Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Archangel looked at his team, their weapons ready. ‘This is it’ he thought to himself, ‘The Vytal tournament, we’ve been training for this for more than a year’. 

He looked over to the team’s Guardian angel, his Bronze armour polished to perfection, his face hidden by the Helmet over his head. On his arm was  gate , his shield, at the ready. 

His partner, their Messenger, was sitting on the massive man’s shoulder, his Swan wings framing him in a radiance empowered by the halo floating above his head of medium green hair. His white, sleeveless sweater and medium length skirt completing the look of heavenly messenger sent to enlighten. Over his shoulder he carried  The Postal service , a handheld mortar that was the only thing showing him to be physically stronger than all of them combined.

Then he looked to his own partner, an ‘off putting’ presence, if he had to define it, the dark cloak he was wearing, the hood that covered his face and left only those glowing red eyes and Horns be seen, and the sickly pale silver he wore as bracers, boots and pauldrons and even his weapons, the Twin Sickles  Neckseekers  that he held in his hands. It all worked together wonderfully to craft a presence that would stick in their enemies minds. 

He examined his own equipment, his white cloak gilded with Gold in contrast to his partner, on his hips  Duality , his pistols, the left one shooting Fire and the right one shooting ice, on a clip on the back of his hips was his double barrel shotgun  Judgement , and Folded on his back his Greatsword  Flash .

The group was located at one entrance to the Amity colosseum’s main Arena, they were waiting for the green light so they could walk out and show off what they could do in a four-on-four fight against team NDGO of Vacuo.

“Alright everyone,” He started quietly, “Are you ready?”

Guardian was the first to answer, with a loud voice he retorted “I’m ready, as long as our Messenger tells me in time, you won’t get hurt.”

The aforementioned angel noted “Don’t pin all the responsibility on me, but yes, I am prepared to warn you all.”

“Alright, you all remember the plan, we go in there, Messenger stays back while Guardian and I move forward and Death circles around the flanks.”

“We all remember, the plan Archangel, just make sure to do your best everyone, it’s enough for us to put up a good fight.”

The light went green just as the Angel of Death finished speaking. “Let’s go.” Archangel confirmed, and just like that, they were exposed to the sunlight.

Teams RWBY and JNPR were up in the stands, hoping to watch the next round, “Guys, guys it’s starting.” Ruby was watching intently. Of course, team NDGO was a very popular team, for good reason, apparently they were the best of the best back in Vacuo, but the important team was NGEL, the Atlesian team of operatives who, according to rumors, had someone with a bunch of weapons, the others also apparently had some interesting weapon choices.

Then, she saw them, a group of four, the one in the lead carrying a shield, the one next to him carrying a massive sword over one shoulder, the third one carrying some kind of mortar, and the last one, “wait, that’s weird, why is he holding sickles like that?” Ruby heard Jaune say off to her right, and when she looked down to where he was pointing, she could indeed see that the fighter was holding his dual sickles with the rounded edge outwards and the spiky tips towards himself. 

Then came doctor Oobleck’s voice over the speakers, “welcome back to the second day of the Vytal festival, today’s opening match will be fought between teams NDGO of Vacuo and NGEL of Atlas.” 

The crowds started cheering for team NDGO, “And it seems we already know which team is the more popular one.” professor Port noted, 

“The environments are being decided, and it seems NGEL will be fighting from a swamp and NDGO will have a desert.”

“So, with that out of the way, do you want to count us in, or should I?”

“I will do it to save time,” Oobleck retorted

“Three” ‘Wait a minute’, Ruby noticed something had changed about NGEL,

“Two” ‘their Aura’s look different’,

“One” Whereas at the start, only one of them had wings, ‘Now all of them do’

“GO!” Port shouted, and the battle started.

Team NGEL did not have any real problems with the swamp, as they all started moving, Archangel had Guardian give him a boost with his shield, launching himself with the fire Dust in that shield.

With a blast of gravity Dust and a beat of his wings, Messenger sent himself flying onto a treetop. 

Death, floating just a couple of centimetres above the swamp, moved off to the side and around, looking for an opening.

NDGO was mostly sticking together, moving slowly and methodically through the middle, meanwhile, Nebula had taken up a sniper position behind the others while Dew and Octavia positioned themselves to defend her.

For their part, they could not have expected a team like NGEL.

Archangel charged in first, firing  Duality  while closing in, and once he was in range, he used his semblance to make  Flash  appear in his hands mid swing. His Aura wings allowing him to counteract the massive Weight of the blade, while also reloading his holstered pistols.

Only barely managing to block all the attacks sent at them by Archangel, NDGO found themselves staring down a massive shield charging at them, spewing flames. They scattered, Gwen throwing a couple of knives that exploded harmlessly against the piece of metal, and yet, when she briefly looked up at the massive screens of the arena, NGEL minus Messenger had already lost a, however small it was, noticeable amount of Aura. 

‘NGEL, in a way, was perfectly suited to fight NDGO’, Messenger mused to himself, ‘the main problem NGEL (minus him) had was sustainability, which wasn’t something the team of Huntresses opposing them could manage. Additionally, NGEL had a counter to almost anything NDGO could muster.’

Messenger fired a shell from The Postal service at Nebula.

He could keep Nebula busy enough for the angel of Death to surprise her, Archangel and Guardian could take care of Dew and Gwen respectively, the former very well adjusted to duelling and the latter capable of shrugging off artillery. ‘Speaking of which…’

Messenger sent another shell on its way, this one going towards Octavia. She dodged without even breaking off her attack on Archangel.

Messenger used his semblance to warn the latter and Guardian about the incoming attack. ‘She could be a problem, but once Archangel gets done with Dew, he can go take her out with some precision shooting, or if that doesn’ matter, he could always take to the skies.’

Another round flying from his partner, Guardian had his hands full as was, he was fighting back to back, well as much as you could do so, with Archangel, covering each other’s weaknesses, Guardian projecting his armour onto the other man while he kept fighting 2 versus 1 against Dew and Octavia.

Guardian was getting rather tired of this though, so he reached back and condensed his Aura into a sword of flame, using it to slash at Dew as he and Archangel switched duelling partners without even a word. 

Dew, to her credit, despite being caught off guard by a flaming sword, quickly adapted and began attempting to parry and counter, but every time she did, she was met face to face with gate and its fire-spewing maw.

This turned out to quickly melt through her Aura as it was quickly knocked down into the red area. Guardian turned around, scanning the battlefield. ‘I wonder how Death’s doing.’

As it turned out, Nebula wasn’t as scared of The Angel of Death as he would have liked, but she was still put off by the presence hanging around on the outskirts of the field, doing nothing. 

‘Well, a bit jumpy’s going to have to do’ He thought to himself as he slowly moved towards the girl. 

A set of bolts came flying from her crossbow, a half-second later he cut them out of the air with his sickles. 

The Angel of Death charged forwards, touching down on the ground to charge quickly. Nebula was trying to get away, but shooting at her foe did little more than slow both of them down, her more than him.

Nebula was now running towards her team, but that just meant she’d have more to worry about than him.

The Messenger saw what death was doing, and warned Guardian and Archangel to be on guard. Just in time too, because had it been a second later, Nebula’s crossbow bolts would have hit Archangel in the back of the head.

It didn’t though and Archangel used one more slash from  Flash  and Gwen was swept off her feet. 

Octavia tried to get back to her fallen comrade, but was stopped by the hulking set of armour that was the Guardian angel and  Gate , ready to protect his teammate.

‘Alright, and in about 5 or so seconds…’ Messenger thought to himself ‘yup, there’s Death and his neckseekers’

Distracted by Gwen’s cry of pain as she fell to the ground, Nebula was an easy target for The Angel of Death to catch up with. 

Two slashes from  Neckseekers  and there were now cuts in Nebula’s back, her Aura draining as it poured out of the wound rather than healing it. 

The look of fear on his opponents faces was what he wanted to see. 

Taking the opportunity of shock, The Angel of Death sent himself flying between the remaining 3 members of NDGO, their Aura’s draining now too. And with that, he just stood there, in the air, daring anyone to challenge him.

Archangel definitely didn’t need glory, but he enjoyed it when he got some. So, he capitalised on NdGO being stunned at what just happened with his teammate, and began unloading, his wings reloading the weapons he had holstered while he was attacking with the others.

Gwen was the first to go, a physically weak, short girl didn’t stand much of a chance against the onslaught, especially with an already strained Aura. 

Nebula fell next, her Aura quickly dropping to below the threshold.

As soon as the Gwen and Nebula were defeated, the Angel of Death immediately stopped draining their Auras as he began focussing on the final member of NGDO.

He met Octavia Sickle to Sickle, but neither were above dirty tricks. 

As Octavia attempted to dash back, Death kicked out at her legs, attempting to trip her up. 

She didn’t and escaped him, but there wasn’t really anywhere safe as Archangel quickly opened fire with  Duality , chunks of ice attaching to her as fire turned the sand at her feet to glass.

Guardian stood in her path as she attempted to escape, the fire spewing from his shield quickly reducing her Aura into the red area.

“And with that stunning display of coordination team NGEL wins!” Professor Port’s voice echoed throughout the stadium.

Ruby watched and cheered with the stadium as she contemplated what she just saw. 

‘What was that? Some sort of Aura technique I don’t know about? I’m fairly certain I would know if it was ever mentioned that we could just sprout wings.’

“Alright team, we’re going to get some answers.” She turned to her team, gesturing to them to follow her out of the stadium as Port and Oobleck debated the battle that had just taken place.

Chapter Text

Sera was having a nice lunch of apple pie as she was waiting outside NGEL’s locker room when she was approached by a girl about 2 years younger than her.

“Oh hey! You wanna talk to the guys? They’ll be out in a minute.” She told the young student. 

“Sure, though, maybe you could tell us about what just happened in that fight? My name’s Ruby by the way.” She hastily added the last part. 

“Seraphiel, but most people just call me Sera. You’ll also have to be more specific with what you’re asking about, but I’m fairly certain I can answer any questions you may have.” 

“Well, I mean the wings they grew just as the battle started seem like a good idea to start.” The blonde haired girl said. 

“Oh those,” Sera waved a hand, “those are the result of ‘Aura Rupturing’, a process only recently made public about a year ago.” She activated her own Aura, showing off her crystalline wings to the group. “I got mine last winter.”

“I remember something about that. Some Aura scientist was hired years ago by the Atlas military to find a way to make stronger fighters.” Said the White haired princess “Weiss Schnee before you ask, my teammates are Yang, and Blake.” 

“Yup, that’s the Doctor for ya. But yeah, the Angel project is the direct creation of the Wings project. We were selected as subjects to show off how much better, faster and stronger we can be with Aura Rupturing.” She paused a moment “I’m not sure if I was ever forced to sign an NDA, but eh fuck it, most of it’s public anyways.” 

“Wait, why are you telling us this if you aren’t sure you’re supposed to?” Blake interjected.

“Well isn’t it obvious? I was never really one for rules, I’ll try to do the right thing, but rules like that are just closer to guidelines.” She shrugged “But anyways, I’m technically a second generation Angel, see the NGEL boys, their wings are constantly venting Aura, while my wings only cost Aura to regenerate.” 

To demonstrate, she pulled out her gun and swept it behind her through the crystals. As the gun moved through them, they absorbed into it. True to her word however, Sera’s wings rematerialized behind her a second later. 

“Another unique thing: every pair of wings has a use, mine make Dust far more potent, but are also far more expensive to use than the boys’,” Another pause “They get passive effects, but I’ll let you talk to them yourself.” 

Just as she said that, the door opened and team NGEL came walking out. 

“Oh hey Sera, how’re you doing?” The Angel of death asked casually

“Great,” She hit him in the shoulder playfully, “Oh, guys, I want you to meet someone.” She turned to the girls “These are Ruby, Yang, Weiss and Blake. Girls, this is team NGEL”

“Nordlicht, pleasure to meet you,” he turned to face Ruby directly, “That is one fine weapon you’ve got there, what do you call her?”

“Oh,” Ruby looked taken aback “this is Crescent Rose, she’s my baby” she quickly picked up steam, unfurling the scythe in the middle of the corridor, “I combined a scythe with a heavy sniper rifle to make her, she takes all sorts of ammo and I’ve been working on modifying her some more.”

“Alright, while Nord starts talking your friend’s ear off about weapon design, I’ll introduce myself and my partner,” The guy in armour said. 

As he took his helmet off Weiss was taken aback for a moment “So it is you, Gabriel Smith.” 

“That’s right Weiss, long time no see.” He gave a smile

“I never really thanked you for saving Whitley did I?”

“Nah, it’s fine, on the other hand, this is Evan, or Eve, we call him both anyways.”

“Hi, it’s so nice to meet you, any friend of Gabe’s is a friend of mine.” he eagerly shook Weiss’ hand.

“Wait, Weiss, you know him? Why didn’t you tell us?” Ruby looked appalled.

“Because I wasn’t sure it was him, Dolt,” Weiss studied his armour, “You changed your family crest didn’t you?”

“What, you mean the old anvil? Yeah, it was a bit boring, so I made it a flaming sword instead.” 

“Could you continue this later please?” the final boy, the one in Black, said “My name’s Lucifer, but just call me Lucy or something please.” 

“Sure, but we still have to ask, Sera was telling us all about your wings except for what they do.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Lucy said, “Nord’s help him with his weapons, be that reloading or wíelding that sword of his like a knife. Gabe’s are a shield that can form into his burning sword, and mine allow me to float without so much as a sound.”

“That is oddly niche” Blake remarked

“It comes in handy, especially paired with my semblance.” He looked down the hall, “Come on everyone, let’s go have some lunch.”

After they had all eaten, Eve and Lucy took turns explaining their team’s semblances and history to Blake and Yang as Ruby and Nord were off talking about weapons and Gabe and Weiss were busy catching up. 

“Oh hey there Lucy, how are you?” a feminine voice said, when the group looked over to see a girl roughly their age, with short dark blue hair. She was not carrying her pouch of bones, but she did have her gardening shears with her.

“Hey Sephy, I’m great, how are you?” Lucifer replied.

“Well, I mean we saw your fight, so I’m doing pretty great, don’t know about the others though. Also, who are these two?” The last part was directed towards Yang and Blake.

“These are some new friends, Yang, Blake, meet team SMTZ.” 

“Made up by Sapphire,” 

“Hi” the blue haired girl in black responded.

“Marvin,” 

“Hello there my friends.” A boy with light blue hair answered. He was wearing running shoes, a tank top and cargo shorts, with a serrated knife at his hip.

“Robert Taupe,” 

“Good day, fine ladies.” The guy in form fitting white and red armour, with long black hair spoke as though he truly were a hero from the storybooks. His lance was resting on his shoulder.

“And Zinge.” 

“Hey there partners, how’re ya.” The girl in a leather jacket with blonde hair and brown feathered wings perked up. She was sitting on her minigun, humming to herself.

“Well, this is quite the arrangement,” Blake glanced through the group. “Anyways, we’ve probably got to get back, the first doubles round is gonna take place in a couple minutes.” 

As they got up and left, Lucifer turned to Marvin, “Hey Marv, could you go get Nord and Gabe?”

“Sure!” The boy said jogging off. 

“Alright, let’s go watch that match, shall we?” Sapphire said, offering Lucy a hand. 

“Sure, I’m excited to see what CMSN and CFVY have in them.” 

Chapter Text

Sera had been trying to get Eve to use his semblance to help her scam people out of some cash for the past five minutes. 

Keyword being trying.

She sighed, “Welp, I guess it can’t be helped, you, an individual who was taught to always be friendly have now broken my heart,” she overplays an attempt at anguish, speaking in a mock west mistralian, “how will this poor girl buy lunch if her friend won’t even help her get money?”

Eve, in turn, just attempts to ignore her, shielding himself with his wing while talking to Gabe about how much of his armour he’d have to wear to not be able to fly anymore. “I’m fairly certain I could fly with your helmet and lower body armour, not sure about the rest though.”

“And now this heartless individual begins ignoring my pleas for help even more! Is there no justice in this world?” Sera continues lamenting.

Lucy pats her on the shoulder, “There there, tell you what, I heard of this great ice cream place that sells apple pie flavoured ice cream, I’ll tell you where it is if you cut me in on some of your betting profits.”

“You’re sharing the losses too.” Sera says with a chuckle

“Alright then, make a bet with me. I bet 50 lien that whoever CMSN picks will beat CFVY.” 

“You’re on! There’s no way those first years are beating the star team of Beacon.” 

“I’ll see you at the seats if you wanna go get something first.” Lucy calls out before jogging off to find wherever Sapphire went to and get to their seats. 

Marvin still had another lap of the arena to do. 

“I swear, every time I run this it gets longer, I swear I’m going to find Zinge for putting me up to this.” He mutters under his breath as he continues running.

Straight into his leader. 

“Aah!” Sapphire shrieks as she’s nigh on run over by Marvin.

“Sorry.” Marvin quickly jumps up off her, offering her a hand to help her up, “Do you know where Zinge is? She told me she’d pay me 100 Lien if I completed 10 laps of the arena and I’m pretty much done and ready to put my medical knowledge to ‘improper’ use.”

“I don’t actually know where she is. I’ve seen her a bit back that way,” She points in the direction Marvin’s going, “but I doubt she’s still there, she was looking really stressed for some reason, muttering something about ‘Don’t worry, he won’t actually paralyse me with a precise hit to a nerve I don’t even know the name of that he can estimate the exact length of’, it was really weird.” 

“Alright, thanks leader. I’ve gotta go now, my thumb won’t dig itself into Zinge’s collar bones.”

“What did you just say?” Sepphy wanted to know, but he was already gone. “I guess it’s nothing, but I do want to check up on Hellen. I think she said she was going to be in the plaza at some food-stall she said she wanted to try, I just hope she hasn’t gotten into any trouble.”

“I think I saw her at the noodle stall over there.” A heavily East atlesian accented voice told her.

“Oh, hey Raid, how are you, thanks. How are things with your team?” She gestures to the boy, wearing cargo pants, bulletproof armour and holding a helmet under one arm, with his short barrel DMR slung over the other shoulder and his short white hair waving in the wind, to follow her as they continue talking.

“The team’s feeling pretty good, we managed to fight outside of our comfort zone and win, oh and before you ask, Elly and her family are arriving tonight, just in time for the first 1v1.”

“Oh that’s great.” Sapphire commented, “So, your girlfriend might not be here to see you lose in the 2v2s right?” 

“As if, I swear, Eerie and Carol will break anyone they throw at us.” A small shudder goes down his spine, “Remind me never to get into melee range of Eerie.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible for the CQC specialists of Atlas, what with all the going through doors and stuff.”

“Damn, now I have another thing to worry about when I go in. Big thanks to you.” He laughed.

“Oh hello you two.” A new voice joins the conversation, this one a bit more tense and belonging to another girl, with hair a darker shade of blue than Sepphy’s, bordering on black. Hellen is wearing the same thing she’s always worn, a black leather trench coat with jeans and combat boots, her staff clutched in her hands, even as she sits back down to finish her noodles.

“Hey Hellen, how’re you doing?” Raid begins, a big smile on his face.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to just having food. Does everyone really have this luxury all the time?” She says between slurps as she finishes the last in her bowl, “Another please.” 

“That’s your third one today young lady, are you sure you can handle more?” The old man running the shop asks.

“I’m certain.” She confirms.

“Excuse me, one for me and her as well.” Raid calls at the man who gives them a thumbs up.

“So that’s where half of the academy’s budget is going, no wonder we can’t afford a new toilet door.” Sapphire jokes.

“Oh please, we all know they aren’t replacing it since it’s basically a tourist attraction, ‘The missing toilet door stolen from the most secure academy in the world’ of course they aren’t killing that joke, not while it still attracts new recruits.” Hellen returns, her grasp on her staff weakening a bit.

Raid is too busy digging into his bowl of noodles to actually pay attention to the conversation, “Now I know why you’re on your fourth bowl, these taste great. But I sadly have to stay capable of keeping up with Carol otherwise she’ll break out the whip or something.”

“Well then, we should probably be going too,” Sapphire says after finishing her bowl as well, “otherwise we won’t be able to make it in time to watch CMSN vs CFVY.”

“Yeah you’re right.” Hellen says dejectedly before walking away, staring longingly back at the noodle stall.

Nord was somewhat interested, in Coco’s weapon, not the fight. He really just couldn’t figure out how such a large minigun could fold back into such a small handbag without damaging any of the larger parts. 

Next to him, Lupo was making some final bet offers before the fight was beginning, egging on anyone nearby that the winner was ‘obvious’. Her suit-like attire allowing her to seem more professional than she really was, her wolf ears helping her single out who was making the craziest bets.

Besides her, the rest of the Penguin Auxiliary class was, with Emmet, the Faunus with a Penguin Torso who wore a gold chain around his neck, right besides her along with Bisa and Crux, their two shield bearers, were trying to stop themselves from eating popcorn before the fight even began. 

On Nord’s other side sat the rest of NGELS, and after them SMTZ and at the very end sat Hellen, intensely focussed on the fighters down in the arena, as if the fight had already begun.

CLER had seats elsewhere with Raid sitting down just as Professor Port’s voice came in over the speakers, “The bout is about to begin. Team CFVY’s Coco Adel and Yatsuhashi Daichi face off against Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai of team CMSN. I suspect this to be quite the spectacle and am waiting to see the conclusion to this story.”

“And we all know that if you were to be the one telling said story, we wouldn’t get to see the fight until tomorrow.” Nord heard Sera saying.

“Ah yes and what a wonderful story it will be that these students will one day be able to tell.” Oobleck chimed in, “Now, let the battle begin in 3, 2, 1, GO!”

Chapter Text

After the battle, the outcome of which Sera thought was total bogus, NGELS convened to talk about who they’d be sending into the 2v2 round. Deciding on Nordlicht as he was the most balanced out of them all and pairing him with Gabe as .

