Chapter 25: The Fall

When she had realized that the fall of Astera was inevitable, the frontier city was already on the final notes of its swan song.

Weiss ran helter-skelter through Astera, dodging through fire and corpses alike as she went. It had all happened too fast. The gate, the breach, the slaughter. How could it have failed so majestically, why was the defense little more than time bought for their death? She had watched as people had fallen, had been crushed and bitten to pieces, torn asunder like wet paper. Had stood frozen as she bore witness to the might of cannon and bow, and saw how ineffective they were against the incessant press of black mass and twisted mire of the horde. When the gate had been breached, when the Rajang began to rip and tear through the defenders, Weiss knew then that she had to go. She had to escape. She had to find Ruby. In these terrible moments, there was little more she could do than run.

A Tzitzi-Ya-Ku, its ribs open to the air and dripping offal, lunged at her, and Weiss vaulted over its head and rolled into a sprint. The monster shrieked behind her, but must have found less erratic prey, for Weiss could not hear it chase after her. Her hand drifted to her side, a dull ache and a minute wetness the recollection of an errant wyvern claw. She gritted her teeth and kept going, the dull shape of the Workshop coming into view through the haze of the battle.

Where was she? Where was Ruby? The smith had been stationed behind the gate, at the Wyvernshot cannon, but when Weiss had approached it, she only found fire and molten metal. Some of the ammunition stock had caught the wrong side of drake flame and its operators and engineers were either smoldering heaps or tattered limbs decorating its perimeter. Weiss had searched through them thrice, but none of the remains seemed to bear resemblance in stature to Ruby. After a high volume questioning of some of the survivors, Weiss had made haste towards the forge, in the blind hope that the familiar haunt would house her love.

She made it to the set of gargantuan stairs, her feet hitting heavy, weighed down by the press of her sabatons and fear. As she crested the top her vision began to blur, the sounds of the battle below wafted from her hearing, and as she rounded into the workshop she saw what could not be there.

The forge was alight with flame and bustling with activity, its multitudes of smiths and workers carrying on their usual ways. Rhys the smelter gave her a smile and a wave, and directed her attention to the back of the workshop, the left hand corner where Ruby's workbench sat. There she saw that soot covered face, those eyes she dreamed about. That beauty not captured in the aesthetic, but by kind looks and soft smiles, by warm embraces and patient understanding. Ruby was laughing next to Onyx, the man gesturing childishly as he said something lost in the din of metal. The master smith caught her eye and pointed her way. Ruby turned and gave her a brilliant smile, her eyes scrunching up in joy and love.

Clank.

Weiss's eyes focussed. There wasn't anyone to be seen. There were no familiar sights, no joyous cacophony of steel workers and artisans. Something had fallen somewhere and brought her to the reality of the forge. There was no fire, it's great rooms dark and empty, almost otherworldly in its absence of life and fire. She gazed around the extinguished heart of Astera, and found it void.

"Ruby!" she whispered harshly, unconsciously stepping into a half crouch as she crossed the dark threshold.

The lack of answer brought tingling across the nerves in her body, their tumultuous path accumulating in her face as she took another step forward.

"Ruby!" She dared a little louder, moving past the front desk and towards the aforementioned work station. There were bundles of unfinished labor all around, projects abandoned in haste for the failed defense of the city. Weiss wished desperately for a light, but had to settle on the eerie glow of Astera's death throes behind her. She came closer to Ruby's bench, and heard the smallest of sounds.

"Ruby?" Weiss said softly, taking to her knees and placing a soft hand on a hunched shoulder. The girl didn't move at the contact, her body a tight knot against the floor, her head sitting neatly in her folded arms.

"Are you hurt?" Weiss asked, searching the girl's body for blood. She saw several burns, some worse than others, but nothing that would incapicitate the girl.

"It didn't work." Ruby said into her arms.

"What?"

"None of it. Nothing worked. Why were we so stupid to think we could win?" Ruby mumbled.

"Ruby-" Weiss started.

"And I couldn't do anything!" Ruby's volume increased but only slightly. "I could only watch while my friends died, why couldn't I do anything?" She finally looked up, and where Weiss expected tears was only a hollow dust covered face. Weiss came forward and wrapped her arms around Ruby.

"I know how you feel, this helplessness and despair, I still… Can't wrap my mind around it. But we can't think about that right now, we have to get-"

"Why does it matter?" Ruby didn't look her in the eye, and missed the shock expression Weiss wore on her face.

