Note: I'll be updating this story every Sunday evening until completion. Enjoy.
Everything hurt.
Inventory, Ciel Soleil thought groggily to herself. Survival 101. Take an inventory. Be self-aware.
Said inventory could have begun and ended with pain, but she forced herself to look over her body anyway.
Oh.
A large chunk of masonry was blocking her view of her right arm and side. It also seemed to be blocking all feeling from those areas. Everything else was an ocean of pain.
Her mouth was full of something metallic-tasting. Her eyes burned from the ashes and dust in the air. Her body—even the parts of it she could feel—didn't seem to respond to her checks. She'd lost track of her weapon, Metronome, and there was no trace nor hint of her Aura. Even in her state, those facts added a new layer of pain and fear. Being without her weapon was terrible, but being without Aura was like being naked, like, like…
She didn't have the capacity to put it in words or thoughts. She tried to panic, she felt like she should be panicking, but she couldn't. Was her body so ruined it couldn't even panic properly?
Ciel's energy reserves petered out, and her head lolled back and rested on the ground. Above her she could see the outline of one of Beacon Academy's towers—she must have been at its foot—but mostly open sky. Looking up like that, things didn't look too bad. The lack of visuals meant that sound took on new importance, though, and the sounds confirmed how awful things were.
Gunfire.
Screaming.
Shrieks of grimm—so many grimm… roars and bellows…
Explosions.
Fire.
So much gunfire. So much screaming.
She had to get up… had to get back out there… the General was counting on her… he'd told her to fight, to defend Beacon… she couldn't let him down…
Her body refused.
It was warm—too warm—and it hurt, it ached worse than any training session Ciel had ever had, it wouldn't let her move no matter how much she insisted.
Ciel forced her mind, muddled as it was, distracted as it was, to think logically. There was a reason she couldn't move.
Oh. Because she was dying, obviously.
There was something stark and bracing in that realization. Dying.
Judging from the screams, other people were dying, too.
She continued to look up, hoping she'd see some sign that things would get better. Surely she'd see the Atlesian Air Fleet moving in. The battleships were maneuvering into position even now, she was certain of it. Or, if not the battleships, at least the Mantas. She would even welcome the sight of Vale's obsolete Bullheads.
Another series of earth-shaking roars from rampaging grimm, unchecked and unimpeded.
No one was coming.
Move, she insisted, her will made fuzzy with pain.
Her body didn't respond. It refused.
She shook in surprise as fire and sound from above washed over her. An explosion at the top of the tower, illuminating new debris flying away from the summit—
Some pieces dropping right at her, and her unable to move—
She had exactly enough time to register the tumbling object as an enormous gear—and then—
Bright!
-she stumbled in place, reached an arm out to the wall to catch herself.
The rush of sensation from her arm—the arm that had just been numb and non-reporting—caused her to stagger in the opposite direction, not that she could tell which direction that was because her sight was flooded from the sudden transition of dark to bright and her brain was not catching up nearly fast enough…
New noises, another set of strobing sensations, and her brain was lighting up like the Air Fleet was doing bombardment practice on her neurons. She clapped her hands over her eyes on instinct (even that tactile sensation almost cost her more focus than she regained by closing off sight), staggered again as her head swam…
"Miss Ciel? Are you alright?"
The words barely registered as more than crashing cymbals. Everything was a swirl of color and distortion. Her body tried to vomit, adding more intense stimuli to sort through. Even her senses of time and direction were scrambled.
"Miss Ciel?"
She forced herself to breathe, to focus. Combat demanded it, and she had been fighting—
-right?
She steadied out, tried to focus her senses out, tried to listen to her surroundings. The screams were gone. The gunshots were gone. No fire, no shrieks, no roars. Only one small voice.
"Miss Ciel, I am concerned. Can you speak?"
Bile rushed into Ciel's mouth as her insides heaved. She didn't dare open her mouth. She found enough motor skills to raise a thumb, trying to send a message of "I'm okay" even when she wasn't.
Send a message to…
"I can help you sit or lie down, Miss Ciel. Would that help?"
That voice. The voice of someone who was dead.
Something?
Ciel forced her eyes to open. There, in front of her, intact, was Penny Polendina, a girl (who looked) about Ciel's age, with curly ginger hair and a cheerful, freckled face.
Ciel's brain broke, as it held at once the knowledge that Penny was a robot and the sight of her as a girl, the memory of her torn to pieces and the vision of her now safe and whole.
Ciel had enough time to hug the wall before she threw up.
"You are not okay," Penny observed.
That just made Ciel retch again. It was so obvious now why Penny always had such stilted speech, and why the General had been so keenly interested in her. She wasn't a real girl.
Which Ciel knew because she'd seen Penny's insides when she'd been torn apart on the Vytal Tournament floor.
Ciel's next heaves were dry. Her upper body was drooping, poorly supported by shaking arms propped against the wall. Her legs wobbled underneath her. Wrongness was everywhere, and her body was trying to reject it.
No voice prompted her; Penny (if that was Penny) was being patient with her this time. Ciel was too Atlesian to wipe her mouth on her sleeve; the back of her hand would have to do. The taste in her mouth and nose was vile, but couldn't be helped.
Knowing she'd have to face the truth sooner or later, she levered herself from the wall, though one hand remained to keep her steady. She half-turned and looked to where the voice had come from.
Penny Polendina, looking as concerned as any human would be.
Ciel's empty guts quivered once more.
"You're…" Ciel tried, only to discover that no words would complete the sentence. Not dead? Whole? Intact? Looking awfully human today?
"I'm combat ready," Penny said cheerily. "You do not appear to be, though."
"Just… nerves," Ciel said truthfully. Her nerves were shot.
