The train station was nearly empty. This late, it was entirely expected — to say nothing of the weather. Cloudy skies at midday had given way to a torrent of rain in the afternoon, and the wind had picked up enough that anyone seeking shelter had absconded to better options than the semi-exposed station.

Oscar Pine thumped the side of the automatic ticketing kiosk with his palm.

Patience, the voice in his head suggested.

Oscar huffed and crouched down, glaring at a taped-over panel on the front of the machine.

A woman's voice sounded from behind him: "Oi, kid. Everything alright?"

Oscar stood up and turned around sharply.

The woman who had been standing behind him had dark hair. She was dressed in a fairly modern outfit, with a dark grey woolen vest over an off-white top; a billowing white cape with a dramatic red lining was wrapped around her shoulders. From the gun belt and sheath at her waist, along with the armored bracers she wore on her forearms, she fit the image of a Huntress — at least the ones Oscar had seen, out here in rural Anima. But more striking than her clothes were her eyes, which were a gleaming, brilliant silver.

Ozpin, however, had another, far more concerning thought in Oscar's head: It can't be.

Almost instinctively, Oscar stepped back. Doing so, he noticed the other person on the train platform.

He was a man with blond, spiked hair, dressed in a dark blue sleeveless sweater and a red cloak that obscured the lower half of his face. On his back was something Oscar called a sword out of sheer inability to describe it any other way. It was nearly the size of the man and shaped like a huge butcher's knife, more like a heap of iron someone had coaxed into the rough idea of a sword.

The woman cleared her throat and nodded at the machine. "Having troubles there?"

"It's, uh," he started. "All I've got is paper lien, but the machine only takes cards."

The woman quirked an eyebrow, stepping past Oscar to the ticketing kiosk. "You good for it, kid?"

"...Huh?"

"I'll buy your ticket on my card, and you'll give me the money for the fare," the woman explained, pulling out a card from a bag she was wearing.

"Sure," Oscar said quietly. He passed his money over to her.

As she worked at the machine, Oscar thought, Do you know her, Oz?

Ozpin was silent for a moment before he responded. She is an impossibility. She has the face of a woman I have long thought dead — but as if she hasn't aged a day. I suspect she is not what she seems, at the very least. Be on your guard.

"We're sitting together," the woman said, passing Oscar his ticket. "I hope you don't mind."

Oscar let out a slightly strangled sound before saying, "That's fine. Just the...three of us, then?"

"Just the three of us," the woman said, taking Oscar's wrist and gently leading him over to her companion. "Given we'll be spending the next day and a half together, I'll introduce you." She gestured to the blonde swordsman. "This here is Cloud Strife. Cloud, meet…?"

"Oscar. Oscar Pine." He looked at the woman and pretended like she was a normal person who wasn't carrying a sword and who might want him dead. "What about you?"

The woman smirked. "My name's Summer Rose, and before you ask, yes, I'm a Huntress. Pleased to meet you."

So she claims, Ozpin reiterated. The real Summer was a Huntress — on Qrow Branwen's team, no less. But whoever this is, they certainly carry themselves with the silent assurance of strength.

Oscar cleared his throat. "Thank you, Miss Rose."

Summer shot him a strange look. "No problem, kid, but don't call me 'miss'. I'm not that old."


They waited on a bench in silence for about half an hour before the train arrived.

As it turned out, the train's passenger cars were divided into compartments; Summer piled them all into one. There wasn't much luggage between the three of them, so the racks were a lot more barren than the designers had intended.

Cloud laid his sword on the emptier of the two racks and the metal gave a groan. He sat down in the window seat. Summer sat on the opposite bench, closer to the door. She unsheathed her sword. With the flick of a switch it unfolded and Summer slapped it into a holder that was probably for an umbrella.

Oscar hesitantly sat down opposite the supposed Summer Rose.

After a few minutes, the train's whistle sounded and the train began to move. It was several more silent minutes before Summer broke the silence. "So, Oscar," she said conversationally. "You're young and you're headed to Mistral, what's the story there?"

