Sorry about the wait, I had to get some stuff done while we are still on the side of this year.

This chapter was not hard to write, but it was hard to start. Over four years have I waited for this chapter.

Chaos is the Prize Chapter 74

I have seen so much. There are Gods, and they hunger. Nothing can triumph over them. There is only suffering and death is no release.

-Primarch Konrad Curze

All the people that we've killed; Gale and the rest? If you believe that there's a Hell - I don't know if you're into that, but we're...we're already pretty much going there, right? But I'm not going to lie down until I get there.

-Walter White

"What do we have left, once we abandon the lie? Chaos? A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all."

-Varys

Pyrrha walked across the lobby of the Beacon Tower, heading towards a broken elevator waiting for her. She still felt her body shiver a bit after sending Jaune away, but she steeled herself. This was something she had to do. She had people to protect. She has someone to stop, waiting for her atop the tower.

Pyrrha entered the elevator and turned around. She took in the holes in the ceiling and the floor of the ruined elevator. There were sparks flying. It would not move on its own, so Pyrrha would have to give it some help. She was just prepared to use her semblance on the metal frame of the elevator box when someone approached the elevator from the lobby.

Nox Deimos stalked forth from the dim lighting of the lobby, eyeing Pyrrha cautiously with his gleaming black eyes. Pyrrha pulled her weapons from her back.

Nox stopped in front of the elevator. "I am not here for you. You going after the fire woman?" Nox asked with a snarling voice. He glanced up towards the ceiling. "Is she up there?"

Pyrrha was silent for a moment, taking a measure of Nox. "Yes. I am going to stop her."

Nox nodded and then calmly walked into the elevator alongside Pyrrha, taking place on the other side of the hole in the floor. "I hope you don't mind if I tag along? I have a bloody score to settle with the fire witch..."

Pyrrha hesitated for a moment. "She is very powerful now."

"I don't care," Nox grunted.

Pyrrha looked at the pale-skinned boy for a moment, and then he decided to go with it. "Fine. Do as you wish." She focussed on her Semblance again, and the elevator started to shake and creak.

"Good," Nox growled. "We are going to kill that bitch, you and I…"

The Elevator shook and rattled and then it shot up the shaft, powered by Pyrrha's Semblance, screeching towards the top of the tower.

The two had been dueling for a while now. Ruby was trying to get accustomed to the influence of the rust guy's Semblance on her, and the man was trying to crush her with his large weapon. Gunfire from her weapon did not seem to do much damage either since the guy just took the shots without even attempting to dodge or guard himself. There were many blows dealt out, most of them not meeting their targets. The fight continued on, with Ruby getting a better and better handle of the guy's fighting style in combination with his Semblance power.

After a while, Ruby saw a good opening, and she sliced her scythe into the neck of the guy. It was the most solid hit she had scored so far, and it clearly was clearly more than a lesser blow, the guy recoiled even slightly, but after she retreated she suffered a glancing hit from the club as the guy swatted her away from him. The guy just laughed again his sickly rasping taunting chuckle. He rolled his neck, as if to show he had barely felt the blows, seemingly not bothered by it at all, were as Ruby had clearly felt the blow she had taken.

"Hahahahaaah, you frail little thing…" the guy mocked her. "You cannot hurt me, much less defeat me..." The guy boastfully spread his arms wide. "You are small, weak and pitiful, and I am destined for immortality!"

There was a thunderous sound, causing Ruby to lift her gaze. The draconic creature of Grimm on the night sky of Vale had crashed through the Beacon Tower, demolishing the high point of the structure. Large pieces of debris were falling from the broken tower, raining on the ground near it.

The guy in rust lifted his gas-masked head to look to the sky as well, just in time to see the falling debris. In the next moment, a giant chunk of stone crushed him underneath it.

Ruby stared at the pile of rubble for a moment. The guy did not rise from the debris. Ruby deemed the fight over and turned around. She started making her way towards the nearest sounds of battle, wondering how many of the baddies would have still been okay with better situational awareness.

Nox's jump pack was aflame. One of the engines had been filled with the fire cast by the witch, which had destroyed the inner workings. After that, the whole left engine had been ripped off by the witch. Nox could barely care. His mind was firmly focussed on the killer of his dead brother.

The fire witch had broken the weapon of the Nikos girl, and then the giant Grimm had rammed the whole fucking top of the tower. Nox scrambled away from a blast of fire, and then reoriented himself. He was not a bad fighter, and the Nikos girl was supposed to be a champion of some sort, yet the fire woman was still dealing out hell to the two of them. Nox was down to half of his Aura already, and the red-haired girl could not be much better.

