Author's Note: Be sure to check out my Patr eon account. Every little bit helps. Thank you all so much for sticking around. We're coming to the last few chapters of The White War arc.


"Where are we?" asked Lia as they crept through a tiny, damp tunnel. The crunch underneath their boots nearly made her hesitate in asking.

"Catacombs," whispered Duncan.

"Gotta be," affirmed Valentine.

In the lead, Yahto lit the way with a glowing blue fist. For several long minutes, they traveled in silence and Lia could only imagine the battle that was taking place only a few miles away. She desperately hoped that Janus was, if not safe, then alive.

"Now we travel through their domain. Tread silently. Even the crunch of bone will wake them."

Lia and Valentine exchanged glances.

The tunnel opened up into a large chamber. Though unlit, the room was not dark. A sourceless green light permeated the chamber. Along the walls were simple black sarcophagi. At the head of the room, on either side of a thick, iron door, were two more, built slightly more ornately than their brethren. Yahto, quietly as a mouse, began to scurry towards the gate. He motioned for them to cross.

Quietly, the acquiesced, and joined up with him. The young man pulled a ring of keys from his belt pouch achingly slowly. He lifted one of the keys to the door lock and slid it in. It didn't work.

Valentine began to sweat nervously and he massaged his shoulder joints, where his spiked piercings screwed into their base plates.

Another key and another failure. The third key clicked quietly and Yahto's eyes widened as several loud thunks echoed throughout the chamber.

Everyone winced and cowered for a moment.

Several moments of silence later and they collectively breathed a sigh of relief. "Too close," Valentine said.

The lids of the two ornate sarcophagi splintered. Lia smacked Valentine over the head.


Ruby? Ruby! "...Ruby?" The voice pulled the huntress from her slumber and she flinched as a wave of pain cascaded through her head.

"Ruby, are you okay?" asked Weiss, frantically checking over her wife.

"I'm fine, Weiss. Ow...maybe not a hundred percent, but I'm still here."

"What happened?" asked Blake.

Ruby hefted her gauntleted hand. "This." She tried to stand but Weiss gently held her down. "I think it reacted to something, either the story, or the voice in Yang's head."

"Way to make me sound not crazy," Yang muttered.

"We need to go," Ruby said, trying to stand once more. "You need to go back to Mistral and I need to go to the Vault."

"No," Weiss said. "I'm not going to lose another year with you. I'm not."

"Weiss," Ruby pleaded. "I need time. He's here. He's here right now."

"They'll need us," Blake pointed out.

"What is so blasted important that you have to subject yourself to that awful place again?" Weiss asked. Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes and she buried her face in her elbow, trying to hide them.

"A vision," Ruby said absently, her wife's anguish lost on her. "Quickly, we need to go now."

"Bah," Yang swore. "I could've used a warm-up first."

Ruby snapped her fingers and the red Repository gateway opened. Yang and Blake grabbed their gear and stepped through.

"Ruby..." Weiss begged.

"You need to go, now. You're all about to get a huge head start and I'm going to need as much time as possible to catch up." She looked up at Weiss. "Buy me that time."

The portal swallowed Weiss whole as Ruby opened it around her. She tossed the tome Weiss had been reading and her sword and pack through the portal next and then closed the portal.

"Okay," she whispered. Her Gauntlet blazed with white and red light. "Show me."


"Rally to the Praetors! Rally!" The Empress shouted as she removed her large sword from the chest of a Prismgard. Around her, arrows sprouted from thin air and felled men that she'd missed. The tide had changed and the Legion surged forward. All but a few of the Prism's siege engines had taken their beastly forms and entire squads would gang up to take them down.

Leading the rally, Sienna flourished her dual gladii around her, standing on a hill of corpses and soaked in their blood. With such a large source around him, Zaafiel's hemokinesis worked in overdrive. He hovered behind Sienna, crimson blades lashing out with reckless abandon as Nox's bullets wizzed past his face, often just barely missing him to pierce the helmet of a soldier he'd been unaware of. Arachne took advantage of the turmoil to let loose and everywhere she went, the Prismgard cowered in fear of the were-spider. Algen coursed through her legs and assisted her by slashing ankles and throats alike.

Occasionally they saw the other Praetor as a streak of red, bounding from place to place with the strength of ten men.

"Archers!" cried a Prismgard lieutenant before his head flew from his shoulders. A horn blew. Large banners of Light flipped from Purple to Red, then from Red to Green. The walls of the City of Ages filled with more soldiers, all holding bows woven of Blue with golden Yellow strings. The archers drew the bows, each as tall as their wielders, and arrows of Red formed. With an unseen command, the archers let loose their arrows, scouring the battlefield with mystical Red fire. Dozens of Legionaries fell and once again, the momentum was halted.

Janus paused, in his Rage, he'd noticed—a figure of white strolling the battlefield. Gavin… "It needn't be this way, Praetor," said the now scarred prophet. "Lay down your arms. Pledge your lives to me. And live. It's that simple." The man almost seemed sincere, his eyes genuinely pleading.

"No," growled Janus. "Death before Dishonor."

