AMITY
The old dust mine that was Amity's designated launch site was completely rigged up with explosives, Penny knelt in front of the last bomb and looked around at the place for what she knew would be the last time.
"I remember when our friends and the Ace Ops first cleared out this place…" Penny remarked with a slight chuckle.
"Well,just think of it like this, darlin', we're completing the mission they set off to start." Pietro reasoned.
"I miss those times…" Penny admitted. "Do you think we'll ever have a time like that again?"
Pietro didn't exactly have an answer for her. "I…"
"I'm done planting the explosives." Penny stated as she started to fly out of the mines.
"Great, we'll see you up here in a few and you can start the launch." Pietro affirmed before hanging up the call with Penny while she flew out.
On a drone's camera, Penny was visibly caught flying up to Amity.
"So she's there." Ironwood crossed his arms before turning towards Watts. "Are you finished yet?" he asked.
"Just about." Watts assured the general as with a pair of tweezers he held up a black chip. "This contains the virus, all we need to do is wait till Amity is at its apex and then activate our little hack."
"Excellent." the General stared at another screen that was fixated on Amity, watching Penny fly back up towards it.
"Systems are a go, we just need a boost to get us high enough up into the atmosphere before our thrusters can take over." Pietro explained.
"It sure is a good thing we're sitting atop a couple hundred tons of thrust, right?!" Maria laughed as she marched her AP-06 over to Pietro, setting a large piece of equipment down.
"All that's left for us to do is get up into the sky, stabilize ourselves there to restore communications, broadcast the message, and finally pilot ourselves away from this mess." Pietro stated as he began to work on the terminal.
"We're leaving?" Penny balled her hand up into a fist. "But my friends, they're-"
"We're not about to have this conversation again, Penny." Pietro looked her in the eyes. "As your father it's my place to say where you belong, and you belong here in Amity with us."
"Y-Yes, Dad..." Penny sat herself down on the edge of the upper platform where Amity's main communications rig was.
Maria climbed out of her mech and walked over. "Don't you think the poor girl's had enough of people telling her what to do?"
Pietro let out a shrug before turning over toward them. "Brace yourselves for the launch, I'm moving us into position."
Penny stood up and walked over to the terminal. "It's requesting access… Now!" Penny's eyes opened briefly flickering a few different colors before the terminal approved their launch access.
"It's done!" Pietro smiled as Maria tapped her cane on the floor.
The launch sequence was finally beginning with a countdown from 30.
"You should probably hang on tight because we're going up!" he warned as Maria and Penny both leaned on his chair.
That was until an explosion ripped through the bottom of the arena.
"AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?!" Cinder's voice called out as she flew in, standing atop her stolen Manta ship, with Emerald and Neo sitting inside..
Penny stood herself up now, gritting her teeth in anger.
"Penny, no!" Pietro tried to stop her, but was already too late as Cinder smiled upon seeing her enemy.
She landed herself in the arena, standing right across from Cinder as the hole Cinder tore through the arena notably caused a malfunction which resulted in a couple of the biomes to activate. One of which was a foggy swamp, while the other was simply the ice biome. She had the five remaining Floating Array swords hovering behind her and pointed in Cinder's direction.
Neo and Emerald emerged from the ship beside Cinder, with Neo tipping her hat and looking around, glaring at Penny.
Before any words could be shared, the timer for the launch hit 0, and with it, the colorful explosion of the dust mine launched Amity further up into the stratosphere, bringing all combatants to their knees from the sheer force of the launch.
Neo held onto her hat while Cinder smiled, forming dozens of glass swords on the ground. Penny responded in kind by creating dozens of ice swords behind her on the ground..
As the launch took place, Ironwood narrowed his eyes at the footage before turning his attention towards Watts who smiled.
"Showtime." the doctor stated with his chip at the ready.
"We were really hoping your friends would be here, I guess they just decided to leave you with all the busy work, huh?!" Cinder taunted, watching in slight amusement how many swords her and Penny were creating, almost as though it were a game. "They're treating you like nothing more than a tool…" those words only made Penny's anger toward the woman grow.
