LOYALTY
"YANG!" Blake screamed as she failed at her chance to save her.
Penny had seen enough of this and clipped the staff to the back of her dress before running forward and jumping, flying the same way Cinder had been flying with jets of flames at her feet.
"Y-Yang…" Ruby was mortified at what she had just witnessed. Neo wasn't one to ignore another chance to kill Ruby, only for her target to be pushed backwards and right up to her feet by a propulsion glyph that Weiss created.
"Ruby, we need to fight." Weiss insisted, unsure of which opponent to focus herself on fighting now.
Ruby's grip tightened on Crescent Rose as she charged straight for Neo, swinging Crescent Rose at her, but the shorter woman merely ducked backwards from the attack and swung her umbrella around, knocking Ruby's weapon more off course.
The scene Cinder just witnessed made her smile as she started to float up with her powers, pulling the flames of her tornado into a single hand.
"What was that about forgiveness, Blake?" Cinder taunted while holding the flames in the mourning Blake's direction.
She wouldn't get to fire them off however as Penny quickly flew in and punched her in the face.
"Leave them alone!" the Winter maiden yelled at her Fall counterpart who was easily able to regain her composure after that hit.
"Penny, no!" Weiss immediately ran to help her.
"Why won't you just leave us alone?! Didn't beating you last time teach you anything?!" Penny snarled at Cinder who wiped the bit of blood from her nose that had come out from Penny's hit, letting her aura heal the bruise on her face.
"Oh Penny… I have learned my lesson." she threw a flaming sword at her.
Penny instinctively tried to call out Floating Array, but looked back now, realizing she didn't have it anymore and took a hit from the sword that exploded right in her face, knocking her back towards the platform in front of the Vacuo portal.
Standing herself up again, she created a new set of Floating Array swords out of green obsidian, flying at Cinder to attack her directly.
Blake was a sputtering mess while she forced herself to her feet, glancing between Cinder and Penny's fight and Ruby and Neo's.
Still shaken from the loss of Yang, Blake tightened her grip on Gambol Shroud and charged straight at Neo who had just ducked a swing of Ruby's scythe when Gambol Shroud wrapped around her arm and pulled her towards the cat faunus.
Blake swung her bladed sheath at Neo's head, only shattering an illusion of Neo while the real one managed to kick Ruby across the face, making her stumble back towards a bridge.
Angry at being ignored, Blake charged at Neo again, swinging both of her Gambol Shroud blades at her from behind, only to be parried by hush opening up.
Neo closed it again while swinging it around to deflect a slash from Crescent Rose.
Ruby's gaze focused on Neo now, swinging upwards at her, which made her backflip towards Blake, who the shorter woman was merely dodging the attacks of.
Blake yelled angrily while throwing Gambol Shroud's Kusarigama form at Neo, the shorter woman barely dodging it in time, then deflecting it's next throw back at Blake who caught the gun in her hand and fired shots off at Neo.
Neo quickly spun hush around after opening it again to deflect the bullets fired from Blake, quickly unsheathing it's blade to parry the next attack from Ruby, which caused her to fall backwards.
Blake jumped at Neo, landing atop the opened umbrella part of Hush. She attempted to shoot at Neo directly, but her bullet was deflected by Hush's parrying dagger before Neo inserted it back into the weapon and closed the umbrella, swinging it to make Blake back away.
Ruby was back on her feet and clashed weapons with Neo again.
Penny flew at Cinder, all six of her swords floated around her and collided with the woman's two blades multiple times, the pair reforming their swords as they clashed. All of the obsidian Floating Array swords were thrown Cinder's way and she managed to deflect all but one that stabbed into her Grimm arm.
Growling, Cinder ripped it out and began forming several swords behind her.
But those swords would suddenly be pulled away from her as a gravity well glyph from Weiss removed them from her as Penny flew at her with an open palm of green fire, hitting her directly in the face and launching her towards the glyph
She dispersed it easily by burning it and turning her gaze towards Weiss now, throwing a flaming sword at Penny to distract her as the heiress jumped at her from a propulsion glyph, clashing with a greatsword Cinder formed in her hand just in time to block her.
