or … no offence to Penny, but she had kind of a hard body, and that went for her arms as well.

The arms around her were strong, but they were shaking; the whole body that pressed against her was trembling like a leaf.

Ruby's eyes remained closed as her hands travelled upwards, her fingertips feeling bare skin just below the shoulders, and then some sort of plastic-feeling substance.

Ruby opened her eyes. It was Nora holding her, Nora kneeling with her arms around Ruby, Nora shaking like a tree buffeted by strong winds.

Nora sobbing.

"Nora?" Ruby asked. "I thought … Jaune told me you were at the rear, with—"

"We were," Pyrrha answered from behind; Ruby had to twist her neck — and her shoulders as much as Nora's grip would let her — to see her. "But the grimm have broken contact, for now; I feared that we might be cut off, so we fell back. We will stand here and let the rest of you go on, if…" She glanced at Nora but said nothing. Instead, after a pause, she said, "I … I am as sorry for Yang as I am glad to see you awake. Anything that I can—?"

"Thank you," Ruby said softly. "Really, but there's nothing you can do."

There's nothing anyone can do.

"Ruby," Ren murmured, shuffling shamefacedly over to her. He did not meet her eyes, he did not even seem to look at her; if he hadn't said her name, then she wouldn't have known for sure that he was speaking to her at all and not talking to someone else while just happening to stand by her. "I … I'm so sorry. If I hadn't gotten so scared then—"

"It's not your fault," Ruby said. "You can't blame yourself for falling victim to the dragon's power; everyone did."

"You didn't," Ren pointed out. "You fought when everyone else cowered or ran; everyone says so."

"That doesn't mean I wasn't scared," Ruby told him.

When the dragon had begun to shriek, she had seen her mother, standing on the cliff-face where her memorial stone stood, surrounded by stormy skies, dark, brooding clouds, strong winds that buffeted her white cape and threatened to blow her off the cliff and out to sea. As the dragon cried out, Ruby had seen her mother blown away, blown away though Ruby tried to reach for her; she had seen Salem under Mountain Glenn and felt as she had felt then when Salem had turned her power upon her — upon them all. As the dragon shrieked, she had felt hopeless.

But feeling hopeless, she had felt angry too; what better time than when all hope had failed to scream defiance in the face of the danger, to do as that Mistralian general at the end of the Great War — Pyrrha would know her name — had done, rip off her helmet and charge headlong into the Valish ranks?

All had seemed lost in that moment, but when all was lost was maybe the second best time to fight, after fighting when you could win.

"What … what happened to Yang," Ruby went on, "wasn't your fault."

"If I had been there," Ren began.

"Then so what?" Ruby asked. "The dragon was … too strong. Too strong for all of us." She paused. "What I know for certain is that Yang … Yang wouldn't want you to blame yourself. That's the last thing that she'd want."

Funny how easy that is to say to someone else, but not so easy to believe.

Funny … but what might be even funnier is that what I just said to Ren is truer than a lot of what I've been thinking. Yang

Almost as easy to think as it is to say, not so easy to do.

Judging by the way the look on Ren's barely changed from its prior look of pinched misery, he wasn't finding it so easy to take her words to heart either.

Ruby looked at Nora, still holding her, still sobbing herself, so that it wasn't clear whether Nora wanted to be comforted or to be the comforter. Ruby put her arms around Nora, just in case, leaning forwards just a bit to rest her forehead on top of Nora's.

"It's okay," she said softly. "It's gonna be okay."

Nora blinked rapidly, a wan smile on her face as she looked up at Ruby with tearful eyes. "I feel like I ought to be the one saying that to you right now," she whispered.

"What I said, it goes for you too," Ruby told her. "You can't blame yourself; Yang wouldn't want you too. Ren needed you, and … and there's nothing you could have done for Yang."

Nora let out a ragged breath. She tilted her head a little to one side, gently reaching up with one hand to wipe at Ruby's tear-stained cheek. "You don't have to try and make me feel better," she said. "Not now. You've got a right to feel sad for yourself."

Sad for myself? What about angry for myself?

"I…" Ruby began. "I…" I'm not sure I know what to do with this burden that she's put on me. "I feel like I should honour her with my life," Ruby whispered. "But I don't know how. All I know how to be is myself, and—"

"Then that's all Yang would want," Nora assured her. "For you to be you, and to be happy."

"'Happy'?" Ruby repeated. What does that mean? What does happiness have to do with anything?

What would make me happy?

Will serving the greater good make me happy, or does it not matter if I'm happy or not so long as I'm serving the greater good?

I guess I'll find out when I start actually getting the chance to do it.

"That's right," Nora said, not noticing Ruby's confusion. "So long as you're living the life that you want, to the fullest, with nothing holding you back, I'm sure that's all that Yang would want, and I know that'll make her smile from … from wherever she is now. We can fight as though she's still here beside us, but we can't be her. And Yang—"

"Wouldn't want that anyway," Ruby added.

"No," Nora said, as she started to stand up, and help Ruby up to her feet as well. "No, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't."

Ruby snorted, a little touch of snot emerging out of one nostril that she hastily wiped away. "Pretty sure you're right."

"Yeah," Nora said. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I am." Once more, she pulled Ruby into a hug, resting Ruby's head against her shoulder.

"It's not your fault, either," Nora went on. "You know that, right?"

No. No, Nora, I don't know that at all.

But I was right when I said that Yang wouldn't blame me, and she wouldn't want me to blame myself either.

That doesn't mean that I believe it, but it does mean I know that I should try to.

Ruby raised her head off Nora's shoulder, able to look at her once again. The girl who had wiped away her tears had plenty of her own, and Ruby took the opportunity to wipe away at Nora's cheeks with her own small thumbs.

"What matters," she said, before she needed to pause for a moment. "What matters," she tried again, "is that … Yang gave her life to save me. And that means … that means I have to live a life worth saving. And that means I can't just sit around crying until the grimm get here. Since you've been guarding the rear, I'm guessing you can't, either?"

Nora shook her head. "You see how I get when I get time to stop and … you know."

Ruby let go of Nora, her hands falling down to her sides as she turned to look at Pyrrha.

"So we're retreating to the Red Line?" Ruby asked.

Penny might be the team leader, but Pyrrha seemed to have taken charge, probably due to her authority with the Haven students; with the best will in the world, they weren't going to listen to Penny the way they'd listen to the Vytal Champion, the Princess Without a Crown.

It was rough on Penny, but if Ruby could get over it, then she could too.

"Indeed," Pyrrha said. "I … don't see how another attempt to face the dragon in the field will end any better than the first."

Ruby nodded. The Red Line certainly had its advantages, like a great big wall to stand behind and the rest of the Valish Defence Force — hopefully they didn't run off this time — to help them out, but at the same time, Ruby couldn't help but remember Pyrrha saying that they had an advantage over the dragon in the field because they weren't stuck on a wall, and Ruby had actually thought that she was right about that. Now, admittedly, that advantage hadn't actually let them beat the dragon, and it certainly hadn't saved Yang — or Bolin either, for that matter — but at the same time, how was being on a wall, unable to get out of the way, going to help them when the dragon returned, if it returned?

And it probably would return.

But then, if it did return, what would they do about it anyway? They'd had a plan to take it down, and that plan hadn't worked. The Atlesian guns hadn't worked, nothing … there was nothing they could do.

Except maybe use Ruby's silver eyes. They had hurt the dragon, according to Jaune, before it managed to land a hit on her. But if Ruby could use her power without getting hit … if she were upon a wall, say, where other grimm couldn't reach her, and even the dragon would find it more of a struggle, where she could be … Ruby didn't like to think of herself as being protected, but it seemed like she was kind of vulnerable once the magic got started but before it actually killed every grimm in the vicinity.

Maybe the wall wasn't such a bad idea, though Ruby didn't know whether Pyrrha had thought about it that way or not.

Pyrrha nodded. "Unless, as a local, you have any better idea?"

"I think if there was any better defensive ground around here it would have been fortified; if there is I don't know of it," Ruby said. "For what it's worth, I think the Red Line's a fine idea. Maybe the best one we have right now. What about pursuit?"

"Light, at present," Pyrrha said. "They probe and scout, but the main body holds back."

"Or they're trying to flank us," Ruby said.

"We haven't been attacked so far," Penny pointed out.

"In any case," Pyrrha went on. "As I said, I'm going to hold here, let everyone else get further ahead, then move back myself. Are you still with me, Nora, Ren?"

"You betcha," Nora growled.

"Of course," Ren said, quietly but firmly.

Ruby thought about asking to join them. It might have been … what was the word, catheter or something, for when you felt better after hitting stuff. Cathartic, it would have been cathartic to have joined them, to have joined in killing every grimm that came in reach.

Cathartic, but at the same time … kind of a pointless risk. If Ruby was the only one who could kill the grimm — and Ruby was starting to think that she might be — then she had to stay alive, or at least try, long enough to do that. If she got herself killed by some beowolf or ursa and the dragon was still out there, then where would that leave everyone else? Where would that leave Vale, and everyone living — or even just sheltering — behind the walls?

If Ruby was going to honour Yang, as she meant to, if she was going to live a life worth saving, then she was going to have to be smart about stuff, to think about how she could do the most good, for the most people; otherwise … otherwise, Yang really would have made a mistake.

And so she didn't ask, and she didn't join them; she left Pyrrha there with Ren and Nora and Arslan, holding their ground against the darkness and whatever it might hold as the rest of the students and soldiers continued to move west.

It was ironic — at least, Ruby thought it was — that she felt as though she was on better terms with Pyrrha since everything started falling apart, but at the same time — or maybe in spite of that — Ruby felt herself drifting away from Penny and Jaune as they retreated.

She drifted away from them, only to find someone else approaching her from her left side: Umber Gorgoneion.

She looked down at Ruby, or at least, Ruby thought that she did; with her sunglasses back on, it was hard to be sure.

"Your sister was strong and valiant," Umber declared. "A better fighter than myself, I must confess. You have my condolences for your loss."

"Thank you," Ruby said quietly. "You're right, she was a better fighter than you, by a long way. But thanks, all the same."

"And I'm also sorry that I wasn't able to fulfil my part in our plan," Umber added.

"You did your part," Ruby told her. It was me that didn't do mine.

"Although," Umber went on, "it seems that my semblance might not have been necessary. And I thought I was hiding an ace in the hole behind these sunglasses."

It took Ruby a second to realise what she meant. "You mean—"

"I won't say you were wrong to mask whatever power you have," Umber told her. "But the crocodile has raised his head out of the water now, I'm afraid. Although … I must say, I thought your semblance was speed."

"It is," Ruby admitted. "My eyes … what I can do with my eyes is something else. Something that I can't use very easily. That's why we didn't plan to use them; it's not that I don't want to, it's just … it doesn't come with an on/off switch."

"Hmm," Umber murmured. "Then how does it work?"

"I, uh … I don't really know," Ruby admitted. Professor Ozpin had never gotten around to explaining it to her. "But it seems to happen when people are in danger."

"Rare chance of that happening," Umber said dryly.

"I know, I know," Ruby replied. "I just … I hope it works when it needs to."

"It sounds as though we'd all better hope that it works when it needs to," Umber replied, "and protect you until it does."

Ruby might have responded to that, but before she could, she heard Penny calling out to her.

"Ruby! Ruby!" she cried, running towards her. "Rainbow Dash just called; she's on her way right now. She says we're needed, desperately."

XxXxX
​

Author's Note: The artwork is by Jun, the background depicts the Sam Wanamaker Theatre in London, an authentic recreation of a Jacobean indoor theatre complete with cramped, somewhat uncomfortable seating. This is not a realistic background by any means, but it is perhaps emotionally realistic, or at the very least it is true to how I envisage a lot of the story as I'm writing it: as scenes delivered in a play, particularly the monologues which I imagine spoken to an audience and then, when they're not written in italic first person thoughts, convert into third person narration. Ruby's pose reflects my imagining or the scene rather than the actual description.

Usually I imagine the scenes taking place in the outdoor Shakespeare's Globe Theatre next door, but the Sam Wanamaker - which is entirely enclosed, has no natural light and is illuminated entirely by candles which are sometimes doused in performance to make things darker (I saw a production of the duch*ess of Malfi recently in which all the candles went out prior to the murder and the scene was done in pitch black until the Duke came out with a taper to see the body) better fits Ruby's emotional state.

Pyrrha drove her spear down into the boarbatusk's neck. The grimm struggled for a second or two, squirming, wriggling, trotters scrabbling against the ground, before the creature fell silent and its head dropped down to the ground, dead.

Smoke began to rise from the body.

Pyrrha looked up. The night's darkness might conceal much, but she could not see any other grimm present, or even approaching; she could not hear them either, and grimm were not usually the sort to mask their coming in silence.

Although that is not to say they cannot, I suppose.

"Another scout," Arslan muttered. "At what point are they going to stop scouting and send in a real attack?"

"Don't tempt fate," Pyrrha replied, darkly.

Arslan snorted. "I'm not complaining, much," she said. "But I'm starting to wonder if this is as much about gathering intelligence as it is about fraying our nerves. They have to know it's just the four of us here by now—"

"But they don't know how close the others are, or where they are exactly," Ren pointed out. "After all, we've already led them into an ambush once; how can they be sure that we aren't doing so again?"

"I suppose," Arslan admitted. "But they could still find a better way of going about it than this, don't you think? This … do they expect this to get them anywhere?"

"Maybe they're hoping to get lucky," Nora suggested.

"Or maybe this is all just to keep us occupied while they come up with a plan," Ren suggested.

"That is a grim thought," Pyrrha murmured. "I hope you're wrong, Ren."

"I hope I'm wrong too," Ren replied, in a very soft voice.

"Pyrrha!" Blake — Blake?! — called out from behind them.

Pyrrha turned, wondering for half a moment if she had misheard the voice, but no, it was Blake, back again so soon, running towards her from the direction of the main body retreating ahead of them.

"Blake?" Pyrrha asked. "What are you … I thought you'd gone back to the Atlesian lines?"

"We did," Blake replied, slowing to a halt just a few steps away from Pyrrha and the others. "And now, we're back. Jaune told me that I'd find you this way." She paused, looking at Ren and Nora. "They also told me … about Yang. I'm sorry. She was … you know better than I what she was. I'm sorry."

"Thanks," Nora murmured. "Really. But you didn't come all the way back here again just to tell us you were sorry, did you?"

"No," Blake admitted. "I'm afraid I didn't. I'm here for Pyrrha," she turned her golden eyes on Pyrrha once again. "You need to come with me. Rainbow's waiting with the Skyray."

"Come with you?" Pyrrha repeated; she had not expected that, but at the same time, perhaps she ought to have, all things considered. Why else would Blake be here, back again, after all, except to whisk them off somewhere? "Where? And why?"

"I'll explain everything once we're together," Blake assured her. "Jaune, Penny, and Ruby are waiting at the airship; come with me and—"

"Wait, please," Pyrrha said, gently but firmly at the same time. She glanced at Nora and Ren; for a little longer, she glanced at Arslan.

Ruby had told her, when the others set off to hunt for the Apex Alpha, that Pyrrha had better stay here, lest her being seen to flee disheartened the Haven students. Pyrrha hadn't liked that advice, hadn't liked seeing Jaune depart without her one bit, but … what Ruby had said at the time was just as true now. If this was another mission for which they thought they might use her help, then … then she might have to decline.

On the other hand, it might be something of greater import. She couldn't know. She couldn't know because Blake hadn't said.

"I understand," she said, "why you and Rainbow might want to wait and only explain everything once, but I have responsibilities here. I'm sorry, but I can't just leave with you upon your word and wait for the explanation. I can't desert everyone, it would…" Pyrrha searched for a way to explain that it would risk disheartening them without sounding unbearably pretentious, or obsessed with her image. "People are counting on me," she said, and hoped that sounded more reasonable.

Blake hesitated for a moment, biting her lip.

"Professor Ozpin's dead," she said bluntly.

Pyrrha gasped. Professor Ozpin … dead? She … Pyrrha could not say that she liked the headmaster, not since … well, not since he had asked her to climb into that infernal machine and mingle her aura and her soul with Amber's; she would not mourn for him as for a friend, but at the same time, he was their headmaster, the leader of the struggle against Salem, a hero to Vale, and for those reasons, his death would come as a heavy blow. And, being older, Professor Ozpin had acquired that quality that the old sometimes possess — the Lord Steward had it also — of seeming permanent, eternal, someone who had been there when you were born and who would still be there, always, maybe even when you were not.

In the case of the headmaster, that was less hyperbolic than might otherwise have been the case. As the headmaster he would quite literally still be there, at the school, once all the students had departed and been replaced by a new generation.

Or so he would have, had he lived.

Pyrrha did not look on Professor Ozpin with great affection, but she could readily admit that he was trying his best, according to his lights and the many heavy burdens laid upon him. He had tried his best, for according to Blake, he was now dead.

They were in the midst of a great battle, perhaps the greatest battle since Ares Claudandus overthrew Lagune at Fort Castle; many valiant souls had fallen already, Yang among them, and yet despite all that, to learn that Professor Ozpin, too, was dead came as a shock.

"WHAT?" Nora exclaimed, displaying her shock more vocally than Pyrrha had. "Professor Ozpin's dead? Are the grimm attacking Beacon again?"

"No," Blake said, without taking her eyes off Pyrrha. "Amber's back."

She did not say any more. She did not need to. What she had said was enough to make it clear. Professor Ozpin was dead, and Amber had returned to Beacon to claim the Relic of Choice that she would then hand over to Salem.

"How do you know this?" Pyrrha asked softly. "Are you certain?"

"Yes," Blake said. "But as for how, that will have to wait. Rainbow can explain it better … and we don't have a lot of time."

No. No, they wouldn't have much time, not if Professor Ozpin was already dead, not if Amber was already at Beacon … if Amber was still at Beacon. Time might have already run out, depending on how long it had taken Rainbow to fly over here.

No. No, time has not run out until the Relic is in Salem's custody; until then, though it may have been removed from the vault, we may be able to take it back.

She would have to go. There could be no question of her remaining behind this time. She would not — could not — leave Jaune and Penny to fight this battle without her, to face a Maiden and her allies.

Together, the five of them had triumphed over Cinder and her half of the Maiden powers, but they were without Sunset now, and for them to also be without Pyrrha too … no. No, the idea was not to be borne.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly to Ren and Nora, turning towards them. "I have to go. Arslan, can you … finesse my absence, with the others? Perhaps?"

"You mean make up an excuse," Arslan said. "Or something else?"

"As you will," Pyrrha replied. "Call it an excuse, if you like—"

"I'd rather not," Arslan told her. "Where are you going? What's so much more important there than the battle going on here?"

"I have no time to explain," Pyrrha declared. "Not now, at least, maybe later; for now … the battle going on here, even if it is won, will all be for nothing unless things at Beacon are … taken care of."

Arslan looked into Pyrrha's eyes. Her own eyes of olive green narrowed for a moment, then returned to their usual size. "Okay, P-money, have it your way," she said. "I'll trust you, for now. I'll tell everyone … I'll come up with something. Use all my charm. Well, if you're going back, and if I need to go back to speak to the others for you, then you two should come back as well, unless you want to be stuck here by yourselves. We can organise a new rearguard in Pyrrha's absence."

"Right," Nora agreed. Ren nodded silently.

"Very well then," Pyrrha said. "Thank you, Arslan. Lead on, Blake."

Blake led on without a word, turning her back on Pyrrha and the others, the ribbon tied to the hilt of her sword bouncing and flowing just a little behind her, even as her wild black hair rose and fell with her movements as she bounded back the way she had come.

The moonlight glinted upon her silver honour band.

Pyrrha followed her, as did Arslan, Ren, and Nora, all of them retreating backwards — fortunately, they were not retreating in the face of any enemy that were close by — following in the footsteps of the main body, until they came to an Atlesian Skyray, landed on the ground, side door open, with Jaune, Penny, and Ruby standing nearby.

Rainbow Dash, too, was outside of the airship, although Ciel remained within, looking down upon those without.

The other huntsmen and huntresses of Beacon and Haven, plus the remaining Mistralian soldiers, had stopped moving; none of them were too close to the airship, but they were all looking at it curiously, perhaps even in some case warily.

As Pyrrha approached the others — Ruby, Jaune, Penny — she wondered if they knew that Professor Ozpin was dead. If they had been told, or if Rainbow and Blake had refused to explain, keeping it to themselves until everyone was together. Had she, by her obstinacy, learned more than they? Was the shock yet to land on them?

How great a shock would it be to them?

Rainbow looked at Blake as she approached. "You found her okay, then?"

"Yes," Blake said to her. "I had to tell Pyrrha a little to get her to come with me."

"You know more than the rest of us, then," Jaune said, in a light tone that, combined with his words, told Pyrrha that he was not yet aware of everything that was happening.

Rainbow glanced past Blake, past Pyrrha, to Ren and Nora and Arslan. "How much?" she asked.

"Not too much," Blake told her. "Less than Sun heard."

"'Sun'?" Pyrrha repeated.

Sun stuck his head around the side of the airship. "Hey!"

"Okay," Rainbow said. "Well, the important thing is that everyone's here, so get onboard, and we'll brief you all once you're in the air."

"This," Ruby said quietly. "This is a … this has something to do with—"

"Our secret," Penny said. "The one that we share, with General Ironwood and Professor Ozpin."

With General Ironwood, at least, and with Professor Goodwitch, I suppose, Pyrrha thought. Not with Professor Ozpin any longer.

"Yes," Rainbow said. "Yes, it is, and it's urgent, which is why we need to go—"

"Yes," Ruby interrupted, taking a step back. "Yes, you do need to go, all of you." She looked at Penny and Jaune and finally at Pyrrha. "But I'll stay here."

"'Stay here'?" Penny repeated. "But why?"

"Because together, the six of you," Ruby began. "The seven of you, with Sun, should be able to take care of it, whatever it is, even if it's … what I think it might be. But I might be the only one who can take out that dragon, if I can just get my eyes to work properly. And not get hit in the meantime. I think I can do more good here than I can with you, and I have to do the very most good, since I'm fighting for two now." She looked at Pyrrha and smiled wryly. "It's my turn to stay behind and let everyone else go."

Her words made sense; just as they had made sense when she was bidding Pyrrha to stay behind, so too did they make sense when she was condemning herself — or volunteering herself, to be gentler — to remain behind. Her silver eyes had driven the dragon off, although they hadn't killed it; no Atlesian weapon or Mistralian hero could say the same; if she could, as she had said, not get interrupted in the middle of her attack, then maybe she could destroy the dragon. Maybe she was right, and her eyes were the only thing that could destroy it. Certainly, they would not be of much use against Amber and her allies.

"You … you're sure about this?" Penny asked, sounding somewhat unsure herself.

"I am," Ruby declared, without a trace of uncertainty in her own voice.

"Then … take care," Penny said. "And we'll be back as soon as we can."

"Right," Ruby said, nodding her head. She glanced across their number one more time. "Take care of each other."

"We will," Pyrrha said softly, before she climbed up into the airship.

Jaune didn't say anything, but he put a hand on Ruby's shoulder, and the two exchanged a wordless look for a second before he, too, climbed aboard.

Penny also got on, and Rainbow Dash leapt up and rushed into the co*ckpit.

She didn't close the side door on the Skyray; she must have been more concerned with getting the airship up into the air, because the doors remained open as the Skyray ascended up off the ground. As Pyrrha held onto one of the straps that dangled from the ceiling, she could see Ruby watching her from down below, and Arslan too, and many others.

Arslan waved to her as she went. Pyrrha didn't wave back; she was a little worried about what it would look like if she did. She hoped that Arslan wouldn't take offence.

But it seemed to be Ruby who watched them all most closely, her eyes — too small at the increasing distance to really make out the silver in them — fixed upon their airship as it turned away from her, and from all the rest of them.

The doors closed at last, concealing Ruby and Arslan and Ren and Nora and all the rest of the world from their view. There was only the group of them now: Pyrrha, Jaune, Penny, Blake, Ciel, Sun, and Rainbow Dash, barely visible at the controls of the airship.

A moment passed in silence, everyone holding onto the ceiling straps as the airship carried them quickly across the land.

"So," Jaune said. "Do we get to find out what's going on now?"

"Professor Ozpin is dead," Pyrrha said softly. "And, from what else Blake told me, the Relic is in danger. Isn't that right, Blake?"

"As far as we know," Blake murmured.

"'Dead'?" Jaune repeated. "Ozpin's dead? How … how do you know that?"

"Lyra called me!" Rainbow shouted from the co*ckpit.

"'Lyra'?" Penny asked.

"You mean … Lyra Heartstrings of Team Bluebell?" Jaune guessed.

"Do you know any other Lyras?" asked Ciel.

"She was seen with Amber," Pyrrha said. "Benni told us that: Amber, Dove, Bon Bon, Lyra, and Tempest Shadow." She frowned. "But why would she call you?"

"Are you asking why she'd call me specifically or why she'd call anyone?" asked Rainbow from the co*ckpit.

"The latter," Pyrrha replied. "I assume the former is because you were at Combat School together, weren't you?"

"Right," Rainbow said, raising her voice to carry into the main section of the airship. "Lyra's not a bad person. She never was, when I knew her … although I gotta admit that I never would have thought that Bon Bon was a bad person either from when I knew her, and it seems like I turned out to be wrong about that. She was bad enough to work for Salem, anyway. But Lyra…"

"From what Lyra said, it seems she didn't really know what was going on," Blake explained. "She said that she wanted to help Amber escape; she didn't know what that would involve."

"That does sound like a good person," Penny murmured. "If you didn't know all the details, then what Professor Ozpin was doing to Amber must have seemed pretty terrible."

"Some of what Ozpin wanted to do was pretty terrible," Jaune muttered.

"But he didn't deserve to die over it," Pyrrha pointed out.

"Lyra did not have all of the details, but it is clear from what she told us that Amber and her comrades returned to Beacon intending to obtain the Relic of Choice and give it to Salem to bargain for her life and safety."

"Just as Cinder guessed," Pyrrha muttered. If only I had listened.

If only we'd all listened.

"It's not all on you," Jaune said, guessing what she was thinking. "Ozpin, Sunset, why should any of you have listened to Cinder when she was just … talking, with nothing to back it up? Why should you have listened to Cinder over Amber?"

"Because she turned out to be right?" suggested Pyrrha.

Jaune didn't reply to that. Pyrrha thought that might have been because there wasn't much of a response to make.

So Pyrrha asked, "How did Professor Ozpin die, do we know?"

"No," Ciel said. "Only that Tempest Shadow was responsible, while Amber … Amber—"

"Amber didn't stop it," Blake said.

Ciel glanced at her. "Precisely."

"That's when Lyra realised that she'd got herself into," Rainbow called from the co*ckpit. "She took off, called me…"

"But her call was cut off," Blake said softly. "She managed to get us all the details, but…"

But she is likely dead too, Pyrrha thought. She could not say … she had known Lyra well enough to have any particular feelings for her, but it was a pity that someone who had wanted to do the right thing should perish in such circ*mstances.

Jaune frowned. "When was all of this?"

"Not too long ago," Blake said. "But a little time. General Ironwood ordered us to get you. Because you know where the Relic is, don't you?"

"It's really weird to hear you talk about all this stuff without understanding what it is you're talking about," Sun remarked.

If that was a ploy on his part to get people to explain to him, it didn't work, but then, Pyrrha doubted that it had been such a ploy; more likely, he was simply expressing his honest opinion.

"Yes," Penny said. "Yes, we know where it is. Amber showed us, and Ruby and Sunset."

"Penny and Pyrrha know where it is," Jaune corrected. "I don't. Amber only showed the girls."

"An intentional nod to the peculiarities of the vault or a reflection of the fact that you were not amongst her favourites?" asked Ciel.

"I don't know," Jaune replied. "Maybe just the fact that I was closer to Dove."

"'Peculiar' … is this something else I don't know about?" asked Sun.

"Briefly, Amber has a great power that was passed down to her through a line of women," Blake said. "It can only pass between women, and that power is what will enable her to remove the Relic from the Vault and deliver it to our enemies."

"Assuming that she hasn't already done that," Jaune said. "I mean, how long would it really take to get the Relic and get out? Won't they be long gone from Beacon when we get there?"

"I don't know," Rainbow called. "How hard is it to get the Relic?"

"It was a little difficult to get to the Vault," Penny said. "But not that difficult, if you have someone who knows the way."

"But how simple or difficult is the final step?" asked Pyrrha. "Amber showed us into the antechamber, but we never saw the Relic itself; that was hidden further on, behind barriers that only Amber could open. Perhaps it isn't so simple as opening a door. Certainly … layers upon layers of distractions and attacks to keep us away from Beacon, it must be a concern that retrieving the Relic will not be a swift and simple task, or why not risk doing it quickly and discreetly?"

"You think they'll still be there?" asked Jaune.

"I hope so," Pyrrha replied. "But if not, then just because the Relic is gone from the Vault does not mean that it is out of our reach. Amber and the others must first get it out of Beacon, and out of Vale for that matter, either by airship or on foot. Whichever they choose, we can still pursue them."

"If they planned on leaving by airship, that would explain a lot," Rainbow said loudly. "They've gone after our air strength so that they can't just be shot down as soon as they try and take off from Beacon."

"That…" Penny began. "How are…?" She trailed off, and then started again. "I'm glad to see that the three of you are okay. When the … we could see the dragon attacking the Atlesian line from over where we were: the cruisers, and the dragon coming down on … I'm glad that you're okay, all of you."

"We have been fortunate," Ciel said softly. "But not all have been so blessed. Team Funky is … all gone, save only Neon, and she is gravely wounded."

"Neon?" Penny asked. "I'm so sorry, Ciel."

Ciel looked at her. She said nothing for a second or two, before she said, in a very calm voice. "Thank you, Penny."

"Is she going to be okay?" Penny asked.

"No," Ciel said. "She will live, if God is good, but okay … she will never again be as she was."

"But that doesn't mean she can't be something else," Penny said. "And that something else can be a kind of okay too, right?"

Ciel pursed her lips together briefly before she said, "We shall see."

"How bad was it?" asked Jaune. "Apart from … well, you saw that we were falling back, and most of the Mistralian troops are gone."

"Including their leader," Pyrrha added.

"Our forces are falling back also, under pressure from the grimm," Ciel explained. "The dragon breached our line in two places, and the grimm poured through. General Ironwood is still alive, though I cannot vouch for battalion commanders." She paused. "The retreat will, or may already, have left the approach to Beacon exposed. Once we arrive, we may be on our own, with no more reinforcements coming."

Alone, Pyrrha thought. Not so alone, with Jaune and Penny, Rainbow and Ciel, Blake and Sun. Seven of us, all told; seven against Amber, Bon Bon, Dove, and Tempest Shadow. There are more of us, and with all due respect to Dove, we have not only numbers but better quality on our side. Tempest is the only one I do not know, but of the ones I know…

Amber is the only one that worries me. She is more skilled than you would think, given her attitude, though of course, it is her magic that is the cause for greatest concern.

Yet, even with her magic, we defeated Cinder last night; we can defeat Amber too.

I wish you were here, Sunset, but I also hope and believe that we can do this without you.

Not alone and far from hopeless.

Trust us, Professor, we won't let you down.

The Skyray jerked to one side so sharply that Pyrrha's feet left the floor and she dangled, legs kicking at the empty air, by the strap on the ceiling. Others weren't so lucky; Jaune lost his grip, and it was only thanks to the fact that the doors were now closed that he didn't fall clean out of the Skyray, only slamming into the side door with a solid thump. Blake lost her grip too, though she managed to make a lighter landing on the door.

Blake, in turn, was thrown as the airship jerked again, landing flat on her face on the floor as the Skyray righted itself. Jaune flopped down beside her.

"Are you alright?" Pyrrha asked, reaching out for him with one hand.

"Rainbow Dash, what is going on?!" Ciel demanded.

"The dragon's back, and it's right on our tail!" Rainbow shouted. "Everybody hang on tight; this is going to get rough!"

XxXxX​

Rainbow could feel a little touch of sweat on the inside of her gloves as she gripped the controls tightly.

On the sensors, she could see the large form of the dragon — an ominously-sized red blotch on the scope — position directly behind the Skyray.

Behind and getting closer.

Rainbow shifted from side to side while she thought about what to do. Never fly straight and level in the combat area, that was one-oh-one, and while that was kind of intended for enemy airships with guns, it applied to big grimm with sort-of laser weapons as well. Side to side, up and down, never letting the dragon line up for a clear shot on her with its breath attack — it was not something she wanted to get hit with. After seeing what it had done to the Ardent, she doubted that their aura would protect them from it.

But what to do? What to do?

Rainbow's mind worked faster than the airship she was flying. They were on the Beacon Road, or just beyond it; they were closing in on their destination, but that wouldn't do them a whole lot of good if they landed at the school just to all get killed by the dragon's breath. She needed to shake this thing before they got to Beacon, but how? A dive? The dragon had shown that it was pretty willing to go all the way down to the deck, and pretty good at slowing itself as well; she couldn't rely on it to slam head-first into the deck and even if it did, it would probably just get up again anyway.

Going down wasn't an option, but going up — yes, up; if she could get up, above it, if she could get up fast enough and then loop behind it, get into its blindspot, and then when it flew off looking for them, she could take the opportunity to detach and then reach Beacon before it realised what had happened.

It wouldn't necessarily be that easy, but as Rainbow hauled upwards on the control stick, yanking it backwards towards her chest, she couldn't think of a better plan.

It wasn't as though there was anything that could kill this thing, after all.

She could try and request support, see if there were any air units available to back her up, maybe draw the dragon's attention to let her get away. But, if she made that request, then she would be asking Atlas pilots to put their lives at risk for her sake against an enemy they couldn't take out, and that … Rainbow wasn't comfortable doing that. She didn't want to be the reason some poor guy's picture ended up on These Are My Jewels, no matter how important their mission was.

She would get them out of this herself, with her own flying.

And it all started with pulling up.

"Hold on!" Rainbow shouted to everyone in the back, who would get thrown into the back of the airship if they didn't take care; things were probably going to get hairy for them anyway, but there was no helping that: she had to climb.

She had to climb while moving from side to side as well in case the dragon decided to take a shot at her while she was on the rise.

Instead, the dragon's icon on her sensors became narrower, flattened out; she might have thought that it was coming up after her, but its altitude was dropping, not just relative to hers but absolutely.

It was going down.

Rainbow threw the Skyray to the left just in time to avoid the dragon's tail; she could see it flick past out of the co*ckpit window. The dragon must have dived and lashed out at her with its tail as it dived. Rainbow kept heading to the left, taking her just a little away from Beacon, but more importantly, it was taking her away from the dragon's tail in case it wanted to swish at her again.

She kept on climbing, although the dragon—

The dragon was also climbing, shooting upwards like a rocket to catch up with the Skyray.

Okay then, variation.

Hope you're all still hanging on back there.

Rainbow shot down to meet it, the descending thunderbolt towards the rising ash cloud.

She was glad that, in here, she couldn't hear the grimm out there.

But she could see when it opened its mouth. Rainbow jerked to the right to avoid a blast from the dragon's breath, the yellow column rising rapidly upwards into the sky, narrowly missing the Skyray, not even scraping the wing, or they might have been in trouble.

Rainbow didn't fire; this airship still had a couple of rockets, and it still had rounds in the cannons, but Rainbow didn't use them; what would have been the point, other than annoying the dragon? And Rainbow didn't want to do that.

Now that it had fired its breath weapon, she shifted back the way that she'd come, back closer to its mouth. She had to get in close, or this wasn't going to work. It might not work anyway, but it was the best plan that she could come up with, so…

The dragon didn't fire its breath at her again; Rainbow thought that maybe it couldn't fire continuously, it could only go so long and then it needed to take a break to recharge. Or they were getting close enough where it would rather bite them with its fangs than fire again.

Or perhaps, although Rainbow was sticking close, she still wasn't flying completely straight and level, and the dragon couldn't aim at her.

But the two closed in on one another. Rainbow went down, and the dragon went up.

Rainbow was glad that there was no one else in the co*ckpit with her, or they might have thought she was nuts and tried to take the controls off her, but she knew what she was doing.

She hoped that it would work out.

Although she moved a little, to throw off the dragon's aim, Rainbow was still mostly going down and forwards, pretty straight towards the dragon.

If she kept on going like this, then she was going to end up in its gullet. Something the dragon seemed pretty well aware of; its mouth was open, ready to swallow her up.

Rainbow shifted a little to the right.

She throttled back on the speed just a bit, keeping her hand on that particular lever ready, waiting.

The dragon didn't slow down one bit. It kept on coming, mouth open, teeth at the ready.

It lunged, neck stretching, mouth opening even wider.

Rainbow dodged, throttling the speed up to its maximum as she threw the airship just around the dragon's mouth, swaying around the closing jaws then throwing the airship back as quickly as she could, as quickly as the airship could move, towards the dragon's body.

Everything depended on speed right now. If Rainbow could get behind this thing before it saw what she was up to, then she would be golden; if not, it would all be pointless.

Rainbow raced down to the dragon's flank; out of the window, she could see the black bulk and see the occasional bone spur — not very many of them — coming out of its flesh. She could see the gash that the Ardent had made with its ram, a gash that didn't seem to be slowing the dragon down or hindering it in any way, just a cut in the blackness that revealed more oily blackness underneath.

Rainbow flew down the dragon's side, past its shoulders where its body widened out — she hugged its side as close as she could — down its body, past its thighs, and then Rainbow turned, throwing the left engine into reverse to spin the Skyray around on a pinhead so that she was flying directly behind the dragon's body, its tail stretching out above her and behind. Rainbow was tucked in behind its hind legs — its only legs — between them. The dragon couldn't see her, and even if it turned its head to look behind it, Rainbow guessed — she hoped, she really hoped — that it still wouldn't be able to see her because its own body was too big for it to see around, and even the dragon's neck wasn't so long that it could stretch back and see past its own thighs.

They were safe here. The fact that the dragon wasn't turning around to get at her — and that it hadn't yet used its tail to grab their airship and crush it — told her that they were safe here; it didn't know where they were, and all they had to do was—

The dragon moved, towards the right; Rainbow kept pace with it, keeping the fork of the dragon's legs directly in front of her, staying in its blindspot and letting the size of its own body hide her from view.

Right now, the dragon would be wondering where they had gone. It moved to the left as it had moved to the right. It dropped down, which was the moment of greatest danger as it might be in a position to look up and see them, but it didn't. It kept its face down as it dived, looking to see if its prey had gone to ground. Rainbow kept in the blindspot and made sure that she stayed that way when the dragon rose up into the sky once more.

It was taking a little bit of time, this, but that was because the dragon was searching the same area for them. It was circling now, looking in all directions for the elusive airship except for the one direction that it couldn't see.

Rainbow kept her position; though it was a little bit of a struggle, though she could really feel herself sweating inside her gloves right now, she maintained her position out of sight.

The dragon was circling just beyond Beacon. The Beacon Road was beneath them, although Rainbow wasn't in much of a position to look at what was going on below. She was more concerned with staying out of sight of the dragon, waiting for it to guess that they'd gone, that it had missed them, then it would have to head somewhere else, and then it would be a matter of racing Beacon and hope that it didn't spot them out of the corner of its eye.

The dragon began to move — more slowly now — in the direction of Beacon.

Come on, come on, look somewhere else already.

Now that the airship was flying level, everyone had their feet on the ground once more, which meant that Blake was free to come into the co*ckpit, one hand on Rainbow's chair, leaning forwards a little.

"What are we doing?" she asked.

"Hiding," Rainbow said. "Waiting for this guy to get bored."

"Do we have time for this?" asked Blake.

"I don't know, do we have time to get eaten?" asked Rainbow snappishly.

"Sorry," Blake murmured.

There was a moment of silence, the two of them looking at the slowly moving dragon, its body dripping black grimm ooze down onto the ground.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Blake asked. "Do you think that's how grimm are made?"

Rainbow glanced at her. "All grimm are the sweat of really big grimm like this?"

"It's possible," Blake said quietly. "We still don't know where they come from."

"That's right," Rainbow nodded. "But there'd need to be an awful lot of grimm like this dripping an awful lot to—"

She stopped, as something hit the top of the airship with a thunk like a … it sounded almost like rain.

Like a very large raindrop dripping down.

Rainbow tilted the airship to the right, one wing pointed downwards.

Slide off, slide off, slide off.

She heard something, felt something, something scrabbling on the wing, something … were those claws digging into the wing? Had something come out of the pool already?

Rainbow tilted the airship further, as much as she dared; she wasn't afraid of a young grimm, but she was worried about what a young grimm would reveal to the dragon.

There was another scraping sound, and then a moment of silence.

Then an explosion sounded from the right. Alarm klaxons sounded in the co*ckpit as shards of debris buried themselves in the door. Warnings told Rainbow Dash that the right engine was out. The fact that the airship was spinning out told her the same thing.

Rainbow fought with the controls, throwing the remaining engine into reverse to create a counterforce to the spin; if she could get the airship to stop moving, get the control stick to stop jerking in her hands, stop it from trying to—

Rainbow barely just about saw the dragon's tail coming, whipping towards her. Rainbow threw herself on the stick, hurling her body against it to move it downwards. The airship dropped, partly, unevenly; the dragon's tail didn't hit the fuselage and obliterate the Skyray completely. It just sheared the other wing off.

And sent the airship plummeting in a renewed spin towards the ground.

"Strap yourself in, Blake!" Rainbow shouted as she fought the controls, for all the good that it would do. She couldn't keep them up now, not with no working engines; this wasn't a Skybolt. The only thing that she could hope to do was crash land in the right way. "Everyone, buckle up if you can."

Blake managed to throw herself into the copilot's chair, fumbling with the restraints.

Rainbow's breathing was heavy as she fought the physics that had the airship in their grip, sending it down and down. She pulled at the shaft, trying to get the nose up, trying to get the undercarriage pointed at the ground.

"Hey, Blake," she said through gritted teeth. "Have you ever heard the one about the guy who fell off the edge of Atlas?"

"What?" Blake demanded.

"As he was falling he told himself 'so far, so good; so far, so good.'"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because we haven't been eaten or vapourised yet," Rainbow pointed out. "So … so far, so good."

The ground rushed to meet them. Rainbow closed her eyes at the moment of impact, feeling rather than seeing. She felt the harness wrenching at her chest as she was pushed forward and restrained at the same time, she felt her neck jolted, she felt something — glass, probably — nip at her aura as it showered her.

She heard groans of pain from behind her.

She heard the klaxons sound even louder.

Rainbow opened her eyes to see red lights flashing in the co*ckpit. She turned her head sideways — at least she still could — to see Blake, pressed against the limits of her restraints, breathing heavily in and out.

They had landed at an angle, about forty-five degrees on their side; the one side of the airship — Blake's side — was partly buried, and a little dirt had gotten in through the shattered windshield.

They still hadn't been devoured by the dragon or fallen victim to its breath. Looking up, out of the shattered co*ckpit, Rainbow couldn't see the dragon, although she could hear grimm outside. How far away outside, she couldn't say, but she could hear them, and from the amount of growling and howling they were doing, they were in a pretty good mood.

Rainbow grunted as she pushed herself back in her chair to unfasten herself more easily. "Sound off," she said. "Everyone who's alive."

Sun groaned. "I'm still here."

"Me too," murmured Jaune.

"My aura is still intact," said Pyrrha.

"And mine too," added Ciel.

"I'm still combat ready," said Penny.

"Is anyone's aura broken?" asked Rainbow.

Nobody answered.

Rainbow unfastened herself and rose unsteadily out of her chair. "Blake?" she said, holding out one hand to her. With the other hand, she opened the door on the side of the airship facing upward. It grunted a bit, and groaned, but it eventually sounded like it was moving. When Rainbow bent her head around out of the co*ckpit, she could see it was moving, exposing the starry sky above them.

Blake managed to get her restraints off and took Rainbow's hand, accepting a little help out of the chair and then, leaning a little, out of the co*ckpit.

Everyone else was picking themselves up or had already done so. Pyrrha was out of the airship already, leaning back inside, reaching out to help Jaune up. Penny formed a cradle with her hands for Ciel to put her foot into.

Rainbow leapt up, grabbing the lip of the door — what would have been the bottom if they'd landed properly — and pulling herself up and out — not only the ground, but first balancing on the lip of the doorway, then sidling along until she was standing on the fuselage just beyond the open doorway, near the shattered co*ckpit.

It wasn't much of a vantage point, but it was a little bit of one.

Rainbow pulled her goggles down over her eyes, activating the night vision.

She could see grimm. A lot of grimm, coming this way. They weren't right on top of the huntsmen yet, but they were definitely coming towards them, with no sign of any troops or other huntsmen nearby to help them out.

It looked like an arm of the horde — or an arm of one of the hordes — detached to block the Beacon Road and stop anyone from getting up to school, including those who had gotten there before them.

Rainbow turned around. Beacon was behind them; she could see the CCT Tower rising up above, high up into the sky.

The dragon flew overhead, ignoring Rainbow and the other huntsmen and huntresses; it let out a roar as it went past, a big, long roar that echoed through the night sky. It was headed for Beacon too; that would be a problem, to say the least.

Less of an immediate problem though than all the other grimm, which were closer to the students than the students were to Beacon. Even if they could all outrun the grimm — and while Rainbow could, she was a lot less sure about Ciel or Penny, and she was absolutely certainly that Jaune couldn't, maybe not even Sun — they wouldn't like to try and get to Amber with a whole load of grimm on their tails.

Not to mention whether everyone was in a state to immediately start running. They were only just getting out of the airship.

Trying to get this done with the grimm on their heels would be pretty bad.

Blake scrambled out of the airship and came to stand beside her. Her nightvision cut through the dark to show her what Rainbow could see.

"That doesn't look good," she observed.

"No," Rainbow agreed. "No, it doesn't."

She sighed. Put the kettle on, Kogetsu, I might be calling 'round.

Rainbow edged her way across the top of the airship doorway, bending down to just about reach the rotary cannon mounted on the ceiling. She gave it a sharp tug, and then another; the mounting squeaked in protest before Rainbow wrenched it off with a snap and a groan of the metal, lifting the big gun up in her hands as she stood on the side of the airship.

"As you can hear," Rainbow said, "there are a lot of grimm coming this way. So I want everyone else to head up to Beacon right now, and I'll hold them off here."

"Why don't we just fight the grimm together?" Penny said. "And then once we've killed them all—"

"Even if we had time for that, Penny, there are too many of them," Rainbow said. "We'd never get through them all."

"But you can all by yourself?" Penny demanded. "That—"

"Believe me, Penny, I'm not singing and dancing for joy over this," Rainbow cut her off. "But it's … it's an hour to play and the last man in. Now get a move on, while you can."

Penny opened her mouth.

"Come, Penny," Ciel said. "As Rainbow said, time is of the essence." She looked at Rainbow. "The Lady protect you."

"Keep her protection for yourself; you might still need it," Rainbow muttered.

Ciel and Penny jumped down. Pyrrha said something, but unfortunately, she said it in Mistralian, which meant that it was all Mistralian to Rainbow Dash. She jumped down with Jaune — Rainbow didn't look back to make sure that they were all going; she just trusted that they were heading up to Beacon as fast as they could — and then Sun.

Rainbow was left up on the fuselage with Blake.

Rainbow tried to come up with a few words in what might not even be seconds before Blake left. She couldn't think of anything cool, but then, cool words were probably a little overrated; they might mean more if they were sincere.

"Hey, Blake," Rainbow said. "Tell Twilight—"

"Tell her yourself; I'm staying right here," Blake declared, switching Gambol Shroud into pistol configuration.

Rainbow blinked, eyes boggling behind her goggles. "Huh?"

"I'm staying here," Blake said. "With you. Together, we can double the time that we can hold off the grimm." She paused. "Besides, if I just left you here, and … how would I face any of them tomorrow?"

Rainbow stared at her. "You don't have to do this," she whispered.

"I know," Blake said softly, but serenely. "But I don't want to leave you."

Rainbow stared at her. She stared at Blake and smiled, in spite of all the grimm charging towards them.

"You're the best," she said.

Blake didn't reply, but one corner of her lip turned upwards.

"Blake?" Sun called out. "Did I just hear you say you were staying?"

Blake paused for half a moment before she said, "Yes. Yes, I am."

"Well, don't let me start walking before you tell me!" Sun cried. "I'm staying too; just let me get up there."

Blake opened her mouth, as though she wanted to say something, but then closed her mouth again and said, "Okay, but hurry up; the grimm won't wait for you." She glanced at Rainbow Dash. "You don't mind if Sun joins us, do you?"

"What kind of a question to ask is that?" asked Rainbow. "But no, I don't mind."

Rainbow faced the grimm, who were getting closer and closer by the second, eating up the yards as they rushed in a black mass.

She gripped the rotary cannon as best she could, cradling it in one arm, her other hand upon the trigger. She aimed low, knowing that it would kick the moment she started to fire.

Rainbow glanced at Blake. Blake nodded.

Rainbow opened fire.

"Sir," Cunningham said, "the dragon is headed towards Beacon."

Ironwood resisted the urge to curse under his breath, for fear that someone — Fitzjames, perhaps, closest to him — would overhear. That would never do, to have his mood be … the officers on the bridge could probably guess his mood, but that didn't mean he had to confirm it for them.

But he felt like cursing nonetheless. Beacon? Of all the places that it could have gone, it was heading towards Beacon.

Of course it was headed to Beacon. The CCT was there, and if this was all nothing more than an elaborate heist, with everything serving to get the Relic of Choice for Salem, then she would want her strongest asset present to make the task of stopping Amber more complicated.

Besides, Beacon was Ozpin's school; more than Atlas, Haven, or Shade, it was Beacon that he had moulded to his will and in his image. That alone might be the reason for Salem to want it gone.

But that was the least of Ironwood's worries right now. The appearance of the dragon anywhere on the battlefield would have been a bad thing, given the supremacy it had established over the Atlesian forces, but at Beacon? The CCT, Amity Colosseum, the operation to stop the Relic being taken … there were so many targets, and so little he could do about any of them.

His forces had already yielded the Beacon Road, falling back in the face of a grimm onslaught renewed in confidence and vigour now that it had broken through the outer defences. The fact that his forces had been able to fall back so quickly was commendable, the fact that they had been able to do so with the enemy hard on their heels without the retreat turning into a rout even moreso, but his admiration for what the troops had accomplished didn't change the facts on the ground: first, that they were retreating; second, that grimm had already slipped through the cracks before the three battalions had managed to form a line, forcing the troops to face both ways as they fell back; third, that they had given up the Beacon Road; that whole area was under grimm control, and there was nothing that they could do to defend the school.

Not that they would have been able to do anything to stop the dragon even if they hadn't already moved past the road; that had already been demonstrated with a brutal clarity.

Ironwood frowned. That wasn't helping.

Just because things had gone badly since the dragon showed up didn't give him a licence to give up.

Just because he wasn't sure what to do about the dragon didn't give him a licence to let everyone who was still looking to him know that he wasn't sure what to do.

Six cruisers had opposed the dragon over the Green Line. Six cruisers; he hadn't been too disheartened when the Wonderbolts had had to fall back, confident in the firepower of his cruisers, but then they, too, had failed. Six cruisers out of his total of twelve — his total of nine now, after the loss of Courageous, Gallant, and Ardent — and they had failed to stop that grimm, even to slow it down.

