Colossal Failure


It was an unusually cold morning as Team JNPR dragged themselves from Beacon towards the academy's helipads. Well, as Jaune dragged himself towards the helipads. Much to his dismay, Pyrrha was able to get over her sleepiness just by nursing a mug of coffee, Ren never seemed to be affected by anything and, defying all forms of logic and fairness, Nora actually was more excitable. And here he was, wiping at his eyes, trying to ignore how cold his armor was getting in the frigid air and—

Achoo! Ah, yeah, sneezing. That too. Now, how did that happen?

"Do you think we left enough food for Zwei?" Pyrrha asked, glancing over her shoulder.

Oh right, the dog. The dog he was allergic to.

"Pssh, he'll be fine!" Nora hopped in front of the team, grinning wide. Jaune ignored his jealousy. "Team RWAY will be back tomorrow!"

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow. "And... how, exactly, do you know that?"

"I peeked over their shoulders, duh! They're in Mountain Glenn!"

Now, that woke Jaune up. "Woah, woah, woah, wait, what?" Jaune looked at the others in his team in disbelief. "They went to Mountain Glenn? There's no way they'd let freshmen like us go there. That's suicide!"

"Team RWAY has always performed admirably: I believe they are fully capable of handling themselves," Ren reassured Jaune as Professor Port waved them down from the far end of the helipads. With most of the teams having already taken off, the place was almost completely empty.

"Yeah, I guess so. Probably why none of them have called, too... I hope they're alright..."

"Come on, Jaune, don't be such a worry-wart!" Nora exclaimed and skipped ahead. "We're about to go be heroes! Saving villages!"

"Just one," Ren corrected.

"Slaying hundreds of Grimm!"

"There were only a dozen reported."

"They're gonna hang our portraits up in the schools and sing our praises forever!"

"Highly unlikely."

Pyrrha giggled, and Jaune was left to sigh.

"Alright, alright, Nora, you win: I'll keep it positive. Come on, let's not keep Professor Port waiting any—" The earth shuddered.

Jaune stumbled and the others braced themselves as a crackling roar came from afar. Before anyone could ask what had happened, Pyrrha covered her mouth and pointed off towards the city of Vale across the river, where thick, black smoke coiled up into the sky. In the low light of dawn, they could even spot multicolored flashes from within. A low whine rose from the city.

Alarms.

Alarms that cascaded down the city, the roads and eventually began blaring in Beacon itself.

"What's going on?!" Jaune shouted over the din and looked around at his team.

Pyrrha seemed just as lost as he was, Nora was squeezing her eyes shut and shielding her ears from the blaring horns, but his attention was drawn to Ren. He stood stock-still, skin pale and with eyes widened just enough for him to notice.

Ren clenched his fist. "Grimm."


When Emerald returned to their room with Cinder in tow, their leader's plan was simple: if Emerald and Blake were having so trouble sleeping, then they might as well go out for coffee and start their day early. Such was how Blake found herself in the backseat of a rental car, Cinder driving them through the nigh-empty streets of outer Vale in the morning. Supposedly, Cinder had said, there was a small coffee shop 'to die for' hidden away in the residential district. They even had a discount for students, which was why Cinder insisted they wear their uniforms and keep their weapons on them as proof.

Blake didn't question it: her mind was on other things.

It was a quiet ride, at least until an earthquake shook the roads and the alarms began to wail. People stumbled out of their houses and shops, bleary and confused as they searched for the source. Blake could barely take the noise even from within the car, bow flattening to her head and hands rising to her ears.

Cinder and Emerald, however, only shared a glance, unfazed.

"How far out is Mercury?" Emerald asked.

"Too far: he said he'd be late. Apparently, he 'missed his ride'."

"Lucky him..." With the screeching of tires, they sped off towards the epicenter of disaster.


"This is not a test. The following message is being transmitted at the request of the Council of the Kingdom of Vale."

