"I have Listing's semblance. This is the third time we've had this conversation. In under 24 hours, Cinder Fall, grimm including a Wyvern, and Adam Taurus' White Fang will attack Beacon. It's a catastrophe unless we act now."

Professor Ozpin's mouth opened in surprise, but only for a moment. He gave Ciel a purposeful, penetrating look, then a sharp nod. "Then sit. We have much to discuss."

It was so impressive to Ciel, the way the Headmaster was able to take such a bizarre pronouncement as that in stride. What other strange things had he heard, she wondered, that would inure him to shock about this?

As she approached, a buzzing sound from Ozpin's desk drew his attention away. Ciel remembered it from other loops and wondered what it was. Before she could ask, he'd refocused on her. "How does the attack proceed?"

Ciel was struck with sudden inspiration. "Sir, before we get to that, since we're already discussing Listing's semblance, can you tell me anything more about it?"

"It would be less useful than you hope. Semblances spring from the individual. Even those that are superficially similar are revealed to be distinct upon inspection. That said…" Ozpin peered at her more closely, then raised his cane, collapsed the length into the hilt, and chucked it at her, saying, "Catch."

Ciel had to lunge almost out of her seat to do it—he'd thrown it far to the side—but she managed. When she turned to give it back, she glimpsed a brief oddness about his face, like it was brighter than usual.

She knew better than to dismiss weird things out of hand these days, but there was no telling what that meant. "Here, sir," she said, returning the cane.

"Thank you," said Ozpin graciously. "Incidentally… you have always had a below-average Aura pool, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir," she admitted through clenched teeth.

"Not your fault, as it turns out. I have some suspicions about your case. We'd need detailed study to prove them—which we don't have time for, obviously—but I think I see the shape of it. Your body has subconsciously been siphoning off your Aura into a reserve held deep inside. You can't access the reserve, which is why you exhibit such a shallow Aura normally. That reserve is what gets tapped to power your semblance. That's how you can manifest a semblance when your nominal Aura is broken."

"That fits the facts," Ciel said. She frowned. "I'm losing time every time I loop, though. Why is that?"

"Because your reserve is not infinite," said Ozpin. "It's similar to other slow-charging abilities I have seen. As your mind goes back when you loop, so does your soul, minus whatever energy was expended to perform the loop. You had never died before, so, when you started, all the Aura you had siphoned off in your life to that point was available in your reserve. Every loop depletes that reserve and makes your semblance less effective. Soon, you won't have enough to power it at all."

It aligned with what Ciel had determined, frustrating though that was. "Then we'll just have to make these count."

Ozpin nodded. "Indeed."

Ciel launched into her narrative, more confident now that she'd done it before and knew he was listening. He was attentive, and asked questions at regular intervals, some Ciel would have expected, others that meant nothing to her.

"…then you pull Pyrrha out of the battle and take her down into the basement of the Tower with you," Ciel continued. "To the unmarked subbasement, the one below the Art Gallery."

Ozpin's brow tensed slightly.

"Cinder Fall follows you. She expects you to do that."

A miniscule nod.

"She has this thing going on with her eyes…"

Ozpin took a longer than normal breath, the only sign of disturbance Ciel could make out from him. "What kind of thing?"

"It looked like her eye was on fire," Ciel said, gesturing with her hand. "Like it was a candle flickering, but going out to the side, like this."

"I see," said Ozpin.

"In the two loops where I fought her before she went down to the basement, it was only over one eye. This last time, whatever you were trying to do in the basement didn't work. She killed you, and then… I don't know, leveled up or something?"

"This isn't a video game, Miss Soleil."

"I know," she said, abashed, "but she definitely had the flare over both eyes after beating you, and she was a living flamethrower, when the other times she fought she'd only ever used glass and heat. Something changed down there."

"Indeed," breathed Ozpin.

"Will you tell me what?" Ciel prodded.

"No. On the whole, I think that's not a good idea."

"…really?" said Ciel, feeling anger rise.

