Notice: Due to an awards ceremony that I have to organise, foot questions over and chair in September, I'm going to be taking the week starting Monday 12th – Sunday 18th September off. I'll be back Monday 19th.
Cover Art: Curbizzle
Chapter 38
Cinder pondered the nature of greed and ambition as she watched Null deal with the last of the champions, Hunter, who was doing his best to avoid the man's gun but couldn't match up to him; he refused to fight back, and that would prove his doom. He lacked ambition, unlike her, and unlike so many of the other Jaune Arcs that had been summoned. It was amusing to think that despite some having impossible strength – Knight, for instance – it was the ones who had the strongest thirst for victory who got the furthest. Grimm had only wanted to please his mother and so had died; Barista had wanted to stay out of trouble and died; Magnis had sacrificed himself to allow for the escape of those children and thus died.
They had no drive for victory, no ambition, no wish that they would do anything to achieve. Compare that to Null. He was not the strongest, nor was he the fastest or the smartest, but he was prepared to do anything to win and he was ruthless. He needed his wish, and Cinder was sure that if she had been granted Ashari, and Emerald had Null, that this would be a very different moment. Null might simply have killed her in her sleep or shot her in the back at the first opportunity. He wouldn't have cared what Emerald wanted – only what heightened his chances of winning. He was, in many ways, the perfect champion for her. A perfect reflection of herself.
Then there was Fate, who went about behind the backs of many to sabotage and kill – and he had earned himself just as great a casualty list as Null despite being physically one of the weakest of the pack. He skulked in the shadows, assassinated and misled his own side. He, too, would have done anything for his wish and much like Null he'd reached the latter stages beyond powerhouse like Grimm, Knight and Leviathan. His death had hardly even been his fault. It was his anchor which failed him.
Xiong, too, she would grudgingly admit, had excelled because of his ambition. He had not cared to win but he'd wanted to spit in her eye, and she would admit to him having accomplished that. Not that it matters now, she thought, but it still proved her point. Power was nothing without ambition. Strength was nothing without drive. To effectively wield both, you had to have the correct mindset. The willingness to act, the selfishness to take and the cruelty to throw aside any that might slow you down. Null understood that. Cinder understood that. It was why, at the end, they were the two left standing, as Null finally caught Hunter, pinned the man down and unloaded three rounds into his chest. He didn't even have to use his Semblance as Hunter had no aura.
"It's done." said Cinder, her smile spreading wide enough to split her face in two. Null's expression was grim; she knew he took less pleasure in the act than she, but he was prepared to do what he had to and she had little choice but to respect that. They needed one another. "The last of the champions is dead. We have won." The silence in the ruined hall at the base of what had once been the tower of Beacon was deafening. The absence of the gods, of Jinn, of any fanfare, left her smile to falter. "Isn't it done?" she asked. "They're all dead."
"Could one have survived?" asked Null.
Knight could not have or he would have returned by now. Cinder supposed it was possible Grimm had made it, but he would have flown back on a Nevermore if that were the case. Fate was assuredly dead, as were the people he killed. Headmaster had challenged the headmaster and fallen when the tower did, she had killed Xiong herself, Magnis died to Null and Adam. The list was long and she could not guarantee the death of each and every one.
"It's possible Warchief or Agent still live," she eventually said. "They might be on death's door but still alive." Frustrating as it was, it was just housework now. "We'll do a last sweep of the school." It would have been easier to blow it sky high and kill everyone but she knew Null would not accept it. "If they are here and injured, we shall find them."
Null nodded, reloaded his gun and walked toward her. "Alright."
"No need!" a loud, cocky voice called out. Cinder had learned to hate that voice – Jaune Arc's – from just how many people she'd heard it from of late. This one was different though. It was confident in a way that had always reminded her of Roman, and with good reason. The man that walked out the shadows of the corridor back toward the elevator had clearly been his champion. "I'll save you both the trouble and say that here I am," said Headmaster, twirling his cane and smirking like he'd found the last piece of the puzzle. "Or did you forget about little old me?"
