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35. Storming the Castle
Tank shifted from paw to paw, casting a few anxious glances at his sister. They waited together in an alleyway, hidden behind a massive dumpster—not the nicest place to be, and the way she kept growling only made it worse. He couldn't help flinching.
"Quit it," she snarled.
"You quit it," Tank grumbled back. "It's not going to make this happen any faster."
She snapped her teeth at him. "Ugh. I'm so bored."
A scream in the distance. Tank's head picked up, and he and Barracuda charged over the dumpster and towards where their riders were. Russel and Dove met them halfway, sprinting down the street, Russel yelling at the top of his lungs. And behind them...
Pit dragons shrieked and tore through the air, looping through the streets before soaring up and over Vacuo. Some of them dive-bombed the humans, swooping down and making Dove throw himself to the ground with his hands over his head. Tank jumped at the dragon that had done it, but it rose up and out of the way.
"Fuck Vernal!" Russel clawed his way into Barracuda's saddle. "We just have to point them, my ass! How the hell were we supposed to point that?!"
A marbled pink earth dragon flew at the building they had just vacated, bellowing in triumph as she tore into it with both of her claws. Another, this one brick red, clung to the side of a nearby building, his wings flared. Most were already in the air... and they weren't heading towards Shade.
"Hey!" Barracuda roared at the dragons overhead. "Don't you want to get back at the people that did this?"
Most of them ignored him, but a few dragons—including the brick red earth dragon that was still clinging to the wall—picked up their heads to listen. The pink one that had been tearing apart the building ignored them completely, until one of the others whacked her with his tail. Then she turned, blinking at them in mild confusion.
"We're going to attack Shade," Barracuda hissed.
"But..." The red dragon cocked his head to one side. "Shade is home."
Barracuda bared her teeth. "They're the ones that sent you here, birdbrain!"
"It's not about hurting anyone," Tank said quickly. "We want to make them stop sending dragonets to places like this."
"They should stop." The pink dragon took another swipe at the roof she was sitting on, sending several cinderblocks tumbling to the street below. "Riders are at Shade. I will go."
She took flight. Tank and Barracuda scrambled to follow, as did the red earth dragon and a few others. As they came closer to Shade, more joined the growing flock. Some were young—Tank spotted a blue and yellow fire dragon that was probably the same age as he was. Others, like a dusty brown earth dragon with a missing foreleg, looked like they could easily be older than Pepper.
His yearmates were there, too. Mudslide roared a challenge as she flew wingtip to wingtip with Twiggy, who had finally managed to take off with her rider. Pepper joined the cry, and it spread like wildfire through the night sky until even the pit dragons picked it up. Tank shrieked at the top of his lungs, Barracuda's voice ringing in his ears.
That was when the first riders took off. It was hard to see them—Shade was still blanketed in darkness, though lights were starting to flicker on near some of the larger pathways. Then they were closer, and Tank's ears pinned back. A wind dragon loomed up out of the dark, her rider crouched low over her back, and screeched in defiance.
She collided with the enormous tan earth dragon, and the two of them spiraled towards the ground, snapping at one another. Tank faltered. Then another surged up and into the fray, and another and another, and there was a water dragon roaring in his face. He banked hard to the right, and felt her teeth sink into his foreleg.
They fell. He rolled over in the air, struggling against her grip, and came face to face with her rider. He was older, a second year student at least, and his face contorted with rage. "Not here! Not here, you bastards!"
Tank tore himself free, but he was upside-down in the air now, his wings forced closed by the wind blowing past him as he fell. And then there were teeth again, this time on his tail. He howled and struggled, but then he could feel himself being dragged, twisted around... and he could finally get his wings open.
Barracuda let go of him, flapping frantically to slow her own dive. Tank barked his thanks—and felt another dragon smash into his side. His sister screeched at the new attacker, and then all three of them tangled together and smashed into a tree.
The next thing Tank knew he was on his side in the grass, groaning quietly. His head twisted around behind him, where he found his rider—stunned, but unharmed. Barracuda struggled to her feet.
The fire dragon that had attacked them narrowed his eyes and hissed. There was a heavy thump as Mudslide landed directly behind him. His head turned, very slowly, to look from Tank, to Barracuda, to Mudslide. His tail twitched nervously.
"Get him!" Barracuda snarled.