With a sigh Gavin turned, his ghostly apparition back to the battle. Janus leapt back into the fray.


They were huge, hulking, and wrapped in bandages that smelled of death and decay. Both were slender—nearly skeletal—but with preserved skin of ashen grey. "They aren't like the others…" Val whispered. "And no life energy."

"They aren't zombies," Lia whispered back.

"Archagetai," Yahto hissed. "The Spartan Kings."

Each figure drew an oversized sword that looked more like a single piece of sheet metal than a real weapon, and gathered power in their other hand. One was red and the other was blue.

"Where Drake can return life, he can also seal it away. If the Spartan traitors learned of this…" Yahto muttered sadly. "I am sorry for my part in all of this."

Lia placed a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder in reassurance. "We need to let them know." Lia grabbed her scroll and threw it to Duncan. "Stay back and record this. Valentine," he nodded, "I need ye to figure something out. Let yer rebellious streak shine."

Val grinned and nodded. He and Duncan sprinted to the back wall as Lia unwrapped the bronze chains from her arms, hefting Rosemary and Rue from her satchels. "We got this, right?"

Yahto swallowed and nodded. "Sure. Whatever you say."

Lia charge forward and whipped her chains around flung the buzzsaws at the Archagetai. The blue Archagetai charged forward and neatly knocked away the blades as the red rushed forward to take advantage of the opening. Lia stumbled backwards when Yahto rushed in, blocking the gigantic sword with his tomahawks. Hinto, Makoce, and Ciqala manifested themselves from Yahto's bracelet and rushed forward, snapping jaws and growling at the Spartan Kings.

Jumping, Lia swung her blades once more, catching the red in the arm, right above the elbow. With a heave and a yell, she yanked the weapon away. Against a normal opponent this would've been a winning move as either man or Grimm would've begun to bleed. The Archagetai merely took one step forward and slammed a fist into Lia's midsection.

"Lia!" Duncan rasped. His free hand stretched out and a shadow burst forth. Even in the dimness of the catacomb, the shadow could be seen and the Archagetai followed it, turning around.

Yahto hamstringed the distracted king and the hollow fell to the ground on one knee. Starting her combo once more, aiming for his head, Lia jumped. Her face contorted in pain as the other King slammed her sword full force into Lia's side. The dull blade didn't cut, but Lia flew into the wall.

The younger boy screamed at his opponents and blue light blazed forth, a white hand appearing on his shoulder. Yahto slammed both of his axes down into the red's back, and the hollow screeched. The boy hit the King over and over and over until the hollow was nothing more than mashed meat. The blue fell to her knees and held a bony hand to her temple, ripping at the bandages. They fell away to reveal a hideous mouth, devoid of teeth, and empty. The screeching continued and Yahto stumbled away from the corpse.

The red shifted, its meat and bones reshuffling, fixing themselves. It rose once more, clutching at the metal sword. Blue and Red fire streaked towards Yahto.

"This is what happens to those who serve the White," Valentine said into the scroll before slamming his finger onto the broadcast button.


On the Elysium fields, the banners of light shifted. Across the city, every screen and scroll displayed the same thing. Five minutes of the honored Spartan Kings, most decorated and honored body-guards of the Royal Family, turned into monsters and attacking a hunting team.

A thousand Prismgards screamed in rage and bloodlust and cast off their mirrored armor. The betrayers had been betrayed and dishonor demanded blood.


Duncan sprinted forward, Triple Goddess blasting fire and ice and every dust-tipped arrow in his arsenal. When his arrows ran dry, he split his bow apart and slashed with Mother and Maiden. Valentine whipped around, Tiny Tybalt slicing and blasting wherever possible. Shadows played around them, sometimes enveloping them and hiding and other times playing over the Kings, turning their gazes for brief moments that would be used to attack.

The battle was furious and not over quickly. Yahto began to tire first, his Blue power draining quickly without the Prism to fuel it. Even his wolves began to fade.

Yahto threw a tomahawk into the red King's shoulder and it flinched backwards. The next one caught him in the jaw and Yahto dove to catch it as it bounced back. The King raised a finger to his mouth, tilting his head back, stunned. Duncan fired three arrows at once, all three landing squarely through the King's jaw and into his skull.

He toppled forward. Drafting Blue stakes, Yahto slammed them into the red King's hands and knees, pinning him to the ground. With a yell, he drafted a dozen more and each of them found a place in the King's body before embedding themselves in the bone-laden dirt.

The blue inhaled to screech and received a face full of Burn dust from Tiny Tybalt. Valentine whirled around, slamming his right spiked shoulder into the blue King's stomach. When she hit the ground, her bandaged eyes stared blindly into the barrel of Valentine's weapon. Seven shots later, and her head was mush.

"Quickly, we go," Yahto panted. "We need to kill Drake."

The hefted Lia's unconscious body and sprinted to the exit. The roaring didn't subside until they'd reached the main floor of the palace. "To the throne room," Yahto instructed.

"To do what?" a cold voice called behind them. "Oh, Yahto, you foolish boy." Alex Steele drew her sword and rushed forward.