A/N: Thanks to my bro YARN (By the way, follow him if you haven't already. He's an amazing RWBY fanfic writer) giving me his opinion on this, I'm feeling really good about this chapter. I really hope that you guys enjoy this one, and thanks for the over 1,600 views!

Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan based parody. RWBY is the property of Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth Productions. Please support the official release!

Crossing Off The List
Chapter 4: Victory For Naught

Cinder walked over to Pyrrha, grabbing her hair and dragging her over to the middle of the room, setting her against the rubble. She repeated with Yang, both of them being illuminated in the moon light when she was done. When it came to Ren though, she barely spared a glance.

"Let him lay there and die, whether he bleeds out or suffocates with that punctured lung, he is the least of my concerns." Cinder said, her hands glowing as she heard running. "Perfect timing".

The looks on their faces, all those children looking in horror as she took Yang and Pyrrha's semblance. The red head didn't really have it in her to struggle, just screaming until it was done, the tired and defeated look in her eyes as a few tears slipped out. The blond more than made up for her anti-climatic friend though. It was amusing to see those eyes of hers shifting back and forth between red and lilac while her semblance sporadically flared at different parts of her body. When her eyes finally settled on staying lilac, and the flames disappeared, she felt delightful at her wide, panicked state. Even if her main plan to take over Beacon had failed, it gave solace that her contingency plan was almost complete. She just had to take care of a few more people, most notably the scythe wielding who was charging at her.

Cinder calmed turned and walked for a moment, stopping and coating her hand with an aura shield to block the blade of that ridiculously sized scythe when compared to its enraged and silently tearing up owner. Ruby shot off of Crescent Rose, turning with it as its blade sliced through Cinder's aura and shallowly into her hand. Cinder pulled away and shot fire at Ruby in the air, making her fire Crescent Rose again to roll away and escape with only singed clothing.

"I hate paper cuts", she said, the gash healing quickly as she used the same hand to catch a punch Yang threw at her from behind. "You're not solid stone anymore," she said feeling the bones in Yang's hand cracking, the blond brawler gritting her teeth to hide the pain, "You're nothing but fragile glass". Cinder sensed Ruby and Blake coming at her from behind, gripping Yang's broken hand and tossing her at Ruby, before summoning her obsidian scimitars and blocking Blake from all angles as she used her clones. After several clashes the two locked each other,"I guess that I should stop playing".

"Yang!" Ruby said dropping her weapon and falling back to cushion her sister's fall. Yang tried to get up, but Ruby kept her arms wrapped around her sister.

"Let go of me Ruby!" She said struggling.

"No!" Yang refused to listen.

"What's the point of fighting if you're only going to make things worse!" Ruby yelled, before Yang got loose. Cinder kicked Blake away, turning to Yang and slamming the hilt of her sword into what had been Yang's only good arm, an audible crack heard drowned out by Yang finally screaming in pain. Ruby grabbed her and tore her away from the fighting as Blake and Cinder kept clashing, Blake becoming much more aggressive, leaving Cinder little time to strike back as Blake swung.

"Yang…", Ruby said, a pit in her stomach at seeing her sister so…broken. Yang looked down at the floor as she laid against the wall.

"My semblance and power really are gone…" Yang lamented, "I can't even use my arms right now…"

At the other end of the hall, despite Jaune's best efforts, Pyrrha had to grit her teeth and bite back the pain she felt just from being moved.

"We're all here now Pyrrha, and I'll die before I let anything thing else happen to you." Jaune said carrying her in a bridal position, holding her against his chest.

"Jinx", Mercury before Jaune began to fall, turning as he fell to keep from landing on Pyrrha. "You know, what's the point of armor if your abdomen is left wide open to attack?" He slowly walked towards the now bleeding Arc, the plastic gun hanging loosely at his side until he cocked it, the ceramic bullet being loaded into the chamber. Jaune turned, keeping himself between Pyrrha and Mercury as he approached. He stood up, his shield expanding as he drew his sword.

"An Arc never goes back on or forgets his word or promises", Jaune said approaching Mercury.

"You're insane, right? I may be the bloodied up one here, but I'm still leagues ahead of you, and while you've got an oversized knife, I've got a gun to shoot you with. Live in your fantasy world if you want, because your brain won't even be around to process the thoughts in a minute." Mercury said before pointing the gun at Jaune's head.

"Jaune! Get out of the way!" Pyrrha yelled. Jaune's eyelids slid closed for a moment as he focused on his confrontation with Cardin in Forever Fall, the way he'd resigned himself to not being pushed around, to standing where he planted his feet.

Jaune opened his eyes, the blue in them softly glowing white as an outline of the same color appeared around him.

"Bring it on you wanna be hero", Mercury said firing the gun. The bullet bounced and shattered as it ricocheted into a wall, not a mark on Jaune's forehead as he continued to walk. Mercury kept firing, but they all bounced away no matter where he shot, making Jaune form a slight grin. He got within his personal space, giving Mercury a knee to the stomach before bashing him to the ground with his shield.

"Did the armor I feel felt protect against that?" Jaune said before grabbing Mercury by the shirt and slamming against the wall. Mercury stared at him angrily through one open eye, still raising the pistol to fire another round. He froze as it bounced back once again and hit the wall next to him, shattering and cutting his face lightly. "You were the one who cause Pyrrha most of the pain she's in now aren't you?" Jaune stared into him, his blue iris almost completely white as he let out that part of him. The part that wanted to make Mercury suffer like Pyrrha had, to make him feel even more pain then so had, to make him beg Jaune to stop only to be ignored as his personalized torture plan was carried out. The part that felt like slitting his throat right then and there, his hand twitching as he raised the blade.