He didn't have any bigger guns.

He had ordered the medical frigates back over Vale, putting some more distance between them and the dragon; the carriers had also fallen back, although a shorter distance; select Skybolt squadrons were rearming with heavy titan-buster missiles, which were a card he still had yet to play. To play it over Beacon would mean exposing his airships over ground that had been, if not actively abandoned, then at least put beyond reach of support, in skies that were now grimm-controlled.

That would be hard on the pilots. Harder than asking them to go up against the dragon would be, anyway.

Not to mention it might be too late; if the dragon was heading for Beacon, it would get there before any Atlesian units could intercept.

"What's the position of the Amity Colosseum?" he demanded.

"It's not moving, sir," Cunningham replied.

Come on, Twilight.

He considered ordering the Resolution to push the arena away, but even an intact cruiser might have found that a struggle, let alone one that had already taken damage.

Not that a damaged cruiser would be able to defend the arena.

"Des Voeux, hail the Resolution," Ironwood ordered.

"Aye aye, sir."

It took less than a second for the voice of Major Cochrane to issue into the CIC. "Resolution here, sir. I take it you're calling about that bastard I can see on the monitor."

"You can't fight it, Major, not with the Resolution in that condition," Ironwood said.

"We can give it a go, sir," Cochrane replied, sounding affronted by his dismissal of the idea.

"No, Major, you will not," Ironwood insisted. He tightened his jaw for a moment. "If necessary, I want you to try and use your ship to push the Amity Colosseum away from Beacon and towards Vale."

"Push it?"

"I have someone working on getting the arena's engines online, but if that fails, then the Resolution is the only plan B I have."

There was a moment of silence before Cochrane replied. "Understood, sir. When will it be necessary?"

"If, in your opinion, the dragon is moving to assault Amity," Ironwood informed her.

"In my opinion, understood, sir," Cochrane replied. "The old lady will give it her best."

"I've no doubt," Ironwood said.

"Sir?" Cuningham said. "The dragon isn't moving towards the arena; it's on a direct course for the CCT tower."

"Cochrane, you have your orders. Ironwood out," Ironwood said, because he needed to focus on the other target at Beacon. Of course they were targeting the tower. Even if the dragon's main aim was to make it hard to stop the Relic from being taken from Beacon, the CCT was too juicy a prize to pass up.

The CCT network was quantum entangled between the four main towers: if one tower went down, the whole network went down. If the dragon took out the tower — when the dragon took out the tower; it wasn't as though it was going to be stopped before it could — then it wouldn't just be dampening communications across Vale, but across the whole of Remnant.

If — when — the tower fell, then the only possible communications would be point to point between individual devices, or what signals could be bounced off individual relay towers if someone was in range and their device could make contact.

That would have huge implications for Remnant, but the implications that were utmost in Ironwood's mind right now were those for the control of his military; he would be unable to contact any of his units spread out across distant stations, and they would be unable to contact him.

And his forces would be completely cut off from Atlas.

He needed to make preparations while he still could.

"Des Voeux," he said. "Transmit all logs to HQ immediately and send the following signal to the Council, to General Roebuck, General Reeve, and to all units: communications are about to go down, blackout protocols are in full and immediate effect, acknowledge receipt of order. Send it now."

"Sending now, sir," des Voeux replied, his voice shaking a little, but only a little.

In the circ*mstances, Ironwood considered that quite commendable.

They were all doing very well at keeping calm, if nothing else.

Ironwood could see the dragon on the sensor images displayed in front of him, a large red shape moving inexorably towards the defenceless tower.

If Oz were still alive, Ironwood might have asked him why he'd thought it was a good idea to build the CCT tower outside of Vale's defences.

He might also have asked how he'd persuaded everyone else to go along with it.

"Are we going to try and intercept it, sir?" Fitzjames asked.

"No," Ironwood said, watching the dragon draw nearer and nearer. "No, we're going to have to let this play out."

The dragon drew nearer to the tower, the black mass closing inexorably with the green point upon the map.

"Log transmissions almost complete, sir," des Voeux informed him. "We've received acknowledgement of blackout protocols from Home Fleet command, Argus base, Cold Harbour—"

"Anything from the Council?"

"No, sir," des Voeux answered.

Unlike my units, there may not be anyone answering the scrolls at the Council at this hour, Ironwood thought.

Roebuck may have to inform them when they wake up.

"Anyone else?" Ironwood asked.

"No, sir. Still waiting on a response from Mantle, as well as acknowledgements from outlying bases in Mistral and Vacuo."

No time, Ironwood thought, for the dark red symbol of the dragon was almost upon the tower.

"Log transmissions complete," des Vœux announced. "Mantle is acknowledging recei—"

All the screens went dark.

XxXxX​

The lights of the Emerald Tower gleamed in the darkness, as true a beacon as any that could justify the name. The many lights of emerald green that burned did not burn brightly, but they possessed an intensity nonetheless; if one were to stand on the grounds of Beacon and look up at the tower that rose so high into the sky, they would see the lights burning and feel that no darkness could snuff them out.

As the dragon bore down upon the tower, those same lights seemed to cause it pain; the dragon turned its head away and moaned softly.

Then it turned its head back towards the tower, the high tower, the tower with the green lights burning within it, and opened its mouth.

A great beam of burning, blazing energy streamed out of the dragon's maw and struck the tower halfway up its great height.

And the Emerald Tower, seat of the headmaster, CCT tower for Vale, tower of the burning lights that never dimmed, exploded. Instead of the green lights, there was a pillar of flame as fragments of stone and steel flew out across the grounds of the school.

The dragon landed upon the ruined stump of the tower, cut down to size, like a bird returning to its nest.

The grimm stretched its long neck up towards the sky and roared in triumph.

XxXxX​

Aboard the Valiant, all the screens in front of Ironwood, all the sensor displays and the readouts, went black.

Some of them returned a moment later, amidst a soft hum and whirring of computers: the battlefield images, the maps of Vale that showed the dragon holding stationary above — or on top of — what had been the CCT, the videos of the unfolding battle captured by drones. What did not return, and what wouldn't return for some time in the best case, was everything beyond the immediate location. A few seconds ago, Ironwood had been at the head of the mightiest force in Remnant, able to reach out from the bridge of his ship to direct movements in any one of the four kingdoms, to deploy ships and men, to unleash force if required.

Now, all of that had been stripped away from him. Now, his reach, his gaze, his voice extended no further than this battlefield and the three squadrons that he had with him here in Vale.

"Comm check," Ironwood ordered. "Make sure all units and ships can still make contact."

"Aye aye, sir," replied des Voeux.

As much to the point, if Ironwood was cut off, then so — with the exception of the Home Fleet stationed around Atlas itself — was every other ship and unit deployed across Remnant. Mantle, Argus, ships on patrol, bases across Anima and Vacuo, they had been plunged into darkness, severed from their link to home.

That was why protocols existed for just such an eventuality. The exact orders varied from base to base, but all patrolling vessels should begin immediately to make their way home and report to Home Fleet for further orders; the forces at Cold Harbour, Argus in Mistral, and Adin Bay in Vacuo — the respective primary Atlesian bases in the other three kingdoms — were to hold their positions and attempt to establish contact with Atlas via other means; other units were to reach out to local civic authorities and had leave to remain if requested, in which case, they too should attempt to reestablish communications with Atlas; otherwise, they should make their way home as best they could; forces at Mantle, Crystal City, and other locations across Solitas were to maintain readiness and await further orders; the Home Fleet in Atlas itself…

One weakness of Atlesian protocols — aside from the fact that they had never really been tested outside of theoretical exercises — was that they assumed the commanding general would be at or nearby Atlas when communications went down, and that they would be able to take personal command of the main force based around Atlas. As it was, command of the Home Fleet would fall to Brigadier General Roebuck, under the supervision of the Council. And Ironwood could not help but worry that this situation would expose a number of older officers holding high rank who clung like barnacles to the Atlesian military. Some of them should have been retired before now, but they were often well-connected, with eminent friends who would speak up for them, and some of them even had distinguished records from their younger days. If push had come to shove, Ironwood could have probably sacked officers like Cordovin or Roebuck, but it would have raised a stink and required an expenditure of his political capital, and so he had taken to assigning them to prestigious but undemanding positions that offered no grounds for complaint — who could object to being left to mind the shop in Atlas, or to being appointed commander of the Argus base? — while not offering much opportunity to do any harm.

And, of course, connected to him via long apron-strings, enabling him to reach out and tug on them if they started to stray.

Now, the apron strings had been cut, and command at Argus might involve more than glad-handing with civic dignitaries and hosting the Town and Garrison Ball; command at Atlas might involve more than simply doing the paperwork until Ironwood's return.

He might need to have some fights when he got home.

But getting home, and bringing his surviving troops with him when he did, required winning a fight right here and now in Vale.

Everything else, all his other forces spread out across Remnant, would have to wait; he would have to trust his troops to look after themselves. Even the officers he would rather didn't have to.

XxXxX​

The picture on their television went dead, the images from the news replaced by roaring static.

Leaf got up off the sofa where it seemed that she'd been glued for the entire night, watching the news from Vale as ANN continued to live broadcast the unfolding events in the city of her birth. Everything had been cancelled, the schedules cleared for non-stop coverage by Atlesian reporters in the city itself; the sports correspondents in the city for the Vytal Tournament had become war correspondents reporting on grimm attacks and the sounds of battle raging on the other side of the walls of Vale. They had sometimes, annoyingly, cut to talking heads back in some studio in Atlas, speculating pointlessly on what might be going on and what it might all mean. 'Well, Wolfe, if we're seeing that, then this might happen next,' okay, but you don't know that's actually happening, do you, you don't know anything.

All that Leaf and Veil knew were what they could see on the TV — and what Leaf's mum was telling her. Leaf had called her; she was sat on the threadbare sofa with the TV on in front of her and her scroll in her hand, the line open to her mom.

They hadn't talked about anything personal, only about what was happening back in Vale: what the Valish news was saying, what Mum could see and hear. It sounded really weird what was happening there; Leaf couldn't make sense of it, the talking heads on the Atlas TV couldn't make sense of it, and it sounded as though Mum was having a hard time understanding it herself. Like, the Valish had fired on an Atlesian ship, and everyone started talking about a possible war for a hot second, especially when Mom said that General Blackthorn had come out and announced martial law was being declared — martial law? Seriously? — only then, Councillor Emerald had gone on TV, with Sunset, of all people, to say that General Blackthorn was just ill, or something, and he hadn't meant to start a war, and it was all just so bizarre.

Except it seemed, from what the TV was showing, from what Mum said, that as much as it sounded really weird and made Leaf's head spin to try and think about, it had meant that the fighting in Vale had stopped, which was good, especially since Mum was trying to get into Vale right now.

The no-personal stuff … that had mainly meant not talking about Leaf; it was impossible not to talk about how Mum was doing with a battle raging around her, what she was doing. What she was doing, along with Daniel and Angie, was queuing up to get into Vale. Councillor Emerald had ordered everyone who lived on the wrong side of the Red Line — which unfortunately included her parents, because you could get a bigger place for your money on the unprotected side of the wall — to get behind the walls where it was safer. So far, the last Leaf had heard, they hadn't actually made it yet; they were still waiting to get through.

Mum hadn't been too worried, though; the sounds of fighting had been so far away. Leaf hadn't been too worried either; sure, it was a big shock all of this happening to Vale, where her family lived, but it was gonna be fine. The Atlesians were going to hold the line and keep the grimm at bay. They'd already defended the Amity Colosseum and Beacon, so they were going to stop the grimm outside of the Vale in the same way, for sure. Rainbow Dash and Blake would protect her family, the same way that they'd protected her.

Only then, suddenly, this really huge grimm, so huge that you could see it from miles away, had shown up, and it … things hadn't seemed quite so rosy after that.

And now, the TV had gone dead. There was only static on the screen in front of them.

Her scroll was still working, but it had disconnected her call to Mum.

"What?" Leaf muttered. "See if you can get that to work; I'm gonna call her back."

Veil, still sat down on the sofa, leaned forwards as she grabbed the remote and turned the TV off and on.

It was still static only on the screen.

Veil began to cycle through the channels as Leaf called her Mum back — or tried to. Her scroll told her there was no signal — matching the no signal icon on the top right of the screen that she was only just noticing.

"Have you got a signal on your scroll?" Leaf asked.

"Hang on a second," Veil murmured, continuing to press the button on the remote to send it cycling through the channels.

There was only static; there was nothing on any of the channels that Veil flicked through to.

"Take over," Veil said, tossing the remote to Leaf — who fumbled it, letting the remote control bounce off her and land on the floor with a thud — as she looked around for her scroll.

Leaf picked up the remote, and instead of cycling through the channels, she started picking ones at random.

Still nothing; if it wasn't static, it was a blank screen.

She went to the TV's homepage, only to be greeted with the message

Veil had her scroll out now, looking down at it in her hands. "I've got no signal either." She glanced at the television. "No signal on the TV, nothing on either of our scrolls—"

There was a knock on the door, not too heavy, not angry-sounding, but insistent.

"I'll get it," Veil said, getting up off the sofa.

She walked in front of Leaf, and for a second, she blocked her view of the useless television, even as Leaf was left with nothing to do but to stare at it, her eyes sometimes flickering to the equally useless scroll in her hand.

She couldn't call Mum, she couldn't watch the news, she had no way of knowing how things were going in Vale right now. The grimm could have suddenly destroyed the whole city and killed everyone, and she wouldn't know.

Not that … not that that was going to … that wasn't going to happen, right?

Rainbow and Blake wouldn't let that happen.

Except … except that grimm looked really big, and now…

Veil opened the door. On the other side of the door stood one of their neighbours, Frangipane, Fran for short. She was young, like them — these apartments advertised themselves as being for 'young professionals' — with golden brown hair worn in a bob and eyes to match, and a very soft, round face. She wore a pastel pink dressing gown that she clutched tightly around herself with one hand.

"Sorry to bother you," she said softly, leaning forwards a little. "But have you two lost your signals for your scrolls and television?"

"Yeah," Veil replied. "Both our scrolls, and the TV. You too?"

"Yes," Fran said. "I was worried it was just me, but it seems not; that's good … or not, I suppose." She hesitated, looking around Veil towards Leaf. "Do you think … sometimes, when one of the towers requires maintenance, the whole thing shuts off for an hour or two in the middle of the night. Do you think…?" She stopped. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't disturb you any longer. But … if you need to … I'll let you go."

"Thanks," Veil said. "We'll let you know if anything changes."

"And so will I," Fran said. "Goodnight."

"Night," Veil murmured, not adding the 'good' part, because it hadn't been a great night so far, and it was only getting worse.

She shut the door; it clicked closed.

Leaf stared down at the dead scroll in her hand. She frowned and started to call Veil, her thumb swiping through the screens to get to Veil's scroll number on her device.

Veil's scroll began to ring. Veil started, looking down at it in surprise before pressing the red button to decline the call.

"That still works," Leaf observed. "We can still reach each other. Which means…" She paused. "Fran thinks the Vale tower might be down, doesn't she?"

Veil bit her lip.

"You can say it," Leaf told her.

Veil still didn't look at Leaf. "It would make sense. A tower going down would bring down the network. No TV, no calls except to other scrolls that you can directly connect to."

"No news from Vale," Leaf muttered. No word from Mum, no developments about what was going on there. The only news being the fact that she couldn't get any more news because the tower was down, which was … pretty terrible news, really.

She had no way of getting hold of her. No way of reaching her mother, finding out if she was okay, if Daniel was fine, if Angie was fine. No way of reaching Dad, either.

No way of knowing what was happening to them, or to Blake or Rainbow Dash or Sunset or Ruby or the rest of Vale. They could all die, and she wouldn't know.

Veil took a step towards her. "I'm sure that it'll be fine," she began.

"But you don't know that, do you?" Leaf snapped. "Nobody knows because we don't know anything!" She stopped, a scowl on her face as she looked away. "Sorry, I—"

"It's fine," Veil assured her. "I wasn't helping."

Standing in this apartment wasn't helping either. Looking at the television with its disconnected message wasn't helping; it just made Leaf want to kick it until it worked. Looking at her scroll wasn't helping; it just made her aware of how far away and unreachable her family was.

Looking down also made it clear to her that her hands were shaking; it made it harder to ignore the trembling in her limbs.

It wasn't all nerves — part of it was that she'd gone too long without a cigarette — but the nerves weren't helping either.

"I'll be outside," she muttered, grabbing her coat off the arm of the sofa and thrusting her scroll into one of its big pockets.

Veil got out of her way as Leaf walked towards the door, pulling her coat on as she went; she opened the door and stepped out into the corridor, with its soft blue lights running along the ceiling.

Leaf's hands kept on shaking as she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the other pocket of her coat, tremblingly pulling one out of the packet and sticking it in her mouth. The nicotine would calm her down, make it … make it easier. Take the edge off.

Leaf closed her teeth around the cigarette as she fumbled for her lighter. Where was it, where was it? Ah, yeah, here it was. She pulled out the cheap plastic lighter and tried to light it, clicking the handle over and over again. She got sparks, but no flame; it sparked and sparked, but there wasn't any fire. Leaf's thumb pushed down and down repeatedly, but it still wouldn't work. Why wouldn't it work?

Work, you stupid—

"Here," Veil said, stepping out into the corridor with a box of matches, striking one against the side of the box and holding the burning match up.

"Thanks," Leaf muttered, leaning forward to light her cigarette on the match. She leaned back and took a long drag as Veil extinguished. She felt … the weakness in her arms and legs felt less already, but the worry, the nervousness, the fear … that was all still there. Her mind was still on Vale, or in Vale, and the cigarette hadn't taken it away from there. It hadn't, or maybe it couldn't.

She glanced at Veil. "I thought you didn't want to be around when I smoked?"

"I don't like it," Veil admitted. "But I don't want to leave you alone, either."

"It's…" Leaf trailed off, because who would believe her when she said that it was fine?

Veil said, "They were okay when you spoke, right?"

"Yeah," Leaf said. "But that was … things can change." She took the cigarette out of her mouth and blew the smoke away from Veil. She coughed a little bit into her free hand and kept her mouth empty, the cigarette gripped between her fingers, as she turned back towards Veil.

"You'd think a rich guy could afford a house on the right side of the wall, wouldn't you?" she muttered.

"Your stepdad?" Veil asked. When Leaf nodded, she went on, "Is he actually rich, or did he just feel rich to you?"

That was a good point. "I suppose he is only middle class," Leaf admitted. "But still … outside the wall? Just because you can get a nice house cheaper there doesn't mean … I know that Vale wasn't exactly safe all the time tonight, but right now … I really wish they'd got inside the wall."

"And your dad?" Veil asked. "Where's he?"

"Passed out in the bathroom, probably, with no clue what's going on," Leaf muttered. She twitched and put the cigarette back in her mouth. "He lives in the Docklands, not far from the harbour." She took another drag, waiting for it to start calming her nerves. It was taking its sweet time about it. "He'll be fine, unless the whole city…" She didn't finish the sentence.

"I understand why Mum left him," she said. "After the time we came home and found him … I thought he was dead for a second. I think he might actually have been dead for a second. I understand, but at the same time, that didn't mean I wanted to see her run into the arms of someone else, just like that. Someone with a new, better daughter."

"'Better'?"

"Better than me," Leaf muttered. "I was…" She hesitated, puffing on her cigarette, turning away from Veil as she breathed out some more smoke. "I was kind of a bitch," she admitted, as she turned back to face her roommate. "And now…"

Now I might never be able to make it up to her.

Veil said, "I … you were right, earlier; I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what's going on in Vale now any more than you do, or when we'll get some news. But what I do know is that we're always told that Atlas has the greatest army in the world. A world-class military. A world-beating … no, not world-beating — that implies we want to fight people — but we're supposed to be really good at this. And although they didn't win the tournament, the people that we saw — your friend Rainbow Dash, Blake in that one fight, Neon Katt, they were pretty good. And it seemed like they were doing better than okay when the battle started. So … even though I don't know what's going to happen, maybe having some faith in Atlas, and in your friends, would make you feel better than that cigarette will."

Leaf looked at her, taking the cigarette out of her mouth, holding it in her hand. "Have some faith?"

"It's not faith in nothing," Veil said. "And it couldn't hurt."

Leaf looked down at the cigarette in her hand. Having some faith. She'd like to have faith; she'd like to think that she did have faith, in Rainbow and in Blake and in her adopted home … but it was easier to have faith when you were having your faith confirmed on the news and by the fact that your mother was still okay and able to talk to you.

It was easier to have faith when you could see with your own eyes.

XxXxX​

Saphron was standing at the window, tugging the curtains to one side a little as she looked out.

"There are people coming out into the streets," she announced, turning her head to look a little towards Terra. "They look confused. Some of them … might have their scrolls out, I'm not sure."

"Not just us then," Terra observed. She stood in front of the television, which had been playing static for a little while. As a computer engineer by profession, Terra had been fairly certain that it wasn't a problem with their TV set, even before she'd found that she couldn't get on the network on her scroll either.

And if the neighbours were having problems too, that just confirmed it.

Terra hoped that it was just a local failure; they weren't unheard of, but they could occasionally happen: relay towers could go on the fritz and stop transmitting equal signal strength in all directions. You could usually diagnose the problem remotely and fix it with a software patch.

She really hoped this was all it was, because if it wasn't … the potential issues only got larger in scale from there.

"Come away from the window," she told Saphron. "We don't want to attract attention."

Saphron did as Terra asked, stepping back and letting the curtain fall back down in front of her, but she also turned to Terra and asked, "Shouldn't we go out there, find out what's going on? I mean, they're our neighbours; they're not scary."

"Okay," Terra said, "but be careful."

Saphron didn't reply; she just slipped on her shoes and grabbed her keys on the way out of the door, which she shut behind her.

Terra, on the other hand, called Captain Vanille, her boss at the Atlesian base where she worked; he was an officer, even though he supervised a team of mostly civilian contractors like Terra.

And even though his team was mostly civilians, he insisted on them calling him 'sir.' Terra had gotten used to it.

It took him a little while to answer, a little while during which Terra's foot tapped impatiently on the floor as she kept shooting glances towards the front door. She wondered how Saphron was getting on out there with the neighbours; probably better than Terra would have.

Captain Vanille answered. Terra could hear the sounds of feet moving rapidly and heavily upon surfaces, as well as voices raised in … was that marching chant?

"Cotta-Arc," Captain Vanille said in a weary voice. "Let me guess, you're calling about the CCT issue."

"I'm not the first, sir?"

"Not even close, Cotta-Arc," Captain Vanille replied.

"And?" Terra asked. "How bad is it?"

Captain Vanille didn't reply.

"Sir?" Terra asked. "Is it an issue with the relay tower? Do you need someone to go and take a look at it?"

"If I did, I'd have called you," Captain Vanille informed her. "We received a transmission from Vale, informing us that communications were about to be lost and blackout protocols were in effect. Then we lost the CCT."

"'Lost the…'" Terra's eyes widened. "You mean … the whole network is down?"

"We sent an acknowledgement, but now we can't raise Atlas, or the General in Vale, or reach anyone in Mistral," Captain Vanille said. "We're on our own out here."

"Gods," Terra muttered. The CCT was down? Completely down? The whole network was down? The worst case scenario was the one that had come to pass? That was…

What was going to happen now?

"In the circ*mstances," Captain Vanille went on, "don't bother coming in tomorrow; I'll let you know if I need you the day after. It will probably take that long for Colonel Cordovin to decide what to do next, and even then, I'm not sure how much use we'll have for a CCT Technician with no CCT network."

Thanks for reminding me that I could be out of a job thanks to this, sir, Terra thought. It might not be the biggest issue to come out of this, but it was important to her personally. "Okay," she said softly. "I understand. Thank you for being honest with me, sir."

"I've got to get back to it; it's all hands on deck here," Captain Vanille said. "But I'll be in touch."

"Yes, sir," Terra said, but he'd already hung up on her.

Terra was left standing in the living room, looking down the hall, with her scroll in her hand.

The CCT was down.

Communications across the whole of Remnant were offline.

The front door opened and Saphron came in. "It's the same story all along the street," she announced. "No TV, no scroll signals—"

"The CCT's down," Terra said. "My boss at the base just confirmed it."

Saphron shut the door without looking at it. Her blue eyes were fixed on Terra. "When you say 'down,' you mean—"

"It's all gone," Terra said. "All of it. We can't talk to Mistral, to Atlas—"

"Or Vale," Saphron murmured. "My family." She paused. "Can it be fixed?"

"That depends," Terra replied. "On what caused it to go down in the first place. Given the circ*mstances, it probably isn't a software issue."

Given that they'd seen a giant grimm reported on the news, it was likely — possible, at least — that the Vale tower had been physically damaged or destroyed. In which case, they'd have to build a new tower, and then … the four towers had all been built at the same time, all turned on at the same time, entangled together; could they add a fourth tower back into the network and thus restore it? Terra didn't know. She wasn't sure if anybody knew.

"What about running the network off three towers?" asked Saphron.

"I don't know if that's possible either, but even if it was, it would mean we still couldn't talk to Vale," Terra said. "It would be out of range."

"I … see," Saphron murmured. "So you're saying the only way to send messages between kingdoms now, the only way to find out what's going on, is—"

"The mail," Terra said.

"So I'll either get a letter from Jaune telling me that he made it through the battle okay," Saphron said, "or he was too lazy to put pen to paper."

Terra smiled, glad that Saphron was taking it without despair, or at least putting a brave face on things. "On a more prosaic note, if the CCT does remain down, then you might have to get a job. Not much call for a CCT software engineer when there's no CCT network."

Saphron's eyebrows rose. "So, communications are down across Remnant, and you're unemployed? This gets better and better, doesn't it?" She kicked off her shoes and walked softly across the hall, her bare feet making practically no sound at all. "But with Jaune and Pyrrha fighting for their lives in Vale and communications down across the world, we should count our blessings, shouldn't we? Even if you don't have a job, we're still safe, and we have Adrian, and he's safe, and I'm pretty sure the bar down the road is looking for kitchen staff." She approached Terra, placing her forearms on her shoulders, her hands joined together as though she were about to pull Terra into an embrace. She didn't though, not yet, though she stood close by, looking ever so slightly down into Terra's eyes.

"They'll be fine, won't they?" she asked. "Tell me again that they'll be fine."

"They'll be fine," Terra told her. "The valour of Mistral, with its undefeated champion at the forefront, and allied too with the might of Atlas, will triumph without a doubt, no matter what setbacks may be thrown in their way by the course of the battle. Their final victory cannot be doubted. They'll be fine."

Now, Saphron pulled her into an embrace, planting a kiss on her forehead. "Then so will we," she said. "So will we."

XxXxX​

Dad had started keeping the hunting rifles locked up in a cabinet when Rouge was young; all the children were grown up now — physically, anyway — with the possible exception of Violet, but nevertheless, the Arc family rifles were still kept in a locked cabinet in the shed out back.

That was where Sky was right now, looking for the right key amongst the many keys on this particular keychain with one hand, while in her other hand, she held her scroll.

"No, Sprout, I don't know what's going on," Sky spoke into the scroll, as she picked her way past Grandpa's creepy old stuffed Jackalopes — why they still had these, she did not know, no one liked them; when she was a kid, she used to hate coming in here because of the way their eyes used to follow her around — towards the gun cabinet at the back. "If I knew what was going on, I would tell you, like I've told you everything I know: the TV has gone dead, Kendal can't get through to her bosses in Vale, Aoko can't get … anything, and all our scrolls say there's no signal."

"Then … how are we talking?" Sprout asked. "Are we talking? Is this all in my head, am I hallucinating this out of—?"

"No, Sprout, it's not all in your head," Sky told him, wishing — and not for the first time — that she had another deputy. "We're talking. Aoko says that our devices can still communicate point to point; it's just anything longer distance that isn't working." That hadn't been the only thing that Aoko had said — she'd also said that she thought that the reason for that was that the whole network was down everywhere, across the whole of Remnant — but as that wasn't something that Sky knew, only something that Aoko thought, she wasn't going to bring it up.

No sense in panicking people before time. There'd be panic enough once it was confirmed. If it was confirmed.

She was just glad that the mayor went to bed early; she wouldn't have to deal with him until morning.

Things might not be any clearer in the morning, but at least it would be morning; she didn't want to have him yelling her ear in the middle of the night.

"Now," she went on, "what I need you to do is get the huntsman up and out, tell him that I'm worried that there might be some trouble tonight, and I'd like it if he stood guard."

"That guy scares me," Sprout whined.

"Why?" Sky asked. "I think he likes you."

"He offered to put me through training so vigorous that I'd wish I was dead!"

"I'm pretty sure that was him being nice," Sky replied. "Look, you don't have to hang out with him, just get him out of bed if he's there and have him outside where people can see him. Then take a wander around the village, knock on doors, make sure everyone's okay. Nice and calm, no fuss, no bother."

"Uh huh. And what are you going to be doing?"

"I'm going to be on patrol," Sky said as she found the right key to unlock the cabinet. "You think you can handle that?"

"I … guess so," Sprout admitted. "Patrol where?"

"I'll talk to you later, Sprout," Sky said as she hung up on him.

She shoved her scroll into her pocket as she shoved the gun cabinet key — it was a small key, kind of knife-shaped — into the slightly rusty lock and, with a bit of jiggling, managed to turn it to unlock the cabinet.

A pair of long-barrelled hunting rifles, breech-loaders with wooden stocks and telescopic sights, confronted her, along with a couple of boxes of ammunition.

"Going out on patrol?" Rouge said. "That's new."

Sky half turned around. Her eldest sister stood in the shed doorway, her hands clutching the folds of her skirt.

"For one of us," Sky observed. "I saw the way you looked in there, when Aoko couldn't connect to anything. You were going to head out, weren't you?"

Rouge hesitated, not speaking.

"Come on," Sky said. "I know what you are now, what you can do; you can be honest with me."

With one hand, Rouge reached up and clutched at some of the rocks on her necklace. "Yes," she murmured. "I was worried that people might start to worry, and that worry would … bring the grimm. If all the grimm in this country aren't already at Vale, troubling Jaune, bringing the CCT network down."

Sky ignored that last part. "And how were you going to explain that to Mom and Dad and everyone else? Were you going to tell them that you were going to stalk the woods protecting everyone with your magic powers?"

"I … hadn't thought about it," Rouge replied.

"Good thing I thought about it for you, then," Sky said. "You're going out on patrol with me, to watch my back. What could be more natural? You want a gun?"

"I don't need one."

"Take one anyway, for the look of the thing," Sky told her, as she grabbed one of the boxes of ammunition in one hand and wrapped her other arm around both hunting rifles. That left the cabinet empty, apart from the remaining rounds, as she began to make her way back towards Rouge.

"Alright," Rouge said softly. "I hope Aoko's wrong about this."

"About the CCT?" Sky asked.

Rouge nodded. "You might think it wouldn't affect us, but it will."

"We survive fine without Vale up in our business," Sky replied.

"We rely on Vale buying what we produce," Rouge said. "Our wool, our fruit and vegetables, our milk."

"Will people not need fruit and veg because they can't watch TV?" asked Sky.

"Will anyone be able to pay for it without the CCT?" responded Rouge. "Isn't most money stored on computers?"

"It is?" Sky said. "That … that's something for someone other than me to worry about." She handed Rouge a rifle, glad to have one of them taken off her hands so that she could get a better grip on the one she had left. "I understand that it's not ideal, and I wasn't thrilled to suddenly not be able to find out what was happening with Jaune, but Vale existed before the CCT, and it'll survive without it, right? Our ancestors didn't need a network when they raised this town, and we can't give up on it just because we don't have a network." She put the ammunition next to a jackalope for just long enough to chamber a round into the breach of the rifle. "What was it you said that night, about generations of Arc women keeping the town safe?"

"While generations of Arc men protected the world," Rouge murmured. "Like Jaune." She paused. "Kendal's talking about going to Vale, to find out what's going on. Dad thinks it's too dangerous."

"It is dangerous," Sky said. "But, if the network doesn't come back online—"

"I thought we didn't need one."

"We don't need it, but someone's going to have to find out what's going on," Sky pointed out. "Although maybe Kendal doesn't have to go all the way to Vale; maybe she can just go to the next town over and check out the lie of the land from there. Or … maybe it won't be dangerous; maybe by tomorrow, or by the time that Kendal reaches it, whenever she sets out, it will all be over."

"We can only hope," Rouge murmured. "Because while we might — or might not — be able to do without the CCT network, I don't think that this village, I'm fairly certain that we couldn't do without Vale, and I'm afraid that if Vale was lost—"

"Then we'd have lost Jaune," Sky said quietly.

"Yes," Rouge whispered. "Yes, we would, but not only that … I'm afraid that not even these magic stones would be enough to protect Alba Longa from what came next."

XxXxX​

The sconces in the corridors burned a dull red, illuminated by the fire dust crystals burning within. They cast long shadows on the floor, the shadows of Terri-Belle and her sisters.

Terri-Belle stalked down the palace corridor towards her father's chamber, her sandals squeaking as she marched over a mosaic of Theseus II descending into the underworld. She stepped directly upon the emperor's face and then beyond him, treading over the dark rocks of Erech's domain as she moved swiftly towards her destination.

The CCT was down. The whole network had collapsed. The technicians had already assured her — with commendable speed — that it was not a fault in the White Tower, and therefore, it was not something that they could correct. Rather, the fault lay elsewhere, most likely in Vale, and wherever it was, it was beyond their capacity to repair it here in Mistral.

From what they had told her, Terri-Belle understood that it might well be impossible to repair at all. They hadn't been entirely sure, but in such circ*mstances, Terri-Belle preferred to take the more sceptical — one might say pessimistic — attitude.

That way she wouldn't be disappointed.

The CCT was down, and they had to proceed as though it was going to be down for the foreseeable future, if not forever. That would lead to panic in Mistral — and Mistral, it had to be admitted — had not exactly been calm before this. This news from Vale, the footage of the battles raging there, the fact that all track had been lost of Pyrrha Nikos — not to mention the sons and daughters of Haven — had put the streets into a state of excitement already; now that the CCT was down … the absence of news was more likely to inflame the city than calm its passions.

Too much excitement would mean that it would not only be Vale that was facing the fury of the grimm.

Her sisters followed her down the corridor; Shining Light and Blonn Di were on either side of her, while Swift Foot followed directly behind. Blonn Di's shadow sometimes fell upon her as the dull lights of the dust crystals fell upon the four.

"Shining Light, I want the entire Imperial Guard mustered in the palace courtyard; I'll join them there as soon as I've spoken to our Lord Father," Terri-Belle ordered.

"The entire company?" Shining Light asked.

"Yes, all of them," Terri-Belle said. "And Blonn Di: Professor Lionheart isn't answering my calls, so go to Haven and rouse him directly. Tell him that the CCT is down and that he is to … gather huntsmen to be ready at need, as many as he can muster, in case of an attack on Mistral."

"And if I find him not at Haven?" asked Blonn Di.

"Search brothels and dive bars," muttered Shining Light, a smirk upon her face.

Terri-Belle looked at her with something close to a glare on her face. "You should already be gone about your orders," she snapped.

Shining Light swallowed and bowed her head. "To hear is to obey, Captain and Warden." She bowed lower, from the waist, although not all the way, before she turned and scampered off back down the corridor in the direction from which they had come.

Terri-Belle kept walking as she returned her attention to Blonn Di. "Search the school if you don't find him in his office or his bedchamber, but look no further. If Lionheart is not there, then go to the Huntsman's Guild and find someone there who can assemble huntsmen."

"The Huntsman's Guild is not very happy with you presently," Blonn Di observed.

"I care not if I am the most pestilential creature in all of Remnant to the Huntsman's Guild," Terri-Belle declared. "Mistral may come under attack this very night. Tell them that and see if it will move them more than pique at me."

"As the Warden of the White Tower commands, I'll do these offices," Blonn Di said, offering a cursory bow of the head before she, too, departed.

Swift Foot was now the only one of her sisters who remained, and she moved to the side a little so that she was no longer directly behind Terri-Belle.

"Do you really think that Mistral will be attacked?" she asked.

"If the people begin to panic, then panic will bring the grimm," Terri-Belle declared. "It may be there are no grimm close enough, but it may be that there are."

"So what will you do?" asked Swift Foot.

"I will do as the Steward of Mistral, our lord and father, shall command me to do," Terri-Belle answered.

"Alright then, but what would you do?" Swift Foot. "What will you do if Father asks for your advice?"

Terri-Belle did not reply for a moment, considering her response. It had indeed been germinating in her mind, just in case Father should ask for her opinion, but nevertheless, she took an additional moment to give it further consideration. "I would position most of the Guard upon the walls, to keep watch for any approaching grimm, but I would select a dozen of them and have them patrol the streets in number, as a single company, to give the impression of strength that may—"

"Fool the people?" Swift Foot asked.

"Reassure them," Terri-Belle corrected. "I mean no deception."

"You want to make it seem that you have more strength than you have," Swift Foot suggested.

"Huntsmen and huntresses will increase our strength," Terri-Belle countered, although her youngest sister was not entirely wrong upon this point. "Polemarch Yeoh should not have taken our soldiers away to Vale."

"Would they have been any good?" asked Swift Foot. "They were very new."

"They would have been bodies on the wall," Terri-Belle answered.

As it stood, her numbers were very small. A single huntsman could fight on against many more grimm, but all the same, her numbers were very few to defend a whole city.

And all the while, the nascent beginnings of Mistral's army was caught up in a different battle, irrelevant to them and to their interests, far away in Vale. What a waste. What a mistake by Yeoh.

A mistake that she would have to live with; walking up and down this corridor demanding that Yeoh give her back her soldiers would not whisk them across land and sea and sky to Mistral.

"I could be another body on the wall," Swift Foot pointed out. "Let me help you."

"You will," Terri-Belle told her.

"I will?"

"But not on the walls of Mistral," Terri-Belle added. They were approaching Father's chambers now; his door, guarded by two Imperial Guards, loomed before them, getting larger as they drew closer. "I would have you relieve the guard on Father's door and wait there until you are relieved in turn."

"You call that help?" Swift Foot demanded. "To stand outside a door in the middle of a palace?"

"To guard our father, with your life, if need be," Terri-Belle replied, her voice as firm as the stones that made the palace. "An honourable position."

"A position without a scrap of glory to be found," Swift Foot muttered.

"There is more to life than glory," Terri-Belle declared. "And certainly, there is more to faithful service than the lust for glory." She turned and looked directly down on Swift Foot. "Guard our father," she urged. "Relieve two warriors whom I can make better use of elsewhere than here. Do your duty, as a daughter of Mistral."

Swift Foot's hand went to the hilt of her rhomphaia. "Very well," she said. "If Father will have me."

Terri-Belle did not reply to that, in part because they had almost reached the doors. "You are relieved," Terri-Belle told the guards. "The company is mustering in the courtyard; join them there. My sister will take over from you here."

The two guards — their names were Circe and Polyphemus — turned their eyes, all three of them between them, upon Swift Foot for a moment, but neither of them questioned her commands.

"As you order, Captain," Polyphemus said, his voice a low bass rumble, as both he and Circe headed off, in the opposite direction to which Terri-Belle and Swift Foot had approached.

"Wait here," Terri-Belle said.

Swift Foot drew her long, curved blade. It glimmered in the dull red light of the fire dust as she rested the tip upon the floor. "Shall I let no one pass?" she asked.

"Use your own judgement as to who comes, and on what business," Terri-Belle replied.

Swift Foot nodded. She looked incredibly earnest as she stood beside the door, no longer looking at Terri-Belle at all, her eyes fixed — not moving even a fraction — outwards, the way by which they had approached.

The doors to Father's chamber were ornately carved, decorated with bas-reliefs depicting the old gods of Mistral, from Seraphis ruling in the skies above to Amphitrite in the oceans and all the way down to Erech ruling in the underworld below. The door handles were brass, polished each day by servants; it was those handles that Terri-Belle seized, pushing open the doors into the Steward's chambers.

It was not Father's bedroom that confronted her within, but a sitting room where he could entertain his closest intimates in comfort and privacy; it was lit only by a soft blue light, illuminating enough of the plump settees and antique chairs for Terri-Belle to navigate around them and find the curtain separating the sitting room from Father's bedchamber.

The bedroom, which she entered as she ducked beneath the curtain, her tall mohawk acting as something of an obstacle for it for a few seconds, was smaller than the sitting room but not small; it had ample space to move around in if one wished to prowl by night. A large four-poster bed dominated, with all of the silk curtains of Imperial purple drawn, concealing Father from the sight of men. A golden water jug sat on a gold tray on the nightstand, with a crystal goblet resting beside it.

Terri-Belle approached quietly; though it was her intention to wake her father, she did not wish to do so by her heavy-footedness.

Some might have found it strange that Father could sleep on such a night as this, when confusion reigned and anxiety gripped the streets of Mistral like a hand around the throat, but Father had declared that whatever occurred would be as true when he awoke as when it happened. And Father was an old man, after all, and needed his rest to remain wise and considered in his judgement. No doubt, even in his dreams, he was thinking of what might be and how best to govern Mistral amidst the turbulent seas that might soon engulf it.

They might have need of such wisdom in the days ahead.

Terri-Belle pulled back the curtain. Her father lay sleeping, lying on his back, his eyes closed, his fingers interlocking over his chest just below his snow white beard.

He looked almost as a man dead. An old man claimed by the years he had run out of, gone to his grave with honour, about to be interred.

He looked so peaceful thus in his repose that Terri-Belle felt the urge to bend down and plant a kiss upon his forehead, as if a last kiss, before she sent him on his way.

It was as well that she was not in the habit of disturbing her father while he slept, or else she would have probably done it by now.

As it was, she only reached out with one strong hand and nudged his shoulder as gently as she could. His silk nightrobe of rich gold felt soft beneath her fingertips.

"Father," she said softly. "Father, you must awake."

The eyes of Lord Diomedes Thrax — he had violet eyes, like Swift Foot — opened slowly at first, then in a rapid flickering, and finally, they looked up at Terri-Belle.

"Terri-Belle?" he said, his mouth twisting into a wry smile. "Have you descended in office to become the groom of my bedchamber?"

Terri-Belle bowed her head. "I apologise for disturbing you, Lord. It is an urgent matter."

Father began to sit up in bed. "What time is it?"

"It is not quite dawn," Terri-Belle replied.

Father frowned, adding more wrinkles to an already wrinkled brow. "And what news is so urgent that it could not wait until the hour of my rising?"

"The CCT is down, Father, Lord," Terri-Belle informed him. "We cannot contact Thrace, Argus, Piraeus, anywhere beyond the city limits or a little further."

When Theseus the First had founded Mistral upon this mountain, he had chosen well from a perspective of defence, but he had not been thinking about the technological advancements that would come after, clearly. The mountains and valleys that surrounded Mistral were a beauteous sight to behold, but they blocked CCT signal, even with many relay towers planted upon them; now that the network as a whole was down, broadcasting any signal past those mountains verged on impossible.

"And you wake me to tell me this?" Father said. "No doubt it will be fixed by the time I wake up."

He started to turn away, preparatory to lying down again.

"No, Lord, it will not," Terri-Belle insisted, her voice rising. "This is not a computer glitch that can be resolved in the White Tower; I have already spoken to the technicians, and they tell me it is not a problem here. The whole network is down, across Remnant. They believe that one of the towers has gone offline, probably in Vale, given the battle that is being fought there."

Now, Father froze. Slowly, after a moment, he turned back to look at her once more. He stared at her intently, his eyes seeming to gleam a little in the gloom of the bedchamber.

"The Valish tower is fallen?"

"So seems the most likely explanation, yes," Terri-Belle murmured. "I have not been to Vale to see it for myself."

"And all communications are cut-off?"

"Yes, my lord," Terri-Belle said. She paused a moment before she added, "Coming as this does amidst the news from Vale, I fear that the people will be greatly distressed, and that in their distress, they may call the grimm down on us."

Father said, "In the morning, I shall send a messenger to Thrace, a rider; no, I shall send an airship, but I shall require a warrior of the guard to act as their escort. I will tell them … I must sleep a little longer on what the message will be, but they must know that though they cannot speak, Thrace is not forgotten."

"No, Lord," Terri-Belle murmured.

Thrace was the historic heart of the Thrax family and their strength: the location of many of their lands, their ancestral home, the place they had been kings and queens of not once, but twice, before the coming of the Mistralian Emperors and again during the days of the Red Queen. It would be as well to keep in touch, maintain the ties between their family and the old country.

It was also a strong land, if not the richest land, a land of hardy hill folk skilled in scouting and skirmishing and hunting. If Father's messenger were to summon a few more of them here to Mistral, that would be no bad thing at all.

"In the meantime," Father went on, "I fear there may be some truth to what you say of the people and their passions. Deploy the Imperial Guard to protect the palace immediately and send word to the Councillors, as well as to the patricians and the heads of the guilds, that they may join us here and shelter under our protection."

It took a moment for Terri-Belle to realise what she had just heard. "The … the palace, Father?"

Father looked at her. "Do we not speak now as the Steward unto the Warden of the White Tower?"

Terri-Belle bowed her head once more. "Forgive me. The Palace, Lord?"

"The people, in their fear, may try to do some mischief to us, or to some other great ones," Father explained. "I do not wish to suffer the fate of Princess Juturna. If the mob comes to our door, then they will find us well prepared, and you will meet them with steel and force if needs be. Do not be misguided in your mercy."

Terri-Belle restrained the frown that threatened to cross her face. She could understand Father's concern, to some extent, but though the people were frightened, they would hardly take out their fear upon the Steward and his family … or would they? There had been murmurings of discontent before this, over the response to the various grimm attacks on outlying villages and towns, the lack of protection for them. Such sentiment would boil over again … but was that not more likely if the Imperial Guard was arranged around the palace instead of on the walls?

And if the grimm attacked, then what was the point of a palace when the city was in ruins?

"But, my lord," she murmured. "If the grimm should come—"

"Then let the huntsmen defend the city; is that not why they exist?" Father asked. "Let them, and Lionheart, prove that they are good for something."

Terri-Belle was silent for a moment. She did not agree with her father's decision. She did not see the point in concentrating all her forces to defend the palace only, leaving the fortunes of Mistral in the hands of other huntsmen. She was the Warden of the White Tower, with all of Mistral in her charge, not the palace only.

But he was her father, the Steward of Mistral, and she was faithfully sworn unto his service, to obey him in all things.

She had told Swift Foot that she would obey him in all things.

That did not mean that she could not speak. "My lord," she said. "I do not think that we should abandon the defences of the city without making at least some effort to secure them."

"And what is the purpose of a city, or a kingdom, whose rulers have been torn to pieces by an angry mob?" Father asked. "What is the purpose of a body without a head? Mistral may be vulnerable, but so is our position, and we must make the second secure before we may address the weakness of the first." His lips twitched, as though he might smile, although he did not. "Your courage does you credit, my daughter, and your feeling of care towards the common rabble are worthy of a hero of the old tales. But it is a loyal daughter and an obedient captain that I require, not a hero, just as it is a wise Steward to guide it through these troubled waters that Mistral requires, not a benevolent fool dead of an excess of his own virtues."

His voice dropped somewhat. "They once compared me with the old Lord Rutulus, father to the present lord," he murmured. "They praised him for his antique virtue and excoriated me for lacking the same. But all his virtue saw him murdered, while my despised craft saw me survive and endure and guide Mistral out of the anarchy and to the renewed prosperity which we are blessed withal. So it shall be again, if you are loyal to me and obedient to my will."

She had told Swift Foot that she would obey the Steward in all things.

Terri-Belle bowed, taking a step back to bend lower, placing one fist above her heart. "I shall respects, obedient to your will, my lord," she declared. "It shall be done."

XxXxX​

A startled cry ran through the Square of Heroes as the picture was lost.

The composition of the crowd was not what it had been, when so many had gathered to watch Pyrrha Nikos triumph for Mistral over Weiss Schnee in the Amity Colosseum; people had gone home since there, or departed from the square at least, but others had trickled in to replace them, as if driven from their homes at this moment of confusion by the need for companionship, for someone — for a great many someones — to share their confusion and their fear with.

Turnus had remained too, with his remaining escorts, not because he wanted to share his feelings with the crowd so much as because he wanted to understand how the crowd was feeling, how the people of Mistral were reacting to all of this; he would get a better sense of that here in the Square of Heroes with so many people surrounding him than he would at home watching the news.

Someone with a bit of technical knowhow had clambered over the metal barriers that had surrounded the giant screens set up for the final match and tinkered with them in order to, for want of a better expression, change the channel. They had not done so until after the fighting had moved decisively out of the Amity Arena, and so, Turnus and the people had been given a good view of the fighting there.

That had produced a rallying of the public mood, for a moment; though the people had gasped when the shield was broken and the grimm began to descend into the heart of the arena, when Arslan Altan had led all the swords of Haven out onto the battlefield, a great cheer had risen up from the assembled masses, a cheer that Turnus could only imagine was echoed across the living rooms and bedrooms of Mistral by all those watching. At that moment, as the students of Haven swarmed the griffons, the initial shock of the grimm attack had lost a little of its sting, and it had been possible to believe that order would swiftly be restored.

The failure of Pyrrha to kill that teryx and its accompanying griffon had put a little dent in that enthusiasm, true, but that had been due to the incompetence of Jaune Arc, and in any case, the grimm had retired even if they were not killed. Things had seemed to be going fairly well, until everyone had left the arena and it had become impossible to see what was happening.

At which point, some enterprising soul had changed the channel, and Turnus had spent the rest of the night — it was coming up to morning in Mistral, though it remained the dead of night in Vale to the west of them — watching a collage of confusion, as various reporters in Vale tried to work out what was happening.

A madness seemed to have gripped Vale; a literal madness, apparently, something about the command staff of their military losing their minds and deciding that now, in the midst of a grimm attack, was the perfect time to start a war with the Atlesians. And then, and this was something Turnus had gathered from his scroll as much as from the giant screens in the square, the First Councillor had come in, accompanied by Pyrrha and Ruby's slandered teammate Sunset Shimmer, and like the adult in the room, told the children to put their toys away and go to bed.

It was like a comic opera interlude with deadly consequences, a clownish subplot in which some people had ended up dead. It was absolutely bizarre. Turnus wasn't sure what to make of it. A mass delirium? Had anyone ever heard of such a thing before?

Mind you, there could be mass hysteria, so why not mass delirium? They were all just surges of emotion amongst a crowd, no?

Speaking of mass hysteria, Turnus was afraid that the mood of the crowd had only gone downhill from the initial moments of hope when it had seemed like all things might be swiftly tied up and the grimm incursion dealt with.

Partly, that was due to the chaos in Vale, a chaos which was only partly the result of mass delirium. Even before the Valish Defence Forces had decided to succumb to a bout of lunacy, there had been reports of grimm cultists running rampant, power blackouts, the Valish punditry barricaded in their own studio while murderous cultists tried to break in and kill them all. People had been understandably concerned for the fate of the Mistralian tourists and the Haven students — friends, relatives, admired idols, or simply their fellow countrymen — who seemed to have wandered into first a snakepit and then, as news about the Valish Defence Force trickled in, a madhouse. The fact that the First Councillor had cleaned up that particular mess was not so reassuring when set against the fact that the mess had been made in the first place.