Adam was the first to stir in the darkness. Rubble pressed down on him from all angles, and the incessant blaring of klaxons and ringing of bells only served to press him down further. He wanted nothing more than to succumb to the unconsciousness already beginning to claw once more at his mind. Then he heard the screaming. Then the growls and roars following behind it. Adam remembered why he was here. With all the might he could muster, he forced the rock and dust off of him and stumbled to his feet.

"An order of evacuation has been placed on the residential quarter of the City of Vale."

It was a mistake. Blood trickling down his forehead left him half-blind, a constant, piercing pain atop his head told him he'd definitely chipped his horn, and his head felt like it was full of cement. He stumbled again, vision swimming until his flailing hand could find purchase on something to hold him up. Adam leaned on it until he could make out what it was: a countertop. A cash register laid crushed against the wall beside him. Shelves and racks dotted the area in various states of disarray and destruction, clothing and hats strewn across in a tattered spray of colors. Sparks jumped from the ceiling where wires hung limp. A shop.

"This is a Class 2 Grimm invasion warning. Repeating: this is a Class 2 Grimm warning."

The shop was destroyed, and the source of its destruction—and his unlikely safety—was embedded through its front wall, occupying the majority of the space: the front cab of a massive train, front window shattered and dimly-glowing smoke pouring out from below it. It was the only source of light beyond a single television that managed to survive with power, sound crackling yet recognizable, but its screen cracked and leaving only a myriad of murky, pixelated colors.

"Weiss!" Adam hoarsely called out into the madness. He could barely hear his own voice.

"Please remain calm. The epicenter is located in Government District R3, Ildaite City. All civilians within three miles are to evacuate immediately using planned evacuation routes."

"Ruby!" He stumbled forward. Crimson metal glinted ahead. Adam collapsed as he reached out for it, but his hand wrapped around Wilt and Blush. A brief check showed it was mostly unharmed. Any comfort he might've gained from it was strangled by the lack of voices in the train.

"If you cannot evacuate, seek shelter in—" The report of three shots from Blush permanently silenced the screen. One less noise to add to the cacophony.

Adam forced himself up to his knees. "Yang!"

A side door of the train blew open. Adam could hear coughing within.

"Really? I'm last?" Yang struggled to walk out into the dark shop, dragging a half-unconscious Weiss behind her. "That's rough." Even through all this, she put on a smile. Ruby stepped out last, coughing and needing Penny to hold her up. Adam hung his head and breathed out a sigh of relief. Some of the tightness around his heart faded.

"Is everyone alright?" Ruby asked, looking around to get a grasp of their situation. Quiet groans and three shaky thumbs-ups were the response from RWAY.

"Aura levels are at only 25 percent, Ruby, but I am willing to fight!" Penny reassured her.

Ruby managed a smile and checked the wall they burst in from. The only view of the outside was through the gaps between rubble, wall and train, and most of that was obscured by smoke. The ground trembled from the stampede of people and Grimm alike outside, and the building creaked ominously above them.

"Has... anyone seen Torchwick anywhere?" Ruby asked.

There were only uneasy glances between her teammates.

"I knocked him out," Weiss mumbled. "He shouldn't be a problem, even if he got out of that." A cold, dim light came from Weiss' scroll as she peered at the team's status. "Unfortunately, we aren't doing much better," Weiss said.

The crash drained every drop of aura they had just so they'd live. Even after however much time had passed, none of them were too much higher than 20 percent. Almost low enough to risk injury. With how long they had been fighting, they couldn't depend on their aura's regeneration to keep up for much longer, either. Aura regeneration slowed down over time, and if it couldn't rest, after a time it became negligible even after the fighting was over.

"I hate to say it, but maybe we should let the real Huntresses and Huntsmen stop this one?" Yang suggested.

"If the White Fang's plan is what I thought, they'll be tying up every authority here," Adam said. "They won't be able to stop this."

