"GAAR QO BAH!" With those words, Jaune used his thu'um to will into existence a lightning bolt that streaked toward the nevermore's bone mask. The Grimm shrieked in pain as the electric attack tore a ragged black scar across the white plate and red markings. Thankfully and not, the shrill scream was drowned out by the detonation of air around the bolt.

Arslan of Team ABRN was at his side, using her Semblance to launch fireballs in the lightning bolt's wake. "We get out of this, you're gonna owe a lot of people explanations."

The blonde nodded. "I know."

Then he saw a fleeing civilian trip on the steps and fall between him and the nevermore, which took notice of the new, easy prey and lunged.

Before he even realized he was doing it, Jaune was dashing forward to interpose himself between the Grimm and the civilian. As he ran, he felt the energy of his Aura pulsing through his being. Reaching the civilian with a split second to spare, he braced himself for the impact.

Pyrrha slumped in place, her arms falling limply to her sides, as she released her Semblance. She'd done it. With the help of others, whose efforts she had felt alongside hers, she had brought Amity Coliseum down, safely. But it had come at a cost: she could hardly stand, let alone move, and fighting was out of the question.

As she felt herself start to collapse, someone grabbed her shoulders. "I've got your back, Pyrrha." One hand released while Penny directed her blades to carve a clearing amidst the Grimm around the pair.

"Thanks… Penny. I… need to… get to… the CCT Tower. Quickly." She suppressed a groan; even the act of talking was further exhausting her.

"What? Pyrrha, you can barely stand. We need to get you to a doctor, not–"

"If I… don't… go, everything… will be… for naught. At the CCT… is the… only hope… to stop this."

The Atlesian was silent for a moment, and then she lifted Pyrrha onto her shoulders and began to physically carry her to Beacon. "I'm going to trust you to know yourself. But, if you pass out and I can't wake you up, we're heading to the infirmary, instead."

A huff of air was the nearest the Mistralian was able to come to chuckling. "Perfectly… reasonable." A few seconds later, she murmured, "You're… very strong." Then the secondary effect of her Semblance found something. "Penny… is your… whole body… made of… metal?"

"I…" Penny fell silent for a long moment, as she sprinted through the streets of Vale. "Promise me you won't tell anyone?"

Pyrrha wasn't sure why there was the need for secrecy, but she tapped her chin against Penny's shoulder, the closest she could get to a nod.

She heard the Atlesian sigh. "I'm not… a real girl. I'm a synthetic person capable of generating an Aura."

"That… explains… some things." Then she remembered something she had been told.

Qrow's voice echoed in her head. "Capture it, and cram it into something else."

"Did… your Aura come… from someone else?"

There was a massive hitch in the android's step, just shy of a full stumble. "What?"

"I… think I saw the… machine… that gave you Aura."

Again, Penny took some time to respond. "My father built me because his daughter was in a coma. He wanted to bring her back, however he could. Mr. Ironwood's research gave him a way." She stopped and gingerly lifted Pyrrha off her shoulders as a whirring roar reached the Mistralian's ears. "Wait here. I'm going to catch us a ride."

"Don't… take too long." She settled and let her head loll to the side.

Penny tugged on her chin so she looked the other way. "I won't."

A Bullhead was settling down, a White Fang soldier barely visible in the cockpit. As its doors opened to disgorge Grimm, the synthetic went to work.

Blake and Typhon ran through the fairgrounds, the former staring at her Scroll as it tried to connect. Come on, come on.

Finally, the warmly familiar voice poured through from the other end. "Blake, is that you?"

"Yang! Where are you? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." There was the sound of Ember Celica discharging. "We're on Amity, working on helping the Atlas guys evac civilians. You?"

"We're at Beacon. It's crawling with Grimm and White Fang."

"Damn it."

Typhon's head twisted toward the Scroll. "Wait. Why are you evacuating the Coliseum?"

"Someone blew up that Dust crystal that gives the stadium power." The two Faunus shared a glance."Don't worry. It was brought down, safely–" The chillingly familiar screech of a nevermore interrupting her echoed out of the Scroll.

Blake's eyes widened and she held the device closer to her face. "Yang!"

"Gah! You little–! I'm gonna have to call you back, Blakey." The call went dead.

"Yang?" Tears tickled the corners of her eyes.

Ebon patted her shoulder. "I'm sure she'll be fine. There are dozens of Huntsmen and Huntresses on that structure. A single nevermore stands no chance against them."

Blake stared blankly at her Scroll for a few moments. "Right." She blinked and shut the device. "Right. Let's go."

Oreonna trotted forward a few steps and waved at the line of civilians. "Come on! Let's get you all out of here!"

The first Atlas and Amity transports were arriving at the makeshift docks that had been set up near the top of the Coliseum by the Huntsmen and Atlesian soldiers. Then a deep roar reverberated from ahead, and the crowd log-jammed as those in front tried to retreat. The Huntress-in-training looked toward the disturbance and paled, her ears backing as she took in the sight. A griffon had landed between the civilians and the aircraft, and she was the only Huntress nearby. Many of the others were busy still dealing with the nevermore that had landed in the stands. Those that weren't were much farther back helping to direct the civilians

Shifting Symphonic Discord's bow-sword into its gun form, she loosed a volley of Burn Dust bullets to get the Grimm's attention. "Over here, you son of a–" It roared at her. "Oh crap." She booked it away from both the monster and the innocents, luring the beast after her. "Crap, crap, crap!" It swiped its claws at her; she ducked out of the way and swiped back before darting away, again. Then the worst happened, and she found herself in a near-dead end with only two ways to go: back, which meant through the griffon, or off the edge, which was still taller than the Beacon Cliff. "This is gonna suck."