Knowing she wasn’t really needed for this conversation, Sera went off to check on her friends in Penguin class, figuring it might not be such a bad idea to see if they wanted to go get ice cream at the place Lucy told her about. 

Emmet, being his penny-pinching self, declined, but Crux and Bisa were ready to go, along with Hellen, who said she’d catch up later.

The trio got on an airship down to Vale, where Bisa, a girl wearing a black leather jacket, running shoes and shorts with orange hair and short horns on her head, thought it would be a good idea to surf along rooftops with her shield. A fall and a close catch from Crux, which dirtied his white jacket and beige cargo pants, later, she decided that instead of surfing rooftops in an attempt to keep up with Sera, she should probably just stick to the ground and hope she wouldn’t just leave them behind.

Luckily enough, they didn’t have to walk for long until they got to the parlour. It was a quaint little shop, no front other than a door and a sign above it saying “Giorno’s South Valean Gelato”

As Bisa and Crux entered they were greeted with a rather homely establishment, with Sera already having ordered her apple pie gelato and waiting for the others to order for themselves.

Bisa ended up deciding on a Vanilla with a croissant and Crux got himself a chocolate cookie gelato. As the trio left the store they went off to see this area of Vale, as they hadn’t even been here since they arrived at the start of the last semester.

They slowly started walking back in the direction of the airship docks, taking the opportunity to look at the architecture. 

“They don’t have anything like this in Atlas.” Crux stared in awe at a church in an old gothic style. 

“We have plenty of them back in Mistral, that style is a pre-great war style that was never that popular in Mantle. Considering the fact that they were built before Atlas and Mantle never really liked the style, it’s really not too surprising that they don’t have much stuff like this.” Sera explained, barely even stopping to look at it.

“I know one in Mantle, at the edge of the Atlas crater, my family went there every now and then and they let me practice fighting there.” Bisa remarked, continuing until she saw a familiar head of dark blue hair.

“Hey Hellen, found you!” Sera shouted, rushing forward to tackle the girl in a hug, who quickly stepped to the side.

“You really shouldn’t shout like that, I saw it coming a mile away. I didn’t even have to use my semblance.” The girl leaned over Sera who, having faceplanted, was lying on the floor.

Quickly boosting herself up again, Sera almost hit Hellen, who once again, dodged.

“Better. Though you probably should have tried grabbing my legs.” 

“She wasn’t trying to attack you though.” Bisa said as she hugged Hellen from behind, “She was trying to give you a hug, like this one.”

“I don’t think she likes that very much, maybe you should get off,” Crux said looking at Hellen, “if not for her comfort then for your own safety.”

“Aw alright, but you gotta open up sooner or later.” Bisa relented.

“No I don’t, and I definitely won’t if you two keep doing stuff like that.” the blue haired girl said through gritted teeth.

“C’mon Hellen, I know exactly what’ll cheer you up.” Sera jogged off, leaving the others to go after her.

Lupo stared boredly in the direction of the bullhead docks, where she and team CLER, to which she was attached to as the auxiliary member, waited for Darrin’s office. Otherwise known as the family of Raid’s mysterious girlfriend who none of them had met yet either.

She had to admit that she was curious as to who these people were. She had done some searching, Darrin Blass apparently came from the same mysterious Pike District as Hellen, he’d adopted several kids with his partner, Gally Rainwork. Two humans who had been neglected by their parents and an ex-white fang faunus boy. 

She hadn’t managed to get much on the kids or Gally, but considering she was currently investigating the Pike District, which they weren’t connected to, they were of no significance. 

She watched as a duo of a boy with a helmet and weird engines on his back and a girl in what looked to be a flight suit got in a gunship, the boy helping his friend strap in as she quickly went through preflight and took off, circling around to fly to the arena. 

Looking up at the screen, Lupo could see that this was team GLBL’s Aether Lacey and Bed Ruck. Just in time for their battle, which would be preceding CLER’s fight.

“How long until they arrive?” Eerie said, her rifle slung over her shoulder, with her green helmet matching with her body armour under her arm.

“She says they’re on final approach, so about a minute.” Raid returns with a smile.

“Better be, I want to be ready for our next fight.” 

“That’s why we’re wearing our full kit, so we don’t have to go get dressed before our match.” Carol said, holding onto her grey hat adorning her reddish brown hair as the wind kicked up while an airship landed right in front of them.

“Speak of the devil.” Louis muttered as he too tried to hold on to his beret.

“Hey Raid!” Elly, a girl with a fairly muscular build and short hair shouts as she throws her arms around the subject of her shout. Lupo, taking the opportunity, takes a look at her and the rest of her family.

Elly, was wearing a fairly simple black tracksuit, she didn’t seem to be carrying any weapons, not as if she’d need to, there were lots of heavily armed hunters and hunter students around, but Lupo doubted she couldn’t defend herself.

A boy with a similar build, wearing a dark green hoodie and pants, with matching hair was walking down the ramp, “Thanks for waiting for us Raid. Please take my sister off our hands, she’s been restless since you left.” Ah, so that’s Narcyz Amber.

Behind him stood Darrin Blass, Lupo recognized him from her digging, his grey hair, the trench coat he wore, his black vest and his matching suit pants. Two gunblades sheathed at his sides.

Next to him stood who Lupo assumed to be Gally Rainwork, a tall fox faunus with long blue hair tied in a ponytail, wearing a pinstripe vest and suit pants together with a coat being draped over her shoulders.

Finally, Lupo saw a fairly tall boy, with cat ears on his head of messy brown hair, wearing a coat with a fur rim along the hood, with matching black suit pants. His sword and gun both on his right hip. 

‘Bezhevyy Privilegiato,’ she contemplated on each of them, ‘Darrin is probably the most dangerous of the group, with who I assume is Gally being the second most powerful. I haven’t done enough digging to see what the others can do-’ Lupo was torn out of her thoughts when she noticed Bezhevyy looking straight at her.

Bez knew he fucked up that moment. You couldn’t blame him for looking at the pretty wolf girl, it wasn’t his fault Raid didn’t warn any of them. 

‘I mean, she didn’t have any reason to warn us, but some heads up would’ve been nice.’ he thought to himself while looking anywhere other than said girl who was quite possibly staring actual daggers at him.

Lupo, sufficiently satisfied with her work embarrassing the boy, turned to Darrin to introduce herself. 

She took a light bow, “Lupo Nero, you’re Darrin Blass I assume, correct? I would like to ask you some questions about the Pike District.” She whispered that last part, so as to not alert anyone else.

“We’ll do that later,” the man said, “right now, I want to meet Elly’s friend’s friends. We’ve really been overdue. Care to introduce me?”

“Certainly, as I have already stated, I am Lupo Nero, Auxiliary member of team CL(L)ER. Our leader,” she said gesturing to the girl in question, “is Carol Splinter, with our other members being Louis Fry with the beret, Eerie Lockee with the rifle and Raid Currant, whom you presumably already know.”

“Oh great!” But before he could continue speaking, Lupo interrupted him, “It would be great to talk to you all, however, I have to make sure Carol and Eerie get to their match in time, Raid and Louis will show you to your seating.”

And with that, she walked off, making sure to tell the two fighters to come along.

Chapter Text

The next two days went by pretty quick and by the end of the second day, Lucy was starting to have enough of watching the fights, so instead of watching the first 1v1 in the evening, he just decided to go to bed. 

Nothing against the tournament, but he came here to see cohesion between team members, not the same 1 vs 1 fights he could see in every combat class.

He was also pretty exhausted from being dragged around Vale for tourist activities by Sapphire. Despite her idea of tourism being visiting and cleaning up as many cemeteries and graveyards they could.

So, after taking a shower, changing into some more comfortable clothes, a black shirt and jogging pants, he got into bed and slept. Out like a light.

He found himself looking up at a boy, he recognized that look in his eyes, those fox ears, it was his brother, he could always recognize that look and look forward to it.

That was until he went missing.

His early life was a nightmare, his Mom died shortly after Lucy’s birth and his father almost never got home on time as he was working as much as possible and only barely managing to make ends meet. His older brother, wow he could barely remember his name that’s how long it had been. After a brief period of attempting to recall it, he found it, Fyodor. Theo was one of the kindest people Lucy had ever known, he protected him from all of the bad things that could be found in the neighbourhoods near the crater of Mantle. 

But one day, dad came home hurt. 

He’d gotten hurt during a mining accident and now lost his job because the SDC terminated all of the workers that weren’t physically capable. That very night, some men from the Pike Recruitment agency knocked on their door, asking if dad or Theo were interested in having a job that would be capable of supporting their family, and even pulling them out of poverty as soon as they were finished. 

Problem being, it was a 7 year endeavour and would see whoever went fighting for his life.

Despite dad wanting to go himself, they didn’t want wounded people to come along, so they asked, no, conscripted Theo to join, as they made it very clear that they had enough money to cover up any arson that would happen to our house.

So Theo signed and would be taken away in a week.

The night before then, Theo went to stand over Lucy’s bed. After what felt to Lucy like hours of waiting, waiting for what he knew would come, Fyodor wrapped his hands around his neck. He began shouting about how this was all his fault that “Mom died because of you. Dad worked himself to the bone because of you. I am going to die fighting Grimm because of you!”

Lucy fought and fought, trying to get free from his brother’s grip, “It’s funny, it’s even in your name, Lucifer, you’re a bad omen, the morning star that will kill any who get close.” his tone had a slight laugh to it, a sorrowful silver lining kind of laugh.

Lucifer clawed and scratched and, for some reason, he didn’t fall unconscious and die, even though this had been going for a minute at least. Fyodor noticed this and was furious, attempting to punch Lucifer. 

But there was an Aura there, and Theo felt weak.

Lucifer’s resistance became stronger, his conscious thought fading into survival instinct, until.

BOOOM!!!

The explosion engulfed them both, along with their house and the neighbours.

When Lucifer had awoken, the house had collapsed and Theo was gone.

He tried searching for him, but found nothing but his father’s corpse crushed under the rubble. 

Nord was pretty much bored, he’d seen both Yang and Mercury fight and he’d managed to figure out both their weapons. There was nothing left for him to see. 

Evan and Gabriel weren’t that much more excited. Apart from that short, explanatory talk and lunch they had with Yang, they haven't interacted with either of the contestants.

At least Sera was having fun, after learning about her semblance, she’d bet on Yang, against literally anyone who wanted to bet on Mercury.

Then again, something Nord was not quite expecting was Mercury making a tornado of wind Dust bullets that all crashed down on Yang simultaneously. Interesting use, but nothing new, Nord’s been using wind Dust in judgement for quite some time.

Unsurprisingly, Yang was deemed winner, despite how close it was, and as Sera was busy collecting all her profit, Yang delivered a punch straight to Mercury’s leg just as he was going to offer her his hand.

Nord was appalled, not because Yang had just attacked a student unprovoked, but because had she been a centimetre further down, she would have hit Talaria’s Dust storages and wrecked the boots entirely.

Gabriel couldn’t believe it, as soon as Yang went for the punch, he tried to send Mercury his armour, but he was too late, and Mercury’s leg was broken.

Evan tried to warn him, he really did, he tried to make him dodge, but to his confusion, it was almost like Mercury’s mind wanted this to happen.

When Sera looked back towards the fight after she heard someone scream, she was not greeted with a pleasant sight. Mercury’s partner, Emerald, was rushing over to the boy whose leg had apparently just been broken by Yang. She didn’t believe it, Yang wouldn’t do something like that without being attacked first.

Marvin didn’t believe it. Not that it happened, no that was perfectly plausible with Yang’s issues, but bones don’t break like that. With Mercury, it almost seemed like his leg crumpled together a bit, like metal. ‘But there’s no time to think on that’ he thought to himself as he picked up Sapphire, the easiest member of his team to carry, and ran down to the arena, arriving there before even the medics could respond, allowing him to use bones provided by Sapphire to fashion a splint to make sure it wasn’t bent any further out of position as he then picked him up and ran him to the nearest ambulance shuttle.

The medics there partially caught him off guard, apparently they were expecting someone who wasn’t him, and they insisted he not get on the shuttle. He didn’t have time to argue however, as he was prioritising Mercury’s well-being and getting to the hospital fast was better than travelling with him. 

So he handed him off and no more than 5 seconds later, Sepphy was calling his scroll to make sure he knew Ironwood had ordered him to RWBY’s dorm in half an hour to give his testimony.

But before then, he’d have to talk to the others.

“So none of you know anything?” Marvin asked, the meeting having gone terribly so far, with none of the others having noticed anything he didn’t notice himself.

He turned his attention to Evan, staring him down, until he finally cracked.

“Fine, I don’t know why, but when I told him to dodge, his mind didn’t even budge, maybe even like it was what he wanted to happen.” Eve told him. 

“Are you sure?” 

“No, that’s why I haven’t said anything.”

“Alright, quick experiment, Nord, put a gun to Gabriel’s head.” Marvin told the team leader.

“What? Why?” Came the response from both parties.

“Trust me, Nord you don’t want to shoot Gabriel right?”

“I do not.” 

“Alright. Evan, send to Nord that he should pull the trigger.” 

Nothing happened.

“See, it didn’t work. Nord you can put the gun down, Eve, did it feel similar to when you tried to have Mercury move his leg?”

“Yeah, the same sort of ‘No I don’t want this’, though I think it was a bit different because Nord didn’t want to put the gun to his head in the first place.”

“Alright, you’re coming with me to deliver our testimonies to Ironwood.

Chapter Text

Marvin and Evan knocked on the door to team RWBY’s dorm, “General Ironwood sir, it’s Marvin Blu and Evan Herrmann here to deliver our reports.”

Ironwood opened the door, “I don’t recall calling you Evan.” 

“He has important information to share.” 

“Very well, report Marvin, where did you take Mercury Black?”

“When Yang broke Mercury’s leg, I immediately noticed that it broke in a very unnatural way, crumpling in on itself instead of snapping like a regular bone. I immediately grabbed my team leader Sapphire, and used my semblance to get us two down to the arena where we created a bone-splint for his leg, after which I took him and ran to the nearest medical shuttle.”

“Allright, that’s what I thought, anything else?” 

“Well when I got there, I tried to ride along in the shuttle to ensure Mercury’s leg was stable, but due to the medics insistence, I relented and made my way back.”

“What about his leg, you mentioned earlier that it seemed to crumple.” Weiss, who had been quiet up until now asked. 

“Well, while I’m not an expert on prosthetics, I’m fairly certain I can recognize the breaking of a bone when I see it and that was definitely not it, so how about it General, was that a prosthesis?”

“Our analysts are going to have to investigate that claim, but for now, I want to know why you brought Evan here.” 

Evan stepped forwards, “Well sir, when Yang began the movement to punch Mercury in the leg, I immediately tried to use my semblance to make him move his leg. As you are aware, my semblance includes a compulsion aspect that can push people to do what I tell them too so as to cut down the time they need to react. Anyways, when I tried to use it on Mercury, his mind gave off the feeling of not wanting to follow. I later tried this on Nord, having him put a gun to Gabriel’s head and trying to make him shoot Gabriel with my semblance. It did not work and yielded a similar feeling.”

“Hmm, interesting. Very well, you two are dismissed, however, due to today’s events, Amity colosseum is off-limits and I’d prefer if all teams were in their dorms.”

Lucy wasn’t having the best time. First a nightmare, one he hadn’t had in years, and now the fact that they were all confined to their dorms due to something that happened in the tournament.

He was already awake when Nord and Gabe walked in the dorm. They got him up to speed about what happened, with Gabe preparing everything he needed to cook dinner.

“Hey, you got any preferences? I can see if I can just whip something up for each of us.”

“Pancakes for me, gods know I need something with energy right about now.” calls Lucy.

“Honestly, I do need a bunch more, with how much of my fat my semblance has been burning through, I’ll have some as well.”

“Sure” says Gabriel, getting ready to make the batter.

They sat there in silence for several minutes, Gabe turning on the stove and making the pancakes.

“MMmm is that pancakes I smell?” The opening of a door and Eve’s voice interrupt the silence, “Man I’ve been in need for days and you only decide to make these now?” 

“What can I say, I guess we all need them today, hey, you wanna invite Sera?” 

“Nah, Emmet’s taking lockdown super serious, I couldn’t even hear their partying from the hallway.” 

“They probably aren’t,” Nord interjects, “I mean, they just witnessed a student getting his leg broken, there isn’t much to be celebrated about that.”

“It’s still weird though.” Eve appears beside Gabriel, plate in hand as the taller boy places several golden brown pancakes on it. “Syrup?”

Gabe sighs as he reaches up on top of the cupboard to bring the bottle down into Eve’s reach, “Leave some for the others, but this is probably the last time we’re going to need it here and I sure ain’t bringing it back to Atlas with me.” 

“YAY!” Eve cheers, grabbing the bottle from his partner and hurrying over to a desk where he drenches his stack before eating.

Soon after, Nord, Lucy and Gabe sit down at their own desks, with Nord first having to clear a space amidst the bits and pieces of disassembled weapons and other items.

“I don’t know if it’s the bad day I’m having, or if it is just your skill, but these are probably the best you’ve made so far Gabe.” 

“Thanks Lucy.”

“You’re welcome.” Lucy checks his scroll, 9:30 PM already. Then he gets a notification from his student app.

“Alright everyone,” Nordlicht stands up and addresses them, clearly having just read the same message, “I don’t think any of us even want to stay up for very long after what we just saw, and Ironwood just announced that lights out has been moved to 10 PM, so we should probably get ready for bed.”

“Agreed” Gabriel nodded.

“Sure” Evan stretched his wings in the middle of the room, in a yawn, “definitely.”

“I did already take a nap, but yeah, I’m still tired.” Lucy said, waiting for the others to finish showering and brushing their teeth so he could have his turn.

When he went to bed however, he couldn’t sleep. It could have been the nightmare he had mere hours before, perhaps it was all that happened on that day. He didn’t really know, all he knew was that he couldn’t sleep, and there was probably something afoot.

So with that, he got out of bed, using his wings so as to not make a sound and went to where his equipment was stored. 

The undersuit went on first, there to insulate him from any extremities, then came the chestplate, light but sturdy enough. Next some heavier duty pants, so his legs would be protected. Following up with his armoured boots and gloves, there to protect him from environmental hazards. Finally came his cloak, flowing down his body and the pauldrons for his shoulders.

With that, he fixed neckseekers at his sides and leapt out of the window.

Chapter Text

After descending from the sky, using his wings to slow his fall, Lucifer deactivates his Aura and runs off, into the forest.

‘I’ve got to figure out what’s happening. There’s no way this is happening without foul play, Eve’s semblance basically confirms that. At best it’s just because Mercury has some sort of vendetta against Yang, at worst it could be someone tampering to ruin the tournament in some way.’

He was running so quickly that he barely noticed the Grimm peeking at him, not like he had time to deal with them, because he saw something that shouldn’t have been there. 

“A satchel,” he knelt down to pick it up, “Not one I recognize from anyone in the student body, a teacher’s perhaps,” Lucifer chooses to look inside, revealing an explosive of some sort. Almost dropping it, Lucy manages to regain his composure, examining it further, “Seems like it’s mainly to spread fire, there’s little here to make shrapnel and the only explosive component is the fire Dust. Looking at the detonator it doesn’t seem like it has a timer, likely remotely detonated.”

This is already enough for him to pull out his scroll and dial Ironwood’s office number. 

“Thank you for calling, Ebenholz, General Ironwood’s personal assistant speaking.”

“Good Evening, this is Lucifer Judas of team NGEL. I would like to report that I have found a firebomb hidden in the Emerald forest. No timer, however it seems to be remote activated and there are likely more.”

“Oh well that’s a surprise, I’ll put you in contact with the General right away, does the device have any markings?”

“I don’t think so.” 

“Very well, the General should be up in a few minutes.”

“Alright, I’ll continue looking around to see if there’s anything else here. I’ll stay on the line and wait for him in the meantime.”

“Good luck.”

With that, Lucy began making his way further and further into the woods, eventually picking up on fresh tracks left by shoes.

“General Ironwood speaking.” The man’s voice came over the scroll, “This better not be a prank or else you’re in major trouble.”

“It’s not, I promise, I’ve found several explosive devices throughout the forest and I think I’m getting close to whoever is leaving them because I found footprints.”

“Good, I’ll have an EOD unit dispatched to the area immediately, do you have a flare?”

“No I don’t, I can leave them right here, track my scroll’s location and find them where I left them.”

“Understood, keep up the pursuit of the target.”

“I will, could you also notify some of the Penguin Auxiliary class’ members to group up with me.”

“Why not your team?” 

“They need the rest and this is what the Auxiliary class is for.”

With that, Lucifer hangs up, putting his scroll in his pocket as he draws neckseekers instead, cutting himself in the legs so he could force more of his Aura in that area, allowing him to sprint even faster.

And just in time as he sees a White Fang operative running in front of him, throwing explosives into the forest every now and then. 

Due to his further enhanced speed, Lucifer quickly catches up to the terrorist, attempting to tackle her into the ground as she draws what looks to be a rapier and slashes back at him, forcing him to block with his gauntlets. His sickles at the ready, he quickly attempts to strike back, but the girl continues to block and dodge the slashes as she retaliates with her own weapon, launching herself away onto a tree branch from where she uses its whip form to strike at longer ranges. 

Lucifer can’t allow this to go on for very long, thus he launches himself towards her, tackling her off her perch as he gets a strike in, drawing blood through a gash in her arm as he rolls to get up. “One. That’s it, you lose.”

“What do you mean? My Aura’s barely damaged.” 

Lucifer gestured to the spot on his arm corresponding to where he hit her, as she looked down it seemed to dawn on her how his semblance works. “You have to be lying, using an illusion semblance or something.” she says as she strikes back with her whip, only to have Lucifer catch it with his glove as he begins to draw Aura from his target.

“Well you don’t seem to be that smart, that trick will only work once.” 