And then there were the grimm, who had continued to attack; it had become increasingly clear that this was no minor grimm incursion, no opportunistic attack of a few fliers, no; no, the fighting had moved from the Amity Arena down to Beacon, and then to the outskirts of Vale itself, where Atlesian troops and huntsmen from all the schools were presently engaged. There were no cameras out there, no reporters venturing out into the field, but from within Vale, the cameras had been able to see the Atlesian warships firing lasers and missiles, and the sounds of artillery had been heard through the speakers.

There were clearly a very large number of grimm outside of Vale, trying to batter their way through the defences, so many grimm that it defied credulity that they could have stolen up on Vale without anyone, especially not the vaunted Atlesian airship pilots, noticing their presence.

It was clear, even to the crowds unlearned in the ways of the grimm who gathered in the square, and no doubt beyond the square as well, that the Valish had known — they must have known — that the grimm were gathered about their city in great numbers.

They had known, and yet, they had done nothing. They had let the people of Mistral come to their city, the students of Haven, scions of ancient families, the hopes and expectations of Mistral's future, they had let them place their heads in the jaws of a monster. And now, the jaws were trying to slam shut.

Curses were raised against the name of Vale, its leaders, its people; more curses would be raised by far if anyone of note were found to have fallen in this battle. The death of Phoebe, the destruction of the Kommenos family, had passed little regarded in the general enthusiasm for Pyrrha's triumph, amidst Phoebe's own unpopularity and the low regard into which the Kommenos family had fallen since the Great War. But if Arslan Altan should perish, or Jason and Meleager, or gods forbid, Pyrrha herself … such a roar of fury would rise from the streets as would make the White Tower tremble.

Perhaps they had fallen already; it was impossible to say for sure because the battle had been observed at such a distance that the gap between those reporting and the events on which they reported — speculated, almost — had seemed almost as great as the distance between those watching in Mistral and the events in far-off Vale of which they sought to learn. It was impossible to say who was alive, who had perished, who was wounded; all that could be said was that the battle had not ended yet, that the Atlesians at least fought on, their ships at least clear to see. Beyond that, beyond the fact that the grimm had clearly not been beaten yet — driven from Beacon, true, but that had not stopped them from assaulting Vale immediately after — the people had nothing but their faith in their heroes to sustain them as they waited for news with increasing anxiety.

And then that grimm had appeared.

It was like … Turnus would not say it was like nothing he had ever seen because it resembled certain fossils in the Mistralian Museum, but as far as grimm went, he had never heard of anything like it. It was huge; even at the distance from which the cameras showed it, it was huge, and only grew larger as it surged from afar towards the battle.

Grimm of monstrous size existed, Turnus had known that already, but to see one, even via the medium of a camera … as it flew forwards, Turnus found that there was a part of him that expected, that feared, that it would lunge through the screen and turn its wrath upon the Mistralian crowd.

Judging by the way the crowd had edged away from the screen, it seemed he had not been alone in that.

It had looked a mighty beast and had proven its might by the way it smashed through the Atlesian airships as though they were toys. Turnus' eyes had widened to behold it, that Atlas the modern, Atlas the advanced, Atlas the strong, Atlas that embraced the future and showed the model for a successful kingdom, Atlas was being defeated before his very eyes, having all its pride and its pretensions torn to shreds.

And then the grimm — the dragon, they called it, after the creatures whose bones were on display in the museum — had turned its attention on the other side of the battlefield, where it was thought the sons and daughters of Mistral were, and though they could not be seen…

Turnus could not believe he was the only one wondering how Mistralian swords could overcome a power that had triumphed over all the Atlesian technology.

And then they had lost the picture.

Not just the picture on the great screens, although they had gone black, but scrolls too. There was no more news from Vale, no more news from anywhere, no sites of any kind; everything was connection errors.

But Turnus could call Lausus, who was standing right beside him, and he could call Camilla also.

She answered at once. For a moment, as her face appeared on the screen, it seemed that she was chewing on her lip. She stopped almost immediately. "My lord? How are things?"

"Not good," Turnus said quickly. "Camilla, do you have the television on?"

Camilla frowned. "We have lost our connection, my lord; is it the same with you as well?"

"It is," Turnus confirmed. "And is there anything on your scroll?"

"You," Camilla pointed out. "But no, I cannot access the CCT; I am told it's unavailable. Opis has found the same, and Juturna. What's going on?"

"I fear…" Turnus murmured. "Stay where you are, protect the house, keep Juturna safe."

"Are you coming back, my lord?"

"Soon, perhaps, but not yet," Turnus told her.

"Then be safe," Camilla urged him. "I fear the mood on the streets—"

"Is not a happy one," Turnus agreed. "But I'll be fine. You will see me shortly, I promise. In the meantime, take care yourself—"

"And of Juturna," Camilla finished. "Have no fear; she is safe in my charge."

"No doubt," Turnus said, even managing a slight smile before he hung up.

"What do you think it means, my lord?" asked Lausus.

Turnus put his scroll away. "It means," he began, "it means that … it may mean that the whole network is down, the CCT tower in Vale has been knocked out."

It may have meant that, or it might not, but it certainly seemed likely, considering the presence of that enormous grimm and the fact that it had been last seen heading in the direction of Beacon.

If the CCT was down, then … no communications across Remnant. No access to his money in Atlas — that was a wrench, but it did make him glad that he'd sold his SDC stocks when he did; they were in Mistralian assets now — no way of contacting his bailiffs or managers on his country estates, no way of contacting the subsidiary offices of Rutulian Security. No way for Juturna to talk to her friend Ruby.

No way of knowing what was going on in Vale right now. The flower of Mistral could be dying as they stood here, and they would have even less knowledge of it than they had had before. They were reduced, as their ancestors had been reduced, to looking for their coming from the White Tower and hoping they would return.

Small wonder that a great cry of alarm had risen up from the people gathered in the square, everyone turning to one another and asking what it meant, everyone looking at their scrolls and finding nothing.

"What's going on?"

"What does it mean?"

The sounds of the speakers was replaced in the Square of Heroes by the chatter of a frantic crowd, all demanding answers that came not, spinning implications out of fear.

"If the grimm could get so close to Vale, perhaps they are in sight of Mistral also?"

"The job board has been shut down because the Steward dares not let any huntsman leave the city!"

"Our heroes and soldiers were sent away to fight in Vale, and we have been left defenceless!"

"Treachery! We are betrayed!"

"Good people, calm yourselves!" Turnus shouted, using his semblance to make himself seem taller in the eyes of men. "Calm yourselves, or you will run riot at phantoms and bring the grimm upon yourselves by your antic dispositions."

Eyes turned towards him. Many in the crowd began to recognise him, even if they had not noticed him before.

"Lord Rutulus, what is going on?"

"Lord Rutulus, are we safe?"

"Lord Rutulus, why is the CCT network down?"

"Lord Rutulus, what do you know? Tell us! Tell us!"

"There are no secret councils to which I am privy," Turnus told them. "There are no clandestine meetings of patricians to plot the betrayal of Mistral, I assure you; we are, as we have always been, united in our devotion to this great kingdom of ours and greatly desirous for its success, prosperity, and safety. I know no more than I have seen and heard tonight, which is to say I know no more than you." He paused. "I am no prophet new-inspired to tell you with certainty that our Vytal Champion and all the sons and daughters of Haven will return safely, although I hope as dearly as the rest of you that they shall return with laurels bright upon their brows and glories fit to grace the names of ancient houses trailing in their wake. But I cannot promise you that, nor can any honest man or woman. What I can tell you is that … fear will undo us long before we meet the foe."

Those had been his father's words; he had spoken them when he had vowed to end the growing Anarchy that was engulfing Mistral and bring down the enigmatic master criminal at the centre of the growing web of crime. He had urged his fellow citizens to take courage and stand up for their city. Fear, as he had said, would undo them long before the criminals moved in.

Fear had already undone the people of Mistral by the time he spoke those words, and it had fallen to Camilla to display all courage and resolve that was to be found in the whole city, but that did not make his father wrong; the words he had spoken were as true as the day they had passed his lips.

"I do not say that there is nothing to fear," Turnus went on. "But are we not Mistralians? Were our ancestors not renowned for their valour? Would they not be ashamed to see you now, cowering at shadows, or less than shadows, letting your wild imaginations run amok, conjuring monsters to devour you? People of Mistral, go home. Pray to your gods if you are so inclined, and if not, then send at least your good wishes to our students fighting in Vale. And in the meantime…" — Turnus was aware, at least a part of him was, that he might be overstepping his bound at this point, but he might also be seizing an opportunity — "in the meantime, I will guarantee the safety of the city. If any grimm approach, they will be met with force and put to death before they reach our streets, you have my word."

There was no great cheer of enthusiasm, there was no outpouring of gratitude, but in the circ*mstances, Turnus was inclined to call it a success that he wasn't met by derisive jeering. The very fact that some in the crowd looked at least a little reassured was, in itself, reassuring to him.

There seemed little else to be said, even as it felt as though he hadn't closed strong enough. "This is Mistral," Turnus declared. "And Mistral she shall ever remain, so long as Mistral's folk stay true to her."

He turned away, moving through a crowd that parted to make way for him, while his warriors — Lausus, Aventinus, Silvia, Tulla, and Ufens — followed after him.

Lausus walked quickly, so as to draw almost level with him. "You will guarantee the safety of the city, my lord?" he asked, a touch of incredulity in his voice.

"This is my home, as much as anyone else's," Turnus pointed out. "I want to see it fall no more than any other man, and no doubt less than some."

"No one wants to see Mistral fall, my lord," Ufens called out from behind. "But if a big bugger like that one we saw turns up, I don't know what we could do about it."

"As well ask what we could do if the gods wished to see Mistral fall, Ufens," Turnus declared. He turned to face his men, walking backwards as he spoke. "Some things we mortal men cannot stand before, but that is no reason we cannot dare defy the rest. If a titan should appear, then yes, we will die, but I will not let the fear of such keep me cowering at home while beowolves prowl about the walls."

"Fair point, my lord," Silvia said.

"Lord Thrax and Lady Terri-Belle may think we take too much upon ourselves, lord," Lausus murmured.

"You mean I take too much upon myself?" Turnus asked.

"Our fortunes rise and fall with yours," Lausus pointed out. "You are the moon, and we the tides you pull this way and that … but yes, my lord, it's mostly you."

"If Lady Terri-Belle had wished to speak and calm the crowd, she could have been there," Turnus declared. "And if she wishes to stand upon the wall, I shall not stop her."

"Just as well, lord; there aren't many of us to do it alone," muttered Ufens.

"That is why we're not going to stand upon the wall," Turnus said as he got out his scroll and called Camilla once again.

"My lord," she said as she answered. "Is there more news?"

"No," Turnus said. "But I want you to get two, no, three airships, then meet me at the skydock with most of our people. Leave Opis, Drances, Gyas, Halaesus, and Messapus to guard Juturna, with Messapus in command."

"At once, my lord," Camilla said. "But why, if I may ask?"

"We're going to mount aerial patrols around Mistral to make sure nothing approaches the city," Turnus said. "If any patrol spots any grimm, they'll engage and destroy them."

"Do you think a grimm attack is likely, my lord?" asked Camilla.

"I honestly don't know," Turnus admitted. "But either way, the people will remember it."

The private box that Lady Nikos had shared with the Wong family had, unfortunately, been wrecked in the initial grimm attack on the Amity Colosseum; Team JAMM had been rather more fortunate than the box itself in getting their charges out of there in time.

But, with the box gone, it meant that they had been forced to retreat onto the promenade, where they waited now in the shadow of Medea's airship, the Aeolian Chariot.

It was not a great airship, no skyliner or warship to be sure. No one — certainly no Mistralian aristocrat these days, save perhaps for the Steward himself — could afford to keep and crew and maintain such an airship privately for their own use; even Jason's Argo, which he had left behind in Mistral and which was large enough to carry up to fifty people within — he rented it out to cover its costs and supplement his income — could not compare with a true skyliner, or still less with one of General Ironwood's mighty cruisers. The Aeolian Chariot was even smaller than that, about the size of a Skybus, but with much greater range on it and, when it had to be, much faster too. Professor Lionheart had given them permission to fly it here from Mistral, rather than joining the rest of the Haven students aboard their skyliner, because Medea had wanted to bring it with her rather than leaving it back home in Colchis for a year.

And because it had seemed a marvellous adventure, the four of them crossing continents and oceans in a small airship, with limited dust and limited supplies, crossing empty skies and passing over lands that had frustrated the ambitions of generations of Mistralian colonisers.

The Aeolian Chariot was also much better looking than one of these Valish Skybuses that was comparable in size; it was built in the Mistralian fashion, with curved lines and faux-wood that resembled the hull of a ship, at least on the lower half of the vessel. The upper half of the hull was also curved, smooth and sweeping, but it was made of glass and metal, with metallic hoops forming a frame to which the great curved windows were attached, giving broad views up and out from within and — when on the docking platform thus — making it easy to see inside.

That was why the cabin — to conserve space, they had all shared a single cabin on the way over, as they had at Haven and indeed as they had at Beacon too — was down below, in the part of the hull that was concealed from outer view, along with the engine room and the stores. The visible top deck had the pilot's seat and all necessary controls, the dining table and chairs fastened to the deck, and a fair degree of open space for whatever one might wish.

The only parts of the upper deck that were not transparent were the doors, which were metal, albeit painted in a vivid gold.

Two great canvas wings were fastened to the sides of the ship, presently drooped down towards the docking platform on which the whole airship rested. The propeller, a traditional feature of Mistralian airship design, stuck out the stern, but also affixed to the sides of the lower hull were some rather more modern airship engines of the same sort used by Atlesian Skyrays and such, which gave the Chariot vertical take-off capability, as well as a healthier turn of speed than many Mistralian airships possessed. A long prow, fashioned to look like the necks of a pair of dragons, intertwining around one another, mouths open and teeth bared, emerged from out of the front of the ship, giving it the appearance of greater length even if it is not practically larger.

Lady Soojin Wong stared at it with wide-eyed amazement. "It's incredible!" she gasped. She looked up at Medea. "Is it really yours?"

Medea, fleece and hood thrown back to reveal her blue hair and soft features, smiled. "Yes, it is indeed," she said, raising one hand to brush her fingertips over the wood panelling of the lower hull. "It was a birthday present from my father."

Lady Soojin gasped, and she turned around to look at her father, Ambassador Lord Wong.

"Maybe when you're older," the ambassador replied. "Much older. On which birthday did you receive this great gift, Lady Medea?"

"My seventeenth, my lord," Medea answered.

"An indulgent gift," Lady Nikos observed from where she sat. Atalanta and Meleager had gotten a couple of crates out of the chariot for makeshift seats; Lady Nikos sat upon one of them, her legs stretched out in front of her, holding a cup of herbal tea that Medea had prepared.

Lady Wong, the ambassador's wife, sat beside her on another box, while Lord Wong stood not far away, hands thrust into the pockets of his waistcoat, his eyes upon his daughter.

Atalanta's eyes also fell sometimes on the girl, although she most often kept her gaze turned outwards, to the skies beyond, in case any more flying grimm should return this way. But she sometimes glanced backwards towards their charges, and to Lady Soojin especially.

Jason had sent Meleager to patrol the promenade, in case anything should approach from the other sides of the arena — the Amity Colosseum was very large and very round, after all — so he was out of sight at the moment. Jason himself stood guard upon their charges, standing closely beside Lady Nikos and Lady Wong, and not too far away from Lord Wong either — Lady Soojin was the farthest from him, but she was right next to Medea, so he was not concerned.

His hand was on the hilt of his sword, Pia Fidelis, or at least lingered close even when his fingertips, or the leather strips that bound his hand, were not actually touching the weapon itself.

The charge that Lady Pyrrha had laid upon them might have been thought to be a light one, now that all the grimm had been defeated in and around the arena itself, now that they had been driven from Beacon by that great unknown blast that had erupted from the school sometime earlier. Now that the battle had moved on and was now raging somewhere out beyond the bounds of Vale, it might be thought that there was little for Team JAMM to do except lament that they were not part of it.

There was an extent to which Jason did lament; he didn't know exactly how the battle was going out there, but no doubt, those who had gone forth — Pyrrha, Arslan Altan, his cousins on Team APAA, young Cicero Ward and many others — were doing great deeds and winning great glory in the field against the grimm, while they would gain no reputation by this night whatsoever. Furthermore, those who were winning great glory were also running great risk; he might have fewer cousins by the time this night was out, or fewer friends. There was a part of him which lamented that he could not share both risk and glory with them. What would they think of him, and of Team JAMM, when this night was over? Would they not think less of them because they had not fought in the battle before Vale?

And yet, set against all of that was the fact that this remained a weighty charge, a charge laid upon them by the Vytal Champion herself, to protect her mother — the head of the House of Nikos — and the Mistralian ambassador to Vale. That was not a request that could be lightly refused, nor easily abandoned. Not to mention the very pragmatic reasons for agreeing to such a request and for sticking with it: Lady Nikos and Lord Wong would remember, one hoped, the team who had kept them guard and company on this night. To have the gratitude, perhaps even the friendship, of Lady Nikos would be no bad thing, and Lord Wong would not be the ambassador to Vale forever; at some point, he would return to Mistral, and he, too, would be a useful friend to have.

And to be frank, Jason could do with powerful friends.

Medea turned her lovely smile upon Lady Nikos. "Yes, indeed, my lady, at that time, he was a very fond and — as you say — indulgent father. He loved me well and gave me every luxury and comfort that my heart desired."

Nobody commented upon Medea's use of the past tense; whether it was politeness that drove their reticence, disinterest, or the fact that they already knew the reason for the cooling of relations between father and daughter — because he was standing next to them with a hand hovering by his sword — Jason could not have said and didn't really want to know.

It was bad enough that Lord Colchis had rejected him as a match for his daughter without having to stand by and listen to other people talk about it.

Having Lady Nikos glance in his direction was bad enough.

Lady Nikos took a sip of her cup of herbal tea. "If I may presume to speak, Lady Medea, as a mother of a daughter, you may do your father wrong to say that he no longer loves you, though his manner may give you little consolation to be loved by him; and yet, in time, that love though buried now beneath the snows of wintry disapproval, will melt them and bring about a springtime of relations between the two of you."

Medea blinked her lilac eyes. "I thank you for that pretty expression of your good wishes, my lady, though I am surprised to hear you on the verge of preaching daughterly disobedience."

"As am I," Lady Wong murmured, a slight smile playing across her face.

"Have we great ones of Mistral not endured by cutting our cloth to fit our circ*mstances these many years past?" asked Lady Nikos. "Have we not endured by bending our ideals and wills and all that we would have to what is and is possible and practical? Have we not bent ourselves to the times and endured by reaching accommodation with the world as it is rather than raging that the world is not as we might have it so? I have learnt that a daughter's settled heart may fortify her will more securely than any city in Mistral, and if others wish to profit from my example instead of learning that same lesson through their own hard experience, I will not begrudge them."

Jason wondered — he could not help but wonder — if Lady Nikos' objections to Jaune Arc had been solely rooted in his outward characteristics: Valish, of no family of any note, of no great wealth as far as anyone could tell, of no extraordinary martial qualities either. Or had she objected to the boy himself as well, his nature? His nature did not seem very objectionable, but then, Jason didn't know him.

Medea's father objected to Jason's outward characteristics — his father imprisoned, his inheritance unlikely — but also to his character. He thought Jason changeable, unlikely to be faithful to his daughter.

That struck Jason as rather harsh, but also as the kind of attitude that was far more likely to survive even prolonged resistance from Medea than mere concerns about his wealth or lack thereof.

Medea bowed her head. "I dearly hope that you are right, my lady, and thank you for offering me such cause for hope."

"For myself, I am glad that Soojin is too young to understand what is being discussed," muttered Lord Wong.

Medea bowed her head. "Forgive me, my lord, I should not have raised the matter."

Lord Wong drew a hand out of his pocket to wave it dismissively. "It's nothing. As I said, Soojin is too young; I doubt she has even been paying attention."

Indeed, Lady Soojin's attention had returned to the Aeolian Chariot. "Can you fly this?"

"Indeed I can," Medea said, crouching down to get more on young Lady Soojin's level. "I have flown this vessel from Colchis in every direction, passing over forest and pasture and the wine-dark sea. I flew from Colchis to Mistral to begin my first year at Haven, and my teammates and I flew from Haven aboard this ship all the way to Beacon, enduring many adventures along the way, to be here for the Vytal Festival."

"'Adventures'?" Lady Soojin half gasped, half cried.

"Exactly!" Medea declared. "Like the time when we—"

A roar split the sky. It was an immense roar that could only have come — that sounded as though it could only have come — from a creature of immense size. A creature of immense size and in close proximity to them.

It went on a long time, too long; the roar of any grimm would have been bad enough, but this roar went on and on and on before it finally stopped like a trumpeter trying to draw out the note.

It wasn't a roar that he recognised. Professor Artemis had played them various grimm calls in first semester, so that they could recognise what they were dealing with, but Jason didn't recognise that long, loud, deep-throated roar that had just split the sky and for too long drowned out all other sounds.

The fact that the grimm were back — by the sound of it — was bad enough, but the fact that they couldn't tell what sort of grimm it was made the whole thing even worse.

"What was that?" Lady Soojin asked. "Is it monsters?"

Medea's voice was quiet, but Jason respected that she didn't sound frightened as she said, "Go back to your mother, little one." She gently nudged Lady Soojin in that direction.

Lady Soojin ran to Lady Wong, who got down off the box she'd been sitting on and swept her daughter up in her arms, wrapping both arms around her.

Lady Nikos rose, slowly but steadily, to her feet; Lord Wong looked left and right uneasily.

Medea also got to her feet, pulling fleece and hood up so that her face was half hidden from view, only her chin and painted lips readily visible, everything else cast in the shadow of her lavender shawl and the golden ram's head that she wore like a helmet over it.

"Atalanta," Medea said. "Do you see anything?"

"No," Atalanta replied, without looking back. "It must be coming from the other—"

"Jason!" Meleager shouted, his feet pounding on the promenade as he came running into view towards them. "Atalanta." He skidded to a stop upon the metallic tiles on which they stood. "You need to come and see this, right now, all of you."

The fact that it was his oldest friend asking this would have been reason enough to go, but the fact that Meleager sounded rattled — literally rattled; his voice was shaking like dice in a cup — was an even greater reason. Jason bowed slightly to Lord Wong and Lady Nikos. "If you will excuse us, my lady, my lord."

"Go," Lady Nikos commanded. "You will protect us as well there as here, no doubt."

The four of them ran, with Meleager leading the way — initially, at least; Atalanta swiftly outplaced him, her hair flying out behind her as her long, loping strides with her well-toned, defined, and muscular legs ate up the promenade. Jason was not quite able to catch up with Meleager, who held a comfortable second place; there wasn't much between the two boys in terms of speed, but Meleager had started off ahead. Medea, the least athletic of the four of them by some distance, brought up the rear; Jason looked back to see that she wasn't falling too far behind and was greeted to the sight of her robes flying — or flailing — around her in all directions in an ungainly fashion as she flapped her arms like a bird trying to take flight.

Atalanta might not have stolen the lead from Meleager if they had needed him to lead the way, but the promenade only went in a circle; sooner or later, by following its circumference, they would come to the point; there were few enough people here now even after everyone had been evacuated up here from Beacon; most of them had retreated inside the into the interior of the Colosseum, but those that remained looked anxious, fearful even; some were drifting in the same direction as Team JAMM, but at less speed, while others were moving rather more rapidly in the opposite direction.

That the source of that roar might be behind it didn't seem like much of a leap of imagination.

Atalanta came to a stop at one of the docking pads more or less on the other side of the Colosseum from where they had left Lady Nikos and the Wong family. Another girl was there already, a girl their age, with a gun, a lever rifle in one hand, maybe a huntress who hadn't wanted to join the fighting down below. Probably a Shade student; there were enough of them scattered around the place.

Atalanta led the rest of Team JAMM to stand beside her at the edge of the docking pad, looking out into the darkness towards Beacon Tower, and beyond.

"Well Ah'll be a long horn steer," muttered the presumable Shade student. "Will you look at that?"

Indeed, they looked at that. They all looked at that.

What they were looking at was a dragon, like the ones whose intertwined and snarling heads graced the prow of the Aeolian Chariot, except it was a grimm dragon, and its snarling face was covered by a bone mask covered in red markings, and its eyes were a burning blazing red that lit up the dark like smouldering stars, and its body was all black so that, without the spurs of bone that ran along its body, neck and tail, it might have blended in with the night sky.

But its wings would not, for its wings were as red as the markings on its face, almost as red as its eyes, as red as drying blood.

It was huge. The only thing that you could say about it to diminish its size was that it wasn't as big as the Amity Colosseum, but that was small comfort considering it didn't need to be that big in order to rip the arena to pieces, or simply fly straight through it using its armoured head as a ram until there was a hole from one side of the arena to the other. Though it wasn't as large as the arena, it was quite big enough, big enough to maybe swallow the Argo whole, at least vertically, as big as an Atlesian warship, almost as big as one of the large Mistralian battleships that had been sold to the Valish, so big that it would cast a terrifying shadow on the world below.

And it was coming this way, flying over the road towards Beacon as though it were up from Vale visiting on a trip or out for a fly like Medea on her airship. Something was … it was hard to make out, black blending into black, things merging with the night behind them, but it looked almost as though there was something dripping from the enormous grimm.

"Atlanta," Jason said, appealing to the night vision of a bear faunus. "Is that grimm—?"

"Dripping? Sweating? Leaking? Yes," Atalanta said. "I can't tell what it is, but something's coming out of it."

"You sure paint a pretty picture," muttered the assumed Shade student.

The dragon turned as it crossed over the boundaries onto the grounds of Beacon; it banked to the right — their right, its left — coming towards them. No, not coming towards them and Amity; it was headed towards the CCT Tower where the emerald lights burned.

The dragon flew around the tower, roaring as it circled the tall spire; roaring, but also moaning too, sounding as though it wasn't happy about something.

There wasn't time to even begin to consider what it might be unhappy about before the dragon opened its mouth and, as well as a roar, unleashed a jet of something, something bright yellow, as bright as the sun, something powerful enough to blast the tower into pieces.

Parts of the tower disappeared in a flash of light that made Jason shield his eyes with his hands, his teammates doing likewise. Another part of the tower simply exploded, the blast rippling upwards from the point of impact as stone and steel were flown across Beacon in all directions. Some of them were just fragments, bits of debris with burn marks on them from where the destruction had just missed them; others were larger parts, whole chunks of wall or roof or interior clinging together, shedding their own little fragments of wreckage as they travelled and fell while they travelled. Some of them were flung so far that Jason thought for a moment that they might hit the Amity Arena. They didn't, but only just, falling short to slam into the docking pads below, while other debris landed on top of school buildings or cracked courtyard stone, or simply slamming into the ground hard enough to make a crater.

"Gods of the night and moon and sun preserve us," Medea whispered.

The remains of Beacon tower stuck up above the ground like a half-burned candle, ragged at the top, or like the trunk of a tree where all the branches have been cut away. The dragon settled there, flapping its wings once or twice, raising its head up on its long neck and roaring up towards the same moon Medea had just beseeched to aid them.

"Is it nesting there?" asked Jason.

"I don't know," Meleager replied. "But we should attack it now while it's stationary."

"'Attack it'?" Jason repeated, aghast. "The four of us? Against a grimm that size?"

"Are we huntsmen or caretakers to old women and little girls?" Meleager demanded. "Would our ancestors have shrunk from such a challenge as this, such a foe as this?"

"Hot blood spills quickly," Jason replied. "Master Chiron taught us that. What do you want to do, charge up the ruins of the tower to get at it?"

"We must do something," Atalanta declared. "We cannot simply allow it to attack the Colosseum; it will kill everyone here, including the children!"

"And I would rather die with a fire in my heart than cowering in fear," declared Meleager.

"I said nothing of cowering," Jason snapped. "But I would rather be wise and brave than simply valiant. Medea, what's our plan?"

Perhaps it should have been his job to come up with such, as team leader, but he had learned long ago that Medea's plans were much better than his own. He sometimes wondered if she should have been chosen as leader instead of him; but then, what would the team have been called?

Medea was silent for a moment. She made as if to fold her arms across her chest, although she didn't actually do it, and let her hands — hidden beneath her long and flowing robes — fall to her sides, or at least, he thought she did.

"I don't know how we can kill it, or if we can," she admitted, making Jason's heart sink for a moment because if Medea couldn't think of anything then what chance did the rest of them have?

Were they doomed, then? Did all their hopes rest upon the dragon not turning its burning gaze upon the Amity Colosseum?

What chance of that?

"But," Medea went on, "I think I know how we can protect the Arena. Atalanta, do you think that beast can have its attention captured with your semblance?"

"I don't see why not, though it may drain my aura," Atalanta replied. "But large or not, it's still a grimm."

"Then I will fly you out on the Aeolian Chariot," Medea declared. "Jason, Meleager, you stay here and protect Lady Nikos and the Wongs; Atalanta and I will draw the grimm away from Amity — over Vale and out to sea."

"What then?" asked Atalanta.

"Ask the gods, I've no idea," Medea confessed. "But at least we shall have saved everyone here, and who knows? Perhaps Callisto will bless your deadly shaft and guide it to the creature's weak spot."

Atalanta snorted. "One can only hope. Alright then, I'm game, though hope is all we have."

"You two can't do this alone," Jason said. "We're coming with you."

Medea snapped around so sharply to stare up at him that Jason feared for a moment that she might stumble and fall clean off the edge of the docking platform. Her robes swirled around her as she turned and cried, "What? No!"

"Yes," Jason declared in a voice as implacable as the fabled wandering rocks that would smash ships that plied the sea route between Argus and Solitas. "You may be our wisdom, but I am still the leader of this team, and I say that we go together."

"To what end?" demanded Medea. "I need to fly the Chariot, Atalanta's semblance is vital, but what will you do, die alongside us?"

"If need be," Meleager said. "Better that than to have waved you off on such an endeavour. Chiron may have preached a touch of caution, but he would never want us to abandon our—"

"Team," Atalanta finished before he could.

Meleager's mouth downturned ever so slightly, for ever so slight a while.

Medea pushed back hood and fleece to reveal once more her face, and her blue eyes so wide and so beseeching. She reached for Jason, her soft, pale hands emerging from her flowing robes to touch upon his arms. Her fingers felt lithe and gentle upon his biceps, for all that she squeezed his arm, her fingers on his left arm travelling upwards to push against the golden honour band he wore.

"You are cruel," she said, "to make me thus the instrument of your death. Or has some god put this notion into your mind to cause me aching in my spirit? I would not have this; I would not have you die thanks to my plan."

Atalanta coughed into one hand.

"Bad enough that the best I can devise puts Atalanta in such way of harm," Medea went on.

"Thank you," Atalanta muttered.

"But you also, against such a grimm, and to so little purpose?" Medea asked.

"My purpose would be to be by your side," Jason declared. He took Medea's arms in turn, finding them beneath her robes. They were such slight things, so thin that he could put his hands around them, and he did so, holding her not tightly — he hoped — but securely, masterfully. He pulled her in closer, bending down to plant a kiss upon her forehead. "I will not leave you, not at such a time as this, not to such a danger. For you are mine, as I am yours, and you are the cruel one, to ask me to do otherwise." He smiled down at her. "But I will forgive you, if you relent now and speak of this no more."

Medea continued to look up at him. "You call me the wisdom of this team," she murmured. "Yet when you speak so, all wisdom flies from out my ears, and I am—"

The dragon roared again, and seemed to roar even more loudly than it had when it settled upon the ruins of the tower. The dragon roared, and this time, its roar was answered by the cawing and the crying and the shrieking of nevermores and griffons as they began to return to the skies around Beacon.

"Thank you for that," Atalanta murmured to the dragon. "That was becoming unbearable."

As Jason, his face flushing, released her, Medea hid her reddening face beneath hood and golden fleece alike. "You can be a rather mean person sometimes," Medea observed.

"And you can be cloyingly sentimental," Atalanta responded. "Let's get a move on."

Jason cleared his throat. "That might be for the best," he agreed. "Come, let us go."

Once again, they ran around the promenade like Juturna running around the walls of Mistral in days of old; they ran back the way that they had come, back towards the Aeolian Chariot. Once again, Atalanta took the lead, though this time, it was Jason who was marginally in front of Meleager, with only Atalanta running ahead of him. Once again, Medea brought up the rear, struggling somewhat to keep up with the others.

Jason looked over his shoulder to see Medea's robes flapping as she ran. He slowed his pace, letting Meleager overtake him and Atalanta far outstrip him, as he dropped back to where Medea was.

"Go on," she urged. "I'm not so far behind; I can manage."

"I know," he said. "But we are in haste, after all." And he swept her up in his arms, robes falling down off her like curtains falling from a rail to drape across the window, as Jason pushed himself to recover some of the lost ground between Meleager and himself.

Medea had let out a little gasp of surprise at the initial moment of being picked up, but she said nothing more as he bore her on. Certainly, she did not demand to be put down, which Jason was inclined to see as a good thing.

They must take their pleasures where they could in situations such as this.

He did put her down a little before they came in sight of their charges — their erstwhile charges now, perhaps, although they would be keeping their word as best they could in the situation — to allow her to make her arrival with a little dignity in front of Lady Soojin and the rest.

What little of her face was visible looked pleased rather than at all embarrassed, which Jason was definitely inclined to take as a good thing.

"What is that roaring?" demanded Lady Nikos as they approached.

"Are we in danger?" added Lady Wong.

"Not for long, my lady, if we have anything to say about it," Atalanta replied.

"There is a grimm," Jason informed them. "One of great size. It has just destroyed Beacon Tower."

"'Destroyed'?" Lord Wong repeated. "'Destroyed Beacon Tower'? But that means … the CCT network will be down; how are we to contact Mistral?"

"How is Mistral to contact its farthest reaches?" asked Lady Nikos quietly.

"Questions for wiser men than I, my lord," Jason said. "But as far as the grimm is concerned, Medea has come up with a plan to lure it away from the Arena and you all."

Medea produced her scroll from out of the folds of her robes and used it — that still worked even if the CCT network was down — to open the door to the Aeolian Chariot. The painted door slid open, and a ladder descended down the side to almost touch the docking pad surface.

"Atalanta, you go last," Jason said as Medea began to scramble up the ladder. He didn't trust Medea not to shut the door as soon as Atalanta was aboard and take off, leaving Meleager and he behind.

Atalanta didn't reply, but she didn't try and get up the ladder either. Instead, it was Meleager who went second, while Jason made towards the ladder to follow him.

"I presume you mean to use Miss Calydon's semblance to hold the grimm's attention," Lady Nikos said.

Jason looked at her. "Yes, my lady, that is it precisely."

Lady Nikos nodded. "A sound plan to keep us safe. I hope that you will be similarly inspired when you must think about what comes next."

XxXxX​

Applejack barely spared them a glance — in pretty much the same way as they'd barely spared her a glance — as they left, heading back the way they'd come to try out that plan of theirs.

She knew who they were, Team JAMM of Haven, the first round opponents of Rainbow Dash and her team.

She knew what semblance they were talkin' about too, the one that had almost been the undoin' of Team RSPT before Penny had unlocked her own semblance to counter it.

That was what they were plannin' to use on that there big ol' grimm. Applejack wished them luck with that. It might work, at least as far as gettin' that grimm away from Amity was concerned.

Didn't mean she couldn't also think that they'd been awful dramatic about it though. Made Rarity look restrained.

Actually, that wasn't fair. Rarity was restrained when it came to what was important; she only got all up on her faintin' couch over nothin' at all, that was what made it kind of annoyin' sometimes.

Kind of charmin', too, mind, in a way it might not have been if she'd been all, well, like those Mistralians that had just run off. Carryin' on like that with a grimm that size in sight.

Took all sorts to make a world, she guessed.

Still, for all that, Applejack wished them luck. From where she stood, lookin' out across the sky at where that grimm the size of an airship was sitting on top of the tower it had just wrecked like it weren't no thing, it was hard to think of any way they could stop it if it decided to wreck Amity the exact same way.

Applejack's hands tightened around the stock of One in a Thousand. She stared out at the grimm because that was all she could do right now.

Twilight had gone down into the depths of the Colosseum to try and get it movin', just like the General had asked her to, and while she hadn't gotten this flyin' stadium to work yet, she would. Applejack had faith in her.

But it wasn't somethin' that Applejack could help her with.

She was startin' to wish she'd gone down to fight with the others, like Rarity. She was supposed to be backin' up Shining Armour, but there hadn't been much call for it up 'til now, and now that there was, it wasn't somethin' she could do anythin' about.

She was just here, watchin' this grimm sittin' on top of the tower like it was layin' a nest, worryin' about what it might do next.

Worryin', and relyin' on a bunch of Mistralians with no sense of timin' to get it away.

Relyin' on Twilight, too, which didn't feel quite so bad.

Applejack thought she maybe ought to be gettin' back; she'd gone to check out what huge roarin' sound had been, and she was meant to come back and tell everybody what it was, better or worse.

If she went back now, it would definitely feel like worse.

She'd stick around and hope that Team JAMM pulled off their stunt and she had some good news to bring back to the others.

As she stood there, watchin' the grimm, listenin' to it roar, hearin' other grimm answer it because things weren't bad enough already, Applejack saw an airship, a Bullhead, headin' up from Vale towards the Amity Arena.

Applejack frowned as she pushed her hat back on her head and wondered who in tarnation would want to come up here at a time like this.

XxXxX​

As the stolen Bullhead climbed through the sky, all Gilda could think was how nuts this was.

Not just because of the plan, although the plan was awful in so many ways, both practically and … morally, too, even while it was the best plan that Gilda had been able to come up with at very short notice.

Having completely lost any idea of where Blake and Rainbow might be — except a vague and generic 'somewhere on the battlefield' and Gilda wasn't about to venture out there for the White Fang or the God of Animals — her plan was to make them come to her by…

By taking Atlesian Councillor Cadance hostage and using her to draw Dash and Blake to them.

It wasn't the same as Cinder holding Fluttershy under Mountain Glenn; when you stood for Council, you had to expect that you would be in the firing line, literally and metaphorically, and this particular Councillor had already been targeted once.

That didn't really make Gilda feel better.

Nor did the fact, indisputably true though it was, that if she hadn't come up with something, then Ilia and the peanut gallery in the back would have come up with something worse.

How could it be worse? It would probably involve more murders. At least Gilda could ensure that they didn't kill anyone. Not even the Atlesian Councillor, who they would deliver to Sienna Khan to use as a bargaining chip to improve the lot of the faunus.

But nobody else needed to get hurt, not any of Dashie's other friends, certainly not Lady Belladonna.

If Gilda hadn't been here, that wouldn't have been guaranteed.

It was hardly guaranteed with her here.

This was not a good plan. It wasn't … when you joined the White Fang, you accepted that liberation wasn't going to come easily, and it wasn't going to be squeaky clean. Gilda had heard better educated faunus than her talk about how, in the bad old days, the faunus slaves used to help themselves out by poisoning their masters and their families, which didn't sound cool, but what could you do when you were a slave and living in constant terror of what your owner might decide to do to you instead?

What could you do when you had no power, because someone else kept all the power to themselves?

Fight back, sure, but … Fluttershy was no one's master or owner. Councillor Cadenza kind of was — that was what made her a legit target — but…

Doing it this way, doing it here, doing it now, it was almost like bombing her car or her office; you didn't know who was going to get hurt in the process, even with the best intentions.

Still fewer than would be hurt if she stepped back and let Ilia have her way.

Gilda glanced at the other girl, who sat in the co-pilot's seat beside her. She was staring intently forward, eyes fixed on Amity. She didn't even seem to really notice the giant grimm perched on top of the CCT tower it had just destroyed.

Gilda's plan was morally awful; not indefensible, but all kinds of rough, but practically, it was awful because they were doing this at a time when the world had gone absolutely insane! Vale versus Atlas! Mad generals! Grimm cultists! Grimm attacks! Gigantic grimm that shot laser beams out of their mouths! If this was a TV show, you'd be straight on the forums complaining that the writers were throwing too many twists at the wall in a desperate bid for ratings! That Blake and Dashie show they were making — seriously, Rainbow Dash was getting a TV show, Rainbow Dash — was probably going to turn out more grounded than this.

Only, this was Gilda's life, and she had to live in it! So did everyone else, including all the ordinary faunus stuck in Vale right now who were left rooting for the Atlesians who stood between them and the grimm outside.

And Gilda had thought the world had been out of whack when they'd been working with Cinder.

She hadn't known how much sense everything had made back then.

While the fact that the Atlesian forces were so distracted was obviously a big advantage, it didn't seem like it outweighed the fact that there was a huge grimm, the biggest grimm that Gilda had ever seen or heard of by a long, long way, just sitting right there on top of the tower that it had just destroyed — it had just destroyed the CCT; the CCT network was down, how mad was that? — preening itself, and all the while looking as though it could swallow this Bullhead whole whenever it chose.

Her hands itched to turn around and fly back to Vale while she still could.

"Keep going," Ilia said, as though she could read Gilda's thoughts.

Gilda looked at her, stared at her, then gestured with one hand out the window. "You can see the giant grimm out there, right? I'm not just imagining that?"

"It doesn't matter," insisted Ilia.

"'Doesn't matter'?" Gilda repeated incredulously. "'It doesn't' … it's huge! It could kill us!"

"It doesn't matter!" Ilia yelled, louder now. "We're the White Fang, and we're willing to give our lives for the cause; we have to be!" She took a deep breath. Her voice was a little quieter when she spoke again but had lost none of its fire. "If we perish, by Atlesian guns or even by grimm fangs in the pursuit of justice, then we will be honoured as martyrs of the struggle." Again, she paused for a moment. "I was there, when your girl Strongheart brought Adam's heart to Menagerie, to present it to the High Leader as a relic, to be held alongside the other relics of the struggle and its martyrs, going back to the days before the Revolution in Mistral. Have you ever seen the reliquary, where all the relics are held, Adam's heart along them?"

"No," Gilda said. "Like I told you, I've never been to Menagerie."

"Right, of course," Ilia muttered. "You should go. A follower of the God of Animals like you would appreciate a visit to the temple, where the sacred white hart presides and foretells the fortunes of men, armies, and kingdoms."

"I've been to see the black ram in Mistral," Gilda muttered. It had told her — or rather, the priests had told her that the ram was telling her — that she would serve a virtuous lady. Gilda had thought at first that was the High Leader. Later, she had wondered if it might be Blake. Now … now, she thought it must be the High Leader, although she might not have called her virtuous.

Committee, yes; passionate, for certain. Virtuous? Hmm, well…

"That's not the real thing," Ilia told her. "And Mistral doesn't have the Reliquary. People make pilgrimages there, as much as they do to the sacred hart, to ask for blessings on their endeavours and the strength to fulfil them, or to give thanks for those who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of our people."

"You realise that if we get swallowed whole by that monster, we aren't going to leave anything behind to become our relics, right?" Gilda asked.

"I think that we will be remembered for our sacrifice," Ilia declared. "Whether we leave anything behind of our bodies or no, what we leave behind of our spirits will endure and inspire those who will come after." She frowned. "You sent Adam's heart to Menagerie; why do that if you don't believe in heroes and the power of memory to move those left behind?"

"Adam was a hero," Gilda said. Maybe not at the end, but for a while. "He deserved to be remembered, honoured." Honoured for the best of what he was, not for what he became. "But this…" She trailed off. "Nobody will remember or honour that we got eaten by a grimm while engaging in some skullduggery for the High Leader. This isn't heroic. It might be necessary, but it isn't heroic. Nobody will tell any stories about the people who died taking out a couple of people who are…"

"Finish it," Ilia said.

"It's nothing," muttered Gilda.

"Finish it anyway," Ilia insisted.

"A couple of people who are just trying to do their best, okay?" Gilda snapped. "The High Leader might be right that they have to die, but let's not kid ourselves that this is going to get into the hall of heroes."

Ilia was silent for a moment. "Maybe you're right," she admitted. "It is dirty work, too dirty for the people to accept, even if it is necessary. But because it's necessary, it has to be done all the same. It's…" She wrinkled her nose, as though she had a bad smell underneath it. "It's an hour to play and the last man in. We have to do it now; we can't stop and we can't turn back; we have to run whatever risks are placed in front of us, even giant grimm like that one."

Gilda frowned. "'An hour to play'? Play what?"

"Cricket, I think," Ilia muttered. "It doesn't matter; it's just a stupid bit of Atlesian verse from…" She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, shuffling from left to right, stretching against the restraints. She didn't say anything else until she'd settled down again. "Play up, play up, and play the game."

Except this isn't a game, Gilda thought. I wish it were a game, but it isn't.

The stakes are too high for that.

Still, high stakes or not, Gilda continued to guide the airship in towards the Amity Colosseum, hoping that the grimm wouldn't bestir itself before they landed.

She took a little comfort from the fact that if the black ram, whom some said was the sacred avatar of the God of Animals, was right, then she wasn't going to die just yet.

She still had to find a virtuous lady.

XxXxX​

Medea shrugged off robe and fleece alike, freeing up her hands for the airship controls, but also to fling her outer garments into the corner of what might be called the co*ckpit of the Aeolian Chariot.

Not an actual co*ckpit, of course — the Chariot wasn't compartmentalised on its upper deck — but it was the space around the controls, which amounted to the same thing.

Medea held out her hands, letting her sleeves fall down for a moment to expose her arms to view, before she sat down. The Aeolian Chariot was designed so that instead of being set at the very extreme front of the airship, her chair was set back from it a little, with a semi-circular control panel arranged around it, with enough room in front that if a thoughtless Jason wished to, he might walk in front of the pilot to get a view out in front of them and in the process block hers.

He wasn't doing that now.

"Restrain yourselves, dear hearts," Medea called out to the others as she settled down in her chair.

There was a column — one might have called it a mast if it led anywhere outside the airship — running up from the lower decks, through the floor, to the ceiling, coming up just beyond the dining table. Four black wires were attached to the stout shaft, coiling on the floor where they lay, with restraining harnesses attached to the end of each wire.

Medea glanced over her shoulder behind her, to see Jason, Meleager, and Atalanta clipping the harnesses around themselves.

All to the good. After all, Medea wasn't going to shut the airship doors — the upper decks might be transparent, but they wanted to make this as easy on the dragon as they possibly could — and they didn't want anyone to fall to their deaths, did they?

Atalanta strode to the edge of the airship, her black safety line trailing after her; she stood at the doorway, not looking down, at least as far as Medea could tell.

Medea's own eyes were drawn to look ever so slightly down, to where their charges — their erstwhile charges? No, they were their charges still; they protected them in this more than they could have by standing guard and waiting for the dragon to attack — stood, looking at the airship about to depart.

Young Lady Soojin looked back at her, through the glass.

Medea smiled, to conjure the hope in the little girl that was … well, there was something of an air of desperation about this endeavour, wasn't there?

And yet, I would not wish for better company in the whole world to share these desperate circ*mstances.

Perhaps they were not the best team in Haven Academy. Perhaps Jason was not the best leader — although he was the most handsome; Medea would fight anyone who dared suggest otherwise, and he was brave, and faithful too. Perhaps Medea was not the best strategist that any team could have been endowed with. But she was theirs, and they were hers, and she would not change them or aught about them.

She had not wanted the boys here, but at the same time, she would not deny to herself that there was a part of herself that was glad of it.

That they were all together.

Medea flexed her soft, small hands as she laid them on the stick.

Thessaly of the all-smothering night, if you will wrap your raven cloak around us and deliver us safe from harm through all this, then I shall restore your temple in Iolcus. This, I vow to you.

A weighty promise, considering the expense and the fact that Medea was in no position to do anything in Iolcus, nor would she be until Jason's father regained his lost position, but considering the circ*mstances, a weighty promise had seemed required.

And she had never broken her word to the gods yet.

Medea took one hand off the stick, the long shaft that rose out of the floor to steer the airship once it was airborne, and began to tap the controls, her lithe fingers flying along the buttons and switches. She heard the dust engine down below in the lower decks begin to hum and thrum, making the whole airship vibrate. That was good; it would have been a terrible time to have to go below and try and work out what was wrong with the engine — Medea didn't like doing that at the best of times; she accepted the sad necessity of such grubby-handed maintenance, but she didn't enjoy it even when she had ample leisure to work.

But it was working. Everything seemed to be working, everything was green, nothing was showing any problems at all.

The only problem was the grimm.

Medea gripped the steering column firmly but didn't move it as she flicked the switch that would turn on the VTOL thrusters mounted below. Slowly, steadily, the Aeolian Chariot began to rise off the docking pad, Lady Nikos and the rest seeming to drop away beneath them, becoming harder to see as they fell below the opaque lower part of the hull. Medea nudged the stick to the right somewhat, sending the airship drifting out off the docking platform and into the night sky.

The grey metal of the Amity Arena before her became replaced by a starry sky, and Vale somewhat far off below. Parts of the city were so dark that there were more lights in the sky than in the city, but there were enough lights on in other parts of Vale that Medea could locate the city clearly.

With sufficient distance between the Aeolian Chariot and the Amity Colosseum, Medea unfurled the wings of her airship, spreading them out on either side. They began to vibrate rapidly, like the wings of a hummingbird as it hovers by the flower and sucks out nectar with its beak.

"Atalanta," Medea called out. "Are you ready?"

Atalanta reached into her pouch and pulled out a large marble; she held it gripped between the forefinger and thumb of her left hand, as with her right hand, she gripped a handle beside the doorway. "Ready!" she shouted.

Jason and Meleager stood on the other side of the doorway. The Aeolian Chariot did not have any mounted weapons, but it did carry a store of heavy spears, like harpoons or the bolts of a ballista, and the two boys each held one gripped tight in their hands.

The dragon seemed very large to be hurt by such weapons, but perhaps the gods would favour them.

Medea brushed a loose strand of hair back into place and took a breath.

"Alright," she murmured. "Let's race."

Medea was nudged back into her chair as she urged the Chariot forwards. The world shifted around her, as though she were the fixed point and all else on the move; stars swooped overhead, visible through the glass, Amity Arena spun around her as Medea turned, circling the airship around it.

Flying was about so much more than simply getting from one place to another. It was thrilling in and of itself, the closest that anyone not born a bird faunus would get to having wings. This feeling, this feeling of making the world move around you, making the skies and the land below wheel and dance, it must be how the birds felt.

And the feeling as she rounded the Amity Arena to behold the dragon might be how the pigeon felt when it came face to face with a hungry hawk.

The dragons on the prow of the Aeolian Chariot snarled at the grimm dragon as Medea guided her airship towards the ruined CCT Tower and the beast that sat atop its stump. She did not turn away, not yet. Soon, but not yet.

"Remember," Atalanta said. "Once I activate my semblance, you must avert your eyes."

"We remember," Jason told her.

Atalanta couldn't control who was affected by her semblance. It would restrict Medea's ability to look back.

"Then I will rely on you to tell me what the dragon is doing," Medea called to her. "Tell me if it's going to fire that beam that destroyed the tower."

"I'll try my best," Atalanta assured her.

"No doubt," Medea murmured. "No doubt at all."

