Cardin Winchester regretted coming to Beacon.

The cocky young boy who'd swaggered off the airship on day one was naught but a distant memory. A hollow shell of a man looked back on his past self with mixed envy and disdain. Freshly graduated from his small-town combat school (an idyllic place where he'd handed out wedgies and stolen lunch money with impunity), he'd been confident he was the meanest, scariest thing at Beacon too. Part of him wished to return to that blissful ignorance, but he knew it was impossible. The bitter lesson of Forever Fall was irreversibly branded into his mind, and his pants too. Here be monsters. Meaner and scarier than him by far, and he wasn't talking about the Grimm. He still had no idea how word of the 'incident' had gotten out (probably that blonde bitch's fault), but it had and he'd gone from alpha male to whipping boy overnight. The idiots who once cowered when he walked by now giggled behind their hands and whispered the same stupid jokes. With every snide remark about 'great balls of fire' or 'Lose-chester', he felt himself slip another rung down the social ladder. He'd hoped for a chance to reclaim some pride when Team CRDL was selected for the tournament, only for them to get curbstomped on national TV. Literally. His nose still felt crooked after that Mercury guy had stepped on it.

And now, as one final indignity, he might be about to die. That was the main reason for his regrets, above all else. Just because he'd decided to drop by the cafeteria while everyone else was at the tournament. He'd been sitting here, munching on lukewarm chicken nuggets to try and make the end of this shitty year a little less shitty, when out of the blue a pack of White Fang broke down the doors! What the hell? He'd thought wild animals were banned from school grounds, and for that matter how had they snuck up on him like that? They must have use some dirty faunus trick! Or maybe he was just unobservant...nah, had to be the former. Cardin's mace had felled two or three, but there were a billion more where they'd come from! Well, okay, it was more like ten. Still way more than he could take on alone. A few combat rounds later, he found himself backed into a corner, crouching behind the flimsy cover of an overturned table with his Aura running low. Gunfire from the windows kept him pinned down as the Fang closed in, ready to tear him apart like the savage beasts they were. Oh gods, now he knew how General Lagune had felt at Fort Castle. Cardin had never been devout, but he found himself whispering prayers to every mythical being he could think of, the two Brothers and the four Maidens and even Pumpkin Pete for all the good it might do. He promised he'd repent for his sinful life if only they saw fit to save him. Promised he'd start going to church, and...uh, buy his old classmates new underwear or something?

A loud boom rattled the cafeteria. The guns went quiet, and Cardin dared to peek over the edge of his table-fort. He saw two White Fang with sniper rifles lying there burnt and battered. They looked to have been thrown through a massive hole in the wall that definitely hadn't been there before. Their fellows turned to gawk, apparently forgetting all about him. Holy shit, did Pumpkin Pete actually come through? Praise the gods! He began tiptoeing towards the exit, as stealthily as a 6'4" man in armor could manage, before two familiar figures stepped through the hole. Inexplicably, Weiss Schnee dual-wielded her rapier with a cane that looked like she'd stolen it from some pimp. A wisp of smoke rose from its tip. "Guess I knew how to use it after all." she said drily.

"That was still loaded?" Sable said in astonishment. Cardin dived back under a table. Never mind, unpraise the gods! Those two might be even more hazardous to his health. If he showed himself, he thought there was a decent chance of Sable trying to finish what he'd started at Forever Fall and pin it on the terrorists. To think, there was a time Cardin had laughed at that boy behind his back, had taken him for a spoiled brat LARPing as a Huntsman. Killing Grimm was a job for a real man, not some limp-wristed little bitch who'd probably burst into tears if he got his hair dirty...or so he'd thought. Cardin had been a fool. He knew now what cruelty lay behind that pretty face. Sadly for them, the White Fang didn't share his wisdom. "Hands up, girls!" one of them said confidently. "You're outnumbered—"

Sable rolled his eyes in exasperation before blasting a fireball right into the speaker's face. At this point, Cardin stopped watching. He cowered under the table, seeing nothing of the fight except flashes of light. He covered his ears, but even that couldn't block out the screams. Gods knew he was no bleeding-heart animal lover, but that didn't mean he enjoyed hearing them butchered in cold blood! Yet the Schnees were different, if half the rumors were true. Dark whispers had surrounded RRWN and SJBY over the past semester, tales of vigilantism and wanton property damage and mountains of faunus corpses that grew with every retelling. They'd even turned poor Jaune into a psychopath! Cardin shuddered to imagine what tortures he'd suffered, to brainwash him to the point he'd throw himself into a fiery pit without hesitation. Perhaps it was hypocritical coming from him, but shouldn't the teachers do something? Surely operating a death squad was against school rules!

There was a bright white flash. Cries of terror arose and were suddenly silenced. His table shook. One of the White Fang had jumped atop it to avoid whatever that was, only to be instantly obliterated by another fireball. The tabletop was reduced to splinters of burning wood, most of which fell into Cardin's lap. Oh gods, it was happening again! He jumped to his feet in a blind panic, adding his own screams to the mix. He ran around like a headless chicken, frantically beating the hot coals off his crotch, until he banged his shins on a bench and fell over. Ow! "Winchester?" Weiss said from above. "You were here the whole time?"

"And he didn't even help!" Sable added contemptuously. Cardin rolled over to find them both looking down on him. He half-expected to see the walls painted red with faunus guts, but reality was much more PG-13. Limp bodies lay strewn around the cafeteria, their life status ambiguous. He was utterly at the twins' mercy, or lack thereof. Ah, shit. With a soft whimper, Cardin curled up into a ball. He closed his eyes, expecting scorching pain to wash over him at any moment. "What's your problem?" Weiss prodded him with her boot. "Well, he doesn't seem to be dying." she concluded, medical curiosity satisfied. "Let's keep moving."

Sable grunted in agreement. They stepped over Cardin and out the door. Only when they were gone did he let himself relax, gasping like a landed fish. He really ought to get a move on himself—this was still an active warzone, and oh, the cafeteria was very much on fire now—but he really needed a breather.

Also, this meant he had to start going to church, didn't it? Damn!

