Click-clack, click-clack. The sound of Pyrrha's boots tapping on concrete was mind-numbingly familiar. How many times had she made this walk before? With the various tournaments she'd won in her life, it had to be pushing nearly a hundred. Whether at Amity or Sanctum or tiny roadside arenas where six-year-olds hit each other with wooden sticks, things were always the same. Soon, she would step out to the adoring cheers of the crowd. Wreck whatever poor sap she was facing in two minutes flat. Do the obligatory smiling and waving for the cameras, then leave to hit the showers. Lately she could even skip the last step. None of her opponents at the last Mistral Regional had made her break a sweat, literally. Winning trophies was a bit like eating cake at a party, she reflected. You came in hungry, licking your lips in anticipation. The first slice was the greatest thing you'd ever tasted, the realization of all your hopes and dreams. The second was still satisfying, but by the third you began wishing for something to offset the cloying sweetness. And after four, you started feeling downright sick and wondering if this would give you diabetes later in life...eh, maybe the analogy had gotten away from her there.
But this time will be different, she told herself. Ever since the battle at the docks, she'd hoped for this match, and now it felt like she was about to eat the first slice of cake all over again. What could it be but destiny that had drawn her and a certain Penny Polendina together? She had faith that the enigmatic Atlesian could rekindle the fire in her heart, perhaps even demote her from Invincible Girl to Vincible Girl. Yes, Pyrrha Nikos was optimistic about what today had in store for her! Her spear and shield were polished, her armor fastened tight, some random person's face was hanging upside-down in front of her—
"AHHH!" Pyrrha jumped back in surprise. She barely refrained from blasting her unexpected guest with a pulse of Polarity. A blond boy grinned at her, dangling from the pipes overhead by his monkey tail. It took her a second to put a name to the face, but she managed it in the end. "Sun? Goodness, I didn't see you there!"
Sun laughed. "Figures. People never look up. Anyways, I just wanted—" His white necktie fell downwards over his face, and he had to pause to brush it aside. "Gah. Stupid thing. Just wanted to talk to you, since you're about to fight Penny and all." Oh yes, those two were...something? Pyrrha didn't know them well enough to say if they were friends, dating, or had a Ren-and-Nora situation going on, but they certainly got along. Hopefully he wasn't about to do anything crazy on behalf of his girlfriend/girl friend, like try to break her kneecaps (wilder things happened on the tournament circuit). He seemed sincere enough, though, so she nodded for him to keep talking. "Remember what happened when we were all chasing that big robot?"
Like a grainy flashback from a movie, the events of that day replayed in her head. She remembered how Torchwick had kicked what looked like an entire traffic jam at them, and how Penny had started blocking cars with her bare hands to general amazement. Pyrrha had tried to help her with a wave of repelling magnetic force, but then... "Right, she just...passed out? Honestly, I never figured out what happened."
Sun nodded. "Yeah. So I don't know the exact details—medical privacy and all that—but she's, let's say, got some stuff going on inside," he ran a hand over his partly-bare chest. "that, uh, doesn't really mix well with magnets."
"Oh, you mean like a pacemaker?" Pyrrha recalled reading in some old physics textbook that if you had one of those and got exposed to a strong magnet, you could die from your heart exploding (maybe that wasn't 100% accurate; it had been a long time ago and she was a Huntress, not a doctor). The thought of Penny having one had never crossed her mind before. That girl was so young and so full of energy, it was hard to imagine her with a serious health problem.
"Eh, something like that." Sun gave her an upside-down shrug. "She doesn't really like talking about it. Scared it'll make people look at her like she's, uh, abnormal."
"Oh no, not at all!" Perish the thought! If anything, it really put her own problems into perspective. She felt quite silly now for moping over being too perfect."Her secret's safe with me. And I promise I'll be careful, all right? I came here to win, not be a murderer!"
"Cool. I'll let you pass, then." Sun retracted back up into the ceiling. "Anything bad happens, though, and I'll kick your ass—well, realistically you'll kick mine, but you get the point—"
Pyrrha was already running down the hallway, hoping she could still make it to the arena on time. When she emerged onto the floor of Amity Colosseum, the roar that arose seemed it would blow off the nonexistent roof. Her fanatics in the stands chanted her name to the heavens, waving the symbols of their allegiance, signs and foam javelins and body pillows and the like. Unsurprisingly, Nora screamed louder than anyone else. Sun slipped back into his seat and brandished a crude hand-drawn poster of Penny in defiance of general sentiment (it looked more like a flying green octopus than a person, but it was the thought that counted). The hype had even been enough to lure General Ironwood out of his flying fortress; the Atlas headmaster occupied a front-row seat, his expression stony as ever.
Yet Pyrrha was blind and deaf to all this pomp. Right now, the orange-haired girl standing before her was her entire world. As she stepped onto the center platform, she offered her opponent a respectful bow. "Penny Polendina. It's an honor to face you."
"O-oh, um, yes. Salutations, Pyrrha Nikos..." Penny waved hesitantly, her face lacking its usual smile, and Pyrrha berated herself for being so thoughtless. Of course Penny would be wary of the person who'd nearly put her into cardiac arrest. Better fix that. She put on a reassuring smile, and walked forward with her hand outstretched. "Don't worry. I give my word, I won't use my Semblance directly on you again. Not that it makes up for things, but I'm truly sorry about last time. If I'd known—"
Penny looked even more nervous than before. "Known what...?" she questioned.
"Rest assured, I don't think any less of you." Pyrrha said soothingly. She clasped the other girl's hand firmly in her own. "I actually think it's—um, I hope this doesn't sound condescending—I think it's an inspiration, how much you've accomplished despite your, um, illness."
"Illness?" Penny blinked. "I mean, haha, yes! My *hic* tragic human disease that afflicts my *hic* squishy human organs!" A bit odd, that phrasing, but whatever. Huntresses were an eccentric bunch; heck, Nora said weirder things every day. What mattered was that Penny was smiling again; she shook Pyrrha's hand with an iron grip that belied her slim frame. The two of them stayed like that, looking into each other's green eyes, until a girl in a blue beret suddenly popped up to tap Penny on the shoulder. Oh, right—Pyrrha had totally forgotten they were technically in the doubles round. It was easy to lose track when she had no teammates to fight alongside. "Ma'am." the interloper said in a flat tone. "Pyrrha Nikos is projected to be a difficult opponent. Shall I—"
"Thank you, Ciel, but your services are unnecessary." Without looking, Penny used her free hand to nudge her partner away. "Let us keep this between ourselves. After all..." Her smile turned mischievous. "...I would not have anyone say I defeated you dishonorably."
