THE FINAL WORD
Over the slowly fading remains of Monstra, pools of black liquid began to slowly converge, as did a dark smoke. Bones and flesh were also slowly beginning to piece back together as Salem was starting to finally regenerate from the recent death that Oscar had inflicted upon her.
Due Process finished charging up and Ironwood pulled the trigger, firing a massive laser in Winter's direction that she jumped over with a propulsion glyph below her feet. The glyph that was behind her followed her and she used it to boost herself forward and behind the General.
Quickly turning around to face his opponent, Winter had closed the distance and stabbed at him with her secondary blade. Ironwood barely leaned to the side to avoid it while firing a weaker blast of his gun at Winter that she redirected by striking his rifle with her other sword.
The beam flew past her shoulder and exploded upon contact with a wall in the room.
Winter and General Ironwood's eyes met briefly before Winter pulled her weapons back and attempted to stab her opponent, but he quickly pulled his weapon back in front of himself and blocked her attack, taking a kick in the face as a result.
He staggered back and and rolled to the side of icicles launched his way, quickly pulling out one of his Due Process Pistols while doing clipped the body of the rifle to his belt and removed the other pistol from it now as Winter summoned a pack of Beowolves to attack.
The first summoned beowolf neared the general but he blasted through its torso with a single shot that made it fall over. The next one tackled him to the ground, before it could dig its claws into his neck, another gunshot echoed out in the room and it disappeared into a blue mist.
The next pair of summoned beowolves circled Ironwood.
The first swipe came from his left and he ducked it before slamming his white pistol's barrel into it's jaw and firing.
Another swipe came from behind, knocking the white pistol into the air while the general spun around and knocked the beowolf that did that off the platform with the back end of his black pistol.
The only remaining Beowolf was the Alpha that lumbered towards the general and slammed both of it's arms into the ground.
Still looking at his airborne pistol, Ironwood jumped, kicking off the Alpha Beowolf's head and loading the black pistol into the rifle attachment meant for both pistols. He caught the white one and loaded that in now, firing an uncharged green laser at the Alpha Beowolf, decimating it completely.
As soon as he landed a white blur sped past him, it was Winter and she just enhanced herself with time dilation given her yellow glint.
The white blur sped past him and struck his back, making him stumble forward before it came at him from the front and surprisingly he was able to bring up his rifle in time to block this strike from Winter.
She shoved as hard as she could with both swords crossed over his rifle, but it wasn't doing any good, and soon enough her speed enhancement wore off. "I sacrificed everything for this Kingdom!" he shoved forwards, making Winter stumble backwards.
"You mean you sacrificed everyone else!" Winter launched herself off a propulsion glyph and clashed with Ironwood's cannon that he was wielding more like a bat now.
He struggled to hold Winter back and sure enough, she shoved him back and slashed him across the chest with her sabre, making him fall backwards. "You don't understand, I'm the only one who knows what he's doing!" He ripped the black Due Process pistol out of the cannon and held it behind him.
With the boost of a single gravity bullet, he nearly slammed his shoulder into Winter who jumped backwards and landed on a glyph right above him now. "Is that what you call that embargo that left the rest of Remnant without needed resources in the wake of a targeted attack that took down an academy?!"
She jumped off of the glyph when he fired another gravity around, sending him in her direction again. He kicked off the ceiling and swung the half of his rifle that was in his other hand at Winter who narrowly ducked it. A shot fired from Ironwood's hip managed to hit it's mark and knock Winter backwards while he spun around from the recoil of that shot.
Winter held her gut and stood herself back up while Ironwood loaded the black pistol back into the cannon after loading more ammunition to it. "It was necessary for securing our Kingdom's safety."
"Oh and what about the massive hole you left in Mantle's security?! A hole the enemy exploited!" Winter ran forward now as Ironwood charged up his Due Process rifle again. She attempted to jam her smaller blade into the barrel, but Ironwood caught onto this fast and pulled his weapon to the side slightly, batting Winter over the head with it now.
"Atlas is our Kingdom." he coldly declared while swinging Due Process at Winter again and sending her tumbling away on the ground from the hit.
She stubbornly stood herself up. "And our kingdom is its people. Which is what my sister and the others are saving." She ran for him again and tried to stab at him several times, this time he held his black prosthetic arm up while dodging her stabs before grasping onto her sabre with it. The blade was an inch from his face and yet his stoic gaze still held.
He pulled forward and jabbed his white pistol into her gut, pulling the trigger, which launched her onto her back.
Her aura took the impact of that shot, shattering now, leaving her vulnerable.
The General merely tossed her sword right to her feet while she sat up, still clutching her smaller blade.
