My god did I drop the ball with releasing this. Between school starting back up and getting a part time job this was a nightmare to finish. Hopefully the volume finale will be up in a timely fashion, the least I can promise you is that it WILL be out before the real Volume 5 begins. Now please, enjoy.

Chapter 32: Rock Bottom

Ruby was getting pretty damn tired of feeling hopeless. Others were fighting somewhere in the city, the muffled blast of gunshots floated through the stagnant air around her yet all her attempts to track down it's source were met with dead ends and looping streets that emptied her into identical turns and plazas. Strangely no smoke seemed to rise from any of the ensuing battles, as if some unknown force were blocking them from her sight.

Ruby didn't know how but she felt something strange resonating deep within the city, a pulse of pure energy that spread throughout the city, giving it an ambient power. The flow was barely noticeable, but steady and rapid, almost like a heartbeat. Her head ached and vision grew hazy. It felt as if her eyes were beginning to burn.

"This must be what Ozpin told me about, the power of the Silver Eyes, the Eyes of a Wizard." She thought in her strained mental haze.

A voice came from behind her. "Oh so we do listen from time to time. Though we did ignore his advice and came here knowing it was a trap, so zero points for us."

Ruby spun around to face the source of the voice but found nothing but darkness, the subtle stream of what she assumed was magic energy intensified and compounded around her, the delicate river that winded through the streets now formed and swirling dome around her and her surroundings.

"Who's there!" Ruby shouted.

The magic flow moved once again, almost solidifying right next to her. "Do we really need to do this whole song and dance again?"

As if out of thin air an exact copy of Ruby stepped from the shadows. No not exact, there was a cruel harshness in her eyes, like the version of hr from her nightmare a few nights back.

"So how many people are we going to kill today? And do please try not to cry again, it puts way too much strain on a pretty face like ours. We wouldn't want Yang and the others to worry again right?" She said with an easy smile. There lay another difference between her and the Ruby of reality, this one lacked the black bags of insomnia that had become a trademark of her own face these past months.

The real Ruby placed a hand on her collapsed scythe. "If you care about my stress levels then please step aside, I'd rather not kill anyone today and I definitely would like to avoid killing myself."

The nightmare Ruby snorted. "Oh that is quite the choice of words coming from us don'tcha think? She said eying the real Ruby's arm.

The real Ruby scowled. "We're done here" she said confidently as she strode past the illusion of herself.

However this version of her wasn't done listening to herself talk. "Oh we seem to think we're being all heroic now don't we. Ignoring our inner demons and whatnot." She grabbed the real her by the shoulder and forced her to turn around.

Leaning in the nightmare Ruby brought her unhinged silver eyes towards her real counterpart's tired ones. After a few long seconds she sighed and stepped backwards, a new emotion appeared across her face, annoyance.

"I don't like this little angsty phase you've gotten us into, why can't we just go back to how it used to be?"

The real Ruby's scowl deepened. "And just what do you mean by that?"

The fake Ruby smiled and laughed while spinning jovially on her heels like a little school girl. "Back to when things were simple, when we could just be a hero and not worry about these nonsense 'consequences' we've cooked up in that dumb little head of ours." She playfully tapped the real Ruby on the head not unlike how Weiss used to when she acted like a child.

The real Ruby shook her head. "You don't honestly think we can go back can you? We've killed someone dammit!" She shouted.

Ruby ran her hand through her hair, at this rate she was beginning to wonder if by the end of all this they'd be grey. "I had this stupid little fantasy about being a hero in my head, a shining light that always chased away the dark. But the more I travel the more light I see in shadows and the more black I see in me!" Her voice grew even louder, though through the cloud of magic around her she doubted anyone but her and herself heard. "The farther I go the more grey everything becomes. I thought everything would be so simple, but it's not and it will never be!"

There was a moment of silence, both Rubies sizing the other up until the nightmarish one chuckled.

"What's so funny?"

