Disclaimer, I do not own RWBY or any of the franchises referenced in this work
Note: A small chapter based on a one-shot idea I had. A V7 ending AU where Ironwood can get to the relic without the need of a maiden to open the vault. Just Ironwood and Salem having a little chat before the end of the world.
Chapter 20: Ultimatum
Inspiration: Halo
"Oh… this universe…" Blank muttered to himself, getting the audience to look at him quizzically.
"Something wrong with this world?" Qrow asked.
"No, no, nothing wrong. Just different from all the other viewings so far, this one is going to be a short one. And unlike all the other worlds, Jaune Arc will not be appearing in this one, in fact most of you won't." Blank answered.
"Oh? So who are we watching then?" Ozpin pipped up.
"Just two people having a conversation this time, James Ironwood and Salem." Blank said.
"What!? What could I ever have to say to that monster!?" Ironwood growled out.
"You deliver an ultimatum." Blank said.
"Hmmph, like that will go over well. You don't order her around, no one does." Cinder rolled her eyes, convinced she was about to watch some kind of elaborate suicide attempt.
"He does it anyway. I'll just start the viewing now." Blank flickered and the screen came to life.
Salem smirked as yet another wave of flying Grimm surged towards the Atlessian air fleet, explosions in the distance marking the ships sinking one by one. Standing atop her giant flying whale Grimm, she had a front row seat to watch the city burn, it wouldn't be long now before the last defensive lines broke before her onslaught.
"NO!" Ironwood thundered as he watched his city and army burn. Winter and Weiss weren't much better off, seeing their home in flames hurt the soul.
"Bloody hell… that's a lot of Grimm." Roman paled considerably.
"She's leading the assault personally? She's never done that before…" Ozpin murmured under his breath.
"She's tired of her subordinates' failures causing her setbacks and is following the old adage, if you want something done right, do it yourself." Blank said.
"So Tyrian and Watts messed up too much eh, I knew they couldn't be trusted." Cinder chuckled and hoped that meant her mistress had finally decided to off those two imbeciles.
"All of you failed her, she's more annoyed with you than them actually." Blank's response deflated her mood somewhat.
"Tch, no matter, Atlas is about to be destroyed, what kind of ultimatum could the general deliver in a situation like this? Salem holds all the cards, it's over."
"Yes, it is. In this timeline, humanity is about to lose." The Beacon students exchanged worried glances at Blank's words while the adults just started growling angrily.
"And that's what gives Ironwood the power to force Salem to bow."
"What? That… makes absolutely no sense." Emerald stared at the orb of light in confusion, her thoughts echoed by most of the audience.
"Humanity is a few moves from checkmate, but the game isn't over yet." Blank said.
"And? It's not like there's anything that can be done to change the inevitable now. It's on the screen, unless Atlas has some kind of superweapon hidden up their sleeves, it's already over." Cinder glared at Blank.
"Oh but they do. Exactly one card left to play, Salem hasn't won yet and that gives General Ironwood the opportunity to sweep the board clean, wipe away all the pieces so no one wins."
"What!? That's what a sore loser does!" Cinder shot back.
"You could see it that way I suppose, doesn't make it any less of an option."
"SALEM! Face me!" Ironwood roared at the Grimm horde from the roof of Atlas academy. His uniform was ragged from constant battle and his flesh and blood arm remained in a sling. A long object wrapped in cloth was strapped to his back.
A seer floated over to his position and he held fire, lowering his pistol as black mist emanated from it, coalescing into a hologram of Salem.
"Good evening James. How do you like the show so far?" Salem chuckled as Ironwood gnashed his teeth in anger.
"You bitch!"
"Temper, temper James." Salem spoke in a mild tone, as though placating an insolent child.
"You have only yourself to blame for all this you know. All I wanted was the staff and the lamp, if you had just handed it over, none of this would have been necessary." She shook her head in mock disappointment.
"Hahahahahah! And that's why you'd all better comply when someone's asking nicely, lest the gloves come off and then you'll have only yourself to blame." Cinder gave them the slow clap as she continued laughing.