"Awfully bold of you to come to me after what happened to Yang." she taunted, shoving her back towards a platform of refugees that had been more hesitant to run than most of the other ones.
Weiss stood herself back up and her eyes widened in horror when she saw Cinder forming hundreds of glass shards behind her.
"Everyone get behind me!" Weiss commanded now as Cinder launched the shards of glass her way.
A quickly summoned Arma Gigas sword blocked most of the shards, but a few managed to get by, one of which cutting Weiss's arm… The wound quickly healed thanks to her aura, but those shards still passed through the portal behind Weiss.
On the other side of the portal, Jaune was starting to help an elderly man towards the portal when glass shards began flying out of it. He immediately pulled up his shield to block them, but several of those shards had impacted people behind him and they began to scatter away from the portal. "What?!" Jaune was perplexed now, he knelt down and picked up a single shard of the black glass, narrowing his eyes in anger, but before he could step through the portal to join the fight a screaming woman who had a glass shard stuck in her leg diverted his attention completely.
"I can help, don't worry!" He ran over to her.
Cinder raised a hand upwards, all of the glass shards under Weiss's feet began to glow.
She screamed and barely had enough time to boost herself into the air with a propulsion glyph, but the resulting explosion knocked several more people from the platform.
Weiss had landed herself on another Gravity glyph, but it was clear she was starting to reach her breaking point as the glyph flickered briefly.
Blake charged forward, firing more shots off at Neo, which were all dodged before Weiss's scream immediately made her freeze.
Stopping, Blake saw Penny and Cinder starting to fight again while the exhausted Weiss sat still on a glyph. She glanced back at the battling Ruby and Neo, her grip tightening on Gambol Shroud.
The simple memory of Yang smiling at her came to her mind and she snapped out of her blind rage, watching people struggling all around her while Cinder and Penny's destructive battle raged on.
Neo was solely focused on Ruby from what she could tell, yet she still felt conflicted on which fight to help with.
Upon jumping down into the lower level of her ship, Harriet was surprised to see Vine, leaning against the wall, breathing heavily. "Vine?"
"Harriet, you need to stop this now." Vine insisted. "The General's no longer in command, we don't have to listen to his orders anymore."
"Orders? I'm just… I'm leaving now." she explained with her arms crossed.
"Then why is the bomb armed?" Vine glared forward as Harriet walked over to it and gasped.
"I didn't arm this." she grit her teeth now before glancing up at him.
"Then let me help you disarm-"
"Isn't it obvious? You're wrong about the General. This is his work. He wants me to drop the payload. It's what Clover would have done, isn't it?" Harriet walked around the bomb, but was stopped by one of Vine's arms projecting out with his semblance in front of her.
He looked her sternly in the eyes. "Stop this now, Harriet. You don't need to be complicit in the murder of countless innocents."
Growling, she sped around him and slammed the button down to open the hangar door.
Vine struggled to hold himself inside the ship with his semblance, but Harriet took this chance to jump at him, kicking off of him and sending him flying out of the ship, with him barely grabbing onto the exterior of the ship with one of his extended semblance arms.
Harriet sped back up to the bridge of the ship and tried to turn on communications now. "General? If you're able to receive this message, I'm delivering the payload like you wanted, give me a drop off point." she requested before glancing up at something.
In the distance she could make out a vague black shape approaching the ship, however as it got closer it seemed to be an ordinary crow. That crow quickly shifted into Qrow Branwen who dove towards the ship with Harbinger in hand, slamming through the front windshield while Hariret was barely able to bring her exo-suit out in time and block the attack with her arms, still getting knocked to the floor.
"Stop the ship now, Bree." Qrow demanded as she shoved him off of her
"No, I'm a good soldier, and I'm following my orders!" She ran down into the hangar, but Qrow pursued her.
He shoved her to the wall and held his blade to her throat. "Stop this ship now, you're gonna kill us all!"
Harriet kicked him off of her and onto the bomb, loosening it from the rope that was holding it to the ship.