Specter circled high above Shade. Everywhere he looked were airborne tangles of wings and tails, dragons grappling each other or darting between buildings. He turned towards a gout of fire and recognized Phoenix. There were three other dragons surrounding her, and two of their riders held whips. Shoulder-first, he slammed into the last dragon. Her rider didn't have a saddle, and she slid off her back and into open air. He caught her under the shoulders, skimming over the lawn so that he could safely drop her.
"Good boy, Specter!" Weiss shouted, leaning forward so he could hear her over the wind.
He preened. But when he turned around again, Phoenix had already knocked one of the two council dragons through a wall, and most of the area around them was on fire. He gained altitude, looking for another scuffle where he could actually tell who was who, he passed much too close to a muddy green pit dragon and barely dodged a vicious swipe of his claws.
"Sorry!" he yelped, and kept flying. It turned out keeping his distance was a good lesson to learn—one fire dragon in particular almost took off the last couple feet of his tail.
Then, as he was looping around for another pass, a brick red earth dragon slammed into him. "Hey!" he squawked, indignant. "I'm on your side!"
"Sorry!"
Specter veered to the left, scanning the ground below, until he heard another shriek from the pit dragon. "Look out!" He whirled and came almost nose to nose with a massive water dragon. Rolling in the air to keep himself between her and Weiss, he swiped at her face with his claws.
"You will not take this academy!" the man in her saddle roared at the top of his lungs. He had no whip—not a council rider. Which meant...
"Is that a professor?!" Weiss' hands tightened on the reins.
Specter let out a small, "Eep!" and folded his wings. He streaked towards the ground, then whipped them open again and darted between two buildings. Fighting an older student was one thing, but there was no way he'd win a fight with someone as experienced (and big) as Nautilus.
"Left!" Weiss shouted in his ear. "Go left! I think I saw Storm!"
Specter followed her directions, tucking his wings in and diving under a decorative archway. His heart sank, and Weiss swore over the wind. The dragon did look a little like Storm, but she was a much darker grey, and there was no rider. She noticed their approach, though, and when she wheeled around to look she hissed and bared her teeth at the professor.
The older dragon smashed into the side of a building, digging in with her claws and staring at the wind dragon. "Kite?"
She howled in outrage and dove at her teacher's face. Alarmed, Specter dropped down to try and help. "Tail whip!" Weiss suggested, and he passed just over the brawl so that he could smack the older dragon's shoulder.
"Stop it!" she roared. "I don't want to hurt you!"
Another angry roar—not the wind dragon, Kite, this time. Instead it was the earth dragon who had just run into Specter, who dropped out of the sky with his wings folded and didn't even try to slow his fall before he collided with the professor's dragon. All three of them started to fall. Specter darted down and grabbed the earth dragon's tail in his talons, flapping hard to slow his fall, while Kite frantically tried to right herself.
They collided with the ground together and ended up in a tangled heap, with the much bigger water dragon baring her teeth. Her growl rumbled low, her eyes narrowed, and her rider shouted a command to attack. The moment froze. Stretched. Then her hackles lowered, and she let out a low whine. She took off without another word, her rider's angry shouts echoing in her wake.
Kite started to run after her.
"Wait!" The earth dragon pounced on her, knocking her into a wall. Specter tensed, prepared to break up a fight, but his tail started to wag. "Kite! It's me!"
She hissed at him. "I know, Brick, it's only been a month. Look, we have to—"
He whined, blinking blue eyes at her while his ears drooped and his shoulders fell into an exaggerated slump. She huffed, then licked him once and went charging off after the professor. Brick loped after her and, not really knowing what else to do, Specter followed.
"Is that...?"
"My sister!"
Brick pulled ahead a little, his tail still wagging as he ran. Specter stalled for a moment, slightly stunned. Then he let out a high, keening battle cry—with the words only been a month still ringing in his ears.
"It's happening!"
May snapped awake at Nolan's shout. She thrashed at her sheets, looking for the assassin—but the room was empty. She could hear dragons outside.
"We've gotta go help!" Nolan struggled with one of his boots, muttering curses under his breath. "They're attacking—dammit!—the school!"
"And who the fuck are you planning on helping, exactly?" Brawnz demanded. May rubbed sleep from her eyes, her mind still working much too slowly. "The bastards desperate to keep sending any dragon with a bad enough case of the sniffles to the fighting pits?"
"You want them to destroy the school?!"
Roy fumbled with the blinds, and whatever he saw through them made him grimace. "There's more dragons out there than there should be. And a lot of them don't have riders."
May joined him there, jamming her beanie on with one hand as she squinted at the sky. He was right about the riders—but beyond that it was impossible make out much of the fight when it was happening so quickly in the dark, against a black sky.
