Thanks to TehGramerPolise and MasterofBones for their help with this chapter

It was always the same damn nightmare; the worst part is that I knew in the back of my mind it was just a dream and I knew that it would play out the same way every time.

Yet that did knowledge nothing to lessen the pain and regret.

You see… I used to have a team. A group of crazy bastards that I recruited to help me fight against the monstrosities that had become a reality after the opening of the portal at Mountain Glenn. Most of them had been soldiers that had survived that hell hole; two of them were twins, a Huntsman and a Huntress that I had helped take out a cult that had been terrorizing the town they lived in. The last one was a knight from the Order of the Equinox, a captain who had decided that taking out those monsters was his calling, and that joining up with me was the best way of achieving that.

Two of the soldiers, Private Rama and Private Broderick, had been the first to die, killed by a bastard cultist who had quaffed an eldritch elixir that had made him grow massive spider limbs out of his back.

Then all but one of the soldiers had died, as well as the male twin of the Huntsman and Huntress duo when we had gone to kill a massive herd of shoggoths; huge slimy monstrosities that are a damn pain to kill; at a place called the Maze of the Beast. While there, we had also stopped some Deep Ones, fishy bastards that don't like humans very much, who were trying to raise the biggest and baddest of all shoggoths. Had they succeeded it probably would have resulted in half of Mistral being on the menu.

Neither of those were what I had nightmares about. That torment belonged to when I had failed everyone else.

We had cleared out a group of cultists that had been worshipping some kind of deity they had simply called "The Defiler" in Vacuo. In a moment of carelessness, I had let one escape with one of their holy texts. He had fled south of the city into the Mulvayat Wastes, where he had led us on a chase into a series of underground ruins filled with mummified lizard zombies. The nightmare always began in the room where we had found him, a massive room carved out of the rock, with a gigantic obsidian obelisk dominating the center of the room.

"Geez, look at the size of that thing…" Sergeant Hazel breathed, "Where in the hell did they find a piece of obsidian that big?"

"Look sharp," Sienna replied, she pulled back her bow and shot two arrows, each one found their mark in two of the zombie things that had been silently creeping towards us.

Sir Geralt had raised an eyebrow at the Huntress, "Is this really the time for word play?" He asked.

"There's never a bad time for that." I replied as I leveled my gun and blasted a third zombie.

"I don't get it." Sergeant Hazel replied as she swept her rifle around the room, searching for additional targets.

"Well you see, obsidian is unnaturally sharp, due to its mineral structure, therefore when Sienna said to 'look sharp' it-"

"Alright, alright, enough, I get it." The sergeant's eyes widened as she looked toward the obelisk, "Hey, there he is!"

Sure enough, there in front of us was the cultist we had been chasing was prostrated at the base of the obelisk, chanting in the old tongue wildly, his distinctive green and black robes ripped and torn.

"Think you two can make the shot from here?" I asked Sienna and Sergeant Hazel.

The two looked at each other, "You get the head, I get the heart?" Sienna asked her.

"You're on." Hazel replied. She shouldered her rifle and Sienna pulled back the bow.

Something nagged at me even as they set up and time slowed as I looked back over at the cultist. The man had got to his knees and twisted his head around to look at us, yet made no move to take cover or escape, the fear or resignation that I might have expected was absent from his eyes.

In fact, they almost looked triumphant.

I turned to try and stop the two, but it was too late, the arrow flew and the sound of gunfire rent the air as the missiles sped toward their target.

You see, I used to think the answer to stopping any ritual was killing the one doing the ritual. To be fair, that tactic worked 99.99% of the time.

But it was always that last 0.01% that got you.

There was a thwack as the arrow and bullets hit home; blood flew from gaping wounds. Instead of doing us all a favor and croaking instantly; the cultist reared back and let out a cry of exultation, "Devourer! Y'golonac! I offer you my life, may it satisfy your hunger! Here on the steps of Osmogoth!" He swayed and then fell flat to the ground once more, completely still.

"Well that was easy enough." Sergeant Hazel said.

"Well there was the army of those zombie things in the way." Sienna pointed out.

"There was that." The sergeant replied.

"Ladies…" Sir Geralt said as he raised his shield and his chain-pike began spinning up. "I think you may have spoken too soon."

Because the cultist's corpse was moving.

Even as I watched, the body stood to its feet and began shifting. The head shrank back down into the body, even as its frame began to expand, becoming a ball of flesh that stretched the robes obscenely.