Cinder's hands clenched tight and then gently unclenched. It was less a surprise than she thought it should be that he would still be alive. Ambition and ruthlessness, she reminded herself. Headmaster had both to play her side against Ozpin's for his own agenda. It was inevitable he would make it this far. He'd even picked up the Schnee to defend him. She's not his anchor, Cinder thought to herself. Roman is probably far away from here where I can't reach him. Clever.
"I thought Ozpin might have accomplished one thing in his sad little life and killed you." she said. "I see he failed at even that."
"He came closer than you ever did."
"That can be amended." The urge to attack immediately was overpowering but it helped to be patient. "Are you the last one?" she asked. "Hunter is dead. Is it between you and Null now, or should we expect your little train of brats to show up?"
"Do you want it to be a one on one?" asked Headmaster with a little surprise. "I'll agree to that."
Of course he would. Null was strongest when he wasn't under constant pressure and Headmaster knew all too much how his Semblance worked. The best way to fight Null was without distraction. On the other hand, Winter Schnee was no pushover and might be able to hold her back. Cinder was confident she could hold the woman off, but she wouldn't have such easy control as she had against those students. The Schnee Semblance was well-known and ridiculously versatile.
"Very well," she said. "You against Null. No interruptions."
"I don't agree to this!" snapped Winter, rounding on her new teammate. "I won't leave the fate of the world in the hands of-"
"It's fine. It's fine." Headmaster laughed jovially, twirled his cane up and caught it at the centre. He drew his sword with his other hand, wielding both in an odd dual style that didn't look quite right. "Have a little faith in me. And keep an eye on Cinder. I wouldn't put it past her to cheat."
Cinder snorted, more amused than offended. "That coming from you."
"I never claimed to be any different. At least I didn't kill my allies. What did Ashari do to upset you?"
"He would have never allowed me to win," explained Cinder. It cost her nothing now that the man was dead. "He played along because of his unhealthy obsession with Emerald, but we all knew he had no loyalty to me or even Salem. He would have betrayed us at the last. I simply chose to betray him first."
It hadn't been something she especially wanted to do because he had been useful, but she'd seen him holding back against Winter. She had watched as he let that fight drag out in the hopes she would fall against Fate and the others. Had she died, Ashari would have switched sides and let someone else win. Calling them allies was nonsense. They had been antagonistic since the start and he only hung around because of Emerald.
There had never been any loyalty on their side of the war. Grimm served Salem; Ashari served Emerald; Revolutionary refused to serve Adam; Null served his own interests. To say they had been on the same side was a joke.
Headmaster shook his head. "You always were a piece of work. Well, Null. Rea-" He leaned aside as a bullet punched past his left ear, then another for his chest. He ducked low, sprinting right to put himself between Null and her and prevent Null shooting. "I'll take that as a sign you are!" Headmaster skidded, pushed and launched himself forward with his dark blue coat flapping behind him. They clashed in the centre of the room, sword striking gun, cane striking flesh and bullets pinging off the ceiling.
To say they were good was an insult to the far better Jaunes that had come before. They were adequate. Knight had been stronger; Magnis had been quicker; Fate had been more skilled; Grimm had been more resilient. They were all dead, dead and gone, leaving those weaker and yet more ambitious, more willing to get their hands dirty and less reliant on their anchors. If Pyrrha Nikos had done the wise thing and hidden away then Fate might yet live. If Emerald had not been such a blind and trusting little girl, Ashari would still be alive.
Headmaster and Null fought like clumsy idiots. The latter more so than the former, but then Headmaster had to be three times as careful, for a single opening and flare of Null's Semblance would kill him. Null could afford to make mistakes and made many, beaten back and ducking slashes as his aura flared with every blow he received.
Cinder's attention slid from the fight to Winter, as her hands flexed and she considered the time it would take to summon a bow, arrows and open fire. The briefest distraction was all Null needed to claim victory. It would take nothing more.