At those words, Pyrrha felt a strange burning sensation in her chest. Indigestion? A symptom of early-onset atherosclerosis? No. It had been long since she'd felt this way, but she knew what it was. Hunger...not for food, but for the finer things in life, crushing the enemy and seeing them driven before you and all that.
It burned, and gods help her, she liked it.
Huh. As far as Mercury knew, Nikos and Polendina were no more than casual acquaintances, but for a moment there he'd thought the Invincible Girl was about to plant a wet one on her opponent. To his relief (as an agent of Salem) and disappointment (as a red-blooded male), she did not. Still, the stupid grin on her face was visible even from the stands. "Geez, they seem awfully friendly." Emerald grumbled. "You sure this will work?"
Mercury shrugged. "Don't ask me. It's your Semblance." And what a finicky Semblance it was. Their plan had been optimized for the singles round; when translated to doubles, the nature of her powers made it as leaky as a colander. The problem was she had a hard time maintaining complex illusions on two people at once; of course she could try targeting only one, but if the other stopped their partner before they could do something drastic, the jig would be up. Not to mention the risks of having Emerald down in the arena herself—if they got suspicious of why she was standing there staring creepily, if they decided to target her first instead of Mercury...so many things could go wrong. Damn Torchwick and his loose lips! Out of frustration, Mercury had asked last night why they needed to mess with the tournament at all. To him, it seemed like a shit-ton of White Fang and Grimm suddenly attacking would provide plenty of negativity on its own. Cinder had said something snooty about setting the proper atmosphere, then grudgingly admitted that Salem was really keen on sticking it to Beacon for whatever reason. And what the Queen of Grimm wanted, she damn well got.
Well, they'd come up with a new plan in the end. It was awfully convenient for them how there were exactly two solo fighters in the draw. As a matter of fact, he liked it more than the old one, despite the headache he'd gotten from thinking so uncommonly hard. Yeah, he'd practiced feigning a broken leg to the point a Mistrali footballer would be proud, and it was a bit of a shame to waste that—but really, why should he get a fake injury when someone else could get a real one instead? "Eh, I'll figure something out." Emerald promised. "Worst case, when Nikos wins I'll just use the original plan." Down in the arena, the biomes were set (urban, ocean, lava, and mountain). The walrus-looking announcer finished rambling about whatever, and the other one began to count down. Three, two, one...
Holy shit, that was a lot of lasers!
Emerald whistled. "Scratch that, if she wins."
Maybe Pyrrha should have seen this coming. It was the obvious move if you thought about it. Polarity could manipulate a metal sword with ease, but a green beam of pure energy, not so much. So naturally, right off the bat Penny stepped back to try and drown her in a sea of green. This was a barrage of smaller lasers, fired from clusters of two or three swords each—not so spectacular as the Bullhead killer she'd used at the docks, but getting hit was still a decided health hazard. One of them tagged Pyrrha on the ankle, and AAHH, it stung like a—!...like something that hurt a lot. All thoughts of keeping her Semblance hidden were forgotten; surviving this opening attack without being vaporized took priority. She used the metal on her legs and neck to levitate, contorting into impossible positions as lasers missed her by inches. Her shield orbited around her like a miniature satellite to block what she couldn't dodge, metal warping from the sheer impact forces.
After ten seconds that felt like ten hours, the bombardment finally stopped. She couldn't say why—maybe that attack needed some time to recharge—but she wouldn't complain. Instead, Penny gestured as if pulling a puppet's strings, and all her swords launched forwards at once. To an ordinary person, this would be an incredibly terrifying sight; to Pyrrha it was almost comforting. This was more up her alley. Her first instinct was to send out a pulse, but remembering her promise, she opted to do things the harder way. In a fraction of a second, she'd locked onto the positions of each individual sword, all twelve or so, and applied a dozen separate magnetic bursts. The swords glowed black and came to a stop mid-air, but did not go flying back as she'd hoped. Instead they remained stuck in place, caught in an invisible tug-of-war between Polarity and the mysterious force Penny used to control them. "Goodness!" Pyrrha gasped. "How are you doing that?"
Penny only grinned. "Classified!" She wasn't breathing remotely heavily; in fact she scarcely seemed to breathe at all. Seeing that they were at a stalemate, Pyrrha tossed her own weapon into the mix. Miló left her hand, curved around the floating cloud of swords, and dipped back in to strike Penny on the leg. She jumped back, only for the javelin to follow her as if remote-controlled. It jabbed her twice more before she lowered her hands and simply snatched it out of the air, her swords retracting in the process. Pyrrha used the window of opportunity to close in and aim a flying kick at Penny's gut. Her boot connected, and she instantly knew she'd made a mistake. Good gods, it felt like kicking a steel wall! What did they feed this girl? If not for Aura she might have broken a toe—or five. She landed awkwardly, her sore foot wobbling and leaving her open for a counter-attack. A moment later Penny's fist slammed against her chest—
She couldn't breathe. Darkness encroached on the edges of her vision. Oh, she thought in resignation, so this is how I die. She was half-convinced that her torso had just exploded, scattering her atomized remains to the four winds. Then she crashed to the floor on her back and skidded along it, bare shoulders scraping on the concrete. Ow, ow, ow...the painful sensation told her she was still in one piece. More swords stabbed down at her; she barely nudged them aside in time, and they fell around her in a Pyrrha-shaped outline. So far, so bad. She was disarmed, and had been put on the back foot in both ranged and melee, but Pyrrha kept her cool. Reaching out again with her Semblance, she found and flipped the hidden switch on Miló. It shifted from javelin to rifle form, still held in Penny's hand. Its barrel twisted around, its trigger depressed, and it discharged a round right into her face. Penny staggered back with a yelp; the recoil blasted Miló out of her grip, and Pyrrha gratefully summoned it to her hand.