Not far away, a random White Fang member was chilling out in a bush. The rest of her unit was foaming at the mouth to attack Beacon, drunk on Adam's Kool-Aid, but not her. She'd heard horror stories of the carnage a few Huntsman students could cause, and now they were supposed to fight a school full of those monsters? Hard pass! But Beacon had a large campus, so it was easy for her to 'accidentally' stray from the main force and get hopelessly lost. She would just hide here for a bit, then come out when things blew over. Not like anyone could prove she'd deserted, seeing as their masks stayed on at all times. The plan was cunning like a fox (even though she wasn't an actual fox faunus). It gave her hope she'd survive the night rather than end up as another nameless casualty.

Then a metal locker dropped out of the sky and crushed her. "Sorry!" Pyrrha apologized to the flattened faunus. Ruby and Jaune's lockers likewise landed in the green stuff. The students struggled free, kicking up clouds of leaves and petals. From the look of it, they'd ended up in the gardens around the CCT Tower. Its hulking shape was outlined against the moon, all dark except the glowing green spheres at its top (to this day, nobody knew what those were for). "Okay, we didn't land too far!" said Ruby. "Let's go—ack!" She tried to strike a dramatic pose, but the effect was ruined when her cape snagged on (ironically enough) a rose bush. Jaune and Pyrrha waited patiently for her to untangle herself from the thorns. "Uh, now let's go."

"Sorry guys." Pyrrha apologized again as they ran. "I must've pushed us off course when—"

Jaune shook his head, chuckling in mild disbelief. A few leaves drifted loose from his messy hair. "Don't apologize!" Miraculously, he didn't look motion sick in the slightest. That, perhaps more than anything else, spoke to how far he'd come. "If you hadn't done it, we'd have crashed into that dragon thingy!"

"That was scary as heck!" Ruby agreed. The three of them had nearly wet themselves when that giant Grimm flew into their paths out of nowhere. Their school-issued rocket lockers didn't exactly come with steering wheels or brakes or seatbelts or airbags or anything that would help with surviving a high-speed impact, really. Thank gods for Polarity. A few extra steps seemed a small price to pay for not splattering like a bug on a windshield.

Luckily, there were no more unexpected dragons in the gardens. The main battle had yet to reach this place, and all they had to deal with were scattered creepy-crawlies which they easily dispatched. As they drew closer to the tower, two people sprinted out of a clump of trees on the left. Even from a distance, the monochrome color scheme was instantly recognizable. Perfect timing! It took some amount of arm-waving and name-shouting to sort out, but soon enough the partners (plus Pyrrha) were reunited in front of the tower doors. "Hey guys—oh my gosh!" Ruby suddenly gasped in horror. "Weiss, you're hurt!"

"Wait, what?" Weiss looked down, wondering if there was a spear in her chest she'd somehow not noticed, before spotting a small red stain on her skirt. "Ew! I mean, no, I'm fine, Ruby. It's not my blood." she said reassuringly.

For some reason, Ruby did not look very reassured. "Oh. That's...good, I guess?" she squeaked.

Meanwhile, Sable greeted his own partner with a simple nod. "You're alive, good." He looked about as if expecting more people to materialize from the shrubbery. "Where's Yang? And, uh, Blake? And the rest?"

"Oh, Yang really wanted to be here actually!" Jaune explained. "Um, not like Blake didn't want to or anything! But you know, the city's kind of getting wrecked right now so some of us wanted to go down there, I mean I wanted to help you guys, not to say the other guys didn't have a valid point but—" Sable stopped his word vomit with an impatient bonk to the head. "Okay, I get it!" he snapped.

"So is something supposed to happen, or are we just going stand here like idiots?" Weiss asked. Rather than answer, Ruby just kept staring at the bloody spot, forcing the heiress to issue a head-bonk of her own. "Ruby!"

"Ow! I mean, um, yeah!" Ruby roused from her stupor. She suddenly felt quite stupid for being afraid of a little blood. Professor Port had had way more on him last time...ugh, that memory still churned her stomach. Shivering slightly, she pushed the great doors open. The CCT lobby inside was dark and deserted. The tower's thick central column loomed ominously over them like a giant tombstone. "Um, Professor Ozpin?" Her voice echoed in the cavernous space. "Are...are you there?"

Something moved behind the column. In a horror movie this was the part where the monster would show itself. Like, maybe a creature with supernatural powers that kept coming back after you thought you'd killed it. That was a classic. But instead, it was the headmaster of Beacon who stepped out and approached them. "Ah, glad you could make it—" Ozpin began, before blinking rapidly at the sight of their full party. He adjusted his spectacles to get a better look, even though the lenses were so small it seemed he'd have a hard time seeing anything through them. Perhaps it was for theatrical effect. "Oh my. There are more of you than I expected."

Ruby frowned. "Is that a problem?"

"Maybe. I think—" A small Nevermore rudely interrupted with a loud caw. In turn, a hail of lead and fire interrupted its pitiful existence, reducing it to fried chicken in milliseconds. "I think we should take this indoors." Ozpin finished without missing a beat. The students filed in, recognizing that holding a doorstep conversation in the midst of battle was not really the best idea. Pyrrha was the last over the threshold. As she took a final look back, she could've sworn she saw glowing eyes watching them from a rooftop, but then she blinked and they were gone. The next moment the doors slammed shut.

"How should I put it?" Ozpin continued, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Not all of you have to be here. Mister Arc, Mister Schnee, perhaps you two could see where else you're needed—"

Sable looked greatly offended by the suggestion. "Why do we have to leave?"

"Yeah, we can't ditch them like that!" Jaune agreed with his team leader. "It'd be, like, against friendship and stuff!"

Ozpin sighed with the air of a man humoring a petulant child. "Nothing personal, I assure you. This is a matter of some sensitivity is all—"

Sable looked even more offended. "Oh, and I guess we can't be trusted with it!"

The headmaster held up a hand. "That's not—" Whatever comforting words he had in mind, he didn't get to say them. "Because you didn't have a problem sending us to Mountain Glenn!" Sable shouted over him. "My whole team nearly got blown up in that hellhole! On your secret mission! We didn't risk our lives so you could treat us like—like your least favorite child!" He jabbed his index finger at Ozpin's nose. "I could've stayed at home for that!"