"What the hell is wrong with you!? Innocent people are dying and you find it funny!?" Jaune yelled at her, receiving an eye roll in response.
"It is isn't it? All those little insects scurrying about waiting to be crushed… and that's entirely your fault, if you'd just handed the relics over none of this would have been necessary. Just like with the fall maiden, if you'd just left her alone Beacon wouldn't need to be destroyed but no… you just couldn't leave well enough alone could you?"
"Salem will never suffer the kingdoms to stand, at the very most we sped up the timetable that's all. There's no need to lie and try to guilt us, you're not nearly good enough of a manipulator to do so." Ozpin said calmly and sipped from his mug, not even sparing Cinder a glance.
"You won't win, I won't let you." Ironwood declared.
"Oh? And how do you intend to stop me? Your army is almost gone, and soon your precious city will follow." Salem said, leaning in closer to tower over Ironwood, to her surprise, Ironwood just returned her smirk.
"Yes. It will." He agreed, a mad gleam dancing in his eyes as he started to laugh like a man possessed.
"I fail to see what you find amusing about this or have you finally taken leave of your senses?" Salem asked, unable to fathom what was running through the general's mind.
"On the contrary, I've never been surer of anything. Here's what's going to happen Salem, you are going to take your army and return to whatever dark pit you crawled out of and you're going to stay there or else."
Silence reigned as Salem was too shocked to formulate a reply, it ended when she burst out laughing. "Oh my dear James, what could you possibly have that would make me do that? Your kingdom is burning down around you and you have the audacity to give me orders? Or is this some desperate ploy to buy time hmmm? Hoping for Oz to save you again?"
"Desperate? You brought an army to my shores, you slaughter my people, you talk about an end to suffering and then you terrorise humanity for fun. You have made me very desperate, and you might not be glad you did." Ironwood fired back.
"Is it just me or has the general gone cuckoo?" Roman asked, getting several angry glares from the Atlessians present.
"Hate to say it Jimmy, but you do have a plan right? Because pissing off the Grimm queen really isn't the best idea you've ever had." Qrow muttered.
"I… don't know. This… isn't a contingency I've ever had to plan for, I don't know what that version of me is thinking." Ironwood admitted.
"And what can you do? You're out of options… no, you never had any to begin with, not when you turned down my generous offer to spare your kingdom in exchange for the relics." Salem tutted with a small headshake.
"You expect me to believe those lies? I really hate people like you." Ironwood growled.
"There is no one like me."
"There will always be people like you. Oz believes he can keep you in check, keep this little shadow war at a stalemate. I've come to disagree with that."
"It's a little too late to switch sides isn't it? But I suppose I could always-"
"Ahahahahah! Join you? Join you!? And end up disposed of like that treacherous coward? I will die before I join you." Ironwood cut her off with mocking laughter.
"Pity. If you seek death so badly, far be it for me to keep you from it."
"You're a sore winner Salem. Dragging this out when you could have won ages ago… thank you for that, it's given me enough time to do what I needed to do." Ironwood grinned and reached for the object on his back.
"You want the staff so badly? Come and get it." Ironwood unwrapped the cloth, revealing the relic of creation for all to see.
"What the hell James!? Why would you bring it to her!?" Qrow shot the general a disbelieving look.
"I… I don't know." Ironwood sputtered.
"Is… is he trying to trade the staff for the safety of Atlas?" Weiss asked.
"I don't know about that, that's the look of someone about to spring a prank… the haha I know something you don't look." Yang said.
"…What are you playing at James? You've fought me at every step and now you bring the relic here?" Salem glanced at the general and mentally ran through all the information Watts and her Grimm had supplied her, trying to find Ironwood's angle.
"Hahahahahha! No tricks. Atlas is kept in the air with the power of the staff, but now the staff is here. So tell me, what's keeping this city flying?" Ironwood tossed the staff to the ground and gestured to the city around him.
"…"
"The answer? It's gravity dust. The city is currently burning through its entire supply of dust to keep afloat but since there's so much mass it's burning at a very fast pace."
"And? I fail to see where this is going."