It was just one quick movement.

Jaune had slammed Mercury's head into his knee, knocking him out cold and a tooth or two out of his pocket.

"I can't become like you. Shadow only consumes and strengthens the shadows around it, but light extinguishes all darkness nearby, as long as it is bright enough." The white faded from his iris as the aura outline he's manifested dissipated. He felt his stomach, the wound healed completely as the blood around it dried. Jaune's semblance could be very powerful, acting as both a body-wide shield and a quick way to heal, but it put an enormous strain on his aura reserves. He took a few deep breaths. He'd only used his semblance for thirty seconds max and he already felt exhausted. He had to leave it inactive if he wanted to save any of his strength. The fight was not over yet.

No…

This wasn't a fight. A fight is an isolated event. This was a battle. The first of many in a war, there was no other way to describe it. All around them lay their wounded comrades while they fought.

Nora was swinging Magnhild at Emerald in a berserker-like rage, while Weiss fired dust spells at her, using her glyphs to keep from being left behind due to how fast they both were in comparison as they moved. Emerald was forced onto the defensive, but her guns let her intercept any of the spells thrown her way, while rolling, summer-salting, and jumping out of Nora's range, lingering in one position just long enough fired a shot or two off before needing to move out of the way. Everything slowed in the middle of battle for Weiss as she used a speed glyph on herself. She fired a fire spell at Emerald, making her shoot as she straitened herself and landed on her feet. Weiss had counted on that when she fired the ice spell as Emerald focused on the fire one, trapping her legs in ice. Without a moment to register her position, Emerald felt Magnhild slam into her, Nora pulling the trigger on impact making the attack force her through the wall and slightly embedded into the walkway beyond it.

Cinder seen Emerald take that hit. She wasn't going to get up, if she was even conscious. Currently she was locked between Ruby and Blake on either side of her. Cinder swung a kick at Ruby, making her back away for a moment, giving her a free sword to cut into Blake's abdomen. She knocked the frozen faunas away as her white shirt turned crimson.

"Blake!" Ruby said seeing her teammate fall. Cinder turned, dropping her swords and shooting an inferno at Ruby.

A familiar purple glyph shield formed in front of Ruby, protecting her as the fire moved passed it.

"I knew it was only a matter of time before you would show up Glynda." Cinder said as she bent down to pick up her swords, sneaking a look at the emotionless look Glynda had put on, anger still leaking through to her eyes. "Where's old Oz-pinhead? Dead?" She grinned ear to ear.

All the students looked at Glynda, eyes wide. She looked down at the ground a moment, letting them know that was the harsh reality. Glynda looked back up at the roof, forcing sections to break themselves away and form into spires, before launching them at Cinder, who incinerated them out of existence.

"Didn't take you as one to strike and kill" Cinder said, before noticing the wound on her opponent's abdomen. "The abdomen seems to be pretty popular place to strike as of late."

Glynda waved her crop, a spear forming from the rubble behind her, and shooting at Cinder from behind.

"Cheap shots too? I though huntresses were supposed to be noble." Cinder laughed despite the spear that went through her side, her blood spilt onto the ground for the first time that night, more willingly spilt as she roughly tore the construct out.

Roman and Neo dropped down, grabbing Mercury and Emerald respectively, before being pulled up by ropes attached to their waists. Roman took aim with his free hand and fired at the roof, bringing down what was left of it all at once. Glynda formed a shield to hold the roof up until they could escape. Those left standing hurried out with the injured, Ruby with Yang, Weiss with Blake, Nora with Ren, Jaune with Pyrrha, and Neptune with Sun.

In the middle of the evacuation, Cinder grabbed a rope lowered for her from the airship, retreating. Her mission wasn't a full success, but any loose ends were able to be tied another day.

Glynda wasn't letting her get away. She put both hands on her riding crop, slowly moving it upward, the roof rising with it.

"We have a problem!" Roman yelled, panicking as Cinder stepped onto the holding bay, the roof approaching them quickly as Glynda forced it towards them.

"Neo, the tail." Cinder ordered. The roof collided with the tail of the ship, shattering in an afterimage as the roof hit it, before falling onto the grounds and waters surrounding them. The real ship sped away, quickly disappearing from sight as it left. Roman relaxed, sitting down in a seat against the wall as the bay door closed, dabbing at the small amount of sweat that had formed on his forehead with a handkerchief. Neo sat next to him, Cinder choosing to remain standing, wondering how much of a hassle it would be to have to wait for her subordinates to heal before her next move.

"Why didn't you just kill them?" Roman asked putting his handkerchief away. "It would've been nice not to deal with a section of a fricking building flying at us!"

"In the grand scheme of things, we need our own publicity, to instill fear into the government and schools as they hear firsthand of what was done tonight." She turned toward him and took a few steps forward. "They will assume the best in their minds, that they weren't killed because they were strong enough. When we next strike, and the location is left clean of human life, all they will have left is fear."

Glynda breathed heavily. It took a lot of her aura to do that, all for naught.

They had lost.

A/N: So yeah, another depressing chapter. Oh, and sorry for making it seem like I was gonna kill Yang, Pyrrha, or Ren off. ShaunyRedComet was kind enough to point out that just killing them off would be boring, and yes it would be. It brings joy to that demented part of me to torture these characters as evil as that makes me sound.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and I'd really appreciate it if you left a review down below to tell me what you thought of the chapter. Also, unless you guys want more, next chapter will be the final one of the story, and if you have any questions, leave them in a review, and I'll answer them in the author's note in the end of next chapter.