"Okay, okay, everyone calm down!" Ruby hastily interposed herself between the two. "We're on the same side here, let's not have a big argument! Again." At the same time, Weiss tugged on Sable's arm, hissing something about not projecting so hard. He stepped back, still glowering. Ozpin's posture relaxed the tiniest bit. "Thank you, Miss Rose. As I was—"

Yet again, he didn't get to finish. Ruby promptly took it upon herself to stick up for one of her best friends (and also Sable). "But I agree with him, Professor! I mean, Jaune and Sable have been with us all year and I, like, totally trust them and all that, you know? Because, they're, uh, cool people. Yeah." Well, not every speech could be winner. In her defense she was still only fifteen.

"If I might be allowed to speak?" At this point Ozpin sounded distinctly frazzled. "It's very noble of you to trust your friends, of course, but I didn't win the headmaster's job in a lottery, you know. Can you not trust that I have good reason for only taking the girls—"

If his intent had been to convince the students to fall in line and stop asking awkward questions, he failed miserably. That final sentence proved the verbal equivalent of a hand grenade in a hornets' nest. "What the hell are you planning, old man?!" Sable bellowed. Weiss and Pyrrha looked incredibly uncomfortable. Ruby was slower to pick up the implications, but turned the color of her namesake a second later. "Wait, no! No no no!" Ozpin desperately waved his hands about, less like a wise headmaster and more like a hapless substitute teacher dropped into a class of delinquents. "You've got the wrong idea! I, er, I could have phrased that better, but still—"

Despite the pink still dusting her cheeks, Ruby recovered herself to throw down the proverbial gauntlet. "No buts!" she declared, stomping her foot in a cutesy manner. "Either all of us go, or none of us!"

Ozpin glanced over their defiant faces, and his shoulders slumped. For a moment his eyes were those of a much, much older man. Then they were back to normal, as abruptly as if he'd flicked a switch. Even so his next words carried an undeniable hint of salt. "So be it. Come then, let's stop wasting time." He turned on his heel and strode towards the elevators at the back of the lobby. The students followed, though some of them still glared suspiciously at his back. The doors opened with a ding as they approached, and they packed in. It was a tight squeeze for six people. Jaune leaned back nervously, the tip of Crescent Rose hovering disturbingly close to his eye. "Might as well broadcast this from Amity next..." Grumbling under his breath, Ozpin tapped his cane against the control panel, and the cab began to descend.

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow. "This place has a basement?"

"Are you, like...hiding a superweapon down there or something?" Jaune asked.

"What? No." Ozpin said, before stopping to think about it. "Well, from a certain point of view, yes. Where to begin?" He sighed, before clearing his throat. "What's your favorite fairy tale?"

Ruby blinked at the apparent non sequitir. "Um, the The Warrior in the Woods?"

"Mine was The Tale of the Two Brothers." Weiss offered. Sable said nothing, but rolled his eyes. It didn't take a psychologist to guess why a story about twin siblings—one a being of light and the other a dark creature of destruction—might have resonated with the heiress.

Ozpin sighed again. "Let me put it another way. What's your favorite fairy tale, and why is it The Story of the Seasons?"

Ruby looked even more confused. "Um, it's not. I just said that."

"Rhetorical question." Ozpin said impatiently. "Never mind. What I'm telling you is, The Story of the Seasons really happened. There really was an old wizard who lived long ago, and four sisters who came to visit him. Who...ahem, persuaded him to share some of his powers with them, becoming the Maidens of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. And by powers, I mean magic." he clarified after a pause. "Yes, children. Magic is real."

"What the frick?" said Ruby.

"What the fuck?" said Sable.

"That's...Professor, this isn't the time for jokes." Weiss said weakly.

"I'm not joking." Ozpin insisted. "The four sisters are long gone, of course. But while Maidens may pass from the world, their powers do not. They transfer to the young woman last in the old Maiden's dying thoughts, and so the cycle has continued for centuries. And, um, if the person she thinks of last isn't a young woman then it goes just to some random girl but that doesn't happen much." He said the last part quickly and under his breath, like a disclaimer in a pharmaceutical commercial. "Magic and Maidens have no place in a sane and rational world. Modern Remnant remembers them only as a myth—and for the sake of peace, they had better stay that way."

No one really knew how to react. It wasn't every day that you got told world-shattering secrets, in an elevator no less. Screaming in existential terror seemed like a reasonable response. So did anger, over the true nature of reality being hidden from them for so long. So did denial; exploding into rose petals and conjuring giant snowflakes were a normal part of life, sure, but magic, that was ridiculous! All those conflicting impulses canceled out into stunned silence, broken only by the hum of the elevator (quite a long ride this was turning out to be). "Wait, so if all that really happened..." Ruby finally said. "What happened to the rest of the wizard's power?"

Ozpin coughed awkwardly. "That's beside the point." There was another ding, and the elevator came to a stop. "Oh look, we're here! Quickly now!" He led them out the doors at a sprint. Despite the rush, the students couldn't help but look around this secret basement they found themselves in. It was so unlike the rest of Beacon, up on the bright and colorful surface world. Less like a school, and more like a cathedral to long-forgotten gods, or an ancient tomb with loads of treasure and death traps. Green torches cast the floor and lower walls in dim light, but further up things got darker, yet darker, to the point they couldn't tell how high the ceiling was. Gaping hallways to nowhere lay on either side, marked by receding lines of torchlight that seemed to fade into infinity. Even the boldest of them couldn't help but feel creeped out. This place whispered of the unnatural, of things on heaven and earth not dreamt of in their philosophy.

The tomb analogy soon proved apt in more ways than one. A great machine suddenly loomed in the darkness ahead. It looked like a bank of computers, with a mess of tangled wiring above and a pair of large pods on either side. The one on the right (their right) was empty, but in the left-hand one lay the body of woman. She was—or perhaps had been—a young brunette, with an oddly-patterned scar across half her face. Her eyes were shut, and she showed no sign she was aware of their presence, or indeed of life at all. Ruby gasped. "Is she—?"