"And when all the dust is gone, Atlas will fall. Oh, there are some safeguards in place, anti-gravity generators to slow the descent should the city be unable to remain airborne. Put in place decades ago to avert a worst case scenario… too bad I've disabled all of them."
"You would destroy your own city? Just to stop me? Hahahahah! I'm immortal, even if you trap me inside the falling city, I won't die. I'll just come back again and you'll be down a kingdom." Salem laughed.
"Destroy my own city? I'll do a lot more than that, I'm giving you exactly what you want. You want the staff? It's right here. You want humanity destroyed? I'll do that for you as well." Ironwood smiled as the confusion spread across Salem's face.
"…What?"
That sentiment was echoed by the audience.
"Okay? So to fight someone trying to end humanity, the solution is to… end humanity first?" The words made no sense to Roman even as he said them aloud, the master thief exchanged a glance with Neo and both shrugged.
"How… is this supposed to work exactly?" Cinder stared blankly at the general who was at a complete loss over his counterpart's actions.
"Again… I have no idea." Ironwood muttered.
"You've been trying to destroy humanity for thousands of years, haven't you? Yet you haven't succeeded after all this time despite the fact that you should have won ages ago. Surrounding yourself with people like Cinder Fall, Arthur Watts, Tyrian Callows… you need help to win evidently, so please let me help you with that." Ironwood droned on sardonically.
"…"
"You see, I didn't just disable the safeguards, I inverted them. Instead of slowing the city, as soon as Atlas starts to fall, they'll increase the gravity several million times, speeding up the city. By the time Atlas hit's the ground, it'll be moving faster than a bullet." Ironwood grinned and started laughing like a mad man again.
"You cannot be serious… why would I ever do something like that!?" Ironwood paled and gripped his armrests tightly.
"Umm… how bad would it be?" Ruby asked timidly.
"If Atlas just falls out of the sky, Solitas is gone. If Atlas hits the ground faster than a bullet… there won't be a world left." Ironwood said softly.
"What are you trying to pull?" Salem finally said after several minutes of Ironwood's mad laughter.
"Trying? It's not what I'm trying to do, it's what I've done. Unless the relic is returned to power the generators, Atlas will fall and when it does, the impact will crack the planet in half. Everything will die… except… you. Hahahahahahahah!"
"You'd kill everyone on Remnant. You don't have the guts to do that."
"Don't I? It's already done. The relic is right here. Go on, take it. I won't stop you. Twenty-four hours until the end of the world."
"You're bluffing." Salem said.
"Am I? Go on then, call my bluff. Take the staff, kill me. When I die, I take the only chance of stopping the fall with me, there is no one left who can interfere. Not even that bastard Watts can stop this. It's fine, I'll just be going on ahead of everyone else by a day." Ironwood held his hands in the air, waiting for Salem to strike him down with magic or send a Grimm to do it for her.
"What is the point of this? What do you hope to accomplish by doing this?" Salem asked.
"The point? There is no point. I know your history, I heard all about it. And I've come to the conclusion that you and I? We're not that different, we're all assholes willing set the entire world on fire to spite our enemies. You hate Oz and I hate you. You want to destroy humanity to break him… guess what? I intend to do the same to you." Ironwood's glare intensified.
"You think this is going to affect me? You're just making my task easier." Salem replied placidly.
"Yes I am. I'm not going to let you win. I will see this entire world destroyed and everyone in it dead before I let you win. Time was your ally Salem, but now it has abandoned you."
"I'm immortal. Time has always been on my side, always will be." Salem rolled her eyes at Ironwood's words.
"Is that so? Tyrian believes you to be a goddess and your magic has certainly gone to your head. But I know your past. Once upon a time, there was a girl locked up in a tower, too weak to leave under her own power, needing to be saved by a knight in shining armour that should honestly have left you to rot in your prison. The world would have been a much better place if he had."
Ozpin sighed heavily and drained his mug in one go. So that Ironwood found out the truth and his mistakes were haunting him again. Some days he truly wondered what life would have been like if he never went on that quest to save Salem so long ago.
