Sorry for the lack of an update last week, I'd been hyperfixating on Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. I actually started a round-robin fanfic of Destiny on SufficientVelocity. A round-robin, if you're unfamiliar, is a collaborative fic where anyone can contribute snippets. You're all welcome to participate-I can be found there under the same username as here. I'd link, but... not an option on this site.
"Fenrisulfr?" Pyrrha asked, not taking her eyes off the massive Beowolf. "Ren, what exactly is that?"
"A legend," muttered Geralt, casting his mind back to the books of Remnan myths and fairy tales he'd been studying at Ozpin's behest. "One of the Grimm Titans."
"Ancient Grimm so powerful that their appearance heralded the ends of whole kingdoms," whispered Ren. "But no one has seen one in generations. I always thought they were myths, stories to frighten children."
"Fairy tales are more often at least partly true than not," said Geralt darkly. He looked at Pyrrha. "Okay, I'm glad we came down here. Now we need to get out. Quietly. Once we're back at Beacon we can talk to Ozpin about what to do next."
"Agreed," Pyrrha breathed, slowly stepping aside from the broken ladder. She looked up at the opening in the ceiling. "It will be easier for me to lift you both from down here. Ren, you first."
Ren was silent.
"Ren?" Geralt asked, turning back to his other student. Ren's face was bone-white. Geralt followed his gaze. His heart sank to his toes.
A massive red eye glared at them from across the room.
Summer hummed to herself as she left the gates of Mistral behind. The cliffs rose high on her left, green with clinging moss and a few hardy weeds growing out of the nooks and crannies within the rock face. Birdsong drifted on the wind from the vibrant forest to her right.
She kept an eye on the cliffside as she walked, looking for the telltale pale blue of iris flowers. She saw them at the same time as she smelled them—a patch of brilliant color splashed against the cliffside like paint carelessly brushed upon the rock, the warm scent drifting on the breeze, thick and musty like fresh-baked bread.
She socketed a crystal of Gravity Dust into Pinprick. Holding the hilt in both hands, she plunged the blade down. As the point struck the earth it released a wave of potent force. She rode it upward, up the dozen feet to the terrace where the patch of flowers grew. Her boots thudded against the dirt beside the flowerbed, kicking up loamy soil around her.
Beside the blossoms was an unobtrusive, gray boulder. If she didn't know what to look for, she'd never have been able to tell it had been moved recently.
Still humming softly to herself, she approached the stone. She wedged the point of Pinprick beneath it, then tugged it like a lever to roll the stone aside.
Something beeped. She had just enough time to register the flashing red object the boulder had been resting on. Her eyes widened.
Then the world went white.
For a moment, no one moved. Then, with a growl which rumbled like an earthquake, Fenrisulfr began to stand up.
"Run!" Geralt ordered. "Pyrrha, get us out of here!"
Pyrrha's only reply was to unleash her Semblance. Geralt felt her magnetism pull on his armor, tugging him bodily backwards and up. Beside him, he saw Ren shoot up the narrow tunnel first. Then he followed. Pyrrha brought up the rear.
Even as they ascended, there was a crash as Fenrisulfr threw itself against the wall beside the passage. One of its enormous red eyes glared up at them as they ascended, seeming to fill the entire opening of the chute, bathing the tunnel in a crimson glow.
They tumbled out onto the stone floor of the banquet hall. Pyrrha emerged last from the tunnel. She landed on her feet, staggered, and fell to her knees, gasping for breath. "Clearly," she said between gulps of air, "I need to… practice using… my Semblance… on larger weights."
"How on Remnant did that thing get down there?" Ren asked. He stared at Geralt as he helped Pyrrha to her feet. "I didn't see any other entrances, did you?"
"No," said Geralt, shaking his head. "I don't—"
He stumbled, catching himself before he fell as the ground shook. Pyrrha's heavy breathing caught. Geralt's students' eyes were wide, their faces pale. He doubted he looked any better.
The ground shook again. A thundering growl emerged from the trapdoor below them.
"Surely…" Pyrrha swallowed, hesitated. "Surely it can't… dig its way out? There have to be twenty feet of stone and earth between us and that cellar… and Beowolves aren't tunnellers. It can't… can it?"
The ground shook again. From the cellar below, echoing through the trapdoor, came the unmistakable sound of stone supports breaking as the room caved in. The shaking worsened.
"Run," Geralt said, voice level.