"What the hell are you…" Nox growled to himself. He had never seen such power before. Was the woman a powerful Psyker? There was definitely more to the flames and flying she wielded than anything that could be explained with a Semblance. "Fucking witch… Fucking witch... " Nox snarled as he threw himself at his enemy again. His hatred and hot thirst for vengeance were burning in his veins, pushing away any notion of retreat. He had passed beyond his usual self-preservation due to the vendetta for his slain brother.

A torrent of fire sent Nikos reeling, leaving a small window open for Nox's talons to start slashing at the fire witch, working the silvery blade with murderous talent fueled by fury. The woman simple kept blocking most of his attacks with a burst of fiery energy, not even needing a weapon.

Suddenly the woman stepped back, and Nox did not react fast enough. A torrent of fire gushed forward from nothingness, bathing Nox with its infernal embrace, even as he struggled to get away with his remaining Aura. The woman, however, leaped forward to catch him, grabbing onto one of his metallic legs and smashing him to the ground. The woman's hands started to glow, and Nox could feel the heat burning away his Aura and eating into the metal. The metal turned from midnight blue to glowing orange, and then the witch crushed her fist around Nox's shin, ripping away his right leg away slightly below the knee. Her other hand found Nox's left arm talon and grabbed on to the palm part, melting it as well and almost breaking it completely as well, but Nox managed to wrestle his hand free. One of the silvery claws fell to the ground, its end bright molten slag.

Nox cursed and snarled as he felt the heat. He smashed to the ground and started clawing away with his two intact and one damaged claw.

A bronze shield came flying from the side, causing the fire woman to turn to face it and bash it aside. However, the next moment she was greeted with a sight of giant metal cogs floating in the air around the top of the tower. Nox could see Nikos with her hands in the air, and with a gesture from her, the bronze shield knocked the red woman out of balance, and immediately after that a giant gear came and smashed into the woman from above. Not long after all the other metal cogs in the air flew at the witch and entombed her between and under them.

Nox got as up as he could with one leg, shakily moving towards the giant gears. He did not get far before the metal circles exploded away with a bright flash of fire. Nikos was hit by one of the gears, sending her against a broken wall.

Nox let out a cry of rage and used his hands to leap at the fire woman. The woman, however, spun around while he was still in the air, reaction with lightning reflexes. Her hands flashed with fire, and a black glossy bow materialized in her hands even as she turned to face him. A ball of fire formed an arrow already knocked on, and in the next heartbeat, the fire propelled projectile was let loose.

With the help of the white Glyphs of Weiss manifesting on the wall of the structure, Ruby was able to sprint up a vertical length of the beacon tower. As she neared collapsed on top of the tower, she prepared to jump with the intention of landing over the ledge. She hoped she was not too late.

The moment she reached the level of the top floor, something smashed into her, sending her back and off the tower. She was tumbling down in the air with whatever had smashed into her tangled into her, and she struggled to bring her scythe from her back. She managed to grab and direct her weapon, and then she fired a shot that allowed her to take control of her fall. She fired another shot, sending herself towards the wall of the tower, and upon making contact she was able to halt her speed with her feet and scythe, ending with her meeting the ground with some ungraceful horizontal rolling.

Her fall came to an end, and she released herself from the thing that had cut off her ascension of the tower and was now heaped on the ground next to her. It was only then that she realized the nature of it.

Nox Deimos was laying on his back on the ground where Ruby's tumbling with him had left him. His condition sent a flash of shock down's Ruby's spine Ruby could feel droplets of warm blood on her skin.

"Nox?" She gasped silently. One of the signature metal legs of Nox was gone, leaving but a stump of twisted and charred metal under his knee. His dark blue and gray hoodie was damp with blood. And there was a snapped half of a black arrow sticking up from his chest.

"Nox!" Ruby cried out and kneeled next to him, her hands hovering over him with uncertainty. A cold feeling spread inside her chest, grasping her lungs and affecting her breathing. The blood pooling on the ground was staining the knees of her stockings and making them sickly sticky. She placed her hands on his chest. "Nox…"

Nox opened his white eyelids to reveal his black eyes. His gaze was slightly unfocused, but his eyes found Ruby anyway. The two of them looked eye to eye for a long while in the cool night air, her silver ones, the eyes he had said he hated so long ago, peering into his black ones.

