CW: Mutilation, Severe Eye Trauma, Graphic Violence

As far as combatants went, Neo and Pyrrha were two of the deadliest women alive… but Cinder was something else. Tireless reserves of aura, powers beyond reckoning, literally fucking magic and that was on top of someone Neo didn't relish the thought of fighting before she gained crazy fire powers. Now that the whole place was burning, their odds looked even worse.

But hell, what else was she going to do?

Even as her head pounded from the strain and her aura reserves were slowly dwindling away, Neo launched herself forward. Pyrrha was obviously the direct threat to give Neo the opening to get the killing blow… but Cinder wasn't stupid. She could see the obvious strategy as well as they could, and she wasn't going to let Neo out of her sight that easily. Fine enough, Neo could be dangerous on her own.

Snapping back a half second before the flames crashed into where she once was, Neo knew that her best asset here was speed and agility. As always, she was the smaller, the weaker, the less-threatening in the fight… but every time before, she'd proven that a little girl with pink hair was far more than just a helpless damsel. Hush was like an extension of her arm as she quickly parried one of Cinder's blades, twirling to the left as Cinder came down with a rain of blows. Neo had seen very little of their erstwhile ally's actual fighting ability, but she seemed like an agile, precise fighter, like Neo, and these blows were… more clumsy, more heavy-handed than Neo figured was Cinder's forte.

Good. She was getting mad and making mistakes. Mistakes she normally wouldn't make, but the Maiden power had made her overconfident and given her a shorter fuse. They could use that.

But for now, Neo had already done her part as Cinder finally forced her into a corner. She'd been careful not to let Neo slip out of her focus, but several hundred pounds of shipping container door was something Neo could bring into the fight. But Pyrrha could.

Unfortunately, Cinder wasn't too trapped in the tunnel vision of opportunity to get smeared across the wall, but she had to blast the steel apart with a torrent of flames, heating the corner of the warehouse like a furnace. Neo had never realized how much extreme heat could sap aura, but cornered by a living blast furnace, she could feel the timeline for their victory shrinking.

Still… Cinder wasn't in a much better position.

Neo had seen in their spar that Pyrrha was a dangerous opponent, more than most fully-trained Huntresses, but with their lives on the line, she fought like a demon, maybe even a match for Cinder as a Maiden, her strikes moving as fast as Neo could track, her Semblance fully unleashed and hammering away at Cinder without remorse. There were no tears in her eyes, her voice as silent as Neo's. It was a silence Neo spoke fluently, her sword darting in with rage, the pain expressed in a hail of metal… it was grief enough to drown them both. But they kept on fighting. They had to keep on-

Cinder caught Pyrrha by surprise with an arrow she reformed in midair, only barely dodging the blow… but not the explosion. Neo whirled, her concern for her last living family pulling her focus away from fighting Cinder.

Mistake.

Cinder lunged forward, not with a weapon, but with an open hand, catching Neo by the neck and slamming her into shipping crate, it's metal already superheated by the battle. With a silent scream, Hush tumbled from her fingers and clatter against the floor as Cinder, fueled by superhuman power, held her aloft, her golden eyes sparkling in the hellish firelight with a cruelty Neo had never seen before, not even on the streets of Vale.

"You'll recognize this trick," she growled as Neo, dangling in midair and unable to dodge, saw Cinder's open palm turn white hot.

The blow caught her across the side of the head and Neo's vision went from binocular to monocular in a blink, searing pain lancing through her body as she knew for sure her eye was lost, a long, hideous, screaming, throbbing PAIN across the entire left side of her face as she tumbled to the ground, her mouth open in a silent scream as she struggled not to black out.

"NEO!" she heard someone scream in her remaining good ear. But she couldn't really track it, cause she needed… needed all her focus… to turn her pain… into anger… and k-keep herself focused enough t-to… stay alive…

She felt her body tumble to the floor as Pyrrha pressed the assault against Cinder. The last flagging gasps of her aura was keeping her on life support as she tried to cling to consciousness. Her lungs burned, from the exertion of just breathing and the superheated air that came in with every breath. Aura wasn't able to protect her from the heat any longer, but at least… at least… it was cooler… on the ground...

