Apple Schnee faced two soldiers. She lifted her scroll and hit record.

One asked, "Are we recording?"

Apple nodded.

The veteran said, "Great. Alright, this is Captain Satin Scarlatina, Vale Motorized Reserve. I don't have much to say that I haven't before, Velvet, but you've done us proud in combat school, and you'll do us proud as a huntress. Marron? Last words? Excuse me."

Scarlatina ran off screen. Out the window, Mountain Glenn burned. Sergeant Marron leaned in to speak. The window shattered, and Summer Rose landed at their feet.

Marron asked, "You alright?"

Summer smiled back. "Yeah. What are you two doing here?"

"Last words. You know, since we're all gonna die." He gestured to Apple's scroll.

Summer blushed. She stood and smiled. "Oh. Uh…"

Fourteen years from now, her daughters would huddle in their dorm at Beacon, and hang on her every word.

"Hi, Tai. Hi Yang. Hi Ruby. I love you guys. See you home soon."

"They'll appreciate that," Marron nodded.

"Yeah. Well..." Summer hefted her weapon. "I'm not good at goodbyes," she admitted.

She leaped out the window, back into the fight.

Apple paused.

She recorded again in an elevator, when her heart rate alerted the biometric alarm in her scroll. Amber, Summer, and Raven stood around her. Out the window, Malice crushed a warehouse underfoot. Raven murmured, "We kill the Fall Maiden. Then what? These Grimm have Auras. Vale will still fall."

Apple calmed her breathing.

She panicked again in the lobby. Raven screamed, "Amber! Move!" Then Amber screamed in pain and Sumer screamed orders and a woman in red strafed the room. Her glass high-heels clacked as she moved. Her glass bow sang when she fired. A rough hand grabbed Apple's shoulder. Agent Hikari of the SRS pulled her into the hallway. Cinder lunged and grabbed Hikari's shoulder.

Hikari spun out of the hold.

Cinder thrust with a glass dagger.

Hikari dodged.

Cinder swiped.

Hikari ducked.

Cinder committed to a thrust. The soldier was no match for a huntress' strength. But she had good training and quick feet. She feigned into the strike, then planted her feet and judo tossed the huntress away.

Apple knew she was in good hands. Her heart steadied.

She worried again on the highway. From the truck bed of a diesel warthog, she watched Mountain Glenn receding. She realized the full scope of this Grimm assault. Two of her class mates sat beside her.

Ciel Soleil and her blood-soaked her skirt.

Fola Merlot and her unfocused eyes.

Apple tried to talk. The words were too insane.

"Aura," she said to no one. "It's not- Grimm don't. They have auras. The Grimm have auras!"

Hikari sat on the tailgate, dangling her legs beside Cherry. They turned to look at Apple, and cast warm smiles.

Apple calmed.

Her last loss of control was on the Bullhead. The engines shrieked. Acceleration made her dizzy. Captain Gray shouted at Cherry. "There's nothing any of us can do! Vale's done for!"

Apple wasn't impulsive by nature. She'd never put a toe over the line or disobeyed her parents. She'd never done anything truly wild. But someone had to. She took a step between them, then over the side.

Her scroll rumbled in her pocket. Her velocity activated the distress signal. She spread her fingers and felt the clouds trailing through them. Moisture clung to her. She'd seen Mountain Glenn through an airplane's window, in summer. It was the little green gem beside the Emerald City of Vale. Now, breaking through the clouds, she saw Mountain Glenn burnt orange hues in the Fall.

She aimed for grass. She pushed out her foot, and beyond it, her aura. The whole life force of Remnant opposed her, like magnets wrestling, and she slowed almost to a stop with her toe just above the ground.

She never touched that soft earth, or saw the light of day again. Grimm eclipsed the sun, and the caverns opened their maw. The ground fell away below her, and she fell further. The caverns moved as if a black flame were licking every surface. Only the Goliath Malice was distinct, in its size and ferocity. She drifted towards the spire below the tower and stopped her camera to save battery power.

