DISCLAIMER: No faunus were harmed in the making of this chapter.

Weiss had called it. She'd freaking called it, and she'd rarely been more displeased to be right. This was now the third time they'd gone up against the White Fang, and considering how spectacularly the first two had gone off the rails, Round Three's descent into lunacy was practically inevitable. Sanity, as she had learned, was in short supply among Huntsman students, and the supposed 'responsible adults' might be worse. From what she'd seen of Qrow Branwen, letting him supervise Team SJBY was like trying to put out a burning house with cheap alcohol. And Professor Port was still bounding down the escalator with the air of an overexcited puppy, while Team RRWN rushed to back him up. Sable might have already kicked the hornet's nest, but Port had well and truly stuck his...ahem, leg into it. Down in the station, faunus soldiers scrambled to face the new threat. Enough guns to equip a company of Atlesian soldiers aimed in their general direction. "Get down!" Weiss yelled. With a flick of Myrtenaster, she coated the escalator in a layer of ice, and the team slid down. Nora whooped in childish glee, heedless of the bullets whizzing overhead, as if enjoying a leisurely day at the water park.

The escalator deposited Port next to the railroad tracks, a hundred yards or so behind the end of the black train. Dozens of masked faunus were rushing to fill the space between. The fat man dodged and weaved with far more agility that his build would've suggested, deflecting shots with his blunderbuss-axe. A few bullets pinged off his massive belly to little effect. "Have at thee!" he roared, swinging his weapon at a short woman with two antlers sticking out of her hood. Weiss expected the anonymous goon to simply go flying away, unconscious but otherwise unscathed—a neat, family-friendly elimination. That...was not what happened. Not at all. The axe blade crashed down on the woman's head. There was a sound like glass shattering, followed by a sickening squelch. For a moment the deer girl stood still, twitching from the massive chunk of metal embedded in her nervous system, before collapsing into a growing puddle of red.

"OH MY GODS!"Ruby screamed, silver eyes popping from her head. Pyrrha and Ren gasped audibly; even Nora stopped laughing. Weiss was still trying to process what the hell she'd just witnessed when the end of her ice slick snuck up on them. All five students tumbled down the remaining steps and landed ungracefully on the station floor. Not exactly Team RRWN's finest moment. She hastily threw up a white glyph as a shield; between that and Pyrrha's wave of polarity, they were at least spared them the indignity of being gunned down where they lay. "Move!" Ren shouted, louder than she could ever recall the quiet boy getting. They picked themselves up and made a mad dash for the train, averting their eyes from the war crimes Port was perpetrating on the White Fang. It did nothing to block out the sounds, though. Weiss doubted any of them would dare sleep through Grimm Studies again. They would be lucky to sleep again, period.

"Oh my gods, he killed Deery!"

"You bastard!"

Peter snorted. Typical. Remnant was a world kept alive by ceaseless struggle against the forces of darkness and built atop the uncounted graves of martyred Huntsmen, a world where death lurked in every shadow with nasty big pointy teeth...but everyone still lost their collective minds over a little blood. One of the dead woman's comrades charged him, sword raised and screaming for revenge. Blowhard kissed his wrist, and the weapon went sailing away, along with the hand that held it. Aura, useful as it was, had a way of making people soft. It was easy to forget, when you were young and cocky, that underneath the light of your soul still lay tender, spongy flesh. Yes, he thought, as he buried his axe in another man's gut, being reminded of your mortality was a sobering thing. Especially sobering, when it took the form of your own entrails spilling out on the ground. The next one had more Aura than the others, and managed to tank the first blow, but the second saw him off. "Mommy..." he moaned, before Peter ended his suffering.

"He's—he's insane! Brothers save us!" one of the villains squeaked. The unnaturally hairless tail marked her out as part mouse. Peter felt a flash of disgust before reminding himself that faunus were not animals. Mice brought famine and disease, but a mouse faunus probably brought nothing but a phobia of cats and an unusual fondness for cheese. Sure, he might end up killing the girl, but there was no need to be racist about it. He still disagreed with her assessment, quite strenuously. Insane was crashing a train into a crowded city; a bit of dismemberment and disembowelment in the heat of battle was merely pragmatic. It wasn't as if his axe had a 'stun' setting...ha! The idea made him laugh aloud. For some odd reason, the White Fang reacted poorly to his display of good humor. Their improvised formation broke and they scattered to the four winds, with Peter in pursuit. A Huntsman must hunt, after all. Something wet splashed his face. Warm. Warmer than in his dreams. Splash, splash, splash. Steaming rivulets ran through his mustache, tickling pleasantly. He'd almost forgotten this feeling, the indescribable thrill of hunting the most dangerous prey! How long had it been, how long? In his hands, Blowhard practically purred in delight, quenching her thirst at last. The old girl drank deep of fine red wine; every Grimm on Remnant was naught but tepid water in comparison. Peter was drowning in red. Red filled his head and brought him always closer to paradise, glorying in its embrace and inhaling its heady scent and tasting—

The loud, long blast of a train whistle interrupted his reverie. Peter shook his head, feeling as though he'd just woken from a particularly vivid dream. Oh, right, he had a train to catch! Silly him! And...oh dear, he'd gotten a bit carried away, hadn't he? The old Huntsman turned and ran down the tracks, wiping his face and hands on his coat. He'd best clean up a little. From past experience, students tended to react poorly when he showed up drenched in the blood of his enemies; it was another bizarre hang-up people had. Luckily, he was well prepared for that contingency. It was no accident that his outfit was colored dark red.