"Well, they might not, be we will!" Ruby declared. "We were supposed to stop it in the first place, so... so it's our job to make things right!" She stumbled as she stepped away from Penny, but raised Crescent Rose nonetheless.

"And how do you plan to do that?" Weiss asked.

The building shook, and dust tumbled down onto them. The first cracks of gunfire began to resound: early cops no doubt trying to hold off the Grimm.

"Well, I..." Ruby's gaze turned to the ground, words failing her. The four stared on at their leader, awaiting her plan, but she said nothing at all.

After a few seconds, Adam turned to the others and opened his mouth to start giving commands.

"If our aura levels are this low," Ruby began, "we can't depend too much on our long-range weaponry without Dust ammunition or aura to empower it. We need to save both, so they're out of the question. So we're gonna stay at close range! I have the largest reach and longest range, so I'll hold our rear flank against approaching Grimm. Yang!"

Yang blinked and pointed to herself, caught off-guard by Ruby's sudden control of the situation.

"You have the most aura out of all of us, so you're going to be our frontline. Penny, can you do that floating... blade thing without using aura?"

"That's classified," Penny spoke without thinking, then paused. "Actually... you know what? Yes! Yes, I can!" she declared with a bright smile.

"Perfect! You're gonna join her! Adam, Weiss, you're our reserves and alpha-specialists. Any time Yang or Penny look like they're in trouble or you see any Grimm that's alpha or mutated, take it down!"

Weiss nodded slowly, looking just as shocked as Yang.

Adam, however, raised an eyebrow. "It's impossible for us to form a perimeter with just the law enforcement on hand."

"Yep! That's why we're not going to create one at all! We're going right for the heart: the hole the train blew open. That's why you two are the reserves: with your Semblance and Weiss' ice Dust we can destroy any bit of the train left and then freeze the breach over!"

"And the inevitable White Fang fortification around it?"

"Freezerburn uses only a small amount of ice Dust: we use that to block their vision, you only need to hit once, and all that mist will only make the ice wall stronger. We'll be in and out before they even know it."

Impressed, Adam nodded. "Which only leaves the Grimm and White Fang who are in the way."

"We'll cut off the head!" Ruby countered with a prideful smile. "I bet if we find the green Taijitu, load all of our Dust ammunition and target it first, we'll break their ranks."

"It'll be unlikely that we won't take casualties. We can't afford to leave any behind with the Grimm."

Ruby smirked and put a hand on her hip. "Which is where Yang and I come in: I'm quick enough to take anyone who gets too hurt to an allied perimeter and, with Yang's Semblance, if there's an emergency we can bust right through it. Worst comes to worst, we hunker down and hold out for allies."

Adam glanced away in thought, then nodded. He parted his lips to speak again.

"Oh, and if there's any sign of Cinder, or Neo, or Angry Chainsaw Guy, we use Red Bull to disorient and we'll go around them altogether. So... what do you all think? Good plan?" Ruby was met with silence and wide eyes. "Should I... um... take that as a no?"

Yang beamed with pride. "It's great! Perfect!" she assured her.

"I... see nothing wrong with it at all." Weiss said with a smile.

"I anticipate an 83 percent chance of success, Commander Ruby!" Penny cheered.

No small amount of pride in his own eyes, Adam held a hand up and conceded. "A remarkable plan, and with such little time."

Ruby's eyes lit up and she pointed Crescent Rose off at the wall. "Great! Come on, Team RWAY—and Penny—let's go!" With the battle cry of her team behind her, Ruby twirled and slashed at the wall, blasting the rubble free and letting the sunlight illuminate their first sight of Vale in days.

It was a disaster. The early rays of the sun were obscured by vast pillars of smoke rising in every direction. The civilian populace had fled the area, yet the screams of thousands still echoed through the air. Grimm of all kinds leaped across rooftops and pillaged buildings, and the chaos was so great that the five students were all but invisible to the horde of black rushing through the streets. Gunfire echoed in all directions, yet they couldn't see any signs of the police from here. Some buildings were already reduced to rubble, including the ones in front of them. The end of a train car still stuck out from the wreckage.