Qrow lunged forward, but she sped away from him while Harbinger's blade stabbed right into the wall. Harriet took this chance to punch him in the face, separating him from his weapon. He quickly transformed into his avian form to avoid her next attack, transforming back above her and kicking her in the face.
He rolled forward, grabbing his weapon and blocking Harriet's next punch as the other cargo ship bumped right into the one they were in.
Harriet fell backwards, but an extended hand from Vine grasped onto her and slammed her onto a wall.
Without proper footing, Vine was still unable to get back into the ship despite subduing Harriet.
Qrow now ran towards the bomb that was starting to slide out of the ship and attempted to shove it back with all of his weight, but it was too heavy and the tilt of the ship caused him to stumble backwards and grasp onto one of the benches inside of the ship.
"Vine look out!" Qrow warned as he knew his semblance was likely going to make the bomb fly out of the ship now.
Strangely enough, just as it reached the edge of the cargo bay, it stopped and the ship was able to steady itself.
In the cockpit of the other ship, Marrow had just helped Robyn rewire the ship's controls to manual since it was stuck on auto pilot. She now pulled the ship back behind the other one and Elm opened a hatch atop the ship and activated her semblance to ground herself.
Vine finally found some footing with the ship behind them and kicked off of it to boost himself back into the cargo hold, glaring at Harriet.
Qrow stood himself up, breathing heavily before looking at Clover's pin, which he had clutched in his hand the entire time. It glinted brightly for a moment before he pocketed it with a smile. "Thanks…" he muttered under his breath while walking over to Vine and the struggling Harriet.
"Is there any way we can stop this thing without dropping it?" he asked, noticing the timer was down to it's last couple of minutes.
"I can try." Vine walked over and started inputting the override code, but it didn't work. He tried a few other variants, but it didn't work either. "No good." Vine shook his head.
"What do you mean no good?!" Qrow leaned over him.
"None of the codes are working, it's like someone overwrote them entirely." Vine explained as the timer ticked down to 1 minute now. "The bomb's going to go off within seconds. You all need to leave now."
"Leave? But what about you-" Harriet spoke up.
Vine looked her in the eyes remorsefully before passing her over to Elm who grasped onto her tightly, her feet rooted on the ship behind them.
"You won't be able to escape the blast in time. I need to stay behind. I can contain it." he explained to Qrow.
"But you'll die!" Elm held the now struggling Harriet in her arms.
"And I'd be okay with that because you're all my friends!" He smiled at them now.
"Vine, please, there has to be something else we can do!" Harriet managed to free herself from Elm's grasp.
"It's okay." he assured his friends while Qrow nodded to him.
"Thank you for this, Vine."
Vine returned the nod. "Take care of my friends."
With that Qrow jumped out of the ship and landed atop the cargo ship right behind them as Robyn began to steer it away from the ship with the bomb.
Vine got into a meditative stance, closing his eyes and focusing his aura before it extended out over his body and enveloped the whole ship like a flower blossoming.
"VINE!" Harriet called out to him as the ship exploded, but the explosion was contained entirely within Vine's projected aura. It faded out soon after, leaving nothing but smoke in its wake as Harriet finally broke down and embraced her emotions.
Jaune emerged through a portal, ushering people towards the larger one while watching the ensuing fight between Cinder and Penny in the distance.
"Jaune!" Nora ran over to him when he neared the central portal.
She now turned her attention to what was going on. "We need to prioritize getting people out of here like we have. We have to trust that Ruby and the others have this." Jaune explained.
Nora nodded in agreement before running over to help Jaune usher more people to safety.
"Come on… I know you got this…" Jaune tightened his grip on his sword's handle before returning his focus on directing citizens towards the larger portal.
Weiss fired a volley of icicles in Cinder's direction that she merely flew around to dodge while Penny attempted to conjure a thunderstorm around herself like before, only to be interrupted by Cinder throwing dozens of glass spears in her direction that she was barely able to dodge around.
While her attention was averted towards Penny, Weiss launched herself at Cinder again with a spinning slash.
