Deep in the tomb, Cinder's group had made it to another chamber that on the path to the crypt of the Alpha Grimm. Back in olden times, the first Huntsmen took all precautions to make sure any tomb raiders would have an impossible way of getting inside. The first of these chambers on their path seemed harmless; simply a large hall made out of sandstone.

"This seems almost too easy." Mercury said as he and one of the White Fang initiates, an ox Faunus, began walking forward. A few steps inside, the floor shuddered as a tile they were standing on gave way. The silver-haired kickboxer backpedaled off in time to make it back to where they started. The initiate however was not so lucky. He fell through the hole where the tile once was, giving out a yell for help before it abruptly stopped. Looking down into it, Mercury found him impaled on a set of iron spikes, giving a few involuntary twitches as he bled out.

"Too easy, eh?" Emerald asked.

"This isn't much of a hinderance." Cinder said, rolling her eyes. Waving a hand in the air, glowing with her dark orange aura, a burning set of portals opened on either end of the hall, walking through it and appearing on the other side. "Well?" she called, gesturing to the portal.

Not wasting a second, the group continued onward through the portal. "I almost feel bad for that kid." Timber commented. "He actually got some with that technique I taught him."

"Seriously, Timber?" Chains asked. "You are really turning into a sick fuck if you're getting others to do that."

"Whatever. He's dead anyway." the offender shrugged before pushing Taiyang and Ironwood through.

"Timber is it?" Taiyang asked as the three exited the other side. "I have to ask this. Why do you force yourself like that on women?"

Timber took a long look at the older blonde. "The fuck are you trying? That psychosomatic shit isn't going to work on me." he sneered. "What do you care anyway?"

"Because that sixteen year old you had six months ago happens to be my daughter." Taiyang glared, his eyes glowing red.

"Taiyang..." Ironwood warned.

Timber gave a grin under his mask. "Well then, I gotta say..." he said, dragging Taiyang up to the height of his collar. "She was one of my favorites. Virgins always have the tightest little.." He was cut off as Taiyang's patience grew too thin, surging his head forward with such force, it shattered Timber's full facemask at the jaw, also causing him to spit out part of his tooth along with some red spittle. "GAH! YOU LITTLE FUCK!" he roared, driving a fist to his face a few times, blow after blow leaving Taiyang's face more and more bruised.

"That's enough, Timber!" Cinder ordered as Chains grabbed his fist and held him back before he could do any more damage. "Remember, we need those two both alive."

Timber snarled as he took what was left of his mask off and let it drop to the ground, where it broke in half and was left discarded. "He had it coming." he growled, letting go of the now unconscious and bleeding captive.

"Geez, Chains. Learn to control your pets." Roman commented, inspecting the handiwork of Timber's beatdown.

"You'll be his next chew toy if you don't get back to moving, Roman." Chains spat back.

"He's right. We should get as close as we can before Beacon arrives." Cinder ordered as she began to walk down the next corridor leading to the second hall.

"Beacon? They're attacking you?" Ironwood asked. "That's insane!"

"Having a lack of faith in your allies, James? That's not a trait I'd expect from a high general." Emerald scoffed.

"They're just kids taking on an army. Why would Glynda even let them engage you?" he asked again.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, General. Now move." Timber ordered, dragging the unconscious Taiyang down the hall, pausing as he noticed Chains standing in the doorway. "Chains, let's get moving."

"I'm staying here. Someone's got to guard you if they manage to get through." he said, shaking his head. Cinder thought it over before giving a nod as they continued further into the crypt.

"We're about one minute out!" Glynda reported to the other dropships. "Be ready to jump and hit the ground fighting, all of you!" she finished as she looked forward through the cockpit window. Vale was rocketing towards them as the group of Beacon ships drew closer to the occupied city. From the occupied carrier, they could see a collection of stolen Atlesian gunships coming towards them in attack formation, each seeming to be piloted by AK units or White Fang members from the few she could make out with her hawk-like vision.

"Professor, they're coming right at us!" Weiss called.

"Stay on course!" Glynda ordered the pilot as she pried open the bay door, the sudden rush of wind being forced into the compartment and nearly sucking out the majority of its passengers.