The dragon didn't seem to notice them. Medea couldn't turn away until it did; there was no point flying off and leaving the beast here; that would defeat the object — although it did occur to Medea that the dragon might be pretending not to notice them in order to lure them closer.

She was still moving slowly, cautiously; she didn't want to rush too close, even as her fingers were ready to squeeze the lever to accelerate as hard as it would go. She began to turn — gently, ever so gently — away from the dragon, presenting the side of her airship to it, where Atalanta stood.

Come, come, what could be more interesting than we?

What could catch your eye when we do not?

Should I have Jason throw a spear at you and see if that gets your notice?

There was no need; out the transparent side of the airship, Medea could see the dragon finally descend its head and catch sight of the Aeolian Chariot and its occupants below. It tilted its head a little to one side. Its eyes so red seemed to smoulder more intently than before as it looked down upon them.

"Now, Atalanta!" Medea shouted as she yanked hard on the stick to turn the airship away from the grimm and towards Vale.

She saw reflections of a gleam of gold in the glass that surrounded her, but thankfully, Atalanta's semblance did not work through reflections. So long as she did not look back and catch a direct sight of the golden marble shining in Atalanta's grasp, then she would be alright.

She could not look back.

Even if the dragon's roar booming out from behind them made her sorely wish to.

Medea squeezed the accelerator for all it was worth, squeezing it until her knuckles were white as the Aeolian Chariot shot forward; Beacon rushed away beneath them as though it was terrified by the dragon and put to flight; Medea swerved, jerking the Chariot to one side — Jason and Meleager squawked in alarm, and there was a sound of thumping and thudding behind her — to avoid a Bullhead heading the other way, towards Beacon.

Who would come in that direction at a time like this? Can't they see there's a dragon?

She had little time to wonder on the madness of the Valish — although tonight had shown that there was much madness in this city; the brain fever of their general seemed only a fraction of it — as the airship bore them away from the school and past the cliffs and on, on towards the city of Vale.

Medea wondered if she might have done better to have gone a different way, led the dragon somewhere else away from the city. But it was a little late for the gods to put such notions into her mind now; she would have to slow down to make the turn, and she did not want to slow down.

"It's following!" Atalanta called to her.

"Marvellous," Medea muttered. "Absolutely wonderful."

She couldn't look back, but she had a few sensors on her control panel, and they confirmed what Atalanta was saying — that there was something very large on their tail.

It wasn't getting closer, but it wasn't getting further away either.

"I told you not to look!" Atalanta shouted at someone, Jason or Meleager or both of them.

Medea couldn't look back to see which of them it was, if not both, but she did know that Atalanta shouting at them wasn't likely to help.

But it was an understandable impulse.

Medea was being pushed back against her chair as the airship sped through the sky, galloping over Vale now, devouring the lights of the city that passed out of sight beneath the dragon prow.

"It's going to fire!" Atalanta shouted.

"Hold on!" Medea yelled back at her as she threw the stick forwards, descending and jerking to the left as a beam of yellow shot through the sky overhead. Medea could see it through the glass ceiling, so bright that it would have been like staring at the sun to look directly at it.

The dragon was above them now, and that meant that Medea could look up and see it without being dumbstruck by Atalanta's semblance; she could see — just — the dragon descending upon them, talons outstretched.

The dragon swooped down — dropped down, almost, out from on high — with a speed even greater than it had used to pursue them. Its wings were raised above it as it fell, roaring, like a stone to crush them beneath its weight.

Medea was thrown to one side, her aura bruising as it hit the arm of her chair as she swerved away, the Aeolian Chariot twirling in the sky like an ice dancer along the frigid frozen surface, tracing circles around the dragon's dropping claws before Medea shot forward once again to put more distance between the dragon and herself.

She was going the wrong way for the sea; she had gotten turned around and was headed back towards Beacon, no, she was heading for the walls of Vale. That might be … no, there was fighting out there, their friends, Admetus and Hylas and Scarlet the Sour and those sweet fools Alcestis and Pisithia; and Pyrrha, of course. No, it would be inexcusable to lead the dragon back in their direction. She would have to turn, once she could open up a little distance.

Medea climbed; as the dragon had dropped so swiftly, she had some hope that it might rise more slowly, and that ascent might prove a boon to her in consequence.

She had lost sight of it once more — she could only truly see it once it was above them — but her sensors told it was somewhere … somewhere below.

"Speak to me, Atalanta, keen-eyed huntress," Medea implored. "Sing to me like one of the muses on the mountainside."

There was a pause. "It's below … and behind," Atalanta replied. "And firing again!"

Medea jerked to the left, pulling the stick violently in that direction, throwing herself to hit the armrest for the second time and punch her aura once again — and in the same place too. Medea grunted in pain, but she was gratified to see the dragon's beam pass by, rising up into the sky, missing the Aeolian Chariot completely.

She was less gratified to hear Atalanta shout wordlessly in alarm.

"Atalanta?" Medea called out, wishing that she could risk looking around. "Atalanta!"

"She's fallen!" Meleager cried. "Gods, she's fallen!"

Now Medea looked back, because if Meleager had been freed from the stupor of Atalanta's semblance, then that must mean the marble was out of sight. It was out of sight, as she saw when she looked back; Atalanta was out of sight, the only trace of her the black safety line trailing outside the door, falling off into the sky beyond.

Medea's breath caught in her throat. Please let the line have held.

Would you like a new altar in Colchis too, Thessaly? And an inscription that tells all who come not only that I raised it but also why, that all may marvel at your benevolent protectiveness?

Meleager and Jason scrambled across the floor of the Chariot on hands and knees like little boys, grabbing the line with both hands and hauling on it to pull her up.

Beyond, visible through the glass at the airship's rear, the dragon. No, wait, it had stopped following. It was turning away. Why, how could it turn away, unless—?

Atalanta's hand appeared, gripping the lip of the Chariot's doorway. It was swiftly followed by the rest of Atalanta as she pulled herself up, helped by the two boys.

"I dropped the marble," she grunted, hanging her head a little as she crouched on all fours. "I dropped it when the harness caught me. The snap." She shook her head.

"Does that mean the dragon will be drawn to it on the ground in Vale?" asked Meleager.

"No, it means I stopped using my semblance," Atalanta replied, a touch of sharpness in her voice. She glanced at Medea. "Shall we try and get its attention again?"

Medea didn't reply. She levelled off the airship, then tilted it a little to the right, where the door was closed, so that she could look down without risking anybody falling out again. The dragon was circling Vale. It was roaring too — its cries reached her ears up here quite clearly and loudly through the open door — but it didn't seem to be attacking anything. It was circling over the rooftops but not diving down on them, still less unleashing its terrible breath.

But all the same, they had brought it to Vale. They had led it away from Amity, which was good, but over the city, which was … less ideal. They had no real right to say 'job done' and leave it at that, however tempting it might be.

Our great grandparents sought the destruction of this city, but we will be shamed if we turn our backs now.

Medea breathed in and out. "Yes," she murmured. "I think we must."

She began to turn the Aeolian Chariot — slowly, but steadily — preparatory to a descent back down on the dragon. She would descend, and then she would rise up once more, and at the rising, if the gods continued to favour her, then they would gain the dragon's attention once again and could complete the plan to—

Before Medea could complete the turn, so that the dragon was still below and the airship was still facing at least partly away from it, two Atlesian airships streaked by beneath, heading for the dragon. Medea, whose enthusiasm for flying extended to her own airship but not to any details about Atlesian technology, could not have said what kind of airships they were except that they weren't the big transport ones that they used; rather, these looked to be combat airships: they were already firing at the dragon with rotating cannons mounted somewhere underneath, and they both had enormous missiles mounted under their wings, missiles so large they seemed almost as big if not bigger than the fuselages of the airships that carried them.

Through the glass, Medea could see that the airships were already firing now, bullets erupting from underneath the fuselage to strike the dragon's neck and shoulder.

The dragon turned its head towards them, bellowing in anger.

The enormous rockets fired from beneath the airships' wings. Each airship only carried two — there was no physical room for any more — but all four of them streaked towards the dragon, flames as large as furnaces burning behind them.

The dragon kept on roaring, but it didn't try to move as the great missiles approached. It hovered in the air, wings beating, as the missiles came on and the two airships that had fired the missiles broke off, turning away in different directions.

Only then did the dragon move, starting forward in pursuit.

The missiles struck home, not quite all at once but in quick succession, each missile striking before the fireball of the last had died so that it grew exponentially outwards and outwards, consuming the dragon's immense body within them.

Die, Medea thought. Breathe your last and turn to ashes. Let the fires burn as hot as Aeolus' sun and consume you utterly.

The dragon erupted out of the flames, Medea could see the scorch marks on its plates of bone, and she could hear the frothing fury in its screams as it pursued one of the two Atlesian airships. They were not fast — in fact, it seemed positively sluggish — and the dragon quickly began to gain upon it.

The second airship came to the aid of the first; though it had turned and headed off in a different direction — perhaps to ensure that they could not both be pursued — it rounded on the grimm, spitting bullets with its cannon once more as it closed the distance as best it could.

The first airship — the one that had been the focus of pursuit — dropped out of sight as the dragon turned its attention on the second. Medea saw it descend towards Vale and thought that she might have seen the pilot eject, but it was difficult to say for sure in this lack of light.

What she did see was the second airship breaking off again, turning its back for the second time upon the dragon.

But it was not fast either.

The dragon caught up with it and caught the Atlesian airship in its tail, crushing its rear beneath the chimerical three claws that waited there as though the tail belonged to some other beast grafted onto the dragon by some god. The dragon held onto the Atlesian airship for a moment before flinging it upwards through the air.

Towards the Aeolian Chariot.

Medea's eyes widened as she started to accelerate. The Atlesian airship was moving too quickly, and Medea could only partially move her airship out of the way before the Atlesians struck.

There was an almighty crash that flung Medea out of her chair and slammed her head up onto the ceiling with a flare of her aura, before dumping her back down on her back on the floor. The stern of the Aeolian Chariot was completely sheared away, shards of glass flying everywhere.

The airship started to spin as it plummeted towards Vale.

Jason, Meleager, and Atalanta were hanging on by their safety lines, clinging to the wires, pulling themselves up by them as they hung half out of the ruined rear half of the Chariot. For herself, Medea had wrapped her hands around the pole of her chair, clinging to it as her airship fell.

If she could pull herself up, if she could reach the controls…

If she let go of her hold.

The world whirled around them, and through the glass, she could see the streets of Vale rushing to meet them.

Everything went black. Medea heard glass breaking all around her, felt the shards hitting her like arrows, slicing into her aura.

She felt her aura breaking.

Everything went black.

XxXxX​

Everything was dark. Medea opened her eyes, but the world was still dark; the moonlight was too ill to see anything brightly.

Her head hurt. Everything hurt.

"J—" Medea tried to speak, tried to call out to Jason, but when she opened her mouth, only a hoarse, quiet sound, barely audible, emerged. She tried to swallow; her mouth was so dry, her tongue was parched. She tried to swallow, but even that was difficult. She tried and tried and tried again before she managed it.

"Jason?" she croaked. "Atalanta? Meleager?"

There was no response. Not even a mewling moan of pain.

No, Medea thought, her eyes welling up with tears. No, no, no, no, they cannot—

Someone coughed, a long and spluttering cough, as though there was a lot that had to be expelled from the lungs.

"Medea?" Atalanta called softly, sounding as though she was in pain.

"Yes," Medea grunted, trying to twist her body around. It was too painful; she groaned in pain and stopped trying to move.

Her hands were bloody, and her fingers … her fingers didn't look entirely in the right place, or at the right angle.

No wonder they hurt so much. No wonder she had tears in her eyes from the pain.

Something flopped down onto the ground in front of her, something black and liquid falling from the sky like rain.

If rain fell in puddles.

The black puddle lay in front of her for a second or two, sprawling across the … concrete. It looked like concrete; was she on a road? Turning her head, Medea could see half the hull of the Aeolian Chariot, the lower decks, lying on their side, half in a building of some kind that it had smashed through. She had been thrown out, if only a little, and she lay on the ground surrounded by shards of glass. The head of one of the snarling dragons of the prow lay on the road beside her, severed from the rest of the airship.

And the black puddle lay in front of her, sprawled across tarmac and broken glass. And then it began to shrink, the puddle contracting as something began to rise out of it: a juvenile beowolf, of the lean and two-legged Valish breed, its body all black, no bone to be seen except the mask on its face.

The beowolf looked down on her and bared its teeth.

Medea was not the greatest huntress in Haven, or even on Team JAMM, but with her aura up, she would not have feared a single beowolf so young.

But her aura was broken.

A low growl rose from the beowolf's throat.

Its growling was answered by a louder sound, by the roaring of an engine racing towards them.

The beowolf turned around as a black blade sliced off its head.

Soteria, the black sword Soteria sliced off the beowolf's head as a chimera motorcycle skidded to a halt in front of Medea. Upon the motorcycle rode Weiss Schnee, all shining white — and the bearer of the black sword, Sunset Shimmer.

"See if you can reach Professor Goodwitch, tell her we need an ambulance," Sunset said, as she and Weiss leapt off the motorcycle. "And tell her … tell her there are grimm inside the city."

As she set the Bullhead down on one of the docking pads, Gilda got up out of her seat and walked into the main section of the airship.

"I'm going to locate the Councillor," she said. "You lot wait here, and once I've found her location, I'll be back for the rest of you."

A collection of unimpressed and hard-eyed gazes, sullen verging upon hostile, greeted her pronouncement. There was a time when that would have worried Gilda, but right now, she was — she felt, at least — past worrying. She didn't care what they thought; she didn't care whether they liked her leadership or not, she didn't care whether they went squealing to the High Leader about what a terrible leader she was. She didn't care. She didn't care if someone else was made leader of the Vale Chapter and she was ordered to Menagerie to clean the toilets at headquarters. She was done with … she was done pretending that she had any respect for them. She would make use of their muscle, when the moment was right, but until then, they could wait in the car like good children, and they might get some ice cream when she was done.

Because she was done.

They didn't like being ordered to wait? Too bad. They'd do it regardless.

Or they'd kill her, but that might also be better than having to play nice.

Gilda had rescued them from captivity; the least they could show was a little gratitude and appreciation for that.

She'd rescued them, because they'd been given to her to command, and so it stuck in her craw to just ditch them to face the music, even if that was what they deserved, but that didn't mean that they deserved anything more than that from her.

Yuma folded his arms across his chest. The visible parts of his arms had bruises on them from the injuries he'd taken, even if his aura had come back in the meantime. "We did not come here to sit and wait in an airship, Sister Gilda—"

"I am not your sister," Gilda said sharply. "Cut that out."

Yuma ignored her, continuing in his soft, sibilant, serpentine voice that rubbed on Gilda like sandpaper, "We should search together, or better yet, spread out to search the arena more swiftly."

"No," Gilda said flatly.

"'No'?" Trifa repeated. "Why not?"

"Because you lot are about as subtle as a bag of hammers, that's why," Gilda declared. "And I don't want the arena stained with blood. I will find this Atlesian Councillor—"

"Cadenza," Ilia murmured. "Her name is Cadenza."

"Fine, thank you, Councillor Cadenza," Gilda said. "I will find Councillor Cadenza, then I will come back and lead you — discreetly — to her location where we will snatch her and get out without any more fuss or bother and without picking any fights along the way."

Woundwort's face — which looked even more gnarly now than it had done before, thanks to Rainbow's friends — twisted in distaste. "It would send more of a message to the traitors if we were take one or two of those Atlas b—"

"No," Ilia said quickly, before even Gilda could do so. "No that … that's barbaric, and it's not who we are."

Gilda's eyebrows rose a little. She wouldn't have expected Ilia to have a limit like that.

"Are we not the vanguard of the struggle, Sister Ilia?" Yuma asked in a voice that was deceptively soft. "The tip of a spear that will thrust into the belly of a world and system that is set against us."

"Of course we are," Ilia replied. "But not … not like that. I will kill anyone who stands in our way, I will show no mercy to our oppressors, but that? We're talking about children."

"Human children," Yuma replied.

Ilia … did Ilia shudder? Did Gilda see her shudder? Or did she imagine it because she wanted to see it? Wanted to think that one of this group might be a little more on her side than the others.

"We're soldiers, not animals," Ilia declared. "We do what we must for the sake of our people, not for our own pleasure."

"And that's why you're staying here," Gilda said. "You'll sit tight and wait until you're called."

"Avoiding attention makes sense," Ilia allowed. "But I should go with you, or you should stay and I should go; I'm the stealth specialist, I'm the infiltrator—"

"You—" Gilda began, about to tell Ilia that she was also too highly strung and too willing to wish death on other people to be trusted … but she had backed Gilda up just now, and Gilda supposed that she had earned back a little bit of grace by that. "You are going to be in charge while I'm gone; I need you to look after things until I get back."

"'Look after things'?" Savannah repeated. "We aren't children."

Gilda didn't respond to that except to say. "Stay here; I won't be long."

Savannah pushed past Rill and strode towards Gilda. Her hands, at the end of her long arms, clenched and unclenched into fists. With her one golden eye, she glared at Gilda, bearing down on her until the two of them were almost touching noses, like she wanted to go in for a kiss.

Savannah huffed into Gilda's face before she said, "And what if we don't?"

Gilda didn't reply for a second. Her own hands clenched and unclenched, just like Savannah's had. She waited, conscious of the way that everyone's eyes were on her, even Ilia's.

Savannah had asked the question that had been on all their minds.

Time to see who's faster, I guess.

Gilda lashed out with one foot. As close as they were — her mistake — and with the ceiling of the Bullhead hemming her in, Savannah couldn't do much about it as Gilda cut her legs out from under her. She flailed with her long arms, but Gilda grabbed one arm by the wrist with one hand as she grabbed Savannah by the back of the neck with her other hand.

Gilda twisted in place, making the other members of the squad duck or press themselves against the wall of the airship as she slammed Savannah down face-first onto the airship floor.

Savannah hit the metal deck with a crunch.

Gilda grunted as she lifted Savannah's head off the deck and slammed it down again.

And again.

Trifa reached for her knife.

"Touch that, and I'll kill you!" Gilda snarled, baring her teeth. She slammed Savannah's head down into the deck for the fourth time. Her aura didn't break, but she wasn't exactly doing much resisting at this point, and by the soft groan coming from her lips, Gilda thought that she had made her point.

She let Savannah go. The other warrior didn't move; she just lay there on the deck where Gilda had left her, lying there and moaning.

Gilda got up, her eyes sweeping across the other members of the squad, even Ilia.

"You don't have to like me," she said. "You don't have to agree with me, you don't even have to respect me. But right now, you do as I say. Wait here; I'll be back once I know where our target is. Until then, Ilia is in command."

She ostentatiously turned her back on then, daring them to try anything if they still felt like it.

None of them did. The door on the side of the Bullhead swung upwards, exposing the Amity Arena to view.

It was quiet outside; there was nobody that Gilda could see, nobody to look inside the Bullhead and see a bunch of armed White Fang guys within, which was a stroke of luck. Everyone must have … they hadn't left, because the news had said that people were being evacuated up to Amity Arena, not off of it, but they must have gone somewhere else, either into the stands, or maybe inside, where Gilda and the others had tried to ambush Blake.

Somewhere that might have felt a bit safer than the promenade, anyway.

Gilda leapt down out of the airship; only then did she look back and see Ilia closing the door behind her.

Gilda turned away once again, listening to the door close with a hum of the motor and a final soft thump of the metal moving into place.

She took a look around the empty promenade, wondering where she ought to start looking?

Well, if I'm right about where people have gone, then perhaps I should start in the stands.

Of course, an Atlesian Councillor would never sit down in the stands with the common people; she'd be up in one of the hoity-toity boxes with Jacques Schnee and the like.

Maybe not actual Jacques Schnee right now, but that kind of guy.

Unless the boxes were too much at risk, what with them being so high up.

A Councillor still wouldn't want to share space with the plebs.

Still, if I check out the stands first, then I'll be able to look up and see if any of the boxes are occupied.

That sounded like a plan, at least in the sense that it was something that, when viewed from the right distance, might pass for a plan, and so Gilda headed towards the nearest corridor that would lead into the stands or into the arena itself.

The corridor was dark; all the lights were off, although there was some light spilling out of the door to one of the maintenance corridors, which had been opened. Gilda would check that out next, once she was done here.

Once she passed through the dark corridor, climbing up the steps into the bleachers, Gilda soon realised that that 'next' might be a lot sooner than she might have expected because there was absolutely no one here, and for good reason too: the place was a battlefield. Not an ongoing battlefield, mind, but it was plain to see that a battle had been fought here, and it had really messed the place up. There was a gash in the arena ceiling like a wound, jagged and raw, and shards of debris — along with what looked like the remains of some kind of airship — had been scattered across the battlefield, with pieces of metal buried in the floor, sticking up like the ruins of old buildings that you found scattered across Vale, not Mountain Glenn but the real old ruins from days gone by and long forgotten.

There were claw marks on the floor too, digging right into the metal, evidence that the grimm had been here once, although they weren't here anymore.

It wasn't just the battlefield, either; Gilda climbed into the stands to find that a right mess had been made of them; some of the debris had landed there too, and the chairs had been torn up, ripped to pieces — and there were claw marks here also, and bullet holes.

A battle had been fought here, and even though there was no fighting going on here now, and no grimm either, Gilda could understand why it was completely deserted. She was the only person here, and why not? Who'd want to wait around for hours, maybe all night, maybe longer, amidst the detritus of a battlefield like this? Even in a functional space, there had to be somewhere more comfortable to wait around than amidst wreckage, shards of metal, claw marks, discarded rounds.

Somewhere like the boxes maybe? Not exactly. When Gilda looked up from the arena and the stands around her, she saw that some of the boxes had been destroyed, torn to pieces by … maybe by the same thing that had showered debris down on the arena, maybe by the grimm, but either way, some of the boxes were gone — or at least, what was left of them was littering the battlefield or the stands, and there were only holes where the boxes had been, entrances leading out into nowhere now.

There were some boxes still intact, but there didn't look to be anyone inside.

Maybe she ought to fly up there and take a closer look, just to be sure.

But if they were there, then it would be hard to miss someone flying looking down on them, so—

"It's Gilda, isn't it?"

The voice came from behind her. A woman's voice, older than Gilda herself by at least a few years; Gilda would put it at about the High Leader's age, only it lacked entirely the High Leader's hard edge. This voice was soft, gentle even, almost … motherly.

Nevertheless, for all its softness and its gentleness, for all its motherly quality, the sound of the voice behind her made Gilda freeze. It would have been bad enough that someone had managed to sneak up on her, but they knew who she was? Who knew who she was?

Rainbow Dash and Blake, obviously, which meant … nothing great for her.

Gilda froze. Her eyes were wide, even though they were fixed straight in front of her, looking out at the devastation of the battlefield below, unable to see who was speaking behind.

Her chest rose and fell. Her arms were rigid, hands frozen in place. She did not move an inch, not a single muscle.

"It is Gilda, isn't it?" the voice repeated. "Gilda Swiftwing?"

She knows my surname, too?

Gilda folded up her wings behind her, so that she could turn her head in a halting, juddering motion and look over her shoulder.

The owner of the voice that called her name was … Lady Belladonna. Gilda recognised her from the news broadcast, the one that had told her — and her team — that she was here in the first place, the one that had set the cat amongst the pigeons when it came to those who wanted to kill her and send a message to her husband.

She looked just like she had in that brief shot on the news; she was even wearing the same clothes; Gilda guessed that she'd travelled light from Menagerie, without many changes.

It was definitely her. Gilda had never heard her voice before she had seen her face; you could hardly avoid it if you were a certain kind of faunus, the kind whose parents wanted to go to Menagerie and live out their golden years in paradise.

And she wasn't alone. Fluttershy was there too, standing just behind Lady Belladonna — as in, a step behind, not as in actually hiding behind her, although…

Neither of them looked the way that Gilda would have expected them to look. They both looked curious, Lady Belladonna especially, even though … didn't they know that Gilda had tried to kill Blake? And Rainbow Dash? Hadn't they told them?

Had Dashie protected her?

How could they look at her like that, without anger, without hate?

Without fear?

Not a trace of fear from either of them. They were just looking at her like they were surprised, like they didn't understand what she was doing here, but they weren't afraid.

Gilda licked her lips, her tongue flicking out of her mouth as though she'd suddenly become a lizard faunus. Her mouth felt so dry it was as if all the water had drained out of her.

Perhaps it had. She could feel the sweat under her armpits and running down her back.

Her voice was hoarse. She tried to speak but had to stop and swallow before she started again; even then, she thought she sounded a little hoarse.

"My lady," Gilda whispered. She had to lick her lips again, even though it didn't feel like it was helping at all; it was just making her lips all sticky and covered in guck. All the same, she couldn't stop herself, because at the same time, they felt so dry. "Fluttershy."

Fluttershy waved with one hand, a gentle fluttering of her fingers. "Gilda."

"So you are Gilda," Lady Belladonna said. "Fluttershy said that she recognised you, and I … your parents showed me some pictures of you; you've grown up, but your wings are still the same colour." She co*cked her head to one side. "You used to have more hair, though."

Gilda let out a sort of strangled laugh because seriously? Seriously? That was what Lady Belladonna wanted to talk about? Her hair? Yes, she'd had some kind of lush hair, at one point, but then, at one point, she'd wanted to be in a band, too.

One of her hands reflexively went to her head, running her fingers over her close-shaved hair or lack of the same.

"Yeah, I, um … I thought it would make me more aerodynamic," Gilda murmured. "Also … I thought it would make me look mature."

"Hmm," Lady Belladonna murmured. "I can't speak to the first, but that second one isn't really working." She paused. "Why don't you turn around? Aren't you getting a crick in your neck standing like that?"

Gilda turned around, obedient to Lady Belladonna's command — or to her sensible suggestion, anyway. It was easier to face the two of them.

Easier in some ways, anyway. She was still sweating. She would start to smell if this kept up.

"How did you know I was here?" Gilda asked quietly.

"We ran into you by chance," Lady Belladonna said. "Or perhaps I should say that you walked past us by chance."

"I'd just gone to see if anyone wanted anything to eat or drink," Fluttershy murmured. "But it seemed that what Lady Belladonna—"

"Kali, dear, please."

"What Lady Kali Belladonna really wanted was to come out and talk with some other people," Fluttershy said.

"Not that I don't enjoy the company of … my companions," Lady Belladonna said. "But I wanted to see how other people were doing, while we waited for news. We came out and saw you going down the corridor, having just passed the door that we were using, coming this way."

"I see," Gilda murmured. "So it was pure luck, then?"

"Luck, or the will of fate," Lady Belladonna replied. "Or perhaps it was the will of the gods. Do you believe in the gods, Gilda Swiftwing? Your parents say that they always watch the parade of the Sacred Hart through the streets, every year."

Gilda gave a faint nod of her head, a little juddering of her chin. "I believe, my lady."

"Then perhaps the God of Animals meant for this to happen, for us to meet like this?" Lady Belladonna suggested. The corner of her lip twitched upwards in an almost mischievous manner. "I'm afraid if you came here looking for Blake or Rainbow Dash, they're not here. But I suspect you knew that already."

Now they were come to it. "I … I thought as much, my lady," Gilda murmured.

"So you came back here … why?" Lady Belladonna asked. "To kidnap me? To kidnap Fluttershy again?"

"No," Gilda said at once. "No, I … this has nothing to do with you, Fluttershy."

"Then it is me?" asked Lady Belladonna. "Or you came here to kill me, or … someone else."

"You…" Gilda swallowed again. "You're taking this very well, my lady, I have to admit."

Lady Belladonna didn't reply for a moment. "If you were to draw those swords on your back and kill me now, would the blades be to blame?"

"No, my lady," Gilda replied. "It would be my hand."

"Just so," Lady Belladonna said. "I take it Sienna put you up to this?"

Gilda hesitated, silent.

"You may as well speak," Lady Belladonna said. "It costs Sienna nothing for me to hear from your lips what I have guessed already."

Gilda glanced down at the floor, unable to meet either of their gazes. "It was the High Leader who gave the command, yes."

"That you were to kill my daughter, and Rainbow Dash," Lady Belladonna murmured.

Gilda closed her eyes. "Yes, my lady."

"Why?" asked Fluttershy, her voice a mere whisper, yet one that, in the quiet arena, nonetheless sounded as loud as thunder breaking.

"Because…" Gilda trailed off. "Because they seem … because they have been … because they were too successful, in Atlas, in what they did with the Schnee Dust Company. The High Leader feared—"

"Of course she did," Lady Belladonna interrupted. A bitter laugh passed from her lips. "Of course she did. Vain Sienna, proud Sienna, Sienna who could not bear to have any of her scholarship questioned in another professor's book and so wrote a scathing review rubbishing every single conclusion they had drawn and making them out to be the most incompetent hack that ever lived. Sienna who couldn't stand not to be the leading voice in her field, she had to cut down everyone who might compete with her, suggesting that they were wrong, they were mistaken, they'd used sloppy scholarship and unreliable methods to draw their conclusions. Of course it's not enough for the lot of our people to improve; it has to be by her hand, her methods; she has to be the hero, has to be the one leading the parade, or else is it even worth the faunus being free?" She shook her head. "Oh, Sienna, I see that the mantle of leadership has not made you any less yourself." She glanced at Gilda. "I promised Blake I wouldn't hurt her, in retaliation for what you tried to do. Blake was worried that I would get myself killed in the pursuit of revenge. Or perhaps I'll get myself killed here and now."

"No," Gilda said at once. "No, my lady, you have nothing to fear from me." She looked at Fluttershy. "Neither of you have anything to fear from me."

"Only Rainbow Dash and Blake do," Fluttershy murmured.

Gilda hesitated. "Well … considering what happened to us the last time I was up here, you might say they haven't got a lot to fear from me either."

There was a pause, neither Lady Belladonna nor Fluttershy. Then Lady Belladonna threw back her head and let out a peal of joyous laughter.

"Oh, that's wonderful," she declared. "Yes, that's very good. You have a lot to fear from Blake and Rainbow Dash, yes, that…" She wiped at her eye with one hand. "That's excellent, thank you."

Gilda raised one eyebrow. "Are you moontouched, my lady?" she asked. "Have you got some of that mass delirium that's going around Vale?"

"Am I as mad as General Blackthorn is said to be? Well, I certainly hope not," Lady Belladonna said. "But I am a mother, and every mother likes to hear their child praised to the skies, even if it is for being a fearsome adversary. And, well, you must admit that there is something a little ridiculous about admitting that you're afraid of the two people that you…" She trailed off, and did Gilda the courtesy of not saying 'the two people you were ordered to kill' or anything like that.

Fluttershy took a step closer towards her, so that she was standing level with Lady Belladonna, not behind her. "Do you still want to kill them?"

"I never wanted to kill them," Gilda replied.

"But you were going to," Fluttershy said. "Weren't you?"

"Yes," Gilda said, in a voice that was as soft or softer than Fluttershy's own.

"Why?" Fluttershy asked. "Because you were told to?"

"Yes," Gilda said again. "Because I was ordered to, because the High Leader … there isn't any shame in admitting that you don't know everything, is there? That other people — older people, more experienced people — might be wiser than you, know more, know better, is there?" She glanced between them.

"Rainbow Dash would say not," Fluttershy admitted. "That's why she follows General Ironwood, after all."

"I thought," Gilda began, "I thought that maybe, even though it didn't seem right to me, maybe the High Leader was right, maybe they did … maybe it was better they were out of the way. And I was worried that if I didn't do it, then the people that she would send to do it would be worse, more vicious, would care less about hurting … people like you. I thought that I could do it … cleanly, without hurting anyone else, without anyone getting in the way."

"Only Blake and Rainbow Dash," Lady Belladonna said.

"Blake carries a sword which is also a gun, my lady, and Rainbow Dash has a shotgun," Gilda pointed out. "They've got no right to complain, nor does your friend Applejack when she came at us with a gun of her own." She paused for a moment. "If you choose to live by the sword, then you should have the decency to be willing to die by it too."

Silence fell in the arena, utter silence, no sound at all, not even wind; if the grimm outside were making any noise, it wasn't carrying in here.

And neither Fluttershy nor Lady Belladonna spoke. They stood there as silent as Gilda herself, watching her. Judging her, Gilda couldn't help but think.

It was Lady Belladonna who spoke first, who broke the silence. "What is it that you want, Gilda?" she asked. "Why did you come back here?"

"What do I want, my lady?" Gilda repeated. She took a step back, only to stumble over a piece of debris lodged in the stands. Gilda let out a wordless squawk, arms flailing, wings unfurling behind her, none of which served to stop her from falling backwards and landing with a thump on her tailbone. Her aura flared up and sent a jolt of pain up her to make sure she knew it.

Gilda didn't get up. Somehow, sitting here with Lady Belladonna and Fluttershy looking down on her seemed pretty fitting, all things considered.

But she did swing her legs, sprawled across the jagged metal debris that she'd tripped over, around, so that they were resting on the battered floor of the stands, knees up. It was all that she could do not to put her hands around them.

"What I want," she murmured. "What I've always wanted is to help my people." She paused. "I know that you've been away a long time, my lady, and they tell me that Menagerie is a wonderful place, but I hope you haven't forgotten how put down we are."

"No," Lady Belladonna murmured. "I remember. I understand that not enough has changed since Ghira and I took our leave."

"I wanted to help," Gilda said. "I want to help. I want things to get better, and I'm willing to do what it takes to make that happen."

Lady Belladonna walked around the debris and sat down on the ground next to Gilda; Gilda was taller, but sat down, they were almost of a height, no distance between them.

"But you didn't tell your parents that you were in the White Fang," she murmured. "They think—"

"That I have a nice, respectable job here in Vale," Gilda said. "I … I suppose it must sound like I'm ashamed."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Lady Belladonna admitted.

Gilda shook her head. "I … I didn't want them thinking about me like that, as someone who … killed people. I didn't want them to know about that side of me."

"Where I come from, we call that being ashamed," Lady Belladonna murmured.

Gilda didn't dispute that. It was hard to argue with, really. "When did you meet my parents? Why?"

"After Rainbow Dash wrote to me, to tell me that Blake was a student at Beacon … and about to be a student at Atlas," Lady Belladonna said, "she'd written a letter to her parents as well, asked me to deliver it—"

"And you did?"

Lady Belladonna smiled. "Some may call me Lady Belladonna, or the Chieftainess of Menagerie, but don't mistake me for a Mistralian old blood; I'm not too proud to descend into the streets amongst my people. Especially not when I can learn more about the girl who just wrote to me out of the blue, claiming to know so much about my daughter and where she is and how she's doing and what her plans are." She paused for a moment. "Rainbow's letter to her parents mentioned you; not that you were in the White Fang, but something that they passed on to your parents. We didn't speak long, but they seemed like good people."

"They are," Gilda said in a gruff voice. "They are good people, they … my dad worked for Rainbow's father, in his electronics store in Low Town. My mom was a maid in Atlas. Not one of those fancy live-in maids; she'd just turn up to middle class houses and do the dusting and the vacuuming." Gilda paused for a moment. "She told me that the worst houses were the ones where the woman of the house would follow her around to make sure she was doing it 'to m'lady's satisfaction,' pointing out everything that she hadn't done. Made a one-hour job take three hours or more. But they both worked hard. They worked hard, and they deserved to get the chance to go to Menagerie, and … I'm told that, in Menagerie, everything just springs out of the ground, nobody has to work for anything."

Lady Belladonna chuckled. "It's not quite that much of a paradise," she said. "But it is a very nice place to live. I imagine it might be even nicer for those like your parents — and Rainbow's parents — with the chance to relax and take the load off. You know they're still very good friends, from what I could tell."

"I'm not surprised," Gilda murmured. "I … I never wanted to be Rainbow's enemy. I never wanted to be Blake's enemy either; I … I always admired your daughter, my lady; she … she always had a lot of conviction."

"Yes," Lady Belladonna murmured. "She always had a great deal of conviction. I'd say she got it from her father, but the truth is that she might have outdone even him in that regard."

"And it doesn't bother you," Gilda said, "that she wants to move to Atlas, to join Atlas, to become … it doesn't bother you?"

"I must confess that I was surprised, at first," Lady Belladonna admitted. "But Blake believes that she can do some good, and I must also admit that having met a few of her Atlas friends, they seem like very good people." She hesitated. "Better, I must admit, than some of those she hung around with in the White Fang."

"You weren't a fan of Adam, my lady?"

"No," Lady Belladonna said softly. "No, I can't say I was."

"He wasn't a bad person," Fluttershy murmured. "He just … made some bad choices." To Gilda, she added, "I'm sorry, by the way. Rainbow told me that … I'm sorry."

"'Sorry'?" Gilda repeated. "You're sorry, after … after everything?"

Fluttershy nodded. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that he's gone, and I'm sorry that things got to the point where … where he felt he had to do the things he did."

"Yeah, well…" Gilda cleared her throat. "That's very nice of you. I can't promise you that Adam would appreciate it, but I do. Thank you." She stared at her for a couple of seconds. "As someone who is from Atlas but isn't a huntress or a soldier or anything like that, do you think it's true that Atlas has the greatest military in the world?"

Fluttershy opened her mouth, but didn't speak for a second. "I … I don't know," she admitted. "I wouldn't even know how to start judging that. Or know what to compare it to. It looks strong."

"Do you think that they'll protect Blake?" Gilda asked. "Do you think that they'll protect Rainbow Dash?"

"Yes," Fluttershy said immediately. "I know they will."

Gilda closed her eyes. "Good," she said softly. "That's good to know. That means that once all this is over, once they go back to Atlas — once Dashie goes to Atlas, once Blake goes to Atlas — then they'll be safe. They'll be protected. The High Leader's anger won't be able to touch them."

"And that doesn't upset you?" Lady Belladonna asked.

Gilda almost smiled, even though she couldn't quite bring herself to smile. "No," she said. "No, it doesn't bother me at all."

Now, it was Fluttershy's turn to approach; she walked around the other side of Gilda to where Lady Belladonna sat and knelt down beside her. "Because you don't really want to hurt them, do you?"

"Honestly?" Gilda asked.

"Yes," Fluttershy said. "We might as well be honest with one another, don't you think?"

"Then honestly, I think that Rainbow's right, what she said to me before we got taken off to prison," Gilda said. "She's done more for the faunus that I have recently, more than the whole White Fang has. If she and Blake can keep on making a difference, can keep on improving things, then … I've got no problem with that. That's all I ever wanted. Maybe they can be the change we need, maybe they can't, but I can't say that they shouldn't get the chance to try.

"I didn't join the White Fang because I like the killing, or because I want to be remembered as a hero of the struggle. I joined because I wanted to make things better, because I wanted to help. Only maybe I was … even if I wasn't doing more harm than good, I can't say that there aren't others who are helping more right now."

"Then why did you come back here?" Fluttershy asked.

Gilda snorted. "Because this isn't the sort of job where you can go back to the High Leader and apologise, but it was all just a bit too difficult. I have to get this done or … or die trying. And then if we do die trying, then she'll send someone else, but that'll be fine because like you just said, the power of Atlas will protect them."

"More than just the power of Atlas," Lady Belladonna murmured.

Gilda looked at her. "My lady?"

"I'm willing to bet that a lot of people who support the White Fang ordinarily feel the same way that you do," Lady Belladonna said. "They want things to improve and aren't particularly concerned by the how or who. How might those people react, do you think, if they found out that Sienna Khan was willing to kill two people who have made one of the biggest accomplishments in recent years just to salve her ego?"

Gilda blinked. "You would … would people believe you?"

"I think Sienna would be concerned by the mere possibility," Lady Belladonna replied. "Enough to back off Blake and Rainbow Dash."

Gilda let out a sigh of relief. "I hope you're right, my lady. I really do hope that you're right." She shook her head. "When I wonder if we've been going about this all wrong for years, it all feels like such a waste."

Lady Belladonna laughed. "'A waste'?" she repeated, covering her mouth with one hand. "I'm sorry, but … to hear someone your age saying that, it does sound a little ridiculous, you must admit."

"I didn't think so," Gilda said, quietly and only slightly sullenly. "I was being serious."

"I think what Lady Belladonna's trying to say is that it's never too late to try and do things differently," Fluttershy murmured, putting a hand on Gilda's shoulder. "And in your case, you've hardly gotten started anyway."

"Well," Gilda muttered. "Are you worried about them? Dashie, and Blake? Are you worried about them in this battle that's raging?"

"Yes," Lady Belladonna admitted. "Very much so."

"But…" Fluttershy trailed off. "I don't know if Atlas has the greatest army in Remnant, but I do know that they're not alone. They're with Trixie and Starlight and Rarity and so many others, and they'll all take care of one another, so … so we have to have faith that they can make it through together."

"I hope you're right about that," Gilda murmured. She slowly climbed to her feet, rising like a tide. "When Adam was prepared to get on that train, I think he knew that he wasn't going to come back. He told me to command the Vale Chapter; only now … I'm not at all sure that I want to." She looked at Lady Belladonna. "I know that Blake and I weren't close, but I wish her well on her new path." She turned to Fluttershy. "I'm glad that I met you. And tell Dash that I'm sorry for everything I said back when." To Lady Belladonna, she added, "I didn't take her joining the Atlesian forces as well as you. I was kind of a pill about the whole thing."

"Why don't you tell her yourself?" Fluttershy asked. "I'm sure she'd like to hear it from you."

"I'm not so sure about that, considering," Gilda replied. "And besides, there's an airship full of White Fang cutthroats sitting on a docking platform, and I'm going to take care of them."

Lady Belladonna's eyebrows rose. "How many are we talking about?"

"Six," Gilda said.

"And only one of you?" Lady Belladonna asked. "That … doesn't sound very healthy."

"Like I said, my lady: live by the sword, die by the sword," Gilda said. "Someone has to take care of those people, or … I fear that they haven't been suffering the pangs of conscience the way I have. They'll just keep hurting people; someone has to—"

"Someone," Lady Belladonna said. "But not you, not alone. After all, isn't that the reason why you couldn't beat Blake? Because her Atlesian friends came to her aid? I think that's how they do things in the north kingdom: with numerical superiority. There are worse secrets to success than that, don't you think?"

Gilda frowned. "You're saying—"

"That there are a lot of people who can help deal with a small White Fang problem," Lady Belladonna said. "You don't have to face them alone."

"They're my team," Gilda said. "I freed them from the Valish because I couldn't just throw them aside—"

"Then why did you leave them on that airship and come here alone?" asked Lady Belladonna.

"Why did you just say that they have to stopped?" Fluttershy asked.

"Because they do," Gilda admitted. "The things that they say…" I mean, Woundwort hadn't implied what he wanted to do to Fluttershy and the others before I freed him. "I don't know whether it's the White Fang that's changed, or I've changed, or maybe neither of us have changed, and it's just that I didn't recognise the White Fang for what it really was, but … the thing that they belong to is not the thing that I belong to, or that I want to belong to. I don't want to hurt people just because we can, or because they're standing in our way. And they will hurt people; I … that much is clear to me now. They have to be stopped."

"And they will," Lady Belladonna said. "But that doesn't mean you have to stop them."

Gilda stared at her. "I tried to kill your daughter, and yet, you're so concerned about my life."

"I think Blake would be upset about your death," Lady Belladonna said.

"And I know that Rainbow would," Fluttershy added. "She'd much rather hear your apology in person."

Gilda snorted. "I'll bet she would."

"And besides," Lady Belladonna went on, "your parents are part of my people, on Menagerie, and that makes you one of my people also, in more ways than just as a faunus. I really don't want to have to tell your parents that you died, or that you were really part of the White Fang and you'd been lying to them this whole time." She smiled slyly. "I'd much rather bring you to see them on Menagerie, to tell them that part yourself. Don't worry, parents are very forgiving as a rule." She winked.

Gilda stared at her. What she had done, what she had tried to do, and yet … no anger? No rage? No revenge?

She was … she was…

Virtuous.

Gilda bowed her head. She did more than bow; she knelt down before her, amidst the debris and the battle scars.

"My lady," she murmured. "I will be yours, if you will have me. I'm not sure what you'd do with me if you did have me, but—"

"Oh, I'm sure we can find some uses for a brave faunus," Lady Belladonna said lightly. "More use than Sienna made of you, I hope, or better use, at least. More use than a dead girl, when so many have died already."

Gilda's eyes were wide as she looked into the eyes of Lady Belladonna. "You … you will not regret this, my lady."

"No," said Lady Belladonna. "No, I don't think I will." She picked herself up off the floor so that she was standing over Gilda once again. "Now, let's see if we can't take care of your ex-comrades safely, shall we?"

They were mostly Shade students.

That puzzled Gilda a little bit; she'd have kind of expected that they would be down fighting outside of Beacon with Dashie and Blake and … almost everyone else, it seemed like. The students from Atlas had gone down to fight at Beacon, in Vale, or on the field outside of Vale, but the Shade students — a lot of Shade students, anyway — were still here.

Gilda supposed that, with people being evacuated up onto the Amity Colosseum, it was important to have someone to stay behind to guard them all from … from people like her and the White Fang.

After all, if they hadn't been here, then some people up here might have found themselves in some trouble.

What was maybe more surprising was that these Shade students had leapt to on the word of an Atlesian Councillor to take care of some White Fang.

Gilda hadn't known many Vacuans; they didn't tend to end up in the White Fang, because it was said that in the Kingdom of Vacuo everyone was equal — if only in the sense that everyone was dirt poor, or sand poor, and stuck in the same leaky lifeboat together trying to survive. Not much of a life, if you asked her; it was one reason why Gilda had never felt tempted to move there, no matter how equal it was.

Anyway, that meant that you didn't find a lot of Vacuan faunus in the White Fang, at least not ones who had stayed in Vacuo. There was a Vacuo chapter, and its old-school methods of self-help for struggling faunus, soup kitchens, gun clubs, and militia for faunus communities was maybe a better model than what the White Fang had become in Atlas, Vale, or Mistral. But that meant they didn't get a lot of transfers leaving the Vacuo Chapter for cooler climes, or outsiders headed the other way. The few Vacuan White Fangers Gilda had met had all been … kind of like Blake, honestly: intellectual, conscientious, with a lot of thoughts in their heads about injustice and power structures.

They had also, unlike Blake, all hated Atlas as much or even more than any Atlesian faunus.

Maybe that was because those faunus born in Atlas or Mantle could name at least something they liked about Atlas, if only something small and maybe stupid like the fries from Snowburger or — Gilda's choice — Marigold chocolate, with that sickly taste you didn't get anywhere else. It was imperfect, to say the least, built on oppression and inequality, but it was still home to them, and even Adam had had a couple of fond memories.

For the Vacuans, not so much. They hated Atlas, and not just or even mostly because they were faunus, but because they were Vacuans, and the loathing was apparently pretty common even amongst Vacuans who weren't faunus. Atlas was the taker, the thief, the exploiter; Atlas was … everything that — sorry Dash, sorry Blake — Atlas really was, only without any fond memories of Atlas or Atlesians to soften things even a little bit.

Which made it a bit surprising that they were here, a bunch of Shade students moving in to surround the Bullhead where Gilda had left her…

Not her comrades any more. She had betrayed them. She had turned them in to Lady Belladonna and to the Atlesians.

For a good reason. For lots of good reasons, some of them — maybe even most of them — given to her by her former comrades themselves. They had been violent — not just violent but inclined to be indiscriminate about it, with lots of ideas for people that they'd like to hurt. What Woundwort had said … the fact that Ilia had spoken up against him didn't change the fact that no one else had, and on top of that, there was the enthusiasm they'd all shown for killing Lady Belladonna.

They were too dangerous to be allowed to do what they wanted. Left unchecked, they could hurt Lady Belladonna or Fluttershy or someone else.

Which meant Gilda shouldn't have let them out in the first place; she should have just let them rot in Valish custody.

Well, true, but you couldn't change the past because you knew better now.

Gilda had made the choices that she had, and some of those choices had been bad ones, God knew, but for better or for worse — and the more she thought about them, a lot of those choices seemed to have been for the worse — she'd made them.

She couldn't go back.

She couldn't save Adam, she couldn't save any of the poor souls who had died under Mountain Glenn, she couldn't stick Ilia back in her cell or the others back in Valish custody, she couldn't take back the things she'd said to Dashie, she couldn't change any of it. She couldn't go back.

All she could do was hope to do better in future.

That was why she was where she was, watching the Bullhead where she'd left the others, her former comrades whom she shouldn't have freed in the first place, but having freed them first, she could at least help capture them again second.

Like … it was a terrible thing to compare faunus to animals — it was the height of racism — but since none of them were dog faunus, Gilda felt that it was at least a bit un-racist to say that they were like wild and rabid dogs that needed to be chained up.

But hopefully not put down.

Gilda was not at the moment in the front rank of those surrounding the Bullhead, and a lot of that had to do with Lady Belladonna, who was glued to Gilda's side and wouldn't go back and so was making it really hard for Gilda to go forward as well.

As a result, because it would be a fine thing if the Lady of Menagerie and Blake's mom got hurt because she wouldn't leave Gilda's side, Gilda was standing near the back right now. The only person who was further to the rear than Gilda was the Atlesian captain in his robot armour, his whole body completely covered by it.

It looked weird. Weird, but at the same time kind of cool. Mind, it also looked slow as anything, which would be less than cool.

Impressive to look at, though.

Anyway, he was standing behind Gilda, along with Dashie's friend Applejack, the one with the cowboy hat and the lever rifle. In front of her were the Shade students, the Vacuans, whose presence Gilda was finding it hard to work out. What were they doing here? Why would they help out Atlas? Why would they do anything because an Atlesian councillor or officer had asked them to? Weren't they supposed to hate each other?

Yet here they were, eight Shade students surrounding the Bullhead ahead of Gilda and the Atlesian captain — Shining Armour, his name was — with swords and spears and bows all at the ready.

But why?

"Lien for your thoughts, Gilda?" Lady Belladonna asked.

"I've got a few thoughts, my lady," Gilda murmured. "But one of them is I'm trying to work out how your Atlas friends got a bunch of Shade students to listen to a word they say."

Lady Belladonna smiled. "Are you trying to understand what magic words they conjured to appeal to a group of Vacuans?"

Gilda let out a sort of wry, slightly embarrassed laugh. "Sort of, my lady."

"Would it surprise you to learn that there wasn't one?" asked Lady Belladonna. "Shining Armor here offered to pay them double the going rate for a huntsman, isn't that right, Captain?"

"Huntsmen are just mercenaries at the end of the day," Shining Armor said, and Gilda was pretty sure there was a note of scorn in his voice as he said it. "They have no loyalty but lien; they may not like Atlas, but they'll take our money all the same."

Gilda looked over her shoulder at him. "Aren't you a huntsman?" she asked.

"I'm a soldier," Shining Armor said, his voice echoing a little as it came out of his tin can.

Right. Right, the famous Atlesian Specialists. Were they all that scornful towards other huntsmen, or was it just him?

Was Blake that scornful towards all the other Beacon students?

Mind you, just because he sounded up himself didn't mean that he was wrong; a lot of huntsmen were just mercenaries, and they would do whatever they were paid to do, no matter the justice or injustice of it.

Mind you, that wasn't to say the Atlesian were always much better.

Should I just change my attitude towards them now?