She recorded again in the museum, this time intentionally. She tucked her scroll into a breast pocket reversed.

Summer Rose asked her, "You said a sarcophagus, right?"

The huntress pointed. Four caskets, each for a maiden, sat on display. Apple pressed herself up against the exhibit's glass for a closer look.

"Huntress, these are literally sarcophagi. I need a sarcophagus to house the second stage Dust reaction, not a body."

"These are sarcophaguses," Summer hissed.

"But that one's made of wood." She pointed to the Spring Maiden's casket.

Summer pointed to the Summer Maiden's casket. "That one's iron, Miss Schnee. Will that work?"

Apple looked at it. She hesitated. "But… Is there a body in there?"

Summer snapped, "Can we use it or not?"

Apple nodded.

Summer shattered the glass and hauled it out. It had a body in it.

Apple stopped recording.

She started again in the CCT's reactor room.

Summer and the Vale sergeant dropped a glowing ball into the sarcophagus, cradled in the arms of the Summer Maiden. They pushed the lid closed.

Apple said, "Okay, we're done. This is going to be the second stage of the bomb. Now we have to close the reactor core and pull the shroud over it."

They did.

Summer asked, "Alright, Miss Schnee. What next?"

Apple gulped. "Well, now we have to make the first stage of the bomb."

The sergeant interrupted "Two bombs?"

"Yes. But this bomb will be much easier to make. We just need a lot of Dust. The first stage will jacket the sarcophagus. The jacket will catalyze the reaction in the sarcophagus. If we put them in the right place, the reaction in the sarcophagus will spread to Mountain Glenn's native vein. It will be just like Chernobyl."

Summer sucked her cheeks in. She looked to Sergeant Marron.

He nodded, "If we don't do this, Vale falls."

Summer looked back to Apple. "Where do we set off the bombs?"

"The synchronicity quotient will be higher as we approach the relative energy center of the Vein. But we also need that place to have a very high specific energy so the catalyst happens and generates zero-point phenomena."

Summer waved a hand to stop her. "You're, like, twelve. Don't talk like that. Just tell us what to do."

"We have to take the bomb to Merlot's Magic Kingdom."

Summer squinted, "The Magic Kingdom? The park?"

Apple nodded.

Summer turned to Marron. "I can't carry it that far. Would Scarlatina mind if I borrowed some of your soldiers?"

"Captain's dead."

"Who's in command?"

"I am," the Sergeant grimaced.

He was an old man, old enough to have seen all the death from the war.

Summer asked, "How do we get this across the city?"

"We'll, uh… Gas up one of the museum's tanks. I'll radio Winchester and have him improvise a Dust bomb. And I'll send Bronzewing to improvise another."

Summer noted, "We only need one."

Marron shrugged, "Two is one. One is none."

Apple's scroll rumbled. Low battery. She paused.

An hour later, Apple held out her scroll for the soldier who had brought the jacket. He was laying on his back, scared. If he were a huntsman, the gashes in his side would close. He stared at the ceiling and breathed. When she approached, he looked at her.

He said, "You're Apple Schnee?"

She nodded.

"You're so young."

She countered, "I'll be fifteen next week."

He smiled. "Fair enough. My grandpa was fourteen when he joined the war. Still, you were on that Bullhead, flying away. What made you do it, Miss?"

"Do what?"

"What made you come back?"

Apple hesitated. The soldier's wounds would end him soon. He did not have the look of a hopeful man.

She said, "In Atlas, we believe that selfless and noble deeds are rewarded in the afterlife."

"Elysium," he croaked.

"You've heard of it?"

The soldier nodded, and strained, "Tell me more about it."

"It's got… Grain," Apple remembered. Religion wasn't her area of study.