She clambered to her feet, coughing and holding her ribs. Penny was getting up as well, shaking off the bullet to the head as if it were a spitball. They were essentially back where they'd started, but one look at the Aura meter told Pyrrha she'd gotten the worse of the exchange, 70% to 60% or so. If they continued like this, the fight would likely end in her valiant (metaphorical) demise. She could finally shed that tired old moniker. She could tell herself she'd lost with honor to a worthy foe. The prospect tantalized her, and yet other images came unbidden to her mind. Jaune throwing himself into a fiery pit along with his opponent, and Yang grabbing Ivori's bladed whip with bare hands. The twins summoning, Sable frozen and half-dead but straining to get his last attack in...
Or, Pyrrha could be like her friends and see just how far she was willing to go to win. She took a deep breath to steel herself...then turned around and ran away.
In the stands, said friends watched her go in utter bafflement. "Okay?" Yang shook her head disapprovingly. "On the one hand, understandable. On the other hand, I'm losing respect for her."
Nora laughed nervously. "Um...I'm sure it's part of a cunning plan?"
"I think it actually is!" Ruby leaned over the railing, pointing dramatically. "Look where she's going!"
Below, the red-and-bronze figure disappeared into the urban biome, pursued by the green one. By all appearances, it was the exact same chunk of city Team SJBY had fought in two days ago. There was still a deep gouge where the fire-tornado had passed through, with debris scattered around it. The building Blake had blown up was still a sad pile of rubble. "What about it?" Yang asked. Try as she might, she didn't see any power-up items in that dump. Just ruined buildings, deserted streets, and the odd broken-down car (she didn't recall those from last time; were they new, or had her narration just not picked them up?).
In answer, there was a loud crash from within the city. The audience covered their ears as a horrible clattering sound grew louder and louder, like a thousand pots and pans banging together at once. A cloud of miscellaneous stuff rose into the air, glowing black and shining in the arena lights. There were street signs, broken girders, twisted coils of rebar, and numerous other unidentifiable pieces of—
"Metal." Jaune gasped. "Lots of metal."
What happened next barely resembled a battle between two human beings. Pyrrha ran through the streets, snatching up and throwing every bit of scrap metal in range. In her hands the most mundane objects turned to guided missiles—a stop sign, a manhole cover, even what looked like a literal kitchen sink. This was not the graceful, elegant combat she had gained renown for in her years as a tournament champion. It was downright barbaric, the way she tore the world apart to fuel her war machine; a primitive display of brute force, like an army lobbing artillery shells across no man's land; quality via quantity, like that same army trying to drown the enemy trenches in bodies. All that mattered to her was that it was working. Suddenly, Penny was the one on the defensive. Her swords whirled wildly around, trying to deflect the projectiles coming in from all sides, but the sheer volume meant a few inevitably got through to ding her Aura. In spite of that, she remained eminently dangerous—whenever there was the slightest let-up, she retaliated by firing more lasers, or by tearing out entire chunks of masonry to throw back.
It also made for compelling viewing on a Wednesday night, aesthetics be damned. In Ozpin's office, the one hundred fifty-six photos on the wall were down to forty-three. The investigators took a minute to rest their tired minds, while Qrow grumbled about what a hypocrite Ironwood was for ditching them to watch in person. In a combat arena on campus, Sable and Weiss stared at a Scroll, swords idle in their hands and feeling that practice could go on hold for a few minutes. In a town square in Argus, a crowd of people had gathered around a large screen, among them a middle-aged red-haired woman nervously chewing her nails. In an Atlas laboratory, a fat man excitedly clapped his hands. And in an ominous castle under an eldritch red sky, a thin man twirled his evil-looking mustache and glared suspiciously at the girl with a familiar surname. Who knew how many similar scenes were playing out across the world? "Yes! YES!" On the commentary, Port was ecstatic over the amount of destruction he was witnessing. "We've seen Miss Nikos fight before—but until today, I don't think we ever saw what she's really capable of!"
"It's been a worthy of a final." Oobleck agreed. "You know, I wonder if this will lead to renewed calls for a seeding system?"
Mercury anxiously monitored the fighters' steadily decreasing Aura levels. "Hey Em, did you think of something yet?" he whispered to his partner. After a few seconds without a reply, he tried again. "How about now?" And again. "Now?"
"Shut the fuck up! I'm trying to concentrate!" Emerald snapped. "But yeah, I got an idea. Just need a chance here..." She rested her elbows on the railing, eyes fixed on the fight below. For another minute she watched in silence, before pressing her fingertips to her temples. Mercury still didn't know if she had to do that for her Semblance to work, or if she just did it to look cool. Either way, things were about to kick off. To his surprise he felt butterflies in his stomach, like he was an eight-year-old boy about to pop his murder cherry again. In fairness, even his old man had never tried assassinating an entire kingdom before...
"Here we go."
Based on her last peek at the scoreboard, Pyrrha had finally pulled ahead on Aura level, 35% to 30% or so. Her new spam strategy took its toll on them both, but so far it seemed to be (metaphorically) killing Penny faster than it killed her. Things were still tight, but she was on track for another one in the win column, another brick in the pedestal of the Invincible Girl. Earlier she might have despaired at this, but now? Now, she was surprised to realize how badly she wanted it! Rarely had Pyrrha Nikos felt more alive than she did in this nightmare of shrapnel and death lasers. How much had she lost in those long days of stagnation, she wondered, when she barely had to work for victory? Her imagination ran wild with new ways to use her powers and new weapon designs. For starters, she could easily make Penny's floating-swords setup work for herself. One Miló was very nice, yes, but how about twelve of them—
Fight now, she reminded herself, daydream later. The giant chunk of concrete headed for her face was a sharp reminder. She ducked, and the concrete block smashed the windshield of the road roller parked in the street behind her. A bit of a strange thing to put here, but she didn't dwell on it, too busy gathering up another cloud of metal debris to launch. As Penny pulled her swords back to shield herself, something unusual (well, more unusual) began to happen. Her entire body suddenly flared bright green; Pyrrha was confused, until she caught a glimpse of the scoreboard overhead. To her shock, Penny's Aura level was rising, up past 40%, and swiftly approaching half again. What? In her entire life, she had never heard of a Semblance that could regenerate Aura. Even to a girl who could control any metal object at will, this sounded stupidly overpowered. Gods, was there truly no way for her to win this...?