"Alive. Barely." Ozpin's fingers brushed against the pod's glass. "Her name was Amber. A student of mine, and a friend. She was strong, intelligent, caring...and most importantly, the current Fall Maiden." He turned back around to face them, his expression grim. "Do you believe me now, Miss Schnee?"

Weiss had turned the approximate color of spoiled milk. "I—well, I suppose you wouldn't put a coma patient here just to mess with us." she choked out.

"I'll take that as a yes." Ozpin said drily. "A year ago, Amber was attacked. Half her powers were stolen by means unknown, and she's been like this since. A...let's say, a mutual friend stopped the attackers from finishing the job, but they escaped. And now, if I'm not sorely mistaken, they've come for the rest." He pointed upwards, to where the battle for Beacon still raged. "If we're to save her powers, save the school, save the city, we need to make a transfer."

"You want one of us to take it!" That was a statement, not a question. Pyrrha took an instinctual step back. "Shouldn't—shouldn't this go to a fully qualified Huntress? Like, I don't know, Miss Goodwitch or someone?"

Ozpin shook his head. "Glynda no longer qualifies as a young woman, sadly. Don't tell her I said that."

"How would it even work?" Sable wondered. "We get her think about us? And then..." He drew a finger across his throat.

"That's messed up!" Jaune said angrily.

"Not so simple, I'm afraid. Amber is too far gone to recognize anyone. In fact, her last coherent thoughts may well be of her attacker. But..." The headmaster gestured at the strange machine the Maiden was entombed in. "Atlesian science is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. Like, say, transplanting Aura from one person to another."

He spoke those words casually, as if it were no different from transplanting a kidney. Even so, any Huntress worth her salt knew what it meant. "You're going to rip out her soul?" Weiss burst out. "And shove it into one of us!"

Pyrrha's face turned ashen. "That's..."

"Super messed up!" Ruby finished.

"Believe, I couldn't agree more." Ozpin said, voice laden with the appropriate amount of regret. "I truly, truly hoped we'd find another way. I put this conversation off as long as I could—too long, in hindsight—but we're out of time. I know, this is all a lot to take in. And I don't blame you for being concerned about the potential metaphysical consequences. But if we don't act now..." He trailed off.

The students looked around nervously, at Amber and the machine and each other. No one seemed eager to cross the metaphorical line in the sand; it made quite a contrast from the last time he'd pitched a secret mission to them. "What can a Maiden even do?" Sable broke the silence."You didn't really explain that."

Ozpin looked a bit surprised at the question, but not for long. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to ask, after all. It'd be quite silly to risk the sanctity of one's soul, just for the ability to pull a rabbit out of a hat or something similarly inane. "Well, the Maidens possess powerful elemental magic. They can create fire, ice, lightning, wind—like what you yourself do with Dust, come to think. Except far stronger. And without the Dust."

"Wow." Sable breathed. He cast another glance at Amber in her pod, but evidently his desire outweighed his fear (or any ethical qualms he might have felt) and he raised his hand. "Sounds good. I'll do it."

Ozpin looked more than a bit surprised by that. "As I said, only young women can become Maidens—" He paused and peered closer at his volunteer's face. Those effeminate features had confused many a poor soul over the year... "Unless you've got something to tell us all?"

Sable eye-rolled and scoffed lightly. A mild reaction, by his standards. Maybe it was the urgency of the situation, or maybe he'd heard that one too many times to get mad anymore. "Sure. But if the machine just injects Aura straight into you, the inheritance rules shouldn't apply, right?"

The color drained from Ozpin's face. Maybe he'd genuinely never considered that possibility, or maybe he was contemplating the prospect of his most deranged student gaining terrifying arcane powers. "That...in theory, yes, but we're dealing with enough unknown variables as is. I have no idea how the magic might react to an ineligible host. For all I know it could cause your...um, incompatible parts to spontaneously combust."

"Ugh!" Sable cringed, but still seemed not entirely dissuaded. "Well. If it means knowing magic then maybe—"

"Absolutely not!" Weiss hauled her brother back with surprising force. "There's no way I could explain that to Winter! If one of us is going to risk it—"

"—it's gonna be me!" Ruby jumped in front of her and stole her thunder. "As leader of Team Rainbows, it's my duty to—"

"NO!" The other four shouted her down in unison. "Yang would kill us if we let you have some back-alley magic surgery!" Sable added angrily.

Pyrrha nodded. The champion looked pale and frightened, but she did not shrink from her destiny. "Quite. Besides it was me he asked for first. And, um, I don't have sisters to worry about me."

"What kind of logic is that?" Jaune snapped, before turning to Ozpin himself. In a matter of seconds they'd gone from zero to five-for-five. The bandwagon effect was a powerful force. "Look, I've got the most Aura out of everyone. I should be able to handle this. And if I can't..." he swallowed hard. "...at least my parents have seven other kids."

The headmaster's face contorted with mixed anger and shock. "STOP!" he roared, raising his cane. Jaune began stammering an apology, mixed with pleas to not get spanked, but Ozpin paid him no mind. With surprising speed he slammed the cane back down on the floor, and a barrier of shimmering green energy came to life. It formed a protective bubble around their group and Amber's pod. Something struck against it with an ominous crackle, but the shield held firm. The students whirled around. A black arrow on the floor caught their eye, before it melted into a pile of glowing slag. "Stop! Don't come any closer!"

Further back in the vault, three people came to a sheepish halt. "O-oh, sorry! Guess we're a little jumpy, ha!" Emerald Sustrai put up her hands, smiling through gritted teeth. Her hair looked extra-green through the bubble. "We were just, uh, running away from all that bad stuff above! And, um, we got really lost?" As false displays of innocence went, it wasn't the most convincing. Mercury stood smirking by her side, not even bothering to look lost or scared. The last of the trio held a bow of black glass, suspiciously similar to the arrow that had come at them, and was not-so-subtly pouting at the failure of her surprise attack. Seriously, this room was completely wide open with no cover whatsoever. It seemed rather foolish of her to assume she could simply sneak up on everyone.