"Um... And there are trees with exotic fruits that grow plump and sweet all year round. There are islands linked by bridges of living wood, and caverns below filled with precious metals that sing like choirs. The waters of the ocean there are perfectly clear, and so healthy that the ancient warriors who drank from it became the first aural fighters."

"Will I see my family there?"

Apple hesitated. She said, "Yes."

A tear slid down the soldier's face. And he sensed, suddenly, that his last moments were upon him. He looked into her camera.

"Corporal Winchester, Vale 3rd Cavalry. I have a son."

He choked, blood leaped from his mouth, and his last moments were in convulsions.

Summer Rose grabbed Apple and pulled her away. They power-walked across the museum, to the tank rumbling on its platform. A platoon of men stood ready around them.

Summer said, "It's time, Apple. If anything goes wrong with the bomb, you'll be fixing it. So I want you in the tank."

"What about the other engineers?"

"They all died making your easy bomb."

Summer patted the sarcophagus and the jacket as they passed. The bombs sat on a cart, hitched to the tank. Apple wondered if it would work. Her head said yes. Once the jacket exploded, the conditions would be just like Chernobyl- just like father had taught her to never do.

She reached out and touched the jacket.

"Huntress? Miss Rose? Where's the second jacket? Didn't they make two?"

Summer grabbed her by the armpits and lifted her onto the tank.

"It's sitting in a mine cart down in the tunnels. Two is one, one is none."

"Can we get it? I can-"

"-This is all that's left of us, Apple." Summer looked tired.

The twenty men behind her looked scared.

Behind Apple, the tank's hatch opened. Marron, the Sergeant, emerged and pulled her inside.

Summer climbed topside to talk to him.

"I'll be out here with the rest of your unit. We'll cover you to the park's center. Don't stop for anything."

Marron squinted, "Just you? What about the other two huntresses?"

"They left."

Marron had to accept that not everyone was willing to die for humanity. He nodded, and very sternly said, "Thank you, Huntress. For everything."

Summer nodded. She grabbed the tank's hatch, to close it, but spent an extra second to look at Apple.

She said, "Make this count."

And Apple was cast into darkness.

Apple didn't record the hour of awkward silence. She sat cramped in the vehicle, terrified of everything outside. Explosions and gunshots surrounded them. She knew when men were dying. They screamed for Summer. The only talking inside was when the Sergeant issued orders.

Or, finally, when Apple realized that someone would find her scroll. At some distant point, this would be her last words. She pushed record. The battery was almost dead.

She said, "Sergeant? I'm scared."

The tank's crew all gave her a sympathetic glance.

Marron nodded, "Me too. There's no shame in that."

Apple pressed, "But I feel like... I shouldn't have jumped out of the Bullhead. I feel like, I wish I hadn't."

Marron smiled at her very wryly. "Courage has everything to do with being afraid. Focus on why you did it. Try to remember."

Apple thought hard.

She said, "I saw that the goliath had an aura. I thought if I didn't do anything, it would destroy all of Vale. Because only I knew how to destroy it. So I jumped."

She shivered. Cold winds were piercing the tank's armor. They skidded to a halt and the driver despaired, "Shit! The gates are closed!"

"It's a theme park. Ram it!"

"Well those blast doors are real!"

Summer slammed a fist on the tank's armor. "You're on low ground, Marron! We can't stop here! They're coming!"

Apple couldn't reach the rifle slat. She held her phone up and watched as darkness peaked over the basin's rim. In a minute, the park's entrance would be flooded with Grimm.

Summer's face steadied, tranquil and pensive, then decisive. Her eyes blazed with silver brilliance. She ran to the blast doors and gripped them. Her aura burned, wafting out like the wings of an angel, then forming and fizzling like a wild Dust reaction. The blast doors groaned, then slid as she forced them apart.

The tank rumbled through, and Apple recorded a final expression on the huntress' face: Acceptance.

The silver poured forward from Summer's eyes, leaving her to form a shining orb before the tank.

Summer shouted, "Follow the light!"