The fake Ruby's smile widened. "We still fancy ourselves a huntress right? A person striving to do the right thing?"

The real Ruby hesitated for a moment before nodding.

"And remind us, what do we think is right for this world?"

"To protect our friends, to stop the war, and stop the Grimm."

The fake Ruby clapped her hands together. "So that is White, and what of those who were to stop you? Those that try to kill you? They are Black as night."

She jumped for joy as she broke into a fit of giggles, the real Ruby taking a cautious step backwards.

Mania in her eyes the false Ruby spoke once more. "And it's as simple as that! You're the hero so what you want is what's Right and all others are dead Wrong!"

The real Ruby clenched her fists. "They're still people."

The fake Ruby grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close. "They don't have to be, just think of them as any other worthless Grimm. Did those Heroes in those books weep over the carcass of dragons? Did they feel pity for the corrupt kings or thieving lords they rent asunder? Stop trying to make things complicated, you want simple, you want to be able to sleep at night after a good purging of your enemies? Your friends are right and deserve to live, your enemies are wrong and deserve to die! Black and White! There, it's all simple again!"

The psychotic shadow of Ruby pushed the real version onto the ground. She crouched to the ground next to her, the magic surrounding them seemed to condense even further to the point where Ruby could barely move. "Everyone is counting on us, they need a hero, not some little emo shit that cries over her victims. Sure Mercury whispered those sweet little nothings into your ears but you and I both know he was just trying to make you feel better, they all were! After all what kind of leader would just sit around and let their underlings do the killing while they sat back and stuffed their face with cookies? They need a leader that gets their hands dirty! It's so simple, so Black and White. There is no middle ground, only what must be done and the people you need to kill to do it. Now why don't we get over this little phase and get back to being the heroic smiter of evil? I know it's what you want!"

Ruby gazed up at her double. At first she thought she was pretty without those bags that plagued her own eyes in reality, but what she saw was not beauty. Beneath the untouched and rested face was something broken, what she glimpsed from under those priceless silver eyes was not the dream like piece of her past she promised but instead a black hole. A void of disjointed excuses and flimsy justification that masked a madness that consumed her.

What she had said struck a chord deep within her. Despite her convictions she felt a part of her, perhaps the very part of her mind that she was seeing take corporeal form, wanted desperately to give into the sad delusion before her. It would be so easy to simply tune out her enemy, imagine them to be grimm masquerading as humans, maybe she could even hum a chipper tune while she chopped them to pieces, a pair of rose tinted headphones to block out the screams. But gazing into the crazed vacant stare of those heartless eyes told her a truth greater than anything the phantom of want that perched next to her could rant. There was no salvation in denial, only a lonely facade, and frankly she was done pretending.

"Come on, it's si-" The real Ruby didn't let her doppelganger finish and instead elected to jam the spiked tip of her scythe through her chest.

After a high pitched gasp the fake fell silent, physically unable to talk.

The real Ruby pulled her copies' head down to her level and spoke forcefully. "Good, I thought you'd never shut up. You're right about one thing you know, I do need to grow a spine, but I'm not going to become some soulless husk pretending to be human like you! It doesn't matter who they are, my enemies are people and I'm not going to disrespect them by thinking any less of them!"

With a twist of her weapon her fake shattered like glass without another peep. The magic field around her retreated and the flow of power throughout the cavern returned to normal.

She let out a heavy sigh as she lay backwards on the cold stone street. After resting for just a few brief moments to catch her breath she hoisted herself to her feet and assessed the situation. Focusing her mind she felt the slightest of changes in the flow of magical energy, there was another, larger sphere only a few block and turns away.

"Hold on guys, leaders coming."

Within a few minutes of jetting off with her semblance she closed in on the large blip of magic in which she realized why the gathering of magic was larger than that of the one that had enshrouded her previously, this one had ensnared two people.