No. She had come too far to roll over and accept defeat so easily. She had to stop this, no matter what it took. In desperation, she reached out for the heaviest piece of metal in range—the wrecked road roller—and hurled it at Penny with full force.
Twenty-eight percent, twenty-seven, twenty-six. Closer, ever closer to defeat, but Penny took it with good cheer. Her father always said you learned more from failures than successes; if so, the learnings from today promised to be plentiful indeed. Why, she could barely wait to retrain her neural networks on this precious, precious new data she'd collected! She was sure that with careful analysis, she could come up with some novel strategies to ensure victory. Like, say, not fighting in an environment that was absolutely littered with small pieces of metal? Hm. Yes, perhaps that would be a good place to start next time, not that she was ready to throw in the towel on this time yet (a curious saying, for she'd never seen a Huntress wield a towel). Wondering as to the optimal angle for her next laser shot, she snuck a peek at her opponent's position and—
ALERT: Visual anomaly detected
How unusual. When she looked in Pyrrha's direction, there seemed to be a low-resolution blotch in her vision centered on the other girl. She was hardly blind; she could still see a redhead standing in the empty street, but compared to her enhanced machine vision this was practically potato quality (another curious saying, for in her opinion the potato was a high-quality vegetable). Even trying to zoom in didn't help at all. Well. This was an unfortunate time to suffer a glitch, wasn't it? She'd be sure to file a bug report for her father later. And hey, hadn't there been a road roller parked in the street a second ago—?
Penny's world exploded into pain.
ALERT: Heavy impact(s) detected
CRITICAL ALERT: Aura reserves depleted
ALERT: Heavy impact(s) detected
Damage assessment in progress...
Emerald slumped back into her seat, nursing a headache, as Mercury clapped her on the back. "You did it, Em!" he whooped, barely hiding his enthusiasm. it was lucky for them that the rest of the audience was too busy screaming and otherwise freaking out to notice. In the arena, Penny—or whatever was left of her—was hidden from view under a pile of wreckage, but he was absolutely confident she was toast. Her Aura read 0% on the scoreboard, and it was physically impossible for a human body to withstand what had just happened to her. Thanks to Emerald, she'd been completely blindsided by the road roller that ran her over...and rammed her through the wall of a building...which then proceeded to collapse on her...yeah, good night. If by some miracle she hadn't been reduced to an Atlesian pancake, or at least a permanently comatose vegetable, he would personally pull off his legs and eat them. Nikos seemed to realize as much; the champion-turned-murderer stood frozen in a way that suggested she'd need serious therapy if she survived the night. Grinning in satisfaction, Mercury turned his attention upwards to the ring of video screens overlooking the stadium. As expected, they all started glowing blood red and displaying the image of a black queen chess piece, to...loud cheers?
Huh? He looked back down to see a small gap had opened up amid the rubble pile. A hand in a torn sleeve reached out from it, waving to the audience. Nikos ran over to assist, visibly grateful she would not be facing homicide charges after all."What?!" he exclaimed in outraged disbelief. The taste of his own legs was a bitter one indeed. "You've gotta be kidding me!"
Penny's father was a man of great philosophical wisdom. She remembered, in particular, his thoughts of the purpose of pain. It was a feeling that humans and faunus normally did their utmost to avoid—and yet without pain there would be no pleasure, without suffering no joy in life. Pain was proof you truly existed, proof you were a thinking, feeling being. If you prick us, do we not bleed?, he'd said, quoting from some ancient text. Then he'd realized that Penny, in fact, did not, and things got a little awkward. All very wise, but all she could wonder now was—why? Why was she programmed to feel pain? Every inch of her body felt like it had been hammered to aluminum foil, her internal damage alarms were beeping like crazy, a mixture of motor oil and coolant was pooling in her mouth...well, she supposed that only proved she was still alive. The series of inexplicable traumas she'd endured would have killed a flesh-and-blood girl several times over, but Penny was made of the best alloys known to Atlesian science. From where she was buried, she couldn't see much, but she heard the muffled sound of screams. Oh dear. How many people had just seen her get obliterated? She knew the General had been watching, the various Beacon students she'd met...Sun...Dad. Suddenly, her own pain seemed unimportant. Penny thrashed against the rubble with all her inhuman strength, and felt one arm punch through to the surface. She waved, heard the screams turn to relieved cheers, and a moment later a heavy weight levitated off her legs. "I'm sorry!" Pyrrha wailed; the poor girl sounded close to tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry...!" Her hand grasped Penny's own and pulled. Between their combined efforts, the remaining rubble was quickly cleared away, and she was able to stand upright, brushing off the last few chunks. "I'm okay!" she declared, and flashed a reassuring thumbs up to the crowd.
The cheers turned to screams again. Pyrrha stumbled backwards, hand to mouth and eyes wide in horror. "Penny!" she gasped. "Your—your neck!"
"Hm?" She put a hand to the mentioned body part, and her non-existent blood froze cold. A rod of rebar, as thick as her own fist, protruded six inches from the front of her throat. Moving her hand, she found six more inches coming out the back. It must have impaled her at some point during her little incident, she realized belatedly. One hardly needed a medical degree to see that a normal girl shouldn't be standing, let alone talking, with that much metal stuck through her windpipe. "Oh, oh, um...no need to worry! I'll be fine!" she stammered. "Just *hic* a flesh wound!" She hastily pulled the piece of rebar out and tossed it away. That, as it turned out, was a poor choice. There was a flash of pain and a nasty crunching sound. From her perspective, her field of vision slowly tilted to one side, then dropped to the ground. She rolled on the floor a few times before coming to rest, staring up at Pyrrha's dumbfounded face. Behind her, she saw her own headless body, emitting a shower of sparks from its severed neck, still standing upright and giving a thumbs up.
"Um...I can explain."
On a rooftop somewhere at Beacon, Cinder Fall stared open-mouthed at her Scroll. After nearly a decade in Salem's service, she'd thought there was nothing left in this world that could truly shock her. On a daily basis, she dealt with concepts that would blow the pea-sized mind of the average citizen, magic and immortality and Grimm butlers and the like. But, as she was reminded now, she was still only human, and there were always limits to what a human could conceive. It was just like her first attempt at the Maiden's power, she thought bitterly; the more carefully you schemed, the more unexpected events came along. Cinder stared mournfully at the sheet of paper in her hand, at the beautifully written speech she had spent the past year writing and rehearsing. With a snarl she burnt it to ashes, threw the ashes to the ground, and stamped on them. Instead, the Fall Maiden let loose a spontaneous exclamation from the bottom of her black heart. It was only three words. Three words that would be broadcast to millions. Three words that would go down in infamy. Three words to mark the end of the Vytal peace, and turn the world of Remnant upside-down.