"Who's that?" Ruby whispered, to no reply. None of them could recall meeting the dark-haired woman in the red dress before. It was one of many unexplained things about their situation. The nature of the green bubble was one, though there was a fairly obvious answer—despite Ozpin's fame, his Semblance had never been public information. Why a bunch of Haven students had followed them to the basement, was another. That also had an obvious, albeit unpleasant answer. For that matter, how did they even get down here? It was unlikely that just anyone could access the super secret vault by pressing the right elevator buttons.

Well, whatever the case, they were here. Ozpin seemed to recognize the strange woman after a second. "That sketch...so it was you!" he growled, then slapped a hand to his forehead. "Cinder Fall, is it? I feel a bit silly."

Cinder chuckled, while Ruby let out a little 'oh'. "It is. So much for the wisdom of Ozpin, huh?" She split her bow into two black swords and strode forwards, high heels clicking menacingly. "You know, she made you sound a lot more impressive, not that I'm complaining. Thanks for letting me stay at your school, by the way. Really appreciate it. And for leading me to—" Her unseemly gloating cut off, as she saw that the mysterious bubble remained stubbornly in place. It neatly divided the people within from those without, seven against three. Approaching to just outside melee range, Cinder glared into it like a cat into a fishbowl. "Come on, old man. You really think you can stop me?"

Ozpin shrugged. "That's the general idea, yes. How many of hers do you think I've seen come and go? Promised greatness and sent to their doom?"

"Pot, meet kettle. I see you've recruited more cannon fodder yourself." Cinder gestured at the baffled students huddled around Amber's pod. The metallic click of weapons being readied greeted her statement. Their fundamental worldview might have been turned upside-down a few minutes ago, but they still understood death threats perfectly well. In this brave new world of Maidens and magic, it was almost reassuring to know there were still bad guys to fight. "You guys are evil!" Ruby yelped.

"I knew we couldn't trust them!" Sable shouted simultaneously.

Emerald, hovering over her boss's shoulder, made a rude gesture at him. "Hey, you didn't know shit—"

"How conventional." Cinder sneered (like a good lackey, Emerald immediately shut up once she started talking). "Fine. You can think of me as evil, if that's what your pea-brain requires. Be advised, however, that I possess magic powers which could reduce you to a fine ash in three seconds flat." A fireball ignited in her hand. "Are you really going to risk it? For a corpse and a lying old man?"

Ozpin shifted uneasily in place, but he needn't have worried. "Yes!" Ruby answered the rhetorical question without hesitating. Some of her friends (namely Jaune) looked much less sure of their answer, but whether out of peer pressure or genuine courage, no one contradicted her. "I joined Beacon to help people, even—especially—when it gets dangerous! Not run away because some evil magical buttface showed up!"

Cinder rolled her eyes. "Tch. In that case—wait." A vein pulsed in her forehead. "The hell did you just call me?"

"Um, an evil magical buttface?" Ruby repeated.

Knowing her, that was genuinely meant to be helpful. Somewhat understandably, Cinder did not see it that way. "Why you little—!" She half-lunged at Ruby, before realizing she was unlikely to break down Ozpin's barrier with her fists. Instead she threw the fireball in her hand, scowling. The protective bubble flickered but held firm. "You'll burn for that!"

Ruby stuck out her tongue. "Buttface! Buttface!" she chanted. That was unambiguously an insult. "Is not!" Emerald screeched indignantly, while Mercury simply cheered for Cinder to fuck shit up. Cinder redoubled her attempts to burn her way in, screaming rather uncreative immolation-related threats. Jaune screamed too, though more out of terror than anything. Weiss tried to suggest that they should maybe not taunt the magical psychopath, only for Sable to join in with a few choice epithets of his own. His phrasing was, shall we say, not nearly so family-friendly as Ruby's. The bubble faded rapidly in color as a river of flames poured into it. Even an idiot could tell what was coming. A lot of talking had led up to this point—too much, some would say—but as usual it came down to violence in the end.

Ozpin glanced back at his students. His face was that of a man who could call on cyborg generals and and badass bird people, yet found himself forced to rely on five half-trained teenagers instead. Their friends and allies were far away, fighting their own battles, and no one would come to save them. "Prepare yourselves." he ordered. He didn't bother with grand heroic gestures like telling them to run while he held off the bad guys. They'd had this argument already, and it was a little late for that besides. "Just protect Amber. I'll handle the rest."

"Are—are you sure?" said Pyrrha.

"Well, I've been in a fight or two." His eyes snapped forward to meet Cinder's. In that moment, something in their depths spoke of more than a mortal man. A very specific image flashed in her mind, a crowned figure holding aloft a sword amid a sea of red-stained sand.

Something akin to fear flickered in the half-Maiden's black heart. Ozpin lifted his cane, and the barrier dropped.

The headmaster was a threat to their plans, they'd always known that, but Mercury had never thought much about how he'd do in a straight-up fight. Between the white hair and the cane, old man Oz just seemed too delicate for that. Mercury kind of assumed he'd been a hot-shot Huntsman in his youth, before being forced into a teaching job due to crippling arthritis or something. That assumption was looking very wrong. The creature attacking Cinder was more a green blur than a man. Clearly, the cane wasn't there to help him walk. He swung it about as if it were an extension of his arm, with finesse that would make Roman Torchwick green with envy. With a casual flick of the wrist he deflected Cinder's fire from his face—apparently ancient magic was no match for a senior citizen with a stick—and landed a glancing blow on her forearm, drawing a sharp hiss of pain.

"Cinder!" Needless to say, Emerald did not enjoy seeing her beloved mistress get smacked like a kid in a Vacuan orphanage. Mercury was less concerned, but he still knew that letting his meal ticket get murderized was a bad idea. Bullets flew from his boots and from Emerald's twin revolver-sickles, her beloved Thief's Respite. Ozpin seemed to flow around their shots like water, but they allowed Cinder to catch her breath, at least enough to yell at them. "No!" she shrieked. "Destroy the pod, you fools!"