"What in Monty's name are you doing, Glynda?" Professor Port yelled as she did not answer. Instead, she carefully climbed up the door to on top of the wing. Steadily walking herself along the top until she came to the roof of the aircraft, she repositioned her glasses on the bridge of her nose as she poised her crop so it was facing the oncoming enemy squadrons.

"I'll have this first dance." she said to herself as she began casting a wide glyph just as the gunships came into range. The glyph began magnetically pulling every machine gun round fired at the air convoy into a wide whip of spectral dust and shrapnel that, with a flick of her crop, was lashed across the first line of enemy gunships, destroying three entire squadrons in one blow. "Peter! Order the students to attack!" she called as she readied the whip for the next wave.

"You heard the lady students! TALLY-HO!" Professor Port ordered as the dropship dropped low enough for the students to jump out, the eccentric professor leading the way as he charged out, landing on an Atlesian gunship. After firing his blunderbuss at the canopy and destroying the flight controls and their robotic pilot inside, he rode the wreck down to the ground, where he began attacking a couple of White Fang guards that had amassed on the ground to watch the oncoming force.

Other students began doing the same. JNPR was the first to leap as Pyrrha used her semblance to drag a gunship alongside their dropship. When a bay door on the side opened and a couple of White Fang members peeked out to fire their sub-machine guns at them, Jaune leaped across, bashing one off and down to the ground below with a shield bash while Ren stunned the other by shooting the weapon out of his hand with Stormflower. After Nora and Pyrrha jumped across, they subdued the pilot and carefully as they could tried to land the gunship to the ground, which ended in them half-crash landing into the base of a clock tower. Once the dust had settled and Jaune, Pyrrha and Ren gave sighs of relief, Nora was the first to speak. "WHEE! Let's do that again!"

Back in the air, STRM and CFVY were having their own trouble as their gunship was having trouble fending off the gunships. Even with Coco and Rocco hanging out the sides, gunning down enemy aircraft with her minigun and his thunder cannon, they happened upon a squadron out of Professor Goodwich's line of sight.

"This isn't going to be easy!" Coco called.

"Did you EXPECT it to be? We're in a war after all!" Fox smugly called back.

"Hey, I don't see you helping, Alistair!" Rocco snapped as he blew apart another gunship.

"Just shut up and get ready to jump!" Coco ordered.

"But we haven't reached the rendezvous point!" Velvet called.

"Well we're gonna have to since we just lost engine one!" Coco called, looking at the smoking engine on the wing on the left side.

"And engine two's no longer on fire!" Rocco added, the engine out the door on the right billowing grey smoke.

Not wasting a moment, both teams jumped out, landing hard on a rooftop below while their dropship crashed into a shopping center next to them.

"Wasn't that your favorite clothing store, Coco?" Mei asked.

"Just..." Coco started, her eye twitching with anger. "Just go check if the pilot's alright."

"Aw shit! Looks like STRM and CFVY's bird just went down!" Sun remarked, looking out the side of his team and SABR's dropship. Like the one carrying the third year teams, they had their members firing at ships from the bay doors, Neptune on the right with his lightning rifle and Rowan on the left with his sniper. Even though they were each in a class of their own, both weapons weren't exactly as ineffective as the heavier caliber guns such as Coco's or Nora's against aircraft.

"We've also got other things to worry about, Sun!" Neptune called, removing his goggles for a better look at something glinting in the sunlight ahead on top of the roof of a partially damaged apartment building. As they got closer, something flew off from it, directly towards them. His eyes grew wide as he realized the silhouette of the Paladin firing off a second rocket as assurance, "They've got anti-air! BRACE!" he warned as the two rockets suddenly exploded without even touching their dropship. Looking to his side, he noticed Bai next to him now, the beam of his hard light drawstring still quivering slightly from the two arrows he just fired off. "Nice aim!"

"Thanks, but we gotta get that thing down before it shoots anyone of us down!" Bai called back.

Thinking quickly, Silver turned to his fellow team leader. "Sun, you think if you took Ash and Scarlet with you, you could bring that thing down?"

"Worth a shot." Sun pondered before positioning himself to jump. "Pilot! Bring us back around towards that Paladin!"