"You are familiar, I'm sure, with the concept of 'need-to-know'," Ozpin said. "Atlas goes to great efforts to drill that lesson into its students, after all."

"I'm familiar, yes."

"This is a classic case. You knowing that my attempt didn't work is enough; you don't need to know what it is I was attempting. That said," he went on before Ciel's angry objection could escape her mouth, "with your information in mind, I will change my tactics. I think refocusing on Cinder herself is in order."

"Oh, yes, please," Ciel said, and though the words surprised her the feeling did not.

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Why's that?"

"Because, if you'll pardon my Mantletongue, that bitch has killed me three times now," Ciel said heatedly. "In humiliating and excruciating fashion. I'd be grateful if someone could return the favor."

Ozpin gave a tight smile. "I'll see what I can do."

"Is there anything else I can help you with tonight?"

"Not unless you can magically help me sleep," Ciel said, trying to keep her intrigue out of her voice. "Even when I'm this tired, I know nightmares will keep me up half the night."

"Don't be ridiculous, Miss Soleil. There's no such thing as magic."

"Of course not," she said graciously. "Good night, professor."

She stole a glance at him as she entered the elevator. His mouth was moving though his words were inaudible.

Her sleep was remarkably untroubled and refreshing.

Magic wasn't real. Only children believed in it. But, to get a good night's sleep, Ciel was prepared to be a little childish.

If there was one conversation Ciel didn't need to repeat this loop, it was her one with the General. It didn't change anything and made her feel strange and bad. No, best to skip it.

She waited to enter Team RWBY's dorm building until she saw the General leaving it. That would account for the time spent having that chat last time and guarantee she avoided him.

Onwards and upwards…

"We're having a very important, very sensitive team meeting right now…" Weiss said, trying to block Ciel out.

I know, she wanted to say. "It's about that, actually," was what she did say. "I believe Yang and want to help her."

"Who is it?" Ruby, right on schedule.

"Ciel Soleil. I want to help you and your team."

"Aren't you on Penny's team?"

"It's about her, too, actually. I think she's in trouble and needs our help."

"Okay, come on in."

When Ruby had turned to retreat into her room, but before Weiss had followed, Ciel leaned in to whisper to her. "If it seems like I'm endangering your team or wasting their time, you have my permission to pound me flat."

Surprise appeared on Weiss' face before she buried it with a scowl. "I don't need your permission," she huffed, but without much heat. She took her position next to Ruby without as much naked hostility as last time.

Ciel looked to Yang. "I believe you, and so does Headmaster Ozpin," she said to Team RWBY's collective astonishment. "He's discovered that a group with an illusion semblance is working to sabotage Vytal. You were just one of their victims. Unless we do something, you won't be the last." She looked at Ruby. "Penny is their next target.

"The General doesn't know," she added before Weiss could make her predictable objection. "Yet. The Headmaster just found proof. He's calling the General in now to tell him and come up with a plan of action. In the meantime, he sent me to bring you in to his counter-operation, 'for the sake of her silver eyes'."

Weiss slid subtly closer to Ruby, between her and Ciel, but said nothing. It fell to Blake to ask, "What's so important about Ruby's eyes?"

"It's the first thing he said to you," Ciel answered before Ruby got the chance. "After you fought Torchwick for the first time, the Headmaster met you at the police station, and said that you have silver eyes."

"Okay, this is getting creepy," said Ruby, shivering. "How could you know that? No one else was there but Professor Goodwitch."

"I was told about it," Ciel said, leaving out that it was Ruby who'd told her. So far, this version of the talk was going just as planned. "It's supposed to be a sign that Professor Ozpin really did send me, I'm not just some random student trying to get you to do things."

"But why would Ozpin come to us?" Blake said, as confused as she was wary. "He's Headmaster of Beacon. He sits on the Council. He controls the Vale mission board. He has a lot of other tools."

Ciel just barely suppressed a smile at Blake's lovely bit of cuing. "He has tools for other things, but your team has two things no one else has. First, you have experience fighting the White Fang."