And slammed the doors behind them.

The battle was silenced.

Loudspeakers shouted, "Welcome to the Magic Kingdom!"

The orb danced forward, beckoning, and the tank rumbled after it.

There was pleasant music. Apple couldn't stop her tears.

She admitted, "I didn't want to come here until I was with my cousin, Weiss."

Marron patted Apple's shoulder.

"You were right to jump, Apple. We've only made it this far because you kept the CCT online, locked the water channels, fixed the traffic system, lowered the bridges, helped us fix the tank, got us into the armory... And yeah, this bomb is our only chance at killing that goliath."

"I know. But… I don't want to die. I'm not..." she gestured at Marron, "Old."

Everyone laughed.

"True," Marron nodded, "But being old doesn't mean being ready. My goals were never as grand as yours, Miss Schnee, but I'm nowhere near done with them, neither. My grandfather was one of the great warriors in the Great War. I wanted to pass on that legacy to the next generation."

Apple looked him over.

She asked, "Don't you have children?"

"Yeah. Three sons. One wandered off to Vacuo and became a celibate monk, the second died, and the third got married and settled on a farm."

Apple asked, "Does he have children?"

"He had a daughter: Rouge."

"Can't he have more?"

"He had a second daughter: Blanche."

Apple was silent.

"And a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh."

Apple kept quiet. Sergeant Marron licked his lips and shook his head.

He finished, "There's still time for a son. But I'm not hopeful."

Apple had practiced etiquette with a professional. She answered, "I'm sorry to hear that. I... I never decided what I wanted."

Sergeant Marron smiled at her.

"You wanted to help people, Apple. And if you were my eighth daughter, I would never wish for a son."

Apple had never felt so sincerely loved. She wished she could hold Weiss' hand.

The driver called, "The light stopped! Are we here?"

Marron peeked through a rifle slat. "Grimm?"

Sensors tapped his screen. "I think we're clear for now. Malice is almost on top of us."

Marron opened the hatch and looked around, then pulled himself out and offered a hand down to Apple.

She climbed up and sat on the tank's side, indulging in a long look at the happiest place on Remnant. She had a detonator and cord in a satchel. She slid down the tank and strung them to the bomb. At Chernobyl, this very same reaction had stripped all aura from a valley. Now its light would harrow the Grimm. She connected the cord to the detonator. An LED lit up on the detonator. She was ready. She looked to Marron, for approval.

He mumbled, "One sec." Marron reached into the tank and pulled the communicator to his mouth. He didn't look hopeful. But he looked at Apple, and when he pressed to talk, he was speaking to her.

"This is the Vale Militia, to any and all. We stand ready to deliver a final blow to Malice the Goliath. When this bomb detonates, it'll be lights out. All dustronic devices will be rendered inert. Find cover in anything lined with led. And if you survive, think of your loved ones in Vale. Will you let them cower in fear that monsters stalk them? Or will you take back the night? As for me, I will remind these Grimm that there was a time before Dust, and that humanity prevailed. The first huntsman was a monkey with a sharpened stick. So will be the last. You're going to die tonight. Take some Grimm with you. Sergeant Marron Arc, signing off."

He released the communicator, and didn't bother hanging it back up. Then he nodded to Apple, weary of the struggle. He was relieved of that struggle by an explosion of dirt. Writhing tendrils of shadow crawled up from the ground and sundered the tank. Apple was slapped away from the bomb, and the detonator left her hand. She landed on her back, breathless. No human weapons answered. She was alone now. There was no one to cry out to when a tendril wrapped around her leg.

The tentacle dragged her back to the bomb and tossed her to the ground beside it. She looked up and saw a black dress. There stood a woman with skin pale as the moon and eyes like onyx. Not a woman: A Grimm in a woman's form.

Apple's breath froze in her lungs, and she choked in terror.

The woman said, "Hello, Apple. My name is Salem."

And her Scroll died.