"Yes ma'am." Emerald said reluctantly. Ah right, that was what they'd come for, wasn't it? The previous Fall Maiden lay motionless in her coffin. She'd been rather more alive the last time Mercury saw her. He remembered the sheer power she'd wielded, how she'd incinerated his favorite pants and nearly the rest of him too. But now she was nothing but a magic vegetable, and he had only five children to contend with. Once they pulled the plug on Amber, Cinder would ascend, and the fully armed and operational Maiden would curbstomp Ozpin. Hopefully. It'd be real awkward if Cinder got herself killed first. Or if she was wrong about how this worked, and the powers ended up with some random girl in Menagerie.

Mercury kicked hard at thin air. The momentum sent him into a tight spin, his boots firing with each rotation. A lot of his fights started and ended like this, with his target buried under the sheer bullet hell. Not this time though. Against all logic a good chunk of his rounds simply stopped mid-air, glowing black. Damn Nikos and her magnetic bullshit. As for the few that got through, the blond whose name he could never remember threw himself in the way and they pinged off his shield. Screw it. He preferred melee, anyways. "Cover me, Em!" he barked. With a nod, Emerald hung back to work her mind-fuckery while he ran forward. He saw a streak of flower petals fly past in the corner of his eye, but the rest stood their ground. Pyrrha took point, flanked by a Schnee on either side, while the blond practically plastered himself to the pod as a meatshield. Mercury bent his knees, forcing compressed air through the tubes in his prosthetic legs. It blasted out the soles of his boots and launched him in a high arc above Pyrrha's head. His trajectory was carefully calculated to carry him over the defenders, and come down right atop Amber's head. He extended a leg, prepared to kick through glass and flesh and bone—

Bonk. His knees banged into a floating bronze shield, bringing his trip to an anticlimactic end. Its owner looked up at him, a decidedly unimpressed expression on her face. Meanwhile, six feet to her right, Sable swung his sword at absolutely nothing. "Gods damn it, Em!" he cursed. The next moment he had to backflip away so as not to get a spear shoved up his backside. "Wrong person!"

"No, you went the wrong way!" he heard Emerald retort. Mercury ground his teeth. He really should have seen that coming. A fast-moving battle against multiple opponents wasn't ideal for her Semblance, finicky beast that it was. He could try giving precise instructions on who to target with what illusion, but of course that would be a dead giveaway. Plus there were more pressing matters that demanded his attention. Sable blinked in confusion as the illusion wore off, but quickly recovered his wits and shot a fireball at Mercury. Mercury simply lifted his right leg and let it strike against his calf. His pants got toasted, but underneath there was no pain, no smell of roasted meat. As much becoming a double amputee had sucked, there were certain upsides to having steel in place of flesh, as Penny Polendina could no doubt tell you. In the same motion, he pivoted and sent a flaming roundhouse kick at Pyrrha. She blocked with the shield, then swept out the spear, trying to cut his other leg from under him. At the same time Sable lunged at his back, sword aimed squarely for his heart. Mercury opted to kill two Nevermores with one stone. Another air blast lifted his right foot from the ground. He twisted his hips with impossible agility, and delivered a vicious back kick to Sable's ribs. The edgier of the Schnee twins went flying into a wall. Props to him for going for the kill, even if his defenses could use work. That one might have made a good assassin if he were given the chance. Shame he wouldn't be. Because, you know, Cinder was probably going to kill everyone here.

Anyways, with one front sorted for now he turned his full attention onto Pyrrha. No holding back this time—they weren't in combat class anymore. He unleashed a whirlwind of kicks upon the champion, everything you'd find in a martial arts manual plus a few things you wouldn't. Step by step he pushed her back towards Amber's pod, the poor girl hard pressed to do anything but cower behind her shield, barely warding off his feet of fury. The blond rushed up from his position to help her; that was kind of annoying, but eh. From what Mercury had seen, dude was mainly useful for his Aura reserves rather than any actual skill. He should still be able to handle the two-on-one—

Wait a second. Where the hell was Weiss?

Mercury had never attended a fancy-pants combat academy, but he had a pretty good sense for danger. It'd been finely honed by a childhood at the school of hard knocks with dear old dad, walking ten miles in the snow uphill both ways and all that. Right now it was screaming at him. He threw himself to one side, and was fortunate he did. A pillar of white light lanced into the floor he'd been standing on. Crunch! A piece of shattered tile bounced off the top of his head, and he stumbled back with a curse. Blinking, he saw the pillar was a giant ghostly sword stabbed deep into the stonework. Salem's buttcheeks, what was that?! He blinked again just to make sure he wasn't concussed, but it was still there. They'd watched everyone fight in the tournament (the first round, anyways; they'd been too busy scrambling for a new plan to catch today's matches), and he didn't remember anything like that! Even Weiss's friends seemed surprised. Pyrrha yelped, while Blond Guy ran straight into the blade and fell on his ass. "Sorry Jaune!" Weiss said blithely.

Sword pulled free from stone with a horrible scraping sound. It lashed out again, and he had to jump away lest he be cleaved in half from brains to balls. To make matters worse, Sable was back on his feet now, holding his ribs and glaring daggers at Mercury. All of a sudden a skeletal fist was coming at him too, bigger than his torso and made from the same ghostly substance as the sword. Still airborne, he met it with a kick of his right boot and oof! His own bones rattled under the impact. Gods, that blow felt like it could've crushed an Atlesian Paladin like a soda can! He was knocked violently back, away from the Maiden, until he managed to dig his heels into the ground and come to an unsteady stop. "Took you long enough." Sable grumbled to his sister, mostly good-naturedly. Had both of them unlocked overpowered new abilities in the past day? That was some anime nonsense right there! At least he'd done some damage to that monster—two of its fingers were visibly cracked—but he got as good as he gave. The front of his boot was partially crumpled (the mother of all stubbed toes, or it would be if he still had toes). The metal rod that passed for his ankle was slightly warped, making his right leg a fraction of an inch shorter than his left. He muttered more obscenities at the sight. Almost a minute of combat in the books, and they were no closer to their goal. Four students still stood between him and Amber, now with two spooky murder-ghosts added to their number. They needed to make a breakthrough fast, as the distant thwack of a cane hitting flesh and subsequent cry of pain reminded him. "Could use some help, Em!" he shouted.