"I believed in you… Like a fool." Winter looked him in the eyes. "I believed you wanted the best for everyone, but I never realized how much of a self-righteous imbecile you were." she pulled herself to a knee now, breathing heavily.
General Ironwood loaded his pistol back into the greater rifle it was a part of and pointed it at Winter. "Goodbye, Specialist Schnee." he declared while starting to charge the laser up.
Winter closed her eyes, expecting the worst. "I hope I at least bought them enough time to save everyone…"
As Cinder stood ready to fight Weiss, Jaune, and Penny, her shadow hand began to mist, which made her stumble back, yet she smiled through her apparent pain. "She's almost back."
"Salem." Jaune glared and ran straight at Cinder who smiled and blocked his oncoming slash, holding him back with one hand as he pulled back from this blade lock when she attempted to bring her other sword down.
Weiss skated past Jaune next, slashing widely with Gambol Shroud in a move that the fall maiden had no problem ducking under.
Her sword shattered against Jaune's shield before she could punish Weiss's missed strike, and Myrtenaster disarmed her of the sword in her other hand while Penny threw a dozen swords her way that she backflipped away from several times.
"Nice try." Cinder snapped her fingers as shards of glass surrounded Weiss and Jaune.
A thick wall of ice formed around the pair that the glass shards stuck into before exploding while Penny flew right at Cinder with several ice Floating Array swords behind her again.
Cinder formed arrows behind her that collided with Penny's floating array swords in midair, leaving nothing but explosions. Glass and ice rained down around Jaune and Weiss, with Weiss ducking behind Jaune who managed to block the raining fragments with his shield.
"I've had enough of her." Weiss formed a gravity well glyph on the ground in front of her and Jaune.
Nodding to her, Jaune put a hand on her shoulder, which allowed her to increase the size and power of this glyph.
Penny spotted this and flew around Cinder, which confused her more than anything.
She began to pursue but found herself forcefully grounded by a Weiss who had her semblance boosted by Jaune. The glyph vanished while Weiss charged forward after Jaune replenished some of her aura, forming dozens of glyphs around Cinder and boosting herself with time dilation.
Weiss swung both blades at Cinder, who raised her own to block her attacks, shoving her back onto a propulsion glyph that she caught herself on.
Raising her blades up, Cinder blocked the next strike while Weiss sped past her again, this time aiming to hit her from behind, but this time Cinder created a sword that floated right behind her to block this next attack.
In the midst of this, Jaune had managed to charge through and with Crocea Mors in it's combined form, he shattered one of the blades Cinder created behind her, making her stumble forward. It nearly made an opening for Weiss, but Cinder quickly let go of the swords she was holding and launched them at the pair, knocking Jaune out of the barrier of glyphs Weiss had made around Cinder.
Weiss was sent back to another glyph and grunted in anger.
Weiss kept rushing Cinder from all angles, clashing blades with her each and every time before finally catching her off with a propulsion glyph under her feet that launched the fall maiden into the air.
"You're done!" Weiss yelled out as she attempted to stab Cinder with both swords, only for a smile to form on her face.
"Am I now?!" The swords she had formed to block all of Weiss's attacks suddenly formed up in front of Cinder as a shield, blocking Weiss's attack and making the girl jump backwards..
With her arm pulled back, Cinder had all the swords pointed in Weiss's direction. "Team RWBY dies with you." She threw her arm forward and launched all the swords in Weiss's direction.
Weiss barely had any time to do anything to block from this, bringing up an Arma Gigas in front of her to tank most of the hits, but the swords were starting to pierce through and Weiss fell onto her back, struggling to get herself up as her aura shattered.
Taking a deep breath in, flames started to gather around Cinder's mouth, before finally she breathed a focused blast of fire in Weiss's direction. "WEISS!" Jaune jumped in front of her with his shield held forward, blocking against the flames, while Penny began to circle back around finally with dozens of floating array swords formed behind her in the time that Weiss had been fighting Cinder. She was determined to end this.
The fire eventually stopped, knocking Jaune to the side of Weiss, but he got back up again and panted heavily. Weiss held a hand forward with the hopes of giving him a boost with her semblance, but soon realized her aura was broken and picked up Myrtenaster while stumbling to her feet again.
Cinder's attention was soon diverted to Penny and her many swords that were all thrown her way.
With tears in her eyes Penny yelled at Cinder, each sword being deflected or narrowly dodged by Cinder's careful flying as she flew right at Penny, only to get knocked upwards by a flying ring of Floating Array swords that were clearly meant to flank her.