Her eyes watered, stung by smoke and tears of grief and frustration and rage. She felt the concrete beneath her fingers, the smooth surface giving her no traction as her limp arms struggled to push herself up. And oh, gods, her eye! The pain… the pain was like a knife in her skull, but she hung on. By cussedness more than anything, she tried to focus on the world around her, to cling to it and not let go. The concrete beneath her, the crackle of the flames, the burning in her lungs, her eye… the metallic clang of swords meeting swords...

Pyrrha was still fighting Cinder. Roman might be dead and Neo might be heading to join him soon, but Pyrrha was still fighting. And that gave her the strength to pull herself up, to wrap her fingers around the familiar texture of Hush's grip and raise her head back towards the fight.

It was not a pretty sight.

Cinder only seemed to grow stronger, more monstrous, swollen with power and rage as the fight had gone on, and she pressed Pyrrha back with blow after blow, her voice… Neo's ears were ringing too much to make sense of her words, but the mocking, haughty tone was clear to her. Especially as Pyrrha swung too late as Cinder summoned a gout of flames…

In her one good eye, Neo could see as the sword melted into slag as Cinder annihilated the weapon with her flames, the useless hilt tumbling from Pyrrha's fingers. But as Cinder's eyes widened in glee and began to gloat, Pyrrha revealed that it wasn't as it seemed, her blade dropping, her fist flying forward to catch Cinder square in the throat. She had sacrificed her sword as a feint, and Cinder, drunk on power, had fallen for it. The Maiden clutched at her throat, choking and sputtering as she gave Pyrrha her best attempt at self defense, only to take a metal shield to the side of her head.

Neo's heart leapt to hear the sound of Cinder taking a blow like that. It was nearly enough to pull her back on her feet as she watched Cinder stagger backwards to escape Pyrrha's assault. But Pyrrha was heedless to the flames as she moved to give the Maiden another savage strike to the head. Cinder's attacks went wide as Pyrrha rained blow after blow upon her, refusing to let up or give her a chance to catch her breath. A kick to the ribs was paired with a concussion-inducing strike from her shield. Neo staggered onto her feet, trying to keep herself conscious as she…

As she knew they still weren't winning.

Her frustration exceeding her limits, Cinder just screamed her rage as she hurled waves of fire all around her. But Pyrrha wouldn't stop. Neither would Neo. Not until they were all ashes, they'd burn the whole of Vale down to avenge Roman! They'd give their lives, but it would be worth it to make the bitch suffer!

Cinder summoned a fireball and threw it, but Neo could see that Pyrrha was waiting for just that, her Semblance ripping a chunk of pipe up from the-

Neo realized what it was.

A gas line.

A split second before a flash of blinding white light and a sound that was more felt than heard, the vibrations of the explosion echoing through her entire body, as the blast practically tore the roof off the building. Neo wasn't sure she was alive, realizing she'd been slammed into the wall before dropping to the ground in a heap.

Neo's ears were still ringing as she swayed on her feet, her fingers still wrapped around Hush in a death grip. She could barely feel the flames, hear the roar of the fire, not over the pounding in her skull, but if the building wasn't on fire before...

But then… then she saw in the flames a dark shape of pure dismay.

Cinder was still alive!

"You thought to burn me?" she hissed, her voice distorted in Neo's concussed ears and wrapped in the roar of the flames, sounding more like a demon than anything human, "You stupid girl! I am death! I am power! I am the flame!"

But Neo saw that Pyrrha, though badly singed and crumpled to the ground, was still alive. Definitely out of aura. Absolutely defeated. And yet, she struggled, valiantly, to get up, even as she'd burned down the last dregs of her reserves. Neo couldn't see her still fighting and not try to get to her, tottering on unresponsive legs, feeling the pain of a dozen wounds explode upon her as she made what she knew was her final charge. No more luck. No more tricks. No more hope.