The sound of Dust exploding rippled through the city from so far away that the five realized as one that the train never stopped. It had kept going, clean through whatever barriers there were left, rolling and crashing through all in its path until it embedded itself in the shop behind it. Yet, the Grimm had already expanded out this far.

A Beowolf prowled forward, its sight locked on a wounded lady panicking with her back pressed up against the wreckage of the train.

Ruby narrowed her eyes, and a single shot struck the Beowolf from its prey and into oblivion.

"Yang! Penny! Form up the front!" She took a deep breath to steady herself. "We're saving Vale."


The path towards the epicenter was not an easy one. Penny had determined that their point of entry was Vale's center, but they were nearly a mile away. This wasn't much of a distance for Huntresses and Huntsmen, yet...

Ruby batted away what must've been her tenth Beowolf already from the back of their group. They were getting bogged down barely even halfway there. Three Ursas growled and stepped out from around overturned cars and bodies to face her. At the front, Yang and Penny combined were trying to clear the way towards a Beowolf with countless, tall sea-green spikes for Adam and Weiss, yet the wave of Beowolves seemed almost endless.

"Yang! Switch!" She fired Crescent Rose at the ground, launching herself into the fray just as Yang shot herself backwards and into the sparse, but powerful Grimm behind them. Ruby's scythe was far superior and clearing away the smaller foes and, with only three twirls of her weapon, they had a clear shot through the black miasma.

"Frostbite! Keep it small!" Ruby called to them.

Weiss sent a pinpoint burst of energy through the already-closing horde to lock the mutated Grimm's leg, then flicked her rapier up to form only two glyphs: one above and one behind it. Adam sprung up from the center of the group towards the glyph above, kicked off and slashed clean through the Beowolf. The surrounding Grimm didn't even have a chance to react to their mutated alpha's cry before Adam landed atop the second glyph, spun and in the blink of an eye appeared before his team.

The alpha's top half slid away and melted into viscous oil. The bottom half, and the cohesion of the Grimm facing them, dissipated soon after.

"There's still too many!" Yang drew her fist out of an Ursa's crushed skull, a second already fading beside her. The third had begun to back up, but she could see sparse beads of black growing in the sky. Nevermores. They'd already managed to start slipping through Vale's defenses.

Ruby searched for a way out, cleaving through the disorganized Grimm until she spotted a tall hotel building in the distance. "Up there! We'll have good sight on the breach!" Yang dashed up, loading her gauntlets to launch herself through the skies. "Wait! Hold on the ammo, we might still need it."

"We're going to walk up those stairs?" Weiss shouted as she ducked beneath a Beowolf's swing and drove her rapier up through its jaw.

"Better than burning all of our Dust and aura now," Adam retorted, drawing his blade and firing Blush to blast a Boarbatusk away from Penny before it could get too close.

"Yep! Weiss, Adam, clear us a path! Penny, watch our sides!" Ruby called.

With plentiful time as the 'reserves' filling up enough of their aura, Adam and Weiss both raised their weapons and bolted into the fray. Flashes of fiery-red and ice-blue slashed and shredded Grimm as Team RWAY followed behind their spearhead, green bolts of Dust from Penny blasting any Grimm too close for comfort.


"How long were we out?" Yang said under her breath as Weiss froze the hotel's doors shut and Adam shot the last Beowolf trying to climb in through the window.

The hotel's lobby was a microcosm of everything that had gone wrong in Vale. The lights were on, every television set turned to the same, incessant emergency broadcast. Pale, cream-colored carpets were stained crimson. Furniture was overturned and cracked, bullet holes marked the walls and ceiling, and the small of Dust was in the air. There'd been a firefight between the citizens and Grimm.

Streaks of blood all led to a dented, half-open set of elevator doors. The citizens had lost.