Winter's attention was focused back on her. The Specialist had her sabre drawn, her aura activated and small, barely noticeable white glyphs spinning about the tip of her weapon. She, too, was ready and waiting, and the slightest movement might set her off. Cinder weighed the option anyway. A distraction for Headmaster might come from her or Winter, but the question was whether Null could handle it if he had to go on the defensive against the both of them. He could not, she realised, lowering her hands to her sides.
Null would win without her input. Headmaster had shown remarkable callousness and intellect, but he hadn't shown off any big Semblance or impressive combat ability. He was, at the end of the day, just another huntsman for Null to break.
/-/
Winter watched Cinder like a hawk.
This was not how she wanted this fight to go, nor how she imagined General Ironwood or Ozpin would have wanted it either. Her sister's team were right to demand to know where the teachers, huntsmen and the army were. The war for the fate of Remnant had been left in the hands of children, and now in the hands of her and the one person she couldn't trust. General Ironwood might have an excuse if he was badly injured, but Winter would be having stern words with the people outside and with Beacon's teachers.
Assuming we survive this, she thought. If Cinder won then the world might nor recover. Even if she thinks she can take the power for herself, the gods only mentioned a victory for Ozpin or Salem. They didn't mention that anyone else could claim it for themselves. Cinder might end up giving the win to Salem by default.
But to attack now would mean distracting Headmaster, and Null only needed one shot to win the war. Bullets flew high and to the side even now as Headmaster attacked and defended at the same time, having to make absolutely certain Null's weapon was never pointed his way. A single error didn't just mean his death, but the death of everyone on Remnant. It was too much pressure – even for her!
Damn it, she thought. If we had more teams here we could dogpile Null and give him too many things to think about. He'd be dragged down and killed before he could have a chance at Headmaster, and we'd win this war on the spot.
They moved across the hall as they fought; Null tried to keep distance to get a shot in and Headmaster chased, his sword attacking and his cane deflecting Null's arm or gun aside. He stayed in close melee, the kind of close where even a sword was impractical, and where elbows and knees were the primary weapons of war.
Aura sparked and flared with every blow from Headmaster. He worked Null's down methodically, slow as he needed to, all so long as he could avoid being shot. It was still an impossible fight to call. The edge was firmly with Headmaster but then it only took one mistake. One moment of inattention.
Null worked his gun down and between himself and Headmaster, his eyes flashing gold. Headmaster struck but wasn't fast enough to cut the man's throat before the gun fired. Two shots punched into his stomach and chest and Null had his aura back up in time to tank the blow, white light sparking and crackling as he only just managed that. He was on the edge of his aura shattering, fighting on dregs, but it didn't matter how much Headmaster had. The older man staggered back, hand clutching the hole in his stomach as blood splashed down to the floor.
Winter's heart dropped. She clenched her sabre tight and moved. "No!"
"STOP!" roared Headmaster. He laughed, quieter, and then said, "It's – ahah – It's fine. Trust in me. A-All part of the plan."
His plan was to get hurt? Get shot? Winter snarled at the macho bravado and made ready to charge again and kill Null herself – or die trying – when she noticed something else spilling to the floor. Not just blood, but something fine and coarse that mixed with his blood as it spread across the floor.
Dust. His blood laced through with sparkling flecks of dust.
"What?" whispered Cinder.
"Ha. D-Did you never wonder what happened to all that dust you had Roman and Neo steal? Let me show you." Headmaster gasped and pushed himself up, lunged and grasped Null by the shoulders. He threw his coat back and away. His chest and stomach were wrapped front and back with explosives, all of which had been hidden under the heavy coat. "A-Always have a back up plan!" he croaked.
Null swore and tried to struggle free while Cinder summoned her bow. Winter sent several white Nevermore hurtling forward, forcing her back, but her attention was on the main fight. Aura or no, anyone caught in that kind of explosion was done for, and Null's aura was already low. He activated his Semblance, placed the barrel against Headmaster's chest and fired again and again, trying to take his life before he could detonate them.
