In his office, Ozpin poured himself some tea as he watched the fight randomizer spin. "Alright, it is now time to begin the randomization process." Oobleck announced.
"It looks like our first contender is Penny Polendina from Atlas!" Port announced. "And her opponent will be Pyrrha Nikos from Beacon!" He finished, Ozpin showing no major reaction as usual.
In the arena, the two combatants stood, Pyrrha looking unsure because of all the overwhelming events dropped on her shoulders and Penny as friendly, yet eager as ever. "Salutations, Pyrrha Nikos! It's an honor to finally meet you." Penny said happily, while Pyrrha stood, unsure of what to do or say, looking down at her hands.
"Come on, Pyrrha. You can do this. Just keep your head in the game." I said quietly, but supportively.
"This is going to be so much fun!" Penny said eagerly.
Meanwhile, in the hallway, Ruby and Draco were faced with their own obstacle. "Mercury, what are you doing? You were hurt! Why-... What's going on?" Ruby demanded.
"He's been in on the scheme's of whoever's been behind the scenes all this time: the stolen Dust and military supplies, the train wreck, the Grimm invasion! It's all been him and whoever else he's working for or with!" Draco said.
"What do you know, the idiot figured it out before everyone else." He taunted.
"Oh, you're dead!" Draco snapped.
"Fighters, are you ready?!" Oobleck asked over the intercom.
"Penny!" Ruby said worriedly.
"Go. I got this punk." Draco said.
Mercury simply scoffed at this. "Don't bet on it, freak." He said.
Meanwhile, the crowd was cheering for the fight to start, while the general and I watched intently from our respective areas. "Begin!" Oobleck shouted.
With that, Penny went on the attack, doing what looked like a small dance with her swords spiraling around her before sending them all at Pyrrha, who impressively dodged all of them as she rushed in towards Penny, but the swords turned around and came back for her after going out a distance.
Back with Ruby and Draco...
"Showtime." Mercury said as he prepared to attack.
"Let's just jump to the finale!" Draco said, rushing in with Ruby close behind, who was ready to run past the fight and do whatever she could to stop the other fight. However, Mercury was faster than either had planned for and delivered a roundhouse kick to Draco, sending him into a wall. "Oh, that hurt!" Draco shouted.
Mercury then did a 360 and delivered a side kick to Ruby's stomach, before sending her flying down the hall with another roundhouse kick. She tried to pull out her scroll and call for back-up, but Mercury knocked it away with a blast from his boot. "Let's just keep this between us friends." He said.
"You're no friend of ours, motherfucker!" Draco shouted, rushing in again as Mercury turned towards him, grabbing the gray-haired teen around the waist and continuing to charge until the two slammed into a wall, where they began to duke it our at close quarters.
"Draco!" Ruby said worriedly.
"Go! I got this!" He said, but the silver-eyed girl was unsure of what to do.
Back in the ring...
Pyrrha was fighting like the champion she is, but found it almost impossible to maneuver around the swords Penny expertly defended herself with. "What a tremendous display by Miss Polendina!" Port announced.
"Come on, Pyrrha. You can do this. You always find a way." I said, clenching a fist.
She managed to jump off one of the swords and get closer to Penny, bringing her spear down in an attempt to strike, but once again found all her attacks blocked, forcing her to back up and ready her shield. "Go, Pyrrha!" Nora cheered.
Back with Draco...
the two were still brawling up against the wall and despite Mercury losing the range of his legs, he was still fending off Draco fairly well as Ruby still stood there. "What should I do?!" She wondered.
"You should go save Penny! She could get seriously hurt out there! But there's no way this guy can hurt me!" Draco said, managing to throw Mercury to the ground.
Ruby then realized that. Draco was a demon, capable of healing from almost anything, but she had no idea what Penny could or could not come back from. "You're right!" She said, quickly taking off.
Meanwhile, Pyrrha had finally broke through Penny's defenses and delivered a decent combo, knocking the android into the air. Pyrrha jumped into the air and the two briefly struggled in mid-air before Pyrrha sent Penny back down to the ground. The latter landed on her feet and readied her swords once more, positioning them in a circle around her and firing small beams from each one as Pyrrha expertly dodged them and blocked the swords Penny also sent at her, before delivering a powerful strike that, despite being blocked, still sent Penny and her swords flying. "That's the way, baby! You've got her on the ropes!" I cheered (Hey, anyone else wonder how things would've actually went down if Emerald hadn't screwed it up? I'm willing to bet Pyrrha still would've won, but Penny still had that giant laser that looks like a green kamehameha, so...)