"Interesting!" said Penny, apparently sincere. Ciel wondered if she could be anything other than sincere. "You didn't have nerves this bad before the teams or doubles rounds!"
Something in the way Penny phrased it resonated with Ciel, like important information was being missed. "The teams and doubles," she repeated, trying to jog the thought loose.
"As opposed to the singles, which continue tomorrow evening," Penny said patiently, "where I will be representing us. I find it fascinating that you are getting nerves when I will be the one fighting."
Ciel did remember, that was the problem. "Pyrrha Nikos," she mumbled.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You fought Pyrrha Nikos, didn't you?" Ciel said, trying to regain her bearings. "And… lost?"
And died?
Were destroyed?
Were… something?!
Penny cocked her head like a curious dog. "I do not understand what you are implying. I haven't fought in the singles rounds yet. I will have a chance tomorrow night, though."
Tomorrow night? "What matches have already happened?" Ciel said, grasping for any lifeline.
That made Penny frown—actually frown. Ciel couldn't remember seeing her do that before. "We just came from watching Yang Xiao Long versus Mercury Black in the opener."
Ciel could remember that, could remember clearly how the runaway temper of the blonde had manifested in an after-action low blow on an Aura-depleted opponent. Shameful. She couldn't forget witnessing that.
Yesterday.
It'd happened yesterday.
"Which is why we're here now," Penny continued, her usual cheer dampened. "There is every indication Miss Xiao Long will be disqualified—which is a shame, she's actually quite nice… or I thought she was, at least." A shadow of sadness and confusion fell over Penny, but passed as she forced on some vigor. "With both of them out of the running, we can focus my training on the fighters who are left."
Who are left—a good way to put it, because half of them were dead, killed in defense of Beacon.
Only they weren't, if Penny was preparing to fight them.
Ciel's brain raised a white flag and surrendered. There was no way to reconcile all the conflicting signals. The only course was to go with the flow. "Sure thing, Penny," she said, and drifted towards Penny's side.
"After we clean that up," Penny amended, pointing at the wall.
Oh. Right.
As she dipped into the bathroom to get paper towels, Ciel looked at herself in the mirror. She looked like she could have featured in an Atlas Academy recruiting poster, a fact that was very much intentional. Her outfit featured Atlas colors, from her blue beret to her white shirt to her blue combat skirt. Black gloves and shoes complemented it, to go with the watch that symbolized her dedication to doing things as needed, when needed.
A memory swelled up, one that was at once both vivid and vague, of that watch crunching under the impact of falling masonry. She shook it away. When her head stilled, she looked again in the mirror, and other things caught her attention.
Her posture was perfect, just as a military academy would desire. She sported the lean muscles so typical of the Huntress profession. But her face, her eyes…
They were reddened, puffy, and haunted. They had seen things.
Things far worse than the cruel breaking of a leg.
How had she seen them, though? There was no denying that these things were in her memory. As far as her brain and stomach were concerned, they'd happened. If she remembered Penny being torn apart, how was it that it hadn't happened?
Maybe it'd all been a hallucination. An incredibly long, vividly detailed, all-senses hallucination.
Ciel splashed water from the sink over her face, trying to get herself in order, and maybe reduce the telltale puffiness and redness. She had a job to do, after all. A job the General had given her. He was counting on her.
"You can defend your Kingdom and your school," he'd said.
Not that job, she thought angrily. He hadn't said that, that hadn't happened. Her other job.
"Keep Penny safe, on schedule, and out of trouble."
That was the one. She clung to the thought, the directive, like it was a life preserver in a stormy sea. She had to keep Penny safe, on schedule, and out of trouble. She had an appointment to keep in the Singles round of the tournament.
Where she'd die.
No, Ciel thought viciously, that hadn't happened. She shoved the thought aside and grabbed the whole rack of paper towels to clean up her mess. If she had to focus all her attention on her vomit, then by the gods she'd do it to get these crazy, nonsensical thoughts out of her head for five minutes.
She hit the timer on her watch just to prove it to herself.
At last, with Penny's encouragement and steadying hands, they finished cleaning and went on to the training room. This was the largest and most exclusive of Beacon's facilities, boasting weapon-equipped, programmable drones, both humanoid and flying, for high-level practice. Because of the dangers (and the costs of the equipment), Ciel understood that use of this room was typically restricted to fourth-year students, and even then required dispensation.
That triggered a new thought, one she hadn't thought to ask before. (Before? No, stop it, shut up! …it'd been under five minutes. Rats.) "Penny, how many years have you been attending Atlas Academy?"
Penny's normally sunny disposition faltered. Ciel could almost see her bringing up possible answers and rejecting them. "I am representing Atlas Academy in the Vytal Festival," was what she settled on.
"That doesn't answer the question," Ciel said.
"It sort-of does," Penny said evasively. She put her hand over her mouth, like she was expecting to burp or maybe hiccup. When she didn't, she went on. "I attend Atlas Academy, but I don't take the regular course of studies, so distinctions like "first-year" or "second-year" don't apply to me."
"How old are you?" Ciel asked.
"You…" Penny frowned, clearly distressed. "You've never asked me things like this before."
Another true statement that didn't answer the question. Penny used a lot of those, in hindsight. (Or was it foresight?) (Shut up!) "I'm more curious now. How old are you?"
"I… I would love to talk some more along these lines," Penny began, and this time she did hiccup, "but we are already losing some of our allocated practice time. I want to ensure we have time to get to all my potential opponents."
That struck a chord with Ciel. She had a thing she was supposed to be doing. She needed to do it. Follow orders.
She had enough of her head on her shoulders to remember that.
She made her way to the command console for the training room, the one that operated the drones and set their patterns. As soon as the Finals had been announced, she and Penny had ordered and received a training program customized to the remaining contenders. It was highly directed training for someone eager to do their best at Vytal. Time to run through it again.