The reaction to this was far more subdued than last time, when she'd just said they had 'history' with the Fang. It didn't stop Blake from squirming uncomfortably, as she had every time the topic of the Fang had come up. Or Faunus generally, now that Ciel thought about—

Holy—

Ciel's hand shot up to point at Blake. Shame surged through her trying to catch up. Too late Ciel tried to rein her finger in, so she never actually pointed the finger, but there was no way to play off the gesture as nothing. She couldn't think of any way to do it, either, not with realization having struck her like thunder and thrown her carefully-scripted conversation completely off-track.

At last, at last, all Blake's strange sensitivities and skittishness made sense.

Ciel took a step backwards and nearly stumbled. Fritzing out though her brain was, she remembered there was a chair at the desk—there. She took it and sat down heavily, her legs unable to support her any longer. She struggled to keep her eyes off Blake.

"What's going on?" said Weiss, voice sharp and piercing as her rapier.

Did they know? Did Weiss know? The idea of Weiss, a Schnee, being on a team with…

…Not just a Faunus, but a member of the Fang?!

Ciel tried to force her mind into gear, tried to cudgel it into approaching this in some less-direct way. She failed. "Adam," she blurted out instead.

Blake jerked like she'd touched raw Lightning Dust. Weiss' scowl deepened. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Ciel's eyes darted back and forth between Blake and Weiss. Blake and Weiss… what a mess… what if they didn't know? What if she ruined this team for good?

She couldn't help herself.

"There was a… communications intercept," she invented. "Of… someone named Adam? Saying there was a traitor at Beacon. A traitor to the Fang," she added when the team reacted with a surge of motion. "He was… angry. Um. Murderously angry."

With every word, Blake seemed to shrink a little more.

"Who's Adam?" said Ruby, her voice concerned but lacking understanding.

Blake pulled her knees up until they were flush with her chest and she was almost in a ball. "He's the leader of the Vale chapter of the White Fang," she said in a small voice. "He… didn't take it well… when I left."

The rest of the team didn't react to this admission with shock, or exclamations, or anything like that—just quiet understanding. They'd known. They'd known Blake was White Fang. And they believed she was no threat to them.

Ciel dared to breathe.

Even if Ciel hadn't known from the last loop that Blake was anti-Fang now, the trust of Blake's teammates would have sold Ciel. She believed them, so she believed Blake.

Her heart's wild hammerings in her chest slowed and softened ever so slightly.

Yang raised a hand in Blake's direction, but stalled halfway when Blake flinched. Instead, Yang put her hand on the bed next to Blake. Blake closed her eyes and covered Yang's hand with her own, then gripped it like she was trying not to fly away. Ciel recognized Blake doing a version of the same breathing control exercises she knew.

She looked away. What they were doing was not for her eyes.

"Well," said Weiss, "we'll be sure that this 'Adam' doesn't come anywhere near you, Blake. Won't we?" she added, looking daggers at Ciel.

"Yes," said Ciel, even as she tried to clear her mind and get everything back on track. It was no easy task. As an Atlesian, she realized, she'd inherited distrust and disregard for Faunus in equal measure. If she'd known Blake was a Faunus earlier, it might have deterred her from working with her. She felt shame for that, now.

But there was hope. If Weiss Schnee, of all people, could embrace a Faunus teammate with her whole heart, maybe Ciel too could do better than how she was raised.

Her mortification at having led Blake to her death last loop was real. Her care must be, too- Faunus or not.

"Yes," she repeated with more conviction. "What the Headmaster wants is for you to look for signs of sabotage at Vale's Bullhead airbase. Your student credentials will let you on, he took care of that. Get in, undo the sabotage, get out. If you're still there at 1700, you've stayed too long."

Blake sniffed. "Seems straightforward enough."

Ruby, though, was frowning. "What does the White Fang want with our Bullhead base? Like, to steal the Bullheads, obviously, but what for?"

In, tick, tick, tick, out, tick, tick, tick. "To attack Beacon."

That drew just the kind of shock and outrage Ciel had come to expect.