Just pure, livid fury.

Staggering more than running, Neo still rushed the bitch, swinging Hush more like a bat than a sword, desperate to get Cinder's attention and keep her from killing Pyrrha. It worked, worked well enough, as Cinder lazily parried Neo's attack, her clumsy blow easily knocked aside.

"It's a shame..." she hissed, a maniacal grin coming to her face, "I wish I hadn't already killed the idiot… it'd be so much more satisfying if he watched you both die!"

She threw back her head in laughter as Neo made another wild, ineffective swing. But it didn't matter. They were all dead, they had been born to die and now their hour had come. But Neo… Neo was going down swinging. No matter what, no matter how injured she was, she was not going to die without a fight!

Roman had always feared death. He hid it, he didn't let anyone see it, but it always burned inside him. His father had died when he was very young, an early lesson that he would, someday, not exist, leaving behind a world that would keep on existing without him, slowly vanishing from memory until not a damn thing he did was remembered any longer.

If he knew that death would mean this much crushing guilt… he'd have feared it even more.

Standing across a thin river, its black waters silently gliding by, Roman nervously fingered his cap as he tried to think of what to say to the woman who'd given him life… and whose heart he'd broken more times than he could count. She had brought him into one world, and now… she was going to bring him into the next. Poetic in a way.

"I..." he fumbled out, looking for something to say, "I know I… I wasn't… Look, I know I was a screw up, I know..." his voice got quiet and rough as he forced out, "I know I hurt… I hurt a lot of people. I hurt you and Cesty and… and I hurt… I hurt Pyrrha. A lot. I know I don't deserve anything, but… I don't want to move on without getting it off my chest. I'm sorry, I know it's just words, but I'm sorry. So... so very, very sorry. I wanted… I thought… I thought things would go better than they did, but everything I did… I wanted to help you. To help the family. I never wanted for this to happen like this, but I… I really thought it'd help."

And yet, she had nothing to say.

"Please…" he pleaded with his mother, the woman whose presence, whose acceptance loomed over the entirety of his life. "Please, just… say something! Tell me you hate me, tell me I'm a failure, tell me- tell me it was all my fault, but say something!"

But she remained unmoving.

Something exploded within Roman, furious and bloody-handed. "I know! I know I screwed up!" he cried, "I've always been a screw up. I wasn't Cesty, I wasn't dad, but Ma, please…" his voice became so small and tremulous and weak as he croaked, "I tried. Please, Ma, I tried. T-tell me… j-just tell me you know that I... I tried."

She bowed her head. Roman's heart sank.

And then… nothing.

He felt anger surge within him, anger at how his entire life had been leading up to this, that he had only tried to be a good son, a good brother, a good uncle, and yet, everything always went wrong and… and his anger simply fizzled. What was the use of anger here? He was dead, there was no changing it. He had died from the inevitable consequences of his own actions catching up with him, and he had the gall to think that he deserved anything else? His shoulders slumped, feeling the weight of a lifetime's failures.

He… he had killed Pyrrha.

There were no excuses, no illusions, not anymore. He was dead. His niece was dead, if not already, if not soon to follow in his footsteps to this Stygian river, there was no denying that her and... and Neo, they were in Cinder's clutches now. And he… he was the one to blame for it.

Looking at his mother with desperate, pleading eyes, once more a child who needed her to make everything better, Roman felt his lips tremble, his eyes water, as he saw… he saw his mother look at him, sorrow in her eyes, as she finally opened her lips and said:

"This place is not for you."

Roman blinked, feeling the sting of his tears. He couldn't- that couldn't have been- he hadn't misheard, he…

No.