“I was counting on that.” she says as she activates the lightning Dust in her weapon, delivering a shock to the boy as he quickly draws a lot of his Aura to protect his body from this shock and pulls the girl to himself and into another slash before collapsing from the strain. ‘Two’ he thinks through the pain shooting into his mind. 

“You don’t understand do you? We in the White Fang have benefactors more powerful than even your precious general, we will defeat you and Beacon will fall.”

“In the name of Atlas and the power vested in me by General James Ironwood, you are under arrest. Please do not resist.” The usually timid voice of Crux breaks through the silence that settled with surprising force as he and his girlfriend come charging towards them, Bisa with her weapon’s hammer form prepared to strike as the terrorist only narrowly avoids being hit by dodging and releasing Lucifer from her grip with just a tiny amount of Aura left to spare.

“Hope your Aura didn’t break, we didn’t bring Musica with us so you’ll have to get yourself back up. Did you get your hit in?” Crux appeared, standing over the reaper with his shield raised and fist poised to strike.

“Two actually, and thanks for coming. A bit longer and I could’ve been toasted.” the downed boy says as he begins drawing more Aura from the girl currently duelling Bisa who is holding her own quite well despite having to change enforcer back into its shield form.

Getting up, Lucifer locks eyes with Crux, “You think you could launch me?”

“Sure, I think I can, just jump when you’re ready and I can bash you with my shield.” He says getting in position as Lucifer picks up his sickles and readies to jump.

“Ready, set, go!” Lucifer counted in as he jumped on set and Crux sent him flying on go. 

“Due to his wings, the reaper could very efficiently make use of his momentum to steer it and direct himself right towards where the White Fang Warrior was preoccupied with Bisa who, having heard Lucy’s shout, went and risked herself to try one more smash with her hammer.

This reckless attack caused her to be caught in the girl’s whip, luckily she was saved when dual blades rammed into her attacker at high speeds. “Three and four,” Lucifer says as he gets up and stands, focussing on the Aura currently flowing through the girl’s wounds, concentrating on forcing that Aura back inwards, in solid form to disrupt her Aura.

The girl felt this immediately, her Aura almost shattering from the implosion as her dissipating Aura visibly transfers to the boy who restarts his advance, nearly silent apart from the low chuckle escaping his lips. “Say goodnight, Atlas will have questions for you in the morning.”

“Never.” she spits back, getting up shakily and raising her weapon in its rapier form, “The White Fang will have your heads traitors.” 

Crux comes running and bashes the girl in the side with his shield, “For an organisation founded on peaceful principles you really do like the taste of blood don’t you? I don’t think it should be that way. Come with us and we promise you won’t be hurt, just cooperate.”

“Why should I work with traitors, you’re worse than humans, you turn on your own kind, become lap dogs for the oppressors and willingly stand by as faunus suffer and die in the Mantlean mines. I won’t forgive you, I’ll never forgive you! I’ll never be compassionate towards faunus like you!” she spits the words with a venom that briefly pushes all of them back, “Bisa, you’ve been poor your whole life, your family oppressed by the Atlesians you now serve, how does that help them? The only difference is they know the enforcer’s face.”

The redheaded girl is taken aback, seeming to attempt to put the puzzle together of how this girl knows her as Lucifer charges forwards and slashes across the extremist’s face, causing her whole skin colour to flicker into various bright ones very briefly before settling back into the brown she had been before. 

“Illia, is that you?” Bisa finally connects the dots.

“You finally remember.” 

“Why are you doing this? You were always so cheerful when we were kids, what happened?” 

Illia spits on the ground, a hint of blood tinging the spit red, “What do you think happened? Another one of the SDC’s cave-ins without any human casualties, and that’s all that ever seems to matter, human casualties, which is why I decided to hurt them, make them bleed for every one of my brothers and sisters who died in those accidents.” she lashes back towards Lucifer, who ducks under the strike.

“Bisa, what’s going on?” Crux asked slowly, moving forwards to block the two girls’ lines of sight towards each other.

“I knew her, when we were little we used to play together at the playground by the Dust mine where we’d be dropped off while our parents went to work. A bit ago that mine collapsed and I never saw her again after that, it was one or two years before we met.” 

“Then it’s settled, we’re taking her in and helping her. You hear that Death?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t get to reap too much of her soul. Got it.” The aforementioned angel says, moving forwards with a surprising amount of speed for someone who just lost most of his Aura mere minutes ago. His wings flare as he pushes his Aura’s limits and strikes towards the girl, delivering fresh gashes as her Aura had finally healed the others after the implosion.

Right after Lucifer makes his pass, Crux comes charging and bashes the girl with ramming wall , sending her flying into a tree which finally shatters her Aura, at which point he pulls some handcuffs from his shield and puts them on her as Aura break exhaustion sets in. 

Lucifer crouches down before her, the tip of his sickle pulling her face up towards his, “Before you doze off, who are you here with, is Adam Taurus in Vale?”

“You want the real answer? Yes, and he’s going to kill each and every one of you.”

Chapter Text

“Guys, where’s Lucy?” Eve’s voice stirs Gabriel out of his sleep, as he groans, “Isn’t he in his bed?” 

“Why do you think I’m asking dude?” Evan says flatly.

“He’s probably already on his way up to Amity, I don’t think he wants to miss another kid getting his leg broken.”

“I mean, maybe though that doesn’t seem like it.” Evan says shortly before Sera bursts through their door, “Gooood Morning!” she shouts, “How are you on this final day of the Vytal festival? Honestly it’s already more exciting than the others because Crux and Bisa got called out to help Lucy arrest some White Fang Gal out in the woods.”

“So that’s where he went.” Gabe and Evan said in unison, the commotion finally causing Nord to stir from his slumber.

“What’s happening?”

“Apparently Lucy’s been out on a mission last night and needed Bisa and Crux to bail him out.” Sera says, just as Emmet leaves their dorm room and appears behind Sera.

“Not quite, Ironwood asked for the two so they could help apprehend, but from the call I just got off with them, it seems they were too late and Lucifer already had the perp pinned to the ground.”

“That’s our Angel of Death.” Nord lets out in another of his rare moments of satisfaction in something other than weapons.

“Using your nicknames now?” Sera questions, “Should I start referring to you as Archangel?”

“I’d rather you wouldn’t, sounds way more awesome than ‘Messenger’ and ‘Guardian Angel’.” Gabriel chimes in.

“Anyways, could you give us some space? We’d like to get dressed and we can’t very well do that with you just standing in the doorway.” Nord says.

“Well in the words of my mom, ‘it shouldn’t bother you because I’ve already seen you naked before’, but because I haven’t, I’ll be so gracious as to drag the penguin away with me.” Seraphiel says as she walks away, closing the door and picking up a soon cursing and flailing Emmet behind her.

After they’re sure she’s gone, the other two get out of bed and all three get dressed in the comfortable bits of their outfits as Gabriel makes his way into the kitchen to prepare the leftover pancakes from yesterday. 

After eating they each suit up one final time. 

Nord begins by putting on his golden boots and bracers along with fingerless gloves, finishing it off with first his cloak and then his crate-like backpack. 

Gabriel takes much more time, having Evan help him methodically move every piece of his armour into place, first the chestplate, then the boots and gloves, then, going from the bottom up, each of the pieces on his legs and arms, finishing off with the helmet.

“Man you guys are so slow, see this is what happens when you don’t pick something comfortable like me.” Evan says, hopping on Gabe’s shoulder already fully dressed in his skirt and hoodie, the only thing missing being his halo which he has stored away in his locker.

Down the hall, SMTZ’ dorm is a lot rowdier, with Zinge electing to eat poptarts for breakfast, Robert eating only bread with no toppings, Marvin munching on whole coffee beans and Sapphire eating some left over chicken wings that she uses her semblance on to make sure she gets every bit of meat off them.

Sapphire basically sleeps in her dress so all she had to do was put on her shoes and fix her accessories and she was already done by the time they’re leaving through the door. 

Marvin is pulling on his cargo pants at mach 3 while Robert is pressing his breastplate on and Zinge slips into her jacket with a poptart still in her mouth as the team leaves their dorm room only to be confronted with the much more well put together team NGEL.

Somehow, Penguin Auxiliary was even worse, Sera and Emmet are already done, but that’s where the trouble starts as they goof off with Musica singing and getting dressed. The normally quick Lupo and Hellen are too busy fighting off Sera and Emmet to get dressed properly so in the end, when they’re at least decent, they leave the room with Lupo pulling on her suit jacket and fixing her tie while Hellen’s still busy going through her hair with her fingers and a piece of toast in her mouth.

So the 12 teens appear in the corridor at roughly the same time, and pretty much immediately begin sprinting in the direction of the Bullheads as Hellen says “Hey guys, you know it’s already 8 am.”

Well, most of them are sprinting, Eve is riding on Gabe’s shoulder and to Marvin, he’s just walking normally while everyone else is slowed to about a tenth of their normal speed due to him carrying the normally much slower Robert.

The Beacon corridor was not built for this as some other tardy teams get dragged along, RWBY bar their leader and her sister, who had apparently left before the others, CRDL, CLER and some others being pulled into the stampede.

They all make it to the bullhead just as it was getting ready to lift off, the horde of students getting on at the last moment as it took off with Blake and Cardin getting on last.

In the bullhead, as it is approaching the landing pad of Amity arena, they all gather around a screen as today's first match is decided, Penny Polendina of Atlas, vs Pyrrha Nikos of Beacon.

Chapter Text

‘This is bad.’ Nord thinks to himself. He knows both of their secrets, with Pyrrha having used her semblance against him in a spar and him having accidentally pulled a screw out of Penny once using his.

Needless to say he does not like this matchup on a good day, add in the reports of students hallucinating various things and he has no choice but to assume foul play. 

Quickly dialling Ironwood’s office he steps into a less occupied part of the airship. 

“Thank you for calling, Ebenholz speaking. What do you need mr. Di Angelo?”

“Stop the match, I’m sure Ironwood and Ozpin already connected the dots, but this match is unsafe.”

“What do you mean?”

‘Sorry Penny’ “Penny Polendina is a synthetic human consisting mostly of metallic parts, Pyrrha Nikos’ semblance is magnet based. Add to that how Polendina’s weapon has razor thin wires that could likely dismember her if the swords were knocked back with enough force.”

He is cut off by a scream on the other end of the line, followed by a laugh as a new, crazed sounding voice speaks through the scroll, “No no no, my Queen wishes to watch this fight, there will be no interruptions.”

“What? Who are you? Why do you want Penny to die?” 

Another chuckle, followed by the call being hung up.

“Damnit!” Nord shouts just as Eve and Gabe come rushing over.

“What is it?” The tall one asks as his partner spreads his wings to shield them from the others’ views.

“Penny’s weapon is potentially life-threatening when paired with Pyrrha’s semblance. We need to warn them so I called Ironwood’s receptionist who I believe has now been murdered.”

“Shit.” Gabriel, usually the composed one lets slip. “We have to stop this.” 

“Stop what?” Weiss came up to the three, “Mind explaining to the rest of us why Penny fighting Pyrrha is so potentially terrible?”

“Well, Penny is a synthetic human, consisting mostly of various metals, not the least of which being iron, and her weapon is also mostly iron. While sparring with Pyrrha, I discovered her semblance allows her to manipulate magnetism. This means the fight is essentially rigged in Pyrrha’s favour. Add to that the repeated cases of students hallucinating and I believe it is clear what is happening right now.”

“Sabotage.” Carol, leader of team CLER, speaks out loud, before taking a commanding tone, “Alright, we don’t have much time, we’ve been trying to get in touch with Port and Oobleck, but it seems they’ve turned off their scrolls. Nord attempted to go straight to Ironwood, but the receptionist seems to be killed and now we have no further angle to reach anyone who can stop the fight in time. Do I have that all correct?”

Nordlicht grimaces, “More or less.” 

“Then there’s very little we can still do to try and get there, even with all our capabilities combined, we’d only be able to throw someone here while we’re already on final approach. This means we can’t be bothered to navigate the arena’s halls.” She presses a button for the intercom to the cockpit, “Pilot, fly over top of the arena, don’t try to land at the docks, it’s too urgent, and speed up while you’re at it!”

Despite her not holding much actual power as a student, the authority in Carol’s voice had the pilot increasing speed even more, climbing almost straight upwards to get to the academy asap. 

“Sadly though, there’s nothing else we can do other than wait now, and that wait will be too long, so Louis,” she says looking over at her teammate, “Can you try to remotely hack into Penny or her weapon? As inhumane as that sounds, we don’t have any better options.” 

“Alright, I’ll need some quiet though.” the techie responds.

Penny was having a blast. Really, Pyrrha was an opponent that could actually stand up against her, that’s impressive.

‘And she’s so friendly most of the time, but in combat she takes on this much colder quality, befitting of a champion level fighter. No wasted movement, each attack ended with her guard up.‘ Penny thinks to herself as she unleashes a beam at her opponent, who launches herself over it. 

As Penny directs her attack at the body in the air, she only sees a shield, one which is quickly flying towards her. As she sidesteps to dodge, several bullets impact her Aura in rapid succession. 

As Penny moves her Floating Array to defend, the shield comes back from the ground and strikes her in the back of the head, sending her falling to the ground as Pyrrha catches the shield and charges forwards, shifting Milo into its sword form as she once more throws her shield at Penny. 

This time it ricochets off the swords, landing back on Pyrrha’s arm as the charging gladiator breaks through Penny’s defences, forcing her to take two blades from her array, dual wielding them to hold off the barrage of attacks, Milo shifting through forms so easily as Pyrrha jabs and slashes before delivering an uppercut to launch Penny into the air.

That is her mistake, Penny quickly begins firing dual lasers down at Pyrrha, scorching holes into the ground before she lands and begins using her blades as buzzsaws, threatening to tear Pyrrha apart should she get closer. 

Pyrrha tries throwing her shield once again, but instead of blocking, Penny ducks under as she pushes her blades downwards and right into Pyrrha’s shins, tripping her up with her only having been saved when her shield came back, forcing Penny to dodge to the side. “That trick won’t work on me again friend Pyrrha.”

Pyrrha hears this, mentally kicking herself for not switching up her pattern earlier. 

Pyrrha moves in, Milo in javelin form and Akuo in her hand. 

She throws Akuo underhand, when it is deflected upwards by Penny, she pulls it into the girl just as she launches Milo , using an extra shot to increase its speed, propelling it towards the girl. 

She shouldn’t have been able to block it. Humans don’t have the reaction time to react to her spear being thrown by sound alone. 

Yet Penny does block it, even catching it with her swords, forming a claw that allows her to take Milo and launch it back at Pyrrha, forcing her to use her semblance to push the spear into the ground. 

Gathering herself, Pyrrha stares down an attack, Penny’s swords having seemingly multiplied when she wasn’t looking. 

Carol is intently watching the screen, the gum in her mouth long having dissolved as she scowles, watching Penny push Pyrrha back. “Louis, I hope it’s not much longer.” she says under her breath. 

“Give me a couple more seconds, I almost got her pinned down.” Louis says as the Penny on the screen lifts her blades at a kneeling Pyrrha. 

“Any time now.” 

“Got it, taking manual control over Floating Array now.” Louis says as Penny throws her blades forwards, only for them to drive themselves into the ground. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief as this happens. Only for a sniper round to immediately pierce what remains of Penny’s Aura, hitting her in the head and tearing the mechanical insides out as she falls to the ground.

“The fuck was that!”/”Penny!” and the staggered “Shit”’ were the only things out of anyone’s mouths before the screen is overlaid with a black on red image of a queen’s chess piece. 

A voice came, speaking with a barely contained glee and excitement, “This is not a tragedy. This was not an accident. This is what happens when you hand over your trust, your safety, your children, to men who claim to be our guardians but are in reality nothing more than men.”

The image on the screen shows the four headmasters, “Our academies' headmasters wield more power than most armies, and one was audacious enough to control both.” it focusses on Ironwood, “They cling to this power in the name of peace, and yet, what do we have here?”

The screen shifts to show the destroyed mechanical insides of Penny’s head, “One nation's attempt at a synthetic army mercilessly shot through the head by another’s favourite pupil. What need would Atlas have for a soldier disguised as an innocent little girl? I don't think the Grimm can tell the difference.”

It shifts once more to show Ruby, holding Crescent Rose from the top of the stands, pointed towards the arena, “And what, I ask you, is Ozpin teaching his students? First, a dismemberment, now this? Huntsmen and Huntresses should carry themselves with honour and mercy, yet I have witnessed neither.”

The camera shifts back to a wide cut of the arena, “Perhaps Ozpin felt as though defeating Atlas in the tournament would help people forget his colossal failure to protect Vale when the Grimm invaded its streets. Or perhaps this was his message to the tyrannical dictator that has occupied an unsuspecting kingdom with armed forces. Or maybe he disliked the idea of a covert army.”

“Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue as to who is right and who is wrong, but I know that the existence of peace is fragile, and the leaders of our kingdoms conduct their business with iron gloves. As someone who hails from Mistral, I can assure you the situation there is equally undesirable.” The camera shows images from a recent person’s rights protest in Mistral that ended in blood. 

The camera shows the airships of Atlas, poised over Vale, “Our kingdoms are at the brink of war, yet we, the citizens, are left in the dark. So, I ask you, when the first shots are fired, who do you think you can trust?”

“General, we’ve got reports of the biggest Grimm swarm spotted in years on approach to Vale, our airships are already firing on it, but it’ll take time for us to mobilise most of our forces.” A messenger shouts, even before coming to a full stop from running up to Ironwood in his spot in the moderators booth. 

“Damnit, focus on getting our Knights active, tell the airships to focus fire on airborne Grimm and get transports ready for immediate evac!” The general shouts back before taking his tactical holo-map out of his suitcase, together with Due Process and his earpiece, putting all of them in place on his person before moving off to help keep the civilians safe.

The airship comes down just after the nevermore breaks the barrier to the inside of the arena. 

Evan, Weiss, Blake, and Eerie are the first on the ground, having their own ways of quickly descending. Together they clear a landing area for the others as everyone’s weapons begin falling out of the sky.

Everyone arms themselves with their equipment, “Allright people, our objectives are simple: We keep the civilians safe. NGEl, you three are going to be making your way down to Vale on the first airship. You have to make sure the safe-zone doesn’t break. SMTZ, you’ll be keeping the docks safe, the majority of civvies are gonna be there for a bit. Blake, Weiss, find your leader, then regroup with CFVY and SSSN at the docks. Penguin Class, get ready to reinforce anywhere someone might need it. CRDL, you four and my team are gonna sweep the arena. We’ll start at that doorway, and split off in opposite directions to get through it asap. Understood?” She shouts the last word with such force that even those who aren’t from Atlas academy tense up.

“Yes ma’am!” comes the response as everyone hurries off.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10

Lucifer was stuck on a destroyer when the shot was fired. After a bout of disbelief, he runs off to make sure that Torchwick and Illia are secure in their cells. 

As he’s moving along, he hears shouting from down the hall “Hey who are you? You’re not supposed to be- aAAGhgahgH!” the soldier is interrupted by his own screaming. 

Running, Lucifer engages his wings so as to not alert the intruder and when he carefully turns the corner he sees a girl, with pink and brown hair brandishing a parasol with a blade extending from its tip. 

Because she’s facing away from him and towards the door of Torchwick’s cell, Lucifer strikes at her back, sending a gash from shoulder to shoulder as she turns towards him, Parasol in hand as she throws a hat and Cane into the cell. ‘Judging by how they didn’t make any noise, Torchwick’s free and caught them, so I’m going to have to fight both of them.’ 

Sure enough, after a second, Torchwick emerges from his cell behind his accomplice, “Well thank you Neo, I saw the broadcast. I have to say, I did not expect little red to be the shooter.” 

Neo just giggles as she gestures her weapon towards Lucifer. 

“Oh him? I think I know just the person to take him down, did you perchance bring our little White Fang friend’s weapon from the armoury?” 

She nods her head, pulling Illia’s whip from a belt before tossing it to him. 

“Hold him off while I go free her.” Torchwick rushes off down the hall as Neo Turns around as if to follow him, before suddenly appearing right before Lucifer with the handle of her parasol planted firmly in his gut. 

He lets out a groan as the hit connects, not having expected the attack. ‘At least my Aura’s been replenishing this whole time, I’m pretty sure I got a good bit out of her.’ He thinks as he goes in for a retaliation, only for a second Neo to appear out of the first one, attacking him with her umbrella. 

Lucifer strikes at the Neo closer to him, shattering her before she can do anything as he continues to advance down the hall, brandishing his sickles with a wicked grin on his face.

Neo strikes towards Lucifer, but this time he catches her umbrella in his sickle while simultaneously delivering a cut across her cheek as she kicks him away, sending him falling to the ground, “Two.” he says aloud as more Aura visible streams from his opponent.

That’s when his luck runs out though, as Illia, now without a mask, rounds the corner behind him and strikes at him with her whip, shocking him to the ground. 

“Neopolitan, I should thank you for rescuing me and Torchwick, but he’s likely done that enough, so take this: I won’t kill you today .” She says as she continues to electrocute Lucifer.

Neo takes a bow as the image of her shatters. 

“Ruby, what happened?” Weiss runs up to her still shocked leader, who is now in a crying heap on the floor. 

Through the weeps and gasps they can make something out, “I … breath … I didn’t... sob shoot her.”

“We know that. You’d never shoot her.” Blake goes down to her level, wrapping her arms around Ruby, hugging her tight as Weiss follows suit. 

“Can you tell us who it was?” Weiss suggests. 

Ruby, after drying her tears in her friends’ shoulders and blowing her nose once begins to explain. “I was fighting Mercury.” 

“Mercury?!” the others exclaim in unison. 

“Yeah, him. Apparently he has metal legs and he took Crescent Rose and took the fight outside, and he shot Penny with Crescent Rose and ran away after pushing her in my arms.”