There was still no shortage of grunts standing between Team RRWN and the train, despite Port's best efforts to...thin their numbers. Before they could ruminate on the morality of their teacher's actions, the enemy was upon them. The White Fang bellowed battle cries and—just for Weiss—various familial insults she didn't care to repeat. Seriously, was 'Die Schnee' the only thing they could think of? Did they realize they were just screaming 'The Snow' in Old Mantlean? Well, technically it would be Der Schnee since snow was a masculine noun, and also, why on Remnant was she thinking about linguistics right now? Almost on autopilot, Weiss laid down a fresh sheet of ice and skated forward. Myrtenaster's pointy end poked and prodded at the White Fang while they slipped and stumbled around. Stab. One down. Stab. Two. Over the din of the battle, she heard the faint rumble of a train slowly starting. Three, four, five—a thrown shield took out the fifth before she could get him—five, but for real this time. The rumbling feeling suddenly intensified. A metal colossus ran down the side of the train at them, firing rockets; Weiss twirled away from one and it wiped out White Fang Grunt #6 instead. Paladin. The terrorist in the cockpit lifted the entrance hatch to blow a raspberry. "Suck on this!" he taunted. Oh dear. From what she'd heard, it had taken no fewer than seven students to disable Torchwick's mech last time around. This might be a problem.

"We can do this!" Ruby struck a determined pose, planting Crescent Rose like an oddly-shaped flag. One faunus was rude enough to try and attack while she was posing, and got a scythe to the face for his trouble. "Weiss, how about—"

"Leave it to me." Pyrrha said calmly. The Paladin's right arm froze, glowing black, then lurched back towards its own face, grabbed onto its entry hatch, and ripped it away. Its pilot's smug tone turned to horror. "No! Stop hitting yourself!" he begged, before the giant metal hand plucked him from his seat. The mech flicked him over its shoulder, his shrill screams fading into the distance. All Team RRWN had to do was munch the metaphorical popcorn, while the Pyrrha-piloted Paladin plowed through the White Fang's phalanx. Masked men and women went flying like bowling pins before a bulldozer (a very muddled analogy, but it was the first thing that came to mind). "Phew." Pyrrha gasped. The Paladin stopped glowing, and keeled over like a puppet with its strings cut. "Sorry I didn't leave any for you."

Ruby blinked. "Um, don't worry, it's totally fine! Wow...your Semblance is OP." The redhead's robotic rampage had left them a clean route to the train, just in time. An endless series of cars rolled down the track, wheels going round and round, while a loud whistle sounded in the tunnel ahead. Luckily, basic physics dictated that a cargo train took a while to get up to speed, and it was child's play to chase the caboose down and make the eight-foot jump onto its roof. "Yeah! Made it!" Nora cheered. "Now we can all crash into Vale! Wait..."

"Yeah, let's not." Ruby struck another dramatic pose. "All right, team, it's up to us to save the city! We're going to get up front. Whoop everyone in the way. And then...uh, push the stop button?"

"The stop button?" Ren questioned.

"Like I know how trains work!" Ruby folded her arms, pouting. "I'm a Huntress, not a...a train driver!"

"Engineer." Weiss corrected automatically. Ruby ignored her (also automatically), and pried the caboose's roof hatch open. "What the heck is that?!" she asked. A bulky cylindrical device with red and blue wires sticking out confronted them. "Aw, neat." Nora said casually. "A bomb."

Ruby, who had been poking curiously at the device, yelped and scuttled away on her backside. "Are—are you sure?" It certainly looked like one, Weiss thought, but she was no expert on the subject. Maybe it was only a fancy pyrotechnic device for the White Fang's Fall Prom...okay, probably not.

Nora nodded confidently. "Oh yeah, I know explosives." Fair enough. No one was going to argue that point. "But don't worry, bombs always start beeping and flashing, like, thirty seconds before they blow. If that happens, just cut the red wire and we'll be a-OK! Snip-snip!" She wiggled two fingers like scissors. "That's science."

"No, it's not." Ren jumped gracefully onto the next car, then looked back over his shoulder at them. "Er, maybe you shouldn't all be standing around a live bomb?"

"Looks like it's made of metal." Pyrrha observed, ignoring him. "And not that heavy. I could probably throw it off the back—"

"NO!" Ruby and Weiss shouted at the same time, making the Invincible Girl flinch. "Sable's coming from the back! With the others!" Weiss said angrily. Considering Team SJBY's habit for attracting trouble, the bomb would probably detonate right on top of their heads, and she couldn't risk her favorite boy like that. Zwei was too cute to die! And losing her brother...would also be pretty bad.

"Right, right! Sorry!"

"Um, guys?" Ren called. "Not to be pushy, but there's another bomb in this car. I really think we should stand somewhere else!"

Ruby sucked her teeth nervously. "Oh boy. Qrow better hurry."

A hand, stained slightly pink, slapped onto the end of the caboose. Professor Port heaved himself up; the metal creaked dangerously under his weight. "Excuse my tardiness, children! Time flies when you're having fun!" The students backed away warily, holding their noses. The Grimm Studies teacher smelt suspiciously of copper, and he definitely had not been a redhead when they'd last seen him. Port rolled his eyes. "Come now, don't be so squeamish. It's one hundred percent organic!"