Cinder barely conjured a shield of glass behind herself in time to block the strike, but now Weiss was above her on a propulsion glyph and Penny was rushing at her again.
Smirking at this chance, she simply waited till they were both about to collide with her before dropping herself out of the air and onto a bridge while the pair were the ones to collide with each other instead.
The staff clattered to the ground in front of the portal to Vacuo.
"All too easy." she held a flaming hand forward at the pair who were trying to pull themselves up.
Before she could launch her next attack at the pair, Gambol Shroud's Kusarigama hooked onto her arm and pulled it away while Blake rushed straight at her, tackling her to the larger platform in front of the Vacuo portal.
She kicked Blake off of herself, but the faunus caught herself easily now and began unloading another clip of ammunition at Cinder while picking the staff up.
"Weiss, Ruby needs help, I'll help Penny now." she tossed the staff at the ex-heiress, who caught it. "Keep the staff away from Cinder at all costs."
Weiss could only nod while catching the staff and running off to assist her team leader.
Blake transformed Gambol Shroud back into it's katana form and ran at Cinder with both blades drawn again while Penny narrowly dodged a sword thrown in her direction and flew up into the air again above Cinder.
Ruby spun Crescent Rose downward in an attempt to break through Neo's opened umbrella, but the woman merely closed it while Ruby stabbed her scythe into the ground. She then hopped right on top of it and kicked the huntress across the face, making her back away from the stuck scythe.
Neo ran straight for Ruby, but Ruby split herself into two blurs of petals and grabbed her scythe, running backwards and firing shots off at Neo that were deflected by Hush. "I don't know why you're here, but I will stop you!" Ruby yelled as Neo shattered into glass from one shot and appeared to her right and slammed a closed Hush onto the side of Ruby's head.
The girl stumbled, but then decided to use that momentum to spin around and swing her scythe at Neo, a move that was easily ducked under and punished with an upwards kick to her chin and a jab from Hush's handle.
Thinking on her feet, Ruby threw Crescent Rose at Neo but the shorter woman merely stepped to the side to avoid it while Ruby sped around to catch her weapon and swing vertically at the woman.
That move was quickly parried like so many other of Ruby's attacks, but before Neo could follow-up her attack, a white blur flew right at her and struck her directly in the gut with the staff of creation, knocking her through a portal that was on the platform.
"Ruby, are you okay?" Weiss helped her up now.
"Y-Yeah, thanks for the assist, Weiss." she saw the staff in Weiss's hand now.
"We can't let Cinder get her hands on the staff." she explained to Ruby before quickly passing it to her when Neo emerged from the portal and attempted to stab at her with Hush's blade.
Weiss quickly brought up a glyph that blocked the hit, but the impact still launched her backwards.
"Weiss!" Ruby ran after her teammate, but was cut off when glass shattered in front of her and Neo struck her shoulder with Hush's blade, leaving a cut that her aura was slowly beginning to heal.
Ruby tried to hit Neo with the staff that was in one of her hands, but the woman merely hooked onto the relic with Hush's handle and pulled it from Ruby's hands, spinning around with it and striking her on the side of the head with it's blunt end, knocking her from the platform.
Thankfully a lower bridge caught the girl, but Crescent Rose bounced off of it and into the void. "No!" Ruby glanced back while Neo glared forward, breaking into a sprint now.
Cinder briefly smirked at that sight before blocking the incoming slashes from Blake who ran at her.
She swung a sword at Blake's head, but only decapitated a clone while the real Blake vanished out of sight, leaving an opening for Penny who threw one of her swords at her, the blade bouncing off of her body while Blake reloaded another clip of ammunition into Gambol Shroud and started firing off shots at the woman.
"Pitiful." Cinder scoffed before forming a pillar of glass underneath herself that Blake charged through, cutting down.
"I would have thought you'd have been smarter than that, Blake." Cinder stated as she floated in the air above the girl while the glass pillar fell.
"What?!" Blake was confused before her eyes went wide at the sight of the floating fragments of glass around her.
With a snap of her fingers, the fragments of glass all detonated and Blake was launched from the platform.