Pyrrha looked with a smirk at her apparent gain, but was shocked to see Penny flying in at high speeds with her swords scraping along the ground, flying and swinging upwards, breaking through Pyrrha's guard and leaving her open for a powerful dropping attack that sent Pyrrha tumbling a fair distance away. She quickly recovered and got back to her feet, but Penny then used her swords to knock away Pyrrha's shield and sword, knocking them away again when she tried to reclaim them with her semblance. "Oh, come on, that's cheating!" I snapped.
Penny then readied her swords behind her for what I'm guessing she assumed would be her final attack, when Emerald used the opportunity to trick Pyrrha, making her see thousands of swords instead of the more manageable 8 Penny actually had. Pyrrha stepped back in horror at what she was seeing.I looked at her in suspicion at this, looking around before being shocked to see Emerald in the crowd, before glaring at her. "Cover me." I said to the guys, backing into the shadow's a bit more and using Instant Transmission to appear behind Emerald and putting my hand on the back of her head, reading her mind and looking in horror as I saw what Pyrrha was now seeing. Penny sent the 8 at her, making Pyrrha see the thousand or more swords coming at her. "Pyrrha, wait!" I shouted, but it was too late. She released a powerful wave of magnetism to send the swords flying everywhere, the actual swords flying right back and behind Penny, their wires tangling around her body before slicing right through her, the swords clattering to the ground around her as the handful of pieces her body was torn into fell to the ground as well.
"Oh, my god!" Nicolas said.
"No!" Damion shouted, rushing in as I also jumped down from the bleachers and onto the arena, dropping to my knees and skidding to a halt beside the mutilated android, looking around at the various pieces as the guys came to a stop and set down the supplies for us to try and help her.
"Dear gods..." I said, looking around at Penny, to the stunned and horrified Pyrrha and the equally horrified audience.
"No!" Port shouted, standing up along with Oobleck. Up in his office, Ozpin also stood up, shocked and horrified (or at least scared. Seriously, for what just happened, he should look more concerned than this) about what happened.
"Shit, this is bad!" Damion said.
"What do we do?!" Nicolas asked.
"I don't know, I'm not a fucking roboticist!" I snapped.
"Penny... She was more human than the rest of us..." Damion said sadly.
I turned Penny's head for her to look at me. "Come on, come on, stay with me! We'll figure something out! There's gotta be something we can do!" I said, but I was completely at a loss. I have performed surgery on a number of humans, animals and even a few aliens, but I have never had any experience giving medical attention to an android besides giving Android 18 a senzu bean once or twice. Her pupils became Hexagonal (what is the shape that has 7 sides? I forget, but that's what it is) and expanded very wide, almost taking up her entire retina. I looked for any sign of life or functioning, but couldn't find it. "Damn!" I said, looking down.
However, unbeknown to us, from somewhere in Atlas, an old man tightened his grip on his chair at what he just witnessed here. And in the ruins of Mountain Glen, the Grimm were picking up on the fear and confusion in Beacon and bolting straight for it.
I looked to the side just in time to see Ruby come from the hall into the entryway to the arena, dropping to her knees and her eyes filling with tears at what she witnessed. "Penny." She said, crying.
Up in the announcer's booth, Oobleck and Port were now working on shutting down the broadcast so some people could at least stop seeing this horror. "Broadcast, what are you doing?! Kill the feed!" Oobleck ordered.
"Something's wrong! We don't have control over the cameras! We can't even turn off the broadcast!" The technician explained over an earpiece.
"What?! How is that possible?!" Oobleck demanded. (seriously, we know Cinder hacked something, but how do you stop someone from turning off a broadcast?!)
A chess piece then appeared from nowhere over all the screens everywhere. "This... is not a tragedy... This was not an accident. This is what happens when you hand over your trust, your safety, your children, to men who claim to be our guardians." A woman's voice rang over the watching world.
"Doesn't that sound familiar?" Nicolas asked.
"Cinder." Damion and I said together, full of anger.
Draco arrived on scene at that moment. "I was just on my way to tell you guys. But I'm too late. Dammit!" He said, stomping on the ground once.
"They are, in reality, nothing more than men. Our academies' headmasters wield more power than most armies and one was audacious enough to control both. They cling to this power in the name of peace and yet what do we have here? One nation's attempt at a synthetic army mercilessly torn apart by another star pupil. What need would Atlas have for a soldier innocently disguised as a little girl? I don't think the Grimm can tell the difference. And what, I ask you, has Ozpin been teaching his students? First a dismemberment and now this?" She asked.
"Mercury wasn't dismembered, you bitch! He's walking around behind the scenes with his metal dildo legs like nothing happened!" Draco snapped.
"And all this is your doing, you bitch! You manipulated these events!" I growled.
"But the WORLD doesn't know that. All the know is what they've seen here." Damion explained with a scowl. Only we knew the truth and none of that made any difference now. Blake watched in shock and anger while Weiss was horrified at what she saw. In their teams dorm, Yang looked out from the window with anger and regret for everything that happened as Zwei barked behind her.