Ciel managed to navigate through the rest of the briefing/conversation/emote-fest relatively well. Blake and Weiss understood their assignment (Weiss having again refused to let Blake go alone, re-affirming for Ciel that whatever bad blood existed between the SDC and the Fang was nowhere to be found for those two). Ruby had made arrangements with Penny. And Yang was promised that Ciel would find a clandestine use for her.

Ciel felt bad about that last one, given that she'd made that promise in the previous loop and broken it. Having Yang available in the dormitories was useful in its way, since those were a battleground, too. Plus, Yang didn't even know Ciel had broken her promise in the last loop.

Ciel did, though, and the thought was an anchor on her mood.

Still, the clock kept ticking, and she had so much to do. She had to prepare her ammo locker and recruit Nora (wild as that conversation was), she had to draw up her maps, she had to commit the ultimate party foul, she had to…

She paused, second thoughts having caught up to her as she stood beside the window. Honestly, did she have to commit the ultimate party foul? She couldn't know how effective the act had been.

Oh well. She was already here. Might as well.

Out went the refrigerator. As before, someone screamed, "Oh come on!" in the moment after impact. Ciel decided to risk discovery to see who it was.

It was… a blonde, scraggly boy. Oh—oh! Jaune Arc, Pyrrha's partner. Ciel could barely recognize him on his own, he was so unremarkable when he wasn't on Pyrrha's flank. Apparently some alcohol had splashed on him, and he couldn't do much to protect himself, since he had a puff of cotton candy in each hand. One of them, apparently, had suffered some 'splash damage'.

Ciel slammed the window shut and made herself scarce.

She realized too late that she hadn't told Blake and Weiss to repair the ammo line they'd reported damaged on the southern anti-air gun in the previous loop, which meant Ciel had to do it, which meant first she had to research how to repair a damaged ammo line.

Next was using access Ozpin had given her to look into various cameras, to determine what each was showing her and where on campus that matched. She'd be able to use some of those—the ones that weren't damaged or destroyed in battle, anyway—to help her see the progress of the battle and make better callouts. It was disorienting at first. Was there a way to throw those fields of view onto her maps? Oh, right, the maps she first had to build for herself and the team leaders...

Then there was the matter of fortifying the cafeteria, since the attack came while some were eating and while many had gathered to watch the fights on the large-screen brought in for that purpose, and the cafeteria was the hardest building on campus to defend…

And so it went, every minute budgeted, with tasks having to be abandoned if she couldn't clear them because the schedule didn't keep, the schedule wouldn't wait, and if she wasn't on-board the shuttle to take her up to Amity on time she might as well throw herself off Beacon cliff and start over…

She made it, but only just.

Beacon photographer faunus.

A sky like blood.

"You are a bioluminescent bug to me, as well."

Penny. Pyrrha.

Ciel's scroll buzzed. It was a message, text only, from Blake. Back at Beacon. Mission successful. Ready for battle.

She relaxed ever so slightly. Good. One less thing to worry about.

Then she realized that their return to Beacon hadn't saved their lives, it just meant they might die there instead. She tensed all over again.

She looked to her side to Ruby to share this information with her—and saw a Ruby-shaped void. Where had Ruby gone? Come to think of it, she'd been absent before, and Ciel never had figured out what kept drawing her attention.

"Begin!"

But in all of those other loops, Ruby had come back at the same time. Ciel had to trust that she would again. She reluctantly returned her attention to the fight below.

"Our fighters are feeling each other out. They're showing each other a great deal of professional respect!"

That was one term for it, she thought morosely. Come on, come on.

The waiting was the worst. She knew all that was supposed to happen, she knew when it was supposed to happen, why wasn't it happening yet?

Another round of light touches, a spear deflecting daggers, ginger retreating, a half-hearted particle beam deflected off a shield…

She checked her watch for what felt like the fifth time. One of the other students in the reserved section laughed at her. "Got somewhere to be?"

"You have no idea," Ciel mumbled.