My team knew better than to just sit there, and soon gunfire rent the air and arrows streaked across the room, slamming into the figure. It jerk and shuddered as perforations rent themselves in the green and black cloth surrounding its body.

Yet it refused to go down.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Hazel's gun clicked empty and she reached down at the pouch to her side to reload.

"That's quite enough of that." A deep, slimy voice echoed throughout the room, and suddenly Hazel's body jerked, and then exploded.

Sienna screamed and I let out a strangled sound as blood and gore rained down upon us. Sir Geralt wasted no time, and let out an enraged battle cry. He began chanting the mantra of his order as he lowered his pike and charged forward; his steel boots pounding on the stone floor.

The voice let out a chuckle and the figure lifted its hands with its palms facing us. The knight's battle chant cut short as he let out a grunt, his momentum stopped cold, checked by some invisible force. He let out another roar and took one determined step forward.

"Hmm… how entertaining." The voice mused, and my eyes widened in horror as I realized that the voice was coming from mouths filled with razor thin teeth on the figure's palms. Before I could even blink, the creature closed both of his hands into fists and Sir Geralt let out a scream as the sound of crinkling metal echoed throughout the room. The knight struggled as his very armor began crushing down on him; he coughed, a stream of blood erupting from his lips. Impossibly, he lifted his leg and took another step, then another, before finally falling limp.

"No!" Sienna shouted as she nocked more arrows to her bow, the figure opened his palms and something lashed out, shooting towards the Huntress. I swung my sword, slicing through the tentacle-like limb; eliciting a cry of rage from the creature. The protrusion fell to the ground and began writhing there, I grimaced in revulsion as I realized that it was a tongue, pink and slimy.

With a roar, I rushed towards the figure, who laughed as he lifted a hand. Suddenly I was lifted high into the air, gasping for air as some invisible force closed around my throat.

There was shout of rage behind me and I saw a single arrow fly towards the creature, scoring his cheek, who let out a snarl and I dropped to the floor, the force vanishing. I vaguely registered the ominous sound of something clattering to the ground, but I was already moving, my focus solely on the monstrosity in front of me.

Time moved in slow motion as it lifted its hand calmly, then it spasmed and it took a step backwards, as if in surprise. I didn't wait for it to recover, flames whirled around my blade as I invoked the flames of Sarongar and swung with all my might.

The creature froze, then slowly fell to the ground, its frame shrank down until it was once more the form of the cultist, his eyes locked on me, full of confusion. Then they glazed over and he collapsed to the ground.

I ignored him and spun around, praying that the sound I had heard earlier didn't mean what I think it did.

Sienna was on her knees, looking in horror at the tongue, which had punched straight through her stomach. Suddenly she jerked and her gaze shot up to me, her eyes filled with horror.

I ran to her side, "Sienna! Come on, hold still I'll get this thing out, then we can-" I was cut off as her hand shot to my throat clasping around it with inhuman strength.

"So…" My heart sank as I recognized the voice from before. "This is the best the Guardian of Remnant and his stooges can muster? I'll be honest, I was hoping for mor-" Sienna's face twisted, as though from some internal struggle. Abruptly the Huntress gasped, and I could tell from her eyes she was in control once more. Her grip released from my throat and I coughed as I breathed deeply.

"Please, Qrow… I can feel it… it's everywhere… can't… stop… please… end-" She let out another gasp, "Can't hold…" Her eyes locked with mine, pleading.

I reared my sword back, tears in my eyes. "Sienna…" I choked on the words, "I'm sorry." With a heavy heart, I swung the sword even as her eyes began to change once more-

I gasped as I flailed desperately, my entire body drenched in a cold sweat. When I had finally regained my composure, I realized that I was lying down on one of the seats in the cargo bay of the airship. The floor rumbled slightly beneath me as I lay there gulping down deep breaths. I sat up and reached down to my belt, yanked out the flask with the whisky and drank deeply.

"Bad dreams?" Zorja asked me from the seat across from mine.

I grimaced as the alcohol burned in my throat, "Nah, what gave you that impression?" I replied as I capped the flask.

She critically eyed my completely disheveled appearance, "Uh huh." She leaned back in her chair, "Anyway, there was something I wanted to ask."

I shrugged, "Shoot."

"Well, so I kind of get with the Baba Yaga, the whole 'don't interrupt her, be respectful thing'. So what's the deal with the warning about chickens?"