"What good will running do? We threw everything we had at them and it wasn't even close to being enough. Why should we even bother?" Ruby asked, but it sounded more like a pleading than a genuine question.

"I-I don't know." Weiss was surprised at the truth in her words. "I don't. But I know that right now I would give everything just to see you safe, even if it was for one more day."

Tears welled up in Ruby's eyes, and one fell before she wiped it away.

"Is Yang ok?" She asked.

"I don't know where she's at." Weiss swallowed dryly. "But everyone is falling back to the last ship. They are leaving for Seliana as soon as everyone is aboard. We need to leave now."

Ruby looked up again, "I-"

A loud crash echoed behind them, and the two froze as they glanced towards the front of the shop. A shadow passed by the death glows of Astera, casting muted shapes that flicked and fled over them like a malignant breeze. The shape was snorting great bouts of air, a long canine snout poking into the workshop entrance, its wicked teeth leaking onto the floor. Weiss felt a hand on her shoulder, and Ruby's determined eyes shone once again at her. The smith put a finger to her lips before pointing towards the opposite end of the Workshop. They rose in stooped tandem and moved behind a table, careful to limit their movements as the Odagaron hunted their scent.

Ruby was guiding her towards a sliver at the back end of the Workshop, some backdoor that was holed up from the common eye. As they crept along, their sneaking was accompanied by more aggressive snorts and sniffs, the monster attempting to worm its body into the entrance behind them. Ruby glanced back, and unintentionally tipped a precariously perched tong from its bench, the utensil balancing for a moment before careening from its edge and smacking the ground.

A heavy growl filled the Workshop and brewed in their chests. Crimson eyes snapped towards the sound before a ghastly howl split their ears. The Odagaron shoved its body forward, claws digging great gouts into the floors, nails eliciting horrid screams from the wood. Weiss stood and drew her bow, sending a few fleeting arrows at the beast's head which bounced helplessly against its flesh. Ruby grabbed her arm, and dragged her further back into the Workshop. The pair's vision pock marked by the leaping shadows of the nightmare behind them.

Their haste was slowed by the labyrinth of workstations and tools that interceded throughout the shop, and as the scrapes and screams grew behind them, Ruby had opted to jump on top to circumvent the obstacles. Weiss took her hand and leapt from table to table, glancing behind and seeing that the Odagaron had gotten stuck in the shuddering entrance. The two slammed into their escape route, Ruby furiously tugging at the door while Weiss took up position with an arrow nocked.

The monster screamed in frustration, its slobber and blood coating the ground as it continued to claw forward.

"Ruby?!" Weiss shot another arrow, turning her head to see the smith take a great hammer to the door.

"It's stuck!" Ruby shouted.

There was a tearing, one that started low but grew in volume and tempo with the Odagaron's desperate clawing. Weiss grimaced in disgust and fear as she watched the beast bisect itself against the ungiving door frame. With a rolling stench the Odagaron ripped itself in half, its claws exploding it forward towards them.

"Run!" Weiss yelled, the two dodging to the side as the monster slammed into the wall. It didn't take long for it to reorient itself, and its scrambling called out in sickening bouncing scrapes throughout the room. Weiss put an arrow down its throat, but that did little to feed its hunger. The monster crashed through a line of anvils, the heavy blocks tripping it just before its maw could catch the back of Ruby's foot.

They were close to the entrance, but the monster's back half was still wedged into it, the body feebly pushing itself forward in a twitching mess. They were trapped, trapped in a cage. A cage that had once been a place of wonderful memories and joy for the both of them. Weiss blindly fired an arrow behind her as she ran forward, eyes searching desperately for anything to aid them.

Just then, there was a muted explosion, and the back end of the corpse liquefied and spewed forward. The two girls were coated in slime and blood, a bit of light creeping through the rotted bones. A figure stood behind it, large and weilding a great hammer in its hands.

"Come on!" It's voice roared.

Weiss sprinted forward with Ruby in tow, the two crawling through the mess of melted organs and flesh before coming out to the inferno soaked night sky. A hand grasped her arm, and Weiss was nearly thrown clear from the corpse by Onyx. The man reached in and retrieved Ruby, cocking back his hammer.

"Stand back!" He shouted.

The hammer spun, a great revolving chamber loaded with shells glowed hot as he aimed it forward. The rattling and shaking grew from inside the workshop, the cries of the maimed monster bouncing within. An explosion of flesh leapt outwards, the Odagaron's mouth opened wide as it sailed through the air. With a yell Onyx swung, the head of his hammer coming out wide and meeting the beast's in perfect synchronization. Another terrible explosion and the monster was beheaded via blunt force trauma. Its body lashing out and catching the man in the arm before tumbling over the side of the railings, crashing into the trade yard below.