Of the White Fang who had stayed back in the station, fewer than half remained standing. They wandered aimlessly up and down the railroad tracks, unable to quite believe they were still alive. One moment they had been running for their lives from a fat mustachioed demon, and the next, their tormentor was gone, chasing the train like a giant dog after an equally giant car. The prevailing mood among them was numb relief. They had weathered the storm, surviving the worst Beacon could throw at them, and in that moment, it seemed the rest of their lives would be sunny skies and smooth seas, so long as they could get out of this cave. "A miracle!" one of them declared. A mouse faunus raised her trembling hands in prayer, laughing hysterically. "The gods have blessed us!"

As it happened, she'd counted her blessings much too soon. Light flared in one of the many side tunnels that connected to the main station. There was a dull boom, and moments later an unidentified flying object sailed out of the tunnel. It came to rest on the tracks, revealing itself to be a body wearing a mask and hood. Judging from their comatose state and the scorch marks on their clothes, the person had clearly, to put it bluntly, gotten their ass beat. One of the newer recruits turned to run. "Not again! Screw this!" He made it five steps before a shot rang out and he fell over. One of the more senior members glared at the others, smoking pistol still raised. "Anyone else want to try it?" he growled. "Stand your ground, you shits! I swear, kids these days—" A shotgun blast hit him square in the chest and knocked him through a wall. Qrow (with Zwei in his bag), Sable, Jaune, Blake, and Yang emerged from the tunnel at full sprint. Jaune retched in disgust for the third time that day when he laid eyes on the scene. "W-what the hell? Is that a spleen over there?"

"Liver, I think. Don't dwell on it." Qrow answered grimly. He pointed up ahead, where a boxy shape with several colorful figures atop was vanishing into a larger tunnel. "Keep moving forward! We need to catch that train!" And into the meatgrinder they went. Blake crossed blades with a masked man, who gave her a puzzled look. "Wait, do I know y—" he began. She hastily smashed Gambol Shroud's heavy sheath into his mouth, and sent him off to dreamland missing several teeth. Yang whistled. "Geez, harsh." Another faunus tried to kick her for some reason; the blonde grabbed her by the legs and swung her into one of her compatriots, knocking them both out. The two swordsmen of their party attacked with, well, swords (and a shield). "Hey, surprised to see me here?" Sable taunted.

"Huh?" A random grunt asked, genuinely confused. "Who are you?"

Sable's mouth fell open, disappointment and shock plain on his face. "What?" A low growl passed through his gritted teeth. Next to him, Jaune winced and stopped attacking to cover his ears. "WHAT?!" A huge snowflake poofed into existence, glowing bright red. "BURN!" The snowflake exploded, raining fire down upon the ignorant faunus and anyone unlucky enough to be in a six foot radius. Yelling in panic, they fled the battle to go stop, drop and roll. "Recognize that, you...you idiots?" Sable huffed, sounding slightly winded.

"Clear! Go, go, go!" Qrow shouted. Throughout the ruckus, he'd been quietly swinging Harbinger over and over with the precision of a metronome, and now the last few resisters fell before his oversized weed whacker. The Huntsmen took off down the tracks. The White Fang, now with only one-fourth the number they'd started with, cowered behind various bits of rubble, looking twice as shell-shocked as before. They couldn't help but wonder when they would be attacked next, and from where. Something began rattling in the same tunnel Team SJBY had come out of—at first it was only audible to the faunus with enhanced hearing, but soon everyone had noticed it. "Not again!" someone whimpered. "Leave us alone!"

The mouse faunus from earlier giggled. "Don't be a baby." Spitting up blood and pants on fire, she walked up to the tunnel mouth with arms spread out. "We're double blessed now! Come at me!"The rattling sound reached a fever pitch, and possessed skeletons poured out of the tunnel; the late citizens of Mountain Glenn attacked without mercy, seeming intent on adding to their number. The mad mouse never stopped laughing, not until a walking corpse grabbed her neck, and twisted it to the point she could've passed for an owl faunus.

Soon enough, zero percent of the White Fang rearguard was left.

"Torchwick, it's bad out there!" Chainsaw Guy stuck his head through the locomotive door, a communicator pressed to his ear. Roman still had no idea what the beefy lieutenant's real name was, and at this point, he was a little afraid to ask. "We've got six bogeys on board, and five more chasing! Any clever ideas?"

Roman groaned. This was so unfair. He knew perfectly well that their stupid little Academy teams only had four people each, so why on Remnant did he end up dealing with double digits every time? Considering the animals' general competence, that many Huntsmen would go through the train like shit through a goose. Even if the Breach Plan was never meant to succeed, exactly, it'd be damn embarrassing for them to all croak halfway to Vale. It reminded him of a guy he'd known on the street, who'd thought it was a brilliant idea to break into a bank via the ventilation shaft (meth was one hell of a drug) and wound up suffocating in there. Roman took a long drag from his cigar. Times like these, he wished there was something stronger than tobacco in it. Maybe Neo could smuggle him some joints while he was in the slammer, and he'd see if he could still fit them up his butt, just like the old days—nope, nope, not the time to think about that. "Stall them as long as you can." he said. "And we need to start the bombs. Now."

"We haven't reached the detonation point—" Chainsaw objected.