“Well, seems you came for your leader after all, it’s almost touching how prepared to die you are for each other.” Mercury’s distinct voice seemingly comes from everywhere around the three. 

“Mercury, I think the word you’re looking for is disgusting.” Emerald joined in. 

“Oh right. Thanks Em. Also, this semblance of yours, it sure is handy.” Suddenly, Mercury appeared behind Blake as he sent her flying with a kick, quickly followed up by several of Emerald’s shots hitting Weiss. 

“It is, shame you don’t have one.” Emerald dodges Ruby’s strike as she lunges out to attack a recovering Weiss. 

“Hey, we said that’s off limits!” Mercury backs off from Blake going after him with her cleaver, jumping into the air as he fires off a couple rounds from his boots.

“Blake, Ruby, we’re leaving.” Weiss shouts as she creates a tunnel of ice connecting to the nearest exit. 

“You can run but you can’t hide, not for long.” Mercury says as he kicks his boot into the tunnel.

“Let ‘em run Merc, the Grimm’ll have them soon enough.” 

“You sure we should be doing this?” Dove asks, shakily holding Hallshot in front of him as CRDL walks down the dark corridors. 

“Would you rather the scary Atlas lady finds out we didn’t do it and gets on our asses later?” Russel asks, creeping ahead with shortwings in hand.

“Yeah, at least we won’t be dead,” Dove replies, “right Sky?”

At the lack of response, the two and Cardin turn around to where Sky is supposed to be, only to be faced with an empty area.

“Uh, Sky!” Cardin calls out into the empty hallway, grabbing The Executioner tighter as his team does the same with their weapons. 

“Oh the little birdies.” A voice, belonging to someone obviously unhinged, cuts through the silence, “Birds are meant to fly free, not be stuck inside.” 

“Who,.. who are you?” Dove shouts, trying to make his voice sound braver than he feels. 

“I am here to set you free,” the man responds, “I will have you flying in the Sky,” he chuckles, “again.” 

Russel seems to fall upwards as his scream is silenced, “I’ll be back in a couple minutes, I have to set this birdie free.” 

Cardin feels something warm drip from the ceiling, due to the low light he can’t see its colour, but guessing by what it feels like he would be willing to guess it’s blood, “Dove, we need to go, now!” the two start running, willing to risk a Grimm ignoring them in favour of the man who just killed two of their teammates.

“Oh no no no, we can’t have that.” the voice says as Russel’s corpse falls to the ground in front of them. 

Cardin and Dove scream, seemingly causing their pursuer even more glee. 

As they attempt to back away, they’re suddenly halted by a hand on the back of each of their heads, forcing them to look at their teammate. “Now now, I can’t have you revealing who I am to the others now can I? No, I want to have my fun with you and then have them always wonder with horror, how your bodies were all thrown overboard.” 

They struggle, trying to attack the man but he slams each of them into the wall repeatedly. “Now, there is a way to make the death far less painful, pledge yourself to the Queen and if you have enough devotion, maybe you will even be brought back with me.”

Cardin struggles, trying to leverage his bulky frame to get free, but as soon as he does, the man kicks him in the groin, pushing on the codpiece so hard it crushes the boy as he falls to the ground writhing in pain. “Well that’s a shame, I’m certain She would have loved to play with you.” 

Dove sees as the man extends his left arm and fires a long burst into Cardin’s legs. Once his Aura breaks he slowly marches his bullets up, shredding and mutilating his body. Even his screams ceasing doesn’t seem to be cause for pause as the murderer finishes emptying his magazine.

Dove, who was trying not to look but was forced to as his friend was murdered in one of the worst ways possible only sees one way out. 

“TELL ME THE NAME OF YOUR QUEEN AND I WILL PLEDGE MY LIFE!!!” He screams at the top of his lungs.

CLER is having a much better time, moving from room to room, using Carol’s semblance to check if a room is worth opening and moving on afterwards. 

After the 50th empty room in a row, Louis speaks up, “Carol, I don’t think this is going to be worth it. There’s nobody here and we’d likely be saving more people if we were outside at the landing docks.” 

“Yeah, I wanna kill some shit, not walk down a hallway.” Eerie agrees. 

“If Raid’s okay with it, we’ll go.” Carol says, casting a quick, quizzical look at the team’s tailend.

“Fine by me.” the aforementioned marksman says, crouching down to wait for his team to turn around.

“Alright Raid, take the rear again, but don’t go too far away from us.” Carol taps him on the shoulder, prompting him to get up and turn around as Louis keeps his hand on his backpack, almost dragging him along.

The corridor is suddenly filled with red light and a series of bulkhead doors begins closing. Raid barely manages to vault over the one closing between him and the others as they find themselves locked in. 

“Shit.” they all say in unison.

Chapter Text

Sapphire almost collapses under the force of Evan’s telepathic message ‘Sapphire, take SMTZ and take over our post on the ground. We just got word Lucy’s on the airship Torchwick and Illia are captive on. We just lost contact with them.’

Sepphy tries to protest, but they’re already too far away so she relays this to the rest of her team as they finish with the Grimm they were just occupied with a moment ago and get on the transport with the civilians.

Looking out the closing door, Sapphire sees Nordlicht, Gabriel, Evan and Seraphiel hurrying with Ironwood to his personal transport as it is already taking off by the time Sera dives over the closing ramp.

As Neo struts onto the bridge where Roman is currently interrogating the only surviving deckhand on why the captain’s chair, whose occupant he shot a moment prior, was covered in blood. 

She puts a hand on his shoulder, when he looks over, she uses her umbrella to stab the man through the heart. 

“Well I guess I always have said the fastest way to a man’s heart is through the fourth and fifth rib.” he says with a chuckle as he plugs his scroll into the system. 

“Well it seems you’ve finally managed to plug in.” The voice of the mysterious hacker who gave him the virus says through the intercom. 

“Well I’ve been a bit busy, there was a brat here who gave Neo some trouble, but don’t worry, we took care of it, now help me shoot this thing’s guns.”

“Very well, you’ll want to take your scroll and press the button labelled ‘Flip IFF’, this will make the autonomous Atlas tech see our allies as their allies and start shooting at Atlas’ forces.”

“Why thank you tech support, I’ll be sure to turn it off and on again if I have any more problems.” Roman says as he plugs his scroll back in, preparing to press the button to arm the cannons. 

As he does this, Neo also presses the button to activate the Atlesian Knights all across Vale, setting them on everything other than the White Fang and Grimm. 

Sera is the first to notice the AK200s’ Dust cores activate, having touched some of them after she got on. So when they turned on out of nowhere, she expected the worst and looked down towards their compartment. “Uh, general, are the Knights’ visors supposed to glow red?”

“Not that I know of, shoot them.” Ironwood runs over with Due Process drawn as he fires several shots through the floor at the compartment. 

“Alright, get back from the hole, dropping an EMP.” Sera throws a magazine filled with lightning Dust down the hatch, closing it before detonating the Dust inside using her semblance, lightning arcing between the bots, short circuiting them.

“Alright, nobody goes in there or even touches anything without a layer of rubber between you and the ship until we land.” Ironwood hums in approval of Sera’s quick actions, “If you’d reacted any slower we’d probably be in the middle of a crash right now. Well done.” 

“Eh, all in a day’s work.” 

“We’re approaching the airship, prepare to disembark.” the pilot calls out as he lands the ship, “Good luck out there, let’s hope all of you make it back.” 

“Don’t worry about us pilot, we’ll find our own way down, you need to get back to Amity and help evacuate the civilians there.” Ironwood’s orders are followed as soon as he steps off the ship.

After making sure there’s no one on deck, Ironwood continues “Archangel and Throne, go secure Death, Guardian and Messenger, with me. From now we’re switching to callsigns for coms.” 

“Yes sir!” Nord shouts and rushes off towards the bow elevator with Sera right behind him as Ironwood’s group moves towards the stern’s bridge elevator.

“Lupo, CLER just called, you need to go help them out on the eastern side of the arena, they seem to have been locked in by bulkhead doors. They might be able to breach through a couple of them, but they don’t have enough charges to get back. We need you to commandeer an airship and have it get to a room with them.” 

“Alright I’m going.” The wolf girl grabs her sword, quickly running off to find an empty airship when she sees Elly, Raid’s girlfriend.

“Hey Elly, I need your help to get Raid and his team!” She shouts as she runs up to her, “Your family has an airship right?” 

“Yes, but also: who are you?” Elly is quick to follow into the run as well, guiding Lupo to where Darrin and the others are. 

“Lupo Nero, team CLER’s attached auxiliary member, I was there when you arrived and was the reason Bezhevyy was looking anywhere but the group.” 

“Oh yeah, so you caught him staring at you?” 

“Yup.” The two approach the airship, prompting the Bezhevyy they were just speaking of to shout to the others inside.

“Guys, Elly’s back, and she uhhh, she brought s-someone along.” he starts stuttering as he realises who exactly this other person is.

“Mr. Blass, I need your help. My team is trapped somewhere along the east side of the colosseum and we need to help them get out.” Lupo and Elly barrel into the ship, skidding to a halt. 

“Oh it’s you, alright, I’ll help, where do you need us?” Darrin sits down in the pilot seat with Bezhevyy. 

“They’re somewhere along the eastern side of Amity, once we’re in the air they’ll blow a hole through a wall and light a flare for us to find them.” Lupo says while dialling Carol on her scroll. 

“Oh hey Lupo, we’re a bit stuck at the moment, you got an airship yet?” Carol’s voice comes over the call a bit staticy.

“Even better, I got Elly and her family coming your way, all you need to do is blow a hole through the nearest wall to the outside, then light a flare so we can see you.” 

“Alright, I hope you’re not just trying to get us flooded by Grimm.”

“I said that one time as a joke.” Lupo protests. 

“I mean, to be fair you don't joke too much.”

“Eerie, prep a breaching charge and put it on a wall with a window in that room!” Carol barks the orders as soon as she hangs up on her call with Lupo, “We got a couple of Raid’s friends coming in and they need to be able to get to and see us.” 

“Alright!” Eerie kicks down the door to the room and sets the charge on the far wall, right next to the window, “Charge set, we’re good to go.” 

“Go!” Carol shouts as Louis pulls a flare from his pocket, then strikes it, holding it out of the hole as the wind starts whipping around the room. 

“I see ‘em!” Narcyz says, pointing Darrin in the right direction as Bezhevyy gets up and moves to the side door of the airship, opening it as they pull up to the hole. 

“Alright, get in you four!” he shouts as he extends his hand to help Louis, Elly mirroring his movements with Raid as Elly throws a rock that Lupo cuts out of the air, teleporting her in as Carol makes the jump across the gap.

“Good, we’re here, now we need to get down to Beacon to help the people there.” Carol doesn’t even wait to strap herself in before giving out the order.

Bezhevyy sits down next to Lupo and she’s certain she didn’t just see him smiling at her. 

Instead, she uses her sheathed blade to poke at Elly and Raid, trying to separate them.

“Musica, CRVS needs your help. They’re bogged down somewhere in downtown Vale. The Grimm ain’t letting up.” Emmet doesn’t even bother to hang up the call before shouting his orders. 

While she runs off, a message pops up on his scroll, “To anyone still located on Amity arena, the Civilians have all been evacuated, make your way to the nearest airship dock at once.” he reads aloud.

“We’re packing up people!” he shouts as he grabs a box of Dust he’s been using as a desk so far. 

‘Good thing I’ve gotten in the habit of wearing actual shoes.’ Musica thinks to herself, dodging a boarbatusk charging at her, not even slowing down to look back while moving forwards on her run. 

She’s approaching the landing docks when the last airship moves in to land. Thinking quickly she deploys her microphone in show mode, letting the pyrotechnics and laser light show burn and disintigrate the Grimm as the airship lands. 

She continues burning the Grimm even as the rest of Penguin Class, the last people on the arena platform, make their way onto the airship. “Don’t worry, I’ve got my own way down and it’ll help me get to the team faster.”

The airship takes off and, as soon as it’s a good way from the platform, Musica packs up Berliner and leaps off the edge. 

Chapter Text

Lucifer has not been having the best day, he thought trying to stop the White Fang in the forest was a good call, only to get electrocuted, then he tried to stop a full on jailbreak, only to get electrocuted and thrown in a cell.

All in all it’s been a pretty dang terrible day.

But all he needs to do right now is sit tight, the others are probably coming for him right this second.

On another part of the ship, Ironwood, Evan and Gabriel are making their way to the bridge, James shooting any rogue AK200s they come across. 

As they approach the door to the bridge, out step Torchwick and his accomplice.

“Ah general, so good to see you, I thought you’d missed the best part, but given you’re alive I don’t believe there’s any possibility of that.”

“Shut up.” Ironwood says coldly, shooting at the two figures as the illusion shatters, “After them.” 

“But sir, what about the bridge?” Gabriel asks. 

“Do you know how to scuttle the ship from here?” the general asks as Gabe nods his head, “Then you can do it, me and Messenger are going to go after the criminals.”

As Gabriel goes off to find the self-destruction sequence on the bridge, his partner and commander run off to give chase to their query. “Archangel, Throne, be advised, we have Torchwick and Neopolitan on the run, one combatant still unaccounted for.”

“Well that’s a relief, just one person.” Sera walks through the halls, Nordlicht watching her back, “We’re almost at the jail,” she continues, stopping at a door where she places a couple of Combustion Dust bullets near the edges, “get back.” 

She blows the door of the frame, sending it flying down the corridor with a clang as it hits the ground.

Seraphiel peeks around the corner and, seeing nothing of note, decides to move inwards. 

Nord, keeping a tight grip on his pistols moves in alongside his friend, moving forwards with her, prepared to shoot anything that moves. 

“Hey guys.” They both flinch, but relax when they recognize it’s Lucifer who’s talking, “What took you so long?” 

“Trying to move around without alerting the third person whose location is still unknown, speaking off, really aren’t having a good day are you?” Nord takes over overwatch duties from Sera as she sets some more bullets around the doorframe of the cell, backing away and aiming her gun down the corridor they just came from.

“You ready Death?” a second and then a call of affirmation later and the door to the cell is blown apart. 

“Illia still has my weapons.” Lucifer says picking up a set of knives and duct tape from any of the bodies littering the floor, strapping them to his individual fingers, giving his gloves the look of a set of claws, “I guess these’ll have to do, let’s go.”

The group sets off down the corridor towards the armoury, arriving at the door within a minute. 

“Blow it up?” Sera asks, already dropping Dust bullets next to the door when Nord interrupts. 

“No! You have no idea where the Dust bullets are located back there, it’d risk blowing us all up.”

“What else do you want me to do instead?” 

“Give me a lightning Dust bullet.” Nord takes out a small tool kit, taking the offered bullet apart and pulling out its Dust crystal, planting it in the control console at a point where it should open the whole thing, “Now detonate that one.” 

As Seraphiel does, the door opens and the lights go on. Prepping their weapons, the three fighters move into the room, only to not find too much, nothing more than a few ammo crates. 

“Well that’s disappointing.” Sera goes to look through the crates, “At least they have my size.” she pulls out several magazines, placing them all in her pouch as Nord and Lucifer watch the door. 

“You got any idea where the white fang girl went?” Nord asks his partner who just shakes his head.

“Those cells have terrible visibility and by the time I woke up she’d already left. She probably has my neckseekers .”

“Then we have no idea where to look?” 

“Nope.”

“We’ll just have to do this the hard way then.” Sera appears behind the two of them, the three walk off in search of Lucifer’s weapons deeper in the bowels of the ship.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13

Getting to the landing zone was a bumpy ride in and of itself, but forming a perimeter/safe-zone for the injured and civilians is proving to be even harder. 

“Persep, I’m gonna need you and your team to find a place where you can make a ton of noise to draw Grimm off us here.” The Ground commander of the remaining Atlesian Forces points at an area of the map on his table inside the hastily erected command tent, “We’ve already cleared this area of civilians, set up somewhere here and present a good distraction.”

“But why pick my team sir?” 

“You have both means of escape in Giallo’s vehicle and there’s a graveyard here.” He points out the place on the map, “Meaning you are both capable of fighting at maximum capacity without worry of collateral and having an easy escape should you get overrun, now get going, the sooner you’re out there the sooner there’s less pressure on our lines.” 

“Yes sir!” Sapphire starts out the door, her team following her to Zinge’s monster truck as she explains the situation.

“So we make noise to help people? Sounds good to me.” Zinge jumps in the driver’s seat with Sapphire about to jump in the other side when she sees a figure running their way. 

Staff in hand, Hellen vaults her way into the truck bed next to Robert and Marvin, “You aren’t leaving without me are you? This is what I’ve been waiting for, a reason to actually fight .” 

Marvin is unimpressed by the display though, “You sure you wanna do this? It’s barely been a year since you left that place, will you really be okay?” 

“I’ll be fine, I’ve been in Atlas ‘cause it’s a way for me to survive, but now I can fight for a reason other than that, this is my first real choice for years and I wanna make the right one.” 

“If you say so. Zinge, hit it!” Sapphire orders, prompting Zinge to go blasing down the road, running down several Grimm as they make their way to their new battlefield.

Arriving sooner than they thought, Sapphire dismounts using a staircase of bones as Zinge swings herself out the back window to provide covering fire with her minigun, taking down any Grimm currently in the area. 

“Marvin, Robert, there’s a crate of fireworks somewhere around here.” She gestures to the truck bed, filled with crates carrying various things, “Set them up and launch ‘em, they’re our spark to make more noise than the Paladins.”

The two boys immediately get to work, planting the flying explosives in the ground and lighting them as Zinge and Sapphire cover them, killing the occasional Grimm.

Shortly after, the sky lights up in three glorious colours that just cause Zinge to tear up with how beautiful they are, the red, white and blue of her hometown. ‘They’re sure to come running now, how couldn’t they?’

And sure enough, the five students quickly find themselves in combat, Marvin, Sapphire and Robert taking out Grimm at close ranges as Zinge and Hellen stand back to back on her truck, the former shooting her gun at large swaths of Grimm as the latter uses her Dust to blast any important targets she can see, Nevermores and other fliers being chief among those.

Sapphire is using her semblance to her advantage, the bones of the dead in the graveyard to skewer Grimm, locking down one of the two entrances with some help from her own pistol, putting silent, precise shots through the eyes of Grimm her spikes don’t kill in one hit. 

Marvin and Robert are at the other entrance, both making sure Robert doesn’t get hit, with Marvin running in and distracting the Grimm, using his speed and not inconsiderable Aura pool to draw their ire as Robert uses Saviour in its lance mode, shooting beams of energy to cut down several Grimm at a time while he also rams it straight through even the toughest armoured Grimm that approach him.

The sudden appearance of several White Fang fighters causes the two some pause though, not wanting to kill anyone, Marvin leaves the bulk of the defence to Robert as he runs and sneaks up on one of the enemy faunus, vaulting over various Grimm, dumping his pistol’s mag at an Ursa before reaching the man in white, knocking him out and using his semblance to get to the other White Fang, knocking one out, carrying them to the graveyard, where Sapphire proceeds to capture them in cages of bone before he runs off, still carrying one so his semblance activates, then rinse and repeat.

The problem being that due to Marvin no longer helping Robert, the occasional Grimm begins to leak.

“Hellen!” Robert shouts, the girl immediately understands and uses her semblance to pause time briefly as she hops off the truck and kicks the Boarbatusk, effectively reversing its momentum, sending it flying back through the gate and through several Grimm and a few walls before finally dissolving once she deactivates her semblance. 

“That… was way more than we needed, but thank you.” Robert returns to swinging his sword wildly as Hellen adds her fire to Robert’s defence.

On the other side of the truck, Sapphire runs a Grimm through with her gardening shears, using its bone mask to throw spikes through several more approaching beowolves. Spotting three White Fang fighters approaching, she rushes them down, summoning a sword of bone in her off hand and mechashifting Caretaker to its pistol form, shooting off a couple rounds into each of the attackers to see whether or not they have Aura. 

Noting how all of them have it unlocked, Sapphire charges in, slashing and stabbing at them in turn, shooting a beowolf, using its faceplate as a projectile that shoots through and breaks one of their Auras. 

Beginning to feel the darkness taking over, Sapphire briefly deliberates over what she should do with the man at her feet. ‘You should get him back to the truck, we’re above killing innocent people.’ The more compassionate part of her mind says, the one with a bit of Lucifer in its voice. In opposition, the one that sounds more like her speaks up, ‘But these animals are far from innocent or even people, so why shouldn’t I? Why should I not slaughter them like the animals whose masks they wear, like how they slaughter innocents without remorse?’ 

Merely a second passed, but a smile now creeps across the girl’s face as she looks down at the body of one terrified White Fang soldier. “Aww poor you, they sent you here with nothing but an untrained Aura and a sword. I would normally spare a display this pathetic.” his face lights up in hope, “But not today, not when I know almost for certain you’ve already killed someone today.” 

Sapphire steps on his throat, crushing it and killing him before she picks him up and throws him at his stunned comrades. “You too by the way, there’s no way I’m letting you get away unpunished, and the penalty is death at the hands of me.” She begins animating the corpse by using its bones, quickly taking the other too down and pinning them under it. “I am your queen, or I will be momentarily.” 

She lets out a shrill laugh as the corpse’s bones begin stabbing themselves into the other two soldiers, granting a painful death, “You don’t really deserve this, you deserve far worse for what you’ve done, I would sit here slowly killing you all day, but considering how much bad you’ve done and the fact it’s still ongoing, you’re the ones dying quickly.” she laughs as she realises she’s talking to corpses.

“Well warriors, as your final condoning for your sins, your bones now belong to me.” She makes a pulling motion with her hand as the spines and rib cages all come flying out of their bodies, two of them landing in her pouch of bones while she throws one at oncoming enemies, more Grimm with several White Fang mixed in. 