To her left she saw Weiss standing as still and unresponsive as a statue while a man and a woman dressed in all white sat at a small table a few feet in front of her sipping tea leisurely. To her right was a more disturbing scene. Blake lau beaten and bruised with chains binding her arms and neck like the leash like a dog. Holding the end of the leash was an illusion of Adam who violently pulled on her chains as he dragged and threw her across the jagged ground. With each infliction of pain Blake cried out in agony.

Deducing that Blake was pretty obviously in greater danger, Ruby rushed towards her and cut the metal chains in half with a single movement of her scythe. Ruby quickly scooped up the half conscience Blake in her arms. "Blake, Blake can you hear me?"

Adam looked down at Ruby with silent annoyance, like she had just damaged a toy of his.

Blake's eyes laboriously shifted open to gaze vacantly at the red headed girl before her. "Oh thank god" Ruby said with a cautious sigh of relief.

"Stop" Blake whispered to no one in particular.

Adam slowly began to step forward towards them, his end of her metallic leash in is hand. Ruby cocked the barrel of her sniper rifle as best she could while not dropping Blake and aimed it roughly at Adam's chest.

"You heard her, move one inch closer and you're gone."

Blake grabbed Ruby weakly by the edge of the shirt. "N-no, it's ok. Only one person should-should suffer-suffer for my past."

Ruby glanced down at her friend. A false smile was struggling to form across her face. "I-I can't run away, not anymore, not after I promised you guys." She winced at the pain from her wounded right arm before speaking weakly. "I won't run but I can't win. So i'll stand and take it. I won't run from it anymore."

Adam yanked on his end with abrupt violence. Despite there being no more chain connecting the two Blake's body still reacted by being pulled aggressively into the ground head first with a groan of pain. Adam tried to pull her towards him but Ruby quickly latched to her, wrapping her thin arms around her waist, and digging her boot heels into the dirt below them.

"You think I'm just going to let you do this alone? That any of us will?" Ruby growled while under the stress of the fake Adam's strength.

Blake weakly looked back up at Ruby before her gaze fell back down to the ground. "Who are you kidding." She muttered mournfully. "I've had this tailing me for my whole life. You really think I can beat it? Still just a kid."

Before Ruby could continue trying to snap Blake out of her daze something caught her attention out of the corner of her eyes. Leaning against a nearby rock, half covered in shadow as if the darkness was coming from his very being was a man in his mid twenties covered in black rags and scars with two massive meat cleavers strapped to his back. He had a set of cat ears just like Blake's only one was gnarled and nearly torn off. He stared emotionlessly down at the struggling girls with as much emotion as one would at an ant they had haphazardly stepped on.

To his left, enshrouded by the total darkness of the black fog irradiating from scared man next to him, sat another man. No, at least Ruby thought it was a man, but behind the obscuring veil whatever it was looked more like a bear, a wise old Alpha Beowulf waiting patiently for it's prey to break apart from fear and allowing it to pounce.

Blake's eyes moved upwards towards the two but immediately left them as she whimpered quietly. "I can't run anymore, but not running doesn't mean I can fight, it doesn't mean I can win. It doesn't mean anything at all."

With another yank of his wrist Adam finally dislodged the two from the ground and they were quickly being dragged through the dust and dirt towards him. He smiled as his other hand reached for his sheathed blade.

Ruby struggled against his strength while holding onto Blake with all her might. "You're a hypocrite you know that Blake?" She said with a stab of frustration in her voice.

The insult seemed to draw a small piece of lucidity from her. "You bash me for being a horrible leader, but you're being a pretty rotten team mate. You told me to stand up and not flinch in the face of death, yet here you are lying down in the mud!"

"But-"

Ruby interrupted her protest as she forcefully pulled her sniper rifle into place and shoved the trigger into Blake's hand which she clasped her own around to secure her from shaking.

Calmly and with confidence despite Adam nearly on top of her she gave Blake a command. "Blake Belladonna, as your leader I command you win this fight!"