No, he would not accept this. He might be have brought this all upon himself, this might be the ending he deserved but he wouldn't- he wouldn't stay, lingering on this far shore, cast aside for eternity. He- he tried, damn it! He- he had tried to be a good man, and when that failed, he left to make sure none of them would get caught in his wake! When Pyrrha had come to him, he had tried to keep Pyrrha out of his life, had tried to keep her safe, even when Cinder had him by the balls, he'd tried to keep her safe! He had earned an eternal torment, to be burned by flames and lashed by demons, but he could not stay on this side of the river, haunted by the regrets of what he could have done differently, the meager seconds he'd wasted that had cost him everything! If he stayed here, if he was denied entry, he'd go mad with grief and loss, and he wouldn't- he couldn't stay!

He tore into the water, furiously trying to race across, but the water was heavy and with every struggling step, the bank seemed further and further away. Still, he did not cease his efforts to cross it!

"It's not fair!" he bellowed, feeling his lungs burn as he fought the current, every step an explosion of water as he furiously stumbled forward, trying to run as fast as he could. Still, the bank, and his mother astride it, sank further and further back, the river becoming a great channel, an ocean, boundless between them. "You can't do this to me! You can't- I know I did everything wrong, I know I ruined everything, I know I've earned damnation, but you can't keep me out! You can't leave me here!"

"Your place is not here."

"To hell with you!" he sobbed, toppling forward, falling into the freezing black water of the sepulchral river, struggling to regain his balance, trying to swim if he couldn't, as he still pushed himself forward. "All my life, all I've ever tried, all I've ever wanted was to live up to what you wanted from me. To live up to an impossible standard, to be better than I could ever be! I know I failed, but by the Brothers, I tried!"

"You have somewhere else to be!"

"What," he coughed, spitting up water, "what do you-"

The riverbed gave way beneath him, but as he tried to switch to a breaststroke, Roman found the water no longer had buoyancy… or water. Instead, he merely tumbled downwards into darkness, down and down and down into an infinite blackness, plunging and plummeting, faster and faster, until he felt his body begin to streee-eeeee-eeetch into a long, thin strand, turning into light, a single point stretch over an infinite distance until-

Staggering up, a lungful of air seemed to swell his chest like a balloon as- a lungful? He- he…

Fire? Everything was on- was this hell? Had he finally...

Why could he smell Vacuan tobacco?

Wait! His- his warehouse was on-

"Holy shit!"

Roman's head whipped to his right, realizing that light and presence and things were back, and one of those things… was the absolutely shocked expression of Jaune Arc, his hand still planted on Roman's chest.

Roman glanced down at the hand, then back at the boy, then back at the hand, as it was slowly, gingerly removed… revealing a scorched hole left in Roman's very bloodstained suit… and his entirely undamaged skin underneath. Not even scarred. By the six foot shaft of metal that had gone through it!

"How..." Roman whispered, "How is it..."

"My Semblance..." Jaune exhaled in realization, "It's… mending. Healing. B-because… because with Pyrrha-"

An explosion of fire brought the both of them back to the present crisis. Cinder was wreathed in flame, hurling Neo away as Pyrrha-

"Not important," he growled, planting a hand on Jaune's shoulder as he struggled to his feet, adrenaline from seeing his niece fallen, but still alive, telling him that he had to move. Now.

Bracing himself on Jaune, he pulled himself up, his eyes darting around the fast-developing inferno they were in—what in the hell had Cinder done to set everything on fire?—to try to find something he could turn to his advantage. Roman, who always knew the price of everything at a glance, could only see how much lien was going up in smoke—and not a damn thing that would work. Not one gods-damned...

Hold on a sec.

His aura was spent, his body was shaken, but there was one thing Roman had up his sleeve.

He could piss her off.

"I want you to know," he loudly and boorishly proclaimed as he carefully stepped forward, trying his damnedest to hide that he could barely stay up on his feet, as Cinder turned from Pyrrha with a mix of shock and fury, "that this was a very expensive suit! Cost me four thousand lien, and I had to pay extra to keep my tailor from reporting me to the authorities. The blood, I can wash that out, the lung matter, same deal, but these burns!" he tugged at the cloth for emphasis, "This is ruined. No patching this, I'm gonna have to buy a replacement."