"Doesn't matter. Six is bad enough. If they all make it on, we might as well drop our pants and bend over!" Reaching into his coat pocket, Roman took out a box made of black plastic and flipped it open. He slammed his palm onto the big enticing red button that lay inside. He shot Chainsaw an impatient look, and the big faunus pressed his own detonator, grumbling slightly. Both buttons let out a series of satisfying beeps and flashes. That was—in theory—the signal for the back cars to start detaching and exploding. He only hoped the White Fang were better at electrical engineering than at combat.

"More baddies!" Ruby warned. They had only advanced a few cars when another dozen or so White Fang rushed them, backed up by a hulking Paladin. "Pyrrha, do your thing!" The tall redhead waved her hand almost lazily, and the mech toppled like a falling tree. Its arms and legs flailed about wildly, kicking and punching grunts off the train. One final punch took out its pilot, and then it rolled obediently over the side. The state-of-the-art Atlesian robot bounced away, clanking like a discarded soda can. Professor Port grumbled something about an anticlimax. Wow! It was hard to believe the Paladin had given them so much trouble last time. Having Pyrrha with them was beginning to feel like playing with a cheat code. It was probably only fair that she wasn't officially on anyone's team.

"Ruby!" a familiar voice called out. She turned to see a dark shape perched on the caboose, in a picture-perfect three-point-landing pose. "Uncle Qrow! Careful, there's a bomb back there!" She zoomed back towards her uncle regardless. "What happened to you guys?"

Qrow grunted. "Long story." He took off his pack, with Zwei still in it. The dog happily hopped away in the heavy bag, as if competing in a sack race. "Rest of them might need some help getting on. Give me a hand." Ruby peeked over the train's back edge. Sure enough, two black and two yellow figures ran behind them on the tracks. With the train picking up speed, though, they were struggling to gain ground. And even further back, she could make out the glowing eyes of some very weird-looking Grimm. "Are...are those skeletons?" Weiss asked incredulously. Ruby wasn't sure when her partner had joined them, but she had. "What did you do?"

Qrow sighed. "Like I said, it's a long story."

Team SJBY engaged in a spirited and entirely unheard debate, before Sable pointed his sword at Jaune. The blond boy began glowing with the familiar yellow of a time dilation glyph. He rapidly caught up with the train, moving almost as fast as Ruby (almost, she reassured herself). "Jump!" Ruby encouraged him. She, Weiss and Qrow crouched near the edge, hands extended. "We'll catch you!"

Beep...beep...beep.

All three whipped around at the noise. Just as Nora had predicted, the bomb under the hatch was beeping and flashing red. Crap! At least Torchwick was sporting enough to give them a warning. Jaune, forgotten, crashed face-first into the back of the caboose. "Ow..." he muttered, sliding down. Weiss hastily summoned a white glyph, bouncing him off to side and saving him from going under the wheels. Qrow let loose a series of curse words he probably shouldn't have said in front of Ruby. "Wait—" Ruby sputtered. It wasn't fair! They were so close to all being back together. She was the leader; she could pull a clever solution from somewhere, right? Right? She glared at the bomb, half-wondering if she could intimidate it into defusing. Nope. ("BOMB!" Qrow bellowed down the tunnel, arms waving. "Take cover!"). Maybe she should actually cut the red wire? Super nope. (Weiss tugged on her hand, but she barely noticed). Or, maybe she could use her speed to relocate the blast. (The roof jerked under her feet, making her stumble sideways a few steps). Going forward or backward was too dangerous, and there wasn't much space on the sides but—

"Hey, don't just stand there! Get back!" Qrow screamed in her ear. "RUN!" Yang added, faint and distant. Ruby looked up to see her sister shouting through cupped hands, Blake reeling Jaune in on her ribbon, and Sable kneeling with his sword out; then a rippling cyan barrier hid them from view. Swallowing hard, she prepared to jump the gap and...uh-oh. The caboose had apparently detached while she was busy thinking, leaving a sizeable gap between them and their other teammates. To make matters worse, the bomb began beeping faster and louder—a sure sign it was only seconds from blowing up, if cartoons could be trusted.

"Crap!" Her Semblance activated in an instant. Weiss—still holding onto her hand—got taken along for the ride, as they dispersed into red and blue flower petals. She caught a brief glimpse of Qrow running on the tracks below, and then the bomb went off. Even in their ethereal state, the wave of heat and pressure and noise tossed them like leaves on the wind. An awfully large rock whizzed past, missing by a mere foot. She only barely managed to aim for the train. Ruby and Weiss turned solid, just in time to crash hard against the roof, skidding across it face-down. Ow. Bad landing strategy! If not for Aura, she was pretty sure her nose would've been sanded off. Luckily, a (not so) mysterious force stuck Crescent Rose firmly to the train like a magnet, preventing them from tumbling over the side. Weiss sat up, rubbing her head. "Thanks, Pyrrha. Let's never—oh gods!" Ruby followed her partner's gaze, back to where the explosion had been, and...

The caboose had apparently exploded in a highly unfortunate spot, right under one of Mountain Glenn's outer neighborhoods. The blast had caved the ceiling in, and now broken building bits blocked the tunnel from bottom to top. Beowolves and Ursas and Boarbatusks and Creeps and various other horrible creatures crawled out from fresh holes in the ceiling and walls and floor. Worst of all, there was no sign of her sister and uncle and friends. "Yang? Qrow?" Ruby gasped. She half-expected a golden fireball to come smashing through the blockage, but it remained stubbornly non-smashed. "YANG!" Her eyes felt like they were on fire. She screwed them shut against the pain to no avail. Lights flashed inside her skull and made her head pound, bright and searing and silver.