Once again the faunus looked up to her and made eye contact. For a single moment a deep understanding seemed to pass between the two. Blake took in a deep breath and steadied herself. Peering into the scope of Crescent Rose she aimed it so the crosshairs lined up perfectly with the illusionary Adam. With the pull of a trigger the illusion shattered and the three men around them disappeared.

With the disappearance of Blake's leash the two sprawled out on the ground breathless.

Staggering to her feet despite her injuries, Blake reached out her hand to help Ruby up. "Reporting for duty captain."

Ruby smiled. "Nerd."

With a strained heave Blake returned her leader to her feet. "It's not over yet" said Ruby as she turned to look upon the prisoner of another illusion.

Despite the ruckus, Weiss and the illusion of the two people in white had not moved an inch.

"Sit here and catch your breath Blake, I'll help Weiss. Blake obeyed without protest and slumped back to the ground while Ruby stepped forward.

"Weiss?" She probed softly. As she expected her partner didn't seem to notice her, yet Ruby noticed something herself, despite appearing to be as immobile as a mountain, Weiss was shaking.

Sadly, the woman sitting down at the mirage generated table noticed as well and lifted her sight from her tea towards them. As Ruby gazed into her arctic blue eyes it felt like all the heat from the cavern had fled for it's life, leaving behind a frost so bitter it made her shrink backwards ever so slightly.

The woman spoke in a voice as rigid as the icy air she exhumed. "Child did you speak?"

Weiss' shaking intensified for a flash before returning to normal. "N-no ma'am."

The woman's gaze narrowed and her grip on her fancifully designed tea cup tightened causing Weiss to flinch as if she were hit by some wave of phantom pain.

"Did I give you permission to speak!?" She boom.

After a moment of silence the woman rolled her cold eyes. "You may speak now, but don't waste a single word."

Weiss gulped, a bead of sweat making it's way down the side of her head despite the near sub zero temperature. "I-I-I, uh." Any trace of the heiress' usual self confidence was gone, tears now began to mix with her sweat.

With all the determination of a person lazily swatting at an annoying fly the woman extended her hand outwards and what Ruby assumed was her semblance activated and suddenly a massive claw of ice sprouted out from her arm like a fountain and stopped a mere two inches from Weiss' face. In shock, she collapsed backwards onto the ground, wide-eyed with fear and shaking horribly.

The woman gave Weiss a look of disgust before evaporating her ice claw and returning to her tea. The man sitting across from her who had previously paid little attention to confrontation gave Weiss a disapproving look. "Dear don't sit on the floor, I didn't raise you to be an animal." He said before looking away, forgetting that Weiss was even there.

The obedient heiress took a deep yet quite breath and raised herself to her feet as elegantly as possible and resumed her prim, proper, and utterly terrified position she was in before the woman snapped at her.

Not quite sure how to react to what she had just witnessed, Ruby tired to pull Weiss away again. "Weiss it's not real." She whispered, making sure the illusions didn't hear her and become enraged again.

Weiss shook her head slightly. "No, she'll, she must be obeyed. Mother...mother is nice when I obey, she doesn't, doesn't get IT out."

Ruby didn't think she wanted to know what "it" was. She grabbed Weiss' head somewhat forcefully and pulled her gaze towards her. "Weiss you're stronger than this, please."

"Ru-I can't just-"

Ruby interrupted her. "Weiss, do you remember that time I was failing Math?"

Weiss' eyes shifted in confusion. "At least I got her attention." Thought Ruby.

"I was failing, Glynda said if I didn't pass I'd be held back and reassigned to a different team. But you wouldn't stand for that. When I was scared shitless of failing you helped me through two all nighters. You practically forced me to pass against my will."

Weiss' mother caught notice of their conversation and scowled. "Weiss, what are you doing."

Weiss' whole body cringed at her words and any lucidity that had returned to her in the past few moments slipped away. She violently pulled against Ruby's grip in an attempt to run back to position in front of her illusionary parents like a dog responding to its master's call.