"You don't know a thing about them!" she yelled as the arena finished it's ascent into the sky, the resulting effect was all of the swords and combatants being lifted up into the air. Neo was able to catch herself with her Umbrella, while Emerald wrapped Thief's Respite's chain onto a chair in the stands to anchor herself.
Cinder and Penny both caught themselves in midair along with all of the swords they created, all of which were now aimed directly at each other. The swords began to fly while the two maidens stared each other down.
Floating Array deflected each sword that got too close to Penny, while Cinder manually deflected each icy blade that got too close to her before smirking and swinging one of her swords upward, a glass sword shot up from under Penny, causing her to lose focus, giving Cinder the chance to destroy Penny's remaining ice blades and start to focus a direct assault on her with more thrown swords.
Penny flew around to dodge as many of them as she could, also using Floating Array to deflect those that got too close.
She flew right towards one of the Arena borders and was caught off guard when an impaled sword started to glow brighter before detonating right in her face and sending her flying back into the swamp biome.
Cinder flew in after her, but found herself cut off by the AP-06 mech jumping down in front of her and surprising her with a punch to her face, sending her flying backwards.
"Get the hell away from her you fiery bitch!" Maria yelled out at Cinder before suddenly the chain of Thief's Respite tugged at the arm of the mech and Neo appeared standing at the base of it with a sly smile
Maria pulled back, sending Emerald flying right at her, which was exactly what she wanted… She opened fire on the mech while flying overhead and landed herself adjacent to Neo who just rolled her eyes.
Cinder was able to brake herself in midair, starting to regain her bearings, but barely getting enough time to react before Penny flew right at her, with all 5 of Floating Array's swords stabbing directly at her, she created a glass wall on the spot that blocked the swords before forming a greatsword in one of her hands and swinging it at Penny, who blocked it with Floating Array, but the force was still too great for her and she was slammed right into the stands of the arena.
Cinder attempted to slam the sword down onto Penny again, but found the sword shattered by a focused laser blast and soon enough she was blasted away by a powerful gust of wind that Penny had conjured around her.
The fall maiden grit her teeth and threw out a fireball in Penny's direction that was blasted out of the air by a laser blast from a single Floating Array sword as Penny took note of the damage going onto Amity by scanning around with her eyes, she had to take this fight outside.
A slight smile formed on her face as she flew herself towards one of the arena exits, prompting her opponent to follow after her ."You're not going anywhere!" Cinder yelled out, forming a bow in her hands now.
The fog in the swamp biome was dense, too dense for Maria to see through effectively with her eyes as she started trudging through the waters with her mech, coming to a sudden stop when she heard movement.
Turning the mech around quickly, she threw a punch out with it in Neo's direction, who merely backflipped onto a tree while Emerald started firing on her from behind again and throwing out one of the scythe blades of her weapon, successfully managing to leave a gash on the metal of the mech, which caused it to spark slightly.
"Damn hunk of junk… You'd think Atlas would put more effort into these models that regular people use!" Maria moved to grab the trunk of a tree and rip it out of the ground, slinging it over the Mech's shoulder like a makeshift weapon.
It would be then that Emerald activated her semblance, making Maria see multiple Neos around her, all of whom were standing still, which made her back away now.
The older woman's mechanical eyes narrowed as the real Neo proceeded to make her move, only to be nearly struck by the tree branch.
"You'll have to do more than that to fool this old hag!" Maria taunted before she felt something land on the back of her mech.
"Oh we know." Emerald's voice echoed from right behind her as she opened fire into the gash she had left in the mech while Neo started to climb up it as well and started to stab at various joints to restrict her movement further, resulting in the tree trunk dropping from the robot's grasp.
"Get off of me you damn brats!" Maria yelled while making the mech jump up slightly, effectively shaking the two women off of her before starting to march the mech forward until it came to a sudden stop, it seemed as though the swamp biome had some deeper spots in it, to make it more like an actual swamp and now she was stuck.
Looking around, she wasn't sure what to do now, apart from opening the pilot's hatch.
Penny tumbled on the ground as an arrow fired from Cinder, exploded right in front of her. They were now on the outside of the arena.
Penny knew she had to draw Cinder out further from the arena and started to fire on her with Floating Array's lasers. The Fall Maiden blocked and dodged around any lasers that got too close before firing out a single arrow in Penny's direction that she sliced to pieces, but this is exactly what Cinder wanted as the pieces started to grow outward into jagger pieces of glass that Penny barely had time to draw two of her swords to start deflecting before flying back again.
