The quiet sounds of an a Mistral Airship engine echoed through the forest clearing as Cinder Fall, now donning a new outfit stepped towards the ship.
A single pilot stepped out through the back of the ship and after the clearing of an illusion revealed herself as Neo wearing a new outfit with Roman's hat on as well and smiling down towards Cinder.
"This'll definitely get us to Solitas. But it won't get us into Atlas." Cinder shook her head as Neo rolled her eyes.
Putting her hand to the side of the ship, Neo projected an entire illusion onto it, making it appear as an Atlas Aircraft.
A smirk came upon Cinder's face as the illusion vanished while Neo panted slightly. "Excellent. I hope you can hold that up for longer though."
Neo merely pouted at that notion and stepped into the ship. "I'm sure you can." Cinder chuckled. "What, you lose your sense of humor with Roman?"
She didn't even bother looking in Cinder's direction till they stepped onto the airship. "You know, Neo... Someone once asked me if I believed in Destiny. I'm still very proud to say that I do." she smirked as the doors to the ship closed and both women inside smirked.
Blake and Yang's moment of silence was disrupted when the airship descended down where they were. "Guys!" Ruby called out as she saw the pair of them were clearly worse for wear. "What happened?!"
Glancing over to where Adam had last wandered off to, Blake took a deep breath. "A lot."
The pair entered the ship as Maria started to pilot them towards the shore again. "Sorry you guys had to go through that." Weiss frowned, looking away from them. "My family had a role in making him a monster..."
Blake shook her head. "No, he made his choices. We gave him every chance to leave but his mind was set." she looked to the bloodied pieces of Gambol Shroud that were beside her now. "I just... I wish it didn't come to that."
Ren put a hand on her shoulder. "He would have kept coming at you if you didn't end it."
"I know you're right. I just wish that weren't the case. I wanted to believe he had good in him still. But it's clear that his own actions clouded him far beyond the point of return." Blake took a deep breath. "I'll just have to stand by the choice Yang and I made."
"If you want to talk about it, we're all here for you." Weiss assured her.
Ruby was busy working on fixing up Yang's arm as best as she could. "There, I think it should at least have basic functionality back."
Waving her hand around again, Yang smiled to her sister. "Yeah, good as new." she tried to make the gun attachment protrude out of it, but it wasn't working. "Well, mostly." she shook her head before looking towards the shoreline where the Leviathan was approaching. "What are we gonna do about that?"
Maria shook her head. "Nothing. There isn't a thing we can do to stop it. It might be best that we just use this cover to leave and get to Atlas. Our mission is far more important" she insisted before Ruby stood up.
"No." she shook her head. "We're not going to leave an entire city to it's doom just because we have a mission to do. It's like what you said, Maria. A hunter must stand their ground."
"My sister lives there." Jaune argued in support of Ruby. "I'm not dooming my family and countless innocents because of our mission."
"If we do this, we're doing this our way." Nora smiled confidently.
"But what can we do though? That thing's massive." Qrow shook his head.
"I don't know about you guys, but I'm still pretty spent." Yang shook her head.
"We're all worn out." Ren affirmed with her. "We've all fought some enemies that have worn us down."
"There's still one thing we can try." Ruby stood up as Maria realized what she meant.
"Are you absolutely certain?" she asked. "You realized that you're only going to have one shot at that."
"I'm aware." Ruby shook her head. "But what other options do we have?! I can use the relic to get it's attention and Weiss could use one of her summons to fly me right up to the thing."
"Ruby, if anything goes wrong-" Jaune was about to argue.
"I'll be fine." she assured confidently. "After all I'll have you guys, won't I?"
The radio in the ship suddenly went off with Caroline Cordovin's voice. "I implore you to help evacuate the citizens from Argus immediately!" she instructed. "Aid in the evacuation and be ready to engage!"
Ruby walked up and took hold of the Radio. "Miss Cordovin, this is Ruby Rose, I'm a young Huntress in training and I have a plan that might help everyone out."