There was no pain in those black eyes. Nor was there fear. Nox looked confused, disoriented, dazed, like he could not quite grasp what was going on, what had happened to him. He lay immobile, his limbs slackly spread wide, and all he did was look at her in the eyes with the confused look..

Then he breathed out a ragged breath.

And then he died in her arms.

Sangur smashed a creature of Grimm aside, and the broken body of the beast vanished from his sight without any further consideration from him. Sangur could see the Beacon tower looming ahead of him. He walked forward with slightly struggled steps, panting slightly.

His Aura was regenerating, and healing his body, but he was far from the best condition. But he needed to find Nox. He needed to stand by his side. He needed to be there.

"I am coming, Nox…"

Ruby looked into the suddenly glassy black eyes. Her breath ran out for a long while. It took a moment for her to come to terms with the fact that the form before her was now a dead corpse rather than a living person. She took in sharp breaths, and her hands were shaking a little.

She had never been so close to a dead body of a human being. She had never had anyone die right before her eyes. Especially someone she had known.

Ruby did not know what to do, and for a moment she just stayed there, not doing anything.

She had not known Nox well. Not truly. She had had glimpses of his life, but she did not understand much of it. He had not been a good person, Ruby had realized that finally on board the Amity Colosseum. But she could not help but be impacted by his death right before her. What kind of person would not have?

Eventually, Ruby lifted her hand to his pale face and moved to close his black eyes.

The night had become terribly cold all of a sudden. Maybe it was the blood that was staining Ruby's stockings and sleeves, allowing the wind to catch on to her better.

Suddenly someone called out to Ruby, and she lifted her head to look to her right.

Sangur was walking towards her. He had called out to her, but she had not caught what he had said.

"Red Reaper!" Sangur grunted out as was a bit closer. "Have you seen-" When Sangur reached about ten meters from her, he fell silent. He had spotted what she kneeled before. Sangur stopped and fell completely silent. Then he slowly took the few final steps, until he finally loomed over Nox's corpse, opposite to Ruby.

Sangur looked down with a blank face, and then he also kneeled before the still warm pale skinned body. After a moment of hesitation, he reached down and lifted Nox's corpse with his hands and held it against his chest clumsily, perhaps imitating something resembling a hug, but seemingly not quite knowing how to perform such a gesture.

Almost a minute passed, with Sangur holding on to Nox and Ruby just watching. Then Sangur let go and allowed the corpse to fall to the ground. He looked around and reached for Nox's left arm. He grabbed hold Nox's weapon that had been damaged somewhat similarly to his leg. Sangur grabbed hold of one of the shining metal blade fingers by the root and then tore the half loose thing off from the weapon. He brought the knife-like blade before his face and observed it before he reached behind his back to grab something from his belt. He brought forth a small capsule of some sort. He placed it next to Nox, and he lifted the blade in his hand.

"Sangur?" Ruby stammered as Sangur cut open Nox's clothes from the upper chest, and then started working on the flesh beneath. "What are you doing?"

Sangur did not reply. Ruby was horrified by the gore that was revealed to her as Sangur worked with the bloody knife, and she could do nothing more than stay there and stare. She felt sick.

Sangur opened up Nox's chest, and after searching for a moment ripped something bloody from inside the corpse's ribcage. He held the small red chunk in his hands, before storing it in the capsule he had prepared earlier. After that, he moved up and opened up Nox's throat as well, and this time Ruby could not help averting her gaze. She only looked back once Sangur had procured another bloody red chunk and stored it into the capsule as well. Following that, he sealed the capsule and broke something at the end of it. Ice came into being from the tips of the capsule, encasing the capsule in a coat of frost. After that Sangur folded the capsule away to his belt.

Done with his gruesome and bizarre operation, Sangur took in Nox once again. He grabbed Nox's other arm and removed the still intact claw weapon from it. After that, he grabbed the hand for a few seconds, wrist to wrist.

"I'll see you in hell…" Sangur murmured.

Then he lifted himself up and started walking, one of Nox's talons in his grip and the strange capsule on his belt.

"Are- Are you just going to leave him?" Ruby called after him. "Leave him here like this?" Ruby gestured at the opened up and bloody corpse that was just laying in the dust of the pavement before her.

Sangur glanced over his shoulder without slowing down. "He does not care…"

"Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder.

Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them.

And some, are given a chance to climb. They refuse, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is."

-Petyr Baelish

"Those who scale the pinacles of glory have the furthest to plunge into the abyss."

-Melothrucus Lux

I think I'm not going to say anything this time.

Leave a review if you feel like it and have a nice day.