Her leader nearly lossed her grip on her but to her luck Blake had fully recovered and grabbed Weiss by the shoulders. She spun her around so the two opposites came face to face. "Our leader is talking to you, so if you're going to stand at attention to anyone then do it to her!"

For a second Weiss broke free from the cave's spell and Ruby continued her attempts to free her completely while making a mental note to thank Blake later. "Weiss, why did you help me that time?"

"I-I did it because-"

"It's because you're a bitch Weiss. It's because you're a goddamn prickly bitch that always gets her way no matter what and doesn't let anyone rule over her. So why are you letting these two do it? Stand up and fight!"

"WEISS!" Her mother boomed, pushing her table away from her in anger as she stood up. Her tea cup fell from the table and smashed on the ground, the hot liquid flash frozen into a jagged brown crystal.

Weiss was silent for a moment as her eyes passed between her enraged mother and her worried leader. Weakly, she gave her answer. "I don't want to be here anymore."

She tried to step away from the illusion but nearly fell over. Blake caught her around the waist just in time and allowed her to lean on her for support. "Mind helping leader?"

Ruby supported the heiress from the other side. "Let's get out of here."

The three slowly began walking away when the illusion roared in anger. "Weiss you turn around this very instant you worthless Dog!"

The sound of another attack from her claw burst forth from behind them. Weiss tried to grab the hilt of Myrtenaster but her hand went limp with a twinge of resurfaced fear. In the knick of time Ruby compensated for her partner's hesitation and deployed her Crescent Rose and shot a bullet over her shoulder and shattered the vision.

"Thank you." Weiss whispered, her head leaning against Ruby's arm.

The young leader smiled. "Don't mention it sis."

….

The last thing Yang expected to see in the depths of an ancient underground city was a burning village. One second she was running through the dimly lit alcoves and the next her feet collided with the dry grass of a rural village in the midst of Summer. Every shack and quaint hovel was falling to pieces in a raging blaze. The sounds of muffled screams mixed with the howls of Grimm. Phantoms vaguely resembling fleeing victims and their beastial chasers ran in all directions around the crumbling town.

Yang was bewildered by the scale of the illusion compared to her own, the lack of detail of those in the background were likely the result of this, however she expected if she had inspected her own false adversary with a level head and closer scrutiny she would have found similar flaws and inconsistencies with the real deal. Despite its improvements in power, Emerald's illusions were still far from perfect However they were certainly enough to fool it's victim.

The scream of a young man belted out louder and clearer than any of the others. Yang turned to see Merc kneeling on the ground next to a collapsed hut. The flames bursting forth from the debris starving him off. A girl of perhaps fourteen years and sporting short blue hair was half conscious underneath the rubble.

"Coral, Coral stay with me!" Merc yelled, his voice cracking violently as he frantically clawed and yanked his way towards her only to stop with a horrified gasp as he saw a jagged plank of wood jabbed through the girl's upper abdomen.

"Oops, looks like I over did it, heh, I don't think i've got the aura left for-" She said with feigned calm before losing her strength, her head lolling forwards into the ground.

Merc quickly pulled her into his arms, the bottom half of her body covered in blood and burns. "Come on open your eyes Coral!"

The girl's eyes opened halfway and from the looks of it she wasn't long for this world. "S-sorry I couldn't protect the village, I always lagged behind you two, cough, hack, I guess I really screwed up this ti-" She stopped suddenly as she began violently hacking up blood.

With frantic and shaking hands Merc pulled out a dirty handkerchief in a vain attempt to help her but she weakly pushed it away. "Sienna, Sienna is still fighting. Go-" She trailed off as her eyes closed once again and her chest stopped moving.

Despite the blistering heat Merc was trembling all over. Haulty, despairing cries leapt from Merc's mouth. Hot tears streamed like waterfalls down his face that had turned a sunset red from raw emotion and burns.

