Happy Friday, folks! And happy holy-shit-is-it-actually-gonna-stay-spring-this-time? to anyone else who's been grumpy about winter since February started.


108. Me and My Big Mouth


If Neptune had one regret—which he didn't, he had many regrets, beginning and ending with picking a fight with a freaking dinosaur—it would be having hope that the universe would throw them a bone.

"Left!" he screamed, ducking against Nymph's neck as black and silver scales swept over his head. They were gone in a heartbeat, sending up a ripple of wind that almost flipped him over. Then the dragon's powers finished the job, and it was all he could do to keep his breakfast down as they spun end-over-end towards the ground.

They were too low down to recover in time. Nymph crashed into the wreck of a parked car and rolled heavily onto her side, groaning. Neptune bent to check for injuries, but she climbed back to her feet with only a small wince. "You okay, girl?"

"Kay," she said, and sprinted back towards the action.

The action being the dragon, which probably weighed almost as much as Beacon did, fluttering around like a hummingbird. "I miss the days when the people we fought had to obey the laws of physics," he grumbled, glaring at its stupid tiny wings that no reasonable person would have thought could lift all that weight into the air.

Scarlet was never going to let him live that down.

Back in the air, the hybrid had dropped the tornado effect and was diving at them with its claws outstretched. Sun and Huo just barely dodged out of the way of a deadly slash. Neptune heard him shouting, "Why?!" as they careened off to the left, before Huo figured out the change in gravity and flew back towards the fight.

And, okay, Neptune could maybe accept that the stupid thing could fly with its powers. Pit did that too, sometimes... but how was it this agile?

It spun in mid-air and whipped its tail at them. There was a sharp crack, the sound of something as thick around as a bus moving faster than the eye could follow. They scattered, but the attack clipped Nimbus and sent him careening into the side of the building. Rock and bits of brick rained down from the place where he'd landed.

Neptune's heart jumped into his throat—but Scarlet raised a hand and flashed them a shaky thumbs-up.

"Just distract it," he muttered to himself. "Yeah. Piece of cake. But it'd be really nice if they'd hurry up—"

Its head turned towards Freya and Guang. They tried to dive to the side, but at the last second its powers pulled on them and left them stalling in midair. Guang took the brunt of the attack—its claws struck his side, leaving long gashes and neatly severing the strap of his saddle. Ren slid to one side and had to grab his dragon's neck to keep from falling.

"Shit!"

Nymph dove at the hybrid's head and blasted it with more water. But it could just close its eyes and shrug off anything they did to it. Another grab, and it had Guang trapped between its paws. It pushed down...

Freya flung herself at its claws and struggled to pry them apart. Twiggy attacked its head, forcing it let go of Guang with one paw so that it could try to slap her off. Harpy came up from underneath it to flit around its face and block its sight. Guang was left hanging from its foreleg while it flew, too dazed to move, while Ren's grip started to slip. Nora slid down from Freya's back to grab his hand before he could fall. She kept her other hand tangled in the saddle straps, but when the hybrid shook Guang, it slid free.

Every dragon tried to dive for them at the same time. In one instant Nymph was just thirty feet away, her forelegs outstretched to try and catch them. The next, the hybrid let out another bone-rattling roar and everyone went flying in opposite directions.


Impact happened three times, for Nora. Once with a dragon she didn't recognize, right after she'd been thrown away from the hybrid. She hardly even registered it—she was too focused on her empty hand. Again, when she crashed into the side of the council building. And then the world finally turned right-side up, and she fell the last five feet to the ground with a quiet thump.

Ow.

Nora groaned and rolled onto her side. She could see the whole outer courtyard—the hybrid took up most of it, darting through the air and making wild swipes at nearby dragons. It was ringed with more buildings, mostly other official offices like the town hall. Several had been hit by falling dragons, and two had collapsed completely. She couldn't see Ren or the dragons anywhere.

"Ren!" She pushed herself to her feet and sprinted into the open, but had to throw a hand up over her head. There were still rocks and bits of rubble flying everywhere, and one hit her hard on the back of her head before she could duck behind a lamppost.