Ozpin chimed in with sage advice: You need to lie, obviously.

"Nothing," Oscar said.

Oscar...obvious deflection is not lying. It just makes you look more suspicious.

"It's a girl, isn't it?" Summer asked teasingly.

Oscar bashfully nodded as best he could. "What about you, Miss Rose?"

"Tch! I told you not to call me 'miss'," Summer shot. She folded her arms. "Matter of fact, I'm looking for someone. Well, I'm looking for a few different people, but...oh, two seconds." She reached into one of her pouches and pulled out a piece of paper, which she unfolded and showed to Oscar. "Have you seen a woman with hair like this?"

Oscar stared at the drawing and tilted his head slightly.

"That's...a picture of a crow, ma'am," Oscar said.

Summer looked at the paper in her hand and then tilted her head. After a moment she nodded and refolded the paper. "I see. I'm assuming that's a no, then."

"No, ma'am."

Summer sighed and slumped down in her seat. "I just can't win with you, kid. I tell you not to call me 'miss' and you call me 'ma'am'."

Oscar smiled innocently at her.

"You know, kinda thought you were a stick in the mud at first," Summer said, "but you do have a sense of humor."


The storm had faded as they'd travelled north to Mistral. Out the window, the sun was setting. The trio of travellers were silent. Cloud was sitting with his eyes closed. Every so often, he got up and stretched or did some crunches. When Oscar asked him, Cloud said it was mostly to counter motion sickness.

Oscar was thankful he'd taken a thick novel.

Summer, meanwhile, was writing in a leather-bound journal with dozens of notes and additional papers sticking out of it.

The train's intercom system crackled to life.

"Attention all passengers, we seem to have encountered some wild Grimm. For your safety, please remain in your compartments. I repeat, we have encountered wild Grimm. For your safety, stay in your compartments."

Summer looked up from her writing, slipping the journal back into her bag. She made eye contact with Cloud.

There was a loud thump on the roof of the train car.

Summer stood abruptly, glancing up at the ceiling and then back over to Cloud. Cloud rolled his eyes but stood as well, grabbing his massive sword from the luggage rack.

Summer stepped out of the compartment and to the side to let Cloud out.

Oscar cleared his throat. "Miss Rose? What about me?"

"They said stay here, so you should stay here," Summer said, her hand on the sliding door.

Oscar stood up. "What about—"

Summer shut the door, hurrying off for the end of the car.

"—you?" Oscar asked.

Oscar crept up to the door and waited a moment before opening it and peeking his head out. It seemed the pair had run for the end of the carriage and climbed up onto the roof. Oscar began to follow them.

"Oz," Oscar said quietly. "Who is Summer Rose?"

I thought you might ask. Summer Rose was a pupil of mine at Beacon Academy almost twenty years ago. She was highly skilled. Following her graduation, I contracted her covertly.

Oscar stopped moving as the roof began to shake and the sound of thumping and metal clashing began to fill the air. He hurried to the door at the end of the carriage.

"Contracted her?"

For the fight against Salem. Summer was a highly effective Huntress, but one day, she went missing during a mission. That was over a decade ago.

"So who is this?" Oscar asked as he slid the door open.

I don't know. It's entirely possible she's an agent of Salem, or some other third party.

"Isn't it equally possible she's the real Summer Rose?"

...Unlikely, but the world is far stranger than you would expect. I won't rule it out, but it leaves many unanswered questions.

"And what about Cloud?"

I don't know him. He isn't a Huntsman of repute — and just his sword would certainly give him a reputation of some sort. It's possible he's from outside the Kingdoms.

Oscar stepped out of the carriage and began to climb the ladder to the top of the train car. He peeked his head over the edge of the roof.

A massive Deathstalker had climbed aboard the train; Cloud and Summer were battling it.

Oscar had never seen a Grimm of that size. It barely fit on the train's roof. The ones he knew were weak younglings, usually Beowolves wandering the woods outside the farm.

Nor had he ever seen a Huntress at work in person — and Summer Rose was flawless, darting back and forth with Cloud as her anchor, weaving in and out of range, slicing open flesh and peppering the Deathstalker's armor with bullets from her rifle and her revolver.