Onyx grunted in exertion, gouts of blood leaking from his shoulder where the claws had ripped into him.

"Onyx!" Ruby croaked rushing up to the smith. She tore at her shirt and attempted to bind the laceration, the meager cloth hardly covering the wound and quickly absorbing the blood. "L-look I'm sorry that I ran, I just-"

"Can it pipsqueak." His face softened. "You don't have to say anything Ruby. I understand. They weren't just your friends, we both… We've all lost a lot today." His face grew determined. "But if we don't high tail it to those docks we'll miss our last chance out of this hell, and I can't lose any more of my people, you hear me?"

Ruby nodded and took Weiss's hand in hers, another apology on her face. Weiss could only nod back for now and the trio ran.

"Who else has made it to the ship?" Weiss asked, the adrenaline from the last few hours seeping from her limbs and causing her feet to catch errant foot falls. There were less and less people to be seen below, and the fires that had started at the gate were worming and licking at the feast of kindling that Astera had become. The shadows that screeched and whipped above and below gave the scene a hellish motif. The massive hammer atop Onyx's shoulder was adjusted, its heavy head having to dip deeper atop the support of his shoulders. He bit back a curse as a blackened jagras hopped in front of them, but Weiss ended it with a swift shot.

"Thanks, I'm not sure. After the cannon went up in flames I grabbed anybody left alive and sent them to the docks. Whether they made it there, or if they will survive their injuries are anyone's guess. Have the two of you seen the Professor?" Weiss shook her head, Ruby bit her lip and confirmed her own ignorance to the wyverian's location.

"She told me she would be with the General." Onyx said. "But our commanding officers retreated to the stockyard once the gates fell, I can only hope they have all made it to the ship."

Weiss took in a shuddering breath, helping lead the way forward, her bow drawn and her eyes darting about. When the gates had been shattered by the horde, Weiss had fought with the defenders for a while. However, when the scything of her allies she had soon fled, especially when the collapse of the last defending line was well underway. Truth be told she had not seen who exactly had ended up where. There had been too much chaos through the corridor to the gates, and even more when they had finally been breached. She had thought she had glimpsed at a stray friend or acquaintance hunting partner, but dared not remember the fates she had seen befall them. Weiss took another breath and steeled herself forward.

Through rubble and death they came to the last line of defense. Hunters and huntresses, some alive, some scattered across the ground, fought against a few monsters who had made it so far into Astera. Weiss launched an arrow at the back of something, she couldn't even tell if the monster was alive or not, but she didn't have the time to guess as she followed after Onyx. The trio were ushered through the makeshift defense line, following down the pier towards the last Atlas ship in port. The cannons on top of the decks roared towards the town, their ordinance ripping holes through flesh and settlement alike. Just before the gangplank stood several figures, some guards but a few officers of the Research Commission, Commander Ozpin and General Ironwood stood together, discussing furiously with one another.

"We need to leave, now!" Ironwood half yelled.

Ozpin furrowed his brow, "Not yet General, there are still more of my people that can be saved, I will not abandon Astera."

"Then you risk us all! We won't have enough ammunition to last much longer!"

"James-"

Onyx stomped forward, stopping before the two. "Commander. General. We've just made our way back from the workshop, there aren't many more of us left. I couldn't see any other survivors."

Ozpin frowned, then turned towards Ironwood. "Begin the preparations to set sail General, I will see that the last are here to board."

The Commander drew his short sword and stepped forward. "Onyx, Ruby, get on board. Huntress Weiss, help me pull back the line."

"No." Ruby walked to Onyx and took the heavy hammer from him, slinging it onto her shoulder and coming up next to Weiss. "I'm coming too." Ozpin looked to Onyx who nodded back to him.

"Very well, by my side." The Commander jogged back to the defense line, the man shouting orders as he grabbed everyone's attention. Weiss came alongside him and notched an arrow and loosened it out at the few monsters who were inching close. It was ghoulish, the people, the monsters, the burning of her home. Tears of frustration and rage dripped down her face, she blinked them away as she tried to find the next target for her arrows. As Weiss continued to fire, she saw Nora and Ren, the two carrying a bloodied Pyrrha between them, the huntress sporting a nasty gash that ran from her collarbone to her navel. The woman was screaming through a throat full of blood, her hands reaching back towards the burning city. Nora was saying something to her, trying to calm the macerated woman, and Ren was simply dragging the two along. His eyes caught Weiss's, and they were empty except for pain and sorrow.