"Huntsman and Huntresses should carry themselves with honor and mercy. Yet I have witnessed neither. Perhaps Ozpin felt that defeating Atlas in the tournament would help people forget his colossal failure to protect Vale when the Grimm invaded its streets. Or perhaps this was his message to the tyrannical dictator has occupied an unsuspecting kingdom with armed forces. Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue as to who is right and who is wrong-" She went on.
"The only one who's wrong here is you, bitch!" Damion snapped.
"We gotta find her. I have no clue how she's interrupting the broadcast, but it can only POSSIBLY be done locally, so she has to be in the city. Nicolas, get team SUSN to help us. Draco, you get team EVAD and all of you search the city. I need to stay here. I have a BAD feeling things are gonna go wrong here." I said.
"Got it." They agreed, rushing off to do so.
"And Damion?" I told him before he left.
"Yeah?" He asked.
"If you find her, remember the worst thing you've EVER done in your life as an assassin and make it look like a trip to Disney Land compared to what you do to her." I told him.
He scoffed at this. "You didn't even need to ask for that." He said before taking off.
"But I know that the existence of peace is fragile. And the leaders of our kingdoms conduct their business with iron gloves. As someone who hails from Mistral, I can assure you that the situation there is equally undesirable. Our kingdoms are on the brink of war, yet we, the citizens are left in the dark." She continued. A couple of soldiers watched this on their scroll and were completely oblivious to the massive wave of Grimm rushing up behind them until the last moment before the swam was upon them. "So, I ask you, when the first shots are fired, who do you think you can trust?" She finished.
The screens all went from red to static at this moment. "The feeds are jammed! We can't get a message out!" Oobleck said.
"Will someone please tell me what in the world is happening?!" Port demanded before the alarm began blaring.
"Alert. Incoming Grimm attack. Threat level: 9. Please seek shelter in a calm and orderly fashion." An automated voice reported, people starting to run and panic.
"Why can't I be wrong JUST once?" I asked, drawing my weapons. I then pulled out my scroll and sent a group call to the 3 teams I sent on the hunt for Cinder. "Guys, drop the search and get ready for a fucking war." I said.
Meanwhile, Ironwood entered the announcer's booth and grabbed the mic. "Ladies and Gentlemen, please. There is no need to panic-" He started, but then a Nevermore landed on the roof and started to break through the barrier.
"A Nevermore?!" Sun said in disbelief.
"How'd it get past the Kingdom's defenses?!" Coco asked.
Ren stood up slowly as he looked up. "It wasn't alone." He said.
"Dammit all!" I said, preparing to fight, knowing the barrier wouldn't hold and, with most people here being unarmed, I was the only line of defense at the moment.
Up in his office, Ozpin looked on in horror as Glynda and Qrow entered his office. "Oz!" Qrow said.
"Get to the city!" He ordered.
"But-!" Qrow started.
"NOW!" Ozpin shouted.
Mountain Glen appeared deserted at first, all its inhabitants having left to attack Vale, but then, dozens more came from nowhere to converge on the soon to be overrun city.
As the Nervermore continued to try and breach the stadium, Ironwood called Ozpin as I focused on evacuating the civilians and waiting for the beast to eventually break through. "Ozpin, the girl, I can explain!" The general started.
"You brought your army to my kingdom, James. Use it." Ozpin replied, sounding completely pissed.
Meanwhile, the ships were also under attack, doing everything they could to try and mount a counterattack, but nothing seemed to be working. A leader on one of the ships growled at their lack of control in the situation. "Dammit! This is Blue 4! Blues 2 and 3 fall into defensive position!" He ordered.
"Roger! Blue 3 in position!" A woman said over the comm.
"Blue 2, what's your status!" The leader of Blue 4 said.
We now see that the soldiers of Blue 2 are either unconscious or more likely dead and most of the equipment smashed as Neo walked along towards the holding cell and released Roman, twirling his hat and cane. (That fucking bitch has got to die! Neo, I meant, not Roman. We all know what happens to him).
"Well, it's about time." He said, leaning out from the shadows. Suddenly, Blue 2 turned towards the other ships and began firing, bringing down the two other ships. Roman laughed from the controls. "Oh, it is good to be back!" He said (That fucking asshole!)
As if we didn't already have enough problems, the assholes in the White Fang showed up, dropping off some more Grimm IN THE STADIUM while deploying their own soldiers to attack. "Bring them to their knees!" Adam ordered. An Ursai jumped out of one of the airships and roared, its red eyes flashing.
I saw everything happening from my feed os security cameras around the stadium. "Looks like this is gonna be one for the record books." I said.