She laughs as the construct explodes, sending shards of bone tearing through faunus and Grimm alike as she charges, delivering a slash to one’s throat before throwing the corpse in the other direction where more Grimm are approaching from, detonating it, covering several more faunus in viscera, their fresh fear attracting the attention of the Grimm they were charging with just seconds prior. 

Zinge stands amazed as Sapphire begins pushing against the enemies, her new source of actual bones making it far easier. 

Deciding if her leader doesn’t care, she shouldn’t either, Zinge hefts her minigun, her wings helping her balance, as she releases full barrages at anything that isn’t her team, not caring if she breaks the Auras of any oncomers, or if those enemies have enough time to get away before they’re filled with holes. 

Her finger is stuck to the trigger pressing it down and letting the chaingun fire indiscriminately. 

Wanting more action, she leaps off the truck, carving a trench through Grimm and faunus using an Aura shunting strike on the occasional enemy that gets too close, not worried about expending so much of her Aura due to her semblance quickly regenerating it.

Marvin, Robert and Hellen are horrified by this display, their often chipper and friendly teammates are murdering with no regard for the lives of their victims. 

“Alright, as Sapphire is incapable of giving orders at this time,” Marvin winces as the aforementioned leader lets out another howling laugh, “I’m taking command. Robert, you help with defence, we need you to help take out any Grimm the others may miss. Meanwhile, Hellen and I are going to make sure as few people die as possible, our semblances are perfect for that.”

“Thanks for the lift. Do you wanna come help clear out Beacon?” Carol asks Darrin as they approach the landing pads. 

“We don’t really have much else to do, so sure why not?” Bezhevvy gets up and out of his seat, walking over to the airship doors. 

“Ok then, I say team CLER and Elly go through the hallways to find and evacuate any survivors.” Carol begins, with Lupo continuing, “And the rest of us will help make sure those people have a safe way out.”

“Good, Gally, can you keep up a hail to protect the landing pad?” Darrin begins giving orders, “Narcyz, keep her safe and take out any big targets she doesn’t clean up or take down. Nero, Bezhevvy, with me.” He says as they begin the dash towards the academy as the sounds of battle are interrupted by a high pitched, indescribably loud screech.

“That’s not good.” Bezhevvy notes, looking upwards as Lupo checks her earpiece. 

“Command says that’s a Wyvern. Too big for any of us to take on alone.” She cuts down a Grimm threatening to strike Bez down. 

“Then let’s not worry about it. Get as many people out as we can NOW!” Darrin shouts, charging ahead, a white exoskeleton climbing its way around his body from an opening in his pants as they split. 

The sleek white armour mostly encases his upper body, with extra mechanical and hydraulic pieces strapping themselves into place along his arms and legs. 

As soon as everything’s in place, a lightning Dust engine on his back begins spinning and each of the servos release loud, howling sounds as they move. 

And just like that, quiet. Not a sound occurs as Darrin creates a locket of Aura in his hand, placing it in a pocket before drawing his second sword and charges forwards, straight into Beacon’s main foyer.

As soon as they’re out of range again, Bezhevvy explains, “His semblance, Silence for the King . It prevents all sound within a radius of him.” he then grins, “Now watch this.” he says, his muscles ripple, he grows a couple centimetres, and his pupils reform into cat eye shaped ones. “Mine makes me a bit better in pretty much everything, strength, constitution, all that stuff.” 

He draws his sword and pistol as well, but is interrupted by the flat of an Aura sword smacking him on the back of his head, “Now isn’t the time to show off idiot.” Lupo lectures, a spatha in one hand and Omertose in the other as she follows Darrin into combat. 

“Auditorium, White Fang confirmed, no students, seven targets.” Carol takes her hand off the door and leans away. 

Elly watches in amazement as team CLER begin to line up beside the door as soon as their leader says those words. 

Raid stands at the end, does a quick check of his weapon and gear, making sure his noise protection is on, and places his hand on Eerie’s back. “Stay back Elly, we’ll show you how it’s done.” 

Once the check reaches Carol, she steps in front of the door, lines up her foot right next to the handle, and waits one more second before shouting “GO!” and kicking the door clean into the wall as she walks in forwards, firing into the far corner of the room as her team follows quickly after, filling the room with bullets.

Then everything goes quiet. 

“Clear” “Clear” “Clear” “Clear” they all shout before Elly even has the chance to go into the room after them.

There she sees, what she can only refer to as a sight of pure efficiency.

The four teammates were already working on bandaging the injured terrorists, all of them laying on the ground groaning in pain. 

While she’s leaning over one of the enemy faunus, a shot rings out and she just so has enough time to activate her semblance, narrowly avoiding being shot in the head by setting herself back to a neutral fighting stance. 

As soon as the shot hits the ground behind her, another shot rings out, this time from Raid’s DMR, as it bounces off the far wall and right through the guy’s Aura-less leg. “Nobody tries to shoot my girlfriend.” 

He makes his way over, and slams his fist into the faunus’ face repeatedly, leaving both it and his hand a bloody mess. 

“Raid, stop harrying the guy. Tie him up and bring him over here.” Eerie says, dragging her captive into the middle of the auditorium, then she throws her onto the pile. 

“No deaths, six initial eliminations, seventh target eliminated after initial breach. No damage taken.” Louis says as he scribbles in his notepad.

“We’ll need to be more careful next time.” Eerie makes her way back out into the hallway, keeping her gun trained ahead, bayonet fixed. 

“You’ve still got a full pack of grenades right?” Carol follows her out with the rest of the team. 

“Down a homewrecker, but I’ve still got 6 frags and 8 flashbangs.” they arrive at the next door. 

After Carol places a hand on the door, she speaks up again, “Clear, move on to the next one.” 

At the next one, she takes a second to pause, “We got four captives, lined up right in front of the door. Five White Fang right behind them, another four around the rest of the room.” 

“I’ll take the ones with hostages, do you see a vent Raid?” Eerie pulls a flashbang from her backpack, infusing it with some of her Aura. 

“I got one.” Raid crouches down and aims straight at the vent, “Gonna be a tricky one, but I’m pretty sure I can take at least two of them.”

“Alright, lock picked, we can open the door now.” Louis gets up and stows his lockpicks in his back pocket. 

“Okay, Elly, you wanna join us this time?” Eerie quietly calls back over her shoulder, to which Elly readies her gauntlets, “You bet’cha. Where do you need me?” 

“We need you to take down anyone you can at the back of the room. It’s another auditorium style thing so it’ll be at an elevation. Raid will take care of the two closest to the vent. Louis, you clear from the blackboard to the start of the elevation.”

They line up, Eerie right at the door, followed by Louis, then Elly, Carol and Raid, Louis giving her a set of headphones that she puts on, lest she lose her hearing.

Eerie silently and slowly, opens the door just enough to toss a small disc through the opening before slamming it shut and backing away as the rest move forwards. 

After about half a second, the flashbang bursts and Eerie disappears as Louis busts the door down, using his semblance to slow most of the room, then begins firing, making sure not to hit any of the hostages as he moves closer. 

Elly’s right on his heels, shooting blasts of energy at the other end of the room, followed by Carol, her SMG spewing bullets as Raid follows in to confirm his shots hit as they all continue to shoot for another couple seconds.

Elly takes a short second to glance over at where Eerie is. At first she doesn’t see anything, but when she looks down, she catches glimpses of Eerie on the ground, bashing in someone’s face with the stock of her rifle, only to send herself back, bayonet first into another grunt’s abdomen.

After another short bit of time, they all pause their fire, 

“Clear!” Eerie is the first to confirm her targets’ defeat, “Three dead, two unconscious with pretty dangerous cuts.”

“Raid, make sure everything’s clear. Louis, we’ll see to the injured. Elly, Eerie, see to the hostages.” Carol gives her next set of orders as the others comply. 

Elly puts on a smile for the hostages, remembering the smile Gally gave when she and Darrin saved her, as she begins undoing the knots. “Everything’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna help you get out of here. There’s an airship evacuating people to a safe zone in Vale, and until we can make sure everyone’s safe here and down there, we’re marking Beacon as lost for a moment.”

“Good, no one’s hurt.” Eerie confirms as she removes the bayonet from her rifle as she starts to cut the remaining hostages loose. “It should be safe to head from here straight to the main foyer. Go until you find another fighter and ask them for directions.” she withdraws her knife, placing it back on her rifle where it belongs. 

“Final count?” Louis asks. 

“Five hostages, none injured, none dead.” Eerie reports back. 

“Nine hostiles, two dead, four injured, three knocked out.” Raid reports from the other side of the room while applying bandages to one particularly bloody white fang, “Now don’t you die on me.” 

Elly finally breathes out the breath she’s been holding in, “That was EXHILARATING!”

Chapter Text

Plummeting out of the sky is not Musica’s idea of fun. That would include a nice large venue, less Grimm and a cheering audience. It would also not include any of the five she’s skydiving to save.

Musica shakes her head, ‘Are they that hopeless without me?’ she tucks her arms in even tighter to go as quickly as possible. 

It doesn’t take long for her to reach her target altitude. At around 100 metres in altitude, she unfurls Berliner and uses its fire Dust jets to slow her descent. When she touches down on the ground, she spins the setup to incinerate the Grimm nearby, before folding it up and smacking a beowulf in the jaw. 

Keeping her ears open, she looks for the team of musicians. 

Not long after she lands, she hears the sounds of an electric guitar, ‘That’s probably Cidrael.’ she thinks to herself, already regretting her decision to start running towards the sounds before she makes it. 

An explosion roars from the same general direction, ‘Vanadís is actually doing something productive? That’s a first.’

The closer she gets, the clearer the rest of the noise gets as well. Musica can now hear the individual sounds Rallentandia’s instruments are playing. ‘As much of an instrument an air horn can actually be.’

Musica quickly extends her staff into the ground, using it to launch herself onto a nearby building to avoid a megoliath and get a better view, and what she sees is the one thing she’d been wishing for since she was made part of the Auxiliary class in Atlas. 

Calliope is down to just herself, staring down way more Grimm than she can take on with just her hammer. Rallentandia is desperately directing all of her instruments at once to try and keep the monsters off her. Vanadís is desperately trying to load another rocket while backing away from a megoliath of her own and Cidrael is the active one, Talulla’s physical form nowhere in sight and Cid desperately tries to hold off five Ursai at once. 

But instead of feeling the ellation she always thought she would upon seeing this nightmare of a team, she feels a sort of shame. Shame that she wasn’t here to help them from the beginning. A shame she needs to help them with their problems to get rid of. 

She grips berliner raising the microphone to her mouth, “Worry not, for your saviour’s arrived.” she sings, getting a feel for the team’s harmony and beat. 

She continues singing into the microphone, using her semblance to boost the others’ regeneration as she leaps down and starts up her stage show, fire dust allowing Calliope to retreat back, lasers taking out an Ursa about to take a bite out of Rallentandia, who redirects her attention to Vanadís, pushing the megoliath back long enough for her to reload and send an explosion flying straight into its eye. 

The Aura regeneration from Musica’s singing seems to have already done a bit as just when Cid would be hit by a beowulf’s paw, she disappears and her sister Talulla appears just above the megoliath, still rearing from the explosion, and dives bladed guitar first into its back, leaping back just in time for Calliope to slam her hammer into the back of the axe, cutting the Grimm in half. 

“Thanks M, they almost had us there.” Calliope says, not looking away from the other Grimm that are still approaching. 

“Nah, we had ‘em, I just needed to reload then kill the megoliath.”  Vanadís reloads. 

“V, we all know Gertrude wouldn’t have done much on its own.” Calliope bites back. 

“The Hurdy-Gurdy is a great instrument and you know it.”

“Girls, we need to focus.” Rallentandia brings her instruments to surround herself as she takes her sticks and drums out a small beat on her snare drum, chunks of earth flying at the oncoming Grimm as it and the sticks begin to float around her, repeating the beat as she begins playing some of her other instruments, each joining the loop. 

The others get to their positions, Cidrael switching out for Talulla and beginning to play her part of the song, a strumming harmony of chords sending various Dust effects out towards an Ursa. Calliope readies her hammer and gets a cough out of the way, summoning a single copy of herself, “Alright band, new objective. Fighting retreat, emphasis on the fighting part. M, remember that duet I told you about?”

“Come out come out wherever you are Ilia Amitola.” Sera calls through the halls of the ship. 

“This is getting us nowhere. For all we know she’s already off the ship.” Lucifer says, only to be cut off by Nord raising his hand. 

Faint footsteps are heard from down the hall, “Lucifer, how are you on Aura?” Nord whispers.

“I’ve been regenerating it for the past while. I’m full.” Lucifer whispers back.

“Follow her silently, me and Sera are going to cut her off.” Nord says quietly, before raising his voice back to normal, “Come on, I think I heard something down this hall.” 

Nord and Sera move down a hallway parallel to the one Lucifer turns down to follow their prey. 

‘Test my mettle, I will capture Torchwick or see him dead’ Ironwood thinks to himself as he and Evan come out from the stairwell.

“Roman Torchwick, Neopolitan. You have nowhere to run, turn yourselves in and give us information on your contact in the White Fang and I may consider not shooting you on the spot.” Ironwood levels due process at the former’s chest as Evan places his mortar on the ground. 

“Why if it isn’t the tin man. I’m sorry general, but I’d rather not. But if you’re open to making deals then I’ll give you one.” Torchwick points his cane to the ground, much to the surprise of all present, “I’ll turn myself in and tell you all I know. In exchange for a full pardon of one miss Neopolitan.” 

Neopolitan is especially taken aback at this. Evan, however, only places his mortar on the ground and readies to launch forwards. “Permission to deck him sir?” 

Ironwood shakes his head, “Roman Torchwick, you believe I’ll let your associate walk free? A few names of terrorists aren’t enough for that.” 

“Oh, you still think this is only as far as the White Fang?” Roman laughs, “Oh I’m afraid this is so much worse. I know about Him and I know about Her. And if you ask me, She is much scarier than whatever you seem to have. But, I am aware of the names of some of her agents. Those are the names I’d give you in return for Neo’s freedom.” 

Ironwood deliberates for a short second, “Very well, I’ll take you into custody, but I need a guarantee that Neopolitan will not break in to free you.” 

“I can’t give you any guarantees, all I can do is tell Neo not to do that and instead go off to work on her own.” Neopolitan looks visibly frightened by this, despite her boss’ unchanging tone. 

“Not good enough. I can’t let a murderer go free so easily.” 

“Fine. I’ll give you the names of every criminal contact I have, along with where they’re likely to be.” 

“That is a good enough deal. I might even make it work as a plea deal so you end up with life instead of the death sentence.” Ironwood holsters his gun. 

At just the right time for a Griffon to dive down towards him.

Roman lifts his cane up and fires a shot.

“General!” Evan shouts, using his semblance to try and make the Ironwood dodge to the side, but Ironwood’s focus on negotiating with and capturing Roman makes him stand his ground. 

But the shot doesn’t go there. 

The Griffon has barely enough time to react as the Dust flare hits right in the middle of its body, detonating and sending it flying off the ship.

“You saved me?” Ironwood asks incredulously. 

“Yeah yeah, save it for later. I can’t guarantee a pardon for Neo from anyone other than you, what with my old equal and opposite probably having bitten the dust by now.” Torchwick saunters over, holding out his hands, “I’m ready to be cuffed now.”

“Not yet, you’re a capable fighter and we need to get off here.” Ironwood lifts his hand to his earpiece, “Guardian, we have apprehended Torchwick, how are things going?” 

“I just isolated the virus from this ship and am just about ready to have the ship dive its way to the ground.” 

“Change of plans, land her. She’s decently operational and if we can get her crewed we might be able to get fire support up in time to destroy-” Ironwood is cut off when a shriek echoing through Vale makes its way to the ship.

Looking over at Beacon, even from this high up he can see the form of the monster circling over the school, “-that thing.” he finishes his sentence. 

“Yeah that does not look good.” Roman remarks. 

“I don’t think I can fly there fast enough to do much.” Evan lifts his thumb up to judge, “Yeah, I’m not making it in less than thirty minutes.” 

“And you’re much more useful somewhere else.” Ironwood finishes. 

“Alright, Messenger, Torchwick, we need to make sure no Grimm damage the ship. Neopolitan, take care of any that land.” 

“Are you sure you saw her going this way?” Sera asks loudly, playing along with Nord’s ruse.

“Yes, right around this corner.” Nord executes a 90° turn without slowing, charging around the corner and slamming right into Ilia, tackling the girl and trying to wrestle her arms behind her back. 

“Let me go!” Ilia tries to fight back, but with how much Nord is carrying, she can’t get out from under him. 

“Hello Ilia Amitola, long time no see.” Lucifer slowly floats up next to her, slightly cutting her cheek with a knife to begin drawing out her Aura, “So here’s the deal, I’m going to suck your Aura out of you, and then if you still haven’t surrendered and given my weapons back to me, you get to find out what happens when the soul has no more Aura to protect from me.”

“I won’t talk.” 

“You just did though.”

Their earpieces crackle on, “Archangel, Death, Throne, we have Torchwick and Neopolitan in custody, Guardian is currently working on landing the ship, status on the Amitola situation?” 

“We have her secured.” Nordlicht summons a set of handcuffs and proceeds to cuff their prisoner, hefting her and dragging her along with him back to the bridge, “Heading to the bridge now.” 

“That’s a negative, I need either Archangel or Throne up here now to help defend the ship.” 

“Hey Lucy, look what I found?” Sera pipes up, pointing to Ilia’s hip, where Lucifer finds his holsters and the sickles they were made for. 

“Thanks.” He quickly takes them back, along with the whip that is also at her side. 

“Sera, go up, I think Nord and I can handle her until we get to the bridge.” Lucifer takes the knives off his gloves. “Those felt weird anyways.” 

“Alright, see you topside.” Sera says, dashing off in the middle of her sentence. 

“Now landing at Beacon academy, anyone capable of fighting and not taking care of the injured, please disembark so we can evacuate more people.” 

“Weiss, I’m getting off. Keep an eye on Ruby,” Blake takes off, running towards their dorm room. 

“No, Blake. C’mon Weiss, we gotta go help her.” Ruby shouts. 

“Not in your condition.” Weiss pulls Ruby back, “You can’t fight.” 

“Alright, but we’re taking up a lot of space, they can get more people out, people who can help Vale, if we get off.” 

“Alright, but we wait on the landing pad for the next ship with enough space to take us.” Weiss pulls Ruby to her feet and almost carries her off the ship to let just those few extra people fit in. 

“You two, are you well?” A boy in a suit stops to look them over for a second as three others, a girl with rabbit legs, a girl in a flight suit and a boy with a helmet and a set of jets coming from what looks like a backwards fanny-pack, run by them to an airship, the boy helping the pilot girl strap in before looking back over to the well dressed one looking them over. 

“Hey Ocean, you gonna leave us hanging here? We’re taking off as soon as the engines spin up.” 

“One second.” He turns back to the two, “You’re the girl on the broadcast correct? You shot that ms. Polendina.” Ruby’s face contorts in shock, “Don’t worry, your emotional reaction looked genuine and the broadcast was quite suspicious in and of itself. I believe you didn’t shoot the shot.” 

Before either of them can even say anything in return, he’s off, turning away from them and sprinting towards the ship, launching himself in with a gravity Dust bullet shot into the ground beneath his feet. 

Neither notices Pyrrha and Jaune coming out of Beacon, kissing and Pyrrha sending Jaune flying away in one of the lockers while she runs back in towards the elevator.

Chapter Text

Lupo runs a terrorist through with an Aura sword, the blade disintegrating as she parries a sword strike from one coming up behind her, riposting with a stab to the fighter’s gut.

‘They don’t even have Aura, what a waste.’ She withdraws her sword and creates a throwing knife, throwing it at another chargin man’s arm, stopping him dead as he desperately grabs at his wound to stop the bleeding. 

“You really don’t see how attacking a school is going to make faunus look do you?” she says, impaling another girl’s knee with a longsword and smacking her with the flat of Omertose .

“It will get humans to fear us!” a large man with a chainsaw bellows towards her, “We will get the recognition of the humans, they will treat us as the superior beings we are!” 

Lupo makes a face, “And by what Herculean leap of logic do you think attacking a school with a student body made up of around fifty percent faunus will help the faunus. You idiots can’t even think for half a second about how this will actually impact human faunus relations.” she lifts her hand to her wolf ears, “And what smooth brained belief do you hold that explains how assaulting and killing faunus will lead to more faunus. Right now we, as a species, are seen as violent and destructive murderers and this does not help.”

“And we will continue to be seen as such by the humans who attempt to oppress us. And faunus traitors like you all only stand in the way of freedom, you must be purged like the humans you stand with.” The man charges and swings his chainsaw downwards at Lupo. 

“Well then it seems we are at an impasse, though I don’t expect a miniature sized brain like yours to know what that means.” Lupo side steps, not even creating a second weapon. “So let me dumb it down for you. I cannot let you hurt anyone else. You have to go through me to hurt more people. I will fight and beat you.” She slashes upwards towards his face, her strike glancing off his Aura. 

“Grrr!” the man growls, swinging the chainsaw upwards in an attempt to regain the initiative. 

Lupo dodges to the side before kicking the man in the gut. “See, unlike you, I have a plan with each motion. See, I would have kicked lower, but I don’t think there’d have been much to hit down there.” Lupo lifts her left hand, thumb and index roughly a centimetre apart, for effect.

“I’ll have you know I have all the human girls screaming.” he tries to swing horizontally. 

“Oh yeah, I’m sure you do. That’s why you wear the mask right? Let’s you make friends without them having to look at your ugly mug. Doesn’t seem like the girls are very happy about being assaulted though.” Lupo drops to the ground, right foot kicking the man’s knee. 

“Aghgh!” the man yelps, dropping to his knee, allowing Lupo to launch a bicycle kick to his jaw, cracking the mask as she flips back onto her feet.