Cinder Fall stopped and realized that all of Penny's swords weren't like hers in the sense that she just discarded them or blew them up upon throwing them out from her… No, they were all being controlled by the girl.
Each sword began to slash at Cinder, forcing her to start going more on the defensive against each of them. She flew around to dodge some swipes while blocking others with her pair of swords. Penny on the other hand was floating in front of it all and controlling each sword's movements with her arms, almost like a puppeteer controlling a puppet's strings.
Two swords flew right at the base of Cinder's swords and destroyed them, forcing her to take a more hands on approach to blocking and deflecting.
That was until the fall maiden was finally fed up with it all and dropped herself out of the air, and seemingly towards the void.
Penny wasn't ready to take any chances on her and had all of her swords pointed down at Cinder and sent them her way.
A smile formed on her face at this chance. All the swords would only impact a thick glass barrier Cinder put in front of herself. One blade nearly got between her eyes and another her heart.
Penny gasped before the sound of a finger snap detonated the glass barrier and all of her swords along with it.
Rising through the smoke, Cinder landed herself on the platform in front of Weiss and Jaune.
Weiss looked to be the most dazed of the pair, so she took this chance to impale her with her shadow hand, only for Penny to immediately dive in the way of that attack.
Its sharp nails dug into her chest and torso as she gasped, coughing up blood as she felt her aura starting to get siphoned.
Weiss charged in, despite her lack of aura and swung Gambol Shroud at Cinder, who quickly pulled her shadow hand back, knocking the sword from her hand and into the void below. A single glass sword formed in Cinder's hand as Weiss began fighting her with just Myrtenaster.
Penny fell onto her back and coughed harshly while Jaune rushed over to her and began using his semblance on her. "It's okay, I've got you Penny!" He focused his aura on her wounds as much as possible, but then she raised a hand up to his.
"There's not enough time to heal me before Weiss is dead and she gets the power." Penny looked him in the eyes. "You can save Weiss and stop her from getting the powers. S-She can't be allowed to get both the staff and the powers."
"T-Tell me what I need to do!" He stopped boosting her now and looked at her expectantly.
"I need you to trust me." she reached her hand towards the handle of Crocea Mors.
Jaune unsheathed his sword and stared at it for a moment. "Penny, you don't mean-"
A scream interrupted his thoughts as Cinder parried one of Weiss's strikes and with the handle of the sword she was holding, she struck Weiss under the chin, knocking her out cold onto the ground.
"It'll be okay." Penny assured Jaune who felt tears begin to well up in his eyes.
Before Cinder could bring her sword down on Weiss, Jaune cried out while doing what was requested of him.
Blood dripped from Crocea Mors and tears fell onto the ground while Penny's body was motionless.
Cinder's gaze narrowed in Jaune's direction now. "What did you do?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" she transformed her sword into a claymore now.
"Goodbye Specialist Schnee…" were the last words Winter Schnee was expecting to hear. The sound of Ironwood's rifle charging up confirmed to her in her mind that they would be.
So it would come to her surprise to find herself in an unfamiliar place, looking the way she did before this all started with her hair neatly tied back into it's bun, her arm brace missing, and her uniform not battle-worn.
She looked around in confusion at what was before her before her eyes went wide at the sound of Penny bouncing on her heels. "Salutations!" She saluted Winter and waved.
"Penny? What's going on?" Winter approached the very human looking Penny in this white void.
"I thought of you." Penny explained very simply.
This simple explanation caused tears to well up in Winter's eyes. "Oh Penny… I…" she looked away from the girl now. "I was never worthy of that power. You were the one who had more of a soul than I ever did. I was just a mindless machine, doing as I was told."
"That's not true, Winter." Penny walked over to her and took hold of her hands. "You were my friend. You were there for me when no one else was around. On the day I first woke up, you were there for me from the very start, were you not?"
The scenery around the two changed to the interior of Pietro Polendina's lab.
Pietro Polendina was staring at a tablet while walking around a pod that was connected to a series of wires.
"Is it ready?" A clean-shaven General Ironwood asked while entering the room with Winter at his side.
"She is." Pietro corrected the general who adjusted his tie. "We're ready to power her on at once."
"Excellent. You may proceed, Dr." The general nodded as Pietro walked up to a terminal at the base of the pod and hit a few keys.
The result was the pod starting to rise upright slowly before opening up, to reveal the sleeping form of Penny Polendina who opened her eyes for the first time. Her hair was short and she was clad only in a hospital gown. The joins in her legs and arms were visible, she looked very much like a human-sized doll.