No. Why should I? Just because I've realised that I wasn't always doing the right thing doesn't mean that they're right or ever were. I'm not Blake. You're not going to see me putting on one of those uniforms any time soon.

I don't want to stain my swords with indiscriminate blood anymore, but I fought for what I thought was right, and I'm not going to apologise for that or take back what I believe in.

"I think you do the profession a disservice," Lady Belladonna said softly. "But nevertheless, I think that we should be grateful that so many huntsmen are so mercenary in their motivations. If they weren't, if these Shade students needed to be driven by principle rather than lien, we might be in a spot of trouble, mightn't we?"

"Ah dare say we'd have made do, ma'am," Applejack said quietly.

"You might not have been able to stand behind me in that case," Gilda said, glancing Applejack's way. "You don't trust me, do you?"

"Should we trust you?" asked Shining Armor. "You're ex-White Fang."

"So's Blake," Gilda pointed out.

"Blake didn't quit the White Fang all of five minutes ago," Applejack pointed out. "And you ain't got Rainbow Dash vouchin' for ya. You was standin' over me with a sword just this afternoon."

"I vouch for her," Lady Belladonna said, putting a hand on Gilda's shoulder.

"Ah know, ma'am; that's the reason I ain't shot her yet," Applejack replied bluntly. "Ah ain't sure why you trust her, but … Ah'll go along with it."

Gilda turned her head away from the two Atlesians — the two Atlesians who could hardly be blamed for their attitude, all things considered — to Lady Belladonna. "She's got a point, my lady."

"Perhaps," Lady Belladonna allowed. "But…" She glanced at the two Atlesians behind her. "Why don't we say that ladies of my age are allowed to have their little foibles and leave it at that for now?"

Gilda nodded — half-bowed — her head. "Yes, my lady, if you like." She paused for a moment. "I … my lady, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, dear," Lady Belladonna said. "You can ask me anything you like."

"Have I betrayed the people in that airship?" Gilda asked. "Have I … am I a traitor?"

"Yes," Lady Belladonna said bluntly. "Is that even a question? Were you genuinely unsure of the answer?"

Gilda shuffled awkwardly in place, glancing down at her own feet and the deck of the Promenade beneath them. "Well … I was sort of hoping … that you would say something wise that would let me feel better about myself."

"Oh, well if you want to feel good about yourself," Lady Belladonna said, "you could start by looking at me."

Gilda looked up. Her eyebrows were raised, and her mouth was half-opened in a wince.

Lady Belladonna, on the other hand, looked almost amused. "You are a traitor," she said. "You are the definition of a traitor, you have betrayed your comrades—"

"Thank you, my lady," Gilda muttered.

"Just as Blake betrayed her comrades and the organisation to which she had pledged her loyalty," Lady Belladonna went on, all traces of amusem*nt falling from her voice. "Just as she betrayed you."

Gilda was silent for a moment, staring at Lady Belladonna. "You … your own daughter?"

"Yes," Lady Belladonna said. "My own daughter is a traitor, just like you. And you can say things like 'the White Fang betrayed me first' or that it betrayed the cause for which it claimed to be fighting, but those are only justifications; they don't fundamentally change the nature of the action." She paused for a moment. "But that's the point, isn't it? You are a traitor: you have betrayed, you have committed treason, but that treason can be justified. There are more important things than loyalty — to a bad cause, to bad comrades, and to betray those things … that can be a benevolent treason."

She smiled. "That is what Blake is, and what you are now: benevolent traitors, for whom loyalty came second to more important concerns."

"I'm not sure how Blake would feel to hear herself called that," Gilda said softly. She wasn't sure how she felt to hear herself described like that, to be honest, although she understood what Lady Belladonna meant, and understood that she was trying to help. "Thank you." Lady Belladonna hadn't exactly entirely put her mind at ease, but she'd given Gilda something to think about.

She'd given Gilda a way of thinking about it that … well, it made Gilda feel a little better. Or would do, once she'd had time to properly take it in.

Some things were more important than loyalty, like what Woundwort had wanted to do to Dashie's friends and how vile it was.

How this whole thing stank.

Some things were more important than being a good soldier who followed orders.

One of the Shade students turned away from the Bullhead and jogged towards them, passing Gilda and Lady Belladonna to approach the two Atlesians — or Shining Armor, at least — behind them. He was tall, with a tanned or dusky complexion — not as dark as some Atlesians could get, but not pale either — and dark brown hair, and a beard growing around his chin and mouth as far as his youth allowed, because he couldn't be much more than a couple of years older than Gilda even if he was an upperclassman. His hair, and his beard as much as possible, were worn in ringlets. They were oiled and perfumed too; Gilda could smell lavender and … something else, something harder to make out, or at least something that she didn't recognise. Pepper perhaps, and something stranger and unfamiliar to her nose. He wore a dark blue coat, with long billowing sleeves that draped off his arms, over a dark red, almost orange tunic trimmed with gold thread, and baggy green trousers. He had a bow slung across his back and a scimitar with a golden hilt worn on his hip, and in his hand, he carried a spear with a silver apple on the butt like a counterweight.

That spear rested on his shoulder as he walked towards Shining Armor and Applejack; he passed by Gilda and Lady Belladonna without acknowledgement, as though they didn't exist.

Pretty disrespectful, really.

"Alright, paymaster," he said, "how do you want to play this?"

Shining Armor spoke to Lady Belladonna, not to the Shade student. "I really wish you'd get back, ma'am."

"I think I'll be fine where I am," replied Lady Belladonna breezily, not moving at all.

Shining Armor didn't reply to that, because he finally spoke to the Shade student as he raised his rifle — in one hand — to aim it at the airship. "We'll give them a warning and a chance to come quietly; if they don't, we tear the ship apart with them inside."

The Shade student nodded. "Okay. Like I said, you're paying the bill, you call the tune. We'll act on your command." He paused. "I haven't seen anyone at the co*ckpit, but there is a chance that they already know we're out here."

"It doesn't matter if they know we're here or not; we haven't seen anyone leave the airship," Shining Armor replied. "And we've had the Bullhead surrounded, so they can't have left since we arrived. You did leave them all here, right?"

"I ordered them all to wait here until I got back," Gilda said.

That wasn't necessarily the same thing as them definitely all being here, but she hoped that it was, or that it would be. If any or all of them had gone, then … she couldn't say that it wasn't her fault, but she could say that if she'd taken them all with her, then things wouldn't have been going so well as they were now; it's not like any of them would have just stood there while she had a cosy chat with Lady Belladonna and Fluttershy.

And there hadn't been any sign of them anywhere else; if they had been loose in the Colosseum, then Gilda didn't think they would have been able to stay quiet and unnoticed.

If she was wrong about that … then it was just another decision that she couldn't change and that would have to be lived with and dealt with.

But with luck, they would all be here, right where she'd left them.

They'll probably think that I planned all of this. That I brought them here and told them to wait in the airship so that I could sell them out.

That doesn't make a ton of sense; why would I break them out just to get them caught again?

It doesn't make sense in the way that what I've done tonight doesn't make a ton of sense, so…

I guess the only question is, do I really care what they think?

No. No, I really don't.

"Okay then," the Shade student said. "Let me get back to my team, and then we're all ready to go."

He turned around and jogged lightly back the way that he'd come, to where his teammates waited on the one side of the Bullhead. Gilda could see one member of the other Shade team, some guy wearing a horned helmet, standing on the other side of the Bullhead, his other teammates out of sight behind the airship.

Shining Armor had his gun trained on the airship. He raised his voice, which still came out a little metallic as he shouted, "White Fang! This is Captain Shining Armor of the Atlesian military. We know you're in there. You have ten seconds to come out, lay down your weapons, and be taken into custody, or we will open fire."

There was no response. One second, two seconds, still nothing; three seconds, four seconds, the Bullhead was still and silent with no indication of anyone being in there at all. Five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds, Gilda wondered if there was anyone in there at all, if they had maybe all scarpered already, and she had completely misjudged their ability to keep quiet and not draw attention to themselves. Eight seconds, nine seconds, or maybe they were frantically discussing what to do.

Ten seconds.

Shining Armor fired, a pink beam streaking from the barrel of his big rifle to slam into the engine on their side of the Bullhead.

The engine exploded, the Shade students shielded their faces with their hands and cowered away from the explosion a little bit as the engine went up in flames and the airship tilted to one side, slamming down onto the docking platform with a groaning thud.

Flames flickered in the co*ckpit window as the engine continued to burn.

"That was your last warning!" Shining Armor shouted.

One second, two seconds, three seconds passed with no response, no movement from inside the airship.

"Team Cunaxa, move in," Shining Armor ordered.

The Shade team had gotten as far as taking a collective step forward when the door to the Bullhead opened.

It didn't open all the way, because the way that the airship had fallen when Shining Armor had destroyed the engine meant that it couldn't, the lower door was jammed and couldn't drop down properly, but the top door could still open, and the whole thing could open enough that her former White Fang comrades — the people that she had betrayed, although Lady Belladonna had called it a benevolent treason — could come out, even if some of them had to duck to do it.

Woundwort, Savannah, Ryl, and Trifa emerged with their hands up, trooping past the burning engine towards the waiting Shade students.

"That's close enough," said the one who had spoken to Shining Armor earlier as he pointed his apple-butt spear at them. "One at a time, and we'll get you restrained. You first, big fellow."

Woundwort walked forward. He didn't look at the Shade students as he moved; he didn't even look at Shining Armor or Applejack. He only looked at Gilda, his eye fixed on her.

All their eyes were fixed on her. Glaring at her with eyes that would have killed if they could.

"Xeno, put the cuffs on him," ordered the Shade student, who Gilda thought must be the leader of this Team Cunaxa going by the way that he was giving the orders.

Xeno, a horse faunus with hooves instead of feet, wearing a red travelling cloak that covered most of his chest and hid whatever he might be wearing underneath, stepped forward; his hooves clip-clopped on the floor of the promenade.

There was no sign of Ilia or Yuma, no sign of anyone else coming out of the airship.

"There should be two more," Gilda said.

"Eeyup," Applejack confirmed. "The one with the bat wings and the one with that darn lightning whip."

"Yuma and Ilia," Gilda said. She looked at Lady Belladonna. "Wait here, my lady."

Lady Belladonna hesitated, but nodded. "Alright," she said. She even took a step backwards.

Gilda, on the other hand, walked forwards. So did Applejack, trailing only a step behind her as Gilda strode towards her former comrades, the people that she had led up here twice now and gotten captured twice, once more intentionally than the other.

The Shade student Xeno had already put the cuffs on Woundwort, who was on his knees — even on his knees, he was still about as big as most people standing up — and Trifa was now coming forward, holding her hands out to be restrained.

As Gilda approached, her lips curled back into a sneer. "Traitor."

Gilda's face twitched, but she didn't argue it; Lady Belladonna had made it clear that there wasn't much point; it couldn't be argued with.

"Where are they?" she demanded.

Trifa spat in her face, a glob of white saliva slamming into Gilda's cheek.

Gilda didn't wipe it away. She let it stay there, a mark on her face, slowly trickling downwards. "Ilia and Yuma," she said. "Where are they?"

"What makes you think I'll tell you anything?" Trifa growled as Xeno put the restraints around her wrists. "What makes you think that I'll help a house faunus sc—"

Gilda growled wordlessly; one of her hands shot out and grabbed Trifa by the neck, picking her up off the ground so that her feet kicked the air as she squirmed in Gilda's grip.

She had already been restrained, her aura was negated; when Gilda squeezed her neck, she really felt it.

She made a choking, gasping sound as she pawed at Gilda's arm with both her cuffed hands.

"Gilda," Applejack said warningly. "Put her down."

"You know what I think?" Gilda asked. "I think if you were all that willing to die for the cause, you would have come out of the airship swinging. I think you might not want to talk to me, but you'll talk if I dangle you over the side of the docking platform, won't you?"

Applejack took a step forward and put one hand on Gilda's arm. It was already a strong grip, with hints that it could get stronger if required.

"Easy now," Applejack said, calmly, softly almost. "Put her down."

Gilda glanced at her. "Why?"

"Because we're the good guys," Applejack said. "Which means we have to act like it."

Gilda huffed. "That sounds like the sort of thing Dashie would say," she muttered. "Or Blake."

Applejack shrugged. "Blake would use fancier words, Ah think."

Gilda snorted. "Yeah," she agreed. "Yeah, she probably would."

She let Trifa go. The White Fang operative hit the floor with a thump, clutching at her neck with both hands as she gasped for breath.

There was red around her eyes as she stared up at Gilda.

"Why?" she demanded.

Gilda didn't bother to answer her. Unlike Blake, she didn't have the words to make her betrayal sound grand and noble, she didn't have the silver tongue to spin a tale of heroism, nobility and justice like something halfway out of a storybook. She could make her betrayal sound great and glorious because she could tell such a story around it that the actual betrayal kind of got lost in the shuffle. If Gilda tried that, if she tried to answer Trifa, she'd just end up saying that it didn't feel right anymore, and so she'd done what felt right instead.

But while that might have been true — it was true, and she felt better because of it, like a load taken off her shoulders — it didn't sound very good. It sounded selfish, even if it wasn't, and Gilda didn't know how to make it sound less.

So she just ignored the question, walking past Trifa and the others towards the Bullhead. With no sign of Yuma or Ilia, it was most likely that they had slipped out at some point between Gilda leaving — either because they didn't trust her or because they thought they knew better than her — but there was the possibility that they could be hiding in the Bullhead, waiting for everyone to assume that they'd already slipped out, and then, when everyone spread out to search for them, they would then slip out and get up to mischief.

It wasn't the likeliest option, but she had to be sure, and so she walked past the burning engine — and past Savannah and Rill too — and tucked her wings up against her back as she ducked down and crept inside the Bullhead.

It was empty; there was no sign of either Ilia or Yuma inside. There was no one in the main compartment where she'd left them all, and no one in the co*ckpit either when Gilda climbed in there.

Applejack had come in with her, holding onto her hat with one hand, and her green eyes darted around, seeing the same nothing that Gilda could see.

She muttered something under her breath, so quietly that Gilda couldn't hear it.

Then she turned and walked out, making it Gilda's turn to follow.

"They ain't here," Applejack said, as she emerged from out of the Bullhead. "They must have gone before we got here."

She was right. They had, for whatever reason, decided that they didn't want to stick around. Or they didn't all want to stick around. So, after Gilda had gone, they had left some of the others in the Bullhead while those two had gone … where?

That was the question, wasn't it?

They could be anywhere.

XxXxX​

"Why isn't it working?" asked Lady Soojin, looking up from her scroll.

"It's … just a temporary glitch, dear," said her mother, Kiyoh, Lady Wong. "I'm sure it will come back soon. Maybe not tonight, but soon."

Hippolyta Nikos wondered whether Kiyoh believed that or not. For her own part, although she would not contradict Kiyoh's attempt to reassure her daughter, she doubted that it would be so simple.

She had not walked around the circumference of the arena to confirm it, but she suspected that something had happened to the CCT tower, some damage inflicted by the grimm, perhaps the great grimm that had sent their protectors of Team JAMM scarpering off on their airship in a quixotic endeavour.

If that was so, then the network, the whole network, would be down all across Remnant until the damage could be repaired.

They were cut off. Marooned, all connection to Mistral severed.

In Mistral, they were no doubt wondering what had happened, why their link to Vale had suddenly gone dead, and wondering what was becoming of Pyrrha and all of Mistral's gallant sons and daughters while they waited in their homes, far off, yearning for news that would not reach them for … well, that depended on how long it took to repair the damage. It could take days, it could take weeks, it could take so long that it was quicker to send an old-fashioned courier to Mistral with word.

So long that the first word of the outcome of the battle would be borne by its survivors, the Haven students coming home with their scars and tales, just as the first news of Lagune's defeat and the final death of Mistral's hopes against the faunus had been borne by the panicked soldiers who had fled the rout and sought the safety of Mistral's walls.

But then, although the people knew that Lagune had marched out at the head of a great host intending to seek battle, they did not know that the battle had begun until it was already ended; folk in Mistral today would know that there was a battle, but now, with the link between the kingdoms severed, they would not know who had won or at what cost the outcome had been purchased until long after the issue was decided, one way or another.

Hippolyta thought that perhaps the people of old had been more fortunate in their greater ignorance.

If fortune was kind, the Haven students would bring news not of a rout but of a victory, but even if fortune was good to Mistral, she was unlikely to be so good that it would be a victory without cost. Somewhere in Mistral or the wide lands of Anima that lay beneath its sway, the howls of mourning would be raised; the black shrouds would be donned; the hair, beards, garments all torn and left to hang ragged off trembling limbs. Perhaps the knock might come even at the door of some great house, and some family as old as Mistral would find that its shoots had been cut off and only ancient roots remained to wither on the vine.

But not yet, for first they must fret and fear and wait for news that had not yet come.

Just as Hippolyta herself must.

Her sympathy for the people of Mistral in their plight of waiting was somewhat diminished by her own situation, for what did she do here but fret and fear and wait while the battle raged, though it raged ever so close compared to all those in Mistral now waiting for news? Yet she was as ignorant as they, as blind as they, as unable as they were to say if Pyrrha lived, or what she did, or if Miss Shimmer lived or fought or where she was, or even if Mister Arc was still amongst the living or if Pyrrha's heart had been broken so young.

She had no way of knowing. She was a field of lack of knowledge over which hope and fear, pride and despair, fought like phalanxes pushing against one another, first one side prevailing, then the other rallying to drive back their foe, just so did Hippolyta's feelings ebb and flow within her breast while she waited and wondered and knew nothing.

Pyrrha was her only child, the last of her house, the last of her line; Hippolyta had not always thought it would be so: when she had been with child, even as she struggled up and down the stairs with bulging belly until at last she could struggle no more and had taken to her bed while all her maids attended on her, despite all that discomfort, Hippolyta had dreamed of other children. She had hoped for at least one more girl — she had liked Cassandra for a name, or Briseis — and for a son, who would resemble his father in looks. It was not to be. When Pyrrha had been born, Hippolyta had felt so tired, so drained, like a lake with all the water dried up; she had known that she would never bear another child. All her strength had gone into Pyrrha, along with all her hopes and her ambitions and all the general hopes and expectations of her line.

They hung upon a scarlet thread.

Pyrrha was a great warrior; she had demonstrated it before her mother's very eyes, in this very arena, with her victory. Her crowning triumph, the victory of which Hippolyta had dreamed and towards which she had pushed Pyrrha for so many years. And yet tonight, how vain and how vainglorious did such ambition seem? No doubt it would seem less so in the morning if Pyrrha returned victorious, safe and sound and living still, then no doubt would all Hippolyta's pride return like a river, once contained by a dam, released rushes once more in full spate through its course towards the ocean.

But if Pyrrha did not return…

Pyrrha was a great warrior, but the grimm were so numerous, and so numerous too were the stories of heroes felled at the height of their glory. Hippolyta had never believed Pyrrha to be invincible, despite her name; that was why she had given Miss Shimmer Soteria and bade her stand by Pyrrha's side, but where was Miss Shimmer now?

Where were any of them? Living still? Or had their limbs dissolved in cold and their spirits fled down to the shades?

What news would come?

And when would it come?

That my blood, that our high blood, that the blood of so many Mistralians great and small, and the blood of those dear to me and dearer to my daughter should be hazarded for Vale. For Vale! This place of proud pot-bellied merchants, this place of upstarts, this place of interfering self-righteous busybodies who love to wag their fingers, this place devoid of history or dignity that has so often sought to thwart and frustrate us, for this place, for Vale, we should risk our daughters, hopes, futures all things thrown into the path of destruction to save Vale.

If Pyrrha lives, I shall take her away from here. She cannot stay in Vale with the CCT down and all contact between the kingdoms severed. I will not suffer it, no matter how she sulks and storms and argues with me. I shall take Miss Shimmer too, and Mister Arc, and even that new Team Leader Miss Polendina if she will come.

All save Miss Rose, who is welcome to remain here and stew in her Valish sense of righteous indignation.

If Pyrrha lives, then she cannot stay here, suddenly so far away from home.

If…

"M'lady?" Hestia murmured, even those soft words intruding into Hippolyta's thoughts. "Forgive me, m'lady, but you seemed a thousand miles away."

"'A thousand miles'?" Hippolyta repeated. "Nay, Hestia, my thoughts did not gallop so far; they fly only a few furlongs beyond the wall at most."

"Of course, m'lady," Hestia said. She fell silent for a moment, before she dared to add, "If I may, m'lady, the gods would not be so cruel as to raise the young mistress to the height of her glory and cast her down to the underworld all in a single night."

Hippolyta was no great believer, but if she had been, she would have thought that such an action would indeed have touched the humour of the gods; it might even have seemed to them a just exchange, knowing that Pyrrha was soon to die, to grant her the glory of a tournament triumph first.

"Let us hope that you are right," she said.

"Well, well, what have we here?"

The voice that came to Hippolyta's ears was an unpleasant one; not grating, but too sibilant, too sickly sweet, like honeyed fruit with too much honey, or a treacle pudding slathered in too much sauce. Too much sweetness would upset the stomach, and in that way, this voice upset her ears.

She shuffled around, her stick tapping on the floor of the promenade as she faced this intruder to their company. She did not think that she had recognised the voice, and now that she saw him, she did not recognise the voice: a man, younger than she — at least, he looked younger, which was no great accomplishment — but older than her daughter, tall, with a build that Hippolyta would describe as fit rather than muscular; he had orange-brown hair combed back from his forehead — something he would regret once his hairline started to recede — and spiked upwards like the crest of a helmet. And he was a faunus, a bat faunus, with a pair of black, leathery wings sprouting from out of his back, half-unfurled on either side of him.

Hippolyta did not recognise him from the tournament, and in any case, he looked too old to compete. Although there was such a thing as a mature student, she supposed.

A glance behind her confirmed that all the Wongs had noticed this man's arrival also, all of them looking at him with varying degrees of surprise upon their faces.

Not someone known to them, then.

Hippolyta grasped the handle of her stick with both hands and said, "Well, well, what have we here indeed, sir. May we help you in some fashion?"

The man tilted his head a little to one side. "I recognise you," he said. "You are the Mistralian ambassador to Vale, aren't you? Lord Wong, isn't that what they call you?" His gaze turned to Hippolyta. "And you … I haven't been in Mistral for a while, but you … you're Councillor … no, that was years ago, but you are the head of the House of Nikos, aren't you? Heir to the vacant throne of Mistral?" He smiled, a rather ugly smile, too sharp, like a knife. "Oh, this is excellent."

"You know who we are, but who are you?" demanded Kiyoh.

The man took a step towards them. "I am the wrath of the downtrodden," he declared. "I am vengeance from on high. I am the instrument of the God of Animals, sent to deliver you down to the shades."

"You are White Fang," muttered Yichen Wong, Lord Wong.

The man did not reply but continued to bear down upon them. He spread his dark wings out on either side.

Hippolyta took one hand off the handle of her cane and gripped instead the ebony shaft. With her other hand, she altered her grip on the handle, the hilt, as she drew the sword concealed within the ebony cane.

A sword cane was something of an affectation; there were many who said that you would never be able to draw the blade in time if you should need it, and in any case, why not wear a sword upon your hip, openly, as a deterrent?

For Hippolyta's part, a sword on the hip would be too great a weight upon her side, and the sight of an old woman with a cane yet wearing a sword would be ridiculous, a vanity indeed from one whose youth and strength had all deserted her.

Whereas a sword concealed within a cane … it was true that she would not have been surprised to never make use of it, but there was no harm to her in having it present, as a last resort. The blade was slender but sharp, and it glimmered under the lights that shone from the promenade ceiling.

Hippolyta held the empty cylinder of her cane in the other hand, to parry or to strike with it. Her leg protested in pain at having to bear her weight unaided, but its protestations were, as yet, weak and possible to ignore.

The man scoffed. "You know, old crone, in Mistral, you are thought a freak, turned old before your time, and feeble too. Since you look old, accept your fate with a grandmother's dignity and don't humiliate yourself with a pathetic attempt at defiance."

"'Old crone'?" Hippolyta growled. "Yes, I am grown old before my time, my strength passed to my daughter whom you would not dare approach if she were here. But I am yet a daughter also, a daughter of the House of Nikos, descended of Pyrrha the Third and Second of that name, of Hippolyta the Fifth and of the first Hippolyta who gave our line the name of Nikos. And I would shame them all, and all my other ancestors in long line besides, were I to lie down and die without a fight."

The man cracked his knuckles. "Your daughter," he said, "will find you dead, alongside Mistral's ambassador, his wife and little daughter too, and all of Mistral will know that justice will find you, be you ever so high and wealthy and powerful. All the faunus will rejoice, and all the humans of Mistral will tremble."

I doubt the faunus of Mistral know who I am, Hippolyta thought. Although this fellow seems to remember me from my time on the Council.

But that was some time ago, before Pyrrha was born. He cannot have been more than a child.

No matter, he means to kill me in any case, and he is not wrong that it would cause alarm in some quarters.

No doubt he will kill Hestia too, as well as the Wongs. Unless he wishes to leave a witness.

"Lord and Lady Wong, Yichen, Kiyoh," Hippolyta said. "I thank you for the hospitality you have shown me during my visit here."

If she wished to do more than make a shriek of defiance as she perished, then she would need to be quick about it; when she said that her strength had passed into Pyrrha, she had not been speaking wholly metaphorically: the doctors told her with some shock that her aura levels had dropped dramatically after giving birth — although it had first diminished after her injury, never quite recovering to its previous levels. Her body would not stand up to a prolonged contest, and she would wager much of her family's wealth that her aura would break long before his did.

Her aura had never healed the damage to her leg, and that injury had gotten worse more quickly, like a stone gathering speed as it rolls downhill.

At any rate, it felt worse.

But she could yet stand unaided, for at least a time.

And in that time, perhaps she could show why she had once been known as the Flashing Blade.

Hippolyta would have liked to have closed her eyes a moment, but she dared not, not with this foe in front of her. So she kept her eyes fixed upon him as she whispered, "I would not be shamed."

Those were the words on her honour band, given to her by her father many years ago now. She did not wear the band — it would have seemed another affectation from a freak grown old before her time — but she recalled the words yet.

They were as true now as they had ever been. She would not be shamed.

The man charged at her, a snarl disfiguring his face as he clenched his hands into fists. "Perish, old bloods of Mistral!" he shouted. "Make way for a new world!"

He leapt up, head almost touching the ceiling above, and his wings held him aloft for a moment, poised to descend upon Hippolyta like a thunderbolt.

Hippolyta breathed slowly, in and out, as she concentrated much of her meagre store of aura in her sword arm.

With what remained, she activated her semblance.

One moment, Hippolyta stood before her enemy, the only shield of the Wongs and of her servant.

The next moment, she was behind him, hovering in the air as though she had been borne diagonally upwards, past and over him.

With all the strength that remained at her command, she slashed at him with the slender blade of her sword cane.

And fortune was good to her.

His aura broke. A wound appeared across his midriff. He cried out in pain as he fell to the floor, wings limp on either side of him. He hit the ground, half-rolled onto his side, and lay there, covered by one wing, clutching his wounded stomach.

Hippolyta fell too, a red light rippling over her as her aura broke. She plummeted like a rock dropped from a height, and could not contain the cry of agony that ripped from her as she hit the ground.

She screamed, undignified though it was, because it felt worse than when the blade had shattered her aura and ended her tournament career for good. If nothing else, the pain was in both legs this time, and both legs felt unusable, the pain spreading as far north as her knees. She was on all fours like a crawling babe and could not rise.

That brief exertion had been sufficient to bring out sweat on her face, and trickling down her arms as she lay there, gasping for breath.

"My lady!" Hestia cried as she rushed to Hippolyta's side. "My lady, let me help you—"

Hippolyta held up one hand to forestall her. "First, find some aid to remove that brute from our presence; I doubt that any of us wishes his further company. A student huntsman or huntress, an Atlesian soldier, someone. Offer money, if you must." Her travelling funds should be sufficient to cover it, even without the ability to draw out more with the CCT network down.

Hestia nodded, but said, "Are you sure, m'lady?"

Hippolyta nodded, though it was a weary nod. "I will not die just yet," she declared. "I have no intention of Pyrrha finding me a corpse. That would be the height of absurdity, no? That Pyrrha should come home safe and sound from the battle and find me dead in this supposed place of safety. No. No, I will endure until your return."

"Very well, m'lady, Hestia said. She got up and began to move away, but before she did, she turned back to Hippolyta. "Congratulations, ma'am, upon your victory."

My victory?

My victory.

The thought brought a smile to Hippolyta's face, despite the pain, as Hestia ran off to fetch someone to deal with the disabled enemy behind her.

XxXxX​

Twilight had found the controls.

She was deep within the bowels of the Amity Arena. It felt — it was — so quiet down here, with only the deep bass humming of the engines rising up from the bowels of the arena for company. She couldn't hear anything else. No grimm, no fighting, nothing.

Being down here, in this dark room that remained dark even with all the lights on, a lot of black shadows looming in the edges of the walls, it was almost possible to forget that there was a battle raging outside and in Vale; almost possible to forget that Rainbow and Blake and so many others were fighting for their lives and for Vale beyond the walls.

Almost, but not quite. No matter how quiet it was in here, no matter how cut off it was from the rest of the world, no matter how much Remnant's problems seemed to have melted away, she couldn't forget it. She couldn't forget the immense battle raging, couldn't forget about the grimm hordes, couldn't forget about the danger.

All of that was the reason she was down here in the first place, after all, but even if it hadn't been, it wouldn't have been possible for her to forget the fact that two of her friends were … that they might…

Twilight closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. She couldn't think about that; she couldn't let herself obsess over it. She had a job to do. Rainbow and Blake were doing their part; now, she had to do hers and move this arena out of the way, over Vale where it was safer.

That was why she was here, in the control room. It was a round chamber, with only one entrance — directly behind her; Twilight had her back to the door — and a large hole in the centre of the room that, if Twilight was right about the design of the arena and the location of this chamber, led into the main dust reactor itself.

So not the kind of place that you would like to fall down. Luckily, there was a rail between her and the drop. Twilight guessed that the reason the hole was there at all was because the light coming up from the reactor would show there was something wrong as efficiently as any warning or diagnostic system.

Not that there weren't those too; this control panel — a big metallic slab sitting at a forty-five degree angle right in front of the hole in the floor — was certainly not short on controls, indicators, measurements, and anything else that you could think of. There was a lot of data being presented here, and a lot of options.

So many options that, for a newcomer, it had the potential to be a little confusing.

Twilight imagined that there was a pretty steep learning curve to working here.

That was why she hadn't even tried to move the Colosseum yet; she'd just been checking what all of these controls did, what all of these indicators told her, what all of these lights — flashing or otherwise — meant, what it all added up to, because the last thing she wanted was to start pushing buttons on an unfamiliar console and 'move the arena' by dropping it out of the sky.

But at this point, she felt like she was starting to get to grips with it.

If Twilight was reading all of this right — and she thought she was — then there wasn't currently enough power to move the Amity Arena.

Partly, that was because the main reactor was only running at eighty-six percent efficiency, which seemed a little low to her — someone should probably check that out once things quietened down — but more than that, as far as she could tell, it was because too many other arena systems were on with the Colosseum currently still in, for want of a better way of putting it, tournament mode, and the arena wasn't designed to be able to run all systems at once.

As a design philosophy, that was less than ideal, but from the practical standpoint of this being the largest free-standing reactor in the whole of Remnant — even the reactors that powered the gravity engines that kept Atlas afloat were not, one to one, as big as the power source for the Amity Arena — and one which already used as much dust every day as the entire city of Vacuo, it was understandable that there had to be some limits.

And who would expect that the Arena would need to move anywhere while the tournament was ongoing?

But there was a simple solution to all of this, and Twilight now felt confident enough in what she was doing to start pushing the relevant buttons.

She turned off the power to the stage, to the biomes, and to the stadium, which would now go dark since there was nothing keeping the lights on. She turned off the power to the boxes and to the upper-level kitchens that catered to them.

That was probably not everything that was intended to be turned off before the arena was moved anywhere, but she wasn't about to start cutting power to the promenade or the interior when there were so many people still in the Colosseum.

If there was enough juice to get the engines to fire, that would be enough for her. It wasn't as though she was trying to fly Amity all the way back to Atlas like this, after all; she only wanted to nudge it a little bit.

If the engines were coughing and spluttering all the while, then so be it. It would only be temporary.

She pushed the button to turn on the lateral thrusters.

There was a pause, then there was a deep groan from down in the depths of the arena as the whole of the Colosseum trembled.

O-kay; clearly, I didn't save quite enough power from elsewhere.

But hold it together, okay; it's only temporary.

The lack of warning lights or screaming alarms, and the fact that the groaning of the engine didn't get any worse, told Twilight that though the engine might not like this, it wasn't in danger of exploding or shorting out any time soon.

That was good. That was very good.

I think we might be in business.

A slight smile crossed Twilight's face.

Now to set direction.

Twilight's fingers moved rapidly, setting the correct direction: westward, away from Beacon and over Vale.

With a single push of a button, she activated the thrusters.

Once more, the whole arena shook, shaking to the left this time, almost trembling Twilight off her feet as the engines stirred to life, pushing against the weight of the immense arena.

She could feel the strain, feel the engines pushing and the whole arena itself resisting, feel everything around her shuddering as shockwaves of force ran through it.

And then, slowly at first, gradually building up momentum, the arena began to move; Twilight could feel it moving, feel the direction in which she was being pushed change, feel the arena shake with motion beneath her feet. The very sound of the reactor changed.

It's working.

It's working!

Twilight clapped her hands together.

Now, I just need to—

The door opened behind her with a hydraulic hiss.

Twilight turned. She saw someone silhouetted in the doorway, with the light of the corridor behind her, but before she could work out who it was, they were already on her.

Their first punch slammed into Twilight's gut hard enough to make her double over, a gasp of breath leaping out of Twilight's mouth as she clutched at her stomach with both hands. She felt strong hands grab her hair, yanking her head up as a second punch, straight to the nose, sent her head snapping backwards as her aura flared. Twilight groaned in pain as she was back-handed hard enough to topple over and land on the floor, her glasses flying off her face.

Before Twilight could even think of reaching for them, she was grabbed by the neck and hauled up off her feet, where whoever it was hit her again, another blow across the face.

Without her glasses, it was hard to make out the face of her attacker, except that they were a girl, a woman. They looked very red; that was the main thing that Twilight could see, redness.

Redness and a ponytail.

"You're Twilight Sparkle, right?" her attacker growled. "I recognise you from TV. You're on the same team as Rainbow Dash, which means you're one of her friends, which means you're one of Blake's friends. Which means that when I take you with me, they'll come after you, and then I can kill them both."

"Ilia! Let her go!"

XxXxX​

Their feet pounded on the floor as Gilda and Applejack ran down the corridors.

Nobody had been willing to tell Gilda where Ilia — or Yuma — had gone, but they had found Yuma after some Mistralian maid or something said that her mistress had just taken care of a bat faunus who had tried to attack them. Honestly? Good for her, whoever she was; that guy was a real creep. Whatever happened to Gilda next, at least she would never have to hear him call her 'sister Gilda' in that stupid voice again.

Seriously, he sounded like was auditioning to play bad guys in cartoons.

That left Ilia. And someone — another Shade student, one who hadn't been hired by Shining Armor — had seen her headed inside, into the recesses of the arena.

And so, Gilda and Applejack had followed her.

Not followed her exactly, because the inside of this place was big, but Applejack had said that their friend Twilight was down here working, so they were going to check on her. Just in case.

Gilda wasn't sure how Ilia would or could know she was here, but if she found her, then … things could go badly for Twilight.

Gilda had never liked Twilight. She was Dashie's first human friend, the one who had lifted her out of their shared Low Town existence and carried Rainbow up to Atlas, which had been reason enough for Gilda to resent her. She'd resented her when she came down to visit Rainbow in Low Town, and she'd resented all the more when Twilight had condescended — at least, that was how Gilda had seen it at the time — to invite Gilda to come up and visit her in Atlas.

Looking back, she'd probably been trying to get thrown out of the house, but it had been something else to be annoyed about at the time. Something else to dislike Twilight for. Something else to be angry at Rainbow for not taking her side about.

Yeah, she'd been … she hadn't handled things very well back then.

Which meant that if they could get to her before Ilia did—

Too late. The two of them rounded the corner, and there, at the end of the metallic corridor, was an open door into a dark room of some kind, a room with a big control panel and some kind of big hole in the middle, it looked like.

Why you'd put a big hole in the middle of the floor like that, railing or not, Gilda couldn't begin to guess.

More importantly, Ilia was there, clearly visible through the doorway, and she had Twilight Sparkle by the neck.

Applejack skidded to a halt, raising her rifle to her shoulder.

"Ilia!" Gilda shouted. "Let her go!"

Ilia turned to look at them.

Applejack fired.

Ilia flinched, half-ducking but not losing her grip on Twilight; the shot didn't seem to hit her, she didn't act like she'd been shot; Gilda guessed that Applejack's aim had been thrown off by trying to avoid hitting Twilight.

Now, Ilia swung around, bringing Twilight between her and Gilda and Applejack. She peered around her hostage. Gilda could only see a bit less than half her face.

She could only see one eye, but that eye was wide and burned with anger.

"Gilda?" she cried. "What are you doing with her? With one of them?" She gasped. "Are you with them? Have you always been with them? Was this your plan all along, to—?"

"No," Gilda said, taking a step forward. "No, it wasn't my plan. You made it my plan when you couldn't hold back, any of you."

"You decided to betray us because we made you uncomfortable?"

"I decided to betray you because I don't want to do this anymore!" Gilda snapped. "I don't want to kill, I don't want to fight my friends, I don't want to hate people who are trying their best, like Rainbow, like Blake—"

"Don't talk to me about Blake!" Ilia yelled. "This … this why she has to die, don't you see that?! This is why they both have to die, because they confuse people, they corrupt them, they make them think that—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, enough with yer yappin'!" Applejack said. "Put Twilight down right now, or you and I can go round two without all your pals backin' you up."

"It's over, Ilia," Gilda said. "Everyone else has been captured again. There's no way out of here."

Ilia blinked. "No way out," she repeated. "No way out." She closed her eyes. "Play up, play up, and play the game."

"Ilia," Gilda said. "Just—"

"Long live the White Fang!" Ilia yelled as she threw Twilight into the hole in the centre of the room.

Twilight shrieked as she fell, arms and legs flailing.

Gilda leapt, her wings spreading out as far as the cramped corridor would allow, kicking off the floor and, if not soaring, then sort of flying anyway. She flew through the open doorway, gaining height as the chamber broadened out around her, dodging Ilia's lash — she'd leave her for Applejack — and flying over her and over the deep pit in the centre of the room.

The pit into which Twilight was falling, and screaming as she fell.

Gilda dived. Her wings beat furiously. All objects fell at the same speed, or something like that, so Gilda had to fly if she was going to fall faster than Twilight. Her wings beat up and down, up and down, up and down, even while Gilda went straight down, down, down, plunging into this pit of darkness that led to where? Who in Remnant thought this was a good idea for a room?

Without her birdlike night vision, she would have been lost, but with it, she could still see Twilight, up ahead, flailing wildly.

She was getting closer.

And a good thing too, because there was something else up ahead too, with a kind of nasty glow that Gilda would rather avoid.

She beat her wings even faster. They were starting to ache from the rapid motion, but she had to go faster.

Down and down Gilda flew, accelerating all the while, gaining on Twilight, getting closer to her than Twilight — or her, for that matter — was getting to the glow.

She flew down and down until she was below Twilight, and only then did Gilda spread her wings out to slow down, holding out her hands to sweep Twilight up in her arms as they began to climb upwards.

She flew more slowly up, partly because she was carrying the extra weight, but also because she was kind of tired from the rapid descent. She would need to pace herself a little bit more on the way back up.

"Gilda?" Twilight asked, squinting her purple eyes. "Gilda, is that you?"

"Yeah," Gilda said. "Yeah, it's me. I've got you. And I'm going to get you back up top too, eventually."

"But … why?" Twilight asked. "I thought … I mean, didn't you—?"

"Yes," Gilda said. "Whatever it is, I probably did it, so you don't need to say it. I … like I told Ilia, I don't want to be that person anymore."

"I … I see," Twilight murmured.

"Really?"

"No, not really," Twilight admitted. "What changed?"

"Nothing," Gilda said. "Everything. Something. I don't know. Lady Belladonna … helped me listen to my conscience. Or she was my conscience. Or she was there at the right time. There for me."

There was a pause, before Twilight said, "Rainbow will be glad to hear that?"

"Yeah?" Gilda asked. "Listen, Twilight … sorry I was such a—"

"It's okay."

"You don't even know what it was yet!"

"Whatever it was, it's okay," Twilight said. "So you don't need to say it." She smiled. "Whatever it was, saving my life probably makes us even, don't you think?"

Gilda laughed. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'd hope so anyway."

Gradually, she carried Twilight back up to the top of the pit, where she found Applejack waiting — and Ilia, on the floor but alive.

"You got her!" Applejack yelled, and no sooner had Gilda set Twilight down on the floor than Applejack had pulled her into a hug. Applejack looked at Gilda over Twilight's shoulder. "Thanks. Ah owe you."

"You don't owe me nothing," Gilda replied. She leaned around Applejack to look at Ilia. "You didn't kill her, then?"

"Like Ah told ya," Applejack said. "We're the good guys."

"Right," Gilda murmured. "The good guys."

And so am I.

I hope so, anyway.

Sunset stared at it. So far away and yet so large. How huge was it? What did it look like up close?

She wasn't sure that she really wanted to know the answer to that.

A dragon. A grimm dragon, she was almost certain, even at this distance. A real dragon would have been almost as bad, or perhaps even worse, but she was certain — as certain as she could be, at any rate — that this was a grimm. It was too black, and too white besides, to be anything else, a dragon — at least the dragons of Equestria — would not be so mismatched in its colour scheme.

A dragon. A grimm dragon. Sunset had seen the bones in Mistral when Pyrrha had brought them there, but she hadn't really thought about what they might mean, that just as you had beowolves and ursai sprung out of wolves and bears, so, too, you could have … this.

Sunset stared at it, rooted to the spot not with fear — it made her nervous to see such a thing, but it was as yet too far away to be truly scary, at least too far to induce the kind of fear that would hold her in place — but with a sort of hopelessness. What could she do against something that size? What would she be but a light aperitif for it? What power of hers could match such size, and the strength that would go along with it? When it drew near, and she beheld in all its gargantuan size and truly comprehended her insignificance by comparison, what power could she set against it?

What, then, was the point? What could she do, where could she go?

What move could she make that would make the slightest bit of difference?

There was a light. A bright, brilliant white light, closer to her than the dragon by far. It was Weiss' ghostly beowolf, and Weiss herself upon its back, as it leapt over the shattered gates and into the grounds of the power plant.

The summoned, spectral beowolf bounded across the open, tarmacked space towards Sunset, turning aside at the last minute and coming to a brisk halt before her. Weiss leapt from the beowolf's back, and the ghostly form began to dissolve, just as a grimm itself might, leaving nothing behind it but wisps of white ectoplasm that floated through the air a few feet before they vanished from view.

Weiss stood before Sunset, not even remotely beginning to block out her view of the grimm dragon as it flew from Mountain Glenn northwest towards Vale.

She turned, facing the same direction as Sunset, both of them now looking at the same thing.

"Do you know what it is?" Weiss asked.

"A very large grimm," Sunset said.

"Obviously," Weiss snapped. "But … it looks as though its coming from — it is coming from the southeast. From Mountain Glenn." She glanced at Sunset. "Did you—?"

"No, I didn't see it!" It was Sunset's turn to snap now. "If I had…"

If I had, we might not have made it back?

If Salem had this all along, why didn't she use it back then?

Because it wouldn't have fit down the tunnel, I suppose.

It could have flown over the tunnel.

Because … because this attack is more important to her? Because this is the big push? Because she absolutely needs to win here, and so she's pulling out all the stops? But why? Why now? What's so important about right this moment that she's willing to throw the kitchen sink at us when she didn't before?

Sunset licked her lips. Don't … don't tell me that Cinder was telling the truth. The truth about Amber.

Don't tell me that she really has betrayed us, and that she's going to give the Relic up to Salem.

That … that would explain going all out, wouldn't it?

"Sunset?" Weiss asked, her voice intruding into Sunset's thoughts. "Sunset!"

"What?" Sunset asked, shaking her head a little. "Yes, what?"

"Yes," Weiss said. "What?" Her voice dropped a little. "What do we do?"

"You're asking me?" Sunset demanded. "I…"

I don't know. How should I know? I've got no idea. What are we supposed to do against something like that? I mean, have you seen the size of it? If that's what it looks like so far away, then what do you think it looks like when it gets closer?

"Hit me again," Sunset said.

Weiss raised one eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Slap me again, come on, I need you to knock some thoughts out of my head," Sunset told her.

Weiss' eyes narrowed, and she hesitated for a second, before doing as Sunset asked and slapping her across the cheek a second time. The blow stung, but not as badly as it had done before; it was as though—

Huh. My aura's coming back.

Assuming Weiss didn't just break it again.

Nevertheless, though her aura was creeping back like a cat slinking back home after a weekend in the seedy, swinging back-alleys, Weiss' blow still stung. Which was good; that was what Sunset had wanted.

Even as she rubbed her cheek with one white-gloved hand, her mind felt a little clearer now than it had done before, the shock of the dragon's sudden, dramatic appearance in the sky above fading, or knocked out of her, just as Sunset had wished.

Yes, her mind felt clearer now; she could think … not about what to actually do about that thing, beyond hope that someone else could kill it, but she could think clearly enough to not be rooted to the spot just by its mere appearance.

Nothing had changed but the presence of one more grimm. Pyrrha, Penny, Jaune, Ruby, everyone else was still fighting, somewhere, out beyond the city walls; the grimm were still attacking Vale; Amber might have betrayed them to Salem.

Flash was still badly wounded, up on the Atlesian medical frigate.

Councillor Emerald too; they might still be operating on him, or they might, if he was lucky, have gotten the bullet, and he was now in recovery somewhere up on that ship.

Either way, he'd been wounded too, shot for the love of his country.

Sunset was no less bound to do what she could than when she had leapt from the medical frigate. Just because there was a new, larger, more powerful grimm about tonight, that didn't really change anything.

"I think," Sunset said as she looked at the grimm dragon once more. It was headed towards Vale, getting larger in her sight. Not much larger, not yet, but there was already a perceptible change from when it had first emerged out of the mountain. "I think," she repeated, "that the time has come for us to join the battle outside the walls."

"Are you sure?" asked Weiss. "There might still be work we can do here."

"Perhaps," Sunset allowed. "But … if that thing reaches the battle lines outside the city—"

"Then Atlas will stop it," Weiss declared, with absolute and unwavering certainty in her voice.

Sunset snorted. "If you're such an Atlesian patriot, then why aren't you an Atlas student?"

"For … personal reasons," Weiss replied. "It doesn't mean I don't have a healthy respect for the power at General Ironwood's command, his ships, his weapons. To deal with such large grimm is why we have large guns."

"Hmm, maybe," Sunset replied, as she started to walk — briskly, forcing Weiss to almost run to keep up with her on her little legs — out of the power plant and towards her bike. "But, well, that would be good, if we got there and that thing had been blown up by some missiles or whatever, but if not—"

"If not, then you have a plan?" Weiss suggested.

"What?" Sunset asked. "No! I've got no idea what to do about that thing. But…" She thrust her hands into her jacket pockets. "Now that my aura is coming back, now that I can be more of a help than a hindrance, now that I don't have to worry about anyone needing to protect me in my aura-less state … and now that this thing has upped the ante so dramatically, I would face this peril with them than cower any longer behind these walls."

"Well, when you put it like that, you make it hard to stay away," Weiss murmured. "Alright, then, we'll go together, out onto the battlefield." She put one hand upon her hip. "We will prevail, you know. As large as that grimm seems, even from here, we will bring it down."

"We as in Atlas?"

"We as in someone," Weiss said. "One of us, one of our friends, an Atlesian warship, someone fighting to defend Vale, someone on this battlefield, someone will bring it down." A corner of her lip twitched upwards. "There'll be no need for you to join your friends inside the belly of that monster."

Sunset blinked. "What makes you think—?"

"You have that sort of personality," Weiss said. "A bit too melodramatic, and a little too deeply attached."

"You don't know me well enough to say that!"

"You overestimate how much of an enigma you are if you think you're hard to know," Weiss replied. "How long did it take you to get over your boyfriend again?"

"That is…" Sunset trailed off, because as annoying as it was, Weiss had her bang to rights. Mostly. "Do you really think there's such a thing as an unhealthy attachment? Is it not a good thing that we should love and cherish one another?"

"Not to the exclusion of all else," Weiss said.

Sunset shrugged. "Well, anyway," she replied. "Whence comes this optimism on your part?"

"When my grandfather looked at the state of Mantle after the Great War, it must have seemed incredible that any one man could lift this beaten kingdom, broken by war and tyranny and revolution, up out of the mire of despair and make of it not just a great kingdom but the greatest kingdom," Weiss said. "How could one man do all of that, reverse the tides of history by his efforts? But he did; with the sweat of his brow and the work of his hands and the strength of his spirit, he lifted Atlas on his back and hoisted all our greatness. When we put our minds to it, we can do anything."

Sunset didn't reply to that; she imagined that it might have stirred something in Blake or Rainbow Dash, but while it didn't exactly bounce off her soul, it wasn't something that she found hugely inspiring either.

Still, it was good to be optimistic, and so she didn't say anything against Weiss or her attitude either as they clambered over the tangle of cars that had smashed through the power plant gates and made their way back through the detritus of the battle.

Through the bodies that the battle had left behind.

It wasn't something they could take care of right now, but hopefully, someone, at some point, would come to take all these people away.

Hopefully, someone would think to arrange it, at some point soon.

Sunset looked at Weiss. "How's your police captain? Did you get her to a hospital?"

"She's a lieutenant," Weiss corrected her. "Although if almost dying in the line of duty isn't enough to get you a promotion, I'm not sure what is. Yes, I got her to a hospital; she's … I hope she'll be alright. They were taking care of her when I left, but I didn't stay to see how … I couldn't say. Lieutenant Martinez wouldn't want me to hang around outside her room while they were performing surgery. She'd want me to be out here, or even out on the battlefield. She'd want me to be somewhere, doing something. It's not like I could help her get better by my presence." She paused. "But that's another reason why we — why someone — will stop that grimm: because we have to. Because if we don't, then the Lieutenant will be torn to pieces in her hospital, and it won't matter a damn what I did to get her to a doctor. I refuse to let that happen."

They reached Sunset's bike, and Sunset grabbed her helmet and pulled it on over her head as the two of them climbed aboard. She felt Weiss' hands around her waist as she started up the bike, skidding it around on the ground as the engine hummed.

Turning her motorcycle around so that it was facing towards Vale, Sunset could see — again — the dragon in the sky above. It was still getting closer, only now … now, she could see flashes of light in the sky around it, or at least, she thought that they were around it. Green flashes, and some red, and lights in the sky like twinkling stars. Or explosions. Was someone shooting at the dragon already? Was it the Atlesians, like Weiss had said?

Sunset's helmet blocked out a lot of sound, but not all of it, and Weiss was sufficiently close by, sitting behind Sunset with her arms around Sunset's waist, that Sunset could hear her muttering from behind her.