Unable to keep watching Yang tried to forcefully grab Merc and pull him from the waking nightmare he had found himself trapped in. "Merc we need to-"

The second Yang placed her hand on his shoulder he jumped in surprise, and accidentally dropping the body of the girl named Coral back into the hungry flames that had now totally devoured the ruined house.

A bewildered and traumatized looked back at Yang in horror, the vacant look in his eyes told her that she wasn't going to be able to break through very easily.

"S-stay away you monster, stay away." His cracking voice warned before breaking into a stumbled run deeper into the blazing town.

Yang threw her fists into the air in anger. "I'm not losing you to this Merc." She muttered.

"You're not going to save him from this you know." Said a voice.

Yang spun around to come face to face with Emerald who was leaning up against a boulder at the edge of the illusionary field. Yang didn't let Emerald make the first move and attacked immediately, the concussive blasts of her gauntlets missing the thief just barely as she effortlessly leaped over them,

"Not even a little hesitation? Looks like someone didnt learn their lesson. But then again when have us humans been known to do something like that?"

Yang scowled. "You're talking to the enemy, which means you're stalling, which means you know I can beat you." Another volley went on a precise collision course that would have been undodgeable if she weren't facing someone who made a living dodging close calls.

"Or maybe I just know I'm going to win and am trying to make it last." She responded as she careened downwards into a spiral attack with her twin scythes that very nearly parted Yang from her last normal arm.

Yang shot off a blast outwards from her artificial arm and used the recoil to glide around her opponent and slam her other fist into the back of her skull. For a brief moment it seemed like the hit had rung true as Emerald's body bent forward towards the ground.

"Nice try, but you already played that hand." She thought.

Ignoring her first instinct to follow her strike up with a body slam she used the opening to retreat. Just as she left punching range Emerald's body vanished. An illusion. The real Emerald materialized out of thin air and swung her blades in a pincer attack that caught only air.

Her guard dropped from her attack, Emerald was left vulnerable to a direct hit to the face from both her gauntlets. The blast sent her spiraling into the ground but she managed to use her own momentum to spring back to her feet as if nothing had happened.

Once again the brawler's old instincts told her to rush forward, to overwhelm her with her own superior strength before she could react. But she wasn't that same person anymore, she knew that Emerald would lose in a straight power struggle, and she knew that her opponent had already taken that into account long before this fight started. Starting the rouge down she spun around and threw an aura fueled backhand to the air behind her and collided with warm skin. From the nothing that she saw Emerald's real body dropped into existence as she fell to the ground with a loud thud.

Aggravated, Emerald swung her Scythes upon their extended chains in a wide arc that caught Yang around her left ankle. A smirked crossed her face as she pulled on her weapons with incredible force. It took all of Yang's strength to not let her bones snap beneath the strain. Instead of resorting to her tried and true repertoire of brute force she decided to flow with her enemies' attack. Angling a dust powered bullet punch at the ground beneath her she launched herself into the smoke filled air above. Not letting the momentum go to waste she put all her knowledge of physics to use and hoped her strategy panned out.

Emerald was unable to see the blonde warrior behind the illusionary smoke that the autonomous illusions she had started. So when Yang came barreling from her dark ariel blanket by the force of another one of her concussive blasts away from her, to say she was caught off guard was an understatement. Her grip on her weapon loosened ever so slightly which proved to be her fatal mistake. Yang grabbed the chains around her ankle and yanked them free. As she landed a fair distance away from Emerald she used the last of her forward motion to pull hard on her end of the chain and hurtle Emerald straight through the air head first into a rock wall.

The segment of wall collapsed on impact and she was instantly buried beneath the rubble. Yang stayed where she was, kneeling in wait. Mercury needed her help and quick, but the last thing she could afford to do was underestimate her enemy. Underestimate them again.

And just as she expected, the assailant burst forth from her stone imprisonment, only this time she wasn't alone. With the murderous fury of feral harpies in their eyes, five separate versions of Emerald sped towards her with reckless abandon. Startled at the burst of power Yang quickly collected her thoughts. Emerald knew she was losing and had decided to push her semblance to the limit in a last ditch effort to win. Yang felt a familiar sense of warmth well up in the bones of her body springing forth from the small bruise on her ankle that managed to break past her aura. She was nearing her limit too.