However, by the time she was able to turn around, the monster had taken the choice away from her and was already pouncing. With barely a gasp of surprise, she brought up her shield on instinct. She felt the impact of its claws against the metal, and then she felt nothing but air beneath her feet.

"Get…" A swing of a massive club designed after a baseball bat crushed a beowolf. "Away…" Another stroke launched a creep into the storefront across the street. "From my…" The club's wielder swept an ursa's legs out from under it before stomping on its head. "Club!" Junior shifted his weapon into its multiple-rocket launcher form and blew a small crowd of Grimm to kingdom come.

Behind him, the twins worked with each other to thin the herd in the other direction. Melanie chopped off a boarbatusk's head with a literal axe-kick, while Miltia repeatedly impaled and eviscerated a beowolf with her claws.

The other members of the Vale branch of the Black Bear Triad weren't faring quite as well against the monsters, due to their lesser training and weak Auras. Barely half of them could still fight, and their pistols weren't doing much against the Grimm. The only reason they hadn't been overrun was the innate chokepoint formed by the club's parking area.

And Atlas is no help, whatsoever, Junior thought as a droid entered the area and turned its gun on him a second before he annihilated it. A few minutes ago, all of the Atlesian robots had switched sides, ignoring the Grimm and opening fire on everything else except for the White Fang. As another 'bot and Grimm fell to his blows, the ground shuddered enough to nearly knock him off his feet. "Now what the hell's going on?"

Elsewhere in Vale, Glynda and Qrow were fighting their combined enemies when the city shook. While Qrow planted his blade to keep his footing, Glynda was able to use her Semblance to do the same. However, her eyes widened as she realized what it was. "No."

"Fado!"

Aela's lupine head whipped around toward her daughter, who then tossed the Huntress her bow and a quiver of arrows. She caught the weapons and willed away the beast, and then drew and loosed an arrow at one of Atlas' automatons, all in one smooth movement. "Thanks. I almost felt naked without these."

Wearing her full armor and holding Volendrung over her shoulder, Ma'isha rolled her eyes. "You are almost as bad as Ruby."

Leveling a flat stare at the Khajiit, Aela returned, "No. I do not call Auriel's Bow 'My Sweetheart.'"

Before either of them could trade another set of barbs, the ground jolted beneath their feet. Barely able to keep their balance, Ma'isha looked toward her mother. "Mother, what was that?"

"I don't know whether to wish I knew or be thankful that I don't." Then the sound of cracking stone reached her sensitive ears and drew her attention to the largest mountain in the area.

A moment later, the top half of the mountain exploded, revealing a monstrous creature with wide, red leathery wings and a white head attached to an otherwise midnight-black body. Both mother and daughter had seen enough similar beasts to recognize that the Grimm was a dragon, one that was far larger than any in Tamriel. "Fado?"

Much as they tried to hide it, Aela knew that they both were terrified of this new monster; despite her best efforts, Ma'isha's voice had trembled on that one word. "I think… this is one that only your father can take down."

Lejule saw the dragon emerge, and his lips split into a predatory grin. "Excellent."

Cardin turned from where he had been watching the mountain. "'Excellent?' How is this 'excellent?'"

The cat took a deep breath, hearing his dragon soul chanting for the first time in ages. "This will be the first true test of my full abilities since I came here. Keep moving the innocents to safety. I will return." He walked toward the oncoming dragon and Shouted. "MUL QAH DIIV!" As his Aura flared and its ethereal wings unfurled, he leaped into the air.

Two whirlwinds of destruction tore through rank after rank of Atlesian Knights and White Fang grunts, Blake with her blades striking down four enemies every second and Ebon's fiery breath incinerating entire swaths at a time.

The next few echelons of enemies were sent flying by whirling pulses of energy. The robots weren't given the chance to land before a massive flock of miniature white nevermores tore them apart. The White Fang collapsed in unconscious heaps. With the field clear, the two Faunus took a moment to catch their breaths and see who their helpers had been… and their eyes widened when they saw who they were.

"Blake Belladonna, what did we tell you about coming to us when something was wrong?" Weiss Schnee stepped forward, sheathing Myrtenaster as she did so.

"I would have… were this trip my choice."

Winter tilted her head, her saber still out and ready. "How do you mean?"

Typhon stepped forward. "Mr. Daytha dragged us out of bed in the middle of the night to hunt for the one who did all… this." He spread his arms to indicate the crap-show that was going on around them.

Before anything more could be said, the sound of cannon fire and the screams of people pulled the attention of the four to the Beacon courtyard's South entrance, where a Paladin was decimating a squad of Atlesian soldiers.

They began to move to assist when the whine of a Bullhead's damaged engines resounded from the North entrance. As they watched, a beowolf Alpha dropped from the damaged aircraft and landed amidst a group of civilians.

Weiss and Blake shared a glance. "Be safe."

The group split up, the sisters advancing toward the Atlesians and the Faunus pursuing the beowolf. The Grimm rounded the corner of the school cafeteria and disappeared from their sight for an instant. When they arrived, it leapt up to the entablature and climbed the rest of the way up to the roof. However, the pair couldn't pursue it because of what was happening inside the cafeteria. Blake saw it first, as a man groaned in pain. "No."

Even a deaf man could hear the tremble in her voice. And it was easy to see why. An unfortunately familiar Faunus withdrew his blade and flung away the corpse of the Atlesian soldier he had stabbed.

"Adam?"

His smirk chilled Ebon to the bone. "Hello, my darling. And you as well, traitor."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Beware; character death will be coming, soon. Also, the duel I've been waiting to write ever since I started this story.

EDIT: With the newest RWBY Chapter's revelation of Jaune's true Semblance, I stripped that part out of this chapter.