Come on, come—

Like she'd flipped a switch, Penny went on an offensive rush, battering Pyrrha back towards the arena edge. She went from using Floating Array as her primary weapon to using it to screen her so she could close and punch. Three times she did this, and on the fourth, she leapt into the air to add the force of gravity to her blow.

In a flash, Ciel saw that this wasn't the true purpose of the maneuver.

Pyrrha recognized her opening. She struck upwards with her spear, aiming to catch Penny mid-strike and turn her momentum against her.

But with that much angle from Penny being above her, Pyrrha's strike couldn't target center of mass like she was trained, it was headed for somewhere lower—somewhere not as vital—

And as the spear closed with Penny's abdomen, Penny's Aura display blinked from the green range to zero.

The sound of the spear punching through Penny's mechanical body carried from the arena floor up to the stands and seared itself into Ciel's memory.

"Oh my…" gasped the announcer even as the horn blared.

Penny settled on to her feet, then fell to her knees, pulling the spear with her. Pyrrha let it go, shock and revulsion radiating from her face.

"This was not a tragedy," came Cinder Fall's mocking voice.

Ciel didn't have time for her. Once again, Penny drew the spear out of her body without evident discomfort. The crowd's eruption of dismay and panic was tempered by Penny's…

'Nonchalance' wasn't the right word, not when she couldn't stand and was visibly annoyed by the fact, but her not-dead-ness, and her seeming lack of worry for her state.

Ciel smiled tightly. The fact that she had brainpower to spend trying to find the right word meant she was in a good place, all things considered.

"Alert: incoming grimm attack. Threat level: Eight."

If only there was a way to bring that number even lower…

"Get away from them!"

As routine as this part of her day was, Ciel still found amazement in Ruby's solo charge into the Giant Nevermore. This time, after the dispatch of the Nevermore, Ciel veered in the direction of Penny and Pyrrha, wondering what they were talking about.

"I'm truly, desperately sorry," Pyrrha was saying.

"I know," Penny replied. "Please, do not blame yourself. Precisely none of this was your fault."

Pyrrha's expression showed her disbelief at those words. Her eyes went to her spear, still dripping green fluids from Penny's insides.

"Oh, this?" said Penny, looking down as if surprised. "This is not fatal. In fact, it was necessary." She pouted. "It is harder to throw a fight than I expected."

"You… threw…?"

"Yes," Penny affirmed. "Because we still have a battle to win."

"She's right," said Jaune, taking the spear from Penny and giving it a slash to fling the green from it. "We still have a job to do."

Pyrrha's face filled with even more distress, a deeper terror Ciel could only guess at.

She suspected the answer was to be found in a certain subbasement.

"We have to protect everyone else at Beacon," Jaune went on, extending Pyrrha's spear back towards her.

"Oh… Beacon," said Pyrrha, sagging on her feet. Her too-wide eyes relaxed some, and a bit of her distress left her. "Yes. Beacon."

"Defending Beacon is what this is all about," chirped Penny.

"That's right," said Ruby, scythe in hand, all eyes on her. Pyrrha and Penny turned to look at the younger girl, whose face was set in a rictus of determination. "Someone wants to hurt our home and our friends. Protecting those things is literally our lives' work. This is what we're here for."

She pointed towards the tunnel out of the arena. "Let's go."

Ciel was swept along with the rush.

"No one will fault you if you leave."

"Ha! As if," said Sun, to general agreement.

On to the transport, pulling away from Amity… Ciel watched intently as the General's airship, rather than climb towards a hijacked Benefactor, did a bank-dive down towards Vale City. It also didn't explode. That was a nice change of pace.

"You're really alright?" Ruby was saying to Penny.

"I cannot fight, unfortunately," was her reply. "I did not expect it to be so difficult to lose a fight."

Something about that phrase stuck in Ciel's mind. She knew she'd be taking notes about it if she looped again.

"Well, you played your part great," Ruby said. Ciel waved to get Ruby's attention. Ruby started as she remembered the next part of their plan. She said, in a too-loud voice, "Does anyone have a plan for once we get to Beacon?"