"Come on. Come on, get it done."

Yes. Yes, do it. Kill it. Destroy it. Bring it down. Take care of it before we get there.

Make good all that boasting.

It didn't seem to be the big airships firing — Sunset thought that she could see them elsewhere in the sky, distinguished by the lights on their hulls and by the immense quantities of visible fire pouring out of them as lasers and missiles hammered the ground below or exploded in the sky above. It wasn't them, but maybe it was the smaller airships, the fighters or whatever, maybe they were engaging the dragon already.

Maybe they would take it out far from Vale, before it ever became a problem.

They could only hope, as Sunset pulled down her visor and started to accelerate her motorcycle.

She pulled away, leaving the power plant — and all the destruction that the Grimm cultists and the Valish Defence Force had wrought there — behind.

Heading instead towards the walls of Vale and to the battle that was raging beyond, hoping that the dragon would be gone before they got there.

As they rode through the streets, it seemed that those hopes might be in vain.

When Sunset had driven Councillor Emerald through the Valish streets from his residence towards the command centre, the streets had been clear; when Sunset had driven through the streets towards the airship crash that had turned out to contain Weiss, the streets had been clear; even when she and Weiss had driven towards this power plant, the streets had been clear. The curfew imposed by General Blackthorn, the confusion and fear that this whole mad situation generated, it had all combined to keep people off the streets and in their homes, leaving the roads wide open for Sunset's motorcycle to roam whither she would, as fast as she could. But now, the roads and streets were beginning to, not fill up again — that would have been an exaggeration — but they were beginning to be less empty than they had been before.

And the dragon was responsible. Though Sunset's helmet muffled the sound, she was still able to hear the dragon's roars, even at this great but shrinking distance, carrying all the way from beyond Vale into the city itself. How much louder they would have sounded if she hadn't had the helmet on, how loud they sounded to Weiss sat behind her, Sunset didn't know, but she did know that the roaring was doing what the sounds of battle, the Atlesian missiles exploding and the guns firing, what none of the rest of it could do and bringing people out of their houses.

Perhaps it helped, or didn't help, that the city seemed so much safer now than it had been; that the Councillor Emerald had proclaimed the resolution of the nasty business with General Blackthorn, that most of the city was now free of Grimm cultists, that all the trouble now seemed to lie beyond the walls, not within.

In any case, as Sunset and Weiss rode through the streets, Sunset noticed more and more lights turning on in the houses that lined the roadside, lights turning on in the tall apartment blocks that climbed towards the sky, lights in the terraces and the red brick townhouses, lights everywhere that had been kept off or concealed behind the drapes as people who had huddled in their homes and waited for the dawn now found a little courage to demonstrate their presence to their neighbours and the world.

The lights came on, and the doors opened, and people in dressing gowns and slippers, in faded jeans and fraying trainers, in old T-shirts and Vytal shirts of this year or of some years' past came stumbling out into the streets to turn their eyes with gasps of horror towards the great dragon that was getting larger and larger as it headed inexorably towards Vale.

There were people on the rooftops of the apartment buildings as well — Sunset could see them when she looked up — and like the people down in the streets below, they were pointing, probably gasping too, all of them staring in shock as the dragon came closer.

But it was the people in the street that bothered Sunset. They were blocking her way, whereas before, she had been able to race through Vale unimpeded, now, she had to crawl along at barely greater than walking speed, or slow down so much that it was actually quicker and easier to get off and walk the bike than to try and keep her balance while going so slow, or else there was no way forward at all, and she had to try and find another way around through a street that wasn't half obstructed by gawping people spilling out of doors.

"Get out of the way!" Sunset shouted at them. "Go back inside, clear the road! Stop…" She searched for a form of words that would make what they were doing sound suitably heinous that they would be shamed into stopping it. "Stop obstructing the King's Highway!"

They didn't take any notice. Not a blind bit; no matter how much she raged at them, they barely seemed to listen at all. Well, okay, that wasn't entirely fair; some people shuffled out of the way and let them pass, all the while staring — either at Weiss on the back of her bike, or else at her bike itself because everyone seemed to have an opinion upon that these days. Perhaps they even recognised Sunset, although she was wearing a helmet, so that would be difficult. But some — a precious few, a precious and well-regarded few for whom she was very grateful — moved aside and cleared the middle of the road to let them pass. But not enough, not nearly enough.

Vale was a big city. Sunset had heard the story — Dove had told it, with a degree of chagrin, after Amber had prompted him to tell it again one evening when they were all hanging out — about how Dove, country boy that he was, had once tried to walk clean from one end of the city to the other, convinced that it couldn't possibly be as big as all that. He had failed — and failed quite badly by the sounds of it — because it turned out that, yeah, actually, Vale really was that big. In terms of sprawling size, it was bigger than Mistral or Atlas, although both of them built down as well as across, and it might have taken some time to get across the city all the way to the wall — and then beyond — in any case, even if she'd been able to race straight there at top speed.

As she wasn't able to race straight there at top speed because of all these people in the way, it might take a little while.

The worst part might be that she couldn't even really blame all of these people for blocking the road, because with the dragon roaring and snarling and shrieking too and flying towards Vale, getting closer all the time towards Vale, she couldn't blame the people of Vale for being concerned, for coming out, for wanting to know what that sound was and what was going on.

Sunset was concerned herself.

And it wasn't helping that the dragon seemed to be blowing through all resistance to its triumphant progress. The lights of green and red that had lit up the sky were gone, the flashes of explosions that had twinkled in the night like brief stars had faded, and the dragon had kept on coming. Then it had been the turn of the Atlesian airships to light up the night sky, their red lasers burning through the dark, and again, Sunset had heard Weiss whispering beside her, her words reaching beyond Sunset's helmet as she urged on the Atlesian air power to victory.

Her words were vain, as Sunset's hopes were vain, as all the Atlesian firepower was vain as they watched the dragon … it was hard to make out the details exactly, but the Atlesian firepower, their crimson laser beams that lit up the night, began to fade from view, wink out of sight, replace by great explosions blossoming in the darkness.

And Sunset could still see the dragon, larger still though still so far off from her as to seem like a toy, like an expensive toy like Bramble's Amity Colosseum that Councillor Emerald had brought for him — just as the real Amity Arena seemed like just such a toy as it hung in the skies over Beacon — still, it was visible, and larger than it had been.

If it was in amongst the Atlesian airships, then it must be close now, no? It must be so close that it was right over the battlefield, unless the Atlesian warships had ventured out beyond their own lines to engage it, and even then, they wouldn't have ventured very far.

It was close now.

It was closer to Sunset's friends than she was, stuck in Vale as she was, trapped by the crowds as she was.

Trapped as she was by the crowds that seemed to be growing more fearful by the moment.

Someone has to do something, Sunset thought, but who? Who could speak to these people? Who could calm them down?

Not her, certainly; who was she to them, a mere huntress, not even that, a mere student huntress, a girl, someone they might have seen on the television in the four on four round of the Vytal Tournament, someone whose name they might have caught on the news.

Someone they might remember had only lately been accused of putting the whole city at risk.

She wasn't Councillor Emerald, or any other elected official, or Professor Ozpin or some such trusted figure of authority, to address them, to bid them be calm, to ask them to go back inside and wait for everything to come right again.

As much to the point, even if she wanted to stop and get on a soapbox, unless she planned to turn away from her journey to the wall — their journey to the wall, for Weiss was here too — and travel around the city instead addressing crowds wherever she found them, then the most she could do was affect the small number of people in front of her at the moment, blocking the roads.

That wasn't likely to change the mood in the whole city, and it might not even change the mood in this one street if she couldn't find the words.

Yes, it wasn't good that there was what felt like an increasing amount of fear out on the streets of Vale tonight, but considering that there was already a massive grimm attack aimed at the city, it was hard to see how fear could make things worse.

The best thing that Sunset and Weiss could do for all these frightened people was not to tell them to calm down, but to get out onto the battlefield and join the fight, because if the grimm broke through the defenders, then whether the people of Vale were scared or not probably wouldn't make a lot of difference to the outcome.

So they kept on going, heading towards the edge of Vale as fast as frightened crowds and the engine of Sunset's bike would carry them. In the meantime, as they travelled, the dragon dropped in and out of sight, swooping down beneath the walls of Vale that loomed in front of them. Sunset wondered what it was doing, only to find to her discomfort that it didn't take a great deal of imagination to conjure up the dragon bearing down upon the battlefield with claws and teeth and that terrible weapon that leapt from its mouth, the weapon that they had seen lighting up the night sky, the dragon unleashing fire to rival the lasers of the Atlesian warships.

And now, that fire, and that strength, all the power that had smashed airships and torn through all opposition in the sky was no doubt being turned upon Sunset's friends on the ground. On Blake and Rainbow Dash; on Pyrrha, Penny, Jaune, Ruby. On the Atlesians and the Beacon students and the Haven students and the Shade students and the Valish Defence Force and anyone else who might be unlucky enough to still be out there.

It was unleashed on all of them. How could they stand before it?

Sunset felt Weiss' grip around her waist tighten and thought that she heard — the helmet made it hard to be sure — a little muffled sound from her, a … not a whimper — Sunset would not call it a whimper; she did not want to make Weiss seem weak — but … something like it, or perhaps a sob, a sound of fright or worry or … or despair.

It might be hard to recall that all things were possible to they who had the will to dare them when the prospect of friends dying at the hands of mighty grimm loomed before.

Sunset was ever more eager to reach the battlefield; if they kept this up, this constant journeying, this dodging the crowds, this trying to find a way forward that wasn't blocked by frightened people, then they would be undone. The more time they took to reach the walls, the more time fear had to creep back into Sunset's heart, and Weiss' heart, and take the hearts of both of them.

As they rode, Sunset thought for a moment that she saw a bright light from beyond the walls, perhaps even a silver light … but then the dragon rose up into view once more, and Sunset thought that she must have imagined it, a last gleaming of hope within her breast manifesting as the gleaming of a light before her eyes.

What she had not imagined was the dragon rising through the air and heading for Beacon.

Behind the visor of her helmet, Sunset's eyes widened as she watched the enormous dragon soar through the night sky. Amity gleamed bright above the school, and Sunset could not help but think that it was lit up like a target ever-so-tempting for the grimm. Was there nothing they could do to move it to some safer place? Probably not, not at this stage.

Her hands trembled as she watched. She didn't want to watch, but she could not look away, couldn't tear her eyes away from the dragon as it flew through the air and turned its fire, not upon Amity Arena, but on the Emerald Tower.

A great blast of yellow light erupted out of his mouth and struck the tower in the middle of its height, and the tower, Beacon Tower, the Emerald Tower, Professor Ozpin's tower … it was destroyed.

The emerald lights that had shone in the darkness, that had been a constant presence in the night sky when out and about at Beacon, or in Vale when one turned eastward, the lights that burned in night and day, the beacon of the school if anything could make a claim to such … the emerald lights were snuffed out.

The tower was gone.

"The CCT!" Weiss cried.

The CCT? Hang the CCT, what about Professor Ozpin? Had he gotten away in time? He had to have gotten away in time, right? He had to have seen that coming from his office high up in the tower? Or perhaps he hadn't even been up in the tower when the dragon attacked; perhaps he'd been out. Perhaps he was even out on the battlefield, with the students. Far from the tower. Far from the grimm that now sat on top of the tower, roaring so loudly in its triumphant pomp that they could hear it in Vale.

The gasps of the people rose louder still, they cried aloud in shock and fear, but for all that they had cause to gasp and point and even cry out, Sunset would have given up the tower and the CCT and everything else gladly to know for sure that Professor Ozpin was safe.

Everything else, they could manage without, muddle through somehow, but without Professor Ozpin … Sunset hoped, she so hoped, she very much hoped that he was alright.

Please, Professor, please be okay.

The grimm was sat on top of the ruined tower; it perched there as though it was its nest, but it was still far too close to the Amity Arena for Sunset's liking; who was up there still, anyone? Were the crowds who had flocked there for the finals still there, Lady Nikos? Sunset did not like it being so close; it looked so vulnerable, like a nice juicy apple placed next to a hungry horse. How long could the dragon possibly forebear to taste?

Then, as Sunset watched, she saw something emerge from out of the Colosseum. She couldn't exactly see it very well — it was too small — but it must have been some kind of airship, because what else would be flying out of the arena except an airship?

Whoever was flying it, they had some nerve; they flew up to and past the dragon, which began to pursue them, mouth agape, away from Amity — and over Vale.

The dragon grew larger and larger, no longer a large toy in Sunset's eyes but a powerful grimm in all its might and majesty, the vastness that had been apparent even far away becoming clearer by the moment. The dragon flew over the walls and over the streets of Vale, swatting aside the two gallant but foolhardy Atlesian airships that tried to intercept it, enduring their very large missiles the same way it had endured the lasers of the larger warships.

It swatted one of the Atlesian airships right into the original — ornate, almost certainly Mistralian — airship that it had followed over Vale in the first place. The back half of the airship disappeared, destroyed in an instant, and the remainder began to tumble through the sky.

Sunset changed course.

"What are you doing?" Weiss demanded.

"I'm going to see if they're okay!" Sunset shouted. "If there are survivors, we can't just leave them!"

"No," Weiss agreed. "No, I don't suppose we can."

The dragon was circling above as Sunset headed towards where she had seen the careening airship go down. That was getting people out of the road; where the dragon's roaring had drawn them out of doors, now its roars — and the fact that they had could see it huge and imposing right on top of them — drove them back inside, or else sent them flying away from the dragon towards some place that might be safer. Either way, Sunset and Weiss made better progress than they had done for a while, racing through the streets as they had done earlier that night, turning around a corner to see the wreck of the airship sprawled across the road, and all its passengers sprawled out also, lying amongst the debris, and amongst the … puddles.

There were puddles on the road, puddles of black ooze, of some sort of gooey substance, puddles that were falling from the sky.

No, not falling from the sky, falling from the dragon; as Sunset looked up once more, she could see what distance had obscured before, that the dragon was leaking, black goo dripping down from it like a tap that hadn't been turned off properly.

What was it? Was it blood? Was this evidence that the Atlesians had wounded it?

No, not blood. Sunset knew that it could not be blood, because drops of blood, even grimm blood, would not have started to form other grimm the way these pools of darkness did.

Grimm in Vale. Grimm behind the walls of Vale.

Grimm like the beowolf that was forming out of the pool right beside one of the survivors of the crashed airship.

Medea. It's Medea Helios from Team JAMM, the one who came around to talk to Pyrrha.

The beowolf was standing over her; it looked young, very juvenile, no armour at all.

But its teeth looked sharp nonetheless.

Sunset accelerated, the motorcycle roaring down the road.

"Weiss, I need you to loosen your grip," Sunset called.

Weiss didn't question; she relaxed her grasp on Sunset's waist, so that Sunset could draw her sword free, holding the black blade in one hand.

Sunset turned, the tyres of her motorcycle skidding loudly on the road as she sliced off the beowolf's head in a single smooth stroke.

Weiss dismounted at once, Sunset a step behind.

"See if you can reach Professor Goodwitch; tell her we need an ambulance," Sunset said, pulling off her helmet. "And tell her … tell her there are grimm inside the city."

Grimm inside the city. Grimm behind the walls. Grimm in Vale, again, and this time with no Atlesian army to stop them.

On the plus side…

No, I'd better not say it.

"Right," Weiss murmured, fumbling for her scroll. "This night…" Whatever she was going to say was interrupted by another beowolf trying to claw its way out of another pool of the black goo that the dragon was dripping down like so much snot out of a runny nose. Weiss killed it with a blast of dust from out of Myrtenaster.

Sunset knelt down beside Medea. "Hey. It's Medea, isn't it?"

Medea let out a soft groan from between her lips as she nodded. "I would say that I'm at your service," she croaked. "But you seem to be rather more at mine at present."

"Where does it hurt?" Sunset asked. "I take it your aura's broken?"

Again, Medea nodded. "It hurts … everywhere, more or less. Which might be a good thing. If there was anywhere I couldn't feel, that might be rather more worrying." She groaned, more softly. "My … my teammates…"

"Right," Sunset said. "Right, I'll go check on them."

She stood up. Weiss had her scroll out now, holding it one hand as she kept hold of Myrtenaster in the other.

"Professor Goodwitch?" she asked.

"I hope this is important, Miss Schnee," Professor Goodwitch said. "As you can see—"

"Yes, Professor, that's why I'm calling," Weiss said. "Sunset and I are at—" She was interrupted by the roaring of the dragon as it flew directly overhead. Weiss flinched, half-ducking down as it obscured the stars above them before turning away.

More droplets of that black ooze, that grimm essence that somehow produced more juvenile grimm from … from themselves, fell like rain down on the street.

"We are…" Weiss tore her eyes away from the pools of grimm ooze, looking upwards instead. "We are…"

A boarbatusk began to emerge from out of a nearby pool. Sunset drove Soteria downwards into its neck before it had even finished emerging. The half-formed boarbatusk, its legs and lower jaw still invisible, let out a muffled squeal, shook the visible part of its body, and then … and then turned back into the pool of ichorous black substance that lapped against the toes of Sunset's boots.

Sunset took a step back, closer to Medea once again, and watched as another grimm — a beowolf this time — began to emerge from out of the pool, the black gooey substance contracting as the grimm appeared.

This time, Sunset let it come, let it fully emerge and show itself before she ran it clean through the chest with her sword.

Gratifyingly, it turned to ashes.

"Don't bother killing them before they've come out," Sunset told Weiss. "They just go back into the pool and then come out again as something else."

"Miss Shimmer?" Professor Goodwitch asked from out of the scroll.

"There are grimm behind the walls, Professor," Weiss explained. "That large grimm is dropping — or it's dripping — some sort of black substance down onto the ground, and grimm are coming out of it. There's another one over there!"

Sunset saw it. It was emerging right in front of her after all. This was a big puddle, and a large grimm was emerging from out of it in consequence, an ursa. A small ursa by the standards of the breed, a juvenile obviously, but an ursa nonetheless.

It didn't rise out of the black depths so much as it clawed its way out of it, so that it seemed less like it was being formed and more that the ursa had always been there somewhere, trapped beneath, and was now taking the opportunity to escape.

Once again, Sunset let it come out all the way, shaking as it came, its claws making marks in the concrete of the road. It opened its mouth to let out a wide roar of anger.

Sunset charged, firing a couple of low-powered blasts of magic from her fingertips, not aiming to kill the ursa so much as to distract it and save magic in the process. The little blasts of power burst on the ursa's bony head, the only parts of bone on its whole body, striking close to the eyes, blinding and disorienting it as Sunset rushed in.

Swift turns and dainty twirls on toes were more Pyrrha's style than Sunset's; Sunset was near as heavy-footed as Jaune by comparison, but she would give it a go regardless, turning as she charged, not twirling — as cool as that might have looked — but turning aside and skidding the last few feet, past the ursa's head and jaws before she hewed down on its neck with Soteria.

She severed the head in a single stroke, and the body flopped down and started turning to ashes immediately.

"Where are you, Miss Schnee?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out, Professor," Weiss said, with a touch of sharpness in her voice. "Sorry, Professor, we're at Germane Street; there's been an airship crash; there are … Sunset, how many people are injured?"

Sunset searched the wreckage, picking her way through the debris and detritus of the shattered airship — pausing to deal with another boarbatusk that had just emerged, squealing, out of a pool of black ooze — that lay strewn across the road to find the other three members of Team JAMM. Jason lay underneath a pole, a metal pole of some sort to which he was fastened by a line. He was unconscious, his eyes closed, but apart from that, Sunset couldn't see any visible injuries, although that was no guarantee that he didn't have any injuries lying out of sight just below the surface.

Sunset telekinetically grabbed the pole, her hands and the metal object both glowing green, as she lifted it off Jason and set it down with a thunk on the road beside him.

She hoped that was the right thing to do; it didn't look to be stopping any bleeding on his part, and it couldn't be healthy for someone with no aura to have a heavy weight pressing down on them like that, could it?

There was a noise from inside: a rustling at first, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps; it was coming from one of the buildings on the side of the road, what had been a business of some kind, although when the crashing airship had smashed through the front, it had also smashed through the sign that would have identified what kind of place this had been. Sunset's nightvision spell allowed her eyes to peer into the gloom within and identify work tables and motorised tools — and something shambling out of the darkness towards them.

That something, or someone, turned out to be another member of Team JAMM, Meleager if Sunset recalled their names correctly, shaking dust out of his hair and off his shoulders, his flame-coloured cape trailing dirt and splinters after him like a wet dog dripping on the carpet. He was swaying a little, but he was on his feet, and moving quite steadily considering what he'd just been through and the state of his teammates.

He blinked. "You … you're Pyrrha's teammate, aren't you? Sunset … Glimmer?"

"Sunset Shimmer, but close," Sunset replied. "How are you feeling?"

"I'll be fine," Meleager said. "How are the others?"

"Jason's unconscious," Sunset said. "Medea is conscious, but her aura's broken; other things might be broken too; she'll be out of it for a while."

"And Atalanta?" Meleager asked. "Atalanta?"

"No need to shout," Atalanta snapped. "You'll bring the grimm down on us." She winced in pain.

Both Sunset and Meleager rushed towards her; she was the furthest from Medea, where Sunset had begun; she must have thrown the farthest by the crash, along with the most distant, scattered parts of the ship's debris. She was sitting up — Sunset guessed that she had pulled herself up — against the wall of a taxidermist's, sitting with the top of her head resting against the glass of the window, the window in which were displayed a small menagerie of stuffed animals, and even a few fake grimm like old Fluffy.

Jason and Medea had both looked outwardly unharmed, though all their aura had gone. The same could not be said of Atalanta: her leg was broken, at least, twisted in an unnatural-looking direction, there was no bone sticking out of her skin, but that was about the only good thing that could be said about her condition.

"Atalanta!" Meleager cried as he rushed to her side. He knelt down beside her, taking one of her hands in his. "Atalanta, are you alright?"

Atalanta gave him an incredulous look.

"Right, right, yes, stupid question, sorry," Meleager muttered. He looked up at Sunset. "We need to get her to a doctor."

"I know; we're arranging it," Sunset told him. "Weiss, we've got three in need of medical attention."

"Right," Weiss said. "Professor, we have three casualties from the airship crash; they can't move on their own, and we don't have the ability to move them all a long distance. Can you send an ambulance to get them?"

"Of course, Miss Schnee; I'll arrange it at once," Professor Goodwitch replied. "I take it they cannot protect themselves."

"One might, somehow," Weiss said. "The others, definitely not."

"Then protect them until the ambulance arrives," Professor Goodwitch instructed her.

"Yes, Professor," Weiss said. "And what about the grimm?"

"We'll just have to deal with that as best we can," Professor Goodwitch answered. "At least we don't have anything else to focus on in the city. Take care, Miss Schnee, and take care of your charges too."

"Will do, Professor," Weiss said, before Professor Goodwitch hung up on her.

"Jason," Atalanta grunted. "Jason is alive, then?"

"Yes," Sunset said. "Yes, he's out cold, but he's alive."

Atalanta closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm glad," she murmured. "It gladdens my heart." She took a breath, her chest rising and falling.

"You shouldn't speak," Meleager told her. "You should save your strength."

"You are not my master to command me," Atalanta told him. "I'll say what I like and spend my strength however I wish."

"I know that," Meleager replied, sounding a little hurt. "But—"

A slight grin, given a somewhat rictus quality by the pain, appeared on Atalanta's face. "I thought you liked that about me."

"I do, normally!" Meleager cried. "But in the circ*mstances—"

"Medea," Atalanta called. "Speak to me again, so that I know you haven't died since I heard you last."

Medea groaned. "Be nice to Meleager, for the love of … for the love of love itself, and of Psyche of the swift shafts, for he speaks only out of care for you."

"Precisely!" Meleager shouted. "Thank you, Medea, fair judge of hearts. Would you be this mean to me if I was the one who was dying?"

"I'm not dying!" Atalanta snapped. She glanced up at Sunset. "Am I dying?"

"No," Sunset said. "At least, I hope not, although you should probably take advice and not struggle too much." She paused, and said to Meleager. "How are you still on your feet when the rest of your team is … like this?"

"Because he's a cheat," grunted Atalanta.

"My semblance, Inner Fire, allows me to recharge a small amount of my own aura, even after it's broken, so long as I have the will to keep going," Meleager explained. "It's not a lot — I'm in the red, and if this were a tournament match, I'd be eliminated by depletion — but it keeps me on my feet … so long as I want to be."

"Impressive," Sunset said.

Meleager shrugged. "If a grimm broke my aura, it could probably kill me before I had a chance to recharge."

"All the same, it's pretty impressive," Sunset told him. "I wish I—"

The dragon roared, drowning out the sound of Sunset's voice, and all other sounds in the city too. Sunset looked up, but she couldn't see the grimm; it wasn't—

The dragon passed overhead, still roaring, seeming to almost glide on the wings spread out on either side.

A single drop of black goo dripped down from the dragon's torso and landed in the middle of the street, just beyond Atalanta, Meleager, and Sunset.

Sunset stepped closer to it, keeping her eyes on it, waiting.

A juvenile beowolf emerged from out of the pool.

Sunset ran it through the chest with Soteria and watched it dissolve into ashes.

"What?" Meleager gasped. "What was that?"

"We don't know," Weiss said softly. "Except it seems this grimm has the ability to … well, you saw it for yourself; it drips. And what it drips becomes new, young grimm."

"Gods," Meleager muttered, shuddering.

"We did it, then?" Atalanta muttered. She winced. "We lured that beast away from Amity."

"That was your plan?" Weiss demanded. "You wanted to bring it here?"

"We meant to have it follow us out to sea," Meleager replied. "We couldn't take the risk that it would destroy Amity Arena; we promised Pyrrha that we would protect Lady Nikos, and the ambassador, Lord Wong."

Sunset briefly looked up, although she could not see the Amity Arena from here; the buildings rose too steeply on either side of the street; they almost seemed to lean inwards, towards each other, reducing the avenue for the passage of moonlight to a narrow slit between the teetering rooftops.

Probably an optical illusion, but it felt real enough, and she could not see Amity Arena.

But Lady Nikos was up there still, and little doubt that she was not alone up there. Sunset was glad to hear that she was still safe; for all that had passed between them, it would have been hard on Pyrrha to lose her mother, and Sunset had a great deal of respect for Lady Nikos in her own right. Had she perished, were she yet to perish, then Sunset's heart would have grieved it.

As it was, with the dragon out of the way, Sunset had some hope that her ladyship would be out of danger for the rest of the night.

"That's all very well and good," Weiss said, sounding less enthused. "But now, there is an enormous grimm loose in the skies over the city, it's disgorging other grimm down into the city, and there isn't anything we can do about it!"

"Not our intent," Medea murmured.

"Nevertheless, it's what you've done!" Weiss snapped.

"We have done our best, and we have paid for it," Meleager declared, getting up, though he remained at Atalanta's side. "Should we have stood on the Arena and waited for the dragon to devour it and all aboard so that at least it would not trouble Vale for a little while longer?"

"Weiss didn't mean that, did you, Weiss?" Sunset asked heavily. "There's no point or purpose in our fighting one another when there are grimm behind the walls to fight. We can acknowledge that things are less than ideal without apportioning blame or pointing fingers."

Weiss hesitated for a moment, still and silent as an ice sculpture. Eventually, after a few seconds had passed, she coughed into one hand. "I, of course, do not wish death upon any of those still sheltering in Amity. It's as Sunset said, things are not ideal, though that's no one's fault. Except for the fault of the grimm itself." She paused once more. "Did you call it a dragon? Have you seen such a grimm before?"

"No," Meleager said. "Nothing like it, but—"

"There are bones of a creature called a dragon in a museum in Mistral," Sunset said. "It looks very similar to this monster."

Meleager nodded. "Precisely."

"No sense of how to kill it, then?" Weiss asked.

"If we knew that," Atalanta said, "we would have tried, at least."

"There must be a way," Meleager said. "Mighty grimm have been slain by heroes in the past, and many great tales are told of the slayings."

"Do those tales give details?" asked Weiss.

"I fear not," murmured Medea. "I am afraid to say that, over time, certain aspects of our stories became somewhat mired in formula. The deaths of grimm are often written in a very similar fashion."

"That might not be formula, but truth," Sunset suggested. "There are only so many ways to kill grimm. If I cut the head off every beowolf to come out of those pools, it's not formula; it's just that that's a very good way of killing them."

"It does show somewhat a lack of imagination on your part, swordbearer," Medea murmured.

Sunset rolled her eyes. "What is this formulaic description?"

"Cutting off the head," Meleager said. "Or a large spear thrown to the chest, particularly to a weak spot in the creature's armour; it penetrates between the plates of bone, and the grimm dies."

"As simple as that?" asked Weiss.

"No, it's not simple at all; there's usually a lot of effort involved to get to that point," Meleager said. "The grimm do not reveal their weak points lightly."

"This dragon doesn't look armoured enough to have a weak point," Sunset said. "And it's neck seems too thick to be cut through."

Although Ruby could do it, especially if Jaune were charging her up beforehand.

"Perhaps," Weiss said. "If we were to attack into its—"

She stopped, holding up her free hand to quiet all other voices.

"Listen," she whispered ever so softly.

Listen Sunset did, her equine ears pricking up atop her head as she listened very carefully.

She could hear, as Weiss had heard before her, growling, snarling, snuffling, the sounds of prowling grimm as they had been unleashed upon the streets of Vale by the dragon.

They were coming from the bottom of the street. No, from the top. They were coming from both ends.

Atalanta grimaced and fumbled with one hand for the bow that had fallen just out of reach.

Sunset mouthed Weiss' name and gestured for her to take the top of the street, while she moved as quietly as she could past Meleager and the injured Atalanta towards the bottom of the road. She sheathed Soteria across her back and slung Sol Invictus off her shoulder.

Sunset co*cked the rifle and raised it to her shoulder, conscious of Meleager moving behind her.

She waited. She could still hear the grimm, although she couldn't see them. She thought that they were coming from the left, not from the right, and so she turned that way, rifle barrel pointing outwards, ready to fire.

They came from the right first, a trio of small young boarbatusks skidding around the corner, trotters tapping on the tarmac. Sunset turned, but Meleager was a little swifter than she and unleashed his flamethrower on them first, a jet of fire erupting out of his gauntlet to consume the leading boarbatusk in flame. The other two squealed as they shied away from the fire, and Sunset shot one in the head.

The second, she skewered on her bayonet as it leapt at her.

Then the beowolves came in, from the left, as Sunset had expected they would; from the roaring, she thought that they were attacking from the other side of the street as well; she could hear Weiss' rapier blasting dust at them.

It was far from the hardest fight that Sunset had ever fought; there were not so many beowolves, and they were only young, no armour to speak of, their bony skulls the only patches of white on otherwise black bodies. Those same black bodies pressed all around her for a moment, a mass of oily, greasy blackness illuminated by the muzzle flashes of Sol Invictus as Sunset fired and fired again, and fired a third shot and emptied the cylinder of her rifle before thrusting with her bayonet and laying about her with the butt of her rifle like a club. The claws of the beowolves lashed out, slashing at Sunset's recently regained aura, but one by one, Sunset took care of them all, and without any great expenditure of magic either.

Or without losing her aura a second time.

Sunset turned back to see if Weiss needed any help, just in time to see Weiss skewer the last of the young beowolves upon the tip of her rapier. She delicately shook the ash off it as the grimm dissolved.

"I think we might have done some good," Weiss declared. "Better those grimm should pick a fight with us than with others less equipped to deal with them."

The dragon let out a low and almost mournful hooting sound as it flew overhead, passing above them before turning back, wheeling in the air and passing once more in their direction.

And it was getting lower too, descending like the crashing airship of Team JAMM, coming down and looming larger and larger as it came down, following the line of the road as it pointed like an arrow towards them.

Sunset dropped Sol Invictus, the rifle clattering to the ground beside her, as she raised both hands and conjured up a shield of magic protecting her and everyone behind her. A wall of black glyphs, each one obscuring the view ahead somewhat, appeared before the shield; Sunset didn't need to look over her shoulder to picture Weiss conjuring them up with her semblance.

Whether shield or semblance would stop the dragon was a question to be asked, but what choice did they have but to try and stand in its way? It wasn't as though they could get Team JAMM anywhere safer in time.

The dragon landed heavily upon the ground, breaking the tarmac of the road beneath its weight, its claws digging into the ground as it skidded to a halt. Its tail lashed out from side to side, sweeping through the shops that lined the street and gutting them, knocking down the insides and doubtless smashing whatever lay within.

Eventually, the dragon stopped, finally halting its skidding progress, the dust of its landing and approach settling around it as it stood upon the broken ground and looked down upon them. On the end of its long neck, its head — such a head, such a great head, larger than a Skyray; in fact, large enough to swallow such an airship whole, to say nothing of a huntress — was raised high above Sunset's shield and Weiss' glyph barrier.

It didn't drip; no puddles of ichorous black goo emerged from its immense bulk to scatter young grimm out across Vale.

Can it control it? Can it stop doing it, if it wants to?

The dragon looked down upon them. Its red eyes burned brightly in the dark of night.

Sunset's breath caught in her throat. She tried to look away from the burning red eyes, maybe … maybe she could find that weak spot that the Mistralians had mentioned, the weak spots that big grimm so often had, supposedly.

She couldn't see anything; there was no chink in the dragon's armour because it hardly had any armour in the first place; it was all just black flesh, speckled with little plates of bone here and there, concentrated on the shoulders.

But then … what about … what about underneath the bone? Since it had so little armour, then perhaps the armour that it did have was concealing something. Like that one particular patch, on its chest, a plate of white bone standing solitary, just below the right shoulder, above where the dragon's foreleg would have been if it had had forelegs. A plate of bone standing proud, on the breast. Could it be that beneath that, if they could get it off or shatter it, then … then what? A heart? A grimm heart? Was it really plausible that the means to kill such an immense grimm would be lurking behind a single plate of bone?

In the circ*mstances, can we afford not to give it a try?

In the circ*mstances, how likely is it that we'll be given the chance?

The dragon laughed, or it certainly sounded like a laugh, a sawing laugh, a back and forth sound that grated against the grain on Sunset's ears. It laughed as it regarded them and the obstacles that Sunset and Weiss had thrown up in its path, and Sunset could not help but think that it found them pathetic.

The dragon opened its mouth.

There was a shriek, a shrill sound cutting through the air as another grimm approached, a griffon with a claw missing on one toe. It shrieked loudly as it swooped through the air, landing on top of one of the buildings on the left-hand side of the street.

It kept on shrieking, bobbing its head up and down.

The dragon swung its own immense head in the direction of the griffon, grunting something at the smaller grimm.

The griffon leapt up and down, gesturing with its white head back eastwards, towards the walls of Vale.

The dragon made a sound that was hard to classify; neither roar nor growl perfectly fit what Sunset heard; the dragon's pitch rose and fell.

The griffon chirruped in reply.

The dragon let out a low hooting sound, then raised its head as a bellowing roar erupted out of it straight to the skies, a roar so loud that it made Sunset's ears — all four of them — hurt, a roar so loud, it was as if the dragon was trying not only to strike the moon and stars but move them with sheer volume out of their spheres.

The dragon spread its wings and took off, shattering the ground some more beneath its feet as it headed east, back towards the edge of Vale and towards the battle beyond it.

The griffon followed behind, tucked away beneath the dragon's wing, and as the two flew off, the dragon once more began to drip black ichor down upon the ground of Vale below it, black drops descending like a narrow band of rain sweeping across the city.

Sunset recovered her rifle and hastily reloaded, letting her shield collapse — Weiss' wall of glyphs likewise disappeared — as she began shooting the grimm as they appeared, emerging from the puddles the dragon had made.

She had just shot a boarbatusk, the last grimm to come out of the nearby puddles, when she heard the roaring sirens of an ambulance, before the vehicle itself screeched round the corner. It was a yellow vehicle, with blue lights flashing on top of the cab, and on the roof sat a young man, young enough to be another Beacon student, though Sunset didn't know his name, with a red bandana tied around his brow, a lamellar cuirass strapped across his chest, and a staff in his hand.

As the ambulance slowed to a stop, he leapt down off the room.

"Hey, guys," he said, as though he knew them.

Weiss' eyebrows rose. "Do we know you?"

"Apparently not," the boy muttered. "I'm Fuji Klein, the leader of Team Frappe."

Weiss and Sunset both stared at him.

"That doesn't mean anything to you, does it?" he asked. "I'm in your year, you know."

"Wait a second," Sunset said. "Are you the one who led the charge during the leadership exercise during the first semester? You attacked the grimm horde head on."

Fuji grinned. "That's me. I volunteered to escort this ambulance, though it looks like we got here just late enough, huh? It's safe to come out now, fellas!"

The ambulance doors opened, and two paramedics emerged.

"They're in good hands," Fuji assured her. "You don't need to hang around if you don't want to."

Sunset wasn't entirely sure that someone who had thought it was a good idea to meet the grimm horde head on was necessarily 'good hands,' or at least not necessarily the safest hands, but he had a point that they couldn't just hang around here all night getting nothing done.

"I'll stay with them," Meleager said. "They're my teammates; I can't just leave them."

Sunset glanced at him and nodded. "Okay then, take care and good luck. Look after them," she said to Fuji. "Weiss, we should get moving."

"Alright," Weiss murmured. "But where?"

"We're going to follow that dragon," Sunset said, "and kill any grimm it's spawned along the way."

Until they reached the walls of Vale.

The breeze had died down, and the Atlesian Colour of the Fourth Battalion was limp; the silk square hung down its metal pole as Trixie carried it rearwards. Occasionally, if she had to shift the way she held it, or if she had to pick up speed, then the standard would flutter gently for a second, though even then, it was too dark to really see the Atlesian gear and spear upon the grey background.

The five of them — the three original members of Team TTSS, Maud, and Rarity — were all alone out here, alone in the darkness, alone falling back.

Alone in terms of humans and faunus, at least.

The beowolf bounded out of the darkness, jaws snapping, a harsh bark ripping from its throat. It lunged at Trixie as though it recognised the colours and wanted the glory of devouring them, but the grimm only succeeded in slamming into one of Rarity's barriers.

Starlight growled wordlessly as she thrust Equaliser into its side, as deep as the weapon would go, burying the blade and a foot of the shaft in the black flesh.

Rarity's diamond barrier dissolved as she stepped forward with her fencing sabre, thrusting into the beowolf's exposed throat.

The beowolf that had squirmed upon the tip of Starlight's spear fell silent, its head lolling forwards as it died.

Starlight extracted her weapon as the grimm turned to ashes.

The five of them had all stopped now. Sunburst had a fire dust crystal set in the tip of his staff, but the intended use of such a crystal in such a staff was to start fires, not give light, and the soft red glow did little to illuminate the dark around them.

And so they stood, clustered around Trixie and the limp standard she held in her hand, turned outwards, peering into the dark.

Waiting.

No second beowolf emerged, no other grimm came roaring out of the darkness.

Still, they waited.

Starlight could hear her own breathing, because everyone else was being so quiet.

Two more beowolves leapt out at them, finally announcing their presence with roars and howls. One of them died in a cone of fire from Trixie's wand, consumed by the flames. The second was tackled by Maud, who wrapped her arms around its midriff and slammed it into the ground before bashing its head in with her fists.

Again, there was silence, but as the grimm had just proved, that was no guarantee that there were no more grimm around.

"How are there grimm here?" asked Sunburst, his voice trembling. "Aren't we behind the lines?"

"They must have slipped through cracks in the lines," Starlight replied. "Gaps that opened up when the line broke."

"So … so they could be anywhere?" Sunburst asked.

"Not in huge numbers, Sunburst," Trixie told him. "There are only a few of them, don't worry. Nothing we can't handle."

Sunburst glanced at her. "What makes you so sure?"

Trixie almost smiled, despite the circ*mstances. "Because if the grimm had gotten behind the lines, then our troops wouldn't be continuing to retreat, but you can hear the gunfire heading this way. Listen."

Starlight listened. She could hear the guns of the Atlesian main force, rifles and cannons mingling together; they were not so close as to seem near; they were distant, remote and removed from Team TTSS for now, but getting closer at a steady, gradual pace.

Trixie was right; if the grimm had slipped a substantial force behind the Atlesian line, then the battalions wouldn't be continuing to fall steadily backwards; they'd be fighting for their lives against grimm in front and behind.

Any grimm who were behind the main line must be few in number, small groups that had slipped through the cracks, through gaps between platoons and companies.

A case in point, besides those three beowolves, no more grimm had emerged out of the night to attack them yet.

"Let's keep moving," Trixie said. "We don't want to wait around here all night."

No one demurred from her instruction; they all started forwards — or backwards, depending on how you wanted to look at it — towards the lights that were their destination.

Right now, they were moving across open countryside, the fields and farms and pastures that lay behind the Green Line. They had already stumbled into an irrigation ditch, climbed fences — there'd been a bull on the other side of one of those fences, but Rarity's semblance had kept it at bay without them having to hurt it — and crashed through hedgerows. Luckily, the sheep weren't in any danger from the grimm.

They were moving through fields now, but the lights of Vale lay in front of them, a beacon guiding them in. Those lights — hopefully lights that people had forgotten to turn off rather than a sign that people were still home — belonged to the outskirts of Vale, to the parts of the city that had sprawled out past the walls. Once they got there, they could just follow the road to the gate, then through the gate, and then…

And then they would have done their duty.

"What will we do, once we reach safety in Vale?" asked Rarity. "If you don't mind me asking, darlings?"

Nobody leapt to reply, and in Starlight's case, at least, it was because she wasn't entirely sure of the answer.

They had been ordered to carry the colour to safety; that was all well and good, but Starlight had never been ordered to carry the colours to safety before, so the exact nature of what it involved was a little unclear.

Carry them to safety; it seemed simple enough, didn't it? It was simple enough, as far as it went, until you got into the question of what was safety.

Was anywhere really safe with that enormous grimm around? It wasn't as though they could put the standard on an Atlesian cruiser and call it safe. That had been proven already.

"We shall keep hold of it," Trixie declared. "Until the night is over, or the battle is. Trixie … Trixie isn't so sure that Vale is so safe that we could just put this flag down once we get to the gate, but on the other side of the wall, it will be safer than it is here." She paused. "And it will stay safe, with us, until the danger has passed and we can return it to Colonel Harper, with our compliments." Her voice rose and recovered some of its usual ebullience.

"And we shall receive the thanks and gratitude of the Fourth Battalion for this steadfast performance of our duty! The Grrrrrreat and Powerrrrful Team Tsunami will be known and admired throughout the military!"

Starlight chuckled. "Well, when you put it like that, it sounds pretty good."

"I wish it were time for that already," Sunburst murmured. "And everything okay again, and taken care of."

"And all well," whispered Rarity. "In every sense."

A moment of silence fell amongst the group as they moved across the open, and presently empty, fields.

They hadn't seen any sign of Rainbow Dash or Blake since the grimm had broken through the line. In the chaos, and in the fact of their being given the colour to carry off, they had lost track of the pair of them. They were…

They were somewhere else on the battlefield, Starlight was sure of that.

"They'll be okay, wherever they are," she said. "Those two are as tough as a pair of old work boots. The ones with the steel toes."

"What a ghastly image to paint for reassurance," Rarity murmured. "Old steel-toed working boots, how ghastly; like something Applejack would wear." She glanced at Starlight, and smiled. "But thank you, all the same." Her gaze turned away, her eyes drawn upwards to the Amity Colosseum, that was moving away from Beacon, and from the ruined CCT tower, and over Vale.

Starlight had mixed feelings about the wisdom of that, considering that the giant grimm that had torn through their fleet and their battle line was in Vale right now, but it had been kind of exposed where it was.

And more importantly, it was still there. Ships had been lost, the Atlesian line had been overrun, the troops were retreating to the Red Line, the colours had been sent away to prevent their loss; Beacon tower had been destroyed.

But through all that, despite all that, they could look up at Amity Arena. It was still there, shining … actually, it wasn't shining so much right now; someone had turned off the lights.

But it was still there, and they could still see it.

Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie were all still there, still safe.

Though Rarity didn't know what had become of Rainbow or Blake, at least she could look up and see that her other friends were okay.

They kept on going, moving through the night, forming a guard of honour with Trixie and her standard in the centre. They were attacked along the way by a couple of other small groups of grimm — a lone ursa here, a couple of boarbatusks there, the grimm who had slipped through the cracks in the Atlesaian line as it retreated — but it was nothing that the five of them couldn't handle. Most of the horde — the hordes, plural — was or were being held off to the east, where the battalions were fighting in part to give them time to get the colours away.

Starlight wondered briefly how Team SABR was doing with the Battalion Colour.

They were a good team, even if they weren't always the most likeable team in Atlas Academy, and she had no doubt they would get the job done, just as TTSS would.

The five of them, for their part, were emerging out of the churned fields and empty pasture and entering into the furthest, unprotected parts of the city of Vale, the parts that had grown out beyond the safety of the walls that lay further on down the road. As Team TTSS retreated, they found the road running east-west towards Freedom Gate, they found that the rural emptiness shaded into suburban cosiness around them. Two-storey houses sprung up out of the ground to line the roads, with recycling bins in a rainbow of colours set outside each house, or most of them at least. Low stone walls or wooden fences marked the boundaries of each property, with bushes or flowers growing up against and over the demarcations, whilst well-manicured lawns or rockeries or even more flowers adorned front gardens. Cars, small and round and painted in a cornucopia of colours, sat parked on the roadside, constricting the space for other vehicles.

A herd of goats, big and white, with curling horns and expansive coats, frolicked through the streets with wild abandon. They leapt over the walls and fences into the gardens, or else, they balanced on the walls themselves and walked along them like circus tightrope walkers. They chewed the hedges and devoured the flowers, they climbed on cars and knocked over bins, or simply wandered here and there without restraint. Starlight even thought she saw one of them get up on its hind legs and ring someone's doorbell before running away.

"Alright for some, isn't it?" Starlight asked.

"I wonder how they got here," Sunburst said.

"They must have escaped from a farm or something," Starlight replied. "Maybe someone left the gate unlocked when they rushed to evacuate. Maybe some soldiers broke through their fence as they fell back. They must have gotten out somehow." She shook her head. "And they're not on the menu. Lucky guys have got nothing to worry about."

"Just keep them away from Trixie's cape," Trixie said. She hoisted the Atlesian Colour a little higher into the air. "And the flag, obviously. What would we tell Colonel Harper if we saved the standard from the grimm only to let it get eaten by escaped goats?"

"Maybe she'd see the funny side," suggested Maud in a deadpan voice.

"I doubt it, darling," Rarity said dryly. "Mostly because when it comes to letting a work of art be devoured by ravenous, loutish, brazen, smelly creatures, I'm afraid there really isn't a funny side to be seen."

Shooing the goats away slowed them down a little bit, but fortunately not by very much, and they were able to continue on their way without losing the colours to any caprine jaws or suffering any sartorial disasters — although the goats did seem eager to try their luck on Trixie's starry cape, much to the displeasure of their team leader.

But a colour guard that had fended off grimm was more than a match for a few curious and possibly hungry — although the havoc being wreaked on people's gardens suggested none of them were exactly starving — goats. They kept going, capes and flag and Rarity's sparkling skirt intact, and soon, they had left Vale's newest immigrants behind as they followed the road towards the gate.

And as they followed the road, the closer they got to the Valish walls, the more people that they saw, people crowding the sides of the road or filling up the streets, making it harder for TTSS to get through. They were standing around, not idly exactly, but motionlessly. There wasn't the sense of bored languor, of summer party relaxation, that would have led Starlight to call it idle; rather, there was a fearful energy in the air, a nervousness in the way that so many in the crowd twitched at the approaching gunfire, watched the skies with a furtive anxiousness like Vacuan meerkats in a nature documentary, heads turning in unison to follow the Atlesian airships streaking overhead.

There was fear in their eyes too, as they looked at Team TTSS, regarding them as the harbingers of a doom, in every sense, that had or was about to come upon them.

"Come on!" Trixie cried. Still carrying the standard, she got up onto the roof of a red sedan. "People of Vale!" she shouted. "The Green Line has fallen. Atlesisn troops are falling back this way with the grimm on their heels! You have to get to safety behind the Red Line immediately; it's not safe here! Follow us; Team Tsunami will lead the way!"

She was met with sullen silence, and a motionless crowd that did not follow, but only got thicker and thicker, harder to push through, the closer they came to the Red Line.

The Freedom Gate was the largest gate into Vale, the main gate, used by both road and rail lines, for which reason it was sometimes also known simply as the Great Gate; it was, as the name suggested, very broad, as wide as an Atlesian cruiser from bow to stern, a rectangle cut in the grey wall. The walls of Vale, though not as formidable-looking as the Colton Walls that surrounded Mantle, were tall and dark, especially now, with guns mounted atop the walls and set within, their barrels poking out of the barbettes along the ground and partway up the wall. Searchlights were mounted on top of the defences, their beams shining downwards upon the great crowd — some Valish soldiers in green, even a few Valish vehicles, and a huge number of civilians wearing t-shirts and jeans or hastily pulled on coats or even dressing gowns and slippers — who had gathered in front of the green gate.

For the gate was shut.

XxXxX​

"Sir, it's Cadet Lulamoon," des Voeux informed him. "She says it's urgent."

"Put her on," Ironwood commanded him. "Lulamoon, do you still have the colours?"

"Yes, sir," Lulamoon answered him at once. "We've got the Atlesian Colour, anyway; Team Sabre has the Battalion Colour, they went a different direction to us. Sir, we're at the Freedom Gate, and it's shut."

"Closed?" Ironwood repeated. "Any indication on how long it's been closed for?"

"Trixie isn't sure, sir," Lulamoon admitted, in that slightly affected way she had that Ironwood forgave because she was a good enough huntress to forgive it. "But there are a lot of people stuck out here, trailing back into the suburbs. They're mostly civilians, but some Valish soldiers too. I think the gate must have been closed for a while. Trixie tried shouting up at the troops on top to open up, but they didn't respond."

"Understood," Ironwood said, his voice calm. "I'm afraid you'll have to sit tight while I sort this out."

"Aye aye, sir," Lulamoon answered.

"Ironwood out," Ironwood said. "Des Voeux, patch me through to the squadron commanders and get me Colonel Sky Beak on the line now!"

"Aye aye, sir," des Voeux replied.

Close the gate? To close the gate already? More than already, if what Lulamoon said was true — and Ironwood had no reason to doubt her word on this — then it wasn't just that the gate had been shut but that quite possibly it had never been opened. Valish soldiers? That sounded like the troops that had routed from the Green Line when the grimm assault first started, not to mention the civilians living on the wrong side of the Red Line.

Ironwood could understand closing the gate in a panic as the grimm drew near; he might quibble on the exact timing, but he couldn't say that he didn't understand it, but with the grimm still a way off, and being held back by his forces even as they retreated, why keep the gate closed for so long? As it was, it was quite possible that it couldn't be opened in time to let everyone through before it had to be closed again as the grimm really did draw near.

Was this more malice, some last trace of the Siren's influence upon the Valish Defence Forces, or was it simple incompetence resulting from the confusion of this night? Ironwood hoped that he would soon find out.