Nolan and Brawnz hadn't been listening. "I knew you were a slimeball, but I never thought you'd be on their side. What if Pride had been born with a problem?"
"I'd get another one!" Nolan gestured wildly with both hands. "We've got to trust our partners with our lives, is it that crazy I wanted a healthy dragon? Would you seriously want to fight Grimm with him if Clay was born without claws or someth—"
Brawnz punched him.
Nolan crashed into his desk, scattering papers everywhere. May hesitated. She didn't want to get hit trying to pull them apart. "Guys, stop it!"
They rolled over one another, and one of Brawnz's flailing legs almost kneecapped her. "Come on," Roy said, pulling the door open. "We've got to go."
"But—"
"Someone's after you, and Shade isn't safe anymore."
She shut up and followed, weaving through the flood of students that streamed through the halls. Everyone was moving in the same direction—towards the stables. A few other fights, like the one between Brawnz and Nolan, started up, and traffic slowed to a crawl. Then they were through the open doors, and took off in a sprint towards the wind barns.
"Flurry first," Roy said. "Then Pearl."
Dragons were already poking their heads through barn windows, but the metal shutters over the doors were closed and locked. There were a few exceptions—even as she watched, she saw their earth professor skidding to a stop in front of one of them and punching in the code.
"Don't fight!" she yelled. "Just get the fuck out of here, they're not—"
A jet of water slammed into the ground several feet away, shattering a tree to splinters. The dragon responsible shrieked in outrage and skimmed low over the campus. With its deep blue scales, it looked almost like a shard of starless sky. There was no rider.
"Where did they come from?!" May demanded. She didn't recognize them, which meant... "Those aren't from Shade."
"Oh, fuck." Roy pointed to a plume of smoke that was rising from somewhere in town. "The pits."
May sprinted towards Flurry's barn. She reached it seconds before Professor Bloom did, and tried her best to open a path for the woman so that she could open the door. When she finally did, the press of students met several terrified dragons, and the surge in the crowd almost knocked her off her feet.
Flurry stuck his head up over the press, barking frantically. "Here!" May raised both arms. "I'm over here!"
"I'll get Pearl—"
"I'm going with you!"
"I know."
She slid onto Flurry's back. Then Roy grabbed her arm and let her haul him up behind her, and the dragon took off running towards the water stables without a word from either of them.
"Do you think they'll listen if we tell them we're on their side?" she asked anxiously.
"Let's not find out."
They found Pearl easily. She'd already left her barn and was pacing the grounds, calling, "Rrroy!" He slid onto her back.
"Next stop, tack," May said.
"I'm not going to fly, if that's what you're implying. We're staying with you."
"But—"
"She's healthy. As long as we stay out of the fight, they'll have no reason to arrest either of us."
"You think they're going to be reasonable?!"
"Just shut up and go!"
They'd hardly made it a hundred feet before a voice carried across the grounds. "Dragons and students of Shade!"
May craned her neck to try and see, but all she could make out was a large black shape against the sky. She wasn't even totally sure that was where the voice was coming from—it was one dragon in a chaotic, swirling mass of them, the only one that wasn't fighting just yet.
"You have a choice to make." The voice was low, almost sultry, and...
"Oh my god." Flurry stopped, craning his neck to coo at her. "Oh my god!"
"What are you doing?" Roy demanded. "We need to keep moving!"
"It was her!" May pointed at the sky. "She's the one who made me—"
"What are you talking about?"
"The Vytal Festival! That's where I'd heard that voice before! Or, not the voice but... it was similar, all mechanical and... and... oh my god!"
"You're not making any sense."
"Think about it!" May pressed her hands together, pleading for him to understand. "There's no reason the council would do it, they would have just arrested him! Who benefited? Who got dozens of riders on her side when he—"
Roy looked up, then back at her. She could almost see the wheels in his head turning. "You... you're sure?"
"Yes!"
She'd tuned out most of the speech, but as the woman kept talking—"I hope you'll think hard about what to do with that trust..." May knew that oh-so-superior drawl.
Roy grimaced. "All the more reason to get the hell out of here. Now."
May opened her mouth in outrage—couldn't he see that this was the one who'd almost killed her?! Then she closed it again, remembering the scorpion's tail that had come out of nowhere. A few more inches... "Yeah. Let's go."
But before they could get far, a riderless water dragon came streaking around a corner, howling at the top of its lungs. It skidded to a stop in front of Pearl, its ears back, its eyes wide.
