Sword in hand, Jaune jumped from the bullhead and landed on the airfield. Before him, Beacon was in chaos. Grimm roamed, fires tore through the buildings and the White Fang ransacked what was left. Far behind him, the giant grimm dragon still fought a pitched battle with the Atlas fleet.
They had touched down at a defensive position smartly set up by those on the ground at and around the bullhead landing grounds. The hangar was stuffed with injured survivors; anything and everything that could be used for cover—boxes, forklifts, spare bullhead pieces and even the remains of atlas robots—had been set up to protect against the White Fang's sporadic gunfire.
Most of the studentry had been celebrating and carousing at either the stadium or in the city. Those few left in Beacon had been fending for themselves. Until now. One could always feel safe at Beacon, a collection of hundreds of the finest fighters in the world. Now they were pressed to the limit.
Jaune ran for the hangar, followed by his team and the other hunters hopping from their aircraft to enter the fray. The bullheads themselves unleashed their turrets on oncoming Grimm. The creatures must have crawled up and out from the Emerald Forest, that insidious place which had been waiting all this time to unleash destruction.
Jaune forced himself to ignore the agonized forms and tortured groans of the injured hidden in the hangar as he approached. He instead took note of the tactical situation. Students and staff stood in a perimeter around the fields, fighting back any Grimm that came their way.
When he and his comrades came to the hanger, they met none other than Glynda Goodwitch. She nursed an arm wrapped up in an impromptu sling; her normally tidy and pristine white blouse was stained with blood. A sickly pallor struck her face, making her look halfway a corpse.
"Ah hell Glynda, what happened?" Qrow asked as they got nearby.
"Adam Taurus," she said. Her scowl and angry eyes burned through cracked glasses. "He got me by surprise while I was escorting students here. He's in the school somewhere, setting fires left and right."
"The destruction is the point," Ozpin said sharply.
"And that's what we have to stop," Glynda said, scowling sharply. "But more than that…" Her eyes glanced to Jaune and the others, who were close by.
"We know," Qrow said. "There's something Oz and I need to get to, stat."
"The rest of us can fan out and start trying to reclaim the school!" Blake said.
"There are White Fang and Grimm about; until recently, those Atlas robots were rampaging as well." She pointed to an inert paladin lying tipped over on the ground not far away. "For whatever reason, they all powered down not long ago.
"Prioritize searching for survivors and getting them back here," Glynda demanded. "And stay in groups."
"You heard the lady!" Qrow yelled to the others. "We need to try and get this chaos under control. Oz and I need to secure something, the rest of you fan out and try to look for—"
"RAH!" The deep-chested below heralded the coming of a griffon. A vicious Grimm the size of a car, it crashed down in the middle of the landing zone. It snapped its beak and reared back, flashing its wickedly sharp claws.
A long chain shot out towards it and wrapped around the griffon's neck. It cawed and bucked back, but the chain went taut, holding fast.
"Screw you!" Peach shouted. The woman Jaune had always known as a beacon of support and kindness now exposed a fierce capability. In her left hand she grasped the long chain which normally wrapped around her waist; in her right, she bore a flanged club that glowed with eerie brown runes.
The griffon beat it wings, but Peach yanked back and slammed it back down into the ground. The monster screeched hysterically and pounced for her.
Peach ducked and rolled under its jagged front claws. She slid up to her knees and tore back on the chain—still wrapped around the griffon's neck—forcing it to do a front-flip and crash down onto its back.
"Rah!" Peach shouted, jumping at the griffon. She swung her mace down into its face, cracking open the white shell and splattering its brains across the pavement.
"Hell yeah!" Jaune shouted.
Peach looked over her shoulder and noticed him. She smiled and waved as the dead griffon twitched and began to disintegrate.
"Damn, she's a therapist?" Yang said.
"Hell yeah," Jaune added.
"Yeah, yeah, let's not get sidetracked," Qrow said, "All you squirts need to be doing plenty of that yourselves right now."
The brief levity provided by Peach was wiped away like sand under the tide. They were wrapped up in a dark situation. For Jaune, Beacon was the only place he could still call home.
"Alright, Oz and I need to check in on something, right away." He turned to Glynda. "Split everybody up and keep directing things—if you can."
"Of course I can," she said. Leaning back against the hangar wall, sitting on a crate, arm wrapped in a bloody bandage… Glynda still managed a fierce glare. "Just go and save her."
Without another word, Ozpin and Qrow left, sprinting for a destination unknown. Meanwhile Glynda commanded different teams and groups to go to different areas through the school; and for the love of all the gods, stick together and be careful.
Jaune volunteered JNPR to go to a residential building nearby. There was something he wanted to pick up.
The headmaster and his longtime lieutenant sprinted across the grass.
"You know it's them," Qrow said. "They quoted from the book!"
"I know."
"The Enclave!"
"I know."
"I told you—"
"I know!" Ozpin shouted. "it must be her. She re-founded them; that's the only explanation I can think of."
Their bickering attracted the attention of a pair of nearby White Fang soldiers. Qrow squeezed a couple shots their way, and they didn't get the chance to be a problem.
"Forgive me for not thinking a group of people one thousand years dead had suddenly returned from the grave," Ozpin said.
They turned and ran through the open entrance of Beacon's central administration building. The school's great tower loomed above them.
"And they have the power of the Book of Revelations," Qrow said.
"I know! You need not state the obvious again and again!" Ozpin a swung his cane and crushed a mid-sized nevermore that loudly flapped and cawed towards them. It did not slow him down.
"And they're working with her," Qrow said. "All our worst damn nightmares."
"We just need to make sure that Amber is still—"
Both men stopped in their tracks.
Before them, the elevator that led down to the Fall Maiden's secret vault was torn wide open.