"What the FUCK?!"
No one at Amity knew what was going on anymore. This had very obviously ceased to be a normal tournament match—if, indeed, it had ever been one in the first place. In quick succession, this place had witnessed an apparent murder, a miraculous recovery, a surprise demonstration of the latest in Atlesian robotics, and now the mysterious voice shouting a F-bomb provided the cherry atop the surrealist sundae. Sun had been the first onto the field; he cradled Penny in his lap, fruitlessly trying to stick her head back onto her body. Ruby and Nora were next, huddling around Pyrrha and gingerly poking her to no avail; the champion just stood there with a thousand-yard stare in her eyes. More and more people joined them, Jaune and Yang and Blake and Ren and the rest of Team SSSN and others, but they could do little but look on helplessly. "Shh, it's fine, it's fine." Sun whispered. He stroked Penny's hair with a shaking hand. "Hang in there, okay? You're doing great."
Penny spat out a glob of oil. "That...seems objectively untrue." she said weakly. Despite her head not being attached to vocal cords or lungs, somehow she was still able to talk. Everyone assumed it was a robot thing.
"I—all right, a little bit, but you're gonna make it, I promise! Just keep talking. We'll...we'll figure it out..." Sun looked desperately around, his gaze settling on a girl in a blue beret. "You! You're her partner, aren't you? Don't you have something to fix this?"
"I didn't even know she was a robot!" Ciel protested.
"She really didn't." Penny confirmed.
"They just told me to keep her on schedule and time her fights! That was four minutes, thirty-three seconds, by the way...uh..." At Sun's incredulous glare, Ciel rummaged around in her skirt pocket and came up with a box of band-aids. "Uh, I've got this." Sun palmed his forehead. "Ah, no good?"
"Duct tape maybe?" Neptune suggested feebly.
"Um, I mean, this situation is really...fucked up." the mysterious voice continued, sounding flustered. "This was not an accident. This was not a tragedy. I mean, it wasn't a tragedy because no one died, but someone could have. Did Pyrrha Nikos know she was fighting a robot when she dropped that road roller on her head? Because it sure didn't look like it—"
"You know, she raises a valid point!" Sun growled, pointing an accusing finger at the champion. "Okay, so technically you kept your promise, but what the hell?"
That snapped Pyrrha out of her catatonia. "I'M SORRY!" She practically threw herself to the ground; her forehead smacked rhythmically against the dusty road as she kowtowed in apology. "I thought you'd dodge it! Um, not to victim blame or anything! I just wanted to disrupt your focus and I thought you'd have more Aura and okay, maybe I panicked a little bit..." she had to stop to breathe, before continuing to babble. "...in hindsight I might have imagined it but it really really looked like you were regenerating Aura and—"
"Regenerating Aura?" Penny groaned. "That is not among my capabilities..."
"Yeah, sounds kind of ridiculous." Jaune added.
"—so I ask you, what is Ozpin teaching his students?" All the while, the mystery monologue continued. "They destroy buildings and boats and forests, they mercilessly beat people and throw them into tornadoes and, punch them in the...er, groin, they summon evil spirits, and now this?" Hardly anyone seemed to be paying attention. The atmosphere of utter bafflement that had descended smothered all other emotions. By now most of the students in front row had jumped the railing and were milling about aimlessly on the arena floor. There was no rational reason for this, but things had gotten so weird that everyone had collectively decided they might as well. "So, hey..." Ruby said in an awkward attempt to ease the tension. "What's it like being a robot?"
"I am unsure how to answer that. I've never been anything else, you see. Sometimes I wished to be a normal meat person like you, but... " Penny's hand reached up to feel the stump of her neck. "...I am beginning to think that being a robot has its advantages."
Ruby turned faintly green at the sight. "Yeah, you can say that again. No offense, but how are you still, you know, alive?"
Penny smiled. "None taken, Friend Ruby. My central processing unit is located in my torso, and so long as that remains intact I can control my body parts even if they're separated. Although I must admit, the current situation is somewhat disorienting."
"—and did anyone know Atlas was making lifelike combat robots? I certainly didn't! It makes one wonder why General Ironwood felt the need to disguise a killing machine as an innocent little girl—"
That line got Sun's attention. "Hey, fuck you!" he yelled, though there was no way the speaker could hear him. He raised his middle finger in the general direction of the voice; as it happened, the broadcast camera picked that up, and Sun Wukong would go down in history as the man who flipped the bird to the entire population of Remnant. "Don't talk about her like that, she's a person! Tell 'em, Penny!"
"Um, yes!" Penny stood up, using one hand to precariously hold her head on her neck. "I'm a real girl!" She waved cutely at the crowd and got a few aww's for her trouble, before she lost her grip and her head went rolling across the floor again. "Oh my. How embarrassing."
Gods, what a mess. James Ironwood's only consolation was that whatever stooge of Salem had hijacked the broadcast sounded just as confused as everyone else. Her rambling speech meandered on in the background as he ran. He'd never noticed before, but there were an awful lot of stairs between the front row and the announcers' booth at the top of Amity Colosseum. He was almost there when his Scroll rang; seeing the caller, he answered with a grimace. "James." Ozpin deadpanned. "You realize some people would consider this cheating?"
"There's no rule saying a robot can't fight in the Vytal Festival!" he said defensively. "And I think we have bigger things to worry about!" Reaching the announcer's booth, he threw the door open with such force that his bionic arm tore it clean off its hinges. He winced at the sight, mentally adding it to the repair budget, then reminded himself that, again, there were bigger things to worry about. "What's going on?" he bellowed at Port and Oobleck. "Can't you cut the feed, for gods' sake? Or at least trace where it's coming from?"
Oobleck shook his head. "We're trying, General, but nothing's working! The techs are saying they've lost control of the audio and video!"
"Don't worry!" Port boomed. "I'll have them write a GUI in Visual Basic to track the hacker's IP address!"