Winter seemed like the person who was the most surprised out of anyone in the room. "S-Sir. This is-"
"Our first synthetic human, capable of generating an aura." Pietro explained to Winter with a smile.
She met eyes with the blank looking Penny and wasn't quite sure how to feel.
"As a specialist, you're privy to some secretive intel." General Ironwood explained. "Not a word of this is to get out to anyone, are we understood, Winter?"
Winter's gaze quickly hardened again and she saluted. "Sir, yes sir!" She affirmed his orders.
Darkness like midnight
Moonless there's no light
Another lonely day is ending…
The scene shifted again and Winter was observing Penny practicing some basic motor functions in the lab, moving her arms around while standing and walking from one end of the room to the other.
Searching Forever
Waiting but never finding
Penny began to loop back around to her starting point when she suddenly stumbled and fell, yet her fall was stopped by Winter, who ran over and caught her.
The only thing
I dream of…
"Are you okay?" Winter asked her, looking her in the eyes and she nodded, standing upright again.
"Schnee, you're not to interfere in this test." General Ironwood commanded her, which made her steel herself again and she backed away from Penny.
The scene shifted yet again, this time it seemed to be later on, after Penny's reconstruction following the events of Beacon's fall.
The Warmth of a smile
That stays for a while
Penny was in Atlas Academy's training room, performing some basic exercises to test if she was stronger, Winter was overseeing it, watching as she blasted all the Atlesian Knights in the room apart with her lasers.
She landed herself down in front of Winter now and smiled. "How was that?!"
The face of a friend
That won't leave…
Winter nodded at the results she saw on her tablet. "Excellent form as always, Penny."
She was caught off guard when Penny suddenly hugged her. "Um, Penny?"
"Oh, I'm sorry." Penny pulled herself away from her now. "I've learned that hugs are something friends give to each other. I'm your friend, right?"
This caused a moment of pause in the specialist. "I…" the door opened and General Ironwood entered the room, cutting the conversation short.
Things finally changed back to the white void where Penny and Winter both stood.
"You never did answer my question from that day." Penny tilted her head. "Am I your friend?"
"I.." Winter froze up, repeating exactly what her past self was saying before Ironwood interrupted them. "I am. Of course I'm your friend Penny. I've always been your friend." she held her hands more firmly as the powers began to transfer over.
"When you're gone… I'll-" Winter was cut short.
"I won't be gone, silly. I'll be a part of you." she smiled as she began to fade away.
"I'm glad." for once in her life, Winter Schnee let tears freely flow down her cheeks as she returned Penny's smile.
The sound of Ironwood's rifle stopped suddenly. "So the destiny I've chosen for you has finally come."
"No. You didn't choose a damn thing you arrogant fool." Winter's arms slumped as her aura returned, completely recharged while she rose to her feet.
She began to float upwards, her eyes still closed as both of her blades floated up with her.
"This was a gift." she opened her eyes, that now glowed brightly with the power of the Winter Maiden. Tears fell freely down her face as she took hold of her weapons again.
Ironwood now started to charge his rifle, realizing that Winter still wasn't going to side with him.
"A gift from a friend!" The moment Ironwood fired a laser at her, she formed a shield of ice in front of herself with her maiden powers that deflected the blast right back at Ironwood, giving him barely any time to react as an explosion consumed him.
Glaring towards the portal, Winter flew right through it.
Cinder was bashed with Jaune's shield and landed on her back while Jaune ran at her.
"Where did it go?!" she asked him as he jumped and tried to stab her while she was on the ground.
Jaune's stab missed from her rolling out of the way and she kicked him in the face, making him stagger back before raising her greatsword over her head. "Tell me where the power went!" she swung with all of her power while Jaune raised up Crocea Mors in defense
The bloodied end of the blade was broken from the power of Cinder's attack and Jaune fell to his back while Cinder held the heated end of her claymore to Jaune's leg, making the blonde scream out in pain. "Where did it go-" she was cut short by a focused blast of ice and lightning striking her back, making her drop the sword in her hand and turn her attention to the source of it.
Her eyes narrowed now at who she knew was now her target.
There she floated above Cinder Fall. It was Winter Schnee, who now possessed the power of the Winter maiden.
The maidens flew towards each other at high speeds, lighting up the sky in the portal hub with each clash.
Jaune pulled himself up and went to the still unconscious Weiss, starting to use his semblance to heal her. "Come on Weiss, wake up…"
Winter dove under a platform to avoid a focused fire blast from Cinder before hitting her with another blast of ice from above that sent her spiraling backwards.
She managed to halt herself in midair and saw Winter summoning a flock of small nevermore to attack her. Cinder formed several swords behind her hastily as the flock flew her way, only managing to destroy a few before the rest arrived at her and started circling around her and flying into her at points to disorient her.