"I do," said Ciel. Her scroll was already in projector mode. She promptly brought up her map, slightly revised from last time. "Team leaders, please check your positions. We've got White Fang and grimm enemies both. Our first priority is to preserve our landing zone, including this mini-armory we're establishing. Our second is to link up with the dorms to get the other students safe and armed. The cafeteria, too, if we can get there."

She stole a look at the expressions of the other team leaders. Some, like Coco, were unreadable. Others, like Jaune, were looking keenly, even critically, at the map. A few—mostly Flynt—looked rebellious.

"Gotcha," Ruby said loudly. "Team RWBY is on board!"

"Team JNPR, likewise," said Jaune, unprompted.

Ruby's acceptance was pre-planned, but Jaune's volunteering was an unexpected blessing. She had no chance to thank him for this. He'd turned all his attention back to Pyrrha, who seemed unable to look away from Penny, and whose breathing was awfully heavy for someone just sitting.

Regardless, the plan had worked: the acceptance of those two teams ended any revolt against Ciel's plan, though Flynt still wore his anger openly. That was fine. Ciel could deal with that.

"I'll be on comms on this group channel," Ciel went on, motioning to some numbers displayed on the map. "I'll make callouts and keep everyone informed and coordinated. Stay together, stay alive!"

"Coming in hot!" called the pilot.

Ciel braced herself for the landing, bumpy as it always was. When the hatch opened, though, she made no motion to storm out and into the courtyard. Instead, she called in her armory locker, then moved to the cockpit.

Headmaster Ozpin's voice was coming in over the ship's comm line. "Pilot, your ship is seconded to Trainee Soleil. Follow her instructions."

"Trainee Soleil," Ciel announced herself, making the pilot jerk in surprise. "Take this ship up and circle Beacon's grounds. I'm coordinating our defenses and I need to be able to see."

The pilot swore vehemently. "Alright, buckle up, there's a lot of hostiles in the air and it won't take much for them to shred this ship."

"I understand," Ciel said. Better than you know. "Let's go."

As the ship rose, Ciel looked to the anti-air gun she'd tried to repair. It was silent. Whether that was because her repair was shoddy, or because of enemy action, was impossible to tell. The pit in her stomach was the same either way.

"Is there any way I can help?"

Ciel started and looked back. Penny had been left on the floor of the airship, looking piteous, and still unable to move much with that hole in her stomach.

"I don't think—" began Ciel.

The airship pitched roughly, making Ciel yelp, and jarring her back to her job. Where was it… where was it… oh, right, she was in position faster this time than in previous loops, she had a second to get her wits about her. Using her scroll projector, she pulled up some of the camera feeds the headmaster had given her, then returned her attention outside… and there it was. "Wave of creep from the north. FNKI, that's you."

Flynt gave no more response to this than he had the first time, but Neon's telltale rainbow trail showed he was responding. Which meant…

She went to call out the White Fang Bullhead which was due in the south, but it wasn't there.

She had to laugh, even though the sound was harsh and unamused. Upping security at the Vale airbase was obviously delaying or disrupting the White Fang's airlift. That threw her timing off. She was a victim of her own success.

At last it appeared in her sight, and she was more than ready for it. "White Fang Bullhead in the far south. CFVY, take it."

It hadn't even fully cleared the cliff before Coco's minigun was blazing away at it. Ciel didn't get to see the results, as her ship banked and shook a surprised yap out of her. "Watch it!" she snapped instinctively.

"You wanna fly this thing, be my guest," the pilot sniped right back. "Until then, shut up and let me do my job."

And I'll do mine, Ciel thought determinedly. Which meant…

Ciel scanned around, trying to reorient herself, trying to get back on-track, even as the airship pitched again and explosions rattled the frame. There… there! "Ursas, northeast, RWBY. SSSN, head for the North dorm."

"You're doing a great job!" said Penny.

It was a well-meaning distraction. Ciel tried to close it out. Read, react, call out, track.

Now there…

Now there.