James's eye twitched. He was no Arthur Watts when it came to technology, but even he knew that wasn't how it worked. "What the hell are you talking about, old man?!"
"I saw it on a TV show once!"
"You know what? Forget it." the hacker grumbled. "If you're not afraid of what I have to say, perhaps you'll be afraid of this." The view on the stadium screens changed. Gone was the red-tinted feed of the arena floor, replaced by an equally red-tinted feed of an airship landing pad. A dense cloud of Bullheads swarmed in the air and drew ever closer to the camera. James made out the distant skyline of Vale and the floating shape of Amity in the background—Beacon, this was the Beacon docks. As they watched, the leading ships skidded to a stop on the pad. The doors burst open, and two figures simultaneously stepped out. One of them was a White Fang soldier, masked and hooded. The other one was a Beowolf.
The arena exploded into confused screams, again. Seeing either of those would be concerning enough on its own, but together? The very concept of terrorists weaponizing Grimm was impossible, against all known laws of biology. Yet now it unfolded before their very eyes, something from the realm of horror films bleeding over into reality. Only James and a handful of others knew there was one being on the planet with the ability to make this happen. As more and more members of that unholy alliance flooded out of the ships, he realized with a sinking feeling that they had run out of time. To make matters worse, there was the muffled sound of an explosion quite nearby, and sirens began blaring all over Amity. The crowd below was a roiling sea of panicked humanity and faunus-ity, running in all directions in search of safety yet with no idea of where safety might be found. "What is happening?" Oobleck shouted into his headset. On receiving a reply, he turned to James, color draining from his face. "General! Security's reporting hostiles at the loading docks! More White Fang and, um, Grimm!"
James slammed his fist into the wall, cracking it. "This is ridiculous!" he roared. "How the hell did all those ships sneak into Vale airspace without us noticing?"
"Does it matter, Jimmy?" Qrow's voice squawked from his Scroll. "Whatever it is, they're here! We need some backup, stat!"
James took a deep breath. "Of course. Excuse me, then. I need to take care of this." This day would prove the greatest test of his mettle since he'd been made entirely of meat. The possibility of such a large-scale attack was the entire reason for him being in the inner circle; it wouldn't do to let everyone down. He leaned over to shout into the announcer's microphone. "Attention, attention! Shelter in place and please remain calm! I promise you, we'll throw these terrorists back where they came from! All Huntsmen—retrieve your weapons and prepare to defend!" Many of the students on the arena floor already had their Scrolls out to summon their weapon lockers. Good heads on their shoulders, this bunch. "It's a fight, then?" Port stood grinning from his seat and ran a finger along the blade of his axe. "Well, that I know how to handle! Come on, Barty!"
Both announcers left the booth, but James stayed behind. On his Scroll, he typed in the access codes that would open a communication channel to his fleet. Currently there were three Atlesian ships of line parked over Vale. He could see them floating in the sky, through Amity's open roof. His flagship, the Pride of Atlas, sat in the center, flanked by her sister ships Indomitable and Floaty McFloatface (the naval cadets had been allowed to vote on a ship name once and never again). Not for the first time, he cursed the Vale Council for not letting him bring in more resources, but what he had would have to do. Three ships' worth of soldiers, dropships and combat bots should be enough to crush the enemy force at Beacon. "Pride of Atlas, this is General Ironwood speaking. All units deploy to Beacon, I repeat, all units deploy to Beacon." No reply. He felt something cold trickle down his spine. "Do you acknowledge? Do you—"
"If you're counting on your heroes to save you, I'm afraid there will be no victory through strength tonight." the hacker spoke again, her tone now smugly confident. The viewers collectively cringed and awaited the next escalation, but nothing happened. "Today would be nice, Roman!" she added impatiently.
Roman Torchwick? Impossible, James thought, he was locked up in the brig...then he saw a streak of red light fly out from his flagship. Air-to-air missiles! An orange fireball blossomed on the starboard side of Floaty McFloatface. One of the large blocky engines at the base of the ship's main shaft blew off, causing it to begin sinking rapidly. "Mayday!" someone shrieked over the comms. "Mayday—" More missiles flew, and the distress call cut off, leaving only static. Two state-of-the art battleships plummeted out of the sky, burning like shooting stars. Needless to say, James did not make a wish. Feeling sick, he wondered how many of his men had just perished. In all likelihood the Atlas Military had suffered its worst losses since the Faunus Wars in a matter of seconds. He had little time to dwell on that before things snowballed even further. "Goodbye." With that parting word, the view on the screens changed one last time—now focused, for some reason, on a run-down apartment building.
Hardly anyone in the crowd recognized that spot, but James did. He scrambled to dial his aide's number—hoping against hope she could stop this runaway chain reaction before it blew the roof off the kingdom. Perhaps literally.
"Specialist Schnee, go on high alert! I repeat, high alert!"
"On it, sir!" Winter acknowledged. Marrow was already at work; on his Scroll, he'd pulled up the holographic control panel for their unit of Paladin-290s and was frantically pressing buttons. Things were still eerily calm down in Vale, other than the loud boom when those two airships had crashed. Smoke rose from somewhere in the industrial district and partly covered the moon's broken face. The faint crack of gunfire came from Amity overhead, and light from tracer rounds flickered about the stadium's lower half. She thought of her siblings possibly caught up in that mess; a twinge of worry stabbed at her heart, but she suppressed it with a soldier's discipline. They're strong. I have to trust them. Besides, she had her own duties to attend to. No matter what hordes the White Fang sent their way, they would not, could not, be allowed to take this place. Winter and Marrow would hurl them back with fire and steel, summons and bullets, sword and...um, boomerang. As she drew her blade, she silently vowed that none would pass, not while she had a drop of blood left in her veins.
Around them, the phalanx of Paladins whirred to life. To her surprise, rather than face outwards towards potential attackers, they turned in, weapons aimed directly at the apartment building instead. "Marrow, wrong way!" she barked. "Turn them around!"
"That wasn't me!" Marrow mashed more buttons, sweat dripping down his face. "It's not—it's not responding!" The entire control panel made a nasty buzzing sound and turned bright red. "Ah! What—are we getting hacked?!"