"Oh right," I put the flask back on my belt, "So this stretches way back to when people were first starting to write about eldritch creatures. So the story is that it was a trickster deity that coordinated with the person who wrote about the Baba Yaga. That deity apparently thought it would be a hoot if he told the illustrator that the Baba Yaga had chicken legs."

Zorja's eyebrows rose, "Hmm… having met her I can easily imagine how that went wrong."

I nodded, "Yeah, so anyway, she's held a grudge about it ever since. Beyond destroying any of those illustrations, she also will wholesale slaughter any chicken she sees and if you so much as mention them she gets a little… miffed."

"Well, that's interesting if nothing else." She admitted.

Winter's voice came over the intercom, "We're about ten minutes out, get your gear ready."

I flipped off the speaker and grabbed my weapon across from me, Zorja frowned, then looked around the airship, a pensive expression on her face.

"Something on your mind?" I asked her.

"So, something's occurred to me." She said, "She probably could have chosen any airship, right?"

I frowned, "Yeah?"

"So then she specifically chose a Taurus-class airship. You noticed that all of the other airships she brought were the same class right?"

I thought back to the clearing, "Huh, come to think of it, you're right."

She leaned forward, "These things are junk." She said flatly, "They handle poorly, they're not very fast, and to be honest there's only one reason to ever pick them over anything else."

My heart skipped a beat as I thought I saw where she was going with this, "And that's if you need it to be able to take a hell of a beating." I said.

Zorja nodded, "We are breaking into an Atlesian facility after all." She said, "So I suppose it's not entirely unexpected. She got out of the chair and stretched, "There's a safety belt under the chair that you can hook on for when things get hairy." She told me, "Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go make sure that Jaune and Kali are alright."

She walked out the door and I was bending over to check under the seat when everything around me began shaking.

A few seconds later the whole airship jumped as a massive explosion echoed outside. "What the hell was that?" I yelled.

Zorja ducked into the room, "Just some anti-aircraft batteries… I imagine decently powered too, it takes a lot to shake one of these hunks of junk."

Another explosion resounded outside and the ship shook once more, I grit my teeth as I found the safety belt and quickly pulled it up around me.

"Damn it! I hate flying!" I said through gritted teeth. I heard a snort and I turned to see Zorja looking at me with hands on her hips.

"Says the man who goes around flying as a bird."

"Yeah well… that's different!" I retorted, "I'm not being fired at by frickin' anti-aircraft guns then."

"Or you just don't like your fate being put in someone else's hands." She answered.

Another explosion, and once more the ship shook violently, "Really? Now of all times you're going to psychoanalyze me?"

"Why not? Stress is an excellent catalyst." Suddenly the shaking stopped and I warily looked around the airship as the sounds of explosions faded in the distance.

"Sounds like we're through the belt," Zorja said conversationally, "That means that those are likely only automated defenses, there are usually all kinds of fail safes on those things so that they're not launching shells at what they're supposed to be protecting."

"So… can I take this thing off now?" I asked her.

She shrugged, "If it makes you feel better then sure, Winter said we should be arriving any second now-" The aircraft shook again and Zorja slammed into the hull. "What the hell?" She demanded.

"Qrow, Zorja." Winter's voice came over the intercom. "We've got problems."

Our 'problems' were in the shape of what appeared to be Nevermores… but far smaller than any I had seen, all of them about as large as a human. They were whirling around the airships, diving in and raking their claws against them before flying away away.

"I've got someone hacking into the facility's hangar doors to get them open, but it's going to take some time." Winter explained to us, "I need you two to keep these things off of us."

"And just how do you propose we do that?" I asked her.

Abruptly I felt Zorja put her hand on my shoulder and I turned to see her with a wicked grin on her face that made my heart sink. "Oh… you're gonna love this." She told me.

"So just who the hell designs an airship and thinks; 'you know what? We need some way to defend the things from aerial attacks' and then goes, 'I've got it! We'll give them magnetic boots! That way they can walk out like idiots onto the wing!'"

Zorja shrugged, "Apparently the Laisren did, and don't knock it, this little tactical innovation has saved my ass a hundred times against Grimm." She lightly patted the pommel of the giant maul that had been in the arms locker; which had also contained the knee high monstrosities that were now on both of our legs.

I had heard of mag-boots before, upon activation, the Lightning Dust in them ran a current down through the soles of the boot, which contained Magnet Dust, creating a magnetic force that allowed people to walk along the sides of airships to perform maintenance and other tasks while in flight.

Or, apparently, beat the ever living crap out of things that were attacking the airship. In all of my years, I had never imagined I was unlucky enough to have to wear these things. Apparently there was always a new low to hit.