Winter watched intently as fire quickly consumed her summons and Cinder came at her, full speed. She simply ducked to the fall maiden's left and slashed out with her sword, striking Cinder and knocking her through one of the portals.
She turned her attention to Jaune now, who was still healing Weiss. "She's got both of the relics." Jaune explained as he looked up at her.
"Not for long." Winter flew through the portal she knocked Cinder through, now with a clear mission in mind.
As she flew through the portal she now found herself in the slums of Mantle.
Cinder Fall emerged from a destroyed mobile home and floated herself upwards, glaring down at Winter. "The slums of your great kingdom. Pitiful that you let your people live like this." she taunted.
"You're acting like I had any say in this." Winter retorted while pointing both of her blades out at Cinder. "It was the people in charge who let it get this bad."
A slight smile formed on Cinder's face. "Glad we can agree on that. But you still perpetuated the problem!" She flew down at Winter.
Their weapons clashed and they collided with the ground, leaving a giant crater in their wake.
Winter slashed out vertically with both blades, clashing with Cinder several times. "I'm no longer anyone's lap dog!" she argued as she stabbed her sword through Cinder's shadow hand.
"Neither am I…" Cinder raised her impaled arm up now while Winter made eye contact with her.
Both of the blades Cinder held shattered suddenly. Winter realized what she was doing and forcefully pulled her blade free of Cinder's arm and knocked her into the air with a propulsion glyph.
With her swords held in front of her Winter backed off from all of the floating shards of glass Cinder left suspended.
"You can't run from this, Winter." The shards came flying Winter's way and she ran to avoid them, much to her opponent's annoyance before she jumped straight at her.
She swung both blades with the intent to decapitate Cinder. A focused blast of fire stopped her attack from so much as reaching Cinder's neck as she was knocked through a portal, back into the hub.
Cinder flew through the portal in pursuit of Winter who was now tactically retreating, surrounded by the fog of snow that helped her fly.
Winter flew through another random portal, hoping it'd be somewhere she'd be able to use to her advantage, emerging on the now barren streets of Atlas and turning back towards the portal she flew through.
"And where do you think you're going?!" Cinder taunted her by holding the staff in front of her.
Before she could make use of it to cut off any attempted escape, a blast of ice knocked it out of her hand and Winter flew right for the staff, catching it and flying further up the Atlas skyline.
Weiss's eyes fluttered open, seeing Jaune looking down at her and using his semblance on her. "Ugh. Why did you have to be the one with healing hands?" Weiss sat up now.
"We need to go, Weiss." Jaune insisted.
"Where's Cinder?-"
"I said we need to go." Jaune looked her in the eyes and she groaned, taking his hand and leaning on him.
They began the slow walk towards the Vacuo portal…
In the Atlas skyline, Winter glared down at Cinder who was flying at her full force, several swords formed behind her that all launched out in Winter's direction that she dodged around, but one knocked the staff of creation from her hands and into the air again.
Winter flew for it, but Cinder cut her off with a punch to her face that sent her flying through a window. The air current dragged the staff into the building as well.
Winter picked herself up and made another move for the staff, picking it up, but dropping it again as Cinder grasped at her neck with her human arm and flew through the building with her, slamming her through floors and walls, before Winter managed to spin around with her and kick her off and through an elevator door.
Winter immediately went back to grab the staff of creation, reaching for it when a shard of glass from a window extended towards it and knocked it away from her.
Turning back around, she saw an enraged Cinder with flames in her mouth coming right for her with an outstretched shadow hand.
It came directly for her along with shards of glass from the window that extended outwards in an attempt to impale her.
Winter narrowly dodged between all of those attacks and slashed out with her sabre, creating a wave of ice that shattered all the glass and launched Cinder backwards through a cubicle.
Out of a single glyph Winter created, ice shards began firing out in the direction of Cinder.
After taking a few hits, Cinder formed a pair of swords in her hands and started deflecting the projectiles. She saw Winter pick the staff up and took a deep breath in, spewing more fire out of her mouth that tore through the building and went right into another skyscraper a distance away.
With a wave of her sabre, Winter launched a larger icicle that struck Cinder in the chest, causing her to stop.
Before Cinder could recover from that, Winter slammed right into her and threw her through a window to the Atlas skyline again, following after her as the top half of the building they were just fighting in began to lean to a side and collapse.
The pair flew at each other again, this time throughout the Atlas skyline, tearing it apart completely. Buildings began to topple, glass, ice and rubble rained down onto the streets below.