The program should have been ready to go—no, wait. Ciel had to adjust it, she remembered, to account for the unexpected double-elimination outcome of the Yang-Mercury match.
She put in the time she'd computed—when had she computed that? She didn't want to think about it.
She frowned. No, that wasn't quite right. Ah. That was it. She hadn't accounted for the time spent puking. She hadn't puked the first time.
Shut up!
Maybe, if she repeated it enough times, her stomach would stop trying to revolt. Maybe not.
Ciel took the program for each remaining fighter's simulacrum, added a little bit of extra time to account for the double-KO, subtracted a smidge to account for the late start, and signaled to Penny that everything was set.
"I'm combat ready!" Penny reported cheerily.
"I wish you were," Ciel mumbled.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Ciel?"
"S-starting the program."
At her command, the drones whirred into life. Some moved to engage immediately, while others stood or hovered nearby, waiting their turn to pretend to be competitors.
Ciel didn't have to control the drones, thankfully. The General's staff had written and provided the program and all its particulars. All Ciel had to do was make sure it ran and that Penny defeated it.
There was no problem there. Penny was as precise and powerful as ever. Each strike and block and counter was exactly how she wanted it, with just the right amount of force behind it. She included plenty of flourishes which, as far as Ciel could tell, were because she was having fun with them, but her attacks were efficient.
Robotically efficient.
The facts were all there, staring Ciel in the face and yammering for her attention. She wanted to ignore them. How could she, though?
Watching Penny sweep aside one simulated enemy after another sent Ciel's stomach lurching all over again. This had happened. She'd seen it.
Of course she had, she thought angrily. Once the final doubles match had concluded and they'd known the field for the singles round, they'd received the program and started practicing. This was their fourth time through it.
Third time, she almost snarled, third time!
Ciel maintained her composure up until the Pyrrha simulation began.
The program used three different drones to simulate the challenge posed by the Invincible Girl, one controlling a shield, one controlling a spear, a third flitting about the perimeter of the room taking rifle shots. It wasn't a perfect simulation, since Pyrrha after all was only one girl and not three, but since none of the drones individually could even approach Pyrrha's skill, speed, and power with shield or spear or gun, giving them a numbers advantage was the only way to add a similar amount of stress.
Penny gestured. The many wire-trailing airborne daggers she called Floating Array twirled in a circle, fending off thrusts of the spear and rifle bullets with equal ease. She didn't even need to move from her original position to maintain a perfect defense. She needed to attack to end the fight, though, and getting around the shield was proving tricky. Ciel could almost see Penny's brain (CPU?) whirring as she thought of (calculated?) a solution.
Dread gripped Ciel.
This was where it had all gone wrong, this was when it started…
Even her ironclad determination that nothing bad had happened was no match for this sickening sensation. It felt like being pushed out of an airship and told to improvise a landing strategy, only without any gear or equipment, no way to—
Penny spread her arms. The daggers of Floating Array likewise spread. Penny had concluded, with ineffable logic, that the way to counter attacks on multiple fronts was to likewise spread her efforts. Her six daggers took position loosely to either side, angled sharply at the spear-drone. They would come from ever-wider angles, beyond what one could counter or deflect with just a spear and a shield.
But if one had a greater power, something more than spear and shield…
Ciel felt like she was throwing up, but it wasn't vomit that escaped her mouth. "Penny!"
"Stop simulation," Penny said, instantly. The drones came to a halt, demonstratively disarming to remove any hint of threat. Floating Array withdrew towards Penny, where it orbited her like a halo. She turned towards Ciel. "Is something wrong, Miss Ciel?"
"That's…"
A body torn apart, wires shearing through metal, daggers flung back by an invisible hand…
Ciel couldn't pretend she hadn't seen it, couldn't pretend it wasn't real, she saw it all so clearly, she saw it happening to Penny even now, and Penny just didn't. She was just standing there in blissful, curious innocence, more concerned for Ciel's odd behavior than her own imminent demise.
Ciel had to do something, say something, anything, Penny was going to die!
"Pyrrha wants you to do that," she blurted out.
Penny blinked in surprise. "Do what?"
"Spread your daggers like that, then try a multi-axis attack," Ciel said, tasting bile in her mouth once again. "She's waiting for it. She has a perfect counter if you try it."
Penny's head cocked to the side and her eyes narrowed in confusion and suspicion. "You are not in the habit of offering tactical advice," she said slowly.
"Does that mean I can't?" Ciel said in between attempts at swallowing. Only by clinging tightly to the control console was she able to stay upright.
"Oh, certainly not," said Penny, backing away quickly. "We are teammates, right? And teammates help each other! I learned that from watching Team RWBY."
We're not teammates, Ciel wanted to say, but she felt compelled to keep her mouth closed.
"Thank you for the information," Penny said with a small curtsy. "I will try to come up with an alternative strategy. By the way, how did you learn about this?"
"Watching—"
-you die.
"—just watching," Ciel said, feeling miserable.
Penny continued to stare. Did she ever blink? Come to think of it, Ciel wasn't sure Penny ever did blink. Obvious, so obvious, stupid stupid stupid—
"Will you show me what you watched?" Penny asked.
"Later," said Ciel, slapping at her wristwatch. "Have to keep going."
"Oh! Of course!" Penny looked back to the drones and gave an experimental swirl of Floating Array. "I'm combat ready!"
"Starting the program," Ciel managed.
The Pyrrha-drones withdrew before Penny fully reengaged them. Ciel must have wasted the Pyrrha time in the program with that conversation. It made her feel, somehow, even worse. Penny needed that time, she needed to be ready when she fought Pyrrha…
Several drones advanced, each springing about in large movements, meant to simulate the golden, temporary clones created by Sun Wukong. Just in case she fought Sun.