Zorja clomped up to the airlock over the wing and turned to me, "You ready?" She asked me.

I grit my teeth and steeled myself, "Let's do this." I told her. She grinned in response and slammed open the door.

I followed her out onto the wing and immediately some instinct screamed at me to duck. I obeyed it instantly, not a second later air whooshed past my head and I heard one of the creatures shriek with rage as its wicked talons passed a hand's breadth above my head.

I looked up in time to see a second one streaking toward me, I let out a shout as I whipped out my sword, and delivered an overhand strike that collided with it in a sickening crunch. The creature went limp and fell away into the void.

"Damn it, it was too much to hope for that they were just Grimm." I murmured to myself. I shouted the invocation for my weapon and it went ablaze just in time for three more of the bird creatures to streak toward me.

I let out a snarl as I swung my blade, slicing two of them in half and leaving the third missing a leg.

I heard wild laughter and turned to see Zorja swinging her maul as though it was a toy, crushing any of the creatures that dared get close. "Ah, this makes me feel young again!" She shouted to me. She swept the maul around her head and batted away one of the creatures as it dove at her.

I grinned at her enthusiasm as I quickly switched my sword into gun mode and blasted several of the things that had started going for easier prey. The chamber clicked empty and I began to reload when I heard a gasp of pain.

My heart leapt into my throat and I whirled around to see that one of those creatures had gotten behind Zorja and gotten its talons stuck in her back. It flapped wildly, trying to pull her away from the wing of the airship, evading her wild strikes. I let out a yell and began to stomp my way toward her, even as I watched, one of her boots came away from the metal. She pivoted on the one boot, swinging her arms in an attempt to keep her balance releasing her grip on the maul, the weapon flew out into the air and plummeted toward the ground below.

She flung her arms wildly overhead, trying to bat the thing away with her bare hands, I lifted my gun, took careful aim, and fired, connecting solidly with its head. It feel limp, and dropped, hanging loosely from her back like some grotesque backpack.

Before she could regain her footing, another one of the creatures swooped in and collided with her chest, its sharp claws scrambling to pierce her chest armor. I cursed as I reached for another round, damn it, I wasn't going to make it with these damn boots slowing me down. Maybe if I-

I never got to complete that thought as the creature's claws finally found purchase, sinking deep into Zorja's torso. She let out a scream and there was a flash of unnatural blue light, temporarily blinding me.

When my vision had restored itself, I gagged with horror. Zorja's entire right arm had changed, it was covered with a white, chitinous substance that even as I stared I realized was bone. It twisted around her arm, ending in five nightmarishly long fingers that glinted in the pale moonlight. Even as I watched, she let out a yell and slammed the limb into the creature, the fingers piercing its flesh like tissue paper. The creature let out a screech of pain, then fell still. Zorja finally slammed her other foot back onto the wing, regaining her balance. She stood there for a moment in shock, staring at her alien-looking limb. Then she fell slowly to her knees, her eyes wide with disgust and terror.

She turned to me, "What the hell is happening to me?" She asked softly, barely audible over the screeching of the creatures.

It must have been the curse that Kali had been talking about, I thought, but she had said that it was going to be slow acting...

'Stress is an excellent catalyst.' Zorja's own words echoed in my head, somehow the fight must have accelerated its progress.

Before I could theorize further, the ship began descending rapidly and I looked in the distance to see a large dome like structure with a massive, gaping hole that lead into its interior. I guessed that it was the hangar that Winter had been talking about.

"Qrow?" I winced at the desperation in her voice.

"I… I don't know Zorja." I told her truthfully, "Whatever it is, we'll fix it, let's get inside and Kali can…"

"No, Qrow… I can hear him… whispering inside my head…" Her face twisted in anguish, "The Weaver, he… he wants me to…" Her nightmarish limb spasmed and she grit her teeth. "To kill you… no… to consume you…" Suddenly her face went calm and to my horror she reached down to her boots, with a sharp click she deactivated her left mag-boot.

Oh Maidens no, not again.

"Stop!" I shouted, "Zorja, fight it, we can-"

"I'm not going to turn into one of those things, Qrow…" She said stubbornly, her hand hovering over her right boot's switch, "I refuse to be forced to hurt those I care about..." She smiled sadly and my heart felt like it was going to tear in two. "It's been a good ride… take care of yourself, Qrow Branwen." And with that, she deactivated her remaining boot and threw herself off the wing, falling to the ground far below.

And just like that… I had failed again.