"Running again." Cinder was getting annoyed at this game of cat and mouse she was playing with Penny before following her just outside of the arena.
While the two maidens began their battling outside, Ironwood, Watts, the Ace Operatives, and Winter watched.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me." Harriet grunted in annoyance, glaring at Watts.
"What's that meatheaded brute doing now?!" Watts was also annoyed at this, watching as a blast from Penny actually managed to clip Cinder's Grimm arm, which quickly grew back.
"Stand by for now." Ironwood ordered the soldiers who had their weapons trained on Watts.
Winter's gaze focused on Penny in that fight. "Come on…"
Emerald landed atop a branch, just above where Neo was. "Do you have this? I'm gonna go help Cinder."
Neo merely smiled and nodded before carefully balancing herself from tree branch to tree branch.
As Maria started to crawl out of the destroyed mech with her cane, Neo landed right on top of it and smiled.
"What are you after?!" she asked the shorter woman before she turned into Ruby.
"My new protege, eh? I can't have you hurting her." Maria was grabbed by the collar and thrown out into the swamp, barely managing to catch herself on a tree branch by transforming her cane out into its scythe form.
Neo jumped down in pursuit of the elderly woman.
Three arrows formed in Cinder's bow that were all fired in Penny's direction and narrowly dodged between, much to Cinder's annoyance as they would only detonate on Amity, doing more structural damage to the arena.
Penny conjured more ice swords behind her, throwing them at Cinder in an attempt to keep her away, each getting deflected or dodged around as the two maidens now took their fight higher into the night sky.
"Well isn't this scenic." Cinder mused, getting no response from Penny who flew directly at her.
Floating Array circled around Penny as she flew forward, Cinder barely being able to dodge the swords in time as the circle was thrown at her. She then reached out with her Grimm arm at Penny, who merely froze the arm with a focused blast of ice, flying at Cinder and uppercutting her backwards, she spiraled in midair again before coming to a stop, with Penny still floating only a few feet away from her.
She was confused at the fact that Penny had stopped at the aggression, but quickly realized that it was because she was surrounded by ice swords the other girl had conjured. Floating Array's blades were among them and Penny held her hand out and all swords came down on Cinder at the same time, a few of the blades nicked her while she desperately tried to deflect and dodge them.
Having enough of this, she let out a yell and an explosion of fire erupted around her, resulting in all of Penny's Floating Array swords flying back around to her, but quickly correcting course.
One sword fired a laser at Cinder that she blocked by raising her arms, pushing her further back away from Amity.
Penny now placed herself between Cinder and Amity, which gave the Fall Maiden an idea, when she realized what her opponent had been doing this entire time.
A dozen more fiery swords formed besides Cinder and they all flew out in Penny's direction, prompting Penny to do as she had done before, only this time, Cinder flew around her entirely and was starting to make her way back to Amity.
"No, no, no!" Penny panicked as Cinder flew back right into Amity.
Maria had managed to keep herself ahead of the pursuing Neo, finally landing herself on some solid ground in the central area of Amity after swinging from tree to tree. She held her back in slight pain as Neo emerged as well.
"Give me a second dearie…" Maria pleaded with Neo who wasn't having any of it and motioned to stab her with Hush, but found herself caught off guard when Maria hooked onto one of her legs with her scythe, causing her to trip on the floor, where she quickly picked herself up.
"The ol' broken back… Gets em' every time!" Maria laughed before holding her back slightly as Neo rushed her again, with more stabs from Hush's blade that were parried or dodged.
Neo was certainly surprised that this little old lady had more fight in her than she thought, and she was also abruptly pulled down by her umbrella and smacked directly in the face by the skull on Maria's scythe and kicked in the stomach, falling back slightly.
Laughter echoed through the arena as Maria was clearly having the time of her life against her enraged opponent, while all Pietro could really do at this point was listen to them go at it. "Come on!" he was desperately trying to get the broadcast online, not realizing that Cinder had returned to the arena and was aiming a fireball at him.