"Long enough for Vale to go straight to hell," Adam murmured as he stepped through the carnage long past.

Penny looked around, then frowned. "I... detect no civilian life in this building." The team looked between one another. Ruby clutched Crescent Rose tight, hands starting to tremble. Yang stepped towards her, only for Ruby to storm off towards the stairwell.

"All the more reason we have to stop it from happening somewhere else," she said.

The dash up the ten flights of stairs was almost entirely spent in silence. Only near the top through did Weiss raise a question:

"Where have the White Fang been?"

"Waiting, most likely," Adam replied as they stormed back out into the dawn.

"They've gotten exactly what they wanted; why aren't they using the element of... surprise..." Weiss trailed off as she joined the rest on the rooftop, just barely able to see the breach in the distance. Living in a mansion in the middle of a frozen wasteland for most of her life left Weiss knowing very little about how animals and insects truly worked. She'd hear and read about beehives and cockroaches and colonies, but she never had to deal with these things in the arctic cold of Atlas. Even in Vale, spending most of her time in the dorms and bustling city left her unused to such things.

Even so, this was what she imagined an anthill looked like in person. A building had collapsed over where the train must've blown through, but it wasn't enough: the Grimm had dug through the hill of rubble and were pouring out of it like vermin, the ground barely visible beneath the shroud of smoky darkness the Grimm carried behind them. The wave of Grimm was only broken up by the occasional detached train car standing above it all and glimpses of sea-green leading the pack deeper into their city.

Above they could see the massive airships of Atlas slowly approaching in the distance, yet Weiss was unsure if even that going to be enough.

"Ruby... what do we do, now?" Weiss tore her eyes away from the unfolding disaster to look at her leader. She regretted it: Ruby was shattered. Crescent Rose hung limp in her arms, and she stared off in a daze towards the sea of Grimm. Whether it was tears or just the reflection of the sun, her silver eyes looked like they held a light of their own, growing ever brighter.

Ruby never had the chance to respond, however, as the cracking of stone and hiss of Grimm drew their attention below. No doubt drawn by their grief, the black head of a King Taijitu swirled up into view, maw large enough to devour any one of them in a single bite. Bricks cracked and glass splintered all across the building: the snake was large enough to crush the entire hotel in its grip.

It leaned back to lunge, Yang pulled Ruby back from in front of it and braced herself to defend them. Adam and Weiss readied their weapons. Penny, however, leaned over to peer behind the snake. Her eyes widened.

"Move!"

They could hear an explosion and, to their brief confusion, giggling in the distance. Adam and Weiss jumped back without a moment of doubt, and Penny all but tackled Yang and Ruby to the ground.

In a burst of pink, a hammer slammed into the serpent's head hard enough to crush it into the roof and send up a plume of cracked rock and dust. It twitched. Nora drew her hammer from the shattered faceplate, then turned to the five on the roof who were staring at her, stunned.

"And just where have you been, Team RWAY?" Nora called. "My team's been worried sick about you!"

"Nora..." Ruby and Yang grunted from beneath Penny.

She giggled awkwardly and moved off of the two sisters.

"First, you go off on some secret mission without even telling us, then you don't call or even shoot us a text like 'hey, Nora, it's us, RWAY! Just letting you know we're not all dying horribly to the Grimm or anything', now you show up here?"

"Nora!" Weiss shouted.

"What?" Nora put a hand on her hips.

"The Grimm's still alive!"

Nora blinked once. Twice. She looked down, her eyes meeting with the red ones of the King Taijitu. "Oh."

The Grimm hissed and began to rise. The building let out a horrid shriek of metal and began to lurch. Bullets and bolts from RWAY and Penny smacked into its thick hide, but with them so low on aura, it did little.

The minigun of a Bullhead rising up from below them, however, was substantially more effective, splashing black ichor across the faltering hotel and leaving the King Taijitu's head collapsing back on the rooftop. This time, it stayed still.