"Ruby! Ruby!" Pyrrha shook her by the shoulder, and the ache lessened a bit. "The other bombs, Ruby! We need to leave!" Ruby could do nothing but stumble along. Everything would be all right, she told herself. Qrow would save Yang. She was dimly aware of a second distant explosion. Just like that long-ago day on Patch. Ruby remembered being surrounded by dozens of Beowolves, all of them fifty feet tall and shooting lasers from their eyes. A third explosion. Okay, maybe that wasn't exactly how it had happened but in her defense she had been really young and really small at the time; anyways the point was that Qrow kicked butt and he would totally save everyone but oh no, what if he couldn't get to them through the wall or what if they'd gotten squished under it oh gods oh frick—

"—Rose! Miss Rose! We must focus!" Professor Port boomed. Ruby blinked. The six of their group (plus Zwei) were huddled on the roof of another identical carriage. "I understand you're worried, but there's nothing we can do for them now. Except trust that they'll do their jobs." He attempted a comforting smile, but with the amount of dried blood on him, it came across as more disturbing than anything. "As we must do ours. Miss Nikos and I will stay up here, to draw their attention." Port took Qrow's pack from Zwei and pushed it into Ruby's arms. "You four, go below. Get to the front, plant the charges, stop the train. Do you understand?"

Stop the train. Those three words cut through Ruby's mental fog. It was only a noun, a verb and an article, but to her it was an ironclad promise that they could still fix things. She nodded jerkily. "Right, got it. Stop the train." If they could stop the train, pump the brakes on the locomotive, halt the forward momentum of the rail-based transport, everything would be somehow made right again. She clambered through the roof hatch. "Come on, team, we're stopping this train!"

Team RRWN vanished below decks. The champion, the professor, and the dog stayed behind. The next wave of anonymous faceless enemies was already charging at them. "No Paladins." Pyrrha muttered. "Well, they're learning."

Port hummed. "Mm, no complaints here. Fighting robots just isn't the same, you know what I mean?" he grinned at Pyrrha, who looked vaguely queasy. "Bah. What do you think, Zwei?" In answer, the dog bounded forwards, tail wagging and tongue lolling. One of the advancing White Fang sneered at the sight. "Come on, what are you going to do, nibble my—AAARGH!" Zwei lunged right for his jugular. There was a sound like a can opener; the faunus's body fell off one side of the train, while his masked head rolled off the other. Pyrrha clapped a hand to her mouth. "Sweet Brothers!"

Port laughed. "Good boy!"

Team RRWN was no stranger to danger, but this, Ren thought, was easily the most depressing situation they'd ever faced. The four of them ran through vacant train cars in oppressive near-silence. Weiss looked somehow paler than usual, and her expression promised pain for the first opponent to cross their path. Nora had babbled some nonsense about 'plot armor', but then even her endless reserve of oddball comments had dried up. "Stop the train..." Ruby kept muttering. "Stop the train, stop the train..." Ren wondered if he ought to use his Semblance on her, insensitive as it seemed. None of this felt entirely real yet. He wasn't...hadn't been?...particularly close to Sable or Jaune or Blake or Yang. But they'd eaten together, studied together, seen each other every day for months, and it seemed so damn unfair that it could all end in an instant. Life isn't fair, he reminded himself. The fate of his home village had taught him as much. But at least he'd gotten to say goodbye to his father that day—

A clattering of heels derailed his increasingly morbid train of thought. A short girl blocked their way, a very distinctively colored one. Pink and brown hair, pink and brown eyes, pink and brown outfit, pink and brown parasol...or was it an umbrella? The curved handle meant it was an umbrella, right? "Oh! It's...it's that person!" Nora exclaimed. Ren raised his eyebrows. "Right, you weren't there! She helped Torchwick escape after we wrecked his robot, and maybe she was at the docks too? I don't remember." The girl rolled her mismatched eyes. Nora tapped their leader on the shoulder. "Ruby, do you?"

"Stop the train!" Ruby shrieked again. A streak of rose petals rocketed right past the Pink And Brown Girl Of Mystery; she spun around in a full circle, looking dizzy, but quickly recovered. She turned to chase Ruby through the far door, only for a barrage of grenades, bullets and razor-sharp icicles to fly at her back. With remarkable speed, she turned back around and unfolded her umbrella. Their projectiles bounced harmlessly off the canopy. Ren was starting to suspect that that was no ordinary umbrella...or was it a parasol? The lacy fabric meant it was a parasol, right?

"Hey, hey, don't ignore us!" Nora was already running across the room, hammer raised. "Come on, play with me!" The girl sidestepped the heavy blow without batting an eye, and Ren's instincts screamed. No one treated a giant hammer heading for their face so casually, not unless they were obscenely strong, completely insane, or both. The girl flowed seamlessly from dodge to counter-attack, winding up for a kick to Nora's exposed back. Ren fired a volley from Stormflower at her legs. She aborted her attack in mid-air and flipped away, still unruffled as ever. "Nora, she's dangerous!" he warned. Pink & Brown smiled, pointed at him, and tapped her head with one finger. Translation: yes. "Weiss, go help Ruby! We'll hold her off." He fired more shots to force their foe away from the door. "Take action." he whispered in parting. His objective might be further up, but he refused to let Nora fight this girl alone. He wouldn't lose his family, not again and not today.