Cloud worked in concert with her, blocking pincer attacks with his sword. Every swipe of the Deathstalker's pincers were prepared to kill, but he was batting them back one-by-one.

"Cloud," Summer called out. "Left pincer! Now!"

In response, Cloud slammed his sword down onto the joint that connected the Deathstalker's left pincer to its body. The entire arm was severed cleanly and tumbled off the train's roof. With a screech, the Deathstalker reared back and raised its tail. Summer stepped back, reloading her rifle.

"Don't attack when its tail is up," Summer shouted, barely audible over the whipping wind.

"Attack while its tail is up?!" Cloud shouted back. He hefted his sword above his head and brought it straight down on the Deathstalker, cracking open its carapace.

Almost immediately, the Deathstalker's tail shot out and jabbed Cloud in the shoulder, sending him stumbling backwards. He caught himself with his sword, which dug a groove into the steel of the roof.

"I said don't attack," Summer shouted, stepping forward to stand beside him. "Don't attack when its tail is up, 'cause it'll lunge with its stinger!" She flipped open the cylinder of her revolver and slotted a large shell into the center before drawing her sword again. "Whatever, just cover me!"

Cloud nodded.

Summer and Cloud charged simultaneously; the Deathstalker lunged with its remaining pincer. Cloud brought his sword up and deflected the attack upwards as Summer slipped underneath and leapt onto the Deathstalker's thorax. She jammed her revolver into one of the cracks and fired its center chamber, shattering the carapace. The Deathstalker screeched as its inner flesh was exposed to the air. Summer brought her sword down onto the flesh and the Deathstalker fell silent and slumped over.

Summer climbed off. "You alright?"

"I'm fine," Cloud said, twirling his sword before putting it on his back.

Summer looked around and noticed Oscar, who immediately darted beneath the roof of the traincar. He attempted to stumble his way down the ladder but Summer was quicker, hauling him up onto the roof by his upper arm and depositing him on the steel roof.

"I told you specifically to stay inside," Summer said loudly, putting her hands on her hips. "Cloud and I are professionals! You could have gotten hurt, or killed."

There was a thwip. Oscar looked down. A feather had embedded itself in the roof. The three of them looked up at an incoming torrent of feathers from a flock of Nevermores.

"Oh, crap," Summer said flatly.

Oscar's hands shot out, surrounding them with a transparent, protective bubble. The feathers deflected away. One of the Nevermore crashed into it before the flock diverted away. Both Cloud and Summer looked down at him with surprised expressions.

Sorry. Ozpin's voice cut through his mental haze. I took control for a moment.

It's fine, Oz.

"Is that normal?" Cloud asked.

Summer looked down at Oscar. For a long moment, she looked for someone else in Oscar's eyes. "I dunno, is it?" She reached down to give Oscar a hand up. "What's your favorite fairy tale?"

"I think that's my line," Oscar said, rejecting her offered hand and climbing to his feet alone.

"Let's get below deck," Cloud said, ushering the both of them toward the ladder.

Oscar followed Summer to their compartment. On the way, she made sure the surrounding compartments were empty before entering. They sat in the same seats, but with a far frostier air than before.

"Okay, who are you, kid?" Summer asked.

"I could ask you the same thing," Oscar shot back.

"I'm exactly who I say I am," Summer said. "You're the one I'm not sure about."

Oscar swallowed. "Okay, fine. My name is Oscar Pine, that's true. A month or two ago, I began hearing a voice of a man calling himself Ozpin, who said he had died and reincarnated into me. Ever since then I've had strange memories of places I know I've never been and things I'd never seen." He looked Summer in her eye. "I must sound like I'm insane."

"No," Summer said. "For one, my own story is equally ridiculous, and if I want you to believe me, I need to believe you. And for two, you know magic, and that's rare — at least here."

"So you're Summer Rose," Oscar said. "Like, really Summer Rose?"