"Gimme a sec!" His partner sounded at wit's end. Mercury chanced a peek over. Emerald was backed up against the left-hand wall, her face scrunched up as if suffering severe constipation. A red shape fluttered around her, hacking away with a scythe. Emerald ducked, leaving her head in one piece, but her concentration broken. "Stop that! You're so annoying!" she screamed.

"Nuh-uh!" For some reason, Ruby was disinclined to obey. "You're obviously trying something!" Damn. Childish though she might appear, Team RRWN's leader clearly possessed basic observational skills. Enough to understand that skulking in the background during a fight while staring intensely at everyone was a tad suspicious. Poor Em. She was used to casting her illusions from the shadows on shopkeepers and other unsuspecting schmucks. Not with someone up in her grill trying to carve out her spleen. Mercury understood now what his father had meant about Semblances being a crutch. Take those stupid Schnee ghosts, for instance. The twins seemed happy to let them hover in place for now, but if he ventured forward again he knew they'd resume trying to crush/decapitate him. All without their masters needing to lift a finger. Damn cheaters. Not like him. He was an honest man, pure skill and no ridiculous powers needed. "Use your weapon, you idiot!" he bellowed.

"Don't yell at me!" Emerald bellowed back, but she took the advice. Using half of her weapon to push back the scythe's blade, she aimed and fired the other half. Thief's Respite wasn't much to look at—gunblades were a Lien a dozen on Remnant—but it had some tricks up its metaphorical sleeve. It shot bullets, of course, but could also shoot its sickle-blades at high speed, with chains keeping them attached to the main body. Surprisingly long chains. In fact they seemed much longer than what could physically fit inside, and Mercury had no clue how that worked. Small wonder, then, that the students didn't see it coming. Weiss scarcely reacted before the chain wrapped around her knees and pulled tight. A sharp tug from Emerald, and she went sprawling to the floor. The heiress yelped; her pale sword flickered and faded. Her brother shouted her name, echoed by the other students—far faster than any normal person would have reacted, but still too late. Mercury had set himself in motion eight sentences ago. Like quicksilver, he surged through the newly formed defensive gap. He flew ever closer to his goal, so close he could spit in Amber's face if not for the glass—

—and then he stopped. Not of his free will, mind you. His legs simply locked up, as if someone had pulled the emergency brake he was pretty sure they didn't have. The rest of his body kept moving forwards; his forehead thunked loudly against the pod's glass before bouncing back. What the? Mercury tried to lift his feet, to no avail. It was like the floor had suddenly turned into superglue, or maybe a giant magnet.

"That worked?" said the voice of Pyrrha Nikos from behind him. "Oh!" That was when he noticed the black glow around his lower half. And the scorch marks on his pants. And the glint of metal that could be seen where the cloth had burnt through.

Oh. Well, shit.

There was a sickening crack, and Mercury fell. His back slammed into the tiles, with less force than usual since his body now ended at mid-thigh. Pyrrha looked down on him, her green eyes flicking between his broken form and the two severed legs floating in mid-air. All he could do was glare back up, his face burning with humiliation and impotent rage. Without his weapons and half his limbs he was helpless as a newborn babe, vulnerable, weak, various other pathetic adjectives. Things he thought he'd left behind when he joined Cinder, when he killed Marcus—

One of his legs came down hard on his face, boot-first, then the other. He felt his Aura break, followed by his nose and most of his teeth, and then came the pain. The wet squelch of a boot stamping on a human face was a familiar one, but he'd never expected it to come from himself. Polarity and metal. A bad combination. That was the last thought in his concussed mind before everything went dark.

Oh dear. Pyrrha wondered if she'd overdone things. It had started as a desperate attempt to slow Mercury down. Then he'd turned out to have more metal in him than she'd expected. A lot more, on closer look. She'd only intended to disarm (disleg?) him, honest, but the glare he gave her was so murderous that she'd kind of panicked and...well. Mercury Black's legless torso lay limp before her. His face resembled a raw hamburger more than anything human; more of his teeth seemed to be on the floor than in his mouth. Belatedly, she remembered that it was generally considered uncouth to beat up a handicapped man with his own prosthetics. It wasn't like this was something she did normally, though! She was a nice person, or so she thought! Yet this was the second person she'd horribly brutalized today, and unlike Penny it'd been completely deliberate. "Sorry?" she said feebly.

"Holy crap, remind me not to piss you off!" Jaune exclaimed. Pyrrha snapped back to reality. Weiss was still on the floor, trying to pry the chains off her legs. Sable had run past her to attack Emerald, apparently deciding the best way to help was to kill the one who'd done it. His summon was nowhere to be seen. Whether he'd hit some kind of limit, or whether he simply wanted to tear out Emerald's heart with his own hands, she couldn't say. Now with two team leaders trying to stab her instead of just Ruby, Emerald was forced to release Weiss in order to have both her weapons free. The chain rapidly retracted, causing the poor heiress to spin in place like a washing machine. Pyrrha ran to help her up, trying not to laugh at her undignified squeaks (this was a serious situation, dang it!). Further back in the vault, there was a green flash and a crack like thunder. The woman in red—Cinder, that was her name—tumbled heels over head, Aura visibly flickering. Her short dress might have flipped and shown them something quite scandalous, were it not for anti-upskirt technology. For a moment Pyrrha let herself hope for victory. She imagined a world where Cinder was defeated and thrown in a cell (it was more likely she'd be executed on the spot, but Pyrrha was too nice to fantasize about that). Where the memory of this night faded to nothing but a weird dream. Where they returned to their peaceful lives of monster-slaying as if nothing bad had ever happened...

She should have known better than to tempt fate. Cinder screamed. Partly from the pain of being beat around the head with a cane, yes, but with a multitude of other emotions mixed in, rage and disbelief and forlorn hope. Three of the five stages of grief were wrapped up in one word, the name of the only person who could help her now. "Emerald!"

"Cinder!" Emerald screamed back with equal anguish.

