Requiem for the Lost
As she flew off into the sky he couldn't stop himself from lunging towards her, reaching out to grasp her hand like he had so many times over the years. She had been his kid sister, his best friend, and the only one on earth that he trusted to have his back without question. Her scream trailed off behind her as she disappeared into the sky teaming with Grimm. There was no coming back from that. If the Grimm didn't get her, the fall would. For her sake, he hoped it was the Grimm.
His eyes locked on the familiar form dangling off the side of the ship he had commandeered, and he felt the rage bubble up inside. Over and over, Red had foiled his plans, and this was the last straw. When it was Cinder's dust, he didn't care. Working for the woman was a nightmare, and not something he had planned as a long term career choice. But now, now she had cost him the only thing he cared about. Playtime is over.
Red had never actually been a match for him. He knew as he swung his cane, raining blows down upon her body that he was losing himself, letting the rage and the grief take over, but Neo was what he lived for. Without her, he was just biding his time until an enemy caught up with him. If Red hadn't been the one who killed her…he might have let her kill him. But he owed it to Neo to make the brat pay before he sought death.
The roar behind him told him that he shouldn't have let rage consume him. Even as Red's terrified eyes looked up at him, he knew what was going to happen. I'm sorry Neo. I messed up, just like you always warned me about.
Yet he couldn't find it in him to be angry as darkness closed in. It was finally over.
Emerald watched as the ship crashed into the city. She knew that she was supposed to be well away by now, but she couldn't help but linger as the ship that Roman and Neo were on burned. Something had gone wrong there, and she knew that Cinder would be displeased. But the woman wouldn't grieve.
She knew that she shouldn't feel more than faint disappointment that Roman had failed. But Emerald had grown to like the duo, at least a little bit. Cinder was her leader, and Mercury her partner, but there was something about Roman's dry humor that made her chuckle in the privacy of her own thoughts. Not that she'd have ever given him the satisfaction of knowing that she found his sarcasm amusing.
It had become a game between them, testing their skills against each other while professing annoyance and irritation. But she had caught the gleam in his eye a few times when she had one-upped him, and Emerald knew that he wasn't as mad as he'd seemed. Neo, in her own quiet way, had been fun to hang out with, more relaxed than Cinder was anyway.
Beginning to move again, she sent a silent farewell to the wreckage. Nobody else might mourn their loss, but she would remember them, if only for the humor.
Weiss stood at the base of the tower, fending off Grimm as she waited for Ruby to come back with Pyrrha. Dispatching one, she turned coldly to the next, her composed stance giving no hint of the turmoil beneath her.
Velvet's weapon had been a shock. Seeing the shy girl use all of their signature weapons was mildly alarming, but Weiss's heart had shattered on seeing Penny's weapons. As odd as the girl…robot…had been, Weiss had been fond of her. Nobody deserved the death she had been given.
Striking blow after blow, Weiss tried to forget how the evening had started, the despair and shock that had blanketed the festival grounds as the feeds showed Penny, lying in pieces, around the arena. Poor Pyrrha… Poor Penny.
Resolve filled her, giving strength to her tiring limbs as she vaporized another Grimm. She would keep fighting for Penny. For Penny, who was willing to put herself between others and danger. For Yang, who had thrown herself at an enemy in Blake's defense. For the Huntsmen and Huntresses, and students, who had fallen defending Beacon.
As a scream filled the air, and a blinding light shone from the top of Beacon Tower, Weiss felt her heart stop. Ruby! And then she realized what she had heard. Or rather, who's name she had heard.
Jaune knew, even as the shuttle touched down in front of where he stood, waiting for his teammates. He knew that there was one missing.
As the strange man who was so much like Ruby and Yang descended the shuttle, a limp form in black and red in his arms, he had the truth confirmed. Not that he had expected anything else, he thought grimly as he saw the pain in Nora and Ren's eyes as Coco and Fox helped them down the ramp. Pyrrha would never had done anything without putting her heart and soul into it.
The moment he had felt her push him into the locker, he had known that there would be no happy ending for them. It had been a cruel burning in his throat as he flew through the air, heading for somewhere Pyrrha had likely believed safe. In a moment, as he held her in his arms, he had seen flashes of a future that could be, and those flashes had hardened his resolve to ensure that they both lived through this. But she had sent him away, and he knew at that moment, that he was never going to see her again.
Calling Weiss…that was just desperation. Pyrrha had made up her mind long before the matches that evening started. She would stand and fight to the very end, giving everything she was to protect others. And that woman, she was more than a match for any of them. Pyrrha would try, but she would fall.
He had beaten his hands against the torn up stone around him, howled his frustration to the wind. If it hadn't been for the timely arrival of Cardin and the strange scythe wielder, he would have been eaten by a Grimm. Jaune knew that he had babbled as he related the message Ozpin had told him, and the older man paled and shot off, almost as quickly as Ruby could, leaving Cardin to help him up and back to the safe zone.
It spoke a lot about the day they had been fighting through, Jaune thought as he saw Cardin helping other injured students off the shuttle, that he and the other boy hadn't once fallen into their normal bullying routine. But Cardin had looked at him and held out a hand, pulled him upright, and said nothing about the tear tracks running down his face or the bloody hands from his self-inflicted injuries.
Port and Oobleck came down the ramp next, Port carrying a familiar blonde, and Oobleck supporting Blake, who seemed about ready to collapse. But Jaune's attention was diverted by the arrival of Nora and Ren, who had shaken off Coco and Fox and were leaning on each other.
Nora, strong, unshakable Nora, was in tears. "Jaune," she whispered, leaning against Ren as her voice cracked. "She's gone."
Jaune could only nod. He had known the minute she was gone, knowing that somehow the white flash that had illuminated Beacon somehow symbolized the moment of her passing. But the words Pyrrha had spoken on their first day as partners rang in his mind, and he found himself repeating them to his broken teammates in front of him. "For it is in passing we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."
They looked at him, shocked, and he explained: "Pyrrah said that to me as she unlocked my aura, a bit before we ran into that Nightstalker. She may be gone, but we will always remember her. Go, get yourselves looked after. I'm going to make myself useful, but I'll see you shortly."
Pyrrha had always believed in him, even when he didn't believe in himself. He had spent too much time relying upon her, but now he had to stand on his own. It was time for him to be the leader that JNPR needed.
"You always protected us," he whispered into the night, standing with the other defenders as students and citizens trickled into the tenuous safe zone they had established. "Now watch me protect what you died protecting."
***Welp. My heart ached watching the last episode of Volume 3. I was super bummed at the number of characters that got wiped out. Now, personally I think Roman and Neo might make it back (I have a really complicated Roman-faked-his-death theory), but for the purposes of this tribute to all of the fallen, I included them.***