"You ever wonder what the gods planned to do if this ended up a draw?" taunted Headmaster with a wild, feral look on his face. Null roared his response with his trigger finger until blood and dust sloshed to the floor and the weapon clicked dry.
Headmaster Arc remained alive, bringing his head up and his forehead to rest against Null's.
"Let's find out together."
The bright white light was what Winter saw first – and then nothing more. On instinct alone she summoned a spectral Ursa in front of her, but the blast tore through it, picked her up and sent her flying backwards. She had seen controlled detonations in her time, mostly in training to become a Specialist, but this was not that. This was a ridiculous quantity of dust strapped to a person and set off all at once. It expanded in every direction without control, smashing down into the floor, the walls and cracking the already badly damaged ceiling.
Winter struck the floor a great distance away, her back and her aura protesting as she rolled and bounced along like a pebble skimmed across a lake. When the momentum finally slowed, she still rolled a few more times before coming to a stop on all fours, smoking and gasping for air torn straight out her lungs by the fire.
The hall had been destroyed. Utterly destroyed. The roof was gone, the floor charred black and the walls had exploded outward and were still showering brick here and there as other parts of Beacon groaned, teetered and collapsed all around her. Winter stood, wobbled and caught herself on a piece of debris. There could be no doubt Headmaster and Null were dead. Not even she, at full aura, could have survived an explosion like that, and the two of them had been worn out from constant fighting. They were dead.
"Guh. Grahhh!" Rock ground aside as Cinder pushed herself out from the rubble. The woman was covered in bruises and dust, her dress burnt in places and scorched in others. The left side of hr face had blistered badly, leaving her skin puckered and red. "Null!" she screamed. "Null! D-Damn it." She let out a dusty, dry cough. "N-Null!"
A draw. Was that what this made it? Winter might have laughed if she weren't so uncertain, and if the stakes weren't so great. He planned this, she thought. There was no reason a man would strap themselves to blow without intending to use it. Headmaster had planned either for them to beat Cinder and Null down in the vault or, if all went wrong, to take them all out together. But why? Why push for a non-result instead of taking the victory for himself?
He could have interrupted in the vault and killed Null with the rest of them, then had a last fight between him and Fate to decide the winner of the war. Why let it go this far and then kill himself? Had he not wanted the wish? He can't have, if this was his plan, but then that left the question of what his goals had been. What was the point? Spite? To spit in the face of the gods and rob them of their fun? Winter grimaced, and found she had no idea. He'd been inscrutable to the last, and no one would know just why he and Xiong worked independently of everyone else. Only that they must have had their reasons.
"No." Cinder was moving now, back toward where Null and Headmaster had died. "No, no, no!" she ranted, pulling rubble aside and digging her way down. "Not like this. Not so close. It was mine. It was supposed to be mine!"
Groaning, Winter clutched her sabre and made her way forward. "Cinder Fall. You are under arrest by the authority of Atlas. Surrender now." The woman didn't hear her.
"Null was the last remaining!" she shouted. "He wounded Headmaster first. That means we win. That means I win!"
Winter began limping forward only to hear more people behind her. She turned, half-expecting more enemies, but it was Teams RWBY and JNPR. They must have been drawn up from the vault by the sounds of the explosion. They took in the devastation with shock. Beacon couldn't really be called standing after this, and it certainly couldn't be called a school anymore. It would need to be fully destroyed and then rebuilt.
"What happened?" asked Weiss.
"Headmaster killed himself to kill Null." said Winter. "Hunter died before," she added for Lie Ren's sake. The boy closed his eyes and dipped his head. "The war ended in a flash. Both died at the same time. I… I am not sure what that means."
"I have a feeling we're about to find out," said Pyrrha Nikos, eyes wide as she stared at the centre of the destroyed hall. "My god."