On and on it went, too different and too dangerous for Ciel to get comfortable, every moment riding the next threat, trying to stay ahead, trying to keep everyone alive…

…failing, inevitably, as an explosion erupted from the southern dorm and bodies fell out, as the lights flickered in the cafeteria, as a whole pack of Ursas and boarbatusks fell upon an out-of-position team…

But, casualties or no, they were holding. They were pushing, even, pushing back towards the southern dorm to make as strong a link as they had with the northern, trying to get towards the cafeteria. The White Fang were struggling to be as effective, the students overpowered them on an individual basis, and the White Fang were fewer and more dispersed than in previous loops. Disrupting their initial airlift had thrown their entire gameplan off. The Wyvern changed things at first, but when it was drawn away by the battleships it wasn't spawning more grimm, and the ongoing invasion was within the students' power to control.

The Wyvern's breakaway was her next cue. She devoted all her faculties to watching the Emerald Tower and its environs. There… there was Ozpin, there was Pyrrha headed towards him, Jaune on her heels. Into the Tower they went. Which meant any moment now…

Cinder Fall, and she wasn't alone.

Ciel froze. Cinder wasn't alone. She had a minion on each side of her. Was this a change? Had it always been like this? How could Ciel tell? Had she screwed things up, had she ruined everything somehow?

Ciel tried to engage, tried to call out this threat, but what would she even say? "Intruders", when there were intruders everywhere? They seemed like allies, they seemed like students—that was the heinous brilliance of their cover-

They reached the Emerald Tower in heartbeats, while Ciel's brain was still flopping helplessly. To her relief, only Cinder went inside. Her minions watched for a moment, then disappeared around the outside of the Tower.

Hopefully, the headmaster's "new approach" would be enough.

Read, react, call out, track...

But Cinder's escorts didn't join the battle, which meant the students only had to contend with a diminished White Fang and a smaller amount of grimm without the Wyvern's combat respawns, and that meant...

Ciel felt a thrill, an impossible feeling, a feeling she'd never felt before.

We can win this.

"Team RWBY, advance for the cafeteria," she said.

It was ambitious, but they had the time, they had the opening, they could actually push forward. As she watched, there was a blast of red light from the cafeteria, and as Ciel tried to ask what it was-

"Shit shit shit!"

-the ship surged beneath her.

Ciel's scroll fell from her hands. She tried to follow it to regain it, but her gaze was drawn away, up, out the cockpit windows.

Into the face of the Wyvern.

The colossal grimm was ablaze, an inferno of bone and pitch and hate, and it screamed its fury as it closed on the helpless airship.

The airship might as well have been made of matchsticks. It burst apart at the collision. Ciel's vision went black and her organs rattled against her bones at the impact; Aura could only do so much against forces that strong. Before her vision cleared she felt twisted, sheared, pulled in all directions, unable to orient herself.

All around was metal and fire and scrap and Penny.

Penny was right there, daggers flying every which way—trying, Ciel realized, to find an anchor, to find something to catch herself, something to help her survive.

Their eyes met. Penny's were full of terror, an alien, grotesque emotion for that cherubic face. She was trying everything to survive, and was overcome by fear that she would fail.

Ciel knew, without even thinking about it, that she needed to do the opposite.

She dropped her Aura.

Penny screamed—a sound Ciel had never heard, that she hoped she'd never hear—it hung in her ears even over the roar and the rush of wind and the—

Crunch

Bright!

Ciel staggered in place. Her hands instinctively squeezed tight, and clamped tightly onto something unyielding; good thing, too, as it kept her from falling over.

She weathered the storm, stabilizing herself for almost thirty seconds, before her stomach began to settle, and her body was convinced it wasn't folding in upon itself from a high-velocity ground impact. She opened her eyes.

The Sun-simulating drones were retreating.

Late in the evening, late in the practice… but not too late, not yet. She was losing more time with every loop, she could see. The recursion was decaying faster and faster.

But not too fast, not this time. She had another chance to make this right. Another chance to ensure Penny's face would never look like that again, that she'd never scream like that again.

Ciel whipped out her scroll and took her first note.

Don't do your calls from the damn airship.

Next time: False Dawn