"Salem… weak? Those words do not go together." Cinder muttered.
"It's all about perspective. In a world where everyone is super, no one is." Blank replied.
Ironwood pressed on as Salem lost her calm for the first time, her visage contorting into an ugly snarl. "What's the matter, can't handle the truth? I'm not done though, oh no, your weakness didn't end there. You couldn't save the knight from his illness and you got humanity wiped out when you were stupid enough to challenge the gods and lose."
"YOU DARE!?" Salem roared in anger, the air itself quaking from her rage but Ironwood didn't even flinch.
"I more than dare. All of this? It's on your head, not mine! How long did it take hmm? How long did it take for humanity to return to Remnant? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? How long did you spend wondering the world alone with only the animals and your precious Grimm for company?" Ironwood mocked, reminding Salem of the eons of solitude the gods had cursed her to.
"You see, I've come to understand you. You hate humanity because we have what you threw away so long ago. We have the ability to die, we have the ability to love, you can't die even if you want to and the one person you loved? Oh that's right, he hates you to the core too. That's why humanity still exists despite your ability to do all this long ago." Ironwood gestured to the Grimm besieging Atlas.
"You don't want humanity gone, you want us to suffer. Misery loves company am I right? And then you'll rule over everything like some kind of god. No. I won't allow that to happen. If the only options left to humanity are slavery to you or extinction… then I choose extinction." Ironwood said.
"Who gave you the right to decide that for humanity!?" Salem roared.
"Who gave you the right to decide that for humanity?" Ironwood parroted, continuing to mock the queen of the Grimm.
"I have the power, I was here before any of you, this world is mine by birth right!"
"You had the power, now it's mine. I have the biggest stick and might makes right, doesn't it? This world is about to end, and this time, humanity will not be coming back. I will see everything you've built reduced to ashes, and unlike before, it won't be just humanity that's destroyed. There'll be nothing left, no more plants, no more animals, I dare say no more Grimm. Just a bunch of rubble floating in space. And you I guess, but you're inconsequential. Once again, you're too weak to do anything to avoid the inevitable, how does it feel, to have all your power taken from you, how does it feel to be reduced to a pathetic weakling? Huh!?" Ironwood raised his own voice before falling back to insane laughter.
"Tick tock Salem, less than a day until the end of the world. And then, you'll be all alone again. Just a little girl trapped in a tower all by yourself, this time, there'll be no one to come and save you, whatever's left of Remnant will be your prison forevermore. Just imagine, a world full of nothing where you're only being alive in it for all eternity. I condemn thee." Ironwood grinned madly as Salem's face fell, the full ramifications of his actions sinking in.
"Talk about a life sentence eh? No takers?" Taiyang's joke fell flat and failed to lift the mood.
"Not… really the time for it dear." Summer chided.
"That's… actually insanely cruel. Not really sure what the whole deal on the immortality bit is but hell, that's basically solitary confinement forever if she ends up stuck on one rock in space." Roman said.
"Huh… it's like that King Arc version where he shot Salem into space… only this one ends with all of us dead." Goodwitch muttered.
"And what happens to us in that scenario?" Emerald asked.
"Didn't you hear? We're all dead when Atlas falls since the whole world is gonna be gone. Unless you can breathe in space and never bothered to tell us Em." Mercury threw his arms up in frustration. His deal with Cinder was looking rawer every passing viewing.
"Hnnrrggh… haaaa… what do you want?" Salem bitterly spat out at last.
"Hmm? Weren't you paying attention? I want you to suffer. And I don't really care how I go about doing it anymore. You have two options now, take the staff and wait for everyone to die, or fuck off with your army and never show your face again. You leave and I return the staff, Remnant continues to exist for a little while longer. You stay… and it won't matter anyways." Ironwood shrugged nonchalantly, he was beyond caring at this point, no matter what Salem chose to do, he won either way.
"You expect me to just leave!?"
"I expect you to suffer no matter what. How it happens really doesn't matter to me. And before you think of trying to use magic to force me to fix my sabotage, I have a cyanide pill ready to go, there is no version of this where you come out victorious."