"Freya!" Another roar made her drop into a crouch. The hybrid wasn't tossing everyone around anymore, but it was still flying, and more and more dragons were getting knocked to the ground by its claws and tail and not getting up again.

Nora spotted a long furrow in the ground nearby and rushed towards it. Just as she had almost reached the spot where it ended, a dragon and rider pair went down. She yelped and jumped out of the way, and wound up on her back in the dark. She blinked.

Guang lifted his wing and peered at her. "Gud?" he asked.

"Thanks," she said, a bit breathless. Then she ran around to his other side, where the hybrid had clawed him. The cuts looked deep.

"No flying right now," she decided, as she clambered onto his back. Who even knew where his saddle was, and she'd just had an important lesson in why being untethered around the big one was not fun. At first she kept him at a walk, to see if he was holding up okay, but when he managed that easily she urged him into a trot.

They had to find Ren and Freya.


Ragnar was the first into the building—and the first out. He smashed through the front wall and into a wide-open lobby, looking around wildly for any indication of where the Council might have gone. All he could hear was his own blood in his ears.

Cinder might have been the one directly responsible for murdering his rider... but they were as much a part of it as her. And they were nowhere to be found. He tried to charge down a hallway, but his shoulders were a little too wide to fit through the door. As he struggled, three hybrids came streaking through the hole he'd made in the wall and jumped him.

He reeled back. The smallest, a blue and white hatchling that looked only a few weeks out of the shell, he suspected must be a wind and water hybrid. He had gills, but they were oddly shaped and frilly like a wind dragon's head fins. He couldn't even guess about the other two. One had steel grey scales and a barrel chest that kept expanding until she let out a huge gout of steam that scorched the end of his nose. The third spat a gob of yellow liquid at him, which he dodged—and when he glanced behind him, the desk it had struck instead had melted.

Ragnar bolted for the open air, almost tripping over himself in his haste to get away from the evil-looking fumes billowing up from the wreck of the desk. He shouldered his way through the wall just as Glacier was about to try to follow him inside.

"Careful," he barked, as he turned to face the hybrids. "The yellow one spits acid."

The grey dragon was already crawling out of the building. She was the biggest of the three—Ragnar would have guessed that she was nearly a year old, if he didn't know for a fact that she couldn't have hatched more than a couple of months ago. What had they done to the poor dragonets?

No time to worry about it. Ragnar reluctantly let Glacier handle the yellow one, since the icy mist kept him distracted enough that he had a hard time aiming his acid. Already there were several growing pockmarks in the path under their feet. He himself focused on grappling the grey one, forcing her down onto her belly where she couldn't blow steam at him. The third launched himself at his head and bit down hard on his neck.

Ragnar tried to shake him off—and succeeded too well. He went flying into a lamppost and slammed into it at full-force. When he got back to his feet he was limping badly.

His heart seized at the sight—and the bigger grey one took the opportunity to make a grab for Oscar. Ragnar rolled onto his side, crushing her under his weight until he could get a better grip. She squirmed and snapped at his face.

Ragnar shook himself. He kept thinking like this was a fight with a Council dragon—but she couldn't give up, no matter how much she might want to. If they were going to end this, they had to free the hybrids. Either by finding whoever was controlling them, or...

"Glacier," he barked. "Follow me! Bring the little one!"

The acid-spitter was too dangerous for Ragnar to consider trying to hold down right now. But he picked up the grey one by the scruff and raced down the path, flaring his wings here and there to dodge between dragons and riders. The grey hybrid managed to twist in his grip until she could blast him right in the face. He roared, and she slipped loose.

Ragnar made another grab for her, but missed. She was going after Glacier, now, but he hadn't stopped running. He shook his head. They could look for her again later—already they were attracting the attention of more hybrids.

He darted away, following Glacier down a narrow pathway between two buildings. They were across the street from the Council building now, and alone except for the struggling hybrid. "Pin him down," Ragnar said, and leaned in to capture his head while Glacier held his body. He was still struggling, even with his injured leg. It was already swelling near the joint.

"Lee," Glacier said, and nudged him out of the saddle.