Winter kicked Cinder in the chest, and up a building, flying after her.
Cinder caught herself and slid backwards up the side of it, glass shattering from all of the windows that she directed at Winter who formed a wall of ice to catch every shard that came her way. She backed away from the accompanying explosion that came, raising her sword and the staff up to block Cinder's next attack, which only really knocked the staff out of her hand.
The shadow hand shot forward to grab the staff, but Winter stopped it with a single icicle that stabbed it.
Cinder replied in kind by sweeping her hand to the side and creating a wave of fire that struck Winter, preventing her from retrieving the relic as well.
It fell, closer to street level now.
Both of the maidens fell as well, but caught themselves before the impact could hurt them, their auras both shattering from the strain of it all still.
They both stared at the staff as it cluttered to the ground between them and flew right for it, the ground underneath it collapsing from the sheer force of the two meeting right above it.
The staff rolled right into a portal that was underground.
Both maidens entered that portal, leaving the destroyed skyscrapers of Atlas behind them.
As Jaune and Weiss were making their slow exit, they wound up having to stop due to an absurd amount of debris flying through several of the portals. "Did Atlas fall?" Weiss asked.
"I don't know…" Jaune noticed the staff falling and landing onto a lower platform. "The staff. Then that means-"
He watched as the two maidens emerged through the portal, still fighting one another.
He began to pick up the pace with Weiss. "Come on, we need to go."
"Winter?" She wanted to look back at her sister, but Jaune kept moving and she couldn't do anything apart from move along with him.
An orb of electricity and ice forced Cinder to raise her guard to block it.
She held it against the two swords she had in her hands before screaming and finally swatting it aside, watching as it exploded in the distance.
She saw Winter flying down to get the staff and heated up her swords, raising them up. But then something caught the corner of her eye. Jaune Arc and Weiss Schnee were still there and slowly trying to escape through the Vacuo portal.
Winter's mind was racing as she flew for the staff, but her attention quickly diverted when she saw a pair of flaming swords speed right past her.
Turning around, her eyes went wide and she flew in the direction it was thrown.
Jaune and Weiss were on the final bridge that approached the Vacuo portal when Jaune turned around and saw the flaming swords coming his way.
He immediately let go of Weiss and threw his shield grenade out, the hardlight shield was thankfully able to block the brunt of the explosion, but the impact still launched the pair forward.
A smile formed on Cinder's face as she watched Winter near the pair. The ground beneath them started to glow brightly as Cinder raised her arm up before finally a pillar of fire erupted right from underneath them.
Jaune grunted as the blast sent him to the edge of the bridge, shattering his aura.
Weiss on the other hand was sent hurtling over the edge.
"WEISS!" Winter outstretched a hand for her while flying after her, but it was too late and she saw her sister dissolve into nothing.
Jaune pulled himself back up and saw Winter land herself onto the bridge, tears falling from her face as she cried out. "Weiss…"
Her gaze turned around towards Cinder, who now held the staff of creation in hand.
She was prepared to continue their destructive battle.
Before anymore could happen between the two maidens, a blood curdling scream echoed through the portals.
This scream caused Cinder's shadow hand to react more and she smiled. "You're too late."
"We need to go Winter, and now!" Jaune insisted while starting to take a step back.
Winter made eye contact with Cinder, tears still falling from her face. "Make no mistake, Cinder Fall. I'm going to make you PAY for everything you've done!" she pointed her sabre at the woman. "You'll die for it."
With that last threat, Cinder smiled while Winter turned away and began to make her retreat with Jaune.
Cinder flew through the portal that went to the Vault.
The moment Cinder had entered the portal, the portals were all starting to close and the bridges were beginning to vanish.
Jaune and Winter's retreat was cutting it close now as the bridge was starting to vanish behind Jaune.
Just as Winter entered the portal she turned around, and reached a hand out towards Jaune, but her own momentum carried her through the portal and she was gone.
Jaune made his run and jumped as far forward as he could before the ground beneath him vanished.
His hand touched the tip of the slowly vanishing portal, but he was too late and fell into the void with a scream, dissolving into nothing like countless others…
The situation in Vacuo was dire as an Atlesian Soldier fired upon a Ravager that dove straight for him and tackled him down.
"Dammit, I'm not dying out here!" May shouted as she swung her weapon at Sulphur fish Grimm that were starting to gather around her.
Ren and Emerald were firing at some smaller Deathstalkers that emerged from the sands, dodging around the pincers of a larger one that had revealed itself.
Oscar swatted some ravagers out of the air with long memory, but took a hit from a sonic screech that one sent his way.