"You again, Child?" Cordovin sounded annoyed.
"Please, just hear me out! I want to save everyone too! After all, we're responsible for this mess. Please, let us take responsibility by helping us. We need to get close to that thing!" Ruby explained as in the distance she watched as the Leviathan fired out a blast of Lightning, destroying the first outer wall before approaching closer. "But in order to that-"
"You need my ships to ensure you get close enough." Cordovin let out a sigh. "I will have two ships aid your's in nearing the enemy, but I should ask you, what do you intend to do in order to destroy that beast?"
Looking to her left and right, Ruby took a deep breath. "I can't quite explain it to you, as that's on a need to know basis, but what I can tell you, Miss Cordovin is that I only have one chance to use what I'm going to use."
"If it'll save Argus... Do it." Cordovin then spoke into the general radio line. "I need two ships on the one that's approaching the Leviathan now, draw away the smaller Grimm and make sure that whatever it is they do in order to stop the beast, that it gets done!" she commanded as a pair of airships flew alongside them.
Their escorts immediately engaged with the Griffons, Nevermore and Manticores that were circling around the ship. Explosions, bullets and crashing were all that could be heard as the back door to the ship opened and Weiss was starting to prepare her glyph when a Griffon landed into the ship's cargo hold. Qrow immediately kicked it in the face and blasted off a wing before turning towards Weiss. "Can ya hurry it up?!" he asked as the Leviathan let out a roar after getting blasted in the face with a rocket.
"I'm moving as fast as I can with this!" Weiss argued as a smaller Queen lancer summon emerged from the glyph. "Hop on Ruby, I'll resize it once you're outside." she assured.
Ruby, clipping the relic to her belt stepped onto the Queen Lancer Summon and smiled to Qrow before she was then flown out of the ship and right towards the Leviathan.
A flock of Nevermore amid the chaos attempted to fly into Ruby, but she shot at them and cleaved through the last one that came her way while the Queen Lancer dove down closer to the Leviathan as it now bumped right into the second gate before stopping and staring at Ruby.
The others in the ship were doing all they could to keep Grimm off of Ruby. With Nora firing out grenades, Ren shooting anything that flew past him, Yang firing out of her one gauntlet, Blake helping Yang provide suppressing fire and Qrow shooting through any Grimm that flew at Ruby from atop the ship.
"Okay, Okay... Focus, Ruby focus..." she closed her eyes and tried to focus on the memories of the people she loved as the Grimm took a breath that she felt nearly blow her off of the Queen lancer.
"Come on!" she yelled as the Leviathan inhaled now, charging up a blast of electricity.
"RUBY!" Yang held her hand out to her sister.
Suddenly every memory that she could think of flashed through her mind, from Zwei arriving at Beacon, to an interaction she had with Penny during the Festival, her team at the Festival, Pyrrha offering her a hand during a sparring match and Team JNPR sharing a laugh with her during lunch. But then suddenly Ruby's mind flashed with the bad memories of all that happened during the fall of Beacon, Penny's death, Yang losing her arm, Pyrrha's death and Yang falling into a deep depression.
The Grimm charged it's breath up and readied itself. "JINN!" Ruby called out as she staggered back and the lamp glowed with power and time came to a halt around her.
Looking at Ruby, Jinn was surprised to see the situation. "What is your question?" she asked her.
"I..." Ruby looked down. "I don't have a question. I just needed time." she confessed. "I'm sorry I used you like this."
The mystical being just chuckled at this. "No, it's alright. It was quite the clever idea... I'll give you this once. But the next time you summon me, you must ask me a question."
Smiling slightly, Ruby nodded. "Thank you."
With that Ruby closed her eyes again and all the bad memories filtered through her mind, but then they were slowly being replaced with other memories, memories of her bonds with others, from the food fight to the Vytal Festival, her teammates had always been there. Team JNPR had always been there for her, even when all hope was lost after Beacon. Then there was her sister Yang, always so motherly to her, always caring and never once backing down from keeping her baby sister safe.