Would she fight Sun?
No… it was Pyrrha. It would be Pyrrha. It had to be.
She knew, she'd seen it, but there was no way to tell Penny this. How could she? "I had a vision of you getting shredded, you should train up to fight Pyrrha so she doesn't tear you apart, and by the way, what's it like being a robot?" Yeah, that would work really well. Penny would be totally okay with that conversation.
Ciel wondered if this was what insanity felt like.
The rest of Penny's training went without incident. She dispatched, or at least matched, every set of challenges the simulator threw at her. If some of her actions seemed overly familiar to Ciel, well, Ciel had seen Penny perform them during previous training sessions. That was what she was remembering, not some eerie, morbid hallucination.
She could almost talk herself into it.
"Outstanding," said Penny, appearing not to have broken a sweat (because she couldn't sweat) (shut up!). "I believe I am ready for the fight tomorrow, if I'm chosen. What do you think, Miss Ciel?"
"You will be," Ciel said.
Penny cocked her head inquisitively. "Are you saying I'm not ready yet, but I will be later?"
"Uh… sure," said Ciel, recovering badly. She busied herself inspecting her watch. "Our time in here is concluded and our reservation ends shortly. We should make our way back."
Penny deflated before Ciel's eyes. "Oh," she said, all enthusiasm gone. "Right."
At last, Ciel had found a way to take back some control over her life. "Do you have a problem with executing the General's wishes?"
Penny looked down—anywhere away from Ciel. "No, ma'am."
"Good," said Ciel with satisfaction. "The General made it my responsibility to keep you out of trouble. I intend to do just that."
"Of course," Penny said in little more than a murmur.
For the first time since snapping out of her hallucination—for that's what it must have been, surely—Ciel felt like she had her feet under her. This was familiar, not in an I've-already-done-this way, but in a this-is-how-it's-supposed-to-work way. She was Penny's minder. Penny obliged. All things as they should be.
She felt a little twang of her heartstrings at Penny's expression, which was hurt and disappointed. Was her expression like that every time? …Never mind.
Ciel led the way, walking slowly until Penny caught up, and then forging on ahead.
Ciel was staying in Beacon Academy's dormitories, like most of the exchange students there for the Vytal Festival. Not Penny. Penny, because she was special and was of special interest to the General, was staying aboard one of the Atlas battleships stationed over Vale, the Magnanimous. By special arrangement, a Manta airship would take her from Beacon's cliffside to the Magnanimous at precisely 2100 hours. Ciel had them at the cliffs by 2052.
They were still waiting for the Manta at 2109.
"I wonder what could be taking them so long," Penny said.
"Who knows?" said Ciel, although she felt something odd at the words. Could brains itch? She felt like her brain was itching.
"Maybe they were interfered with," Penny said, growing excited. "Maybe they've encountered some enemies and have had to scramble to counter them!"
Ciel pointed to Magnanimous, which was holding position to the northwest. "We'd be able to see a dogfight from here."
That stalled Penny only for a moment. "Unless it has become a chase scenario, and they are in hot pursuit of enemies trying to escape."
"What kind of enemies?"
"The White Fang has seized military-grade Bullheads," Penny said thoughtfully—though how she knew that was beyond Ciel. "Or maybe it's grimm!"
"Grimm don't hit-and-run," said Ciel even as her stomach did a flip-flop. "When they attack, they keep attacking until…"
She couldn't finish the sentence.
"That's why it is so important to chase these ones down," said Penny as if Ciel had proved her point. "Intelligent grimm cannot be allowed to escape and instruct others."
"It's not grimm," Ciel snapped.
"Well," said Penny, some excitement dampened, "what do you think it is?"
"Bird strike," Ciel blurted.
Penny smiled. "That is a less exotic possibility, but certainly a more likely one!"
More than likely, Ciel thought to herself. (Shut up!)
"I also—" Penny cut herself off, looked into the distance past Ciel, and clapped her hands together. "It appears we will not have to speculate any longer. We can ask the crew!"
Ciel looked in the same direction as Penny. After several seconds, she could just make out a Manta-class airship approaching. How Penny had spotted it at that range was a mystery. (Was it, though?) (Shut up!)
When it touched down and the loading door opened, a member of the crew was there wearing an apologetic expression. "Sorry we're late. Bird strike."
A beaming Penny turned a bright expression on Ciel, but Ciel didn't know how to take it.
"It happens, but this bird must have been made of brick or something, the impact was so loud the pilot spooked and we had to land again to re-inspect. The ship will need some repairs later, but we're here now!"
"Yes," said Ciel, trying to rally. "Penny, we will rendezvous tomorrow at 1615 sharp on the Amity concourse for registration and weapons checks, and then proceed to your pre-fight tune-up."
"Yes, ma'am," said Penny with a salute. She stepped onto the Manta. In moments she was gone.
Enough negative emotions to summon a stampede of grimm flooded Ciel's chest.
Being able to focus on Penny, on her assignment, had helped to keep all the weirdness, all the pain, all the dissonance, all the fear at bay. Yes, it was fear, Ciel recognized it now. It couldn't be fear of the present. The courtyard was a picture of tranquility.
Ciel's eyes widened. The courtyard.
This was where the battle had joined.
This was where she'd died.
Her breathing went from twenty breaths a minute to almost sixty. Her heart fluttered in her chest like it was trying to escape. Ciel blinked, and she could see the rampaging Ursas, could see a White Fang fire team moving to cover…
She staggered away from empty air. She felt the hum of her Aura over her skin, trying to protect her from nonexistent dangers, from phantom bullets and illusory claws.