Among all the fighters in Vacuo were the members of Team FCSA, with Ember Feure spinning the chain of her weapon around in front of her to swat any bold ravagers that dove for her.
Erika Summers kicked up some sand when she kicked a medium-sized death stalker into the air that Cyrus Medori charged through with his speed semblance.
He panted heavily as his aura shattered, firing out a shotgun round from one of his Crimson Claw axes at a Creep that tried to attack Erika.
"This situation is hopeless." Oscar leaned on Long Memory now while looking out into the sandstorm. "Do you think I could part the storm with what's left in Long Memory?"
"Are you sure you want to use that here?" Ozpin asked as Oscar's gaze fell towards Alix Celeste who had just sliced the wings off a ravager, only to get blasted by a sonic wave from another, knocking him down, but he forced himself back up.
"It might be our only chance…" Oscar reasoned as he saw Nora desperately knocking on the portal in the hope that she could get back into it.
It would be then that Winter emerged through it, her hand outstretched towards the portal as it closed.
"What happened?" Ren seemed confused that Winter now clearly seemed to have the maiden powers.
"Cinder happened." Nora spoke up while walking over and transforming Magnhild into it's hammer form.
"No…" Emerald grit her teeth in frustration. "Dammit…"
Winter seemed forlorn while she floated forward, her gaze briefly meeting her surviving family members who were all huddled together. Klein, Whitley, and Willow all stared in awe at her and her gaze hardened when she looked over to the gathering Grimm ahead of her.
She had lost enough of her family today. Swinging her blade out, she charged forward, screaming in a rage.
The eyes of General James Ironwood opened up, the blast that Winter reflected back at him did quite a number on him… His legs were all but destroyed, with his left one being gone completely and his right one missing a foot. Only one of his arms remained intact while the other was a destroyed mess up to his shoulder.
The half of him that was left, watched as Cinder Fall flew into the vault through the portal that led into it.
Cinder landed and held the staff firmly in her grasp, closing the portal behind her by using it for something that the general didn't see at all.
Standing still in the room, Cinder waited now, she waited until a cloud of smoke flew down the lift into the vault.
"I'm sorry for failing you, Mistress." Cinder began. "The Winter maiden got away… I was able to retrieve both relics, but not before the staff was used to save countless lives, and Ruby and her friends used the lamp." she explained, while looking down in disappointment. "Amid the chaos, Neopolitan died and killed Ruby and her teammates, so I'm afraid you won't be able to use Ruby for whatever machinations you had planned." she bowed her head down completely now.
"You may take whatever punishment is fitting for my shortcomings." she closed her eyes now as Salem completely reformed in front of her.
She held Cinder's face and lifted her up by her chin and smiled. "No sacrifice is too small for our cause." she assured Cinder while now taking both relics off of her.
"Of course." Cinder nodded to her.
General Ironwood began to pull himself along on the floor, towards his White Due Process pistol that seemed to have survived the blast.
"But I must ask… To close the portals you had to create something else. What did you make?" Salem curiously asked her as the pair began walking towards the lift.
"I merely added more flames to Atlas's fires…" Cinder admitted with a devious chuckle.
In the interior of the Atlas Command Center, a powerful fire began to fill the room completely.
A chair flew at a window while the sound of Arthur Watts screaming in agony echoed through the empty burning halls of the Command Center.
Cinder had been true to her word. She didn't forget about him. Nor did she forget her earlier promise to give him an unremarkable end.
And so the great Arthur Watts was consumed in flames for a second time...
"You've done well today, Cinder. It's a shame about Arthur, and all our losses. But I think our gains more than make up for that, don't you?" Salem asked her while continuing to walk before coming to a halt and then flying up the lift with a dark cloud swirling behind her.
"Of course." Cinder stopped and smiled, glancing back towards General Ironwood.
He pulled his weapon's trigger, only to find that the gun had jammed. He desperately kept pulling the trigger while glaring up at Cinder hatefully.
"And that's checkmate." She flew off, following behind Salem.
Ironwood could only look down, despairing over his failures. He threw the pistol away from himself and screamed out into the uncaring ruins of his city.
That same city finally made its descent on top of Mantle, landing with a loud crash that took everything with it. The streets that had once been full of life were empty, and the city of dreams crumbled into dust.
Cinder and Salem flew into the skies, leaving the destroyed city behind them as they made their way towards greater plans.
Qrow could only watch in complete horror with the surviving Ace Ops and Robyn Hill as the Kingdom of Atlas fell.
He glanced back at his scroll and desperately kept trying to call either of his nieces, but they weren't answering his calls, no matter how many times he hit redial.
He fell to his knees in despair.