Weiss passed on into the next car. Ren and Nora were alone with the enemy. "I see you also walk the path of the short stack. Nice." Nora said. The other girl blinked a couple times. Ren could've sworn he saw her pink and brown eyes swapping sides...how strange. "Not a talker, huh?"

Ren sighed. "Nora, please don't banter with the violent criminal."

"Fine! Be that way!" Nora completely disregarded his advice, slamming Magnhild's butt end on the floor. "We've got ways making you talk!"

The silent girl only beckoned to them, smiling wider than ever.

"Stop the train stop the train stop the train..."

Ruby's constant muttering was getting on Weiss's nerves, but she didn't have the heart to tell her partner to shut up, considering what was obviously eating at the poor girl. Fortunately, Weiss herself was keeping it together much better. For all his deficiencies, and they were many, she knew Sable was too stubborn and too mean to be done in by mere Grimm. He would be fine. Blake and Yang were strong. They would be fine. And Jaune was...eh...well, they'd managed to keep him alive this long? Besides, she would've felt something if her brother had met an untimely end—at least, she thought that was how twins were supposed to work—and she felt perfectly calm right now. Aside from the sudden urge to hunt down every terrorist on this train and flay the flesh from their bones, but that...that didn't count.

The next car they entered had more White Fang in it, conveniently enough. The now-predictable volley of familial insults greeted Weiss. Part of her had felt a tiny bit bad about it before, what with her father's penchant for cheap labor and cheaper safety equipment, but now? Now she welcomed their hatred. Why would she want a bunch of thieves and murderers to like her, anyways? Weiss slashed and twirled in their midst, not even bothering with glyphs, and the White Fang's taunts turned to cries of pain. Good. If they wanted a shot at a Schnee, she was more than happy to oblige. Her bank account might not do much good here, but she still had her sword, and there were a lot of problems she could solve with that alone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a couple bodies bounce off the ceiling over where Ruby was. Hmph. Every victory counted the same, of course, but compared to that, hers felt a little unsatisfying. Weiss fired a giant icicle into someone's face, and he hit the wall hard enough to shake the carriage.

"She's mine!" A hulking brute of a man rushed in to challenge her, his...chainsaw?...yes, his chainsaw revving up. He stood nearly a head taller than any of his comrades. "Aww, what's with that face, princess?" he said mockingly. "Did we hurt your feelings—"

Weiss was already spinning Myrtenaster's chamber. "Die." Flames spewed from the rapier's tip rather than her usual ice, and the faunus screamed. She felt a flash of savage triumph, before realizing that he was still charging, now on fire. Oh dear. Despite parrying, the sheer force of the blow sent her skidding six feet back. Her arms felt numb; she suspected that only Aura had kept all her bones properly connected. And like a killer from a horror film, the burning man kept coming, roaring with hatred and rage. Weiss answered with a wordless snarl of her own. No matter. She was still going to end him. She'd killed bigger monsters with bigger weapons before.

Bang. A bullet pinged off his back. "Get away from her!" Ruby shouted. The chainsaw wielder twisted around, cursing, as rose petals passed by him. The wind made him stumble a bit, but also put out the flames on his body. "Hey, thanks!" he laughed.

Ruby rematerialized right next to Weiss. "Ice Flower!" Weiss took a deep breath. The urge to run in and turn the bastard into a colander was still very strong, but she obeyed orders, swapping back to Ice Dust. It was bit confusing how they'd given two combination attacks the same name; Ren wasn't here, though, so it was pretty obvious which one she meant. Crescent Rose, in its rifle form, fired through a stack of light blue glyphs. Frozen flowers bloomed on the faunus's body wherever the bullets hit, until he was basically a living popsicle. "Damn it!" he spat, straining against the icy prison. "Fine. You live this time. But next time I'll—"

"Nope." Ruby said flatly. She shifted Crescent Rose back to scythe mode, and pointed the rifle barrel right at his nose. A bullet meant to snipe targets at hundreds of feet hit the giant's head at point-blank range, snapping it back and to the left. "You—" he choked out. Another shot. His white mask broke in two and fell to the floor. Crack. Crack. Crack. He was blasted free of the ice and across the room, Aura audibly shattering. Weiss couldn't tell if he had survived all that or not. Maybe they were better off not knowing. Ruby hunched over, gasping; somehow, Weiss didn't think it was from physical exhaustion alone. "Are you okay?" she asked, squeezing the younger girl's arm. "You...you did well there."

Her partner gave her a shaky thumbs-up. "Yeah, fine. I'm fine!" Ruby heaved herself upright and shambled onwards. "Come on. Stop the train!"

To his great displeasure, Roman Torchwick recognized the gunshots outside. Of course it had to be Little Red and her glorified farm tool. Of course. Ever since that Dust shop robbery, she'd been dead-set on being a colossal pain in his rectum, gods only knew why. Was he just that devilishly good-looking? Was it because he'd tried kill her with an exploding Dust crystal (seriously, get over it)? How had she even found them in this gods-forsaken shithole city? The animals had probably cocked something up again. He'd have to make sure Cinder realized this was their fault and not his...

"We're getting on a ship and going somewhere southeast of here..."