Summer nodded. "Oz, if you're listening in Oscar's mind, the first time we met was on the second day of classes. I'd just gotten in my third argument with Raven Branwen and you overheard most of it, because you were standing on the staircase just around the corner, and I stormed away and ran straight into you, spilling hot chocolate all over my brand new, comically white cape."

...This is all true.

Oscar nodded.

"Let's get down to business. I've been gone about twelve years," Summer said. "A lot has happened. I don't know what Oz and yourself are expecting, but if we're going to go forward with anything at all, I need two pieces of information." She held up a finger. "One, I need to know the truth of what happened at Beacon Academy—" She held up another finger. "—and I need to know where my daughters are."

Her daughters…? Oh, no, Qrow.

"Wait, what did Qrow do?" Oscar asked. He immediately realized he'd said that out loud.

"Qrow?" Cloud asked, looking at Summer. "Your old teammate, right?"

"Yeah," Summer said, her brows furrowed in worry.

Qrow is something of an adoptive uncle to the Rose-Xiao Long girls. After I disappeared, he would have continued his work while searching for — well, us. And if Summer's daughters attempted to follow him, then that could attract the attention of Salem's faction.

"Oh no," Oscar said.

"Okay, can you please tell me whatever in the hells the voice in your head is telling you? Because you're freaking me out a little bit!" Summer said, slightly hysteric.

"Ozpin says that your daughters might have followed Qrow without knowing about Salem," Oscar explained hurriedly.

"Oh no," Summer said, slumping in her seat. "And Salem would know someone with silver eyes froze that dragon at Beacon."

"Which would mean she's looking for that person," Cloud finished.

Oscar, do you mind if I…?

Go ahead. You're better at this, anyway.

Oscar closed his eyes and took a breath. As Ozpin took control, it felt like he was receding into the depths of his mind, looking and hearing everything through water.

"I would assume, Miss Rose, that you did your due diligence in research on the Fall of Beacon," Ozpin began.

"Pretend I haven't been thorough," Summer said with a dubious expression. "I was in a hurry, as I'm sure you can imagine."

"I will," Ozpin said. "There is some context we must establish, and that is regarding the Fall Maiden."

"Maiden?" Cloud asked.

"The Maidens are four women empowered by magic," Summer explained quickly. "The powers are passed down upon death to an individual in the Maiden's last thoughts, or a random qualified person."

Cloud nodded.

Ozpin folded his arms. "The Fall Maiden, Amber, had been attacked by a young acolyte of Salem. According to Qrow, they attempted to drain her powers with a parasitic Grimm. Qrow interrupted the connection, but Salem's pawn received half the powers. Qrow got her to a hospital, but it was too late. Amber was in a coma.

"We moved her to Beacon, knowing it was only a matter of time until Salem's acolyte made her move to finish her work. During the Vytal Festival last fall, I selected a candidate to receive the remaining powers — a girl named Pyrrha Nikos."

"One of the casualties," Summer said softly to herself. "But if Amber wasn't conscious, how did you plan to get her to think about Pyrrha as she died?"

"We weren't. We planned on an Aura transplant."

Summer scowled but said nothing.

Ozpin continued, "During the singles round, however, Pyrrha mistakenly killed another combatant — Penny Polendina, who unknown to me was a high-end combat android developed by Atlas's military. After that, the White Fang attacked, using both wild and captured Grimm to cause panic. I collected Pyrrha and brought her to Amber. Unfortunately, Salem's pawn swept in to finish her work on Amber. I sent Pyrrha away and confronted the acolyte.

"And you died."

"Indeed. The rest I can only estimate. Atlas's combat android divisions went berserk, likely due to Salem's machinations. Pyrrha Nikos went back and was killed by the acolyte as well, and your daughter Ruby's silver eyes activated to imprison the Wyvern atop Beacon Tower."

"That explains that," Summer said. "So, where would Qrow go?"

"He was investigating Salem's acolyte — the new Fall Maiden. The attack happened here in Anima, so he's been discreetly looking for her, outside the purview of the local Huntsmen's Guild." Ozpin looked out the window. "I'm expecting to find him in Mistral, assuming everything goes well."