"Careful out there, kids!" the pilot called back as he took a sharp turn right back towards the Paladin, which was repositioning to stay on course with its target. "Hurry! I've got a lock on alert!"

Sun, Ash and Scarlet jumped out just in time, Ash using his hidden gun to fire off a round to detonate the rocket just as it launched from the firing tube, blanketing the rooftop in smoke. While the Paladin could see easily with its sensors, the White Fang members also on top of the roof, were having a hard time seeing through the cloud, or watching out as the three students easily took them out while Scarlet simultaneously laid a trap for the mech as it bore down on Sun and Ash.

"Say goodnight, brats!" the voice of the mech pilot cackled from the built in speaker, his laser cannon charging up. Sun and Ash jumped forward towards the mech as the round fired off. It shook the roof, and even caused it to crumble and slant at an angle causing the giant robot suit of armor and weaponry to lose its balance.

"Scarlet, now!" Sun called. With a strong tug on his gloved hand holding Sienna Strands, the garotte wires Scarlet weaved around the legs of the machine suddenly tightened, tripping the mech and causing it to fall to the street below, exploding on impact.

"Hell yeah! It worked!" Scarlet cheered as their dropship let off the rest of SABR and SSSN to join them.

"Great work, guys." Sage commented. "But we spotted more anti-air installations like that one from the air."

"I already reported it back to Beacon. Oobleck's giving us the okay to deviate from out orders to start taking them out," Silver reported.

"Where do we start then?" Sun smirked, tucking his gunchucks into his inner shirt pockets as he got ready to do some free running to the next target.

"Almost there!" Blake commented, looking ahead as they noticed their dropship growing ever closer to their target: Ironwood's carrier, which had been serving as the White Fang's floating base of operations since the occupation. They had carved a path through for them and Adam and Neo's team, who's dropship was directly behind theirs, thanks to the platinum blonde on top bashing any gunship to come in range of her whip aside, as well as Yang giving some support fire with her gun gauntlets.

With the last of the massive battleship's vanguard of hijacked Atlesian gunships out of the way, both teams vaulted through what remained of the bridge window, still littered with the crash from Taiyang and Raven's entrance earlier to save Ozpin and General Ironwood. "You know who to look for." Glynda reminded as she and the students readied themselves to intercept a large group of Knights marching up to them. In front stood a few White Fang members armed with various times of weapons and firearms. In the middle of all them stood a Faunus with glasses over his Grimm mask, aiming a pistol at them.

"You made it to our trap. Congratulations." Perry smiled rather sadistically, yet non-menacingly.

"Trap?" Yang gasped as a wall of gunfire was sent in their direction. They all took cover behind the rotting fuselage of the wrecked dropship as the hailfire continued.

"Damn...they've got an absolute offense going on." Adam cursed.

"And I need to recharge my aura from getting us this far." Glynda added.

"Then it looks like we need a perfect defense." Weiss spoke up vainly. Drawing her rapier, she began casting a set of glyphs in front of the fuselage, absorbing the damage they would've done. Once they were up, their enemies ceased firing and decided on a ore direct approach. The Knights began to charge intward towards the glyphs. Ready for them, Blake, Adam and Neo vaulted over the wreck, meeting the machine force head on and cutting their way through them.

"Guys! Give them some covering fire!" Yang ordered as she began firing off rounds at the Knights in each of the three's blind spots.

Bit complied ad unsheathed the dual bladed scythe on his back, folding it into its machine gun form before decimating a line of Knights advancing on Neo. "What's the matter? Having trouble getting to us?" he teased before firing towards Perry and the other White Fang initiates on the bridge.

"Don't get so comfortable!" Perry snapped as he and the others charged, two bullrushing Blake and knocking her aside while another few surrounded Adam and Neo. Before one could even lift his arm to strike at Neo with his sword, he was pinned to the wall next to him by a crossbow bolt. Looking towards the direction it came from, he found the shooter to be aiming down at him and his group, his crossbow slowly changing back to its assault rifle form. He then unleashed a torrent of rounds on the ones surrounding his fireteam.

"Nice aim, Skylar." Adam commented.