Her Aura. She clung to the projection of her soul like a security blanket. She'd gotten to the point of taking it for granted. She silently swore she never would again.
Even her Aura was flickering, like it was as uncertain as her body.
Ciel tried to force calm upon herself. It was difficult. Breathing first, she knew, the heart would follow the breath. She focused on her time-sense, yoked her breathing to it. In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick.
Discipline. Steadiness. Everything her combat school had drilled into her, that Atlas Academy had reinforced, that she cleaved to in her times of need. Regular as the ticking clock.
She'd been killed by a falling gear.
In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick.
Remnant was a world lacking absolutes in physics. The laws of motion, electricity, magnetism, even gravity were all subject to repeal with a pinch of Dust and a little willpower. The only thing that remained intact in the rubble of Remnant's physics was time, the eternal arrow. This, then that, forever.
That was what had to be. That was where Ciel put her faith.
In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick.
Slowly, ever so slowly, panic receded. She felt it beneath the surface, a shaky feeling that reminded her sorely of her still-unsteady stomach. It wasn't controlling her, though. It wasn't driving. That had to count for something.
Schedule. Stick to the schedule.
Ciel looked to her wristwatch. Somehow, it was almost 2130. Things had gotten away from her a bit. She should have been back in her dorm by now, working on her paper for her Aura class. Most of her peers were putting it off, knowing that deadlines had been extended to account for the interruption of the Festival, but Ciel felt it was one of her worse classes. She needed all the help she could get.
She felt echoes of old shame rising up in her. In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick.
Bedtime preparations would start at 2215 with lights-out by 2230. That would set her up for a 0545 wake-up tomorrow morning. Light calisthenics to get the heart started would take her to 0600. Hygiene and dressing out to 0615. Breakfast to 0645. All routine matters, drilled into her by years of adherence. It was so normal Ciel hadn't broken out the individual activities in her schedule, and had instead put a block that said, "normal morning".
Normality, of course, sprung from the structured nature of her combat school and Atlas Academy. There was less structure during the tournament break. It was a gap Ciel couldn't tolerate. She had scheduled activities for herself, since without a schedule she was lost. Unfortunately, she had no external obligations until it was time to travel to Amity (1545). From there, it was pick up Penny (1615), pre-match registration and weapons check (1625), preps and warm-ups (1700), and presentation of competitors (1745) to allow for an 1800 tournament continuation time.
That left from 0645 to 1545 for herself. Just about nine hours.
Nine hours of things, Ciel was afraid, that would not hold her attention in the slightest.
She forced herself to take a mental step backwards. She was getting worried about getting worried. That had to stop somewhere. She was being ridiculous.
Whatever these thoughts/daydreams/hallucinations were, they weren't helping her keep to her schedule. They couldn't be that important. Any more dilly-dallying and she'd lose what little time she had left to work her Aura essay, and then she'd really be in trouble. Dying in some bizarre battle was completely far-fetched; detention if she screwed up her essay was a certainty.
Resolving not to think of the hallucinations any more, she stepped off smartly. As she'd noted before, it felt so much better to have a destination.
The dorms were both louder and quieter than she expected. Long stretches of rooms were unoccupied or home to sleeping students; others were packed to the brim, noisy as could be, and reeking of alcohol. Needless to say, Ciel quite preferred the first variety, and hoped her floor was of that type.
Luck seemed to be with her. (For once.) (Shut up!) Her hall was quiet, almost eerily so. The common room obscura was on, tuned to a news show. Ciel caught a glimpse of blonde hair, a swinging fist, and a crumpling gray body. She hurried past without looking any more.
Her room was, of course, quiet. It was built for four, and occupied by just her. Which was fine. Totally fine. It'd been that way the whole time she'd been here for the tournament. It did not bother her in the slightest.
Her books were still in place on the desk. Ciel retrieved the one she'd been working through and sat down to take notes. She'd barely begun when her scroll pinged an alert. Bedtime.
That, too, was a matter of routine, and Ciel was able to march through it without issue. She retired to bed right on schedule.
Time to let go…
She gripped the covers like she was trying to strangle them.
The fear crashed down again. She didn't want to sleep. She didn't want to let her mind do what it wanted. She knew, even without articulating the thought, that it would return to her hallucination. The prospect filled her with dread.
Because after seeing all of that death and destruction and terror and awfulness, after (as far as her senses were concerned) living it… how was she going to sleep if it meant going through that again?
In short, she didn't.
When her alarm sounded in the morning, she wondered if she'd gotten more than a few minutes of sleep the whole night. Every time she surrendered control and let her mind drift, it had always ended up on something horrific, whether that was Penny being ripped apart, or the charging monstrosities, or the gunfire and the screaming and the falling gear.
The falling gear woke her up instantly every time.
She couldn't help responding to the alarm, though. Routine had worn tracks in her brain. She followed them almost below thought.
The routine was comforting. It took just enough effort to hold her attention, without taking enough to tax her. Perfect.
Those conditions stopped once she was ready for her day.
The wasted evening the night before had put her behind schedule on her Aura essay. Nerves rising uncomfortably, she cracked open one of the class's books. It was about the creation of Aura meters, and how those devices had become standard-issue, which not only made Huntsmen more effective in the field but had made tournament fighting safe and practical. Without them, Vytal Tournament matches would have played out quite differently.
Ciel remembered Professor Absinthe being so pleased at coming up with such a topical assignment.
Ciel tried to pick up where she'd left off, somewhere near the end. There.
"…once the mechanism for measuring Aura pressure was perfected, all that remained was to convert it into universal measurements. It had long-since been known that individuals had different amounts of Aura. What Moh and her colleagues discovered was that pressure varied, as well, without a good correlation to Aura volume. Huntsmen with high Aura volume could exhibit low Aura pressure, and vice versa.