"If everything goes well," Summer repeated. She looked out the window and grimaced. "Well, thanks, Oz."

"Of course, Miss Rose."


Oscar woke up the next morning with a start. Dawn had just begun, and the sun wasn't even fully up.

Cloud was silently sleeping in the seat beside him, but Summer wasn't in the compartment at all.

Oscar rubbed his eyes and stood up. Dimly, he became aware of what had awoken him: a pressing need to use the bathroom. He opened the compartment door and shuffled to the bathroom at the end of the car, threw the door open, and—

"Ahh! Shut the door!"

Oscar, blushing and fully awake now, slammed the door shut again. "I'm sorry, Miss Rose," he called through the door.

"Yeah, you're gonna be!" Summer yelled back through the door. After a few moments, she opened the door. "The lock's busted," she said, stepping into the corridor. "I'll make sure no one interrupts you."

Oscar stepped into the small bathroom.

"Sorry again," he said before shutting the door.

Minutes later, he emerged, face freshly washed but still slightly flushed.

Summer was waiting for him outside the bathroom, leaning against the carriage wall. "Ready?" At his nod, she continued, "Let's grab breakfast."


The buffet car was serving breakfast burritos, along with other breakfast options, snacks, and beverages. Summer grabbed a burrito and another for Cloud, and Oscar grabbed his own burrito and followed Summer as she perused.

"Uh, Miss Rose?" Oscar began.

"You've seen me with my pants down, you're good to call me 'Summer'."

Oscar flushed. "It was an accident!"

"Does nobody knock in the future?" Summer fired back. She grabbed a pair of canned coffees and a bottle of orange juice. "What did you want to ask?"

"It's about, uh, y'know," Oscar said, "where you've been for twelve years?"

Summer stepped up to the cashier, who quickly bagged their food and drink. Summer paid for the lot and handed Oscar the cold bag holding all of their drinks. Summer began to head for their compartment with the bag of burritos in her hand and Oscar followed.

"Where I've been' is a long story," Summer said, opening the doors between cars with her free hand. She walked briskly down the carriage.

"We've got hours before we get to Mistral," Oscar said, doing his best to keep pace with her without breaking into a run.

"Fine," Summer said, looking back at him. She slid open the compartment door and hucked a burrito directly at Cloud.

Cloud caught it deftly with an ungloved hand. "Morning," he said, turning the foil-wrapped package over.

"Morning," Summer said, slinking down in her seat and unwrapping her burrito. She passed the bag to Oscar as he sat down. "How'd you sleep?"

"Not so bad," Cloud said, stretching. He unwrapped his own breakfast and began eating it. "You?"

"I slept okay," Summer said. She plucked one of the coffees out of the beverage bag. "I woke up a couple times, but that's the train's fault."

Oscar looked around and began to eat his breakfast.

"I'm thinking about what to tell you but I haven't figured out how," Summer said with half her mouth full of burrito. She looked at Cloud, who gave her a slightly exaggerated shrug of his shoulders before returning to eating.

"I don't entirely remember what happened on my last mission," Summer finally began. "I remember the briefing you gave me, and what the mission was — it was my first venture into the Grimmlands. I have vague memories of fighting Grimm and I remember being captured, and I remember Salem's face, but my first memory after that...is the darkness."


Summer Rose, as best she could tell, was sitting on a tree stump in the deepest of the Hells.

Summer had never been strictly religious, per se. Her parents had been, at one point, but they'd only attended church at the solstices, and Summer hadn't kept up even that practice when she'd left home and become a Huntress. She didn't know if there was a God, or Gods, or Goddesses, or if there was an afterlife.

But she did know some things:

1. She was alone.

2. Her surroundings were dimly lit as if by a full moon.

3. She couldn't sleep.

4. The only residents of the world that she'd encountered were Grimm-like creatures with glowing yellow eyes.

5. She didn't remember how she got there, or even how long she'd been there.

The evidence was mounting that there was an afterlife, and she was on the bad side of it: a world of darkness and perpetual fighting.