She was so caught by the sight that she nearly missed the blackened Zinogre that tried to sever her head from her shoulders. There was a shrill cry and the monster's claw was shattered by the revolving head of Onyx's hammer. Ruby followed through with a slow, deliberate upward swing that caught the beast under the chin and sent it crashing back into the rubble. When the hammer came to rest, Ruby cocked it back into a waiting position, the hammer rotating as it stored centrifugal power.

A horrid roar and a Tigrex came next, barreling through several hunters and crushing them into the ground. Weiss took aim and sent a pair of arrows expertly into its eyes, the monster flinching into its blindness but still crashing forward. Ruby unclenched from her stance, slowly swinging the great hammer in wide round circles, her feet skidding forward as she spun and followed its terrible force. Just as the Tigrex was within spitting distance, Ruby unfurled from her spin and swung up and through the monster's skull, bone and brain exploding into the sky as its body flew past and shuddered to a halt behind her. Weiss could not watch for long, instead she was busy sending missile after missile into the side of a Nargacuga that was hunched over the opened stomach of some poor tradeswoman. When the monster finally righted itself from its ghastly meal, it turned and took several more arrows into its face, an animalistic bliss leaving its jaw slack and its eyes lulled while meat and yellowed fluids dripped from its mouth. Another hunter skewered a lance through the bottom of the monster's jaw, sending the hulking mass into the ground, a groan rumbling through its gut as it died.

Weiss was gasping deeply as her fingers fought to find the next feathered end of an arrow, but as she reached into her quiver she was met with nothing. A glance down and she growled in anger, glancing about for anything she might be able to find.

There was a scream and Weiss looked to its source, the professor, Penny, was dancing backwards from the swipes of the Zinogre that Ruby had knocked down just moments ago. Penny was spinning in circles as she sliced at the monster's claws with a pair of shimmering dual blades, their hilts connected to her palm, a wire running from her mechanical arms up into the blades themselves. Penny threw a blade and sliced a deep cut into the monster's face, and where the blade would usually hurdle past, was tugged back by the whirring gears in the girl's arm, neatly finding itself back into her palm. Penny threw her blades twice more, carving the Zinogre's face into sharp valleys of black and slime.

Weiss ran to the Nargacuga that she had filled with arrows, and began to tug the ammunition free from its mottled hide, accidentally snapping a few in the process. She glanced frantically back towards the battlefield, seeing Ozpin and Ruby up against a Glavenous, the monster's tail a jagged shard that it slammed about in a tantrum. When Weiss had secured enough arrows, she turned and fired a few at both monsters, one of her arrows striking deep into the Glavenous's throat. The monster gurgled through a bellow and spun wide, its tail sweeping out and catching Penny's legs from underneath her. There was a sound like shattering glass, high in tone and reverberating terribly, that rang out into the night. The girl cried out as her legs exploded, and she was tossed aside.

The Zinogre reared its ruined face upwards, its teeth coated in blood and dancing in electricity. Penny threw one of her dual blades but the wire was caught by the Zinogre in its teeth. The monster yanked its neck backwards and Penny's left arm was torn from her body. She screamed terribly. Just as the monster turned to bear down on her, Ozpin slammed into its chest, his sword buried up to the hilt in its flesh.

"Get her out of here!" He roared, ripping his sword free from the monster and dancing back into a pose. He weaved through the following strikes, gracefully removing chunks of its flesh like a skilled butcher. Weiss put the rest of her arrows into the hole that had been torn open in the Glavenous's neck, the monster coughing gouts of blood onto the ground. Ruby reared her hammer up to the sky, came down once, then twice and then flattened its brains across the ground like a terrible flood.

Weiss ran to Penny, tucking her bow across her back as she scooped the girl into her arms. Even with most of her appendages gone, the girl was deceptively light. Weiss tightened her grip and Penny wearily snaked her arm across her back, breathing heavily into Weiss's neck. Ruby sidled up next to them.

"Penny! Oh gods…" Ruby said. Weiss could see the tears falling from her eyes, but was shocked at the pure rage that filled Ruby's face.