"The breakthrough came when it was observed that Aura pressure, regardless of its absolute correlation to Aura volume, maintained its proportions to Aura volume on an individual basis in combat. A fighter that lost a third of their Aura by volume also lost a third of their Aura pressure, regardless of their respective starting values.
"This produced the standard by which Moh and her team set the first modern Aura meters. Because no fighter's Aura ever exceeded its starting volume (and, thus, its starting pressure) in combat, that pressure could be normalized to 100, and all changes between that and zero represented as percentages.
"While the methods of display have changed over the years, this basic method of measurement and normalization has been consistent since those early days…"
Yes, Ciel remembered now. Within ten years a team in Vale developed the green-yellow-red display convention that was later adopted for traffic lights. They put the displays into use at the next Vytal Festival, which in those days used highly stylized bouts to keep everyone safe. Accurate Aura meters allowed the fighters to play looser, take more risks, and use a greater variety of styles, because as long as the fighters had a good Aura buffer left the fight was safe to continue…
Ciel frowned. Where had she read that?
She skipped ahead a few pages.
"…the rules of the Vytal Tournament, drafted in the interests of participant safety, had awarded points based on number of hits landed, with no consideration given to the power of those hits. These rules favored quick, agile, almost genteel styles which, incidentally, were ill-suited to facing any but the very lightest and youngest grimm."
Ciel blinked. But Aura meters and the red-yellow-green system let judges gauge how much damage fighters were actually taking, which was closer to how real fights went anyway. Once Aura meters were portable and proven effective, the tournament committee changed its rules. In the first tourney after the rule changes…
"…Shade and Beacon fielded teams which featured heavier, bulkier, and more durable brawler-types, such as the eventual winner Mars Dekalb. Mars would have had no chance under the old rules, as his direct, power-based approach would have been picked apart on a gross-hits basis…"
But what Mars had was strength, and an Aura volume easily the highest in the whole field…
"…Haven had captured three tournament wins in a row with precision and grace. Those same precise, graceful fighters couldn't inflict more than pinpricks of damage against Mars, while his rare but devastating haymakers took a terrible toll…"
So Mars flattened his opponents, one by one…
"…resulting in the first ever brawler-on-brawler final and the first ever Shade-on-Shade final, which Mars won in a slugfest…"
…and which Shade still celebrated…
"…to this day."
Ciel shoved the book away from her.
She had been this close to affirming for herself that all these memories had been a hallucination. She'd almost convinced herself. But how could she have possibly hallucinated the contents of a book she'd never read?
She'd known about the bird strike before it happened, too. Not to mention all the weirdness with Penny that could be explained by…
Ciel slapped herself in the face and tried to force a laugh. She was being ridiculous. Penny being weird was easily explained by Penny just being weird, no need to invent some nonsense about being a robot for that. Bird strikes happened all the time, every pilot knew that. And the book… well, obviously she'd read or heard about it some other time. Probably in the run-up to Vytal this year. There were all those unbearable "History of"- and "Making of"-type videos that circulated this time of year. One of those had definitely mentioned Mars Dekalb and the role of Aura meters, she was sure of it.
Yes, all these things were odd, but each had a rational explanation she could lean on. No need to go looking for trouble.
Forcing herself to smile, Ciel brought up her essay, determined to add to it. The smile fell off immediately. Two pages of her essay were missing! Her summary of Moh's work (and the commentary that none of it could have happened without Atlas' help) was just gone! She'd worked hard on that! For it to just vanish like this was outrageous! She'd been slaving away on it…
…yesterday…
…morning?
Ciel pushed herself away from her desk. Her stomach was lurching unpleasantly. She tucked the pages of her essay into the book and slammed it shut. Painful as it was to abandon her schedule, it was time for a walk.
Ciel got through the rest of her day without incident, and without much more to suggest that her hallucinations were real. True, the Vytal Festival fairgrounds seemed awfully familiar, but she'd taken Penny to the fairgrounds twice, so that made sense. And sure, she could have sworn Beacon's cafeteria had too-familiar offerings for lunch, but it probably always did. Atlas' cafeteria was notorious for sticking to its 14-day meal plan so tightly you could tell the day by looking at the lunch line. Besides which, fatigue from her poor sleep was coloring all her perceptions, and no doubt making things seem stranger and more familiar than they really were.
None of these explanations helped with the creeping sense of dread that grew over her with every tick of the clock towards 1800. The sensation got more intense as she stood, waiting, at the dock on Beacon cliff. On her own, she realized, she could deliberately do things contrary to the hallucination. Other people didn't seem to show the same courtesy.
That Beacon Faunus, for example, that was bounding around taking pictures of people. Ciel was sure she would have remembered someone doing that, but the hallucination was the only place she'd seen that behavior. She turned her back to block out the unwelcome sight.
The sun was dropping as the airship approached Amity Coliseum. Back home in Atlas, it would have long since been dark. Ciel nonetheless enjoyed the view, the contrast between the glittering Amity Coliseum and the approaching multicolored sunset behind it, as the sky started to turn the color of blo—
Shut up!
Ciel jerked her head away and wished for sleep.
She was, of course, in place on time when a Manta pulled up to a secure part of Amity's concourse. One of Atlas' regimented guards, complete with face-concealing helmet, scanned a scroll that Penny held out for access. When he stepped back, Penny's gaze fell on Ciel, and her face lit up. "Sal-u-tations!"
That was Penny, alright. Of course it was.
"Good evening," Ciel said, trying for cordial and maybe missing. "We are precisely on-schedule. Let us proceed to registration and weapons check."
"Of course," said Penny with gusto. "I'm combat ready!"