The sound of gunfire crackled over the comms and into the bridge of the Valiant.

"This is Colonel Harper reporting, sir."

"Buller here, sir."

"Pulleine here, sir."

"Something going on, sir?" Harper asked. "Is the dragon coming back?"

"The dragon is currently circling in Vale," Ironwood informed them. "It hasn't attacked Amity, and it isn't showing any sign of returning to the battlefield at this time." He didn't add that two Skybolts had already launched an attack on the dragon with anti-Titan missiles and had as little luck with them as any of the rest of their airships. No sense in bringing down the mood even further. Once they heard about the gate, things would be bad enough. "No, I'm afraid this is something else. I wanted you all to hear Colonel Sky Beak of the Valish when he joins us—"

"He's responding now, sir," des Voeux informed him.

Sky Beak cleared his throat. "General Ironwood," he said. "You wish to speak to me."

"Colonel," Ironwood said. "I have my three squadron commanders on the line: Colonel Buller, Colonel Harper, and Major Pulleine."

"A pleasure," Sky Beak murmured. "I wish it were under better circ*mstances."

"Colonel, one of my student teams has just reached the Freedom Gate," Ironwood told him. "They were sent to the rear with one of the standards of the Fourth Battalion. They've informed me that the gate is closed, and judging by the number of people — civilians and Valish soldiers — stranded on the far side of the gate and wall, it appears to have been closed for some time. Are you aware of this?"

"Yes, General Ironwood, I gave the order," Sky Beak said.

Of all the responses that Ironwood had considered, he had not expected Sky Beak to so simply admit not only responsibility but also direct culpability for the event. "You ordered the gate to be closed."

"Yes, General," Sky Beak said, plainly and without apology. "Councillor Emerald had ordered the evacuation of the city beyond the Red Line, but he also tasked me with the defence of Vale, and I took the view that we couldn't afford vulnerabilities in our defence, not even for a moment. I ordered every gate to be closed: Freedom Gate, Fall Gate, Southgate, Coastgate, they've all been closed at my command."

"And what about all the people stuck on the wrong side of the wall?" Harper demanded. "Your people, your troops, and you're just hanging them out to dry?"

"Don't suggest that I do this lightly," Sky Beak snapped. "But there are many more people behind the walls than in front of it; if I were to keep the gates open so as to try and let everyone through and a grimm got in … Councillor Emerald ordered me to defend the city, and to defend the city may require sacrifices. It's unfortunate, but … unavoidable."

"Your Councillor wanted them to evacuate to safety," Harper pointed out.

"Councillor Emerald is currently unable to exercise his responsibilities," Sky Beak pointed out. "I've spoken to the other members of the Council; they were all in agreement with me as to what needed to be done."

That was no great surprise to Ironwood. Take a group of frightened and confused people in the middle of the night and ask them what to do in a crisis, they would naturally defer to the judgement of the professional military man who seemed to know what he was talking about.

"You didn't mention this when we spoke last," Ironwood said.

"I'm not obliged to, General Ironwood," Sky Beak pointed out. "I don't follow your orders."

"No, but coordination could only help us to defend this city," Ironwood replied. "If I'd known your intentions, I could have had my airships start flying people over the wall. You could have done that yourself."

"I don't have the pilots," Sky Beak responded. "I told you, General, my forces are shattered. They've been through … I don't know what they've been through, I'm not sure they know what they've been through, but I have battalions in which one man in ten is fit for duty, if that; I have officers I can't reach and officers who can't find their men; I have soldiers who have routed and who will spread their own low morale if I let them through the gate amongst the defenders, and I can't call on the police for support because the police have taken heavy losses of their own — partly at the hands of the military! I can't properly man the wall, and if the grimm get through the wall, then gods help Vale because my forces won't be able to." He paused. "My only hope, the city's only hope, is to trust in the strength of the wall itself — and of the gates. We may lose everything beyond, but at least there'll be a city called Vale left at the end of it."

There was a moment of silence in the CIC, and from the squadron commanders. Nobody had it in them to condemn Sky Beak; he had been dealt a rotten hand, and if they might not have played the cards in quite the same way, there was no desire from anyone to rush to judgement. He'd been given a job to do, and he was trying to do it, to the best of his ability.

Only one thing did inspire a touch of judgement from Ironwood. "You could have told me, Colonel. You should have told me."

"I thought you'd object," Sky Beak admitted. "I didn't want you to drop a force on Freedom Gate the way you did on our headquarters."

Ironwood didn't dignify that with a response. "If I were to start using my Skyrays to airlift civilians over the wall, would you have any objection?"

"Not at all," Sky Beak said. "In fact, I'd welcome it. I don't want these people to die; I just don't want them to kill all of Vale, either."

"Hmm," Ironwood murmured. "I hope you don't mind that I won't thank you for finally being straight with me."

"Quite understandable, General," Sky Beak said.

"Goodbye, Colonel," Ironwood said, motioning with one hand for des Voeux to cut him off. Once he had done so, Ironwood took a moment before he addressed his officers. "So, there you have it. I'm afraid you're all retreating towards a wall with no way through, and our airlift capacity is likely to be taxed by trying to evacuate the civilians over the wall, meaning—"

"Meaning that we'll have to hold off the grimm until the evacuation is complete before we even have a chance of being airlifted ourselves, sir," Harper said evenly.

"That's correct, Harper," Ironwood said. "Thoughts?"

There was a pause, a quiet only broken by the sounds of gunfire over Harper and Pulleine's comms as the troops of the Fourth and Third — and the First, although with Buller commanding from an airship that couldn't be heard — held off the grimm pursuit.

"It would have been better if the Valish had told us sooner, sir," Pulleine said. "I'm afraid this may come as a blow to morale, which isn't too high as it is."

"But it'll be done, sir," Harper added. "They'll grumble, moan, and curse the Valish, but they'll do it regardless. Are we to stop retreating?"

"No, not yet," Ironwood replied. "Continue to fall back until you reach the city limits, then establish yourselves amongst the buildings, barricade the streets, anything that you can do to establish a new defensive position. Hold the grimm back until…" He paused. He suspected that the grimm would not continue to attack for much longer, given what was going on at Beacon right now. Either Salem would soon have the Relic in her possession, in which case, Vale would be meaningless to her, or — hopefully — her attempt to seize the Relic would have been stopped, and she'd have missed her chance. Either way, there would be no point in continuing to press an attack that had only ever been a grand diversion.

Of course, it could be that even if she got the Relic — and even moreso if she didn't — that Salem would continue to press the attack regardless because destroying Vale was something desirable to her. That was entirely possible, but at this point, his hope was that once she either got what she wanted or she couldn't get it, then she would withdraw, if only to conserve her grimm.

If not, if she continued to attack, then this battle would be a whole lot harder.

"Until they decide they've had enough or the evacuation is complete and we can start airlifting your infantry," Ironwood said. "How are you fixed for ammunition?"

"Retreating has made resupply difficult, sir," Harper told him. "We're short on shells, missiles, and rockets; and most of my infantry only have a couple of magazines left per soldier. It'll be even harder to resupply once we start using all our airships to taxi civilians over the wall."

"Then we'll land the supply ships themselves," Ironwood said. "They'll set down just beyond the outskirts of Vale, and you can resupply directly from them; once you've got everything you need, the ships will take off, and as Colonel Harper says, you'll have to make do from that point until the evacuation is complete. Air units are to support the front line, of course, but I also want a second line in reserve in case the grimm decide to go for Vale; we want to prevent any aerial grimm from getting over the wall. From what Colonel Sky Beak just said, it doesn't seem as though we can expect the Valish anti-air defences to be working at full capacity."

"Has anything Valish been working properly tonight?" Buller asked, prompting a chuckle from Pulleine.

"Valish backstabbing has been getting a good workout," Harper muttered.

"That'll do, Colonel," Ironwood murmured. It was one thing to snigg*r at Valish incompetence — if telling themselves that they were better than the flat-footed Valish kept Atlesian morale up, then Ironwood would welcome it — and another to step into outright rancour. "They've been through a lot tonight."

"Right, sir, they've all gone mad, and we mustn't mock the afflicted," Harper said dryly. "But I hope they remember this next time they want to sneer at us for being too militarised. In fact, after tonight, I hope they remember to keep their mouths shut for a while."

Oz would probably tell me that these actions by the Valish military are why it's a good idea to separate out huntsmen and soldiers, Ironwood thought. He could hear the old man's voice, 'What would have happened, James, if it had been you the Siren had afflicted?'

But Ironwood's mind would be the only place he would hear such words, now that Ozpin was dead.

Well, until a new Oz appeared, at least, depending on how much he had of the old man in him.

"Take your own advice, Colonel, keep some of your feelings to yourself," Ironwood instructed her. "We are still allies, after all."

"Yes, sir," Harper said softly. "Apologies, sir."

"That said," Ironwood added, "once we have saved the people of Vale from the indifference of their own government, I won't begrudge any officer or soldier who wishes to enjoy the bragging rights for a while." He paused. "I know that this battle has not developed as we would have wished; I'm sure that the troops are tired and that morale is not as high as it was. Make sure they understand that they've already worked miracles and that they're only being asked to hold out until we can get the civilians to safety, after which it will be their turn to put a wall between them and the grimm. Tell them that they've done so much already, they can certainly do this too. Good luck, everyone."

XxXxX​

The Beacon and Haven students entered Vale in a cluster; what had been a spread out group with a little width bunched up as they moved from the rural outskirts to the streets of the city itself. The street lights were still on, lighting up the suburban houses with their gardens and painted doors, the high street shops and the cars parked on the street. There was no sound but the footsteps of the huntsmen and huntresses, their snatches of conversation as they headed towards the looming walls of Vale. At least, that was the only human sound at first; there were animal noises too; Ruby thought that she could hear a fox prowling amongst the bins and even catch sight of its bushy tail. She could hear birds of some kind chattering to one another. But she couldn't hear any people who weren't a part of their group, weren't students who had fought together and now entered Vale together, for the part of Vale they had entered was empty and abandoned. For a moment, as they walked down the street, between the parked cars and the pools of light made by the street lamps, Ruby was reminded of Mountain Glenn, the empty city abandoned to time.

Fortunately, there were fewer bodies.

What there were, driving away all memories of Mountain Glenn as the huntsmen and huntresses began to move deeper into this part of Vale, was people. A lot of people. An astonishing number of people, people waiting, people fretting, people watching the skies, people staring at the walls, people who looked as though they'd just got out of bed without even time to get dressed. So many people, filling the streets, blocking the streets, what were they all doing here?

"These people do know there's a grimm attack, right?" asked Nora. "I mean, this isn't the time for a street party."

"I don't think these people are having a party," Ren said softly.

"Then what are they all just standing around for?" Nora demanded. "Or at least, why aren't they standing around on the other side of the wall?"

Ruby was wondering the same thing, and wondering if it might be best to just ask someone about it, rather than just asking the question of the air and hoping for a response. After all, these people hopefully knew why they were just standing around like this, otherwise … well, otherwise, it would be kinda stupid of them to just be standing around like this, wouldn't it? There had to be a reason for it, and hopefully a good reason too.

They didn't all look especially talkative, she had to admit; some of them were giving the students funny looks, or dirty looks as though they smelled, shrinking away from them as the huntsmen and huntresses came to a stop, standing as still as all the people out on the street, waiting for something that Ruby didn't know, and doubted that anyone else knew either, just waiting.

Waiting because they couldn't press on and leave all these people behind them, between them and the grimm.

"Come on, move!" Violet Valeria shouted. "Move, you bunch of lemons!"

Nobody moved. A couple of them glanced in Violet's direction, but none of them actually moved, apart from perhaps a little bit of shuffling of feet, a couple of people moving closer to one another. It was like a packed train when the conductor asks people to move up inside the carriage, but nobody does — or can. There were times when people just didn't obey instructions.

But why were they all just standing here? The grimm weren't pressing hard upon the heels of the Beacon and Haven students — they were still wary, of the huntsmen or of Ruby's silver eyes or both — and they weren't going to descend upon the group at any moment, but at the same time, they weren't so far away that it was safe for all of these people to just … hang out like this, whyever they were doing it.

She was just about to step away from Ren and Nora to try and find somebody who could tell her what was going on when she was hailed by a voice.

"Ruby Rose? It is Ruby Rose, isn't it? From the bike club."

Ruby looked around, taking a few seconds to identify the source of the voice: a girl, human, with slightly bronzed skin and dark hair worn down just past her shoulders. Ruby … there was something vaguely familiar about her, but at the same time, she didn't recognise — but she did recognise, at least more clearly than she recognised the girl, the faunus woman whom the girl had just stepped away from.

That was Leaf's Mom, she was sure of it.

"It is Ruby Rose, isn't it?" the girl said. "I recognise you from your match on TV, and I … sorry, you've got no idea who I am, do you?"

"Not … I mean, do you know Leaf Kelly?" Ruby asked.

"Yes!" the girl said. "Yes, I do, my name's Angeline; I'm Leaf's stepsister." She glanced towards Leaf's mom, and towards a man stood beside her who looked more like Angeline, who Ruby thought must have been her father. "It's nice to meet you, even though…"

"Yeah," Ruby muttered. "Yeah, it's not a great night." She bit her lip. "Listen, what's going on out here? Why is everybody just standing around? The grimm are coming, everybody needs to get out of here—"

"And go where?" Angeline demanded. "That's what I was hoping to talk to you about; the gate's shut, and they're not letting anyone through. I was hoping that, as a huntress, you could … I don't know, get them to open the gates for us, or something."

"The gate's shut?" Ruby repeated. She took a step back from Angeline and looked around. There were so many people here it was hard to believe that they were all stragglers, left behind because they hadn't moved fast enough. "Since when? For how long?"

"For always," Angeline replied. "I don't think anybody's gotten through. Some people have given up waiting and gone home. And now that the CCT has gone down—"

"What?" Ruby cried. "What's the matter with the CCT?"

"The tower's gone," Angeline said. "Didn't you see?"

No, Ruby hadn't seen; her attention had been fixed on the grimm behind them, not at Beacon; after Teams SAPR and RSPT had set off for Beacon to stop Amber from taking the Relic, she hadn't really paid the school much mind, or attention. There had been other things which had more claim upon her thoughts. She hadn't wanted to get distracted by thinking about what might be going on there, although she hoped that they stopped Amber.

It was only now, prompted by Angeline, that she looked up and towards Beacon and saw, or rather didn't see, the CCT Tower. It wasn't there anymore. The lights that had always burned in the darkness, the emerald lights were gone. There was only dark sky there now.

The CCT Tower was down, and with it, the whole network. They couldn't talk to other kingdoms; it was touch and go if she could even reach Patch. Leaf couldn't reach her family, and they couldn't reach her either. Everyone had been muted. Everyone had been cut off.

They would survive — the world had gotten along okay before the CCT Towers went up; they'd get by afterwards too — but that didn't mean it was going to be easy. In fact, it was likely going to be pretty hard.

Still, as an issue, it kind of paled in comparison right now to what was going to happen to all of these people stuck outside the wall with the gates shut. "Sorry," Ruby said. "Thanks for letting me know, but … you were saying?"

"Right, um … yeah, just, with the CCT down, we can't find out anything about why the gates are shut or when they might open," Angeline said. "Can … can you help? At all?"

"I … I mean, I can't just order them to open the gate," Ruby told her. "But I'll do what I can. Just … wait here just one second; I need to talk to a couple of people."

She turned away, her red cape swirling around her, as she took a couple of steps back to Ren and Nora.

"Friend of yours?" Nora asked.

"No, but I know her sister a little bit," Ruby explained. "She recognised me. She said the—"

"What's going on?" Arslan asked, as she and Violet made their way over to join Ruby, Ren, and Nora. "Did that girl tell you something?"

Ruby nodded. "She said the gates are closed, that they've always been closed as far as she knows, that they're not letting anybody get through them."

"Not letting anyone through?" Nora cried. "Why not?"

"Presumably, they're worried about letting grimm through," murmured Ren.

"But there haven't been any grimm around here!" Nora shouted. "They could have got lots of people, maybe all these people, through the gate already if they'd just opened up!"

"I'm sure they had good reasons," said Ren quietly.

"Does being yellow as a custard cream count as a good reason?" asked Nora.

"And a fat lot of good you lot turned out to be!" shouted an old man from out of the crowd. He was bald on top, with white hair crowning his back and sides, and tufty eyebrows extending out past the ends of his craggy, age-lined face. He gestured at them with one fat finger as he went on. "All that prancing about on telly, all that strutting back and forth, and you can't stop a few grimm, can you?"

"'A few grimm'?" Nora repeated. "'A few grimm'?!"

Violet Valeria's hands knotted into fists as she began to stride forward.

"Hey, hey," Arslan grabbed her by the wrist, slipping around her until she was between Violet and the old man. "No, no, you can't do that."

"I'm just going to teach him a lesson for his impertinence," Violet said.

"I know," Arslan said. "That's what you can't do. This isn't Mistral; this is Vale."

"I don't care about Valish custom, so long as I follow Mistralian custom—"

"Do you think everyone else will follow Mistralian custom in letting you get away with it?" Arslan demanded. "Let him spout off; don't we have more important things to think about?"

Violet hesitated for a moment, before letting out a loud huff and turning away, back to Ruby, Ren, and Nora.

"Sit still and wait for orders from your betters, you who are worthless, counting for nothing in battle or debate," she muttered. "Wretched peasant."

"What were you going to do to him?" Ruby asked quietly.

"It doesn't matter," Arslan said quickly.

"Just give him a little crack on the head, that's all," Violet said casually. "Teach him to mind his manners and hold his tongue in future."

"We're supposed to protect these people," Ruby said.

"Lily has taken wounds protecting these 'people,'" Violet declared, her lip curling into a sneer. "And Cicero, too, the son of a Councillor of Mistral. Worse than wounds, sons and daughters of Mistral will ne'er be seen from the White Tower again and see now with what gratitude their sacrifice is received by the 'people' of this wretched city."

"They don't have to be grateful."

"There, we must disagree," said Violet. "If not gratitude, then at least the facsimile of the same through a respectful silence."

Ruby rolled her eyes.

"We should stay focussed," Ren said.

"That's right, focussed on the real villains: the people who closed the gate," Nora said.

Ruby looked around. So many people out here, so many people waiting, waiting for a gate that would not open, waiting for salvation that would not come, waiting for somewhere to go when they had nowhere to go.

Waiting for the grimm to come and devour them all.

"We need to get the gate open," she declared.

Everyone looked at her.

"Seriously?" Arslan asked.

"Yes, seriously," Ruby replied. "I'm not saying it will be easy, necessarily, but I think we can do it; it can't be impossible."

"You're also saying that we should," Ren pointed out, his voice remaining outwardly calm, like a still pond.

"Because we should!" Nora cried. "Look around, Ren; how many people do you think there are out here?"

"How many people are behind the walls?" asked Ren in response.

"How many of us are there?" Ruby demanded. "We've been lucky, so far, that ever since the dragon took off, the grimm have been handling us pretty lightly, but how long is that going to last? Are we going to keep on getting lucky, or are the grimm going to remember that they outnumber us by a hundred to one and throw everything they've got at us again? Ren, anyone, do you really think that if the grimm attack in force, we can hold them back with the numbers we have?"

Ren began, "The Atlesians—"

"Are retreating too; who knows if they can hold out?" Ruby said. "And even if they can, we're still…" She hesitated, because she didn't want to admit this, even if it was true. "We're still the weak link. I'm asking you again, do you think we can hold the grimm off?"

She looked at Ren, her eyes fixed upon him as she waited for his answer.

Ren's expression didn't change. He was unflinching. Ruby had to admire that, even when she disagreed with him, like she admired the way that his voice didn't waver as he said, "No."

"Then all these people will die," Nora said.

"Perhaps they will," said Violet. "Perhaps it is as you say, we are not strong enough to hold them. I will go so far as to admit you are probably right; we have not held them so far, and we were stronger then … we will go down to death as our ancestors did, and all these Valish abandoned by their leaders will die alongside us. Yet, as I have been reminded, this is Vale, not Mistral, and we have no authority to overrule the leaders of this land when they have chosen their course."

"So our only choice is how nobly we die?" asked Arslan.

Violet shrugged. "It comes to us all in the end, no? What choice could matter more than how we meet it?"

"We're huntsmen and huntresses," Ruby said. "Defenders of life; that gives us all the authority we need."

"Even if it means putting Vale in danger?" demanded Ren. "If the grimm reach the open gate—"

"That's a chokepoint," Ruby said. "We can defend that easily, a lot more easily than we can defend this part of the city." She paused. "If it were just us out here, then I'd agree with you, but it's not. It's all these people too, and they didn't sign up for any of this. We can't just let them all die."

"Not even for the greater good?" asked Ren.

"The greater good only applies to our lives," said Ruby. "When it comes to everyone else, we have to fight for every life. No matter the cost, no matter the risk."

"We can't just abandon people," Nora said softly.

"We're n—"

"Yes, we are," Nora insisted. "If we know that we can't keep them safe, then we're abandoning them."

Ren was silent for a moment, looking at Nora first, before his eyes swung to Ruby. "What's your plan?" he asked.

"I … really only have the concept, right now," Ruby admitted.

"Let's head to the gate," Nora said. "See what's actually going on there."

"We'll stay here," Arslan said. "Hold the grimm back if they come."

"Right," Ruby said. She sprinted across the short distance separating her from Angeline, trailing some rosepetals behind her on the ground. "We are going to get the gate open," she told her. "I don't know how, yet, but we're going to do it. You should try and get a little closer to the gate, if you can, for when we do." She didn't mention that it would also keep them safer when the grimm arrived; they could probably work that part out for themselves.

"Okay, I'll tell Mum and Dad," Angeline said. "Thank you."

"Don't thank us until the gate is open," Ruby replied, leaving Angeline and returning to Ren and Nora.

"Let's move," she said.

They found it kind of hard going; the crowd only got thicker as they got closer to the gate, the gate that Ruby still couldn't see but thought they must be closing in on because the walls seemed higher now than they had been before, looming larger over the suburbs down below.

Unfortunately, the crowds were thicker too, and the closer to the walls — and the gate — they got, the thicker the crowd pressed in around them and made it more and more of an effort to force their way through.

They were still trying to get through the crowd, which sometimes pressed so tightly around Ruby that she lost sight of the walls, or Ren and Nora, and only saw a cramped mass of bodies all around blocking out every other view, when they saw a few Atlesian Skyrays pass overhead, then began to drop down into the crowd.

"The Atlesians must be evacuating people," Ren said approvingly. "So there's no need to open the gate."

"We'll see about that," Nora muttered darkly.

They didn't have to wait long to find the reason for Nora's scepticism. As the Atlesian airships descended, they were greeted rapturously, with raised hands and joyous cries from the people down below, but no sooner had the airships landed and opened their doors than people flooded in, no order, no restraint, just a mass of desperate, frightened people pressing into a confined space that was nowhere near big enough for all of them. Through the window, Ruby and the others could see people pushing into the co*ckpit of one airship, while someone screamed in pain as the door shut while they were still half out of the Skyray, crushing them in a vice. Even once one airship had shut its doors, people clung to the side of the fuselage or clambered up onto the wings and hung on for dear life. Overloaded Skyrays wobbled in the air like plates balanced on straws as they struggled to gain elevation, while people grabbed hold of them as though they were trying to hold the airships back or pull them down again to the ground.

More people screamed as they lost their grip and fell back down into the crowd off the wings or fuselages of the unsteady Skyrays, while one person fell into the engine on one wing, which exploded with a huge bang and a shower of debris that had everyone down below ducking for cover as an answering shriek of horror rose from the people still on the ground.

The Skyray spun into the air, colliding with a wobbling and unsteady other airship which itself began to tumble, rolling downwards like a cheese, both airships plunging into the crowd; people tried to get out of the way, they tried to run, they screamed and shouted, but everyone was just pressed so tightly together that not everyone was able to escape, some of them were still down below when the airships crashed, both of them exploding in blossoming burst of fire.

Cries of fear turned to cries of pain as people were touched by the fire, or by the shards of metal that sliced like hurled spears through the crowd.

Another airship, far too full, crashed less explosively; it had barely gotten ten feet up in the air before the strained engines gave out, and it flopped back down to earth with a metallic thump.

"They'll never get everyone out that way," Nora said. "If they can get anyone out that way. The airships aren't big enough, and the people aren't organised enough. The only way that enough people can get to safety is through that gate."

And so they pressed on, struggling through the crowd until at last they reached the Freedom Gate, where spotlights shone down from the parapet on top to sweep across the desperate crowd — mostly Valish civilians, although Ruby could see some Valish soldiers too, and even the tractor that they'd seen Reese off on carrying their own wounded earlier in the battle — who huddled at the green metal barrier.

People stood on the road, they stood between the rails too, taking their own lives in their hands; they held up desperate hands, or held up children, towards the soldiers on top of the wall, they cried out to them for pity or for mercy, they cried out for humanity from those who looked down upon them from the walls with such bright lights.

Who looked down and did nothing.

Nora was right, and Ren was wrong; even if Ruby hadn't believed that already, she thought that she probably would have believed it now, watching these people bang pitifully and fruitlessly on the gate, listening to them begging for help, knowing what would happen to them if no help came.

They couldn't just leave them to die. Ruby couldn't leave them to die.

But how to open the gate? The only way would be to get onto the other side of the wall, and then—

"Nora," Ruby asked. "Do you think you could hit me hard enough to send me over the wall and onto the other side so I can open the gate?"

Nora grinned. "Can I hit you hard enough? Oh, just you watch me, little lady." She raised her voice. "Stand back, everyone!" She pulled her hammer from across her back, unfolding it from its grenade launcher form into its hammer mode, drawing it back over her shoulder. "Batter up!"

Ruby, for her part, crouched down.

She concentrated her aura in her legs, not so much for the sake of the jump but because she thought she would need all the aura she could get down there.

One. Two. Three.

She jumped like a leaping frog, rising up into the air.

Nora's hammer hit her on the soles of her feet about as hard as Ruby had expected them to, battering her aura down — Ruby thought she must have lost about half of it; that was certainly what it felt like — even as it tossed her up into the air. Ruby flew up and up, rising higher and higher, past the guns in their mountings, higher than the spotlights on top of the wall, higher than the wall itself, higher and higher — before she began to come down.

Ruby pulled Crescent Rose out from behind her back, and as she dropped down on the far side of the wall, she fired to slow herself, once, twice, three times, firing her weapon in its carbine configuration, slowing her descent with every shot until she landed, safely, on her feet on the far side of the Red Line.

There was a roar, a massive roaring sound that made Ruby look up as the dragon swept overhead, its enormous wings beating. It didn't look at Ruby, it didn't seem to look down at all, it just flew over her head, over the gate and outwards to where Ruby couldn't see it anymore. The walls were too high, and more importantly, she was too close to the walls, and the dragon quickly disappeared from her sight. She couldn't see it, she couldn't see what it might be doing, she could only hear it roar again, a deafening sound that drowned out every other noise, even all the crying and the wailing from the other people on the other side of the gate.

The dragon's roar died down, and Ruby could hear the people crying out once again.

She could also hear, coming from behind her, the rumbling sound of a familiar motorcycle.

Ruby turned around, to see that same, familiar, ugly, hodgepodge bike rumbling down the road towards her, with Weiss on its back and Sunset at the controls.

They were building a barricade across the road.

Trixie and Team TTSS had been drawn back to the front lines by … by magic, one might say, or simply by the fact that since they couldn't really get to safety, it hadn't felt right just hanging around with all of the Valish civilians, colours or no colours. And so they had come back, following the road that had led them to the gate, now heading back towards the outskirts of Vale, where the wild goats had been taking over the deserted suburbs.

They actually came across the goats a little earlier than anyone had been expecting; they had headed further into Vale and closer to the walls, mingling with some of the stragglers of the crowd closest to the city limits. As Team TTSS moved onwards, they soon found out just why the goats had been driven into the city.

Because the Atlesian troops had arrived, their retreat finally carrying them out of the fields and into Vale itself, and they were establishing new defences on the outskirts of the city.

It was a lot like when they'd all first arrived at the Green Line from Beacon, in that the first things they saw were the Spider droids with cannons or missile launchers mounted on them; although these Spiders were still getting into position, some of them still striding down the streets and making TTSS dodge out of the way of their clanking metal legs. No wonder the goats had run further into the city.

Then there were mortars being set up in the middle of the road, and then, further on from that, at the very outskirts of Vale where suburbs shaded into fields, were the infantry and Paladins, forming a rough line to keep the grimm at bay.

It was the standard setup, then, the same setup as the Atlesians had used to defend the Green Line, the same setup that had held the Green Line until that giant monster grimm got involved. It was the same, but it was different too. For one thing, everything seemed to be less, sometimes a lot less, sometimes just a little less; there were — or there appeared to be — fewer Spiders, and while that might have been because the houses were blocking the view of the others, it was also probably because they'd lost some in the retreat, when the grimm had first broken through the Atlesian lines. There were fewer Paladins too, and definitely fewer Knights standing in the line alongside the soldiers. When Trixie, TTSS, and all the other teams had arrived on the Green Line, they had found two Knights for every soldier on the rampart; now, there were a lot more soldiers and maybe one Knight for every five or six troops present.

Better that they should lose the androids than the soldiers, but still, that was a lot gone, a reminder of how much they'd lost when the defences were swept away.

Another reminder of that was the wounded; nobody was too seriously wounded — Trixie guessed that the really badly hurt had been airlifted to the medical frigates — but there were men with cuts and gashes, with claw marks on their armour, with bandages hastily tied around their arms. There were soldiers who lost their helmets, revealing tired eyes with dark circles around them. There were Paladins that sagged forwards as though the machines themselves were exhausted, never mind the pilots, and soldiers whose hands trembled.

But they worked anyway, setting up new defences on the edge of the city as they prepared to turn and fight once again. They smashed down doors to the nearby houses, wrenching them clean off their hinges and piling them up in the street alongside whatever furniture they could manhandle out of the houses to make a barricade out of. Low walls of sofas and dining tables sprung up before their eyes. Other soldiers smashed the windows of the houses, particularly the upper windows, and made ready to fire out of them. Rifle muzzles poked out of broken windows, the men and women who held the rifles invisible in dark rooms.

As defences went, it didn't really compare to what the Atlesians had earlier set up on the Green Line, but it was better than nothing.

Anything had to be better than nothing, right?

Colonel Harper was standing near the front line, just behind the barricade as it went up. Her sword was drawn, the blade resting lightly on her shoulder, and her pistol hung lightly in her other hand, down by her side. She had a group of officers around her, and her Mistralian orderly stood silently by, his own sword sheathed for now.

"So, you had the same idea as us?" Sabine said.

Trixie looked around to see Team SABR approaching, having just come from one of the connecting side-streets that ran between this road and one of the others parallel to it. Like TTSS, they still had the flag; Sabine still had the flag, the Battalion Colour of the Fourth, and like the Atlesian Colour in Trixie's hand, it hung limp now, so that you couldn't see the black bull or the battle honours.

Team SABR was intact; they had kept the standard, and they hadn't lost anyone to do it.

Trixie put one hand on her hip. "Excuse you, Sabine Silverband, but Trixie think you'll find that it is you who had the same idea as the Grrrrreat and Powerrrrrrful Trrrrixie."

Sabine snorted. "Maybe. It's a pity the Great and Powerful Trixie couldn't have had the idea of getting to the gate before it shut."

"I think the gate's always been shut," Starlight replied. "No matter when we left, or how fast we got here, there's no way that we couldn't have gotten to the other side of the wall. The Valish had never opened the gate at all."

Sabine wrinkled her nose. "They're a gutless bunch, aren't they?"

"They're scared," Starlight murmured.

"We're all scared," replied Sabine. "Even the Great and Powerful over here. It's what you do when you're scared that counts, isn't it?"

Starlight shrugged. "Maybe," she admitted. "But … if Mantle were under attack, and Atlas could either let people in and risk Atlas, or keep them out and keep Atlas safe in the process, do you think that we'd behave any better than the Valish are doing now?"

"One would certainly like to hope so, darling," murmured Rarity.

Starlight gave a thin smile. "Sure, but I—"

"But you didn't say 'hope'; you said 'think,'" said Maud quietly.

Starlight nodded. "Exactly."

"I think that we'd do something," Sunburst said. "We wouldn't just leave Mantle to die."

"Optimism, that's the spirit," Sabine said, and it was hard for Trixie to tell if she was being sarcastic or not, although she thought she was. She paused for a second. "You know," she said, "I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I don't think I'll go to Vacuo."

Trixie's eyebrows rose. "You were going to go to Vacuo?"

"I thought about it," Sabine admitted. "We thought about it."

"As in transfer to Shade Academy?" Trixie said. "Leave Atlas."

Sabine chuckled. "You say that like it's the worst fate imaginable."

"Isn't it?" demanded Trixie. "Why would you want to go to Vacuo? It's so sandy and hot and sticky and disgusting. Why … just why?"

"Because they treat faunus better in Vacuo," Starlight guessed. "That's right, isn't it?"

Sabine gestured with her head, almost like she was tossing it to one side, or twitching because of something wrong with her neck. "That was about it, yeah," she admitted. "Freedom, opportunity—"

"Freedom to sweat and opportunity to smell?" Trixie asked.

"Stuff like that is why they don't like us very much in Vacuo," said Sabine.

"I thought that was just the chip on their shoulder," Trixie replied.

"But you changed your mind?" Sunburst asked, bringing the conversation back around. "Why?"

"Because where have the Shade students fought during this battle?" asked Sabine.

"They … they haven't, have they?" asked Rarity in return.

"Exactly, girl who I don't know," Sabine declared. "They've sat up on Amity Colosseum, sitting this one because they're as much of a gutless bunch as the Valish who've kept the gate shut."

"I think it's more of a cultural thing," Sunburst said. "Vacuans don't—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Vacuans don't believe in standing their ground and fighting; Vacuans pack up and move on when danger threatens; Vacuans are so agile, they're basically contortionists," Sabine said. "It got me thinking that freedom and opportunity are all very well and good — and I mean that — but I don't want to be like that. I don't want to cut and run all the time when things get rough; that's not who I am." She paused. "And then, as I was thinking about that, and how I might not really fit in in Vacuo, I realised that going to Shade and leaving Atlas would actually be me cutting and running so … looks like you're all stuck with me. With us." She glanced behind her. "Sorry, guys, I've changed my mind. I hope none of you were looking forward to us all getting sand in our boots together."

"It's more important that we be a team than that we be in the right kingdom for it," Reynard said.

Bella Roseye shook her head. "Whatever kingdom we are in together, that is the right kingdom for us."

Sabine looked at her. "'Whatever kingdom we are in together—' what kind of corny thing to say is that? You've been watching too many cartoons, Bella." She shook her head before looking at Trixie again. "I suppose we should let Colonel Harper know we're here."

Trixie nodded. "That sounds like an excellent idea, which is why Trixie was just about to suggest it."

Sabine snorted.

The two team leaders took the lead, with each of them holding tightly onto the colours, as their teammates fell in behind them. They walked — they marched — down the road to where Colonel Harper was conferring with her officers. The Mistralian orderly noticed them, but said nothing, and did nothing to draw the colonel's attention to their presence.

"There might not be time, but try and put some holes in the walls," Colonel Harper said. "There aren't enough windows facing directly outwards across the field, and we want to increase our firing angles, if possible. And remind the troops that ammunition resupply is unlikely for a while, so take careful aim and make every shot count. I want Military Huntsmen deployed by squads along the line in support of rifle companies. Lieutenant Raleigh, I want you to take a sergeant and sixteen men into reserve, just in case the dragon comes back. If it starts dropping grimm behind our lines, then it will be your job to deal with them."

"Yes, ma'am."

"That's all," Colonel Harper said. "Take your positions."

As the officers dispersed to their respective units, Colonel Harper appeared to finally notice Team TTSS and Team SABR. She looked at them, half-turning in their direction.

"Cadets," she said softly. She glanced upwards at the colours that Trixie and Sabine gripped tightly. "I see you kept them safe, then."

"Yes, ma'am," Trixie said. "Although we couldn't get them to safety because—"

"Because they Valish aren't letting anyone through the gate, yes, I know," Colonel Harper replied. "That's why we're setting up here. General Ironwood has ordered us to hold this position until we can evacuate the Valish civilians by air, after which it will be our turn to be lifted off the battlefield. We just have to stand our ground until then, or until the grimm decide that they've had enough punishment for one night and call it quits."

"Yes, ma'am," Trixie said. "We thought that, since we couldn't get through the wall and couldn't get the Colours to real safety, you might like them back on the line."

"We thought that they'd be better off here than being held in the middle of a bunch of civilians," Sabine added. "And so would we."

Colonel Harper was quiet for a second. Again she looked up at the flags, which hung limply down from their staves.

"I see," she whispered. "A part of me wants to tell you to take them back, to stand around with the civilians with them because they'll be safer there than they will be here. A part of me wants to tell you that I'm not sure that we can hold the grimm here, and I don't want our standards to be food for beowolves or ursai." She paused. "Another part of me wants to thank the two of you, all of you, because this might be the toughest fight in the history of the Fourth, and it's as well that we fight it within sight of the colours. And another part of me realises that it's too late now; if I send you and the standards away, then anyone who notices will lose heart, and that would never do." She smiled, at least a little bit. "So welcome back to the battle, all of you." Her smile faded. "Guard those standards with your lives. If our line crumbles, I expect you all to be the last to fall, in defence of the colours."

"You can rely on us, ma'am," Trixie said. "We've kept them safe, and we will keep them safe."

Colonel Harper nodded, and Trixie thought that she might even be nodding approvingly. "Very well then," she said. "Take up your positions just behind the—"

The dragon roared, loudly and from behind them.

"Take cover!" Colonel Harper shouted. "Everybody down!"

Trixie ducked, bending her back and her knees, holding the colours so that they almost touched the ground, half-shielding them with her body. She didn't look up. She didn't see the dragon, but she heard the beating of its wings as it flew overhead.

Flying overhead was all that it seemed to do. It didn't drop down to rake its claws down the road and snatch people up like it had snatched up Team FNKI; it didn't unleash a blast of breath the way it had burned a hole in the defences. It just flew overhead, and when Trixie dared to look up, she found that it had flown clean over and was almost out of sight now, flying into the night.

The dragon roared again, louder than it had roared before, and this time, its roar was answered by the grimm of the horde, beowolves and ursai and goliaths and all the rest roaring and howling and trumpeting in unison.

It's letting them know it's back to take charge again, Trixie thought.

She swallowed.

"Up!" Colonel Harper shouted. "Up and to your posts! Soldiers of the Fourth, make ready!"

Soldiers rose up from their crouches, or from the ground where they had thrown themselves; those rose up and stepped up to the makeshift, half-completed barricades, resting machine guns on overturned tables and raising rifles to their shoulders.

And not a moment too soon, as the first grimm began to charge out of the darkness, the moonlight gleaming down upon the white bone of their armour, their spiky spurs, their masks with the red markings on.

The Atlesians began to fire; it seemed weak compared to the wall of flame that had met the grimm upon the ramparts of the Green Line, less intense, more sporadic, but the grimm were met with fire nonetheless, and the leading grimm began to wither and die under the rifle and machine gun rounds.

Behind the line, the Spider droids began to fire, shells whistling as they arced over the Atlesian defences to explode in the darkness, their brief bursts of flame illuminating the night where the grimm gathered.

There seemed to be so many of them, even after all that they'd killed, all the losses the grimm had suffered, there still seemed to be so many of them.

And the dragon emerged out of the night, flying straight towards them.

XxXxX​

Sunset stopped her motorcycle.

Ruby was there. Ruby was standing in front of her.

It shouldn't have been so unexpected. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to Sunset at all, she should have known — she had known — that this was coming; when she and Weiss had set out for the battlefield, this had become inevitable, and yet…

And yet…

And yet, Sunset was still, and stiff, and frozen.

Because Ruby was there.

And Ruby knew that Sunset was there too; she was looking at Sunset the same way that Sunset was looking at her.

There was no escape, for either of them.

There was no sign of Pyrrha either, or Penny; that might be better, or it might be worse, Sunset wasn't sure.

There was really only one way to find out.

Sunset slowly dismounted from her bike. Her movements were stiff, awkward, and slow and sluggish in consequence. She could hear the dragon roaring somewhere out beyond the wall, rendered invisible now by the height of the wall and by how close Sunset was to it, but not even the roaring of the dragon could move Sunset to a greater haste, could not make her motions more fluid. She moved like a puppet, dancing upon invisible strings, everything a little awkward, action by action, lacking in coordination, lacking in a sense of realism.

In such a halting, hesitant, and awkward manner, Sunset got off her bike and took off her helmet.

If Ruby hadn't known who she was before, then she couldn't not realise it now.

Weiss, behind Sunset, had gotten off the bike first but didn't say anything.

Sunset kind of wished she would, but at the same time, was also a bit grateful to her for staying silent.

Which of the two emotions ended up prevailing would probably depend a lot on how Ruby reacted, which couldn't be far off now.

Sunset waited, silent. She didn't say anything because she wasn't entirely sure what to say. It would be better by far, she thought, to let Ruby make the first move; then she could see how Ruby felt.

It was hard to tell how Ruby felt from looking at her. She had kind of a blank look on her face; even from her eyes, it was hard to work out what was going on in her head.

Ruby tilted said head to one side a little and said, "I think I … you're Sunset Shimmer, right? You helped the First Councillor deal with the situation with the Defence Forces." She nodded approvingly. "That was good work; thanks for helping to get that straightened out."

Sunset stared at her, not replying. She'd waited for Ruby to make the first move, but now that Ruby had, Sunset was still completely at a loss as to how she ought to respond to it. Of all the things that Ruby could have said, she chose to open with that. Sunset supposed it was nice to have a little gratitude, but it was so far from what she'd expected that it left her a little out of sorts, floundering in a sea of confusion.

And what was with the 'you're Sunset Shimmer, right' like she didn't know who Sunset was?

"I…" Sunset began. "Well, thanks, I suppose," she muttered, scratching her chin with one hand.

"It is Sunset Shimmer, isn't it?" Ruby asked.

Sunset blinked. "Y-yes," she said. "Yes, it is."

"It's nice to meet you," Ruby went on. "I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose."

Sunset kept on blinking, blinking rapidly, eyes flickering as though she was asleep. Perhaps she was asleep, and this was all just some kind of weird dream.

That might actually be nice.

Except I'd wake up in Skystar's house and have to go through all this again.

"Are you okay?" Weiss asked, stepping out from behind Sunset.

"Hey, Weiss," Ruby said. "Yeah, I'm fine, why?"

"Because you're talking like you don't know someone you've been living with for the past year!" Weiss declared sharply.

Sunset said nothing. She waited for what would come next.

Ruby looked at Weiss now, not at Sunset; she looked at Weiss almost as though Weiss was the weird one, whose behaviour, words, and actions made no sense at all.

"No," Ruby said. "No, I think I'd remember that." She returned her attention to Sunset. "I mean, I have dreamed of someone like you, but … but that was just a dream. I don't know you."

Ah. Okay, so that's how we're going to play this, Sunset thought. That was … honestly, probably the best that Sunset could have hoped for. She wasn't entirely sure it was the best time, but leaving that aside, it was hard to see any way that this could be handled any better. Too much had happened to do anything but ignore it, pretend that it hadn't happened, or that it had happened to someone else.

"Yeah, I don't know you either," Sunset replied softly. "Although I think we might have some mutual friends."

Ruby shook her head. "No," she said. "No, we don't. Mutual … acquaintances, maybe, but not friends; not my friends."

Bit harsh, Sunset thought. Especially on Penny. "I … I'm sorry to hear that."

"Is this actually happening?" Weiss demanded.

Sunset ignored her, and so did Ruby, for that matter.

"It's okay," Ruby said. "School wasn't for me; that's why I decided to drop out."

'Drop out'? Drop out and do what? Wait tables?

"It wasn't a good fit for me," Ruby went on. "But I think it would suit you, though."

Is she … is this a way of telling me that … that I can go back. "Are you … you really … you think so? I mean, I enjoyed it, mostly, but—"

"Then stick with it," Ruby advised her. "You might as well. I mean, what's stopping you?"

Sunset stared down at her. Ruby was … Ruby was giving Sunset her blessing to come back. Ruby was letting her back into Beacon.

Admittedly, that meant Ruby was leaving Beacon herself, but if she was being honest with Sunset, then she hadn't enjoyed it, in which case … in which case, she might be better off out of it. Providing that she wasn't leaving just to help Sunset out, but then why would she? What reason would Ruby have to use Sunset with such kindness?

What reason would she have to feign having never met me before?

Maybe she's had a change of heart towards me?

Not so great that…

Not so great that what? That she can acknowledge it? Does that really matter?

No. No, I don't suppose it does. If she wants to go, if she wants to walk another path, then fine, good luck to her. I hope she's happy.

And I…

"You … you really think that's a good idea?" Sunset asked.

Ruby nodded. "I do. I think your friends would be really glad to see you again."

Sunset blinked twice, three times, more. "And … and you?"

"I've got a better offer, one that suits me better," Ruby replied. "At least, I think so, anyway. An offer that will let me do what I want."

"I … I see," Sunset murmured. They would … they would take me back? I'd be allowed to go back?

Ruby will step aside and let me back.

I can go home.

Sunset blinked rapidly, for she was blinking back the tears that welled in her eyes. "That…" She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "That sounds like very good advice. I think I'll take it, thank you."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "You … really? Are you both … are we really doing this? Am I losing my mind here?"

"Maybe," Ruby said. "But hopefully not."

Weiss snorted. "Listen, young lady, I will not be Angelstreeted! I know that—"

"Weiss," Sunset said softly. "Please, that's enough." She didn't give Weiss much of a chance to respond before she asked Ruby, "We've been in the city helping with the issues there; have you come from outside the walls?"

"Yes," Ruby answered. "I just got over the walls with some help from Nora."

"Okay," Sunset said. "So, what's the situation?"

Ruby hesitated for a second. She glanced down at the ground. "It's hard to know where to start," she muttered.

"Sunset knows about Beacon," Weiss said. "So you don't need to cover that part. Just tell us what's been happening out on the battlefield."

"On the battlefield," Ruby said softly. "Right." She closed her eyes and took a breath. "On the battlefield, the Valish troops routed almost as soon as the grimm attacked; all of the stuff with General Blackthorn and everything, it just got to them, it was too much. Plus, they weren't really properly equipped to face a grimm attack like that; the nevermores and the griffons were tearing through them, and they couldn't respond. So they ran, but with the help of the Haven students and the Mistralian forces, we were able to sort of hold them, and the Atlesians were holding their line too. Yang, Ren, Nora, Penny, Jaune, and I went to look for the Apex Alpha leading the horde on our flank—"

"That was rash of you," Weiss said, "And Yang, for one, should have remembered better."

Sunset, who had bitten her tongue, felt glad that Weiss had said it, even as she had no intention of saying anything in that vein to Ruby herself. After all, if they were strangers, then why should she care what huge risks Ruby ran with her survival?

She might give Jaune and Penny an earful about it later, though, because really? Seriously? Hunting the Apex Alpha? Because that had been such a good idea, hadn't it, the way that Sunset had almost led Yang and Weiss to their deaths — and Blake, too, for that matter.

What were they thinking?

"We had to do something," Ruby insisted. "The grimm were going to overwhelm us with sheer numbers if we didn't take action to stop the horde."

"Pyrrha wasn't with you?" Sunset asked. Ruby had named the three members of Team YRBN, and three members of Team SAPR, but not Pyrrha. She had named Jaune, but not Pyrrha. Had she … had she already been wounded by the time that they embarked on this adventure?

Had she been … worse than wounded?

Had their farewell before the Emerald Tower been a true farewell? Before Sunset even got the chance to congratulate her on her tournament victory?

"She stayed behind with the Haven students," Ruby said. "I was worried that if they saw her leaving, then they would think she was fleeing the battlefield and lose heart."

Sunset did not disguise her sigh of relief. "I'm glad to hear it," she admitted. "Probably a lot gladder than Pyrrha was to see Jaune go off without her."

"Yeah, she wasn't too happy about it," Ruby acknowledged. "Anyway, we found the Apex Alpha, and we killed it." She looked at Weiss with something close to defiance in her silver eyes.

Weiss put one hand on her hip. "And how did you escape afterwards?"

Ruby hesitated. "We … Rainbow Dash, Blake, and Ciel had been ordered to also take out the Apex Alpha by General Ironwood; their airship picked us up when we were all done."

"Mmhmm," Weiss murmured, sounding as though she had just had her point proven.

"We could have gotten ourselves out; we had a plan," Ruby explained. "Anyway, that disrupted the grimm facing us for a little bit, but then the dragon showed up, and … I guess you could have seen it from inside of Vale, right? It was that big?"

"We saw," Sunset said. "We saw it blast through the Atlesian air defences."

"It did the same on the ground too," Ruby added. "The Atlesian line was breached, and we … the Mistralians are pretty much gone. Their commander is probably dead, and…" She licked her lips. "We suffered … casualties."

Weiss took a step forward. "Yang?"

Ruby looked at her, blinking twice. "How … how did you know?"

"Because you…" Weiss trailed off. "I'm sorry, Ruby, I'm so sorry."

"Yes," Sunset whispered.

She hadn't known Yang that well, in spite of sitting opposite her for meals for almost a year, but nevertheless, that had been enough to give her a basic sense of Yang: good-humoured, generous, loyal. Not Sunset's kind of person in every respect — their tastes, as shown during the dance preparations, were not entirely compatible — but someone whom the right kind of people found easy to like. Certainly, Ren and Nora seemed to have taken to her; although she hadn't been able to dislodge Rainbow Dash from her place in Blake's affections, that was no slight against her — she couldn't offer Blake anything like the kind of things that Rainbow could offer her.

And she had been a good sister; she'd proven that almost from her first interaction with Sunset.

This had to be hitting Ruby hard.

"It's fine," Ruby said quickly. "It … it is what it is, it's the job, it's the life, it's … sweet and fitting. She died as a huntress." She breathed in deeply. "We should all be so lucky."

Weiss reached out towards Ruby's shoulder with one pale hand. "You don't need to pretend—"

"I'm not—" Ruby halted as she flinched away from Weiss' touch. "There's still a battle to be fought and a city to be defended. Nothing else matters now, nothing but…" She hesitated. "Weiss, I'm about to talk about some things that won't make any sense to you, but I can't explain it in a way that will make it make sense, so you're just going to have to deal with it, okay?"

Weiss' eyes narrowed. "You realise all that does is whet my curiosity?"

"That's too bad," Ruby said softly. She turned to Sunset. "Sunset, there's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to come out with it: Ozpin's dead too."

Sunset's breath caught in her throat. Professor Ozpin was dead? Professor Ozpin was … gone like his tower. The emerald lights that had gleamed in the sky over the past year had now ceased to burn, and so, too, the old man who had watched over them for the past year; he, too … his light had gone out.

The old man, the good old man, the old man whom Sunset had misjudged and distrusted and only lately come to respect and admire greatly. The old man who had put them in danger, who had recruited them into peril, who had asked much of them but who had nevertheless, after his fashion, done what he could to protect them.

The old man who had seen more in her than she had deserved to be seen.

Their leader was dead.