...yep, definitely not his fault. The shots stopped. Either Red was dead, or all the White Fang were, and he knew which one he'd bet on. Damn it, why couldn't those useless bastards have bought him a little more time? And what had happened to Neo—eh, he was sure Neo was fine. She'd been well trained in the Torchwick Secret Technique (a.k.a. 'gtfo when things go down the toilet', but that didn't sound as good).

He had no idea how much further it was to Vale; the spectacular view of the tunnel wall out his window sure didn't offer any clue. Well, whatever the case, he was the last line of defense now. Sighing, Roman prepared to greet his visitor in style. He brushed off his coat, loosened his scarf, adjusted his hat...ugh, his hat was gone, he still forgot sometimes. Vomit Boy had a lot to answer for. He put on his most roguish grin, and positioned Melodic Cudgel at just the right angle, perfectly tilted to both look cool and be ready to attack. It'd taken him ages to master the Art of the Lean, and he was damn proud of it. With a hiss, the locomotive door slid open to admit a short girl in a red cape. "Little Red! Fancy seeing you here!" Roman said, with cheer he didn't really feel. "Say, isn't it past your bedtime?"

A white shape followed her in. Shit, the Ice Queen too? Red lifted her head to meet his gaze. The thing he remembered most vividly from the night they met—apart from the giant scythe that had carved Junior's men like turkeys, and the ridiculously gothic color scheme—okay, third-most vividly, were those shiny silver eyes. At a glance, he could tell they were the eyes of an idiot child, someone who still thought they could save the day with friendship and rainbows and all that bullshit just by wanting it bad enough and it had pissed him right off that anyone so dumb could still be so strong. Well. Things were different today. Today, two discs of cold iron stared back at him. He was uncomfortably reminded of how Neo's eyes had looked when they first met. And her weapon...he hadn't gotten particularly close to it at the Dust shop, he realized. At this range, it looked less like a cartoonish gardening implement and more like a very large, very sharp piece of metal that fucking killed people.

"Little Red...?"

Blake thought it might take nine lives to get out this mess, but regrettably, she only had one to lose for Beacon. In front, a towering pile of rubble sealed the tunnel, while a combo platter of Grimm spewed from various dark pits. Behind, their old skeletal friends kept up the pursuit, intent on making a strawberry sandwich out of them. Ironic. Blake's brief career as a Huntress had started with an exploding train, and now, it seemed, it might end with one. Their only saving grace was that Sable's Hard-Light barrier had protected against the brunt of the explosion. The cyan shield flickered out of existence, leaving a small pile of assorted train shrapnel behind. Sable himself slumped to his knees, gasping for breath; Blake wondered just how much that had taken out of him, and how much he had left to give. Yet another thing to worry about. Every glyph and every bit of activated Dust consumed Aura, and their leader had, as was his style, been using both rather aggressively...

"NO!" Yang's scream echoed in the tunnel, drowning out the cries of the Grimm. "Ruby! Come back!" She stumbled a few steps forwards, as if to charge right into the mess; Jaune and Blake both grabbed onto her. "Damn it, stay with us! We need you!" Blake shouted desperately. Yang cursed and struggled against them, hand outstretched futilely towards the blockage.

"We gotta get out!" Jaune yelled. He nervously glanced to the front, to the back, and up...up? High above, on the intact part of the ceiling, there was a lattice of thin metal support beams criss-crossing the tunnel. Those looked capable of bearing some weight, assuming they weren't too rotted. "Sable, are you—"

The team leader stumbled to his feet. "Not dead yet." he hissed. His eyes were wild and blazing, so much that Blake was ready to hold him back as well, but suddenly they turned cold, as if he'd somehow put a cork in himself. He clapped Yang roughly on the back. "Get it together, Yang. They're strong. We have to trust them." The blonde sagged, her eyes turning from red back to purple (Blake suddenly realized that everything didn't look green anymore. Must've lost the goggles somewhere).

"Sable, we can't fight all of them." Jaune said urgently. "I was thinking we could go up—"

"I know!" Sable balled up his right hand, blue Aura flickering around it. "Come on, come on—ARGH!" A spiral of white glyphs erupted from the ground, stretching upwards. Their creator swayed and nearly fell, but Yang caught him in time. The four of them climbed the ghostly staircase, up to (temporary) salvation. Blake reached the top first, pulling herself onto a metal strut. Jaune was next. Yang half-dragged Sable up the last stretch, despite the latter's protests about not needing any help. Below them, the two hordes of Grimm crashed against each other; Geists and Death Stalkers and Goliaths mingled together in one big happy evil family. A few skeletons tried climbing atop each other's shoulders to get to them, like acrobats in a macabre circus; the pyramid reached four levels before they succumbed to gravity. "Oh man." Jaune whimpered, hugging his strut for dear life.

"Don't fall." Blake advised (a very obvious suggestion, but it was the first thing that came to mind).

"We can't stay here forever..." Sable croaked; his voice was utterly ragged. "I could—"

"No, you can't. Shut up and stay still!" Yang said firmly. "I'll call Qrow." She carefully fished out her Scroll with one hand, the other keeping their team leader held in place. Qrow's face flashed on the screen. "Come on, come on!" A 'Low Signal' message popped up, accompanied by an obnoxious error tone. "Damn it! Stupid—useless—" Her eyes turned red again. The Scroll splintered in her hand, shooting off sparks. "Fuck!" Growling in frustration, she chucked the ruined device downwards, where it punched a hole in a Beowolf's skull. Well, that was one way to do it. One down, lots to go.