Ciel tasted bile. Without speaking, she turned and began walking.
"By the way," said Penny, falling in easily beside Ciel, "I looked into what you said about Pyrrha."
Ceil stumbled; she barely regained her footing without falling.
"Are you alright?" Penny hastened to ask.
There was no way for Ciel to honestly answer that. "What I said about Pyrrha?" she tried instead.
Penny reluctantly accepted the change of subject. "About her having a perfect counter to multi-axis attacks. You said that you learned from watching that she had such a counter prepared."
It was true, after a fashion. Ciel nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Curious," said Penny. "I re-watched all of Pyrrha's footage from the Vytal Tournament and twelve hours of footage from her bouts in the Mistral Junior Regionals. At no point did I see her execute any sort of counter like that."
Twelve hours of Junior Regional footage, plus the Vytal footage, to say nothing of search-and-recall times? Even someone less chronologically-attuned than Ciel could do that math. "Did you even sleep last night?"
That left Penny open-mouthed. "Of- of course!" she said, and hiccupped.
Ciel stared.
"The point is," Penny hurried on, "at no point did I see her counter an attack like what I have in mind. Nor did I see her perform a move that would suggest she has such a counter. Perhaps I simply saw the wrong footage. Do you recall where you saw her counter?"
Yes, out on the tournament floor, an hour and a half from now, when she kills you with it.
Ciel forced herself to swallow. "I must have imagined it," she said, because that hadn't happened, Penny was alive and right here, she was okay, nothing bad ever happened, nothing bad would happen, so there.
"Imagined it?" Penny repeated with more surprise than skepticism. "You were very insistent."
I know, I know, stop it, shut up!
"Excuse me?" Penny said in shock.
All of Ciel's insides clenched until she felt she might not breathe again. "Did I say that out loud?"
Penny nodded, a hurt expression on her face.
"I didn't mean to. I'm sorry." Ciel shook her head, as if that would clear it. Breathing exercises. In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick…
"Ohhh," said Penny, eyes wide with sudden comprehension. "This is 'the nerves' again, isn't it?"
That drew a huff from Ciel before she realized it, throwing off her breathing regulation in the process. "Yes, Penny. Let's chalk this one up to nerves."
"Oookay," said Penny. "Do not worry. You will be in no danger, and I'm sure I will be fine, too."
Oh, how Ciel wanted to believe that.
She didn't.
Registration, weapons checks, warm-ups, all went as they had for the teams and doubles rounds (and last time) (shut up!). Every interaction brought ever-more-intense déjà vu. No matter how much she tried to convince herself she was remembering the first two rounds, a hard core inside remained stubbornly alarmed.
Soon enough Ciel was standing in the access tunnel to the arena floor, looking out at the remaining contenders. They stood in the middle, waiting for the results of the selection process. Ciel could make out one of the displays, spinning randomly through the many permutations of the next bout.
Not Penny, she thought to herself as anxiety surged up. Not Penny. And if Penny, not Pyrrha. Anyone but Pyrrha.
The tumblers slowed and stopped.
Penny. Pyrrha.
Ciel felt like she'd been gripped by an enormous, unyielding fist. She could scarcely breathe.
The other fighters walked out of the arena and back down the tunnel, meeting handlers and teammates and friends. Ciel didn't take much notice of them. Their chatter washed past her, never registering, except for one bit.
"Fighting Pyrrha? Better her than me."
She remembered those words, even without connecting them to any particular speaker, and they were terrifying.
Soon, she was the last one in the tunnel. The gate rose to block off the tunnel from the arena floor for the duration of the fight. Ciel couldn't see Penny anymore. She wondered, in a blind panic, if she wanted to.
Medical and security personnel trooped up towards the mouth of the tunnel, taking their place to stand by. There was no room for Ciel to stay there anymore, and the unfriendly looks she was getting helped propel her out. On autopilot she returned to spectator seating and took her reserved place in the competitors' seating area.
She got there just in time to see the match begin.
The fist holding her squeezed tighter, tighter, until she was fit to burst.
Because she could see it all happening—before it happened, even. She could see, from a strange combination of memory and prediction and sight, how Pyrrha was pressing, how her motions were sloppier and wilder than usual. She could also see, though she wondered if anyone else could, how Penny was being pushed out of her comfort zone. Penny's default was to rely solely on Floating Array for her defense, but Pyrrha was forcing her to move her body to control range and avoid direct attacks.
"What a dazzling display!" crowed one of the announcers, and he was right. The crowd clearly appreciated it, too.
Ciel appreciated it even more. She could see and know just how far above her these two were. They were special. But where this knowledge brought thrills and excitement to the crowd, it brought Ciel dread.
These two otherwise nice girls were driving each other to desperate measures. She knew how far they could go.
Penny attacked directly, committing her body to it—a tacit admission that Pyrrha's defense was too tight to penetrate otherwise, and something Ciel had never seen Penny do. Pyrrha went skidding backwards, well out of melee range. Both fighters took a breath to consider their next moves.
Given the moment to think and plan, Penny extended the daggers of Floating Array out around her in a broader line, pulling her potential axes of attack further away from each other. The daggers faltered for a moment, as if Penny was having second thoughts mid-move.
Ciel lost the ability to breathe.
Penny gestured again. The daggers resumed their spread, until they were so wide no shield could block more than one, no spear could deflect more than one more. Pyrrha's body was heaving with exertion, swaying even, but she was visibly coming to the same conclusion as Ciel.
Penny extended her arms forward. The daggers shot forth from half a dozen angles.
Ciel doubled over, burying her face in her knees, unable to watch.
She heard a woosh-thrum, a horrible tearing sound, a sudden silence, then a terrible outcry as the distress of thousands of people washed over her and swept her away and drowned her.