Whitley grabbed a small satchel out of Glacier's saddlebag and slid to the ground. From inside he pulled a screwdriver and a set of wire-cutters, then stood there, poised to jump in as soon as they loosened the cover.

Oscar jumped down, too, and helped hold the little one's head steady. That let Ragnar focus on prying apart the metal plate with his claws—carefully, carefully, though it was hard with him struggling so much. He wasn't like the pit dragons, half-dead from exertion and poor diet.

"Soon," he promised. "Soon you'll be alright."

Finally he managed to pop the cover, and Whitley dove into the circuitry. There wasn't time to do it as cleanly as Ragnar would have liked—the feedback sent a shiver through the hatchling's body. He curled up in a ball the moment the device was disconnected, whimpering and covering his nose with his paws.

"Here," Ragnar said, and leaned in—but the little one flinched away from him, wide-eyed, and bolted.

Glacier tensed, ready to pounce, but Ragnar put a paw on his back to stop him. "We can't take too long chasing him down. Not if we want to free more of them."

The ice dragon snorted. "Can't free them all. Only small ones." He tilted his head to one side, as if remembering the acid-spitter. "Some small ones."

Ragnar hummed. Glacier wasn't wrong... it would be faster to find the Council and put a stop to this that way. But how were they supposed to do that if they could hardly move without being swarmed by hybrids?

He heard wingbeats approaching and glanced up—not a hybrid, this time, but a lightning elemental almost as big as Glacier. There would be no holding this one down while they freed her.

"Run," Ragnar roared, and bolted down the street.


"Well, fuck me and my big mouth!" Qrow shouted.

Salty almost couldn't hear him over the shrieks of other dragons. He flicked one ear—honestly, his rider had never met a good sign he didn't want to jinx, so he wasn't sure why Qrow was so surprised.

"Focus!" snapped Winter, from a few feet to their left. Steele snorted and plowed into one of the biggest hybrids. He wasn't sure what mix she was, but had to be some ice in there somewhere, because she and Steele left trails of frost whenever their tails swept the ground.

Salty circled around so that he and Steele were back to back. The biggest hybrid on his side didn't even reach his belly—but there were nine of them, all hissing and nipping at his ankles. Every time he knocked one away, two more would come flying at his head, or at Qrow, or try to get past him to flank Steele.

The two of them kept fighting, retreating until they were backed up against a wall of the Council building. That left them trapped, with no more room to move, but it also meant they could both concentrate on what was in front of them without worrying about attacks from behind. It almost felt like they might be getting somewhere when Steele managed to pin the biggest hybrid down.

So of course, knowing their luck, another dragon came sailing over the roof of the building and landed on Salty's back before he could even react. He couldn't see much of it as it knocked him over, and only when he'd rolled onto his side and kicked it away did he finally notice that it wasn't a hybrid at all. It was a wind elemental, about Storm and Fang's age, and as it righted itself in midair he noticed that one of its joints kept slipping out of place with every beat of its wings.

Salty's distraction cost him. Three of the little hatchlings jumped on him, biting down on his shoulder, his neck, and the base of his tail. He howled—the one on his tail burned, and he couldn't shake it off!

Steele jumped to help him, tearing away the one that had grabbed his neck. Salty batted away the one on his shoulder himself, but when he tried to grab the last one its scales scorched the bottoms of his paws. Finally he slammed his tail into the wall, buckling it and sending bits of brick raining down on himself. The hatchling fell off and landed on his back, but as soon as he hit the ground he rolled to his feet and opening his jaws.

Liquid fire dripped from between his teeth, burning like his eyes—a bright, eerie green. It melted the street wherever it landed, and the fire took to the asphalt like it was dry kindling. His eyes rolled, and green light shone through his stomach and throat.

"Run!" Salty barked, and turned on his heel. Steele was ahead of him, sprinting flat-out, craning his neck to look over his shoulder.

It wasn't a blast of fire. Instead the hatchling trembled and shook, until a fine green mist sprayed from between his teeth and caught the wind. Everything in front of him burned—the grass, the pavement, even the solid brick of the building's walls. One of the other hybrids wasn't far enough out of the way. A few droplets struck her side and she went down, flailing wildly in an attempt to put herself out.