During this silent contemplation, she wiped dark ichor off her sword Halbmond.

The forest clearing she was in was quiet. Mere minutes ago she'd been in pitched battle, but even before then, it hadn't had the ordinary sounds of trees swaying in the wind or birds tweeting and chirping. It was quiet. It was desolate.

Aside from the creatures.

The creatures were, ordinarily, relatively docile unless she approached too close. The smaller ones were, at least. The human-size ones were more tenacious hunters, but she encountered very few of those. She'd seen larger ones, in the distance, but she rarely snuck close for a better look.

Summer stood up. She absent-mindedly pulled out her compass on instinct — on field excursions back at Beacon, Tai couldn't navigate worth a damn and Qrow and Raven bickered in perpetuity if she let either of them have the compass, so Team Leader Summer had taken it upon herself to bear the compass. Just like the last uncountable times she'd consulted it to get a bearing, any bearing, the needle spun freely, whirling around and around in a mocking dance. She sighed and put it back in her pocket.

One of the smaller creatures oozed out of the bushes, hunkering so low that it seemed to Summer as if it were part of its own indistinct shadow. It crept towards her slowly and tentatively.

"I've been thinking," Summer said, eyeing the creature up. She slipped her cleaned sword back into its sheath at her waist and pulled out her revolver, Thorn. She flipped out the cylinder and emptied its contents — six empty cartridges — into her hand, stowing them in one of the pouches around her belt. "I don't have a lot else to do down here. In Hell, I mean."

The creature stopped and peeked its head up at Summer. It tilted its head and looked around somewhat furtively.

Summer plucked fresh cartridges off her belt, feeding them into the cylinder one by one. "If I'm being punished, then I'd prefer a more direct approach. I don't think this is working." She slapped the cylinder shut and sighed.

The creature leapt at Summer. Summer took aim within a second and fired, blowing the creature back into the bushes.

"See, I'm very good at what I do. And what I do is killing monsters. I really can't tell if this whole thing is supposed to be a punishment or not."

Over the trees peered one of the creatures — this one was massive, its eyes glowing ominously in the darkness. There was the sound of crunching and snapping as it trode into the clearing. It loomed above her.

"And here we go," Summer said, drawing Halbmond. She smirked at the massive creature — and promptly ran the other way as the giant brought its massive fist to the ground. A wave of darkness rippled out from the impact point and it caught Summer in the back, throwing her to the ground.

She picked herself up and ran through the forest, the giant dark creature chasing after her.

The forest began to get thicker and far, far thornier than she would have liked. She sliced open a path through the overgrowth with her sword. Behind her, the giant lumbered through the thorns as if they were nothing.

At last the thorns broke. She was standing on the bridge of an old, crumbling castle. She ran through its open gate and into the castle itself.

The castle's audience chamber was in ruins, but otherwise silent. Summer stopped to catch her breath.

A massive fist slammed through the stonework above the entrance. A moment later the giant peered through the brand new hole. Summer raised her sword at it and with the flick of a switch the blade retracted backwards, the hilt swiveled down into a pistol grip, and the entire weapon became a short rifle. Summer pulled the trigger.

The round hit the giant's eye and the giant recoiled.

"Well, it bleeds," Summer said tentatively, looking around for another exit — but the only ways out were underneath the giant or up the stairs. Under the giant would only lead back into the forest of thorns, but the stairs were almost certainly a death trap as well. But she would be easy pickings if she stayed down in the audience chamber.

The giant grabbed the edges of the hole it had made with its fist and widened it brick by brick with ferocious strength.

Up the stairs it was. Summer ran for it as the giant reached into the audience chamber with a massive hand. Summer ran through halls and up more stairs. From beneath, she could hear the giant thrashing.

She was about to run down a corridor when a fist smashed through the wall and the giant peered in again. She pulled out her revolver with her off hand and took aim — but at this range, it wasn't hard.

The giant bore the brunt of her six-bullet attack and stepped back, reaching a hand into the corridor. Halbmond shifted from rifle configuration back into a sword and Summer slammed the blade down into the meat of the creature's hand.