"Damn it!" Qrow swore. He launched himself into the elevator shaft and grabbed the metal cable, with Ozpin shortly doing the same. The pair slid down the cable several stories, each preparing for whatever could be down there waiting for them.
Sure enough, the elevator car sat at the very bottom of the shaft; its roof was ripped open. Qrow and Ozpin dove through and sprinted into the vault where the Fall Maiden was kept on life support—
Just in time to see Cinder Fall plunge a grey sword through the glass. The sharp point dove straight into Amber's chest, rupturing her heart and killing her instantly.
"No!" Qrow screamed. "You bitch!" He drew his sword, cocked the gun and fired.
Cinder swept out her hand, summing a flash of fire that destroyed Qrow's shot. She smiled. It was too late, and they all knew it. Smokey whisps of energy rippled out from Amber's corpse and flowed up into Cinder. The energy glowed faintly in a dark orange hue. It seeped into her skin, imbuing her with a bronze radiance like that taken on by the sunset sky.
Qrow emptied his entire magazine firing at her, and each bullet Cinder deflected with a flame-covered hand. Powered by an esoteric and old force, she levitated above the ground.
Ozpin raised his cane and stood beside Qrow. "This will be a difficult fight," he said.
"Yup," Qrow replied. "Think we can do it?"
"Perhaps."
"Think again," Cinder herself said. Her smile widened as she manifested a second sword in her free hand. "I'm hardly the one you have to fear the most right now." She looked past the two men.
Ozpin and Qrow turned around. What they saw made their blood run cold.
She stood wearing a black robe; her long hair glowed a chalky white; dark black veins sprawled under her skin, which was as drained of color as a corpse; her red eyes stared out from her shallow and sunken face like embers left behind from a dead fire. No hint of emotion graced face or posture—but when looking into those gruesome eyes one could not help but shudder and feel the pressure of pure hate.
She wielded a long, slim sword clearly not constructed out of metal. Its pale hue and rough texture marked it as being carved completely from bone; nevertheless, its sharp edges and fine point garnered as much fear as any steel could.
"Dorothy…" Qrow mumbled.
"A weak girl," said the ghostly woman before them. Her voice sounded as unalive as a breeze in a graveyard: hollow and transient and without the passion that drives a human to speak in the first place. "I'm much more now."
"Salem," Ozpin said. "We finally meet." He sighed. "Qrow, the moment you have a chance, escape."
"What?"
"Go ahead," Salem said. "Turn into a little bird and flutter away. Your time will come. Right now, I would love to focus on the Headmaster."
"If you think I'm—"
Ozpin struck the tip of his cane onto the ground, creating a sharp crack that demanded attention; then he said, "Qrow, if you don't want to die, leave."
"But—"
"You have a responsibility."
Qrow grit his teeth. His knuckles turned white as he gripped his sword ever more tightly. He looked at Salem, then turned and looked at Cinder behind him. This new murderer smiled back, and her copper eyes flashed with power.
"Damn it!" Qrow said, but his skin had already started turning to smoke. In an abrupt swoosh of black ether, his human form evaporated and condensed, turning into a small and light crow. The bird hastily flapped its wings and hurled itself up into the air, then dived past Salem and into the elevator shaft.
"Cinder," Salem said. "Once we finish him, go up and burn the library at the top of the tower. We are going to wipe out the Brotherhood of Steel."
Ozpin stepped to the side, turning to keep both Cinder and Salem in his sight.
Salem glowered and stalked toward him. Her hand began to tremble, making the sword shudder. "You have no idea"- she stepped forward -"how long I've been thinking of this moment."
He met her eyes, those frightful things which glowed like a Grimm's rather than a human's.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Liar," Salem spat, injecting venom into the word. "You only regret that you failed." Her speech held the deadly and inhuman passion of a snake's hiss. "And you regret that your great failures will finally lead to your precious Brotherhood's destruction."
"No," Ozpin said. "I am sorry."
As he looked into her eyes, so did Salem look into his. He could only hope that she caught a glimpse of his sincerity.
Her grip on her sword become firm. It stopped shaking. She pointed its sharp tip at Ozpin. Right to his heart.
"A few bodies ago, perhaps you could have won this fight; but now you are weak, and after I kill you here, I will find you and kill you again. And again. And again. Until your soul withers so much it finally ceases to be. And with you shall die the Brotherhood of Steel."
"I am not the Brotherhood," Ozpin said. "For a thousand years we have triumphed. Even without me, we shall triumph. You can try to restart the Enclave, but you still will not win."
"Ah yes, them." Salem stepped forward. Cinder advanced beside her, also brandishing her swords. "I have no idea where this Enclave came from. I don't care."
Ozpin narrowed his eyes.
"It does not matter," Salem said. "Those who call themselves the Enclave will be dealt with in time. Once we are done dealing with you, of course."
Ozpin raised his cane as the pair neared him.
"Right now, you need not worry about them," Salem said. She scowled, and her furious red eyes glowed with a greater intensity. A shining light of sheer power came from them. A bright and ethereal and ghastly shine that made one's skin crawl. "You need only to fear me. The person you betrayed.
"Fear the Winter Maiden you raised."
So yeah, I wanted to deviate a lot from canon, and this is certainly a big split. Keeping things a bit more grounded, without gods and stuff like that. So I remade Salem, completely overhauling her backstory. I haven't kept up really on RWBY, left off one or two episodes into Vol. 7. I looked at the wiki actually for to see a bit of what's happened recently and feel sorta eh about choices made.
I've been at this for nearing four years now, and I hope that some more events to happen shortly will take the story in a new and more fresh direction.
But hey, a big part of what's made this really fulfilling and great is building up a readership who like and appreciate the stuff I make, so thank you all for that :)