Salty roared. He wasn't aware that he'd stopped until he saw that Steele had, too—and he heard two other calls from above him. Quake and Tempest were overhead, diving down to try and help. Before he could hesitate, he charged straight at the green hybrid.

He puffed up again and started to glow... but before Salty could even think of getting out of the way, the wind changed. The machine didn't try to abort the attack, even though the injured hybrid was now right in its path. Maybe it couldn't once it started—or maybe it had decided that now that she was hurt, it wasn't worth trying to avoid killing her.

He tackled the glowing hatchling. He managed to grab his neck in his jaws and wrench his head to one side, directing the worst of the attack away from the injured one. Quake hit the ground shoulder-first, sending dirt and bits of pavement flying in every direction and covering Salty. Tempest flapped her wings, once, to counter the force of the wind.

In the end, only a little of the liquid fire hit Salty. Most of that he could shake off, along with the dirt and stones. The remainder he had to scratch away before it finally stopped burning.

Steele crouched over the burning hatchling. He held her down gently with one paw, and breathed chilling mist on the fire. It took almost a minute, but eventually the cold won out over the green fire and all that was left was a great bare patch on her hide.

Even then, she still struggled to twist around and bite him.


Twenty seconds into the fight, and Blake was already breathless and running for her life. She wasn't sure which hybrids were still following them—almost a dozen had swarmed into the building the moment team RWBY had gone inside, and to make matters worse it was so cramped that they'd needed to dismount, which was slowing them down.

The only thing that did help was that Pit and Jade had dropped to the back of the group, and worked together to collapse the ceiling in the hallway behind them. The hybrids were still getting through, by the sound of it, but not nearly as quickly. They would have a little time to search.

This wasn't a fight they could win without hurting the hybrids, so they needed to find whoever was controlling them. And that was Watts. It had to be—there was no other way the Council could have gotten their hands on this many of the devices so quickly.

They plowed through empty office spaces and deserted hallways. More of the smallest hybrids were scattered throughout the building. A lot of them were relatively harmless, at least to grown dragons like Pit. Some, like one that had what looked like liquid nitrogen pouring out if its mouth, were not.

Others were dangerous even from outside.

The building shuddered. Dust rained down from the ceiling, and with a deafening crack, bits of the outer wall tore free and, by the look of it... fell. Upwards. Through the gaps Blake caught glimpses of the giant outside, flying.

She shook her head and kept running. The best way to help with that one was to stop whoever was controlling them all. They just needed to keep moving—

Ahead of her, Yang glanced up and swore. She threw an arm out towards Weiss and Blake to make them stop, and yanked Ruby after her. Heartbeats later, the ceiling—which had been buckling inwards, as if under a great weight—melted.

Blake recoiled from the heat and the smell of burning plaster. Four hybrids hopped through the gap, along with a stream of glowing, molten rock.

"Run!" Ruby shouted, gesturing at them. "Find Watts!"

There wasn't time to argue with her. The pool of lava had already spread from wall to wall, and the hybrid that seemed to be producing it was advancing on them. Its eyes were solid red, and when it opened its mouth there were no teeth—only bubbling magma.

Blake didn't even consider fighting it. She just bolted down the nearest hallway she could see, with Weiss and the dragons all around her, ready to rush through the rest of the building and find Watts.

The hallway ended in a wide-open space. Empty cages lined the room from wall to wall, and part of the ceiling had caved in, revealing open sky through the hole. On the other side was a door—made of steel, and with a keypad set into the door.

That had to be his lab. If they could just get through...

"Blake," Weiss hissed.

"I know. Maybe one of the dragons can force the door, if we—"

Weiss grabbed her arm. She looked around, and saw that the hybrids had already caught up to them. Lava pooled on the floor, melting the linoleum into so much slag. And Blake finally realized that it was also covering the space under the hole in the ceiling—and with hardly enough room for Pit to stand in here, let alone fly, that meant it was blocking both other exits.

In other words, their destination had just turned into a dead end.