Finally one last image flashed into her mind, a woman wearing a white cloak standing at the edge of a cliff, looking out towards a seemingly endless forest. As she turned around, it was clear that she looked very similar to Ruby.
There's a light that shines,
And it's power is mine!
Eyes glowing with a brief glint of silver light, Ruby closed them and then opened them again as time began to flow again. The Leviathan was blasted with the Light of the Silver eyes along with most of the Grimm in the immediate radius. Everything, that was hit turned to stone. All that flew fell to the ocean, while the Leviathan stood still as a statue.
Though our body's weak and breakable,
The Spirit is Indomitable!
"She did it." Maria smiled proudly to Ruby as everyone in Argus that was watching, Saphron, Terra and Adrian included cheered upon seeing the Leviathan get petrified.
Suddenly the loud stomping of the Colossus approached. "I'll take it from here!" Caroline Cordovin declared as her Colossus' remaining hand turned into a drill and it dove right at the Leviathan, killing it instantly, just as its head tried to escape from its stone prison.
"Thank you, Miss Rose." Caroline Cordovin smiled to Ruby as she opened her cockpit window up. "You reminded me why I have this job. It's not for gratification, nor is it for Atlas's reputation. It's for the protection and safety of the people. It's so everyone can live their fullest lives in peace, it's so-" suddenly Ruby fired a sniper shot at an approaching Nevermore that had almost caught Cordovin during her long winded speech. "Thank you for that." the woman shook her head. "Now then, go."
"Y-You're certain?!" Ruby asked.
"We won't report on a single stolen ship during an incident like this." Cordovin assured. "If your mission is as important as you say it is, give General Ironwood my regards and recommendations for your own services!" she then closed her cockpit up again and sprinted forward at the Grimm.
Ruby looked back towards the ship. "Alright guys, let's get going!"
The Flight to Atlas was mostly smooth with everyone getting some much needed rest. Ruby looked around, seeing Blake asleep and leaning on her sister, who winked to her playfully. Qrow sat up front, just watching and helping Maria pilot. Ren and Nora were asleep and leaning on each other, while Jaune was looking out of a window at the passing clouds.
"I'm glad we were able to make it this far." Ruby smiled as she walked up to the front cabin.
"Well, glad you're up now, you likely wouldn't wanna miss what we're about to see." Maria nodded as the ship flew past some clouds and as soon as they were through they saw it, the floating city in the sky that was none other than Atlas.
"Whoa." Jaune turned his attention up to the front.
"You know, as much as I hate it there, that sight is one that's kinda hard to get over." Weiss shook her head as everyone else in the back was starting to get up to have a good look at what they were approaching.
"is it me or does something seem off about them." Yang remarked.
"The entire fleet is up there." Nora remarked.
"They're gathered in formation." Ren commented.
"Are they preparing for war or something?" Blake asked.
"I... Don't know." Qrow shook his head. "Something's not right."
Suddenly the ship received a radio in from an operator in Atlas. "Welcome home, Manta 5-1..."
Staring out of the broken windows in shock, Emerald and Mercury were watching something that was happening right outside of Salem's castle. "W-What's she doing?" Mercury asked.
"I don't know." Emerald shook her head.
Hazel walked over and watched as well. "There's that old saying. If you want something done right..."
A Beringel emerged from the puddle of black liquid, only for Salem to use her magic to alter it's body and grant it wings as it then flew up and landed next to several other winged Beringel.
"Do it yourself." Hazel finished as Salem started to conjure more magic with the black liquid.
Commentary: With this we conclude Volume 6 and well, all I have for now in terms of content. I may work on something with my OC team who if you'll recall back to Volume 4, said they were going to Atlas. Volume 7 I don't intend to start working on till Volume 7 itself is done and I've had time to process it, not to mention till it releases on Youtube in like several months.