It was happening again.
It hadn't been a hallucination. It was real, it was real, it was real…
She didn't want to look, she couldn't stand it, she knew what was causing all this anguish, it was the ripped-apart body of a bright, sweet person, snuffed out like a dropped candle…
She should have done something. She knew this was coming, she should have told her, should have fought her, should have—should have—
There was a loud voice coming over the speakers, sounding even above the cries and shrieks of the crowd, saying unbearable words, unbearable lies. Close it out. Close it out. Not real.
She couldn't. The truth was a lightning bolt to the brain. It was real. It was all real. Penny was dead on the arena floor.
The voice was gone but the panic was even higher, battering away at Ciel's senses. Still she refused to look, refused to see because she knew what she'd see and it hurt too much, it hurt—
"Alert: incoming grimm attack. Threat level: Nine. Please evacuate in a calm and orderly fashion."
Of course the grimm were coming, of course, how could they not? So much confusion, despair, pain, she couldn't tell if it was within or without, maybe both—and when the Giant Nevermore came, she could almost believe it had come just for her.
Now the place was pure bedlam as the crowd stampeded for the exits. Doom was here, doom had come, Ciel could hear the shields fail and knew what it meant, and still she couldn't bring herself to open her eyes or uncover her ears because it was all too much—
The Nevermore screeched in pain.
"Leave her alone!"
Now, only now, did Ciel dare to look, because it was such an impossible thing that even having seen it she still couldn't believe it.
There was a tiny, cloaked, red figure, standing firm against a Nevermore that could have eaten a Manta, with one of Penny's daggers as her only weapon.
Ciel couldn't help her gasp.
Ruby Rose, in that moment, was showing more berserker courage than Ciel had ever read about.
Ciel had to help, had to go, shame wouldn't let her do anything else; the power of the Rose compelled her. She rose to her feet, began to clamber over the wall—normally shielded, but they'd all come down when the perimeter was breached—
She hadn't thought of what she'd do when she got to the Nevermore, but she had to do something.
She'd hit ground level when the memory exploded upon her like a, well, like a barrage of rocket lockers, which was exactly what was burying the Nevermore before her eyes. Shame filling her again, Ciel dialed up her own locker. What would she have done without it, charge into battle unarmed? Grab one of Penny's daggers, too?
No, Ciel couldn't. It was scandalous, to use someone else's weapon…
…even if they were dead?
At last, at last Ciel couldn't avoid the sight any longer. Even as her peers tackled the Nevermore, Ciel's eyes drifted across the arena floor. There, just as she remembered, were the remains of Penny Polendina.
Keep Penny safe, on schedule, and out of trouble.
Ciel's mission, from the General himself, and she'd failed. Failed. She'd failed as completely as anyone could fail. She'd failed even though she knew what was coming. She knew Penny was marching to her death, she knew it would end like this, and she still… kept her on schedule.
The other students were running, they were moving at Ruby's direction. Ciel grabbed her weapon and flowed with them, unthinking.
Failure. Failure.
Following was all she was good for. Clearly she couldn't be trusted with any responsibility of her own.
There was the General. He was speaking to the students at large. She missed the start of it, but she heard the end. "You can defend your Kingdom and your school, or you can save yourselves. No one will fault you if you leave."
It may have seemed to the others that he was giving them a choice. For Ciel, it was an order. She was the one who'd failed. She had to do something. Anything.
She was the first one aboard the transport down to Beacon.
Which meant she was the last one on to the grounds at Beacon.
Everything came flooding back in a rush: grimm roaming freely, White Fang fire teams moving with purpose, White Fang Bullheads deploying more fanatics and grimm alike, her fellow students pouring out their souls to fight all of that, and more fire and screaming than Ciel had ever seen in her life other than twenty-four hours earlier.
She rushed into the fray, Metronome in its submachine gun mode spitting bullets and loathing alike. An Ursa in her sights ate round after round as she steadily advanced on it. When it collapsed under her weight of fire and single-minded attentions, she allowed herself a moment of vicious satisfaction.
She realized, entirely too late, that she'd wandered out into the middle of the courtyard.
All alone.
She had no team watching her back, no one providing cover fire—the other students had already scattered to engage in teams and pairs, no one had attention to spare to cover a loner when enemies were everywhere, stupid stupid stupid!
A White Fang fire team leaping from a Bullhead noticed her. Bullets whizzed by her, while others pattered against her Aura, which had never been that strong. Stung, she fired back, but she was caught in no-man's-land. There was no cover for her to take, the White Fang were too close and too many for her to deflect the bullets handily, but too far for her to easily close into melee range.
Then the Bullhead that had dropped off said fire team swung towards her and fired a spread of rockets.
One hit at her feet while another struck her squarely, tossing her back like a rag doll. All her senses went black as the impact knocked her stupid. Metronome flew from her grasp; her Aura puffed away. She hit the ground hard. The world spun.
It was still spinning when she came to a stop. The only thing she could see was another approaching rocket.
She didn't even have time to fill her abused lungs before—
Bright!
-she stumbled in place, reached an arm out to the wall to catch herself, then pushed away from the wall in terror and adrenaline. Why was there a wall—
She blindly collided with something behind her.
She spun, swung her weapon at whatever it was, but her hands were empty, nothing to defend herself, exposed. Terror scorched her brain. She looked up.
"Miss Ciel," said Penny Polendina, who looked quite alarmed, "are you alright?"
Ciel threw up all over her.
"I will take that as a 'no'," Penny said without missing a beat.
It wasn't a joke, but Ciel sobbed a laugh all the same around a mouthful of vomit. No, twice-dead robot girl. I am not okay.
I may never be okay again.
Next time: (You'll Never) Break the Chain