"You," she growled, summoning a halo of flames around her, "How are you alive!"

There was one thing in the world that the powerful—no matter how they acquired their power: birth, guile, brilliance, whatever—could not stand. And that was someone who did not acknowledge their power. Who revealed the limitations they tried their damnedest to ignore. And Roman, pulling a cigar from his pocket, using all his strength to keep his exhausted hand from trembling as he lit it on a flaming crate (containing counterfeit designer purses, over a hundred lien in profit each, now up in smoke) and casually puffed on it.

"Semblance," he said with a shrug, "Cat burglar, nine lives, you know how it is. Think I'm down to five now, though, but you know what I do best: lie, cheat, steal… and survive. Now, I also know how much contraband you've just incinerated, and let me-"

Cocky, confident Cinder Fall, drunk on power and infuriated by its limitations, her inability to make Roman fear her, was in no state to shrug off his taunts. Wreathed in flame, she surged forward with a furious shriek of rage, her hand stretched out like a claw to drag him back to the afterlife. Time slowed down as Roman felt the dull thud of his heartbeat in his ear, the heat of the flames growing closer and closer, his death streaking forward for another shot at him as he stood with serene confidence. From the corner of his eye, he saw Pyrrha, beaten but alive, reaching out in panicked dismay, trying to will herself to his side, to fight off Cinder, to save him, to not watch him die again. It hurt more than his impalement to put her through this, but Roman stood firm.

After all, he had something Cinder just didn't understand. Something he'd seen out of the corner of his eye as he looked about the inferno. Something that let him stand before her fearlessly.

Even with time slowed to a crawl, the steel flickered faster than Roman could track, Hush, driven by the last ounce of strength Neo had in her body, lancing forward like a thunderbolt, faster than the enraged, blood-drunk Cinder could counter. Roman didn't see it pierce her throat, but the spray of blood told him enough. Cinder's eyes flashed in momentary confusion as, with a gory twist, Neo opened up the rest of her throat, dropping Cinder's blood pressure to zero before she could even get in a word.

Her body hit the ground with a wet thud as time resumed.

Before the blood-spattered Roman had a chance to exhale (and also, fall down, because every cell in his body was screaming in pain from having to stand up), he saw a familiar glow… transfer to Neo, and- oh gods! Neo! Roman saw the burn across half her face, her eye, her ear gone, her poor-

Sirens.

Roman was four different kinds of lost, but he did not ever miss the sound of a siren. There was a lot to cover, but they could do that later!

"Jaune!" he barked as he reached forward to support Neo, reeling from the experience of receiving the Maiden power, "G-get Pyrrha, help her up! You're in the best shape of us and this place is going down! We have to get out of here, now!"

"Where are we-"

"Just follow my lead!" he barked, then looked to Neo, "You got- KOFF!- you gotta power to… stop fires?"

Neo, startled out of the daze from the sudden introduction of magic to her system, shook her head, likely still in shock.

"Let's get out of here," he said, his eyes burning from the smoke, "I can… I can get us to someplace safe. Get us all—KAFF!— to someplace safe..."

If it was true or not, Roman didn't know, but he could bet lien that anywhere was better than here.

Thanks to Renarde and Six02 for feedback on this work!

I don't know how many people I fooled with killing Roman or how many knew he'd eventually be back, but I will say: Roman died, and Jaune's Semblance yanked his soul back from the afterlife (not that Roman will ever give him credit for it). Maybe it's an academic difference between this and canon Jaune's Semblance, but I see the circumstances of its emergence gave him a different power. Something Jaune was working his way through before Roman pushed right past it.

But there's still more to this story, still some unanswered questions and unresolved issues. Next week, this story comes to a close.