Yang smiled. "Limits are where I thrive."

Her semblance flared and her whole body felt as light as a feather yet capable of denting steel with the littlest of effort. It was as if she could crush the world in her hand. With all this unimaginable power, Yang backed off. Backflipping away from the battalion of Emerald copies she managed to avoid allowing them to surround her and trap her in a pincer attack from all angles, however dodging an assault by five capable warriors lead her to being hit in the side by stray bullets. Flinching for just a moment her roaring semblance quickly consumed the pain. One of the Emeralds broke from the pack to attack her head on but Yang dodged by barrel rolling onto the ground beside her. With a speedy low kick to the back of her adversaries' knees brought her crumbling to the ground. Fighting with brutal speed efficiency Yang straddle the startled clone and brought both of her fists down on her head with all the force of her aura, breaking the illusionary being into pieces, returning it to the nothing that it came from.

In her slaughter of the first copy the four others had encircled her. Tossing their chain blades they wrapped around Yang's arms and legs, pulling her into a suspended entrapment. One of the four leapt into the air to begin a falling attack to finish Yang off. With all of her strength Yang broke her metallic restraints and clapped her hands into a fan of bullets that tore apart the second clone. High on adrenaline, Yang dropped back to the ground like a graceful cat and discharged her gauntlets diagonally across the ground behind her, sending her catapulting into the disoriented guard of another Emerald. Angling her projectiled self around her she landed behind their back and German suplexed her onto the a nearby rock. Her head hit the stone with a echoing crack the sent the clone into a puff of ethereal smoke, two left.

Swinging herself around to face the last two one of them had already descended upon her. A bullet smashed into Yang's forehead with enough force to snap her neck if her aura wasn't firing on all cylinders. However that direct hit was enough to cause the brawler to stagger backwards, expanding Emerald's opening. For a moment it looked as if Emerald was going to slice open Yang's stomach with her blade, but Yang's instincts kicked in and this time she let them take the wheel. Yang threw herself to the side, balancing on her right hand while she spun her legs clockwise and smacked her across the face. Her opponent was clearly on her last legs as her aura generated clone vanished with such a little impact.

Back on her feet, Yang stared down the last version of and barely standing the mercenary had a look of genuine fear in her expression as she staggered backwards. Yang resumed her typical fighting stance and ready for one final attack when she noticed something, something the reckless barbarian of her past wouldn't have picked up on. A slight disturbance in the already chaotic flow of hot smoke filled air. The sound of a person's foot crunching on gravel as it left the ground. Sidestepping to the right and lifting out her left arm she clotheslined a sixth Emerald clone that she had missed. The failed attacker slummed to the ground and burst apart like it was a bundle of confetti. The real Emerald shakily looked Yang in the eyes.

"Still not good enough, still not going to beat her-" She whispered weakly as the dim glow of her aura left her and she collapsed to the ground.

Yang let out a sigh of relief. "Ofcourse I can't beat her now, that's what I've got those clowns out there for."

Wiping the soot from the gauntlets she noticed a grimm sight in her reflection. Her golden locks were now a disgusting ash black from her gambit of diving into the cloud above at the beginning of the fight. Yang would have completely lost it, but all she felt was the ache of her bones as her semblance fizzled out and left her with only a small fraction of her aura.

"If I wasn't about to pass out I would so curbstomp you to death." She said half heartedly to Emerald's motionless body.

Turning to look at the cage of flames that now made up the center of the town she sighed. Taking down Emerald wasn't going to dispel any illusions that were already cast on the cave and it's inhabitants, which meant…

"You owe me one Mercury, you goddamn fucking clown." She muttered as she pooled her strength together to rush into the searing flames of her friend's past.