"Blake!" Penny flew after her, throwing several swords in Cinder's direction, which effectively distracted her while she caught the faunus with both of her hands.
Looking around, Cinder returned her attention to what she assumed to be the end of Ruby and Neo's fight.
Ruby took a step back now as Neo was still running towards her, she was at the edge of the bridge.
"I hope it was worth it." Ruby held her arms out as the blade protruded out of Hush's tip and Neo reeled it back to stab her.
Before Neo stabbed her, Ruby fell backwards from the bridge and used her semblance to pull herself around it and shove Neo off the bridge, also knocking the staff of creation into the air.
However, before Ruby could catch the staff, Cinder landed herself right behind Ruby, knocking her from the platform.
She caught Neo's foot while she hung from the edge of the bridge, starting to pull herself up by first dropping her umbrella onto it and then reaching her hand towards Cinder who walked over to the pair, glaring down at them.
She kicked Hush into the void. "You should have never threatened me." she coldly glared at Neo before using her Grimm arm to take the lamp from her belt, clipping it to her own now while Ruby glared up at her, starting to charge her eyes up again.
"And you…" she looked Ruby in the eyes, but was surprised when she let go of Neo's foot.
Neo held onto the ledge, glaring as she tried to pull herself up while Cinder's attention turned back towards Ruby.
Ruby landed herself right behind Cinder and was breathing heavily. "Cinder!" Ruby yelled while running right for her with a raised fist.
Cinder oddly didn't bother raising her guard and instead let Ruby punch her across the face. "Is that really the extent of your anger?" she goaded Ruby who yelled now.
Punch after punch struck Cinder's face as Ruby kept going, tears flowing down her face now. Her breathing was more labored and she reeled her fist back one last time. "You… Can't win!"
The last punch Ruby Rose threw out was caught by Cinder's shadow hand and a smile formed on the woman's face now while she started twisting Ruby's arm around. "Oh but I have." She released her grip on Ruby's arm.
The girl immediately tried punching her again, but Cinder dodged away from this next one. "You're already so thoroughly broken and you don't even realize it. It's almost pitiable." Cinder smiled while dodging the next slow punch from Ruby.
She began to form a glass scythe in her hand, almost as if she were mocking the girl now.
"No…" Ruby's tears fell freely as she pulled her fist back again for another punch, her eyes were beginning to glow again.
Cinder reeled her scythe back now. "You should have never been born, Ruby Rose." she coldly declared before swinging downward with the scythe and hitting Ruby directly, breaking her aura and knocking her from the bridge into the void.
Neo had just pulled herself back to the ledge, but was struck by Ruby as she fell backwards, falling into the void with her.
"RUBY!" Blake and Penny both cried out as Cinder angrily turned her attention towards them and with one of her hands she threw a fireball at them.
Penny quickly threw Blake while taking the hit from the fireball directly.
Gambol Shroud hooked onto a platform and Blake swung from it, managing to scoop Ruby up into her arms.
"I've got you, it'll be okay." Blake tried to assure her leader, but the defeated look in her eyes still remained.
Before they could swing back up onto a platform, the glass scythe Cinder created was thrown right through Gambol Shroud's ribbon, severing it completely.
Blake gasped and Ruby began to slip out of her grip as they fell into the void, dissolving into it.
"RUBY, BLAKE!" Penny watched from a platform she landed on as the pair fell into the void. "No…" she fell to her knees as tears began to form in her eyes.
A smile formed on the Fall Maiden's face as she walked over, her target was ripe for the taking.
Cinder extended her shadow hand with the intent on claiming her prize, but was cut off when a summoned Sabyr Grimm jumped right into it, taking the hit.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Weiss yelled as a bullet struck Cinder's back. She was using Gambol Shroud now. She charged forward with it and Myrtenaster in hand.
"I think that's the last of them." Jaune stated as he stared at the portal, this hub world had been mostly cleared out now.
"That means we're good to help now, right?" Nora asked as she brandished Magnhild.
"I'll help." Jaune assured while transforming his shield out now. "Nora, you should go and get back up on the other side."