The impact of Atlas onto the ground seemed to have hit something deep within Remnant as water started flooding in from the mountains that were behind the Kingdom, leaving both cities as nothing more than a flooded tomb to the hubris of the people that once lived there.
The sound of waves crashing and birds flying and squawking in the distance were the only sounds that echoed on the beach of a mysterious land.
Crescent Rose was stabbed into the sand. The island in question seemed to have a dense forest and the only notable landmark was the giant tree that was seemingly in the center of it all...
Commentary: Sometimes it is worth it all to risk the fall. Well, I hope you all enjoyed that as much as I did. (Fun fact: This is the longest chapter out of all of Volume 8 that I've done, beating out Chapter 3 by a few hundred words.) There was one segment of this chapter that I didn't plan at all, but just kind of did on an impulse and I frankly think it was the best choice I could have made.
That surprise add-on segment was the final flashback sequence with Penny and Winter. It all started because I listened to "Friend" when I started to write out the maiden power transfer scene. Go figure.
The fight between Ironwood and Winter was one I knew I had to write out in greater detail, and I had Ironwood frequently switching stuff up with his weapon and Winter using more of the abilities in her arsenal, the big one being her summons. Not that it mattered in the end for her. But hey, it's good that she got that maiden boost. This does also bring me back to an idea I had planned for this chapter originally.
That idea was that right before Winter was going to die, I was gonna have her meet Penny in the white void, and she was gonna ask Penny about what happened and why she died. Then we'd get a flashback to the adjacent events in the void. I ultimately thought that type of flashback would make things feel too disjointed. Then I wound up inserting a completely different flashback, although this one did serve more of a purpose. I wanted to show Winter was someone who was there for Penny since the start, even if not a friend at first. Penny being that soft spot for her just made sense to me.
Back to the chapter, the final stand of Weiss, Jaune, and Penny against Cinder was pretty much a smaller scaled fight compared to what happens later in the chapter.(We're getting there next, don't worry.) Weiss going all out was nothing to Cinder, although Penny's ultimate attack there with all the swords definitely gave Cinder a run for her money, even if she was able to outsmart it in the end. I do love how well that worked out though.
Next big segment to talk about is Maiden bowl 3.0 and damn was this fight destructive as all hell. I knew for this fight I wanted them to go through the portals to both Mantle and Atlas, but a concern for me was how will I let them have this fight and still cut off Jaune and Weiss's escape? Well the short answer is have Cinder knock Weiss out cold, forcing Jaune to use his semblance on her to try and get her to wake up quicker, and then the second half of the fight winds up blowing a lot of stuff through the portals around them.
The one thing I'll say was the biggest missed opportunity of the show is not doing something with the abandoned Atlas for the finale. Like just imagine some big destructive DBZ/Man of Steel-escque fight between maidens through the skyline of a recently abandoned city? Sounds like a perfect excuse for neither fighter to hold back at all. Of course, I'd have to keep the relic out of Cinder's hands since she could just use that as an instant-win button to trap Winter without any possible easy escape route and Winter still has to end up in Vacuo.
The end of the fight is pretty much unchanged from canon.
As another bonus I did include more people fighting on the Vacuo end of things, despite how few and in between they are. Again, I still refuse to believe no Atlas Military personnel survived since that just seems highly improbable. The moment I'd hear Atlas is falling, loyal soldier or not, I'd probably assist in whatever evacuation efforts I'd hear about.
Not much to say about the rest of the ending since it is mostly vanilla, including Watts's death.
Overall, I had a blast writing out Volume 8, and hope you all enjoyed reading this! I hope you'll stick around on my page for the Team FCSA story I'm gonna be posting following this story's completion. Same schedule and everything, so weekly uploads will continue unless I happen to overlap with a holiday and am away/unable to upload for any reason that you'll likely hear about. I will admit now that the Team FCSA story is kind of on the weaker side of things now that I've looked it over a couple of months after finishing it, but I'm still going to build off of it as I do feel like I have some solid ideas for Vacuo events that could potentially happen.
Volume 9 talk: well, at the time of me editing this chapter, Volume 9's had one preview clip, given how things are progressing as I'm writing this now, there might be another preview for me to discuss here. That PoV preview with Ruby was amazing, I love what they did for it! Which I will say, it did make me edit the previous chapter so that Neo fell just around the same time as Ruby since that was something that changed in my original plan for this, I was gonna have Cinder knock Neo off the ledge, Ruby quickly recover herself and then get some punches in on Cinder before then getting knocked off. But because of that new clip and how I really wanted to include that bit with Neo, I changed it to what you currently got.