"Gods…" corrected Yang Xiao-Long.
Indeed, there were two spots of light forming in the centre of the hall between them and Cinder. One was gold and the other purple. They expanded, swelled and slowly turned into humanoid beings some nine feet tall. One glowed and the other almost appeared to absorb light, being the antithesis of the first. Winter swallowed, feeling incredibly small. Jinn had been inhuman but not like this, and the Brother Gods had not made a direct appearance before.
"I won!" shouted Cinder. "Null was the last to live. Headmaster was dying before-"
"The war is inconclusive." It was the God of Light that… spoke? The word was not accurate. To speak was to exhale breath and sound for another person to hear. This felt more direct than that, as though he – it? – was speaking directly into her and everyone else's heads at once. "The final two died instantaneously."
"Intentionally." said the other. "Defiance. Disobedience."
"You were chosen to fight," said the God of Light. "You were selected, and yet some of you chose not to." He made no physical movement and had no expression, yet they could sense the being's roiling anger and disappointment. "The terms of the war were breached."
Winter exhaled and forced herself to speak. To expect anyone else to was folly. "On what grounds?" she asked. "We fought against Salem as instructed."
"The one you call Headmaster did not." The God of Darkness oozed derision. "Allying with another, Xiong, to defy our will and destroy the war. The one known as Fate disobeyed the side he had been assigned to. Barista, Hunter, Revolutionary. All guilty."
"Guilty of what!?" demanded Blake Belladonna. "Guilty of not wanting to fight? That was their choice."
"No." It was the God of Light. "It was our choice. Our decree. Our decision. They were chosen to fight. They were selected. That is all that matters."
"The template was faulty." communicated the God of Darkness. His hand rose, without fingers, to point directly at Mr Arc. His partner, Pyrrha, quickly stepped in front of him. "Defiant even now. You were not chosen and yet you fought. You were not chosen."
"It's my world too." said Jaune. "I have a right to defend it."
"No. It is our world. As you are our creations."
"A new war." decided the God of Light. "A new set of champions, a new contest. That one?" Winter took a step back as the hand was pointed directly at her. The God of Darkness shook his head, however.
"Obedient only to one man. That one." The hand this time moved to Ruby Rose, who swallowed and shied behind her sister. The God of Darkness then shook his own head. "No. Inflexible. No deviation. Always the same. Will refuse."
"Disobedient." the God of Light said to Jaune. "Unimaginative," he said to Pyrrha. "Defiant," to Yang. "Arrogant," to Weiss, "Weak," to Blake, and "and lacking in ambition," it said to Ren and Nora. "They are all poor templates. They are not obedient."
"Why would anyone be obedient to a pair of gods that haven't done anything for us in thousands of years?" shouted Jaune. He pushed past Pyrrha and Winter both to stand before them with his eyes blazing. "You insult us for being different people and having our flaws but that's part of being human. We're not templates. We're people. And you're just going to start another war because this one didn't go the way you wanted it to. How petty are you? The war happened, it's over, no one won. Just… I don't know. Go. Leave. Call it a draw, no one gets their wish, you both go away and never come back."
"No!" screamed Cinder. "Make the anchors fight!"
The God of Light tilted its head. "A proposal. Templates failed. Anchors might not."
"Few enough remain." the other said. "They shall fight to the death. No interference. Last surviving decides-"
"No!" Jaune slammed his foot down, drew his sword and pointed it at them. Winter gasped, and she was not the only one. The young man looked so very small before them, but he faced them down all the same. "The war is over. The last Jaune standing is me."
"J-Jaune!" croaked Pyrrha.
"I won." Jaune set his sword point down and rested his hands atop it. "I am the victor."
Headmaster goes out with a bang taking Null with him, and the Gods are unhappy that things haven't gone exactly as they planned it. Go figure. The last time it happened they spat out their dummies so bad they shattered the moon. "It's my moon and I'm taking it home! Nyah!"
Next Chapter: 20th August
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