"Weiss, go! I've got your back!" Weiss nodded, but Ruby didn't see, the blacksmith turning back to the fray and slowly walking backwards. She swung her hammer at anything that came remotely close, snapping bones and pulverizing necrotic flesh. Between the rage of the fires, the roar of the cannons, and the maddening chorus of the monster's, Ruby was loudest in her ears.

Weiss ran back towards the docks, arms tight around Penny as she weaved through the destruction of the Research Commissions exodus. Her legs hurt, the cut she had suffered earlier was leaking crimson down her side. Her eyes fluttered as she choked through each death stenched breath she took. Before she knew it she was at the gangplank, stutter-stepping up the wood before someone removed Penny from her arms.

Weiss gasped as she collapsed onto the deck of the ship, glancing about for Ruby. She found the girl not far behind, coated in grime and carrying the shattered haft of her hammer. She similarly dropped to the deck, heaving greatly and bleeding from one of her arms. Weiss reached over and pulled the girl towards her, the two clasping one another as they stayed on their knees in helpless prayer.

"Ruby." Weiss said through a dry throat. "Ruby, let's move, they need to finish getting everyone on board." Weiss began to pick her up. "Ruby." She said a bit more forcefully, pulling her away from the side of the ship, and nestling them next to a cache of cannonballs. Ruby was quiet at first, but soon hiccuping sobs followed. Weiss could only grip her tighter, her eyes flipping about as the Atlesian sailors began to set sail.

The General walked past her, the man gripping the side railings with both hands, muttering to himself as he watched the fall of Astera. Weiss motioned for Ruby to stand, and the two walked over towards the man and looked at the docks below.

The last group of hunter's and Atlesian soldiers hurried towards the ship, carrying wounded between them while Ozpin and Coco held off the Zinogre. The monster was a terrible bleeding mess, its shuddering gate being eviscerated by the Commander and the huntress in turn. Coco's gun ran dry, and she scuttled back even further, calling to the officer as she did so. The man finished a flurry of strikes, each like the skilled cut of a tailor, and the monster slumping forward in a puddle. Just as he was turning around, a thin neck and a sharp set of jaws rose from the waves underneath the dock, and clamped themselves around his body.

The man hardly gave a shout as the Jyuratodus slinked into the waves, his sword tumbling onto the dock as the Commander of Astera was swallowed by water.

"No!" Ironwood shouted, slamming his fist against the rail, denting the wood a full inch. His face was filled with such loss and despair, Weiss feared for the man. When the last of the survivors boarded the ship the gangplank was raised and after a moment the ship began to careen forward. Weiss held onto Ruby as the two watched their home, their lives, float away from them. The errant shadows of monsters feasting within the crumbling city was an image that would not leave Weiss for the rest of her life.

Ruby cried next to her, the two statues to the hustling sailors and survivors who busied themselves with fleeing and medical aid respectively. Weiss could only stand there as she watched the nightmare disappear into the horizon, the sun rising on the blood soaked shores of Astera.

--

A pair of men sat on the cliffs above Astera, sneering and grimacing at the massacre that had just occurred below. The smell of smote wood and flesh the tail end of an arsonist's lullaby from the night before. One of them spit over the edge of the precipice, then snorted long into his throat and spit again.

"Pretty gruesome." He said, in sotto to the man beside him.

"Ah fuck 'em." The other man dug into his poach and stuffed blackened leaves into his mouth, chomping his jaw as he watched.

"Just seems a shame is all. Not anything to do for 'em but…" He scratched at his chin, watching a Great jagras gorge itself on a pile of scorched bodies.

The other man eyed his compassionate compatriot wearily, "Look, far as I'm concerned, everything the chief said would go down, went down how she wanted. Let's just get out of here so-"

There was a rustling behind them, and the two jumped in tandem as a woman approached them. She was garbed in red and black, her hand sitting on top of a sickening longsword, its make and strength unmatched to anything seen before. Her face covered by the skull of some juvenile monster, its bones painted for war and death. The two snapped to attention, but she ignored them, pushing past and peering below.

"It's over then?" Her voice was raspy. One of the men nodded.

"The survivors made it to their boat, I reckon they're halfway to Seliana by now chief."

"Good." She turned from the carnage, removing her helmet and settling it on her hip.

"When the flames and monsters clear out, signal the scouts. I want a full group in Astera as soon as possible."

The woman unsheathed her sword, the metal shone in waves of silver and black down it's blade as she held it to the sun.

"If we are to survive the oncoming apocalypse, we need as much of this as we can get." Raven said, her red eyes peering over the blade as her mouth tugged up into a smile.

AN: Thanks for reading.