“You really don’t seem to get it do you? You are no match for me. The White Fang tried to have me killed once before. They found a room of slaughtered men with no little wolf-girl in sight.” Lupo throws an Aura knife at the chainsaw’s engine. “Really, knowing how stupid you are, it doesn’t surprise me you made a weapon with such an obvious weakness.” 

“It’s you. Lupo Nero, haha, we never thought we’d get to finish the job.” The man laughs, picking up his weapon and pulling the string to start the engine. 

When nothing happens he stops and looks at her with rage in his eyes, “What the hell did you do?!”

“Oh, I just cut the ignition wire. Shockingly easy.” Lupo laughs and summons a longsword into her left hand, levelling it and Omertose at her opponent, “Now that I’ve done that, I think it’s time for you to either run away, or face and attempt to ‘finish the job’.” 

“Oh I’ll gladly do that. I don’t need this thing to be running to murder you.” he raises his weapon, charging. 

Lupo parries the first strike with Omertose , “With how dumb you’ve proven to be, I’m not even sure if your anger is clouding your judgement or just you being stupid.” She retorts, countering with an upwards slash from her longsword. 

The guy staggers backwards, his Aura on the verge of breaking, as Lupo follows up, throwing her Aura sword at him, the weapon breaking his Aura as she charges in to stab the man in the chest, running him through with her blade protruding from his back. “That wound is fatal if not treated immediately, withdraw and I’ll make sure you survive.” 

The man coughs, pink blood likely staining the inside of his mask, “And let the humans capture me? No, I’ll die before then, but guess what. You will too.” He looks at the men surrounding this fight before screaming, “GET HER!”

Lupo snaps out of her focus, quickly looking around herself to see several more terrorists charging at her. “Shit.” 

“Not on my watch!” Bezhevvy comes crashing in, dragging his sword through one man’s chest and shooting another in the stomach as he jumps between Lupo and several rifle shots, blocking the damage, “Hey, you got yourself into quite the pickle.” 

“Idiot, now your Aura’s going to be damaged. We need to conserve every resource we have.”

“Oh, don’t worry, my Aura isn’t taking the hits.” he turns around to return fire with his pistol, allowing Lupo to see bullet wounds in his back, quickly closing up, “My semblance and Aura can heal this damage without using as much Aura.”

‘Great, one idiot exchanged for the next.’ Lupo thinks to herself before charging herself, using primarily non-lethal attacks, a stomp on the foot followed by a pommel strike, a kick to the gut, hook kick to the face, knee to the crotch. 

“Attention White Fang!” Bezhevvy shouts, “Your leader is dying, he failed you.” The fighting around him partially dies down as Lupo questions what he’s doing.

“My name is Bezhevvy Privilegiato, formerly two ‘y’s, now two ‘v’s. I was adopted by one of your leaders and raised within your ranks. I’m sure many of you have heard of me.” murmurs among the audience, “I was failed like you all are now. My adoptive mother plotted to have me killed because she believed I would become a martyr for the White Fang. And with my disappearance I did.

“She twisted the story so that I died in that explosion on my transport. But my mother, Cynthia Yad was the one to place that bomb there in the first place. Do you have a guarantee that you weren’t failed like I was, that you weren’t betrayed ?” Bezhevvy holsters his pistol, “I am giving you all the option to leave. Otherwise, well, you saw what happened to Scourge.”

“Liar. Bezhevyy would never say that!” a voice erupts from the crowd. 

“Yeah, Bezhevyy is a hero who died in a human ambush!” 

“Imposter!” 

“Bezhevyy would want us to kill faunus like you. Human sympathiser!”

Bezhevvy draws his gun, “Well, it was worth a shot, you all made your choice.” 

A bang erupts from his gun and the fight is on again. Bezhevvy being hounded by most of the White Fang, leaving Lupo to clean up stragglers. 

‘No problem’ A couple knives, some kicks and slashes later, the rest of the White Fang not piling on Bezhevvy are eliminated.

“RAAAHH!” Bezhevvy shouts, pushing himself up and dragging people off him, looking back at Lupo, “You wanna help or just watch as I clean them up” he catches a sword in his left hand, having holstered his gun, snapping it in half.

‘I’m not giving that an answer.’ Lupo thinks, moving in to physically pry people away with a sword to their throat before knocking them out with a hilt strike to the head. 

‘Don’t get tunnel vision.’ She keeps repeating to herself, continuing to relieve her ally of the terrorists that beset him. 

“Damn that was a good fight. You okay?” Bez combs a bit of dirt from his hair before realising something, looking down at himself, “Uh, could you check my back for me? It feels a bit more breezy than normal.” 

“Yeah, you might want to get a new coat.” Lupo inspects the damage, several bullet holes having almost carved out a part of his coat and shirt. “Actually, maybe just wear kevlar.”

“Aw dang, and I just got this tailored. Ugh Gally’s gonna kill me. Still better than the alternative of having less Aura by now though.” 

“Yeah, I think we held them off here and I’m not sure they’ve got much more coming, we should probably get going inside, there’s more we can do than standing here making meaningless conversation.” Lupo turns tail and walks off.

Quickly following, Bezhevvy continues, “Actually, I was meaning to ask you something.” seeing Lupo’s ears twitch towards him he continues, “What did Scourge mean by having a job to finish.” 

“Oh, the White Fang came after my family a couple years ago. I survived, disappeared to Atlas and joined the school.” Lupo continues walking, not looking back. ‘Give him a bit of the truth, just not all of it.’ then, “What did you mean you used to be part of the White Fang? How’d you get out.” 

“All of what I said is the truth. I really was adopted by a well known member, she really did try to have me die in a quote ‘accident’ and make it look like humans did it. As for how I got out-” They stop at the cafeteria, the place ablaze as a red haired man in a black coat cuts a blonde girl’s arm off, “-you’ll get your answer on our second date.” 

Using the window in which Lupo is reeling from that, he raises his sword at Adam as a black haired girl escapes with the blonde, taking up a jovial tone as he holsters his pistol, “Adam. Long time no see, though I’m not surprised you’re here. Did Cynthia put you up to this? If so, where’s Zieg and Löw?” 

Adam looks up in surprise, “Bezhevyy? I thought your airship went down when humans bombed it-” 

“Yeah, about that.” Bezhevvy raises his sword and takes a step forwards, “Cynthia was the one who bombed it, or had it bombed or something.” he takes a deep breath, “She wanted me dead so I’d be a martyr. But I used it as a way out, she always had a way of underestimating just how robust my semblance makes me.” 

“But if you haven’t checked in for a year, that would make you a traitor to your brothers and sisters.” Adam’s grip on his sword tightens as he raises it and the sheath. 

“Yeah, but I say they betrayed me first so I’ll give you a chance. Leave now and confront Cynthia or, me and my new friend I’ve made here can kick your ass.” Bez lowers his gun.

“No, you’re a traitor and you just helped another traitor get away.” he lifts his hand to his ear, “Zieg, Löw. This is Adam, get to the cafeteria now. I found Bezhevyy.” 

‘I do enjoy some good quiet time, don’t I?’ Nord muses, being followed by a mostly silent Lucifer and dragging a captive. 

Sadly, the quiet could not last as Ilia pipes up, “You know you can’t salvage this right? Vale will fall, the Grimm and our allies will make sure of that.” 

“And I’m certain they wouldn’t miss a single assassin.” Nord snaps back, “So will they come rescue you before the Grimm get to you? Will they even care enough about you to collect your corpse? Are they even going to commemorate you in any way?” 

Ilia tries to kick him, failing in the process because he drops her, “They’ll surely come for me, they have to.” 

“No they don’t, and if they do care enough about you to come back for you, you’re just useful enough to them for them not to instantly replace you.” He shrugs, “So good on you for not being cheap cannon fodder.” 

“That’s not fair.” Lucy interjects, “I happen to think Ilia is a great fighter. You try getting electrocuted wearing a metal that has a conductivity of a hundred.” 

“No, me being saved or not doesn’t even matter, Vale and Beacon will fall. Chimera team is making sure of that now.” Ilia spits her words with venom, but she walks along cooperatively anyways.

“Cut the chatter, we’re at the bridge.” Nord says, opening the door to reveal Gabriel standing at the helm, trying his best to make sure the ship stays out of the way of large groups of Grimm that would be delighted to tear the battleship out of the sky. 

“Oh hey guys, I’m guessing you’re keeping the prisoner here Lucy?” Gabe looks over his shoulder for a split second, acknowledging the three others before Nordlicht turns away, “I’m going up on deck to help the others.”

He pauses looking out into the hallway before turning back one more time, “Good luck, see you on the ground.”

The next 15 minutes feel like an hour to Gabriel, using every ounce of his being to make sure they don’t crash or fly through any flocks of Grimm before landing in a park somewhere in the Safezone. 

“Attention all. We have touchdown. Please disembark the ship.” Gabriel says over the intercom before moving across the room, grabbing Illia and walking out with her, Lucifer following shortly thereafter.

“Very well then.” Ironwood says to himself after hearing Gabriel’s message before turning towards his target, “Roman Torchwick, I hereby place you under arrest. Everything you say from this point onwards can and will contribute to the court’s judgement when you are put on trial. Say your goodbyes to your partner and surrender to the law.” 

Torchwick, already making his way to Neopolitan, crouches down to her level and hugs her tightly. The embrace only lasts for a couple seconds, but by the end, Torchwick is dabbing tears out of his eyes. 

Whispering something in her ear to see her off, he stands up and walks over to the General, “Take me in General.” 

“Very well.” Ironwood says, cuffing Torchwick, “I’ve already contacted the justice system of Atlas and have gotten all charges against Neopolitan dismissed.” Roman smiles at that, “But, if you disappear and we do not have concrete evidence it was not her, we will be reinstating all charges against her and hunt the two of you down with the full might of Atlas and the other kingdoms. Is that clear?” 

Both Neopolitan and Torchwick nod, with the latter throwing in an amused smirk, “Well, I don’t think we need to go through more bureaucracy than we already have, just take me away and I promise Neo won’t attempt to free me.”

Without another word, Ironwood takes a deep breath, his Aura flickering as his semblance deactivates, his goal achieved. 

And then, with Nordlicht and Evan by his side, he walks the criminal off, into the elevator and down to Vale, handing him and Ilia over to the Ace Ops who had been waiting on standby.

“That’s the last of this wing.” Carol says, checking the last door before a wall in front of them, “And of course they’ve been keeping a large amount of civies in here.” 

“Give us the count.” Louis says, already preparing to pick the door open. 

“No, there’s too many looking at the door, even with smokes and a flashbang, them blindly firing would still get us hurt.” She leans in close to the door, trying to spot the far angle of the room, “Eerie, how many Homewreckers you got?”

“I still have three of ‘em. Where’d you want it put?”

“Wait on that for a moment.” Carol looks through the room, then along the hallway to the next class, “Alright 27 Targets 15 captives, all placed right by the door as a sort of wall. Here’s the plan: Eerie, you, Elly and Raid are going to go into the class next door and put a Homewrecker on the wall 46 metres from the side of the door’s side of the room on the wall it shares with the final room. Louis will pick the lock on this door and breach here to make sure nobody tries to hurt the hostages or hide behind them.” 

Eerie, Raid and Elly run off as Louis picks the lock.

A minute later, Carol’s radio crackles on, “Charge set, say the word and it goes boom.” 

Carol and Louis take their positions on either side of the door, Carol’s hand on her radio and Louis’ on the door. 

“After you blow a hole through that wall, me and Louis are going to wait a second for the White Fang to look redirect towards you. We will then go through the door and flank them. Got it?” She looks at Louis, to which he nods. “Visors down, ear protection on.” She puts on sunglasses and headphones as Louis lowers his tactical visor and taps a button to activate active noise cancelling.

Carol lifts her radio to her mouth one more time. 

“Three.” He checks the chamber of his gun one more time.

“Two.” ‘Loaded.’ he confirms.

“One.” He closes the chamber, aiming towards the door.

“Go.” 

A loud explosion erupts from the classroom next door. Louis can hear shouts and screams from inside the room, gunfire echoing throughout it as, not even a second later, Carol gives him the clear to open the door.

Quietly opening the door just enough so they can move through, following Carol in and past the gagged captives before they open fire. 

Louis activates his semblance, slowing a large amount of enemies and projectiles to reduce risks taken as he fires towards his targets, making sure not to aim for friendlies as his buckshot tears down groups of enemies.

Less than a second later and it’s over. They tend to the wounded, count the dead and free the captives. “Final count, 27 hostiles, 21 dead, 6 injured. 15 hostages, 0 dead, 3 injured.” Louis writes it down as Carol and Raid tend to the hostages and Eerie takes care of the surviving White fang with the help of Elly.”

Chapter Text

The literal storm outside of Beacon still isn’t letting up, it’s almost hail like water drops tearing through what little Aura the charging White Fang have and then some. 

In the time it took for the White Fang to realise the raincloud is a cloud of death, she managed to set up a lawn chair and grab a bottle of wine. 

In the meantime, Narcyz is continuing to keep the White Fang’s heads down on the other side of the plaza, Leshy’s wills , his dual SMGs providing some consistent fire as he does laps on his motorcycle.

The White Fang steadily on the retreat, Narcyz makes his way to his, now drunk, adoptive mother, only to be interrupted by the Wyvern screeching overhead. Looking up, he sees three shapes.

Two, black masses, falling from the belly of the Wyvern.

One, a silvery white streak, sprinting up the tower.

As the Megoliaths coalesce from the globs of black, Narcyz and Gally are thinking the same thing. ‘Don’t worry about Darrin, worry about the Grimm.’

Tackling the giant Grimm was not the most well thought out idea, but Darrin has never really thought much about the future and it seemed like a great idea five seconds ago.

‘Well, nothing to do about it now.’ He thinks, drowning out the screech of the Wyvern with his semblance as he stabs Harrisona and Excalibur into the creature to gain hold of the writhing form. 

Not even bothering to shoot the gun parts of his gunblades, he instead activates Excalibur’s vibration function to begin tearing pieces off the Grimm, significantly inconveniencing it seeing as it tries to counter by reaching back and attempting to snap at him with its maw. 

Launching himself up onto the creature to dodge, Darrin returns to hacking at it with both swords and deactivating his semblance to conserve Aura, until he is interrupted by a skittering sound he had never thought he’d hear again.

The tell tale click click click of the Fourmi’s six legs making contact with a hard and rigid ground. Their forward fixed blades dripping with the Grimm goo it just came from. 

The single red eye between those blades fixes on him as the creature starts forwards.

Before Darrin even recovers from the shock of seeing his old enemy again, more and more Fourmi rise out of the Wyvern’s back, charging after he cuts down the first.

Readying his swords he charges against them, firing shots from the gunblades and hitting each one in the eye. After a short duel with one of them, he takes a look at the pile of corpses around him and remembers one piece of wisdom that kept him alive. 

He slices through all the bodies at least one more time to make sure the Fourmi aren’t playing dead. “Always hard to tell which of you fuckers is dead. Though I guess that’s what you evolved into. Sandbags that’ll stay a bit.”

Barely having finished his sentence, another Grimm, this one a blur of speed, jumps out from behind the corpses, this one’s blades out to the sides, on short arm like appendages unlike the Fourmi. 

As Darrin briefly clashes blades with it, dispatching it with a quick kick and slash combo, he takes a minute to ask why, “Why does a Wyvern know about Solitas’ Grimm, and why summon them in particular?”

He shoots another quadrupedal being, one that stood in place long enough to identify as a Loup-Gris, and slashes at another incoming one, his sword catching on its blade as he’s forced to use his other to block one of the Loup-Gris approaching from behind him. 

Slipping downwards out of the bind and away from the other as he uses both swords to stab into and tear apart the first, its body dissipating to reveal his guns trained on the second. 

Pulling the trigger, the round kills the final one. Going back to the Wyvern’s head, he raises Excalibur , “So I’m guessing you’re going to be making the Liun and Dinosaure next? Well guess what, you don’t get that chance.” he stabs downwards and begins pulling the Wyvern back towards Beacon tower, Harrisona letting him fend off another Loup-Gris before he sees a monster of a beast, a maw almost large enough to hide the rest of its body behind it as he dodges just in time to avoid the fire it spews. 

“Well that’s all I needed. Never thought I’d have to kill a Dinosaure again. Tell the others I said hello won’t you?” Darrin charges using an armour plate from Brynhildr to keep its mouth open as it tries to chomp down on him, using his sword he chips off a bit of its armour before releasing the seal keeping the plate on his exoskeleton and slipping to the side, jumping to avoid the creature’s flailing tail and climbing on its back.

“Die” he says, plunging Harrisona into the back of its neck and slashing out one way. 

The half-decapitated creature stumbles for a second before turning to dust, leaving the armour plate Darrin picks up and reattaches to himself as he pulls the Wyvern back on course towards Beacon tower, picking up a call from Gally, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to crash this thing, I’m gonna try to land it.”

Narcyz faces down the two monsters, dismounting from his bike as Gally throws her bottle and begins to shoot at one of them with her umbrella’s SMG, distracting it and drawing it towards her with several shouts, “Hey, motherfucking Grimm ass bitch! Get away from my fucking son or I swear to the brothers, you’re dyin’!” she then looks over to Narcyz, giving him a thumbs up and a somewhat slurred “Good luck.” Then, the fox faunus is gone, running away from her own challenge.

“Okay,” Narcyz sighs, shifting his weapons to their knife forms before putting a fatal dosage of sarcasm in his voice, “Well, nobody knows how this is going to end.”

He launches himself forwards, throwing a combination of punches, slashes and kicks at the creature’s leg, covering parts of it with the green leaves of his semblance, slowly wilting away. “Barely an inconvenience right now.” he says, switching his weapons back to their SMG forms, “But that changes soon enough.” 

He lets loose a barrage, everywhere a bullet hits, several more leaves appear, half of the monster now seeming green while the other is still black as it begins turning towards him.

“Now that hurt didn’t it? I’m guessing you want some more by how you’re looking at me?” he says, closing the distance with his knives again, each slash to its face, each individual kick and each strike sends the monster reeling in pain, Narcyz’ semblance increasing the damage he’s dealing by an exponential amount, each leaf increasing the damage he deals, every new attack creating what is by now hundreds of leaves each. 

Before long, the Grimm is stumbling, with its back to the cliff overlooking the emerald forest before Narcyz delivers a final stab to its skull, penetrating the bone and tearing partway through the rest of the monster’s head.

Landing, he wipes a bead of sweat from his brow before taking a light jog back to where he was before, taking out a couple more Grimm and giving the White Fang a winning smile as he goes on his merry way. Arriving again, he sees that team CLER, along with his sister, had already picked up the slack on the defence.

Despite being geared for CQC, CLER are still doing surprisingly well, having taken cover behind several large pillars, delivering suppressing fire on the White Fang in both directions while Elly is currently dragging bundles of hostages out of the building. 

“Hey sis, I just killed a Megoliath.” he says, smugly brandishing his weapons.

“I don’t even have the energy to argue with that right now. There’s still White Fang inside, we tied them up already, but we’ve gotta get them out. You think you could help me out before the Grimm get to them?” 

“Anything for my dearest sister.” he says, jogging off to grab his bike.

Keeping the beast from stomping on her kid was no problem, Gally is pretty good at getting attention. The problem is she’s sometimes a bit too good. 

This can result in a variety of problems, bar fights, the trashing of any clubs she goes to, breaking some poor dude’s leg and, of course, the current one of being chased by a pissed off Megoliath, along with several Grimm they picked up along the way.

“I don’t much like the idea of dying.” Gally stops and says, with a soberness startling to mostly herself, “So how about we make a deal? I kill you anyways and you die like the little bitch boy you are. That sound good?” 

The Grimm, only slightly startled by her suddenly turning towards it, roars and continues charging, only for Gally to dodge to the side, firing Monsoon’s Cloud ’s SMG at the Grimm, which struggles to turn in a tight enough radius to get to her as she summons a storm cloud around her, opening her umbrella in time to catch the droplets launching themselves from the clouds and shearing through the smaller Grimm while also staggering the Megoliath.

“Time’s up cocksucker, I’m fuckmothering Gally Rainwork and lightning will strike the same place once,” She fires into the air, the lightning Dust from the bullet arcing towards the Megoliath, striking it head on as it prepares to charge.

“Twice,” Another bolt, the monster begins to charge and gally tightens the cloud to just be a curtain of heavy and powerful rain between her and it.

“Three-, Four-, Five-, even six times.” with each new number, another bullet fired straight up from her umbrella and another lightning bolt hitting the Grimm, frying it from the inside out, the charred corpse skidding to a halt just close enough for Gally to plant her foot on it declaring, “You’ve heard it here folks, lightning always strikes the same thing six times.” 

The storm dissipates, she collapses and places her umbrella over her shoulder and the Grimm disintegrates, all as she walks away and pulls out her scroll as she looks up towards the Wyvern making erratic movements in the sky above Beacon, “Darrin, please tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing?” 

Griseo overlooks one of Beacon’s parks, observing the singular figure wandering through it, the chokuto looking no less threatening now that it’s sheathed after he just killed a student from one of the other kingdoms. 

“Alright, the plan is as always, when things go loud: Rook, you’re the only one who can even think to take this guy in a straight fight. Ebony, you support Rook while me and Yamir try to sneak up on him.” 

Sounds of affirmation come from the rest of the team as they break off, Griseo’s mouth widening to a grin as all but that smile and her eyes disappear, Yamir launching herself off the building in the opposite direction as Rook and Ebony drop straight down the roof, quietly preparing their aim and, with a nod of acknowledgement, open up the engagement with a flurry of shots. 

As soon as Ebony’s high power shot reaches the guy, he launches himself towards them, drawing his sword at lightning speed and almost slicing Rook clean in half if it weren’t for her semblance letting her launch herself out of the way, skidding to a halt 2 metres away and dashing forwards again with another set of rounds from Vulture and Buzzard , her twin Deagles, before attempting to slam her knee into the attacker with another semblance boosted launch. 