Something huge dropped down from the broken ceiling. Blake made out two heads, four glowing red eyes, and two forked tongues tasting the air. "Gods, that's the biggest King Tajitu I've ever seen..." she whispered. Each head alone was the size of the Death Stalker they'd fought at initiation. The giant two-headed snake slithered down the tunnel, smaller Grimm parting in its wake. Its seemingly endless body uncoiled, dark scales on one end and light on the other. The white head rose up, up and up like a periscope, rotating until its beady eyes fell on them.

"We have to—" Sable began, and then the King Tajitu struck. Its jaw opened unnaturally wide, revealing a pitch-black maw teeming with razor-sharp fangs, rushing to swallow them whole. Blake jumped to avoid it; she heard screams and tearing metal, and then there was nothing under her but air. In other words, she was falling, right after she'd specifically said not to. She tossed Gambol Shroud up as hard as she could, ribbon rapidly unspooling around her arm. Someone fell past her, and she instinctively reached out. Her fingers scraped across metal, but managed to catch onto softer fabric. She let her ribbon run for a few more feet, then clenched her hand around it. Either they would be saved, or they would hit the ground and probably die very humiliating deaths...there was a jerk that nearly dislocated her shoulder, but the ribbon held. Up above, her weapon was stuck halfway into the ceiling, somehow supporting the weight of two people. Safe! Well, safe was relative. They were still sealed in a death tunnel and dangling precariously above a ridiculous number of Grimm, but it was a start. "You okay, Jaune?" she asked.

"Mostly...but you're giving me a wedgie..." he groaned. Blake looked down to see her hand grabbing a fistful of boxer shorts. Huh, blue with a rabbit print—ack! No comment. "Yang? Sable?" she called out.

"Not dead yet!" Yang shouted. Blake twisted her head around. Sable lay sprawled face-down on another white glyph, with Yang standing over him. The King Tajitu's black head leered down on them, probably wondering whether the black or yellow snack box would taste better. "Try me, bitch! You don't even have arms!" The blonde challenged the giant snake monster, pounding her fists together. Unnoticed, the white head reared up to strike at her back. "Watch out!" Blake cried, but it was pointless. With a Grimm that size, Yang would be hard pressed to take on both heads at once, and she had nowhere to retreat—

What happened next was very confusing, even by recent standards. Another very large, very white object popped into existence out of nowhere, and punched the King Tajitu right on the snout. The pale head went flying back, already dissolving from the abrupt deus ex machina. Simultaneously, a white-masked figure wielding a red blade sailed through the spot where the Grimm had been, kept going, and crashed into the wall. They wound up hanging from their sword, which had buried itself up to its hilt in the rock. Blake's heart leapt into her mouth, before she realized the mystery person sported long hair, a dress, and a noticeable bust. So unless Adam had made some...very dramatic changes after she'd left, it wasn't him, but then who the hell was it? The remaining head recoiled in shock from the loss of its other half; Yang took the opportunity to blast it with both gauntlets, before the Unidentified White Object grabbed it by the throat and squeezed. With a nasty crunch, the black head popped off like a venomous champagne cork. Blake finally got a clear look, and it was...an arm? Yes. A disembodied, skeletal arm, just hanging out in mid-air. It seemed to have come right off the giant skeleton they'd fought earlier, though admittedly, all giant skeleton arms looked the same to her. What the hell?

Sable rolled onto his side. "I...I did it?" He stared at the floating limb, jaw agape. "I did it! Hahaha!" For the first time Blake could remember, he laughed. Not a sensible chuckle, either, but a hysterical fit that shook his frame and brought tears to his eyes. She shuddered. Of all the disturbing things she'd witnessed on this mission, that might've been the worst. "AHAHAHA!"

"MOM?!" Yang bellowed at the mysterious woman.

"Why is your mom here? What is happening?!" Jaune shrieked, summing up Blake's own thoughts quite well. "I mean, uh, hi, Mrs. Xiao Long! Yang...uh, she's never actually mentioned you, but I'm sure it would be only good things..."

The mysterious woman sighed.

Um...yeah. That was a thing that happened, wasn't it? Hopefully the mood whiplash wasn't too bad. Sorta-serious end-of-volume things are happening, but I'm trying to not make things grimdark (Grimmdark?). This story is tagged Humor and I bloody well mean to keep it that way, even if some of the jokes get a bit questionable. Eh...dark humor is like equal treatment, not everyone gets it (like the faunus, because they get treated like shit, you see? That's the joke! Heyo!) Speaking of faunus, if anyone is a fan of the faceless White Fang grunts, oof, sorry. To be fair, when you're a fictional character, and your organization dresses you in face-obscuring headgear, you pretty much exist to die. That's a fact.

Ruby and Weiss...don't worry, they're not about to turn Full Ironwood, but they're having a very stressful time right now. As the saying goes 'you mess with the cutie, you get the shootie'.

Oh, and Sable just pulled off a summon, like, 12 episodes before he was supposed to, nothing to see here. (*MARY SUE ALARM GOES OFF AGAIN*) Ok, fine, in my defense, protagonists pulling new powers out of their asses with their backs to the wall is a time-honored tradition, and if Weiss can do it for a frickin' side character, I figure Sable can pull it off for his actual teammate. Plus the image of Raven going in for the save all dramatic and mysterious-like only to get her thunder stolen was too good to pass up.