"Atlesian Paladins don't get hacked!" Winter insisted. Commandeered by terrorist groups, yes, hacked, no. Her briefings on the Paladin-290 had assured her that its bleeding-edge cybersecurity measures were 100% impenetrable; however the evidence before her eyes said otherwise. There were more whirring noises as the robots' missile launchers deployed. A hundred rockets loaded themselves into tubes, primed to fire. Winter had seen enough. She lunged and slammed her fist onto the holographic console, right atop the emergency stop button. It was impossible to miss—big, flashy, and reassuringly red (well, the whole panel was red now, but whatever). According to the user manual, this was a 100% reliable failsafe that would shut down the entire unit, which she would 100% never have to use. So much for that. Hopefully she would have enough time to call the Atlas Military's tech support line and demand they fix these stupid pieces of junk.
She did not have enough time. In fact, as the icing on of this layer cake of failure, the Paladins didn't shut down at all. There was a massive roar that shook the ground, and her vision was obscured by the exhaust of a hundred missiles launching at once. Winter felt a pang of helpless dread before everything exploded. For a moment the apartment building glowed in the Vale night, brighter than the midday sun, and then it was simply gone, nothing but a scattered shower of flames and broken concrete. The blast knocked her and Marrow onto their rear ends and made their ears ring. From the ruins, what looked like a fountain of pure darkness rose into the sky; in reality it was a solid column of flying Grimm, mostly Nevemores but with some nastier creatures mixed in, Griffons and Manticores and Sphinxes. On the ground, a month's worth of pent-up nastiness oozed forth from the smoking crater. Winter was not a devout woman, but she could think of no word to describe this except hell. That apartment building had been the flimsy veil not just between Vale and Mountain Glenn, but between the mortal realm and Remnant's dark netherworld. With it torn asunder, hell was empty and all the devils were here. So much for her vow. The enemy had breached Vale after all, and she hadn't been so much as a speed bump in the way. As the black tide rushed towards her, as emergency sirens began shrieking all over the city, Winter could only feel overwhelming shame.
"STAY!" Marrow bellowed. The wave of Grimm approaching them froze in place. "What do we do, Winter?" He turned to her, eyes frightened and upraised hand trembling from the strain of applying his Semblance to so many foes. "What do we do?!"
Per military regulations, he wasn't supposed to call his superior officer by her first name, but that was the least of their concerns right now. If Winter were a Mistrali samurai of yore, she would have plunged into the fray and taken as many monsters with her as she could, redeeming her dishonor with her life. But she wasn't, and she didn't. Futile last stands were contrary to Atlesian doctrine, a waste of resources that could be better spent elsewhere. If fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight.
"Retreat." she ordered bitterly. She summoned a ghostly white Nevermore with a wave of her hand and dragged Marrow onto its back, being sure to keep his arm pointed at the Grimm. As they winged away from the scene of the crime, she grimly pondered the odds of them still being alive at dawn.
The images on Weiss's Scroll grew darker, yet darker. The creatures of Grimm continued to pour forth from the new breach seemingly without end. From this camera angle, barely an inch of bare ground could be seen under the pulsating black sea, and the clouds of Nevermores nearly blotted out the stars. Weiss and Sable couldn't say how long they stared transfixed at the sight—no more than thirty seconds or so in reality, but to them it felt like they'd aged by years. The past few minutes had contained enough world-shattering revelations for a lifetime. Eventually, though, both twins found the words to at least begin processing things. "Winter..." Weiss said softly in concern.
"Gods damn it!" Sable expressed himself in rather more colorful terms. "Can't those stupid robots be on our side for once?"
"She'll be okay." Weiss muttered. "She's strong, we have to trust her..." Putting her Scroll away, she rushed over to the windowsill. Their combat arena had a view overlooking Beacon's main avenue, and it wasn't a pretty one currently. With most of the students and staff away at Amity, the White Fang and their Grimm allies (not a phrase anyone ever expected to use) had taken the landing pads without a fight, and now the enemy advanced towards the castle at a rapid march. Most of the faunus soldiers bore the Fang's standard-issue swords and rifles, but some had bulky tubes perched on their shoulders. A couple in the front row aimed and fired, sending out rainbow-colored contrails. "Dust missiles! So that's what they were stealing it for..."
"They couldn't have forgotten that plot?" Sable complained. There was a dull boom somewhere below that shook the entire room. The lights flickered, and a shower of fine dust rained from the ceiling. A moment later, every fire alarm on campus seemed to go off at once. "Shit! Well come on, are we just going to stand here and watch?"
Weiss nodded jerkily. "Let's go." She reached out to grasp her brother's hand. This served absolutely no practical purpose—in fact, seeing as she'd grabbed Sable's sword hand, it probably reduced his survival odds in case of a surprise encounter—but regardless, it made them both feel a tiny bit better.
Together, the siblings Schnee ran out into the fires of war.
It was done. Aboard of the Pride of Atlas, the bodies of the bridge crew lay strewn around the room; a woman with pink and brown hair stood over them, wiping blood off her parasol. An orange-haired man stared at the Scroll that was plugged into the ship's controls. There was no sound save the occasional distant gunshots and screams. The virus Cinder's backers had provided had worked as advertised; the airship's complement of Atlesian Knights, turned against their masters, were now busy hunting down the remaining human soldiers. One might expect Roman Torchwick, Vale's self-proclaimed criminal mastermind, to be overjoyed about stealing an entire battleship. He was not. The thief's shoulders shook as he sat slumped in the captain's chair. "We had to do it." he said to no one, perhaps trying to reassure only himself. "There was no other way. No other way..." Neo walked up and put a comforting hand on his arm; he slowly turned to look at her, eyes weary and ringed by dark shadows. "Oh...you're leaving now, Neo?" She nodded once, and he swallowed hard. "You sure you're okay with this? We could always just...I don't know. Turn this ship around, fly straight on until morning. Maybe she wouldn't look for us in Menagerie or something. Maybe..."
Neo flicked him on the forehead, rolling her eyes. Roman laughed weakly in reply. "Heh. I'll quit doubting you." The partners in crime wrapped each other in a long hug. "We'll watch the sunrise tomorrow." he whispered. "Together. Free. I promise." That was Neo's cue to let go and depart on a poignant note, but she didn't take it. In the end, Roman had to awkwardly peel her arms off him. "Uh...can you not make this weird? I'll be fine, just hanging out up here—text me when you're done, okay?" Neo nodded again; on that much less poignant note, she turned and left the bridge. She went up a ladder, through a hatch, and out onto the airship's roof.