The only reason the guy isn’t able to dodge is because Ebony is currently using her chainsword to keep him on the defensive, so he instead goes with the knee to the face, using it to get out of the clashing with Ebony as he pushes himself backwards off the ground, getting back up with a backflip and a hilt-bash to the back of Rook’s head before he stabs forwards at a still recovering Ebony, forcing her back with a follow up cut that she barely parries.

The only warning he gets of the next attack is a slight sparking sound before two sets of hard-light claws materialise behind him, delivering a set of strikes and withdrawing before he can strike back with his sword. Yamir, having joined the fight ducks under another strike, going for a low tackle to give her teammates the option to reload as she tries to unbalance him, only to slip between his legs when he stabs downwards, slashing at his knees while Griseo launches herself towards him, her pole-arm pushes him back, causing him to stumble, tripping over Yamir.

With all six weapons pointed at him, he dips into his semblance. 

The same cheshire grin as with Griseo appears on his face as the rest of his body fades and he quickly rolls over, sweeping Ebony and Yamir’s legs and slashing at Rook with his sword, the former 2 going down as the latter catches the sword on her arm, using the other to try and fire a retaliating shot. Too late though, as she hits nothing but air as the attacker is now hiding again.

“Come out of hiding Laugher!” Griseo shouts.

“Oh how very ironic of you to be telling me that, dear sister who just struck from the shadows.” The reply echoes across the park, making his position too hard to identify quickly.

“I’m not the one training fanatics for open conflict, practise what you preach!” Griseo says, catching a short glimpse of Laugher’s face behind Ebony before he slashes at her back, her Aura holding but launching her forwards as he turns around again, hiding his face as Rook’s gunfire hits the wall behind where he was just standing.

“Sure, but I know someone else who is training fanatics for open conflict. Your dear old headmasters, chief amongst them Ozpin, but you already knew that didn’t you?” The grin appears again, this time, as Griseo shouts out warning, Laugher puts himself behind Yamir, using her as a shield to take the shots from Rook’s pistols, the girl’s Aura weakening at the heavy rounds impacting her before he kicks her and delivers a powerful slash as she turns, shattering her Aura and disappearing, “Though the question remains: Why are you still here if you know he’s indoctrinating you?”

“Because some people want to fight for more than just revenge!” Griseo activates her semblance, climbing onto a nearby pavilion to gain a better view, only to turn around just in time to see Laugher kicking a recovering Ebony in the gut, shattering her Aura and sending her crashing to the ground with a kick to the shin, earning a sickening cracking sound accompanied by a scream. 

“Well those people are wrong, but if you join me now, I’ll even hold off on killing your friends indefinitely.” Rook is on constant guard now, spinning in circles to try and catch the grin, her guns trained in two directions at once to have the best chance of hitting.

A minute of silence is what follows, then a second, then a third before Rook begins to gradually relax, “I think he’s gone no-” 

She is interrupted by a shrill laughter, “Well sister, have you given any thought to my generous proposition?”

Griseo spins around towards the other side of the roof, where the voice came from, finding nothing there, only to look back to see Laugher’s face backing towards a newly alert Rook.

A shout of warning sent her way reaches Laugher’s ears before Rook’s, giving him the chance to launch himself back, his backwards stab dealing a considerable amount of damage to Rook’s already somewhat strained Aura before she backs off, shooting in a quickly expanding arc around her before being cut off by another stab, piercing her aura and impaling one of her cybernetic legs before Laugher slams her in the back of the head with his sheath.

“Of course I won’t kill any of you yet. No, that would absolutely ruin my chances of convincing you to join me.” Laugher shows himself once more, standing tall over Yamir before placing his sheathed blade on her back and resting his chin on it, “But, I cannot simply allow you to interfere. I’ve already critically injured your friend over there,” he nods towards where Rook is lying with her sparking cybernetic leg, “So you’ll need to see to her soon. So I leave you with this: If or when you find me in Vacuo, Join me so I don’t aim higher next time.”

With this, he turns and vanishes, leaving Griseo on top of her building.

Chapter Text

“Say, Lupo. Do you think you could hold off two highly capable White Fang agents while I fight Adam?” Bezhevvy asks, carefully eyeing Adam as the two begin to circle. 

“I’m not sure, but seeing as it’s personal for you, I’ll stay out of the way.”

Bezhevvy turns his full attention to the duel, his sword in front and pistol by his side, a stance almost mirroring Adam, sword in front and shotgun by his side. 

The two move in, Bez striking again and again as Adam blocks each one, both firing a shot from their guns to force some distance at the same time.

“It seems you’ve improved, good job Bez, well done.” Adam returns to circling.

“I guess I’ve finally gotten to your level.” Bezhevvy laughs, charging in again, throwing a kick towards Wilt , kicking it aside and forcing it to the ground as he launches a back kick with his other leg, catching Adam in the chest and sending him back as they both recover, Adam shooting another couple blasts from Blush , sending Bezhevvy into a back pedal to behind a thrown over and burning table.

“Very well done Bezhevyy. You almost took my sword.” Adam comments, using a bit of his stored up energy to send a moonslice into Bezhevvy’s cover, cutting it apart to reveal Bezhevvy aiming his pistol, firing as soon as the table breaks, the first shot cutting into Adam’s Aura before he can bring his sword back to block. 

Neither of the fighters truly process the shattering of glass as Adam’s cohorts come in, immediately engaged by Lupo sprinting at them from across the room while sending Aura blades their way.

“Come and fight me idiots!” Lupo calls, floating swords surrounding her as she begins launching them towards the goat and lion faunus.

The two fighters, Zieg and Löw if she has to guess, look less like the other White Fang and closer to Adam, their matching outfits black, with the symbol of the White Fang on the front and back, and shoulder plates emblazoned with the likenesses of a Goat, Lion, Bull and Snake head all fused onto one body.

The taller goat faunus has horns growing from his head of neatly combed short black hair, while the shorter lion let his long red hair fall all over and around his shoulders. 

The two ready their weapons, Zieg growing one of his horns out and tearing it off as Löw simply extends his claws.

“Who are you?” The goat asks.

“Get out of the way so we can tear Bezhevyy to shreds!” The lion roars, launching himself forwards, attempting to bypass Lupo. 

She however, only extends her sword sheath to her side, clotheslining Löw before she stabs down at him, her strike damaging his Aura but bouncing off with little harm to the man on the floor.

Before she can continue though, she is forced to duck under Zieg’s swing, the corkscrew like club swinging overhead and smashing into one of the cafeteria’s pillars while Lupo backpedals from a wildly slashing Löw and manifests a knife to throw at Zieg, the affected barely raising his arm to catch the knife, destroying it as it cuts into his Aura.

“I thought you were supposed to be strong, like Adam. You carry the same insignia he has on his belt, so I’m guessing you’re in the same unit.” Lupo keeps talking as she slashes at Löw with a summoned gladius.

However, the lion slashes through the sword, destroying it in the same swing he takes at Lupo’s Aura while Omertose is busy defending against his other claw. 

Lupo uses her free hand to grab Löw in a tight grip, pulling him against her and spinning them around, putting her in a dip just as Zieg’s club comes swinging overhead again, this time slamming into Löw’s jaw.

This causes him to lose his grip on Lupo, letting her catch herself with her back foot and freehand as she slashes towards Löw, getting up with explosive force to kick him in the gut as another of her knives sends Zieg staggering. 

With the goat faunus preoccupied, Lupo refocuses on Löw, lashing out with another slash from Omertose , keeping the lion on the backfoot until he hits a wall, at which point she ducks when she hears the air whizzing from Zieg’s next swing, the strike carrying through and sending Löw through the wall. 

“Wow, you’ve scored more hits on him than either of you have on me.” Lupo dashes forwards, ducking under his next swing before coming up with a knee to the gut of the man as she summons a dagger in her off-hand, throwing it into Zieg’s foot and stomping on it with her own before ramming her shoulder into the large man’s chest. 

The backpedal brings him down as he trips from Lupo still standing on his foot.

Landing on his back, he drops his horn and brings his arms up to defend as Lupo batters his guard with repeated hilt strikes before she is tackled off him by Löw as he tears at her Aura, slashing and clawing at the downed girl, “Now it’s even.”

Lupo slams the lion in the face with her left elbow, letting go of her sword to stab him in the back with a summoned knife. His Aura, already weakened from several battles today, gives out under the edge of the blade, allowing Lupo to sink it into his back.

Succumbing to the exhaustion of a broken Aura, Löw flops to the side, leaving only Lupo and Zieg as the latter grows both his horns out to the sides and charges, head lowered to Lupo’s midsection. 

Thinking quickly, Lupo aligns herself with Zieg’s head, a longsword of Aura her hands, she sends her knee upwards, trying to hit him in the face as she raises her sword.

Zieg, instead of lifting his head to dodge the kick, leans to the side, snapping his right horn off using the ground, the weight of his other horn pulling his head in that direction, letting him headbut Lupo in the side, knocking her down as he breaks off his other horn. He then rushes over to Löw, grabbing him by the wrist and lifting him up, “You win this round.” the big man lets out a laugh, “Or do you?”

As he runs away, the last thing Lupo sees is dust falling from above her.

Bezhevvy continues trading blows with Adam, making up for the Aura he uses tanking the moonslices he can’t dodge by catching Adam’s buckshot with his enhanced physique. 

Bez goes for a grab at Adam’s sword hand, Adam bats it away.

Adam sends another moonslice his opponent’s way, Bez side stepping the attack and counter attacking with another strike, only to be blocked and pushed away by another shotgun blast.

Their swords clash a final time as Bezhevvy gets the upper hand, Adam’s shotgun having run out of ammo allows him to push Adam’s blade as much as he wants, ramming Adam into a wall and emptying his pistol into his gut before Adam can even lament his running empty. 

Holstering his pistol in the auto-loader, he delivers a gut punch before grabbing Adam’s right hand, wrenching Wilt out of his grip before headbutting him.

As Adam slides down into a sitting position, he looks past Bezhevvy towards where the wolf girl is standing and laughs.

Bezhevvy, taken aback by this sudden outburst, asks “What’s so funny?” 

“Well you only have time for one. Capture me, or you save your little girlfriend over there.” Adam replies, struggling to keep a straight face at how the incompetence of his peers had led to his survival. 

Without hesitation, Bezhevvy sheaths his sword, running at Lupo and throwing himself between her and the falling pieces of the ceiling, keeping her from being crushed.

Watching the save, Adam silently sends a prayer of thanks to the animal god, thanking him he hadn’t misjudged Bezhevyy’s reaction time and speed, along with the importance of that girl to him. “Anyways, I know you’re probably still alive in there Bez, but it’s better you’re there and not out here, so I’ll just leave you with this message: Cynthia now knows you’re still alive, we’ll be coming after you and whoever decided to let you hide in their basement.”

The Atlesian field guns roar as they send another round of shells down mainstreet, the artillery crashing into another wave of Megoliaths as Atlesian infantry continues pushing.

Ironwood oversees this push, calling up a map of Atlesian forces in the nearby area, “The units on the side streets are advancing their positions to the next intersection.” A messenger runs up to him, giving him more news and allowing him to more accurately predict the flow of battle, moving up the Atlesian units on his map.

“Go tell them we’re pushing up to the next intersection, that’s where we dig in here. The highrises are one of our biggest advantages. Move any available Anti aircraft batteries to parks and clear areas.” The messenger writes it down, “Also, don’t get yourself killed. We need good runners and I’m trusting you with this.” 

“Yes sir.” The soldier replies, putting his notebook back in his pocket and running off.

A roar sounds from down the street, another several Megoliaths approach.

Ironwood turns to the artillery crews behind him, signalling them to fire.

BOOOM

The firing and impact of the shells are one sound, several of the approaching Grimm turning to dust instantly. 

But as the dust clears, a Megoliath rears down on the infantry behind their hastily erected barricades. 

Just as the artillery crews finish loading another round, two parallel blue streaks materialise from behind them, going well in front of their position and pointing directly at the Megoliath, the lines crackling with electricity as some sort of projectile flies between them, impacting right in the Grimm’s frontal armour, cracking it and penetrating straight through the rest of its body. 

The Grimm turns to dust, covering the cowering soldiers but not doing much otherwise.

Ironwood turns to the familiar figure, “Miss Roent, how nice meeting you here.”

Carmine, a woman with long, bright red hair and jet black crow’s wings peeking out the back of a specially made business suit, walks forwards to shake Ironwood’s hand, “Headmaster. It seems that as soon as my team graduates you start getting into trouble. Did you get used to us being there to pull everyone else out?”

“Not the time for reminiscing Carmine. I assume you’re here with the rest of MRDR?” 

“Oh no, I’m here on my own trip, the others are back in Atlas, or Mantle more likely, since the chaos probably isn’t contained to just Vale.” Carmine fishes another coin out of the pouch by on her right while crushing a lightning Dust crystal in her other hand, “Duck” 

Ironwood does so, before Carmine throws the coin, two streaks crackling with electricity going ahead of the coin and accelerating it to hit a Nevermore in the wing, tearing it clean off and sending the bird into a downward spiral before turning to dust.

“Jimmy. Don’t worry, I’ll help these guys push here, you move on to the next front you want pushed.” Carmine walks forward calmly, addressing the troops behind their cars as Ironwood gets in a shuttle to get to the docks.

“Welcome my friends and beloved!” Grand, a man with long black hair and orange eyes blows a kiss towards the several civilians that have gathered to watch him, “Today, I, the Most Magnificent Man in Mistral will be single-handedly defending your very lives!” 

“The stakes are high for sure, but do not fret, for I am The Grandiose Grimm Gaucho!” 

A grimm roars behind him, his camera crew directing their attention towards the approaching Grimm swarm, Beowolves rushing down the street. 

Whip in hand, Grand turns to face them, a ring of fiery red light manifests on the ground before him as he extends his whip’s lightning Dust tip, cracking it over the heads of the beasts as soon as they enter the ring.

In an instant, all the Grimm in the ring do a synchronised backflip, landing on the next wave and beginning to claw at them. 

“Now witness this dear audience, I’ve made the Grimm tear eachother apart for your pleasure.” He continues whipping into the air, his whip exchanging to its explosive tip, creating fireworks, “Come to me Grimm, I will be drawing you away from any others so you may entertain my fans.” 

The civilians all gasp in an “Oooh” and again in an “Aaah” watching in delighted excitement at the colourful explosions Grand draws in the sky.

“Beautiful aren’t they?” He turns to a woman in the audience, wrapping his whip around her waist and pulling her to him, “I dedicate this display to you, my love.” 

He leans down and kisses the woman, his whip creating an explosion behind them. 

He gets up and pushes her out of the way of a stray Boarbatusk, catching it and redirecting it into the side of a building where he whips it repeatedly, his voice taking on a quieter, dangerous edge, “You, you will never be important, your moment of fame is but a step on my way to fame, but you still broke the script, as such, I will not be taking you, die.” 

One final explosive strike destroys the Grimm.

“I apologise for the interruption my friends, my loves. I will be sure to make it up to you.”

Chapter Text

There is no warning. 

All throughout Vale and Beacon, everyone finds their world illuminated. 

The lucky ones are down in Vale, like NGELS and SMTZC.

The less lucky ones are in Beacon, like DAPER or CLER.

The unlucky ones are the people currently in flight, like General James Ironwood, whose transport’s pilot is briefly blinded by the brief flash of light.

As the pilot attempts to recover control over the ship, they crash into the side of a building, quick reaction times on the pilot keeping the shuttle together by reinforcing the wing with Aura, the outside of its engine hooking onto a structural support beam and spinning the aircraft into the building. 

The pilot immediately reverses thrust on the right engine, shutting the left one down entirely, activating the air brakes and extending the landing gear to slow their spin.

The aircraft finally comes to a halt on the edge of the floor, stopped by another support beam catching the other wing. 

“Well General, I apologise for the inconvenience, but it appears this is our stop.” The Pilot jokes, unstrapping and taking off her helmet. 

“What happened?” 

“It seems my visor wasn’t properly glare resistant?” She gives him a quizzical look, “Frankly I’m not sure, all I know is that light took my sight for a bit.” 

Ironwood pulls himself out of the shuttle, where he’d been thrown against a wall, and takes a second to gather his thoughts and think of the possibilities.

The pilot herself makes sure her survival vests contents are all still present, even if they’re in the middle of a safe-zone they can’t guarantee no problems. 

Ironwood is pulled out of his obsessive thinking and worrying as a crow lands on the ground next to him, depositing a coin with a rose printed on it before flying off.

“So that’s how it is.” he says, getting up and making sure Due Process is loaded, “Pilot!” 

“Yes sir!”

“Our mission stays the same. Get to the docks, push the battle lines forwards and make an evacuation route before nightfall.” 

Darrin pulls his sword out of the, now stone, Wyvern. 

“Gally. Did you see what happened there?” He asks through the call on his scroll.

“There was some bright fucking flash. Blinded the hell outta me, but at least it also stunned the other fuckers nearby.” 

“Copy that.” Darrin says, sheathing his sword, hanging up the call and raising a fist.

Darrin drops off the side of the Wyvern and onto the tower, finding a girl passed out on the ground, being tended to by a man in a cape with a large sword on his back.

He looks around, he could swear he’d seen three other people on the other side of the tower a moment earlier.

‘Not much I can do about it now.’ he thinks, going with the caped man, quickly descending down the elevator shaft.

“Messenger, get to the general!” 

“Already on my way!” Evan yells in return to the officer as he takes off, his wings carrying him to where Ironwood’s shuttle reportedly crashed as the rest of team NGEL continues the fight down below.

It had taken him a second or two longer than the others to recover from the flash, but he already took flight by the time he recovered.

“Come on General, where are you?” he thinks to himself, sending the message to Ironwood through his semblance. 

‘If you can hear me, shoot a red flare.’

There, only a couple hundred metres away, a flare rises into the sky and Evan, having gained considerable height, dives.

The dive allows him to gain energy which he trades for speed and distance as he pulls out of the dive, gliding his way to where he saw the flare originate from.

After the flash of light, Sapphire cuts down the last Terrorist, her Aura finally weakening after several hours of fighting. 

“We are all clear here. May the dead finally rest.” She walks across her side of the battlefield, collecting the bones she pulled from the ground, reforming them into what once was and pushing them back into the graves they came from.

“I’m outta fireworks too, that was one big fight, let’s go find the next one!” Zinge shouts as she hops off the truck bed, leaving her minigun lying there.

“Shhh.” Sapphire lifts a finger to her lips, “The dead sleep. They did something noble in allowing me to use their bones, we shouldn’t disrespect them." She turns her attention to a grave that was destroyed in the fighting, “Instead we should care for those who helped and those we killed.”

“Nah, fuck that shit, I ain’t goin’ anywhere near corpses.” Zinge goes to get in her truck but is stopped by Marvin.

“Then you can help me tend to the injured while Robert helps Sapphire bury and care for the dead.” 

Mercury was already tired by the time they had to scale Beacon Tower and grab Cinder’s charred body. Dropping from that same height did not make it much better and running while carrying the fire obsessed bitch isn’t making it much easier either.

He just got his leg repaired damnit.

“Just a bit further.” he mutters, barely loud enough for Emerald to hear, then they’d be in the forest and she won’t have to worry about hiding them anymore.

All that earned was a weak “okay” from Emerald, trying to keep up with him.

Each second in the air feels like wasted time. Manipulating others takes a lot from Emerald, and they were only expecting Branwen to be on the tower, not the other guy.

And he also wasn’t expecting Emerald to have to hold him back from trying to kill Branwen. The man smells of booze and that is not a memory he wants to go back to.

So he keeps running, every second in the air feels like a wasted hour as he sprints across the open field.

As they reach the forest, they take a second to breathe, “That was not the best way that could have gone.” Mercury remarks.

“Just be happy we’re alive. Speaking of, is Cinder okay?”

“She’s fine, gave her a once over while I picked her up. Her left arm and eye are gone, but she’s still breathing and it looks like the wounds were cauterised. Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure she’ll survive.” 

Emerald breathes a sigh of relief, to which Mercury groans inwards before elaborating, “You know what would probably help her chances? Getting us on an airship, see if you can reach Watts.”

“Fine.” Emerald grabs her scroll, “Nope, no reception. I guess we at least got that part of the plan right, information blackout.”

“Then we keep moving. They’ll be scouring the area for us. The further away we are, the safer it gets.”

“Then the long walk it is.” 

“I just hope Cinder wakes up enough to carry her own weight, or she doesn’t wake up ‘till we have transport. I do not want to deal with her while having to carry her.”

“She’s not that bad.” Emerald jumps in to defend.

“She wasn’t that bad.” Mercury corrects, “But we don’t know how defeat will change her, maybe it’ll be a humbling experience for her. In which case, great. Or maybe she goes off the deep end. I know my old man did every time a target got away.”

“Oh so now it’s okay to talk about that?”

“No it’s not. I’m not explaining more about my past, just telling you why I think Cinder will react that way.”

“Oh come on Merc,” Emerald sidles up right up next to him, “we’ll be walking for a bit. It’d be boring to have nothing to talk about.” 

“Never gonna happen Em.” 

“Why not? I find it rather correct to hope to one day understand my partner on a deeper level.” She throws an arm around his shoulders, “Especially at the rate we’re going, remember a couple months ago? You never would’ve called me Em back then.” She backs away, “Admit it, you’re warming up to me.”

Mercury stops to stare at her for a moment, then goes back to walking, “Not one bit Em.”

“Zieg, Löw. Status report.” Adam says, the radio Cynthia supplied him with connecting him with his teammates.

“Löw is still critical, medics are tending to him well enough, but neither of us will be rejoining the fight any time soon. And neither will you for that matter.”  

“Why is that?” Adam keeps his response short as he creeps through a back alley, watching Blake as she flees the city.