A smile formed on her face while she put her weapon away. "I'll be back before you know it." she assured cheekily, pulling Jaune into a quick hug before running through the portal.
Jaune ran forward now, glancing around the portal hub until he spotted them, Weiss and Cinder engaged in a fight. The latter blasted the former back with a wave of fire.
"It figures that you're the last one left, Schnee. It's almost poetic how you'd let all your friends die before you." She formed a claymore in her hand.
"A-As long as I'm still standing here, Team RWBY still stands." Weiss stood herself up, her hair was now unfurled and her breathing had grown heavier.
"Well then, allow me to end your pitiful little team once and for all!" Cinder sped forward, sword raised.
A distant yell diverted her attention as Jaune Arc flew in, riding his shield like a hang-glider and planting himself firmly in front of Cinder, bashing her directly with his shield, the gravity dust repelling her backwards and knocking the claymore from her hand.
"You and I have unfinished business." Jaune unsheathed his sword as Weiss nodded at him with her posture ready after Transforming Gambol Shroud into it's Katana form.
Penny stood up again with tears still in her eyes and formed more green obsidian Floating Array Blades behind herself while floating upwards.
Cinder Fall straightened her posture. "Just another mistake I need to correct." She formed another pair of swords in her hands and readied her battle stance.
Commentary: So this was an intense chapter to write out...
I'll begin with the stuff I wanna get out of the way quickly. The bits with Qrow and the Ace Ops, not too drastically different than what we got in the show, although there's some more clear logic in what's happening, such as the reason why Vine has to sacrifice himself is that the other ship wouldn't be able to escape the explosion in time.
Now then to get back to the stuff I wanna get more in depth on. The stuff going on in the portal hub... A lot of the same story beats are still carried over from canon, it's mainly the fighting that differs vastly from what we got.
My biggest gripe with the finale we got was the fight choreography with the stuff against Cinder, which I do blame a lot of that on the conditions caused by the pandemic that no one could have accounted for. Now would the fights we got in the finale of the actual show be as big as the fights I've been writing out here? Oh heavens no. Given how many particle effects the teams would have to use for the stuff Cinder does, it'd be pure insanity, not to mention the overall nightmare that would be rendering it all. I like to say this a lot, but I'll say it again, a lot of this rewrite series has been mainly me being self indulgent.
One excuse I've heard for why the fights were lackluster for the big finale lore wise was that everyone was exhausted from being bounced around one place to another. But I mean, after the Hound, Ruby, Weiss, and Blake were all pretty much just chilling in canon. They had time to rest and recuperate a little. I don't quite buy it for them as much as I would with regard to Yang.
Getting back to the topic of the fights, the fight with Neo here was pretty much just angry people throwing themselves at each other. Neo being angry about Roman's death, and Ruby and Blake being upset about Yang's. The latter pair thankfully came to their senses, but unfortunately it was still not enough to save them from Cinder.
Weiss is definitely the MVP here, with all the support she's been providing the others. I also couldn't resist unfurling her hair here like in a certain fanart I saw after the finale.
The big part with Cinder is her starting to take things more seriously when it comes to eliminating her targets in this chapter and she more than succeeds at it, at least with three of her targets. The first of which being Neo, who she betrays like in canon.
Ruby's last stand against Cinder here might be considered a bit, if not very much cliché, but honestly... I loved what I did for it, Ruby getting her chance to wipe that smug grin off of Cinder's face with her fists, only for her attacks to be completely useless, shown by how Cinder lets her get those first few punches in. Ruby's eyes not going off here are more or a result of her being pretty much broken. She already failed to save someone, that being her sister... It's hanging over her head, as are the countless other deaths happening as a result of Cinder's actions. As far as she's concerned she realizes she can't beat Cinder and what really put the nail in the coffin was Cinder's last mocking attack on her with the glass scythe, talk about insult to injury...
The main theme of this chapter was of course loyalty like the title, playing mainly off of the section with the Ace Ops and Neo's fate here.
Tune in next chapter for the grand finale of Volume 8!