"Hmmph! I wonder how long your confidence will last when the people find out about this."
"When? Again, it doesn't matter. Who are they going to believe? Me or one of your agents? It isn't like there's anything that can be done even if they know, thanks to Oz, he and I are the only ones who know how to work the machinery any more. Try anything, Atlas drops, remove the relic later, Atlas drops. My death won't change anything, it's already set in stone. Please don't underestimate my willingness to die to spite you." Ironwood fired back, uncaring of her threat.
Salem would never be able to get the staff without the world ending shortly after she succeeded, not even if she tried again in a thousand years. As long as Atlas remained in the air, it would forever be the one thing between Salem and her victory.
"Fine. You win this one. I'll leave and take my Grimm with me." Salem spat out, her hands clenched into fists tightly enough that her nails were drawing blood.
"This isn't over, not by a long shot. I'll be back, count on it."
"Whatever you say, it won't matter how many of your agents you send, I've already seen to it that my sabotage is impossible to fix. I'm not even going to lock the vault, come collect the staff whenever you feel like it, it's yours for the taking." Ironwood taunted and gave a mock bow.
"Mark my words, you will pay for this James." Salem glared as her hologram started to disperse, already the Grimm were retreating from Atlas airspace.
"James, is what my friends call me, to you, it's General." Ironwood drew his pistol and shot the seer, destroying it and causing Salem's hologram to dissipate completely.
The screen faded to black and the lights came back on.
"She retreated, she actually retreated?" Goodwitch sought confirmation.
"She did. She's only concerned with winning, Atlas falling would have rendered the 'game' unwinnable."
"Interesting…" Ironwood muttered and knit his fingers together, deep in thought.
"General Ironwood sir? Are… are we enacting that plan back in Atlas?" Winter asked unsurely.
"It's a possibility." Ironwood said noncommittally.
"Whoa, whoa wait a minute, you're not seriously considering that are you?" Qrow asked.
"I am. You saw that army of Grimm, we don't have anything that can stand up to that, having Atlas rigged to destroy the world is a desperate gambit yes, but it's also one that worked."
"But we can't just destroy the world!" Ruby protested.
"Yeah, what about everyone else in it?" Nora added on.
"We might not have a choice. If Salem wins, that's it for humanity. Since she's immortal…" Ironwood said that and glared at Ozpin for leaving out that tidbit, the other headmaster averting his eyes in exchange.
"There's no such thing as waiting for her to die of old age. Her reign of tyranny will never end. That kind of a future is unacceptable."
"Oi, speak for yourself! I like living thank you very much, even if it means having to bow to people I don't particularly like. And most people would agree, where do you get off deciding all of us has to die like dogs for no reason." Roman fired back.
"Hear hear!" Mercury echoed.
"She's queen of the Grimm, what kind of a world do you think you'll be living in if she's in charge? Endless suffering everywhere, where there's no hope of things ever getting better. Death is preferable, you can't even hide it out, where are you supposed to go that the Grimm can't find you?" Ironwood explained and Roman was forced to concede the point.
"Umm… can we maybe focus on trying to beat Salem first and talk about end of the world scenarios never? If she can be stopped, then the drop Atlas and kill everyone plan never needs to be used." Jaune said, trying to keep the argument from getting any bigger.
"Of course, destroying the world is always an absolute last resort. Finding a way to beat Salem takes priority. Still, I do think the system has merit since it will pretty much never be used. Salem can't get the relic without killing everyone and denying herself her own victory, while she's trying to find a way around the system, it buys us time to deal with her or find other measures to keep her in check." Ironwood agreed.
"It will have to do." Ozpin sighed and lowered his mug.
"That's it for the viewing anyways, go freshen up, the next viewing will start soon." Blank said and his audience dispersed.
Author's notes: Yeah, this one came to me out of nowhere. Working title for this chapter was 'Eviler than thou'. Inspired by the Forerunners final solution against the Flood, stop attacking or we kill everyone and damn you all with us. The flood called the bluff and lost, the Halos fired and everything died, this one is sort of a 'what if' the Flood actually did back down.