"DAAD!" Penny cried out as she took the blast head on, landing directly behind him now with her swords out and ready.
"Tell me Penny, is he truly a father to you? Or is he just someone else wanting to choose your fate for you?" Cinder asked.
"Well why do you serve Salem, then?!" Penny shouted back at her, floating upwards as Cinder simply aimed a focused blast of fire towards one of the support beams on the platform, starting to melt it, prompting Penny to respond with a blast of ice to prevent it from collapsing.
"I serve no-one." Cinder coldly responded before doing the same to another support beam, now forcing Penny to use her other hand to hold that one steady as the platform did notably start to shake from the damage done to the supports.
Cinder now flew directly at Penny, her Grimm arm latched onto the girl's face as she screamed while feeling her aura starting to get siphoned away.
All 5 of Floating Array's blades struck Cinder at the same time, sending her flying backwards from Penny, but her arm didn't let go until Penny had struck her in the face with a blast of lightning.
Down near the bottom of the arena, Maria was making easy work of Neo who was struggling with being more on the offensive, while the older woman kept tripping her up and countering everything she did.
"I was a legendary huntress you know." Maria chuckled before hopping up onto Hush and then jumping right onto Neo's face, sending her stumbling forward and right into the Manta ship she had flown in on. "And that's why you don't mess with old ladies!" Maria confidently rested her weight onto her scythe that was transformed back into it's walking cane form before turning her attention back over to the larger fight at hand.
An array of electrified ice swords flew at Cinder that she barely could block as exhaustion was starting to get the best of her.
"Hey, Cinder!" Emerald called out to her from the stands of the arena and smirked in her direction.
Cinder knew exactly what she was thinking now and formed a large spear in her hand before rushing straight for Penny who clashed weapons with her, all 5 of floating Array's swords shattering the spear that quickly reformed itself while Cinder spun it over her shoulders and hit Penny back with it's tip.
As Penny began to reorient herself she suddenly found herself surrounded by several visages of Cinder.
"Which one am I?" they all asked at the same time in the same condescending tone.
Penny closed her eyes now, starting to focus a storm just above herself while Emerald smiled, focusing her semblance on Penny now.
Opening her eyes, Penny glanced around at the Cinders that were starting to close their distance on her before finding the real one thanks to heat detection she had.
She let herself get struck directly with a bolt of lightning from the storm she conjured, with that and the five Floating Array swords that hovered in front of her pointed hand, she fired a single blast of energy and electricity that launched Cinder onto one of the Arena's walls, electrocuting and burning her at the same time before her aura shattered entirely and she fell to the ground unconscious.
"CINDER!" Emerald immediately hopped over some seats to rush for her.
Glancing around at the Arena, Penny also noticed Neo starting to sneak up on Maria, it only took a single blast from a sword to break her aura as she fell to the ground besides the ship she had previously been knocked into.
Her attention quickly turned towards the downed Cinder as she floated over towards her and Emerald.
"Cinder come on, get up! Please! I need to know you care about me!" Emerald pleaded with the unconscious maiden as she heard the sounds of Penny's swords charging up a focused blast.
Growling, Emerald opened fire in Penny's direction, the shots were missing oddly enough. "I know I can't beat you… But I can probably put enough holes in that equipment you're working with to ruin it! Let us go and we'll leave you be." she promised.
"Fine." Penny put her swords away before flying over towards her father to check on him.
Emerald dragged the unconscious Cinder into the ship that Neo was busy starting up now. They flew out through the hole they tore through Amity.
"AND STAY OUT!" Maria shouted while catching her breath still.
"Is everything okay, Dad?" Penny asked him worriedly as she set Maria down.
"I'm fine, but… I don't think we'll be able to send our message out. We're just out of the proper altitude and we're already starting to lose ground fast." Pietro explained as Penny stared out at the sky and then back towards her father.
"I can do it." she stated flatly.
His eyes widened and he took hold of her hand. "No, it's too dangerous out there!"
"But all of this work we'll have done will be for nothing!" Penny insisted.
"I don't give a damn about any of it! I just want my daughter to be able live her life and be happy!" he exclaimed aloud as he felt tears start to well up in his eyes.
Frowning, Penny held his hand back and took his hat off, kissing his head. "I promise it'll work out fine, Dad. I'll be back before you know it."