You tell me to return to school, Ruby, but Professor Goodwitch is not likely to want me in any capacity, as a student or as a servant against Salem. After all, Professor Goodwitch had made her dislike for Sunset — and the fact that she did not share Professor Ozpin's good opinion of her — quite clear.

Yet I would endure the exile to which you condemned me if only Professor Ozpin might live in recompense.

"Professor Ozpin?" Weiss cried. "But he stayed at Beacon! He didn't—" She glanced up and north towards Beacon, and towards the invisible Emerald Tower that had been laid to waste. "How could you know this? If the Professor was killed just now, when the tower fell, how would you know?"

"Ozpin wasn't killed when the tower fell; he was killed before," Ruby said, her eyes fixed on Sunset. "By Amber and her allies."

"'By Amber'?" Sunset repeated. "By Amber?"

"Amber?" Weiss asked. "You mean that girl you hung around with? Wasn't she Professor Ozpin's niece?"

"Amber?" Sunset said, ignoring Weiss. "Amber, but…" The words died in her throat.

Sunset's words died in her throat, but Cinder's words rose out of the dark depths of her mind. Cinder's words, and Sunset's own scornful words with which, secure in Amber's loyalty, she had dismissed them.

"Cinder," she whispered. "Cinder was telling the truth?"

"Cinder guessed right, seems like," Ruby said. "Pyrrha and Ozpin said that she didn't offer any proof, that's why you didn't believe her … but she was telling the truth. She used her semblance to put me to sleep during the tournament, then sneaked away during the attack on the school with Dove, Lyra, Bon Bon, and Tempest Shadow."

"Dove?!" Sunset cried. "Dove too?"

"Jaune thinks not," Ruby said. "Jaune thinks Dove is only going along with it because he loves Amber." She shook her head. "Love is a weakness."

Sunset thought that Ruby was wrong about that, but even if she had been in the mood to contradict Ruby — which she wasn't — the present circ*mstances made it hard to argue the point. If love was a strength, after all, why had Dove gone along with Amber's treachery?

And yet, at the same time, for all of that, Sunset felt as though she ought to say something. "Without love, what is there to fight for?"

"Everyone, whether we like them or not," Ruby replied.

"I may not understand half of what you're talking about," Weiss said, "but you said that Amber and the others slipped away from Beacon during the grimm attack, but Professor Ozpin was alive when the attack was over, and everyone left, either for Vale or for the battlefield."

"They came back later, when the school was deserted," Ruby explained. "That's when they killed Ozpin."

They came back later when the school was deserted to get the Relic. "How?" Sunset asked. "And … and how do you know?"

"Lyra confessed to Rainbow Dash what they'd done, after Ozpin died," Ruby said. "She found her conscience a little late. Rainbow, Blake, Ciel, Penny, Jaune, and Pyrrha — and Sun — have gone to Beacon to try and stop Amber."

"And now it was your turn to stay behind," Weiss pointed out.

"I thought I could do more good with the huntsmen," Ruby said. "I thought … I hoped that maybe, if I got lucky, I could use my eyes on the dragon and kill it."

Sunset barely heard her. To be honest, her concentration had slipped from what Ruby was actually saying the moment that she'd said that everyone else — and Sun, apparently — had gone to Beacon to face Amber. To stop Amber, Ruby had said, but that might not be so easy; Amber was, after all, the Fall Maiden.

We beat Cinder. Cinder had half the Fall Maiden's magic too, but we beat her last night, and we didn't have Rainbow Dash with us then; you could even argue that we didn't have Blake.

You could also argue that Cinder didn't care whether she lived or died last night.

Sunset doubted that Cinder would have contradicted Sonata, even if Sunset had listened to everything that she had to say instead of telling her that she didn't have time.

I had good reason to tell her that; Councillor Emerald had a bullet in his stomach.

And besides, I doubt she would have told me that she hadn't sought death last night; it made more sense as an explanation for what she did than any other.

The point was that, for Cinder, living or dying in the battle against Team SAPR had been almost beside the point; the readiness was all, the victory was nought; the only thing that mattered was the glorious charge into battle against the odds, unafraid. It had been the culmination of all of Cinder's Mistraliad fantasies, with Cinder herself as Pyrrha, or Juturna, or maybe a melange of both and several other characters besides, all those who saw ten thousand fates of death surrounding them and declared 'let us go, and either die yielding glory to another or else win great glory for ourselves.'

Amber was of a different sort. Not for Amber the glorious charge, the courageous end with head held high, no; Amber was … Amber was more of Sunset's colour.

Mind, I never valued my own life as much as the lives of my friends.

Amber, though, valued her own life, as well she might. She wanted to live; she wanted to live with Dove; she wanted…

She wanted to be free of all of this, and so she had killed the man who loved her, and would give away the Relic to Salem, so that she would not be Salem's enemy anymore.

Cinder's words, Cinder's surmise, Cinder's theory that they had so badly wanted to dismiss, that they had not for a moment wanted to believe, made a terrible sense.

Amber wanted life and liberty, and so secure both she would… she had already shown the lengths that she would go.

Did you know how much he loved you, Amber? Did your fate make you incapable of believing it, or did you simply not care?

For all that Amber had done, and despite who she had done it to, Sunset could not … she could not find it in her to bear Amber great malice, to hate her, to condemn her, to feel anything other than sorrow. Sorrow for Ozpin yes, but sorrow for Amber too, now that the wave of disbelief had washed over her like an incoming tide. Amber had been scared, and Sunset knew only too well what fear could make one capable of; Amber had been wounded, and being wounded, had been understandably fearful, terrified, of further wounds.

Amber had been placed in a position for which she was unsuited by temperament, one that asked sacrifices of her that she was unwilling to make. Professor Ozpin should never have made her his Fall Maiden. That she had been placed in this position was a tragedy, one that had consumed Professor Ozpin himself, one which might yet consume Amber herself.

Or else it would consume Sunset's friends.

Sunset bore Amber no hate, but she feared her; she feared her on behalf of Pyrrha and Jaune and Penny and the Atlesians; she feared her because Amber was not Cinder. She would not look with sunshine upon a glorious death. She would fight to survive like a rat in a bolt hole, with all the might and magic at her command, and with that might and magic … who else might die tonight? Who else might be listed along with Professor Ozpin amongst the fallen?

So young, and I not with them.

Be kind, fate. Ten thousand fates stand further off.

Spare them until we meet again.

"Sunset," Weiss said, intruding upon Sunset's thoughts like a teacher asking after the homework. "Sunset, I know you're worried about them, but … try and pay attention, will you?" She paused a moment. "Look, I don't understand half of what you've been talking about, except I understand enough to know that there's a great deal that you aren't telling me. Fine. Keep your secrets, if you like, although whatever it is that you know must have been important to … to kill Professor Ozpin for and draw your friends and my friends away from the battle to Beacon. But leave that for now, if we must, if you like, since I am outside the circle of knowledge." She huffed and folded her arms. "Why did we see you come flying over the wall like this? What's happening on the other side?"

"The gates are shut," Ruby replied. "And it must be the same with all the gates or people wouldn't be standing around outside this gate like they are. They're not letting anyone through; everyone is stuck on that side, including Leaf's mother and stepfather and stepsister, our mutual friend, Leaf. So I guess we do have a mutual friend."

"I have to admire your commitment to this," Weiss muttered.

"That doesn't make any sense," Sunset said. "Not about Leaf's family, but about the gates. Councillor Emerald ordered everyone to evacuate behind the Red Line; how are they supposed to do that when the gates shut? He announced it on television; how can his orders just be ignored?"

"Considering he's having emergency medical care, quite easily, I should think," replied Weiss.

"That's why I had Nora hit me over the wall," Ruby explained. "Because it was the only way I could get over the wall and because someone has to open the gate from this side and let everyone through before the grimm arrive."

"Are you…?" Weiss hesitated for a moment. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"Wh— yes!" Ruby cried. "Weiss, didn't you hear what I just said?! There are people trapped on the wrong side of the wall, a lot of people."

"There are a lot of people on this side of the wall too," Weiss pointed out. "And, as you also pointed out, the grimm are coming. What if they get through the gate?"

"We can hold the gate," Ruby said.

"With all due respect, you haven't held the grimm at any other point, and at none of those other points were hordes of people trying to get past you to safety at the time," Weiss responded. "You're talking about putting the whole of Vale at risk to save a relatively small number of its people."

"It's a risk that we have to take," Ruby insisted. "We have to fight to save every life; that's what makes us huntresses."

"What makes us huntresses is that we kill monsters, nothing more or less," Weiss responded. "We don't have the right—"

"Councillor Emerald gave the order," Sunset said. "Councillor Emerald commanded the people of Vale to evacuate through this gate. The right or wrong is immaterial; the First Councillor has commanded it, and his command will be executed."

Weiss frowned. "And if Councillor Emerald had commanded you to fire on the Atlesians, as General Blackthorn did, would you execute that command also? Are all the soldiers who followed their insane commander in his instructions to be lauded for it?"

"First of all," Sunset said, "Councillor Emerald was not mad, and second of all, things that are different are not the same."

"So the difference is that you agree with Councillor Emerald?" asked Weiss.

"The difference is I owe him this service!" Sunset snapped. "I … I owe him this. I owe him more than this. This was his word, this was his wish, this was his avowed intent, declared to the whole of Vale, and I … I cannot substitute my judgement for his. Or your judgement, for that matter." She paused. "I couldn't keep him intact tonight; the least that I can do is what he would want me to do."

Ruby sighed, in what might be the clearest indication that her time with Sunset had not been as solely confined to dreams as she claimed.

"You can't know he would want this in these circ*mstances," Weiss said softly.

"I can't guess what he would want, no; I can only say what he said he wanted," Sunset said in answer.

"Do you really think this is the wrong thing to do?" asked Ruby. "You really think that we should turn our backs on these people?"

"No, I think that we should stand before them and fight as hard as we can," Weiss said. "But more than that … if being a huntress is about saving lives, then what about all the lives that you're putting at risk, how can they be worth less than the ones you want to save?"

"It's not about worth more or worth less," Ruby insisted. "It's about the fact that we can't make that choice."

"And yet, here you are," Weiss said, "making that choice." She folded her arms. "I won't try and stop you, but I think you should seriously consider—"

The dragon roared from beyond the walls, yet even louder than its roaring was the sound of screaming, hundreds or thousands of people screaming, screams so loud that the gunfire of the troops was almost drowned out completely.

The sounds of hands banging on the metal gate sounded as loud as a battering ram.

Then the gate exploded.

Sunset threw out her hands, conjuring a shield around Ruby, Weiss, and herself — at least, she hoped she did. The flash of light had been blinding; she couldn't see anything; she was magically fumbling, guessing the limits of the shield.

The shield was being impacted, that was being pounded on, that was subjected to a rain of objects hammering upon it, making her barrier quiver with every impact. Sunset poured more magic into the shields, feeling her knees quiver and her legs grow weak from the effort. When this was done, she doubted she would have a great many spells left in her tonight.

The impacts ceased. The noise died down; she couldn't hear the dragon's roars or the screams of the people. All she could hear was a mewling of pain, each individual noise soft but combining together into a fearful cacophony.

Sunset opened her eyes, and dropped her magical barrier.

A trench had been carved into the road, and in that trench, there were no people to be seen; on the edges of the trench, however, there were people, wounded people, desperately injured people, and it was from their mouths that came the pitiful mewlings and the cries of pain.

That trench, surely the work of the dragon, had driven through the Valish gate, or rather, where the Valish gate had been, because where the dragon's breath had struck the gate was gone.

The way into Vale was open, and it would not be closed again.

Sunset's eyes were wide as she stared at the gate.

At what remained of the gate, of the ruin of the gate — and of those unfortunate enough to have been caught up in the blast that had destroyed the gate.

At the gate that was gone.

The dragon had opened up the way to Vale, and all that was missing was a grimm horde to pour through that way.

They were not here yet, but judging by the sounds of gunfire, they were uncomfortably close.

The way into Vale was open whenever they chose to get here, and the only thing that was stopping them from walking through the door the dragon had so obligingly opened for them was the resistance that stood in their way: the huntsmen and huntresses of Beacon, Atlas, and Haven, plus the Atlesian soldiers that remained.

In the meantime, the gate was a ruin; the centre of the metal barrier had been blasted and melted away, and jagged, twisted, molten edges were all that remained of the gate on either side. The concrete archway, too, was gone, obliterated by the dragon's breath, and the edges of the arch on either side of the blast were starting to crumble away; an anti-air gun mounted atop the gateway fell to the ground with a smash and a clatter as its mounting gave way beneath it, and soldiers of the Valish Defence Force scrambled to get to safety lest they, too, should fall.

A great trench had been carved in the road, the tarmac gone, the markings wiped clean, only a great scar in the earth — a scar that was lined with the wounded, burned men and women crying out for assistance.

They lined the scar which, like an arrow, pointed the way for the grimm into the city, when the grimm should appear.

And now, with the grimm yet delayed for now, the scar pointed the way for the mass of people who had been huddled beyond the wall and who now poured in through the shattered gate.

Like the water held back by the dam, which bursts through the slightest crack to flood the valley beyond, just so, the people of Vale, the people who had been told by Councillor Emerald to evacuate the city but had then found themselves denied access by the door slammed in their faces, now flooded through. They cared not for the wounded beneath their feet; they seemed to care little for one another, or for good order, or for anything but their fear, and their desire to put distance between themselves and the grimm who must surely be approaching now.

And so, they flooded into Vale, even though Vale could no longer be called a place of safety with the gate destroyed.

Nevertheless, the frightened people flooded in, and the cries of the wounded changed from cries of pain to cries of terror as they were trampled beneath the stampeding feet of all these people trying to get through. People fell, and Sunset could not see them rise again; she could see so little, so little beyond the sheer mass of people flooding forward in a tide — an unstoppable tide that would sweep them away if it hit them. They could not resist it. Their aura would be pummelled beneath pounding feet that hammered them as fiercely as any enemy.

"We need to move!" Weiss shouted.

Ruby was the first to get clear, escaping the onward path of the crowd near instantly, leaving only rose petals like drops of blood in her wake, to be trampled down by the crowd as they rushed down the trench. Sunset and Weiss were a little slower; Sunset picked up her bike in her telekinesis because otherwise, if she just left it there, then somebody was going to trip over it, and if that happened, they were liable to get their face stepped on.

They made it clear, both of them, all three of them, like swimmers reaching the bank of a river in spate, letting the flood of frantic, frightened people rush past them in all their terror — and with all the consequences for those caught in the flood.

There was nothing they could do. There was nothing that huntsmen could do about this. What could they do, charge into the frightened crowd with weapons drawn? Perhaps, at some point tonight, the right words — from Councillor Emerald, or Professor Ozpin, or someone that these people had cause to trust and to listen to — might have calmed them down, brought some order to the chaos, inspired or encouraged or shamed these people into calming down and proceeding through the gate in an orderly manner, but not now. Not after they had been stuck outside for so long, not with that dragon in the skies above, not with the grimm pressing against the defences, not with the gunfire of the Atlesians sounding so close, not with Atlesian airships roaring overhead, missiles streaking out from beneath their wings.

It was all much too dangerous now, and all these people were much too frightened. Nothing would stop them, least of all three students.

And it was hard, no, impossible, to blame them for what they might do in all their fear; it wasn't their fault that things had reached this pass.

Sunset, Ruby, and Weiss stood beside the wall, half-pressed up against the black concrete barrier that still rose up into the air, watching as the people flooded past them.

"Leaf's family is there," Ruby murmured. "At least, they were outside the walls; I saw them: her mom, her stepdad, her stepsister. I hope they make it through okay."

"'Make it through'?" Weiss asked. "Make it through what? The gate is gone, the wall is … breached. One side of the wall is no safer than the other."

"That's not true," Ruby insisted. "It's like I said, the gateway is a chokepoint, and that's true whether there's an actual gate or just a hole in the wall; it's still a gap which can be defended much more easily than anywhere else on the outskirts of Vale. Once everyone gets through, then all the huntsmen and the soldiers can fall back to the gateway and—"

"And stuff their bodies in the breach?" Sunset asked. "That might work, but not—"

The dragon roared triumphantly as it circled overhead. It did not dive down, it did not attack, it did not unleash another torrent of its glowing, burning breath; it merely circled overhead, as though the struggles of all those down below, their fear, their frantic desire to reach a place of greater safety, were a source of great pleasure and amusem*nt to it.

Perhaps they were. If the grimm were attracted to negative emotions, then perhaps it stood to reason that it gave them pleasure, that the emotions themselves satisfied them, if not as much as the killing.

Or perhaps, for this dragon, killing was so easy and so lacking in challenge that it preferred to stand back a little and simply marinade in the terror that it spread by its very presence.

Either way, if one of those explanations was correct, if not, for whatever reason, if there was a reason, the dragon did not attack. It circled overhead, over the ruins of the gate that it had smashed aside like it was nothing, raising its head up to the shattered moon and roaring out its victory.

Roaring for the rest of the grimm to sweep aside all obstacles and reach the city that now lay wide open before them.

"That might work," Sunset said again, once the dragon's roars had ceased long enough for her to get a word in edgeways, "but not with that thing up there." She pointed up at the dragon. "Unless we can find some way to bring that grimm down, then nothing else that we do is going to matter."

Ruby sucked in a sharp intake of breath. "You're right," she admitted. "We can try and defend the chokepoint, but that dragon could just blast us all to nothing with its breath if it wanted to, or drop an Atlesian cruiser on our heads, or … I think, I'm sure that if we could just get the dragon out of the way, then we could hold the gap against the rest of the grimm, if only until…" She trailed off.

"Until what?" asked Weiss.

Until everything at Beacon is settled, I suppose, Sunset thought. Until Pyrrha and the others … until they stop Amber.

Or…

Sunset didn't want to think too deeply upon the 'or' part, though it scarcely required any thought; the 'or' was obvious. Either they would defeat Amber, or else…

Almost as worrying, almost as troubling, almost as much a load upon the mind was the question of what a victory for their friends would mean. Would it mean Amber dead, her blood upon Miló's red-and-gold blade?

That was … Amber had become an enemy too recently for Sunset to regard her death with even equanimity.

Even had she been their enemy for longer, even had Sunset known that she was their enemy for longer, for as long as it seemed that she had been their enemy, nevertheless, she could not have brought herself to wish for Amber's death.

Death was too ill a thing to wish on her.

It was too ill a thing for Sunset to wish it upon anyone.

But all of that … all of that was out of Sunset's hands. That was for Pyrrha, for Jaune, for Penny and all the rest; it was all for them to deal with, including Amber's fate if they should triumph over her as Sunset hoped they would.

For Sunset's part, for her part and Ruby's part and Weiss' part, there was the dragon in the skies above, the dragon that would laugh at all their plans and toss them all aside like a bad sport throwing the board across the room.

Unless they could kill it.

"Until … it doesn't matter," Ruby said. "The point is that the grimm won't keep attacking forever, and I'm sure that we can hold them off, if only we can kill the dragon so it can't just destroy everything that gets in its way." She growled wordlessly. "If only I could get my…"

"If only you could finish a sentence," Weiss muttered.

I'm guessing that this is something like 'if only I could use my silver eyes,' Sunset thought. That would be pretty useful right about now. But Professor Ozpin, who might have been able to tell Ruby how to use her silver eyes, had never gotten around to it.

And now he was dead, and would never divulge the secret.

"I've got … I've got a power that would — or that might — let me take that thing down," Ruby explained. "It's in my eyes, sort of; the trouble is, I don't know how to use it."

Weiss' own eyes, icy blue instead of silver, narrowed somewhat. "A power? But your semblance—"

"It's not a semblance, it's…" Ruby trailed off again, which might have become very annoying for Weiss if she hadn't moved on quickly afterwards. "It doesn't matter what it is, especially since I don't know how it works. It almost worked, before, after Yang … but the dragon attacked me before it could really … destroy it, and the spell was broken, and the dragon flew away. The only times it's ever worked, twice, were when someone's life has been in danger."

"Well, I suppose someone could always throw themselves into that creature's mouth," Weiss suggested dryly. "Although I'd prefer not to volunteer if there are any other options."

"This isn't…" Ruby began, but paused. "Don't worry, I wouldn't ask that. I wouldn't ask anyone to do that. Not when I'm not certain that it would work anyway. But, at the same time, I … I don't know what else we can do. Everyone's thrown everything they've got at this thing, and it's still there, as powerful as ever."

"The Mistralians say that such creatures have weak points," Sunset pointed out. "At least in their stories."

"And in Valish stories, this grimm died centuries ago at the hands of Percy!" Ruby snapped. "Maybe stories are just stories sometimes!" She stopped, taking a deep breath. "Sorry, that—"

"It's fine," Sunset muttered. "It's been a long night. And you could be right, maybe it doesn't have a weak spot, in which case … I don't know what we'll do, except maybe somebody really will have to jump into the dragon's mouth in hope of activating Ruby's eyes." But it couldn't be me because Ruby wouldn't care at this point, and since I can't do it myself, I'm not about to seriously suggest that anyone else should do it instead. "But, if we have any other options, any at all, then I think we should explore them, don't you?"

"Do we have any other options?" Ruby asked. "Or do we just have the hope of another option? Are you just hoping that there might be a weak point, somewhere, that will let us bring this dragon down, or do you have some reason to think that there is one even though none of the rest of us have seen it?"

"You might have," Sunset replied. She folded her arms. "Do you remember a specific bone plate, on the dragon's breast, just below the shoulder, around where you'd expect its heart to be?"

Ruby frowned. "The dragon … has a lot of bone plates."

"No," Sunset said. "No, it doesn't, not really, not like you'd expect from a grimm of that size. It's got a big thick skull, it's got visible ribs and some bone spurs on its shoulders and knees, but not a lot of bone, not like you'd see on an alpha beowolf or an ursa major. Not a lot of armour; it's mostly black. It's actually a little odd."

"Perhaps it can't fly with too much weight," Weiss suggested.

Perhaps, but I'm not sure how well this thing obeys the laws of physics, Sunset thought.

"Or maybe it needs to have a lot of flesh showing to drip down that grimm goo that spawns other grimm," Ruby suggested. "You've seen that, right?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Weiss murmured.

"Or perhaps it just doesn't need bone because it's practically invincible even without," Ruby said sharply. "Invulnerable, whatever."

"In which case, why does it have a patch of bone plate above its heart, or where its heart would be?" Sunset asked. "Could it be that that particular armour plate is concealing something, that it's protecting something?"

Weiss folded her arms across her chest. "That feels like quite the reach."

"Are we not operating in the realm of vast reaches at this point?" Sunset replied. "Are we not at the point where we need a million to one chance that just might work? Haven't we shot past the point at which we can only look at the obvious solutions?"

"Yes," Ruby said. "Yeah, we are. We definitely are. We have to consider all options, definitely, but…" She pulled out Crescent Rose, holding it upwards as the large scythe unfolded in her hands, the barrel extending outwards and upwards, the scythe blade extending with a sequence of clicks. Ruby held the rifle slightly awkwardly; being held up like this, it looked a little tricky to put it to her shoulder, but she was able to get her eye to the scope nonetheless.

Crescent Rose shifted a little in her grasp, as she deliberately weaved the weapon up and down, left and right, trying — Sunset guessed — to keep the dragon in view. She made a sort of tsking sound. "I can't see well enough. With this wall in the way, I can't get a good enough view, the dragon keeps passing onto the other side; I need to get higher."

"Allow me," Weiss replied as she drew Myrtenaster from her hip with a slight flourish. She gestured with the slender, needle-like blade, and a staircase of glowing white glyphs began to appear in the air beside her, a diagonal staircase of glyphs climbing upwards towards the top of the wall.

"Thanks, Weiss," Ruby called as she took the lead in leapfrogging up the staircase of glyphs, moving from left to right, then left again, every jump bringing her a little higher up the black wall that rose above them.

Ruby was moving quickly, easily outpacing Weiss as she tried to follow, and so rather than using Weiss' glyphs herself, Sunset used reverse gravity to lift herself upwards through the air, floating upwards towards the top of the wall.

Considering that she couldn't see a nearby staircase or lift, it was just as well that they had other means of getting up the top of this wall; otherwise, they might have had to go considerably out of their way in order to get up here.

Ruby reached the top first, with Sunset close behind and then Weiss bringing up the rear afterwards, panting a little as she finally leapt off her last glyph — the others had all vanished behind her, fading into nothingness — after Sunset, her spell ceased, had dropped down onto the rampart.

The wall that marked and constituted Vale's Red Line, its final line of defence, the point beyond which the grimm could not be allowed to pass, was wide, wide enough for a large number of people — twenty, maybe, twelve at least — to walk abreast along the parapet where now the three huntresses stood. It was wide enough to accommodate the great guns to be mounted not only on top of the wall, but also within it too, the guns that could be seen protruding from the outside of the wall as one approached the gate.

None of those guns were firing now, though Sunset could see at least one gun as clear as the moonlight allowed, its large barrel pointed upwards at a forty-five degree angle; the gun itself seeming to be mounted on rails which ran for a short distance along the wall, allowing the gun to shift position somewhat.

But it wasn't firing. Sunset couldn't even see for sure if it had a crew. In fact, considering the situation, there were not very many soldiers up here at all. The wall was not deserted, but the defenders of Vale were few and far between, and getting fewer as soldiers ran past Sunset, Ruby, and Weiss, heading away from the dragon, if nowhere else.

Mind, considering the situation, considering what had happened, perhaps the small number of soldiers wasn't too surprising.

"Cowards," Weiss muttered, her voice loaded with contempt.

"They're scared," Ruby said, quietly but with evident reproach in her own voice sufficient to match all Weiss' contempt.

Weiss snorted. "Listen to those guns," she said, gesturing out beyond the wall, out into the outskirts of Vale from whence they could hear the firing of the Atlesian troops. "You don't think our boys out there are scared? But you don't see them running away, do you?"

"'Our boys'?" Sunset asked.

Weiss didn't respond.

Ruby's hands tightened their grip around Crescent Rose. "Just because they're afraid, doesn't mean that … it's not a reason for us to judge them, just because we're braver than they are."

She glanced at Sunset, or at least Sunset thought that she did, or might have done. She probably hadn't, actually. It was hard for Sunset to make out.

It didn't matter either way.

"Would it be better if they stayed?" Ruby went on. "Maybe, probably, except … what are they going to do against that thing up there?" She paused. "What are…?" She trailed off and turned away from Weiss, once more raising her scythe and rifle upwards, placing her eye to the scope — even if she had to do so in a slightly ungainly fashion — to look at the dragon as it circled in the air above the broken gate.

Waiting for its legions to break through the defences and swarm through the open door, Sunset thought.

"I think…" Ruby said. "I think I see what Sunset is talking about. An armour plate, on its own, with nothing around it."

"That's not so unusual," Weiss pointed out. "Most grimm don't have complete suits of armour; there are usually gaps between the plates of bone."

"Yeah, but this … it just looks strange, like it doesn't fit. Sunset could have a point; it could be hiding something," Ruby said. She lowered Crescent Rose. "And Sunset's right; we need to take any chance that we can at this point. I don't know about the Atlesians, but with the numbers of the grimm, I … I don't know how long the Beacon and Haven students can hold them off on the left flank."

"Okay," Weiss said. "But what is the change, what is the plan? You say that the weak spot is the bone plate?"

"No," Sunset replied. "I think, assuming that I'm on anything like the right track with this, which I might not be, then the armour is protecting the weak spot, and that if we can break it or shatter it in some way, then that will reveal the dragon's weak spot, and we can kill it."

"Very well," Weiss muttered. "As you've admitted, it's a long shot, but what makes it even longer is that … how are we supposed to crack or remove or do anything to that specific armour plate, that has endured laser fire and missiles and everything else? If it's stayed intact and in place throughout all of that, then what are we supposed to do to it?"

Sunset didn't reply right away. It was a hard question to reply to. The answer, or at least the obvious answer, the answer that sprung to mind, was that the alternative was to admit that the dragon was invincible and just give up, and nobody wanted that — or at least, Sunset hoped that nobody wanted that. But it wasn't much of an answer, was it, to say that something was the only option so it would have to work? It wasn't a plan; it wasn't an answer to how they were going to do something.

And yet, they would have to find some way to make it work, because they might be out of other options — unless Ruby could make her silver eyes work right now, with no instruction and no training.

But how? Weiss had asked a very good question: what were they going to do? What were they supposed to do? How were they supposed to defeat something that had withstood all assaults of its enemies up until this point?

"It's not invulnerable," Ruby said. "It's been hurt already; you can see, there's a wound on its side."

"There is?" Sunset asked.

"Yes, on its left flank, you can see it," Ruby said, holding up Crescent Rose to her eye once more. She held the rifle there for a moment, tracking the dragon's movements, until she said, "There! Right there, between the second and third ribs, and just above them." She stepped back, letting someone else peer into the scope of Crescent Rose.

Weiss stepped up first, sidling in beside Ruby and bending down — not that she had to bend down much — to look down the sights of the rifle. "Yes," she murmured. "Yes, I see. I wonder what did that. It's a sizable injury too. I wonder why nothing else has been able to replicate it?"

"What is it?" Sunset asked.

"See for yourself," Weiss answered as she stepped away.

As Weiss stepped back, Sunset stepped around Ruby. She had to bend down a little more than Weiss had done in order to get low enough and to see through the scope from the right angle, but she was able to do it, and she looked up at the dragon that now seemed much larger in her sight — alarmingly so.

At first, Sunset couldn't see anything; the dragon had turned away again and was presenting its right side to her, not its left. But Ruby kept the scope fixed upon the enormous grimm, and eventually, as it continued to circle lazily above, smug in its own invulnerability, Sunset could see what Ruby had been talking about.

Between the dragon's second and third ribs, and just above them, just as Ruby had said, was a great gash in the grimm's flank, a gaping, yawning maw in the grimm's black flesh as though a great spear had been driven into its side. A pit into the blackness, from which only more blackness, more grimm essence, could be beheld.

But it showed that the dragon could be wounded; Sunset did not believe, not for a moment, that such a chasm in its flesh was a part of the dragon naturally; that had been done to it by someone or something.

Someone or something, whoever they were, had demonstrated that though the dragon might be proof against lasers or missiles, it was not proof against every assault or every weapon.

It could be hurt. They had a chance.

A slim chance, perhaps, but a chance nonetheless.

And any chance was better than no chance at all in circ*mstances such as these.

But what to do, what to do, what to do? Just because the dragon could be injured by something — as good a something as that was to know — didn't mean that…

But you could think yourself into despair with thoughts like that, think yourself into a state of utter helplessness that was no, well, no use to anybody.

The dragon could be hurt; that meant they had to assume that they could hurt it, otherwise what was the point? They had to assume that or give up, just like they had to assume that it had a weakness, and proceed on a growing tower of assumptions because they were the only hope they had.

The only thing they had to go on.

The dragon could be hurt, some brave soul had proven that, which meant that if they could only … Sunset stopped, calling a halt to her thoughts which had, like an army in pursuit, scattered all over the battlefield seeking the enemy here and there and at their camp. Now, Sunset sounded the rally on her trumpet and recalled them to order, reordering her lines for best advantage.

The fire from the Atlesian airships, great or small, had not fazed the grimm, so if they were assuming so much else, they could similarly surmise that none of their smaller firearms would do what lasers and missiles could not and crack that plate of armour.

Possibly, it would also be a poor idea to rely on some blunt physical force to shatter the plate also. But if they could … pull it off, or slice it off, or in some like way remove it, then perhaps…

The dragon could be injured, and just as importantly, it looked as though that particular injury had come from a piercing blow, like a great lance or a sword thrust forward. If the dragon could be injured that way once, why not again?

"If we can get close enough," Sunset said, "then we can slice the bone plate off like slicing the rotten bit off a baking potato."

Weiss made a wordless noise of disgust.

"You think that will work?" asked Ruby.

"I think it's worth a shot," replied Sunset.

"I think just about anything is worth a shot," Ruby responded. "But how—?"

"How are we going to get close enough?" Weiss guessed.

Ruby nodded. "Exactly. It's come down before, but do we just want to wait until it does?"

"No," Sunset replied. "Apart from anything else, it might not, not again. No, we need to draw it down, to us." She took a deep breath as her thoughts continued to advance in a steady, disciplined line. "I'll get the dragon's attention and draw it down onto myself," she said. "When it comes down, Weiss will help Ruby slice away the bone plate, and then, if that reveals a weakness as we hope it will, you can shoot it or stab it or shoot it and stab it and bring this thing down, and take the grimm's strongest piece off the board."

There was a pause, a moment of quiet on the wall before Weiss said, "And if there is no weak spot? If the idea that there is is as much a Mistralian nonsense as the Valish nonsense of this particular grimm being killed by a hero centuries ago?"

"Then we try and survive long enough to come up with a new plan," Sunset said.

Weiss snorted. "Fair enough."

"If you get the dragon's attention," Ruby said, "if it's chasing you, then it will be moving too quickly — or it might be — for Weiss and me to do what we have to do." She paused. "There's a girl, a Shade student, Umber Gorgoneion. Her semblance lets her freeze things in place with her gaze. We've used it on the dragon once already; if we get her help—"

"Won't the grimm be expecting that, if you've already caught it with that trick once?" asked Weiss. "I can hold it still with my glyphs, for a little while, if need be."

"Can you?" asked Sunset. "With a grimm so big?"

"Yes," Weiss said. "If not for long."

"I don't like the idea of trying this with just the three of us," said Ruby. "I've already blown one chance at taking this thing down, and…" She shook her head, only once, but vigorously. "It's not going to keep giving us free shots at it. This might be our last chance; we need more people who can take over if anything happens to us. Ren and Nora at least, maybe a few others if they can be spared from the fighting. Just so it doesn't all depend on us."

Sunset nodded. That made sense. "Who do you have in mind?"

XxXxX​

Sunset stood on the ground, in the street, in the part of Vale that lay beyond the walls, beyond the shattered Freedom Gate.

Sunset understood from Ruby that this part of the city had been jam-packed not too long ago, cramped with all the people who had come on the Councillor's words and found the gate shut to them. Yet now, these exposed Valish suburbs were quiet. Everyone had fled through the ruins of the gate — or been trampled trying to flee through the ruins of the gate — and there was no one left out here, beyond the suddenly dubious safety of the breached walls and broken gate.

That was all to the good. The idea of trying to pull this off amidst a heaving, frightened crowd … it was too monstrous to bear thinking about.

But they had fled, and though the place they had fled to might not be much safer for them if the grimm broke through, nevertheless, they had done the huntsmen a service: they had cleared the stage for the performance.

Sunset was all alone. She knew that there were others nearby, Ruby and Weiss, Ren and Nora amongst them, but she couldn't see them. They were concealed amongst the suburban buildings that lurked about the shadow of the mighty walls, concealed from the dragon's view as much as from Sunset's eyes.

With luck on their side, it wouldn't suspect a thing.

They would need luck on their side for more than that, of course. But it would be a good start.

It was … inconvenient to be down here on the street, so far below the dragon as it circled overhead; from the perspective of her own part in all this, it would have been better to have been up on the wall and closer to the target. But the wall — wide for a wall though it was — was too narrow and too lacking in concealment for the other elements of their plan to come together.

Up on the wall, everybody else would have been too exposed. Down here, only Sunset was exposed, by design.

She bore the black sword, so she would play the Mistralian warrior's part and face the enemy head on, beneath the light of the moon while all others hid like bandits and waited for their ideal moment.

Sunset did not object to that, but being so far below the dragon did complicate the question of getting its attention.

Even if she was able to hurt it, attacks that might have done so when closer might lose much potency over the great divide of open sky that lay between.

Yet she had to get its attention nonetheless, or the whole plan would collapse.

Sunset tugged on studded lapels of her leather jacket, adjusting the fit; it had started to lie a little crooked.

She looked down at her hands, enfolded within the white silk of her bridal gloves that had gotten a little dirty and in need of dry cleaning.

She held out those hands on the stained and grubby gloves, holding them out away from her, stretching the sleeves of her jacket as though she were straining to show that there was nothing up said sleeves.

"Okay," Sunset muttered. "Let's do this."

Sunset cast the first spell on herself, a spell colloquially known as Meadowbrook's Magical Microphone — colloquially known because they hadn't had microphones in Mage Meadowbrook's day — to amplify her own voice. Sadly, it didn't imbue her voice with any Siren-like special abilities, but it did make her very loud.

Loud enough that her voice resounded to the heavens, striking the stars and the ears of the dragon besides as she shouted, "Hey! Down here, you monstrous blackguard!"

That was not, perhaps, the best opener ever, but there would be no point in using the good lines before the dragon had started paying attention. If it only perked its ears up partway through, it wouldn't have any idea what she was talking about.

As it was, as far away as they were, Sunset saw — thought she saw, hoped she saw, needed to believe she saw — the dragon's giant bony skull turn downwards in her direction.

"That's right, you remember me, don't you?" Sunset asked, and even those words were magnified by the spell so that they boomed out across Vale.

Sunset drew Soteria from across her back. She did not set the blade on fire, because it wasn't drama so much as gravitas that Sunset was after right now. She didn't know how good the dragon's eyesight was, but she wanted it to be able to see the black and venerable blade itself, unobstructed by any flames or artifice.

Sunset raised the sword beside her head, her feet shifting into a high guard stance, sword drawn back and poised to strike.

Not that it really mattered, but as she stood there, an ancient sword of heroic antiquity in her hands, with a monster among monsters hovering overhead, Sunset fancied that she looked every inch the hero.

Hopefully, the dragon thought so too, and didn't think to wonder if this might be a setup.

"My name," Sunset shouted, her voice echoing through the empty streets and across the yawning expanse of sky, "is Sunset Shimmer. In my hands, I bear Soteria, which was carried for the Emperors of Mistral down through generations! This sword has tasted of the flesh of mightier grimm than you, great though you are, and now shall taste of yours if you will not but come in reach!"

The dragon laughed, that unpleasant, grating, saw-like laugh that seemed to whip back and forth as it sliced through Sunset's ears. It had no need to speak; that laugh was all the answer it need give: why should it, a mighty grimm, a lord of the battlefield, descend in every sense to answer the challenge of a single girl?

"Are you a coward, then?" Sunset demanded. "Does the great beast know fear?"

The dragon growled, a soft growl by its standards, but even a soft growl from such a creature echoed through the night.

Sunset fought to control the trembling in her knees. "No? Yet it must be so, or why do you hang so safe up there and not come down to swat me like a fly?"

The dragon roared now, a great bellowing roar that echoed off the houses, that echoed off the Red Line wall, that echoed back and forth and through Sunset's ears and her whole body and made her tremble, though Sunset sought to hide her trembling. She cast another spell, this one to muffle her ears; what would have protected her from the Sirens song would surely also protect her from the dragon's shriek which, they said, could undo any heart that was less untouched by fear than Ruby's was.

And she thought the dragon might shriek; it would deal with the accusation of cowardice by making a coward of its foe, by undoing their heart and setting them to flight.

But if Sunset could seem to withstand its call, then … then she might get its attention.

And so, Sunset stood firm while the dragon opened its mouth gaping wide, though she knew not what sound now emerged from it.

Whatever it was, Sunset stood firm as though she, too, were without fear.

"Coward!" she roared, though Sunset could no longer hear her own voice speaking. "I am the bearer of the black sword, champion of the House of Nikos, and I am not afraid. Come down, creature of the dark, come down, great wyrm, or flee back to your mountain lair and let all know you were afraid to face a single huntress!"

Now, they would see the vanity of this grimm. Now, they would see how surfeit swollen up with pride it was. Now they would see how easy it was to prick the ego of such a monster.

Frankly, if it were her, Sunset would have quite an ego indeed. If she were so invulnerable, able to shrug off all the fire of Atlas, able to lay waste to armies and pierce the defences of great cities so they lay open to the hordes of grimm, she would be very proud indeed. Proud and vain and ill-disposed to suffer slights from little huntresses with old swords.

Plus, there was the fact that grimm were made to kill. It was what, according to Professor Ozpin, they had been made for by the old gods of Remnant. To destroy, to kill, that was their reason, and for younger grimm, it was their only thought. Older grimm could master the killing extinct, to an extent, but it remained there at their core. Restraint did not come naturally to these monsters as violence did.

And when instinct united with vanity…

The dragon swooped down, red wings swept back on either side, neck extended out and forwards and straight towards Sunset as it fell upon her like a thunderbolt.

Sunset couldn't hear the dragon's sound, but with its mouth gaping open, she thought it must be roaring fiercely as it descended on her, the impudent impugnar of its courage.

Sunset dropped the spell that was amplifying her voice, though she kept on muffling her ears lest the dragon shriek again.

"Come on," she muttered. "Come on."

The dragon came down out of the sky like a wolf on the fold, its immense skull gleaming brilliant white under the light of the fractured moon.

It swept down on Sunset, not so much flying as falling through the skies towards her. Its mouth was open gaping wide, wide enough to swallow an airship whole, never mind an impertinent huntress.

But the yellow light that was beginning to glow in the depths if the dragon's maw said it had other thoughts than swallowing her in mind.

Sunset took one hand away from the cold hilt of Soteria; her dirty gloves were wreathed in green as a bolt of magic leapt from her palm and flew like an arrow straight into the dragon's open mouth.

Sunset couldn't hear the sound the dragon made, she couldn't hear what cry of pain or irritation burst from it, but though her ears were muffled, she could see plain as day the way those monstrous jaws snapped shut, the way the way that great head upon that long neck wriggled like a worm on a hook, the way that it fairy jumped upwards, the way the dragon shook its head from side to side as though it had swallowed a bee.

Sunset had hoped — a little less than half hoped — that the power the dragon had been building up might explode in its own gullet and blow its head off. It was not to be, but she was gratified by the fact that she seemed to have pained the creature nonetheless.

At the very least, judging by the way its red eyes seemed to burn hotter than before, she had enraged it. It glared at her with a burning gaze as it completed its descent, dropping down almost to the level of the street as great wings beat to drive it on. Those same wings crushed the upper levels of three-storey houses with their beating, leaving collapsing rubble and roof tiles sliding down onto the road in its wake, whilst its claws dragged along the tarmac, leaving long scars running down the road.

The dragon's mouth was closed now; Sunset thought it had been put off trying to eat her lest she toss another spell down its throat. Instead, it would scoop her up in its claws, or perhaps seek to catch her in that tail that swiped eagerly from side to side behind it.

Sunset grinned as she dropped the spell to muffle her ears, and — just in case the dragon changed its mind about opening its mouth — she hit it with another spell that flew from her palm.

One that sewed up its mouth completely. The monstrous jaws of the monstrous grimm vanished from view, replaced by what was or seemed almost a mask, a mask of solid bone from which only muffled sounds of incandescent fury could emerge, half heard and indistinct as the dragon tossed its head from one side to the other.

It would swallow nothing now, though it had weapons enough still to make it dangerous.

Sunset roared in challenge as the dragon closed in, all its monstrous, furious attention fixed upon her.

The dragon swept down the street, intent on Sunset, only for a trio of white glyphs, brilliant white, shining like the moon in darkness, to appear around its neck, just before its shoulders. Two more glyphs appeared, then another, then another, all of them shimmering into sight around the dragon's neck like ornate collars as the dragon was stopped dead in its tracks.

The dragon tried to roar through its mouthless bone mask as it shook its head, its neck, its whole entire body from side to side, trying to break free. It beared its wings trying to push forwards, but for now, it was held fast by Weiss' semblance.

The first huntress to emerge out of concealment was Nora, cackling loudly as she burst out of a roof, tiles flying around her, with Magnhild drawn back. She landed on top of the dragon's neck, just behind the head, and clung on with one hand as with the other she brandished her hammer above her head and brought it down upon the dragon's skull.

The dragon shook its head furiously, slamming into the buildings on either side in its efforts to throw Nora off. Its tail whipped up, reaching for her with its three claws, but Ren was the next to come out of hiding, leaping through the same hole Nora had made, following her onto the dragon's neck, turning his Stormflowers upon its tail. Both pistols blazed away, and when the tail got too close, he slashed at it with the blades mounted beneath the barrels.

One of Weiss' glyphs shattered, dissolving into nothing as the dragon pushed forwards.

Sunset charged with a great shout, and so did others as they, too, emerged from their hiding places: Arslan Altan, Coco Adel, Neptune Vasilias, Umber Gorgoneion, and Gregory Douglas, all that could be spared from the fighting against the grimm pushing inwards towards the shattered gate. Sunset understood from Ruby that they had assailed the dragon with more the last time, with all the strength of Beacon and Haven combined.

Hopefully, the dragon did not take their reduced numbers as an indication of lack of effort on their part.

The five of them charged from the ground floor, bursting out of doors or smashing through windows; they charged towards the dragon, and Sunset charged too, firing magical bolts towards it as she ran.

They attacked the dragon's feet, and they struck down the juvenile grimm that rose from the dripping pools of black grimm ooze that fell from the dragon to land upon the scarred tarmac. Arslan's fists and feet alike flew as she leapt up to pummel the dragon's ankles, then dropped down to deal with some juveniles. Coco's rotary machine gun sprayed bullets upwards to rake the dragon's flank. Neptune switched fluidly between gun and polearm modes, shooting the dragon or stabbing the juveniles as appropriate. Umber had two whips, one for her giant opponent and another for the small fry. Gregory laid about him with his greatsword.

Sunset used her sword to strike down the newly spawned grimm, and would sometimes stab upwards unto the pads of the dragon's feet or thrust her black sword between its claws, even as she fired bolt after bolt into its not so soft underbelly.

They assailed the dragon whenever their strength allowed them, whenever the incessantly spawning juvenile grimm allowed them. They hit the grimm with everything they had.

Almost as though they were trying to hurt it.

And then, as the dragon pushed through glyph after glyph that held it fast, as it shattered Weiss' glyphs faster than she could replace them, and as the dragon became accustomed to attack from down below, Ruby struck.

She leapt through a second-storey window, shards of shattered glass flying around her as surely as rose petals. She flew through the air, Crescent Rose drawn back in her hands, the immense scythe flying behind her even more than her blood red cape as she flew past the front of the dragon.

And like a knife severing the crust from the loaf of bread, she sliced through the dragon's black flesh to cut the armour plate from off its breast.

The bone plate fell, and began to turn to ashes even as it fell, and on the dragon's breast, below its shoulder, where its heart would have been if it had a heart, there was revealed a red and throbbing mark, pulsating with a strange energy, dark red waves rippling slightly across the dragon's black flesh.

It looked … it looked almost as though the dragon did have a heart after all, and they had uncovered it.

Sunset wanted to cheer as she stabbed downwards through the neck of a juvenile boarbatusk spawned out of black grimm ooze. She wanted to howl in triumph but forced restraint upon herself — for now. That mark, that pulsing mark, was surely something important to the grimm, and when they—

The dragon burst through the last of Weiss' glyphs, the white collar that had restrained it dissolving into nothing. The dragon's legs touched the claw-scarred tarmac of the road for just long enough to kick off it, shattering the road yet more beneath its power as the dragon took to the skies once more. Nora and Ren leapt off the dragon's back before it rose too high, both of them dodging the grasping claws of the dragon's tail as they landed heavily upon the ground below.

The dragon's roars were muffled by the absence of a mouth as its wings beat furiously, carrying it upwards. Coco's rotary gun spat bullets, tracer rounds so fast they looked like laser bolts slamming into the grimm, but it had its rump and tail to them, and Coco's fire did not find the newly revealed weak point.

The dragon rose, upwards and upwards, out of reach of the swords and fists of the huntsmen and huntresses, and as it rose, it roared, the sounds muffled—

A blast of yellow energy ripped from the dragon's throat to blast a hole in the bone mask that Sunset's magic had made of its mouth. With a cracking, tearing sound that could be heard below, it tore its own mouth open, shattering the bone in jagged edges until it had two toothless jaws once more, like an old man with wisps of hair and wrinkled gums.

An old man with a roar of such rage that it made Sunset's whole body shiver, and Soteria dropped from her trembling hands to clatter on the road.

The dragon circled over them, red eyes burning as bright as stars, a yellow light beginning to burn brighter in a throat that was once more clear to view.

It was too high for Sunset to clearly see its weak point now, but Sunset thought the dragon's breath would reach them easily enough.

"Ruby, can you get it?" she asked.

Ruby's response was to eject the magazine from Crescent Rose and then pull one of the individual silver cartridges that she wore at her belt out into her hand.

The cartridge glistened in her pale hand as she raised it to her lips and kissed it.

Then she chambered it, slamming into the open breach and charging it with a snap.

She knelt, her body dropping down as she raised her rifle up towards the sky.

Crescent Rose moved in her hands, waving like a ship tossed upon the waves, this way, then that.

The yellow glow in the dragon's throat burned brightly now.

"Everyone run!" Arslan shouted.

The movements of Crescent Rose became gentler, a rising and facing with Ruby's breath. Breath that Sunset could hear, in and out.

The dragon's breath began to lance down towards them.

Ruby fired.

The muzzle of Crescent Rose blazed with fire, blinding bright. Its loud report was the only sound in the world, all else seeming for a moment to fall silent.

The dragon's breath died before it reached them, the yellow beam fizzling out to nothingness. The dragon itself hung for a moment in the skies above.

Then it began to fall, silently but surely, little drops of ash trailing after its great body as it fell, but not enough, not near enough, to dissolve the corpse before it hit the ground.

Now, the huntsmen and huntresses ran, scattering in all directions to escape the falling dragon and its bulk before it landed with an immense crashing thump.

The ground trembled as the dragon landed, crushing empty dwellings beneath its monstrous form, turning houses to rubble, scarring the wall itself with one wing that raked a gash down the black exterior, dragging guns from their barbettes and dumping them at the foot of the wall.

And so, the dragon lay beside the wall, amidst the ruins of this part of outer Vale, still and silent and slowly dissolving and dead.

The dragon was dead.

The dragon was dead, and they had killed it.

Sunset and the others stared at the slowly decaying corpse, and she wondered if anyone else, like her, was scarcely able to believe it.

Sunset looked at Ruby, stood beside. Praise too effusive, gestures too familiar, would be inappropriate for their circ*mstances, so Sunset merely said, in a gruff voice. "That was a superb shot. Congratulations, Dragonslayer."

Ruby glanced at her, and was silent for a moment. "Thanks," she said quietly.

Slowly, tentatively, like she was dealing with a skittish animal that might take fright and bolt at any moment, she held out one fist towards Sunset.

Sunset stared at it, unsure — or unbelieving — what was being offered.

Her movements were as tentative as Ruby's own as she clenched her own fist with her dirty, sweat stained glove, and gently bumped her knuckles against Ruby's own.

Personally, I enjoyed the many references to Smaug from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and his fall in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

We could see the Smaug references from the Grimm Dragon's rampage over the Green Line (and the Ardent's ramming attack referencing the injury inflicted on Smaug by a Black Arrow and opening a hole in Smaug's defence) towards the destruction of the Beacon CCT Tower to its final fight and end at the Red Line and the gate it destroyed.... and how those references were nicely adapted into the SAPR and Remnant setting with the Grimm Dragon. Even the Black Arrow injury reference symbolically gave hope that the Grimm Dragon could be killed, which led to this chapter's outcome.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZbsRYqZuys

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCxAT1r9Ub8

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n59mG9_X35Q

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkOsL0YLQ-g

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5llnbqhLZM