May and Roy glanced at one another. "We should really..." he started, but his heart obviously wasn't in it. They dismounted together, approaching the dragon slowly. It backed up, trembling like a leaf, and a shaft of light from a distant lamp fell across its face, shining on a black leather muzzle. Dolphin grey scales, sea green eyes...
"Riptide..." she murmured. One of Flurry's yearmates.
Roy tried to soothe her, but she just retreated another step. There was a long cut across her nose, fresh against old scars. Not a scratch from another dragon, not with just one...
"Are you looking for Nebula?"
A tiny whimper.
"Did..." May felt sick. "Did she do that?"
Riptide whined and covered her nose with her paws, still shaking.
"Easy," Roy said. "You're alright."
"Hey!"
He and May both turned towards the shout, then stiffened when they saw one of the council riders that had been stationed at Shade after the attack on Beacon. "What do you think you're doing?"
"We were just trying to help her," Roy said quickly, backing up a step. "She's not like the others, she's just scared."
"If you're with them—"
"We're not!" May threw her hands up. "We just want to go, please!"
She lashed her whip against the dragon's side, and it hissed. "Stay put and submit to arrest, now."
"We can't! We just want—"
The dragon lunged, its teeth snapping shut just inches from Pearl's throat. Roy vaulted onto her back, and May clambered onto Flurry as he turned and bolted. Riptide was already far ahead of them, blind terror driving her out of sight.
"Go right," Roy shouted. "I'll draw her off."
"But—"
"For the last time, May, I'll be fine if I'm arrested! I haven't done anything!"
"Neither did Riptide!"
"You want to go there? Fine!" He jabbed a finger at her. "Pearl can fucking fly! I can get away, you need to run! So start running!"
May tried to protest, but then Pearl was clawing her way onto the roof of one of the gyms to take off, and Flurry turned a corner. May urged him through narrow, dark pathways, hoping to escape most of the chaos above. She kept half an eye on the sky, watching as the speck that was Pearl twisted and dived to avoid another... and then they collided, and a much smaller speck flew from her back.
"Roy!"
Pearl shrieked and struggled, going down with the other dragon in a confused tangle. May tightened her arms around Flurry's neck, unable to tear her eyes away from the fall... until the speck collided with the horizon. Then she buried her face in his soft blue scales and took several deep, shuddering breaths.
When she mustered the courage to look up, they were already in motion. Flurry tore around a corner... and skidded to a stop, his wings flaring. A water dragon almost collided with him. May didn't recognize it, or its rider—and she would have remembered seeing a dragon like that. Its scales were mottled, the greys and browns of silt and the sticky black of oil, and its blank white eyes bored into her.
"We won't fight," May said quickly. "We're first-years, we don't even know how. Please, we just want to go!"
She didn't like the sudden stiffening of the rider's shoulders. His face was lost in shadow, but the way he was looking at her felt like recognition. He leaned forward and whispered something in the dragon's ear. It crouched low and roared.
Flurry's ears pinned back. The water dragon charged shoulder-checked him with all the grace of a runaway train, barking and batting at him with its paws. There was a brief scuffle, during which Flurry bit its tail, and then its rider whistled and it scampered away.
May slumped against Flurry's neck, panting, her heart beating in her ears. She'd been sure he knew her, that he worked for the woman who'd ordered Ozpin's death and he was going to... but if he'd run off like that, maybe he'd just thought she was lying?
Her only warning was a sudden stench, like sulfur and burn Dust. May twisted around, and saw red. Two crimson eyes... two slitted pupils that were longer than her forearm. Scales the color of blood, sweeping into curved, jet-black horns.
Flurry howled in terror and bolted, dodging a blast of fire by a hair. May clung to him, her heart hammering in her chest. The pit dragons didn't know who was on what side... so they were taking their cues from the students. He hadn't been trying to attack her, he'd been marking her as an enemy.
"Wait! Please!"
Teeth clamped shut on Flurry's hind leg and yanked him off his feet. The world spun around May for a moment, until she heard the crack of her head hitting the ground and groaned. Smoke choked her as she tried to breathe. Through her coughing she managed to croak, "Don't!"
Flurry was tossed contemptuously aside. He landed in a crumpled heap, whining softly. Those crimson eyes fixed on her, burning with rage and condemnation. "I'm not—" she found herself babbling, "—I didn't mean to... I'm sorry!"
Dagger teeth opened wide, and the pit dragon roared.