"Careful, Nora!" Jaune's voice called out. The jets of the Bullhead blew away the dust and darkness both, revealing him kneeling in the side door of the aircraft and Professor Port beside him watching for any incoming Grimm. "Everyone, get on! That other head isn't going to take that lying down!"

A loud series of cracks and rumbles like that of a grand tree falling only proved his point: if the King Taijitu couldn't devour them, it'd crush them instead. With the roof tilting at an angle steep enough to make it difficult to stand straight, the five rushed to its edge and leaped, one by one, into the Bullhead's side door. Nora was the last, waiting until everyone else was safe before blasting herself aboard with her grenade-firing warhammer.

The Bullhead couldn't have taken off any sooner for, with a final burst of dust and crackling of stone, the hotel could take no more and collapsed around the King Taijitu in its last, suicidal attempt to take them down with it. Flames erupted from Dust lines and lights being crushed. All that was left was another part of Vale burning. The plumes of smoke were growing all the more common across the city, enveloping the entire city center. From so high, they could see flashes along the cloud's edges, and battle cries joining in with the shouts and screams: the police were finally joined up by other Huntsmen.

"Why isn't Atlas firing?" Weiss asked.

"There are currently over one million citizens still alive in the ward of Ilidaite City. An Atlesian Carrier may have the necessary firepower, but we cannot be sure about collateral damage," Penny dutifully reported. "It would be an international incident and—"

"So, Vomit Boy!" Yang clapped a hand on Jaune's shoulder hard enough to make him stumble.

Penny pouted at being cut off.

"Where's the rest of the team?"

Jaune grumbled something under his breath about her choice of nickname that went either unheard or ignored by the blonde. "Pyrrha and Ren are grabbing any stragglers they can from behind the lines. Sun and Neptune were lucky enough to be near the center: they're rallying the police. We even got some students from Patch that were visiting for the Vytal Festival in the area, and—"

"Woah, woah, woah, I just meant your team! Where's the rest of that coming from, anyway?" Yang asked.

"Well, I, uh... knew a couple people who asked was going on. So I called around to see who was still in the area, and then our team was the deepest besides Sun and Neptune, so I started calling out trouble zones and... uh, look, long story short: I'm kinda the commander of the relief force right now."

"How do you just wind up commanding a relief force?" Weiss sounded suspicious.

"Hey, don't look at me like that, I don't know either! I'd just started calling everyone up and it sort of... just happened. I guess I'm pretty good at giving orders?" He perked up as his Scroll rang and held a hand out. "One sec... Ren! How's the situation, down there?"


In the victorious atmosphere, there was still one little dark cloud, sitting at the Bullhead's edge with her legs dangling off and Crescent Rose clutched in her arms. Hearing Jaune giving out commands over his Scroll, leading the Huntsmen and calling shots just drove it in even more for Ruby: they'd screwed up. The time to be the big hero had passed long before they'd woken up. Their first real mission, and they'd managed to screw it up so bad that Vale was getting invaded for the first time in decades.

No. She had gotten captured. She had screwed it up that badly. This was her fault.

"Where do you need us?" Yang asked Jaune behind her.

"You guys? Uh... look, no offense, but with your aura levels I think it's time you guys took a break. It's probably gonna take days for you five to get patched up."

It was her fault, and now there was nothing she could do about it.

A flash of green in the distance caught her eye.

"Pssh, we'll be fine! We made it this far! Besides, I think we got back like... teeeen percent since we woke up in here?"

Green and... black. Further down into the cloud, she could just make out a gigantic, serpentine silhouette slithering through the streets with sea-green spines lining its back. The King Taijitu controlling them all.

"And how much do you have now?"

"... Well, we kinda lost that ten percent again, so we're kinda back at twenty, max."

As if knowing it was seen, the mutant King Taijitu rose its head high into the air, surrounded by a horde of Grimm.