Immediately, the giant pulled its hand out, sword still embedded in its flesh, and Summer Rose clinging desperately to the sword. It shook its hand vigorously, trying to loosen the sword, but Summer reapplied her weight and drove it deeper in.

Finally, the giant reared back and punched Summer into a tower. Halbmond slid free, and Summer, slightly dazed, sat there in the remains of a ruined room. She shook her head clear and stood.

The giant was rearing back for another haymaker to demolish the tower's base.

Summer saw its windup and prepared herself, hunching down into a runner's ready position as best she could.

The giant's punch was launched. The giant's arm was ramrod straight, smashing through stone and demolishing the lower floors of the tower.

Summer ran at the edge of the room where there had once been a wall. Just before the moment of impact, she leapt with all her might and landed on the giant's bicep, stabbing through it with her sword to steady herself. It did a bizarre, almost human double take at her.

She smirked, pulled up her sword, and ran up the rest of its arm to its head, driving Halbmond through one of the creature's eyes. She repeated her attack on the other eye and the creature sank to its knees, curling in on itself.

Summer kicked off from the giant's chin, twisting in mid air and using a blast from Thorn's central chamber to soften her landing. She landed deftly atop a parapet-lined wall.

"Eat that," Summer said, watching the monster collapse and disintegrate into nothingness.

Suddenly, two more of the giant creatures lumbered toward her out of the thorny forest, and another burst from the castle.

"Oh, leave it out," Summer said to herself, watching their approach carefully. She reloaded Thorn and stowed it before reloading Halbmond.

Giant No. 1, coming from the castle behind her, was the first to reach her. It loomed over the castle wall. No. 2 and No. 3 quickly followed suit, surrounding Summer.

For a moment the giants all stood, regarding Summer. Summer slowly turned around, sword in hand.

A fist crashed through the wall as Summer ran laterally toward the nearest tower, firing Halbmond at one of the giants' faces. The attacked giant raised its hands to shield its face as the other two moved closer to the wall, demolishing it with grasping hands and fists as if it were a large toy playset.

Summer reached the interior of a guard tower and mentally ran through her inventory.

She had six rounds in her revolver, plus the shotgun shell in the center chamber, and eight more standard rounds on her belt and several shells in her bag. A freshly reloaded magazine for her rifle held eight rounds, but she was down to five. There was no time to reload her rifle's spare magazines, even if she had more than a dozen rounds in her bag. Attacking them at long range was untenable; she would run out of ammunition before any of them fell. She still had a small survival knife in her boot, if it came to that, and her Aura was surprisingly high for being thrown into a tower.

She flicked Halbmond into sword mode.

The wall before her came down. She backed away from the crumbling stonework.

One of the giants plunged its hands into the floor of the tower's interior, a pool of darkness forming around its forearm. Smaller creatures began to emerge out of the pool. Summer cut through them as she charged forwards, up the giant's arm.

Her Aura burned as her Semblance kicked into gear, accelerating her movements. She winced at the pain wracking her body as she pushed it to the human limit. She raised her sword and drove it into the giant's face. It flinched and she kicked off from its shoulder, flying through the air and planting her blade into the chest of another giant.

She returned to normal speed as she hung from her sword by one hand. Her legs came up as she prepared to kick off again and her other hand drew her revolver. She blasted the giant in the face and kicked off again, landing on the remains of the castle wall—

—A fist slammed into her, knocking her into the castle's central tower. Her Aura broke as she went through the wall. She landed in a heap. In a bizarre moment of lucidity, she noticed that the dark storage room at the top of the tower whose wall she'd gone through held only a single, old-looking spinning wheel.

The three giants strode towards the tower.

Summer groaned in pain as she flopped over, taking aim with her revolver. She fired until it was dry. Strangely, she felt a sense of déjà vu. Hadn't she already had a defiant last stand? There was a great pressure in her head, like something was trying to escape through her eyes.

Ruby...Yang…

The giants surrounded the tower and raised their fists.

I wanted to see you again.

The fists came down. As they did, the room was filled with light and Summer fell through the floor.