They ran. Not a moment too soon—the floor began to collapse behind them, flagstones snapping like plywood with earsplitting cracks.
They were at the entrance to the banquet hall when Geralt heard a sudden explosion behind him. He turned his head without slowing and saw the great black snout of Fenrisulfr poking out from the wreckage where the trapdoor had once been, scattering dirt and debris like shrapnel. It continued to rise, alarmingly fast.
Ahead of him, Pyrrha staggered, clutching at her side. Her breath came out in pained gasps. Without pausing Geralt reached out a hand and swept her up bodily, throwing her body over his shoulder. "Keep running!" he called ahead to Ren.
Ren didn't even turn to acknowledge the command. They ran down the corridor, the ground shaking beneath them like the skin of a drum, growls and frenzied howls echoing from behind. They dashed into the entrance hall, and Ren deftly shot the hinges out of the doors they'd entered less than half an hour before.
The wooden doors fell away. Several Grimm crowded the door, blocking their path with a snarling mass of black fur and bone-white masks. Ren skidded to a stop, holding down the triggers of StormFlower as he tried to cut a path, but even as he mowed down one Beowolf two more took its place.
Geralt stepped up beside him, took a moment to gather his magic, and then thrust his hand forward in the sign of Aard. The Grimm were blasted back like leaves before a hurricane. "Go!" Geralt shouted, and they went.
In a circle clear of Grimm, Jaune, Nora and Regis stood back to back. All three of their heads snapped around to look at Geralt and Ren running towards them, Pyrrha still panting on Geralt's shoulder.
Regis was already partially transformed, the flesh of his face twisted and wrinkled, his fingers lengthened to claws. But whatever he saw in Geralt's face, it was motivation enough to transform further. His shriek burrowed into Geralt's ears as his wings sprouted from his back.
Geralt shoved aside another handful of Grimm with Aard as he entered the clear ring around the others, feeling his magic run temporarily dry. "We need to move," he ordered Jaune, who was staring at him, and at Pyrrha on his shoulder, looking frightened.
"Is she—" he began.
"I'm fine, Jaune," said Pyrrha. Geralt felt her shift her weight so that her head was peering around Geralt's side at her team leader. "Just—strained my Semblance a little."
"None of us will be fine if we don't hurry," said Geralt grimly. "There's—"
Before he could figure out how to explain what they had seen in that cellar, it was rendered unnecessary. The wall behind them crumbled away, falling outward like a pile of toy blocks, crushing a dozen or more Grimm beneath falling stone. Fenrisulfr stepped out of the wreckage, shaking the dust from its coat even as behind it, the keep crumpled like a sandcastle in a thunderstorm. Its eyes were shut against the cloud of dust rising from the ruin.
Geralt heard Regis mutter something, his voice rendered guttural by his transformation, but either it was too twisted by his shapeshifted mouth to be intelligible, or it was in a language Geralt didn't know. Then, silence fell.
Fenrisulfr opened its eyes. They were expanses of blank red, like every other Grimm's, but somehow Geralt felt the keen intellect behind them focused on him, the eyes of a predator on its prey.
Then it threw back its head and howled, and the pack joined in all around.
Summer's head felt like a bell after being struck with a hammer a few sizes too large. Her ears were full of a high, ringing chime, though she could sense other sounds just on the edge of hearing, obscured by the piercing note.
She tried to open her eyes, but they were already open. She blinked them, trying to clear the white fog from her vision. The world gradually shifted from a blank expanse of indistinct fog to a series of indistinct, foggy shapes.
It was about this point that pain came back. Her chest and side felt battered, like they had served as targets for a brawler's practice. A line of pain shot through her left like like a hot wire running along the bone. She tried to grit her teeth against the agony, and found that her jaw didn't fare much better.
She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. The world still wasn't in focus, but it seemed to slowly be getting clearer. She thought she was lying on her back, her head lolling to one side. There were two pillars of pale bark just a few feet from her. Trees? Probably trees. She didn't remember seeing trees of that pale color in the forests here, but then again, she didn't remember much of anything.
She blinked again. There were two figures on the other side of the trees, seeming to stand sideways against the grass. Mentally, she corrected for her own orientation. She was laying on the ground. They were standing on the ground. They were normal, she was the weird one.
A voice was echoing from above her, reverberating through her skull. She couldn't make out the words around the ringing.