The man coughed now as Penny put his hat back on. "Please, be safe." he looked her in the eyes.
"I will." she flew off and out of the arena.
Maria walked over now. "Every bird has to leave the nest eventually." she sagely stated while leaning on her cane.
As she flew out into the night sky, the moon glimmered behind her, and down below her she could make out the city of Atlas, with Mantle below it and the approaching Monstra.
Closing her eyes she flew around towards Amity, pushing it up with all of her might, using her maiden powers to give her that extra boost needed to push the floating arena up further into the sky.
Pietro watched keenly as the signal was starting to grow stronger, it had worked, global communications were now restored!
Now all he needed to do was just get the message streaming out to all of Remnant. He hit the enter key on his keyboard and now watched the progress bar begin to move.
"It's time, Arthur." General Ironwood stated after the Ace Ops were looking at their scrolls to see communications restored.
"I thought you'd never ask." the man smiled as he delicately began the process of applying the chip to the Floating Array sword, needing to put the other pieces back in place before the virus could do it's work…
Everyone around Remnant was surprised to see their global communications restored and began making frantic calls to loved ones whom they hadn't seen or heard from in a while.
Will Scarlatina started a call with his daughter who seemed happy to see him. "Dad?" she asked in surprise.
On a Mistral rooftop, Ilia was watching as people began looking at their scrolls upon seeing that global communication was back for them.
In the middle of Shade Academy's courtyard Sun and Neptune were looking at their scrolls in disbelief, and shared a knowing look about who was responsible for this.
Saphron and Terra decided to call Jaune to see if things were working out alright in Atlas.
Jaune was taken aback to be seeing such a long distance call being made from his sister.
Yang peered over his shoulder and smiled. "Well I'll be damned, they actually did it."
Taiyang instinctively reached for his scroll and started to call for Ruby when suddenly he saw her on his screen… As did every other person on Remnant.
She was standing in a dimly lit room inside of the bar her group had retreated to down in Mantle.
"Oh um...Am I on?" Ruby asked nervously.
"You're live right now, you dunce!" Weiss groaned from behind the camera.
"Oh uh… People of Remnant!" Ruby waved to the camera. "My name is Ruby Rose, I'm a huntress." she began.
Ruby peered over Blake's shoulder, super excited to see that her message was being broadcasted out to the world like she had planned.
"If everything went right, then this message is broadcasting out to all of Remnant right now." she stated.
"Dr. Polendina can explain more to you all later, but what you need to know right now is that the Kingdom of Atlas is under attack." footage of the distant Monstra was shown now. "Things are dire, now more than ever before, what we need is help. But you don't have to panic, because this isn't some new enemy… This is an ancient enemy that's existed as long as all of us have been around. Salem." Ruby began.
Adrian waved to Ruby, who was on the screen of Saphron's scroll.
"Dude…" Neptune and Sun stared at each other now, while listening to Ruby's message.
"The White Fang, Atlesian Knights, and even the creatures of Grimm have all been manipulated by her to cause as much chaos as possible and tear down the huntsmen academies. " Ruby explained further.
Ilia's eyes narrowed at this realization, which made her grit her teeth as a message from Ghira arrived on her scroll that she clicked on while the message continued.
Down in Mantle Joanna and Fiona were watching the broadcast as well, the latter of whom was smiling to see that at least someone's plan worked.
Penny forced her back into it more as Ruby's message continued, screaming out as she gave it her all to ensure that message was broadcasted out there.
"Now while the concepts of Maidens and relics sounds made up, I can promise you that Professor Goodwitch and Theodore can verify all of this information." Ruby added.
Glynda was certainly surprised to see one of her students broadcasting a message to all of Remnant, but was even more surprised at all that she was giving away, while the shopkeep behind her just kept dusting off his old store.
"They can help us organize a way to fight back against this threat." Ruby reasoned. "But General Ironwood." she looked down regretfully. "He can't be trusted anymore."
Harriet turned off the main TV in the command center when Ruby stated the General couldn't be trusted, a smile vanishing off of Marrow's face as Ironwood watched Dr. Watts carefully.
"How's progress?" he asked.
"Almost there." The Doctor assured.