For a moment she just stood there, hair blowing in the cold wind. The sky was clear, and the moon and stars shone brightly, mirroring the glittering lights of Beacon and Vale. The sight was serene, almost beautiful, so long as you didn't think about the life-and-death struggle going on below. Gods knew how many thousands of souls hung in the balance as part of Cinder's final gamble—and now Neo was about to toss her own into the pot.
But so long as Roman held the winning hand in the end, it would all be worth it. Bolstered by that thought, Neo opened her parasol and leapt down into the night.
The Great War had ended on an autumn day much like this one. Ozpin still remembered as if it were yesterday, down to what he'd had for breakfast. Honey-sweetened porridge, half an orange, two hard-boiled eggs, and a cup of black coffee (even between lives, some things never changed). He remembered how all eyes had fallen on him when he walked into the conference hall on Vytal, crown weighing heavy on his head. The delegates from Vacuo and Vale had looked at him with almost worshipful awe, those from Mantle and Mistral with fear and respect, but all with relief. Relief that the bloodiest war in world history that anyone but he and Salem knew of was over. The war to end all wars, some had called it. The Warrior-King had been less optimistic—he'd seen the wheel of history turn too many times—but when he'd put his royal seal to the peace treaty, even he'd felt fleeting hope that this time would be different. Eighty years. That was how long it had lasted. It had been an imperfect peace, full of injustice and racial tension and Grimm wiping out frontier villages, but peace nonetheless. In his heart Ozpin had known it would not last forever, as nothing good did, but still he was struck by melancholy. He remembered what his chancellor had said last time when they received Mistral's declaration of war. The lights are going out across Remnant. We will not see them lit again in our lifetimes...
Enough reminiscing, he rebuked himself, you have your duties. The angst would have to wait. "Glynda. Qrow." he ordered. "I need you two down in the city, now."
"You sure? It's got to be a distraction!" Qrow objected. "They don't care about Vale, what they want is up here!"
"I know that!" Ozpin shouted. He pinched the bridge of his nose to compose himself before continuing. "But we have no choice. We cannot hole up with the Maiden and Relic, and leave the people to burn!" Not Vale. Not this city whose seeds he had planted centuries ago, who he had watered and seen bloom over many lives, who had proved one of his few achievements to stand the test of time. "We need to rally the Huntsmen in the city, set up safe zones. And Glynda—your Semblance is our best shot at sealing that breach. If we don't, it'll keep pumping out Grimm until the entire kingdom is dead."
His deputy nodded grimly. "And Amber?" she asked.
Ozpin sighed. "I...will make arrangements. Now go." Glynda and Qrow ran off, up the stairs leading to the tower roof. If Ozpin had bothered looking out the window a few seconds later, he would have seen the humorous sight of a small black bird flying away with an adult woman clinging awkwardly to its talons. He did not look. He was busy picking up his Scroll to issue more orders. "James." he said urgently. "We're going to need more fighters. I want everyone off Amity—the civilians can go to the safe zones, the students...can be reinforcements." The words were bitter on his tongue. Letting more children die for you, Ozma? Good going. "If they wish to, of course." he added. The caveat didn't make him feel any better. Of course they'd wish to, what with the half-truths he'd fed them. They were up against mere mindless monsters and two-bit terrorists, after all, certainly not an invincible avatar of destruction bent on causing the erasure of reality.
"I'll see to it." James said in a small voice, the once proud headmaster of Atlas sounding significantly humbled. "Is there anything else? Like with...you know, the weather?"
Ozpin's mouth tasted more bitter than ever as he prepared to give his most painful order of the night. "Yes. Put Miss Nikos on the line."
Oh gods, how the hell was he supposed to explain the concept of a Maiden in two minutes?
Can you say 'mood whiplash'?
Welp, PvP was wholesome until it wasn't. A real shame Pyrrha and Penny couldn't meet under better circumstances, because I do think they would've gotten along. May you meet again at the great Amity Arena in the sky, girls. And yes, I am using Chibi as precedent for Penny surviving without a head. Deal with it.
This is a difficult announcement to make, but for anyone who cares, the end of the current arc will (for now) mark the end of ASS (maybe I should've picked a better acronym). And no, despite the date this is not a joke, I just happened to finish revising this on April 1st. Sable's been occupying my headspace for nearly two years now, and honestly, it's hard staying motivated about an idea for so long. Those of you who've been following for a while may have noticed the gaps between chapters getting longer...and longer. Reading through the early parts, apparently I once apologized in advance for possibly going 2 weeks without an update...and look at me now, a month between with no explanation. To be fair, my writing style's gotten noticeably denser, plus after V1 I stopped working off my initial drafts because they were hot garbage, but still. Getting at least to the end of V3 timeline-wise was always the goal, and now it's finally in sight. I do have some very rough ideas about what might happen after the Fall—but if I continue there's a decent chance of this fic just dying mid-storyline, and I hate when authors do that. As they say, it's better to burn out than to fade away.
Thank you, to everyone who reads this mess of violence and bad jokes. I never expected to become a fanfic writer, but the image of a black-haired boy casting white glyphs entered my mind one day and would not let go, and there was nothing to do but bang this out to deal with the brainrot. To be honest I was really nervous about how it would be received; OCs, especially the 'twin brother of a main character' kind, have a deserved rep for being incredibly cringey and self-indulgent (hell, I'm not sure I would read this story if I hadn't written it). I half-expected people to tell me I sucked and should kill myself but no, almost everyone has been really nice. My faith in random Internet strangers is slightly restored. Then again, some of the most followed fics in this fandom are of the author inserting themself into Remnant with video game powers, so I might also be severely underestimating how much self-indulgence people are willing to tolerate. Maybe I could do some clickbait stuff to boost my numbers (don't forget to Like Comment and Subscribe—I mean, fav review and follow), but in the end I'm a person who prefers a quiet life, and not to worry about things like favs and follows that would keep me awake at night.
Anyways, enough mush. I've still got 4 or 5 chapters left to write, so things will probably keep going for...oh, another year or so.
(That part is a joke. Or at least I really hope so)