When she finally came upon Mercury to say it was a sad sight would be putting it lightly. Now the carnivorous flames had thoroughly brought the once peaceful village to ash and cinder, the smell of burning bodies surrounded and gagged her. In the middle of a single clearing obscured by smoke she saw Mercury, his silver hair tarnished by the same soot that tarnished her's, kneeling on the near molten ground with a woman in his arms.

Behind her ash stained face and singed clothing Yang thought she was beautiful. The tiniest bit of crisp golden brown hair peeked out from their blackened cover, like a drowning victim getting one last gasp of air before the impartial waves pulled her back down without effort.

"Sienna, Sienna please don't go, I-I'm here, I came back, I-I-"

The girl's eyes fluttered open, Golden Globes of purity parched for happiness as they drank in his face. Despite her crippling condition she cracked a thin smile. "I...knew...you...would...I...always...kn-" She broke into a fit of vicious coughs that ejected a grotesque mixture of blood, flim, and ash.

Mercury pulled her tighter as a defensive reflex, "Come on we have to get you out of here, to the next village, we can save you and, and, and."

"Mercury."

He looked down at her, not wanting to accept the inevitability that her wounds had brought. She slowly lifted her right hand to his face, a shimmering iron ring seemed welded to her finger. "Just let me see your face one...last..ti-" Her voice cut off as her head lulled backwards and her hand fell to her side moments before it touched him.

MErcury let out a screech of pain that perked up the ears of every grimm in Vale. He pulled something metallic from his shirt pocket. "You can't, you can't leave, not, while, not when, not when-"

Yang gasped as a tear reached her dried out eyes, it was just too cruel. In his hand was an identical ring made from steel. A pair of Steel and Iron rings, the oldest of all Anima Wedding traditions.

"We were so close."

With another earsplitting wail he pulled her corpse into a tight embrace, his head placed in the crevice between her neck and head, soaking in what little of her scent remained in her charred hair.

Sienna's eyes sprung open again yet her body remained still, leaving Mercury undisturbed. The illusion looked towards Yang and smiled, her eyes different than they were before, no longer a heavenly collage of yellow hues, they looked sullied, fallen, they were nuggets of fool's gold. A knife slid down from her sleeve into her hand and she began to raise it slowly into the air.

"NO!" Yang yelled. She thought she had finally mastered her emotions to a T, but apparently there were still things that she couldn't hold back. Before she knew what she was doing she was flung towards the two before her. Landing immediately behind Mercury, she ripped him away from the false Sienna. The fake's expression turned to one of fear as she looked towards her fiance, "Mercury, please! Save m-"

Unable to restrain herself, Yang brought her fist down on the image of the poor girl, shattering the illusion in it's entirety. Within seconds the flames, stench, and howls of grimm were gone. Everything gone, except the ash, that would always stay.

Merc still held his arms outwards as if he were still cradling his lost loved one. He slowly turned to Yang, shock in his eyes. "Y-you-"

Yang snapped out of whatever protective instinct came over her. "M-Merc, please. I-I don't know what-I-It was an illusion created by Emerald-it was going to kill you so I-"

Merc threw himself towards her, but instead of an attack he embraced her, like a decimated floodgate holding back a muddied reservoir that had collected violent downpour after violent downpour over the long years had given way to release a flood to wash away the ash that so stubbornly persisted.

After a moment of confusion Yang returned his embrace in silence, running her right hand through his dirty yet still handsomely silver hair. "There there, I'm here. There, there, just like I always will be. There, there, just let it all out."

The two sat there for a time neither could ever recall the length of, minutes? Hours? What was happening in the countless battles across the madhouse city of horrors? What behemoth lay at the end? What more could they possibly take? For now those questions meant nothing, for now they had reached Rock Bottom.

At least there was nowhere to go but up.

To any of my readers affected by hurricanes Harvey and Irma, my deepest sympathies go out to you. Here is hoping that this meager chapter by some fanfic writer who barely knows what he is doing can give you a bit of enjoyment in this hard time.