"We didn't have time to prepare for Salem, but you all do!" Ruby implored. "Just because she's immortal and can't be destroyed, doesn't mean she can't be beaten, there's a reason she's hidden herself in the shadows this long!"
Ruby was glancing around the room now. "She knows we're a threat when banded together! So even if we- Even if Atlas falls… You can't give up."
Salem was watching the broadcast from Tyrian's scroll and stroking his head like he was her Hound.
The chip was finally planted and Watts smiled while looking up at General Ironwood.
Penny was in the midst of applying as much force as possible to Amity when suddenly something affected her head and she screamed, her eyes flickering red now.
"Penny, what's happening?!" Pietro asked her as she quickly picked herself up and flew back into Amity, pushing with her shoulder out of desperation to ensure that the message would finish.
"I do not know!" she cried out, still holding her head, but not letting up. "I must go to the vault- I… No!" she screamed as the virus was beginning to take effect on her.
On Taiyang's living room TV, he was watching Ruby's broadcast intently with Zwei sitting on his lap.
"I hope that Amity tower will bring us all back together, because in the end that's the only way we'll win-" Ruby's message cut off there as global communications died again.
"NO, come back!" Taiyang cried out as he held an arm out towards the screen before falling to his knees, Zwei hopping off of his lap as he did. "Please…"
"Penny, you've done enough darlin' it's time to go back in!" Pietro insisted. "We'll ride out Amity together!"
"N-No! I have to… Open the vault.. And Self-terminate?!" her eyes widened at that last statement. "D-DAD!?" she cried out as her eyes started to dim and she began to fall, struggling to jump start her thrusters, but it was no use as they were shutting down.
"Penny what's happening?! Please, say something, anything!" Pietro pleaded with her as she was starting to burn up from the fall.
"I love you…" Penny's voice stated before she was cut off from his call.
"Penny!" Pietro called out for her, but no answer came as he broke down into a fit of coughs and tears. Maria put a hand over his back to comfort him as he wept. "Penny…"
Jaune, Ren, and Yang were beginning to ride closer to Atlas on their HVB, with Jaune still holding his scroll up. "Come on!" he groaned. "The broadcast is down."
"What could have happened to it?" Yang asked in concern before Ren's eyes narrowed as he heard a sound in the distance, hopping off the HVB and running to where he heard it.
"Ren, where are you going?!" Yang began to follow suit before coming to a halt when Ren held his arm out in front of her.
Jaune wasn't too far behind as he came to a halt when he saw it as well.
"What… Is this?" Ren asked as he saw a black river starting to open up and spread further down the Tundra in Mantle's direction.
Yang and Ren had to take another step back as the ground they stood on collapsed into the river, disintegrating upon making contact with it.
"It's a river? Of Grimm..." Yang was perplexed now before she saw a single clawed arm emerge from the river followed by more behind it.
"It's headed straight for the Kingdom." Jaune unsheathed Crocea Mors as the others readied their weapons as well.
Commentary: I absolutely LOVED writing this chapter, between the large scale fight with Penny and Cinder as well as the cameos later on, it just felt real good.
I had to throw in all the stops for that fight, which admittedly I did think about Penny's use of the maiden powers, for the most part, she's really just using stuff she's picked up from seeing Cinder and Fria in action, along with her own weapons being used. She did get pretty creative at the end there by charging herself faster with electricity.
Maria vs Neo and Emerald was a fight that I just HAD to make into more of an actual fight. You might say that mech went down a bit too easy, but you should probably realize that the AP-06 is a construction mech, so not built for battle. Aka, it lacks all the armor plating you'd find in your standard Atlesian Paladin model since it's designed for only lifting heavy things, and all that bulky armor would do is slow it down. Maria being more experienced and her preflex semblance is what gave her the advantage against Neo here. She's practically a hard counter to her.
Ruby's speech is mostly the same in tone, although I did give a brief bit of time before that for communications to be restored and for people to try and reach out to those who they had previously lost contact with. This is a point that's going to matter in the other story I'm writing that will be in parallel to this one timeline wise.
The Grimm river also got a few changes, the biggest one being the fact that some Grimm have managed to seep out of it, likely attracted by the presence of our main trio present there...