"Hey, speaking of waking up, how did you guys even get there?" Nora piped up. "I thought you were in Mountain Glenn!"

"Lo~ong story," Yang replied. "But we wouldn't have gotten this far without Rubes here! Right, sis?"

It was right there. She could still do something. She could still save the day, and all she'd need to do was take down one enemy.

"Rubes?"

Her grip tightened on Crescent Rose.

"Sis?"

The gaze of the Grimm locked onto hers.

Ruby jumped.


"Ruby, what the hell are you—" Yang could only shout in frustration as she leaped off after Ruby without a moment's hesitation.

In the blink of an eye, two of their teammates had just jumped headfirst into disaster. They didn't have time to focus on that, either, as bullets clanged and bounced off of the hull of the Bullhead.

"Hey, watch it, would you! We're friendly!" Jaune leaned out of the side of the Bullhead, and his breath caught in his throat. It wasn't Huntsmen or police shooting at them. On the rooftops, numerous citizens had gathered up. They all had three things in common: they were armed, they were faunus, and they wore pale masks.

"White Fang!" And then all hell broke loose: claps of thunder erupted far and wide across the entire city, Countless reports left Jaune's Scroll buzzing without end, and below, they could see glimpses of white multiplying and joining in with the wave of Grimm. They crashed into the perimeters and lines of police with an intelligence and surprise that destroyed their organization. The wails and cries of Vale rose up as one once more. A high-pitched whine came from the front of their Bullhead, joining in.

"What's going on!" Jaune called back as their aircraft lurched off to one side and dropped closer to the streets, soaring above scattering civilians and the beginnings of Vale's sparse military.

"Something's trying to lock onto us! Hold on," the pilot called back. Streams of white smoke flew out from deeper into the city. Missiles.

"Wait, go back!" Weiss exclaimed. "We need to get to Ruby and Yang!" She began throwing up glyph after her glyph with what sparse aura she had left to intercept and divert the deadly missiles from striking them. Pink bursts from Nora's grenades joined in, and Jaune was thrown to one knee by the rocking and shuddering of the Bullhead, swallowing down his air sickness just enough to start calling for status reports.

"On it!" Penny jumped across to one of the rooftops and was gone in a flash, sprinting off to where they'd last seen the two.

"We aren't going anywhere near there, pal!" the pilot shouted. They could see other Bullheads rushing towards the center, joined in by giant, whale-like ships hovering just behind: Vale's own militia. They were expecting to slay Grimm, guns ignoring the armed people below, sensors disregarding the Atlesian machines scattered in the streets, radar focused on the skies for Nevermores, surely the only thing that could strike them at this height.

They didn't fare nearly as well as their own Bullhead. Already, burning wrecks were dropping from the skies like wounded birds from a rain of missiles, surviving occupants taking their chances with aura and landing strategies by leaping out rather than following the falling carcass to their inevitable demise.

It wasn't just from the city center, either: all across the city, shrouds had been pulled free to reveal inactive Paladins, Dust bombs and rockets aimed towards the sky. Without the main thrust, they wouldn't have stood a chance to be any more than a nuisance.

But with the train having carved a path of destruction...

Adam grit his teeth and took a step towards the edge. Buildings were flying past in blurs. The distance between them and the other half of their team grew every second.

"I'm going down there." They didn't know, but deep down, Adam did: that selfish choice of his had caused this.

"This far from them?" Weiss asked.

"I'm not going after Ruby. I trust her that much." Adam looked over the streets below, following the main road up towards the establishing 'front line'. He needed to make things right, once and for all. "I'm going after the White Fang."

"You won't need to worry about Ruby and Yang, anyway," Jaune spoke up. "If that's the Ruby we know, she's probably going right in for where this is all coming from. Lucky for us, I managed to wrangle up some people who can help." He brought up his Scroll. "Did you get those coordinates? Uh-huh... great."

"Team CFVY, give 'em a wake-up call."