"That was nothing." Skylar grinned as he turned his rifle on another group of Knights while the rest of the group began moving forward towards Perry. While WBY, Adam and Neo finished the rest of the Knights, Glynda and Bit made it up to Perry, whose pistol had just run out of ammo. Desperately, he panicekd and threw the handgun at Bit, hitting him in the face, which barely phased the Huntsman as his machine gun unfolded back into its scythe form.

"Umm...I give up?" Perry spoke, chuckling nervously as he put a hand behind his back.

"After trying to knock me out? Not even close." Bit growled, getting close enough for Perry to reach of and stab him in the chest with the hidden shiv he produced. Barely reacting to the blade jutting into his chest, Bit grabbed Perry by the arm shoving the weapon into him and flung him out the window and screaming as he plummeted to the ground below.

"Bit, are you okay?" Neo asked, as the deranged scythe user pulled out the shiv, the wound suddenly healing as an orange aura radiated around it.

"Yeah, my semblance has this taken care of." he nodded, grabbing one of the surviving White Fang initiates by his collar and propping him up on the captain's chair.

"Okay, bud. Start talking." Yang threateningly ordered. "Where's Cinder and my dad?"

"Th-they're not here! They went down to the dig site not too long ago!" he blubbered. "Look, I got a family back in Vacuo. Don't kill me like you did Per-" He was cut off from begging more as Bit knocked him out, knowing they had all the information they really needed.

"The dig site?" Glynda gasped, wide eyed at a sudden realization. "They found it!"

"The tomb? Oh crap!" Yang jumped, running for the door out of the bridge. "We need to get down there!" she exclaimed as hit a button to open the doors. On the other side as they slid open stood a familiar, ginger-haired girl their age, her eyes flickering as if they were experiencing static.

"Penny?" Weiss called out, surprised to see the odd girl unharmed after being in Vale all this time. She and the others were even more surprised as she grinned crazily, her swords beginning to spin in a circle in front of her. "Targets acquired. Firing in 3..." she began counting down in an emotionless voice.

"Penny, what the hell are you doing?" Yang asked.

"2..."

"We're your friends, remember?" Blake tried reasoning with her, to no avail.

"1..."

"Children, get back!" Glynda snapped as she and Adam rushed forward, the platinum blonde taking the lead just as Penny fired off her laser attack, hitting Professor Goodwich at point blank and sending her spiraling into the wrecked dropship still intact somehow after the blast had settled. She crashed against it hard, leaving a sickening crunching sound that echoed in the bridge before limply falling to the floor among the severed remains of the destroyed Knights. Adam was luckier. He stumbled aside just in time as the laser fired off, locking swords and exchanging blows with Penny while the others ran over to Professor Goodwich's side.

"Professor!" cried Weiss as she made it to her first. She looked to be in bad shape. Her clothes were torn from the blast, her hair disheveled, bloody cuts across her body, and her back bent awkwardly from being forced against a hard and jagged metal surface.

"I-is she..." Yang stuttered, unsure if the dean of Beacon was still breathing.

"She's alive, but barely." Blake noted, placing an ear to her chest, hearing a feint heartbeat. "We need a medevac for her as soon as possible."

"If we can survive long enough for one to get here." Neo looked on grimly as Penny began gaining the upper hand with her cold calculated attacks against Adam's swordsmanship. After one of his strikes missed, three more swords of Penny's drove themselves at him in a downward slash, knocking him to the ground.

"Adam!" Blake gasped as Penny positioned her swords for the kill

"Termination in progress..." Penny said flatly, surging her swords forward. Before Adam could reel backwards or Blake charge forward to protect him, the sound of metal clashing against metal echoed throughout the room. Everyone looked up in shock as they saw a new arrival save Adam's life by blocking Penny's strike with her weapon, coming out of nowhere in a flurry of rose petals.

"R-Ruby?"

Holy shit, how'd Ruby get there so fast?

More importantly, holy shit, how'd I get so productive so fast, right?

Unfortunately, the sudden increase in updates slows here. I'm working all weekend and that's going to slow me down a bit on working this. Expect what comes next for the battle to come by this Monday.

And before I forget, we had another OC I forgot to mention after his mention last chapter:

Skylar Marston belongs to Theshadowhunter216

Anyway, I gotta wrap this up. It's nearly 4 in the morning and as I finish this, I'm really fucking tired XD. See you lads and lasses next time!