“Cynthia recalled you just before coms went down, seems she wants to talk, you need to go meet her in Mistral.” 

Adam lets out a sigh before responding, “I’ll make it there as soon as I can, but I can’t promise I’ll be there within the month.”

“She wants you there as soon as possible. She’ll be there on business for two or so months.”

“Very well, then it seems there will be some time before we see eachother again. Good hunting Zieg.” Adam drops his radio, stomping on it and walking out into the street towards the docks. “It will be some time Blake, but don’t worry, I will find you my love.”

Evan lands next to the general, “Sir, are you okay?” 

Ironwood limps his way towards his young soldier, one of his prosthetics clearly damaged, “I got attacked by a Nevermore, but I can walk. How much Aura do you have left?”

“Not much, do you need my semblance?”

“Yes, I need you to tell our men near the docks to make the final push and incorporate the docks into our defences.” 

“Yes sir!” Evan takes off again, using his semblance to convey the message to the commanding officers on three adjacent streets. “I’ve got one more of those in me for now.” 

“Save it, we’re going to make our way down to the docks, I have a suspicion Torchwick didn’t give his benefactors all of the Dust he stole.”

“Very well general.”

Chapter Text

Nord nails an oncoming Beowulf in the face with an ice shot from Freeze , the monster face planting into the ground from the ice’s additional weight before breaking apart.

He pivots, firing fire Dust into another two, emptying his pistols in mere seconds. 

Teleporting them to his holsters, he exchanges them for his Broadsword, already mid swing to decapitate a creep, and his shotgun.

His wings help him wield the heavy blade so he can deftly swing it through an Ursa, the lightning Dust within arcing to a nearby Beowulf, frying it.

In the meantime, some of his other wings reach through his cloak and begin reloading his holstered pistols. 

A blast from his shotgun sends him flying in the air, where he switches back to his pistols, raining precise shots of ice and fire down on the Grimm that were about to overwhelm him.

Another midair blast from a quickly summoned and reloaded shotgun and he’s firing on the Grimm from a rooftop, daring them to come get him. 

“Drop the guns human.” a sensation on the back of his head is what alerts him to an enemy presence. 

“I said drop them!” The rifle pushes harder into his skull, so he complies, dropping his pistols off the rooftop and secretly teleporting them back to their holsters.

“Good, now get on your knees!” a kick delivered to the back of his knee and one slight hand motion on his part and he’s ready to speak up. 

“Be careful, I have some top of the line tech on me.” 

“Then fork it over.” 

“Very well.” He gives a fake sigh, pulling out the magazine belonging to the soldier’s weapon.

“How did you-?” The terrorist is cut off by Nord slamming his elbow into his neck, uses the opportunity to wrestle the gun from the man’s grip and slams him in the face with the stock before reloading the gun.

“Useless.” He says, putting two rifle rounds through the faunus man’s cranium and discarding the rifle.

“Only had two bullets left, should have shot me the moment you could.”

He returns his attention to a howling Beowulf that just climbed the side of the building.

“You’re next.” He fires his shotgun, the wind Dust sending it tumbling down and into the streets below.

Jumping down after it, Nord looks over his shoulder at the Atlesian ranks, getting an idea from seeing their artillery pieces.

“Be ready soldiers! I will be needing your cannons shortly!”

He drops between several grimm and proceeds slashing and shooting his way through them until he encounters a Megoliath. 

“Let’s see what I can do.” He charges, dashing past the smaller Grimm until he’s right underneath the Grimm.

“Tally ho!” Nordlicht shouts, teleporting one of the Atlesian field guns to him, pointed upright, straight into the monster’s stomach and fires.

The shell rips through the Grimm, its explosive charge blasting all four legs in different directions.

With that, Nordlicht returns to doing what he does best, killing Grimm.

“Back! Get behind me!” Gabriel shouts, delivering a shield bash to the nearest Grimm, a Beowulf, which is thrown back by the man’s strength. 

He looks to his left and is just in time to send a copy of his chestplate to a soldier to catch the Beowulf claw. 

Gabe plants his fist into another Beowulf’s snout, forcing it back. 

Putting Gate between him and the Grimm, Gabriel activates its flamethrower, incinerating the Grimm and scorching the faceplate of the Ursa behind it. 

Reaching back, Gabriel closes his hand around one of his ‘wings’ and pulls, the Aura solidifying into a shortsword before igniting in his hand.

Stomping forward, Gabriel raises his sword, slashing down the Ursa’s face, cutting it in half.

The flames quickly burn away the rest of its body and Gabe takes a second to check his Aura “Still at 90 Aura. Good.” He turns back to the fight, pushing forward. 

He sends a bracer to a man whose arm is about to be mauled, a helmet to a man with his head in a Beowulf’s jaws and a chestplate to a woman about to be stabbed by some sort of claws.

He raises his sword over his head and slashes down at an approaching Creep, blocking a Beowulf’s swing with his shield. 

He stabs the wolf in the stomach, the fiery ashes dispersing and setting an Ursa charging through it aflame.

The Ursa burns through before Gabriel has to do anything. Instead he turns and protects more allies with additional bits of his armour.

“Get back! Set up defences. I will hold them off!” He reaches into a pouch and pulls out several crystals of Fire Dust. 

He crushes one in his hand, absorbing its power into his full Aura, the flames lapping at his armour. 

The next he channels into his fist, holding a raging inferno in his hand. 

He notes his Aura dropping quickly so he pushes forwards with a bellowing roar, running into the middle of an intersection.

Grimm charge at him, but with every hit he takes, the fire in his Aura leaps outwards and burns the source, turning the Grimm to ash. 

When he sees a Megoliath coming at him, he pools all his fist’s fire, agitating it.

He grits his teeth at the burning sensation, knowing it can wait until after.

As the Megoliath raises its foot to stomp down on him, Gabriel punches upwards, ejecting the entirety of his hand’s flame into and through the monster, immolating it from the inside out.

The remaining ashes of the Megoliath, burning as well, set the Grimm in the surrounding area on fire. 

“50 Aura” Gabriel notes, taking a look at the damage his stunt did to him.

“Charge men! We need to retake the docks.” Ironwood shouts his orders to the assembled infantry, made up of any soldiers the other fronts could spare, hiding behind their fortifications made mostly of stacked cars.

A tension in the air is palpable as they all wait for the signal, Ironwood having his whistle at the ready.

The only sounds are those of MG emplacements firing on the horde of oncoming Grimm to keep them at bay and the sounds those Grimm make when they hit the ground and trample each other.

Ironwood looks back behind him down the road. Evan said he would need to get a good running start if he were to fly to the docks.

Sure enough, after around 30 seconds of waiting, seconds which felt like minutes or hours, Ironwood sees the white silhouette of a boy with great swann wings. 

He gets closer and closer and closer, just as Ironwood is about to duck or dodge out of the way for fear of being hurt, Evan takes off, his wings flapping to gain height without losing too much momentum.

As he flies overhead, Ironwood gets a clear view of why Evan took longer than expected.

‘He dropped his mortar off somewhere and just grabbed more shells.’ Ironwood watches with bated breath as Evan clears the Atlesian fortifications. 

Evan soars overhead, noting that he’s cleared Atlas’ position. 

“Time to go then.” he remarks to himself, pulling a mortar shell, fire Dust, from one of his bandoliers, “Let’s do this.” 

Evan manually arms the shell and drops it, then he repeats the action, again and again. 

The explosives land seconds after he drops them, destroying Grimm in large balls of fire and ice, sending them flying with the gust from Wind Dust and the blasts of Gravity Dust.

Not long after the first shell lands, Ironwood blows his whistle, signalling all the troops to push forward as he himself leads the charge.

Due Process in hand, James charges in front of his troops, shoulder bashing a Beowulf into a raging inferno and firing his guns at an Ursa.

A roar from a Megoliath is cut short by Evan circling around and landing on it after running out of shells.

“I thought you’d be happy to see me.” He jokes, then bashes its head in with a single punch.

More Goliaths charge, but Evan halts their momentum, barely even budging before using his hold on one of each of their tusks to break off two spikes, throwing one at each, embedding them deep in the heads of the Grimm. 

More Grimm come, an Ursa from behind is instantly turned to smoke by a wing bash, a Boarbatusk is caught in one hand and thrown up, catching a Nevermore in the wing and sending it into an irrecoverable death spiral.

“I thought you’d be stronger not gonna lie.” Evan punches a Beringel, a hole appearing in the much larger Grimm.

A Griffon dives, but even catches it by its beak and uses it to bash one of a King Taijitu’s heads in while holding the other one open with his other hand and leg. 

Hefting the beak that remains of the Griffon, Evan stabs the remaining head from in the mouth before his makeshift weapon disappears.

Lucy dashes in with his sickles, the civilians behind him watching in awe as he, with seeming ease, out manoeuvres the Ursa, getting on its back and slashing at its neck.

The Ursa tries to roll over to the side to get him off, but his wings keep him in the air prepared to dash down and strike at the Ursa’s stomach.

When the ursa rolls back his way to get back up, he retreats to take stock of the situation. 

‘One Ursa, just me, I’m on 30 Aura and these civilians need to get through to the safe zone.’ He dashes in again, swinging his sickles at the neck, once more barely damaging the beast.

‘I can barely hurt it’ Lucy remarks as he withdraws from an Ursa. 

‘What I wouldn’t give to have some more firepower.’

“Wait,” Lucy considers something, “What’s a little blood in exchange for people’s lives anyway?” 

Lucifer pulls up one of his sleeves and delivers a shallow cut to his exposed skin, blood begins flowing immediately, but he wills his Aura not to regenerate it while he uses his seblance’s extra control over Aura to draw it out of him and shape it.

After a few precious seconds of waiting for extra charge, he lets loose to send a spike flying to impale the Grimm bearing down on him.

The monster drops dead as Lucifer lets his Aura regenerate the wound, turning to the civilians behind him.

He gestures past the dissolving corpse of the Ursa, “The safe zone is just a little further. Run!”

The people behind him run like the possessed, attempting to get to the safety lying behind Atlas’ guns. 

Lucy pulls out a green flare, firing it in the air to let the soldiers know there are friendlies coming.

He checks his Aura reserves, “Fifteen Aura left?” he looks over to where the Ursa was lying before, “I probably shouldn’t do that again.” 

Ironwood has encountered far too much resistance from the White Fang’s remaining holdout in one of the Warehouses.

As such he told Evan to call in support from Sera.

That was 30 minutes ago.

Suddenly, after he’s almost given up hope Sera is even still alive, she comes crashing in through one of the Windows, landing on her feet with her gun raised.

“Sorry for the wait, General, had to make sure a VIP got out safely.” 

“And who is this VIP?” Ironwood asks from across the hastily erected table with a map of Vale laid out on it.

“The lady who runs the only gelato shop that sells apple pie gelato.” Sera says, not a hint of regret for taking three times as long as she should have.

“Of course it is.” Ironwood sighs, too tired to deal with her and unwilling to risk giving his semblance control.

“Well what'd ya need me for?” Sera says checking to see if her gun’s mag is full.

“The White Fang have a stronghold in the Warehouse on the other side of the Harbour, our attempts at pushing have proven useless and because Evan is out of Aura we can’t send him in.” 

“So that’s where I come in?”

“Correct, you are going to sneak in through a back entrance, make contact with a single bit of Dust, escape and blow it up.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Sera says, leaps out of the window she came through, hits the ground with a roll and sprints off towards the next Warehouse. 

“Gotta climb you then.” She clips her SMG to her satchel, and climbs up the waterspout, “Good thing I’m neither itsy nor bitsy.” 

Upon reaching the top, she’s greeted with the sight of a couple Atlesian snipers watching the Warehouses, waiting for any sort of movement from enemy units.

“I’m just coming through guys.” Sera says before dashing off again, jumping from one building to the next. 

Whenever she comes across White Fang, she quickly dispatches them with several Dust-less rounds to the legs and arms.

She reaches the target after only two minutes.

Quickly descending and making sure not to make any noise or be seen by soldiers, she lets herself in through the back door. 

Only to be immediately met by a wall of guns.

“Fancy meeting you here.” She blurts out before even thinking.

“Shut it human!” A leader says, “We know what you can do.” 

“Oh then you know what my semblance does?” She looks down to her feet, having an idea, “Then I guess you’ll know what happens if I were to do this.” 

Sera slightly nudges the Dust crystal at her feet slightly pushing it towards the Terrorists.

Sensing and anticipating their fingers tightening around their triggers, Sera stops them, “Don’t. I promise I have enough Aura to withstand a volley of your shots, but if you all think you have enough Aura to survive every piece of Dust in this place blowing up in one big chain effect, then feel free to shoot.”

“You humans value your lives too much to do something like that.” 

“Oh really? The street rat who doesn’t even have a complete education because she burnt down her own school with herself in it cares about her life?” 

The Terrorists don’t loosen their grips much, but they do loosen them. 

“What do you want?”

“I’m here to blow this place sky high, what I want is to get out before then, and if you value your lives then you do too.” 

“What are your terms?” 

“We all walk out and I blow up the warehouse with us at a safe distance, then we leave our separate ways.”

“We don’t have much of a choice.” The leader grunts at the pain of agreeing with a human.

“No, you don’t.” Sera chides and begins taking a step back, the rest of the White Fang following. 

When they’re at a safe enough distance, sera detonates that piece of Dust, the flames activate the other Dusts stored in that warehouse activating as well, the wind Dust literally tearing the roof off and sending it flying into the ocean.

Sera gives an appreciative whistle watching as wind and Fire Dust combine into a fire tornado.

“Now that’s what I call fireworks.” 

While the others are distracted, Sera reloads her weapon, loading gravity Dust.

“Anyways, I still have to bring you in so uhh… Nothing personal, it’s just business.” She says, letting loose and detonating the gravity Dust in the middle of the group, throwing them all against the walls that surround them. 

A minute later a couple of Atlesian soldiers come running and help Sera tie up their PoWs and transport them back.

Chapter Text

Nordlicht walks through the ruined streets of Vale towards the docks, the sounds of battle still ever present behind him as he enters General Ironwood’s command centre, confronted with the rest of team NGELS standing at attention before Ironwood’s desk.

“Good, you’re finally here di Angelo.” Ironwood gives him a nod.

“I came as soon as Evan called out to me.”

“Yes, so you’ve had to cross all of Vale, meaning you know what this is about.” Ironwood turns to the wall where a large map of Vale divided into subsections hangs, “Vale needs help and they need as many qualified Hunters as they can get, so I will be deploying you to help the effort.”

The team of five watch Ironwood mark out important areas on the map, “You will have full autonomy to do as you please within the city as long as you help.” 

They all look shocked at this, but before they can say anything, Ironwood continues, “There is one caveat however.”

He looks to Gabriel, “Smith, Jacques Schnee himself is waiting outside in a personal airship requesting to take you and miss Schnee with him.”

“But sir, these are my friends, I can’t just leave them.” Gabriel says but is cut off by a look from Ironwood.

“You have too. Jacques requests you protect his son, and due to a contract with your parents, you are obligated to go back.”

“But-” A moment of hesitation, “Okay, I will follow my orders as a member of the Atlesian military.”

“Good. Each of you will be sent to a specific location for your assignment. Di Angelo, you are to remain here by the docks. Herrmann, you will go to Patch and assist there. Judas and Bright, you will be helping with clearing out Beacon.”

“What about the other Atlesian teams?” Lucy asks.

“All other students of Atlas academy will be withdrawn back to Atlas within the next month.”

“So that’s it, we’re saying goodbye.” Lucifer says to the assembled friend group several days of work later, SMTZ is all here, so is Penguin class with the notable absence of Lupo, CLER and CRVS were sent back a week ago, “You are all going to Atlas and we’re stain’ here.” 

As goodbyes are exchanged, Evan goes around hugging everyone, perhaps cracking a few bones in the process, nothing Aura can’t heal though so everyone’s all smiles. 

Sera goes to her team, “Promise to make the parties just as wild as with me.” 

Emmet responds, “I’m not sure we can do that, but we’ll have ‘em at the same time.”

“Nah, we can definitely keep up with it. So what if there’s no fireworks we got me.” Bisa throws an arm around Sera, “I’ll show you a video of our fireworks when you come back.” 

“And I’m certain Hellena and I can keep the others safe without you, so we’ll all be there when you get back.” Musica interjects, trying, and failing, to pry Bisa’s grip off of Sera before settling for a group hug.

Crux, Emmet and Hellen all join in the hug/huddle.

Emmet whispers, “On three. One, Two, three.” 

“To the great party in the sky!” They all shout in unison.

Behind the airship, Lucifer and Sapphire pull back from their kiss, “Promise me you’ll be safe.” Lucy takes her hand.

“Make sure you don’t die either.” Sepphy says with a giggle, “And come back, ‘kay?” 

“Sure, I’ll try, but I’ll be at Beacon and we’ve already established that the Wyvern is attracting more Grimm.”

“No excuses, I want to see you all in one piece before I graduate.” 

“Then take plenty of notes to help me catch up. I know how much trouble I’ll be in if I die. What would you make my bones into, a Helmet or necklace?”

Sepphy pulls him down into another kiss before he can finish, “No talking about that. You’ll be back, make sure.” 

“Alright, alright.” Lucy relents before hearing something, “I think they’re looking for you, you better go.” 

“Goodbye my reaper.” Sapphire walks off.

“Bye bye, Queen of death.” Lucy mutters, walking after her to meet with what remains of his friends.

As the airship takes off, Sera cries into Nord’s shoulder, who is shedding a tear himself. Eve is flying along with them as far as he can, then lands with Nord and Sera, beckoning Lucy over.

Together, Lucy wraps his arms around the two, then Eve covers the group with his wings. 

Lupo roams the street. 

It’s late at night, all she has is the sword by her side and the clothes she’s wearing. 

She’s hiding her ears under a bowler and making sure her tail isn’t swishing too much. 

Trying to hide your identity as someone who is weird even under faunus is difficult. Luckily, she won’t have to do this for too much longer.

Lupo walks into the Dust Store, From Dust Till Dawn , the man behind the register is put on guard immediately.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to rob you or your store, I’m actually interested in a business proposition.” She strides to the counter, taking her sword off her belt and placing it there, “I need a place to stay and I know you have a spare room in the back. All I need is somewhere I can sleep.”

“And what do I get?” The man asks, his hand creeping closer to the silent alarm.

“You get paid. I have recently come into possession of a large amount of money.” She places several ten thousand Lien cards on the table, “Money that I am owed but was taken from me because my parents are gone.”

The man reaches towards the cards, taking them.

“This is a bit of what I have for you, I can also serve as a protector for your shop. If I’m in the area, I’ll protect you and your assets.” 

“Who are you?” The man asks, already with a good guess due to her tactics, way of dress and style of weapon.

Lupo takes off the bowler, it has served its purpose.

“I, my dear friend, am Lupo Azzura Nero. Once, I was heir to the Nero mafia family, now I have to make the new one.” 

She places the hat over the money, one hand on it, the other on the sword. 

“Which will you take? The sword and attempt to cut me down so I’ll be replaced by someone less friendly than me, or take the hat and the money and secure safety in a city that was almost wiped out a month ago?” 

“You’re not giving me much of a choice. Alright, your family kept me safe from the SDC takeover so far, just make sure this shop stays as mine.” The man reaches for the hat.

Lupo lifts the bowler, revealing the money to be just where she left it, “Good. That’s why I came to you. You have loyalty to the family.” She lets her tail sway behind her, “Now show me, where shall your Don stay?”

“Right this way.” The man leads her to a room in the back, it’s spacious enough and has a few empty crates piled in one corner and a large map of Vale hanging on one wall of the room. 

“I’ll have to add in a couple amenities, but this is good for the first safe-house.” She walks over to the crates and lays out her suit jacket, folding it up as a pillow and placing it on a crate, “You can go back to your work now. Don’t worry if I’m gone in the morning.”

With the sound of the door closing, Lupo lays down on the makeshift pillow, reconsiders, and decides on sleeping in a nearby hotel for the time being, at least until she can get a proper bed.

“I really have to stop dipping into my cash so much. Can’t really rob another abandoned bank.”

“Dr. Alighieri, there’s been another break in.” Specialist Ebi enters Daniel’s office.

“Anything stolen this time?” The doctor sits up from the chair he was lounging in.

“Nothing sir, but there’s been evidence of sabotage in the rupture machine.” His response is quick.

“Any new evidence on who it was?” 

“No sir, there were more Aura burns all over the walls, indicating it could be the citizen movement, but their modus operandi still isn’t there. They break cameras not disable them, they destroy records not corrupt them. And then there’s the radiation damages.”

“Radiation?” Daniel leans forward, suddenly interested, “Combined with Aura burns,” he thinks for a second, “Could it be that the culprit’s semblance has either a necessary side effect or is fully focussed on radiation?”

Clover takes a second to mull it over, “I’m not sure, we would have to check the registers if there’s someone with a radiation semblance, though if it weren’t then that would just ask more questions.” 

“Not quite Clover,” Daniel answers, “See, there are very few ways one can give off so much radiation it is the cause of death of everyone in a facility, most are highly regulated, but the one I believe is most likely, is that there is someone out there who has a rupture that pertains to a release of radioactive energies.”

“If that’s the case, then the seemingly random Aura burns make sense,” Clover draws closer to the conclusion.

“Because they are random. And if this is the case, then we have significantly reduced the pool of potential subjects.” 

“You’re thinking of the incident, the one where doctors Hazma and Virule died, correct?” 

“Yes, if we go this route, we’ll have to consider both a dead man and his killer as possible subjects.”

“How sir?” 

Daniel looks over at a picture taken of his team, focussing on the cockroach faunus, “No body was ever found, we know Gillean died because we found his, Jude Hazma is just gone.”

“That would be bad, he’d know our operations inside and out.” Clover contemplates, “Oh, the General has a message for you. He wants you to continue on the angel project’s halo.”