"RAWR!" screamed the Grimm who'd just appeared out of nowhere in a cloud of black smoke. Holy Brothers! It (she?) looked like a tall human woman in a dark robe, except with bone-white skin and hair, red coals in black pits for eyes, and diseased-looking veins across her arms and face. As a Huntress, Pyrrha had long since lost the instinctive fear of Grimm that the average person felt, but the sheer wrongness of this thing still chilled her. She was reminded of an old Argus fairy tale her mom had once told her, about monstrous women with snakes for hair that could turn you to stone with a glance. Despite that she couldn't help but look. None of them could. Even Ozpin's head snapped over to stare, shock written on his normally stoic features.

A sniper bullet and a jet of flame flew at the monster. Apparently the team leaders were less inclined to ponder mythology, and more inclined to kill the Grimm that showed up in front of them. Though otherwise different as honey and vinegar, they were both simple souls in that respect. However, their attacks simply passed through the creature as if it weren't there. Because, Pyrrha realized with a sinking feeling, it wasn't. A decoy! The whole sequence had taken barely three seconds, but in combat, a lot of stuff could happen in three seconds. Emerald had fallen to her knees, clutching her head. Cinder though, she had her bow in her hands, and smiled despite the blood trickling from her nose. Crap! Pyrrha threw herself between the two Maidens faster than a baseline human could have blinked. Black energy poured from her hands to form an impenetrable wall of magnetism. A glowing speck streaked towards her...and dissolved into a cloud of embers, one half passing around her body on either side. Too late, she remembered the arrow she'd seen earlier had been made of a black glass-like substance—in other words, not metal. Oops.

Behind her, the sound of glass breaking marked her failure.

"NO!" shouted Ozpin.

"Bullshit!" shouted Sable.

Pyrrha looked over her shoulder. She caught a glimpse of Amber with a feathered shaft sticking out of her throat, before the torches went out.

Where was she?

The moment her arrow pierced Amber's neck, Cinder Fall had found herself in this strange featureless white plane. She narrowed her eyes. After spending enough time with Emerald and Neo, she had a healthy paranoia of anything that messed with her senses. A figure emerged from the void, which she recognized as the woman she'd just killed. How'd that happen? Last she'd seen, Amber was in her machine, a good thirty feet away...ah, this was some sort of spirit-realm trickery, wasn't it? Some last desperate ploy of the wizard to, well, she didn't even know. Make her repent her evil deeds? Appeal to her humanity? Oh, sure, because being human was so much fun. A life spent slaving to the whims of those more powerful, with no reward but to pass unremembered from this world like millions before her. Haha, no. She'd set herself on the path to moving beyond humanity that day in Atlas long ago, and it would take more than a little guilt trip to dissuade her.

Also, you know, the guilt trip would've worked better if Amber actually said anything and didn't just lie there like lobotomy patient. Cinder still didn't understand what kind of magical mumbo-jumbo Salem had done with that beetle, but it had clearly maimed the girl body and soul...eh, no point wondering. She was a busy woman. Powers to steal, people to burn and all that. Stepping forth, Cinder pressed her right hand to Amber's face, just like last time. Her fingers tingled as tendrils of orange energy passed between them. The ex-Maiden's body dissolved into glowing embers, and then—

Oh.

OH.

Fire. So much fire. Flames spewed from her hands and eyes and every orifice for all she knew. Hot enough to cremate a person in seconds yet somehow perfectly comfortable against her skin. She heard herself screaming, maybe laughing. She couldn't help it! Acquiring half the Maiden's power had been nice enough, but this new sensation, it was, it was like...her brain struggled for a comparison. It was like a good meal after a week of starvation. Like summiting a mighty mountain after a grueling climb. Like an entirely different sort of climax, if you caught her drift. The bruises Ozpin had given her faded in an instant, her Aura swelling under her new powers. Ahh, she felt so wonderful she could sing! For the sake of her dignity, she resisted the urge. Cinder's life might be stranger than fiction, but it was certainly not a damned musical.

Her vision cleared, and she found herself back in the vault. Happily, she was just in time to see Ozpin blasted away by the force of her ascension. He sailed across the room to crash into the now-wrecked machine and flopped groaning to the floor. Cinder smirked. It'd be an awful shame if he'd broken any bones. That was dangerous for a man his age. His child minions took things about as poorly as could be expected, judging from the screams. They covered the spectrum from fear to anger to 'holy balls what is happening'. Out of everyone, only Emerald seemed happy with the situation. Despite the obvious strain using her Semblance on a half-dozen people had caused, she ran towards Cinder with an ecstatic expression. "You...you did it!" Her bloodshot eyes shone with almost religious awe. Smiling indulgently, Cinder withdrew her flames to let the girl approach. She'd chosen well with that one. Capable, obedient, and willing to give her mistress all the praise she deserved, unlike a certain legless failure—

"Look out!" Emerald cried. What? Who dared? Cinder began to turn around, but Emerald was faster. Somehow. Next thing she knew, the green-haired girl was tackling her like a rugby player. Emerald gasped sharply. Her Aura shimmered, and then she collapsed into Cinder, sending them both to the ground. What?! Cinder blindly fired a...well, a fireball. She thought she saw the glimmer of sharp steel, before there came the thud of her projectile hitting something. No other sound though, no satisfying shriek of a would-be assassin burning to death. Curious. She kicked Emerald's limp body off of her. There was an person-sized shape lying not too far away. It was oddly fuzzy and indistinct, surrounded by swirling pink particles...

The pink mist cleared, and in its place a girl mismatched eyes glared hatefully at her.

Oh, Cinder thought, now this was interesting.

Sorry to take so long and not resolve that cliffhanger at all. Have another cliffhanger to chew on instead. Things were so close to ending happily! But we can't have that, now can we?

This is one of those chapters that makes me want to add a billion author's notes justifying everything, but I'll try to control myself:

- My desire to insert banter is strong, even in unfitting situations. Ozpin's magic shield literally has no purpose except to make time for more banter.

- Part of me feels like the fight scene is nothing but a series of asspulls that somehow cancel out into a reasonable result, but whatever.

- Oz should probably know better than to fall for that parlor trick, but hey, it worked at Haven didn't it?

- How did Cinder get down to the basement, anyways?