She blinked again. The bases of the trees in front of her looked rather odd. Twisted, and seeming to end in only one root, facing away from her. She followed the trunks up with her eyes. Were their leaves black and red? And… conjoined, somehow?
She blinked again, and realized that she was looking directly up at the fabric of Raven's skirt. She looked past her and saw that the two figures were two men. One was dressed in a brown coat over a white shirt and leather harness. The other wore a deep blue coat with gold trim over a burgundy shirt, in a style she recognized as having been fashionable in Atlas before her own disappearance.
She tried to force her ears to return to the real world as her eyes had, but they weren't cooperating. She could hear that Raven was speaking to the men, but couldn't make out the words.
She tried to sit up, only to gasp as a grinding pain blasted through her pelvis. She fell back down, sweating.
Raven glanced down at her, red eyes unreadable, before looking back at the men.
"We don't have to do this the hard way," Raven said evenly, trying to ignore the rasping of Summer's breathing behind her.
"Oh, but why wouldn't we?" asked the man in white, manic grin practically sparkling. "Since it's an option?"
"Are you entirely certain you want to stand against us like this?" asked the Atlesian, who she recognized as the disgraced and presumed-dead Arthur Watts. "You've done so well staying out of our way, these past few years. Don't do something you'll regret now."
"I've done more than a few things I regret," said Raven coldly.
I'm outnumbered, said a cool, calculating part of her. Qrow's bound to be somewhere in the city. I should probably go find him, come back when we're on even footing. If I die here, like this, no one will be able to tell anyone what happened.
For the first time in twelve years, Raven ignored that voice. "This," she said, "isn't one of them."
The man in white's grin somehow grew even wider. "I'm so glad to hear you say that," he said, voice unsettlingly throaty. Then he charged her.
Raven tugged Omen out of its sheath, electricity arcing along the yellow blade, and slashing at the charging man. He sidestepped, then spun, giggling madly as the blades on his forearms whistled through the air. Raven parried the blow, Omen's blade shattering against the steel. The man let out a pained sound as the breaking Lightning Dust sent power arcing through his body. Raven stepped to the side, bringing Omen's empty hilt back to her side and pulling out a blade of Ice Dust and spinning to deflect the bullet Watts had fired at her. His mustache twitched in something like amusement.
A flash of movement in the corner of her eye was all the warning Raven got. It was just enough, as she dodged out of the way when the corded belt around the waist of the man in white unfurled and stabbed at her. The stinger passed mere inches from her cheek, then withdrew before her riposte could sever it. He giggled, dancing back away from her, his now-revealed tail, stretching and lashing behind him like a cat's.
"Huh," she said. "Faunus. Neat trick, hiding that."
"The most dangerous knife," said the man, madly cheerful, "is always the one hidden in plain sight."
"You come up with that yourself?"
"Indeed I did!" The man bowed, keeping his eyes on her through the motion. "Tyrian Callows. A pleasure."
"Not really," Raven said, before turning her blade to deflect another bullet from Watts' revolver. The Ice Dust shattered to mist on the impact, so she quickly thumbed Omen's sheath and clipped a new blade to the hilt, this one the blood-red of Fire Dust.
Even as she drew it, Tyrian was charging her again. She had to take two steps back to give herself the room to draw before he was on her, and though she tried to cut him as she drew, he dove beneath the blade, his tail swinging to the side towards her. She stepped into his guard, past the tip of his tail, swinging her arm to bash him with her elbow. When he dodged back, she used the motion to swing her sword against where his tail was passing.
"Ah, ah, ah!" he exclaimed, waggling a finger at her as he pulled the tail away leaping back. "That won't do, now will it?"
Raven glared at him, noting how his eyes bled from violet back to gold as his tail relaxed back to hover over his shoulder. Once again, she had to deflect a bullet from Watts, and even as she did, once more Tyrian charged her. She barely avoided the sting of his tail this time, and Watts fired again as she tried to dodge. The bullet pinged against her Aura, and the impact moved her just enough off balance that Tyrian was able to capitalize.
His bladed forearms slashed at her in a spinning series of strikes, one after another breaking against her Aura. She felt her reserves dwindle with each hit. She was just able to get out of the way before he finished his flurry of blows with a spearing strike of his tail, but then another bullet hit her in the shoulder.
She felt her Aura break, like a glass shattering in her hand—painless, but unmistakable. It sizzled off her skin, crumbling away like a desiccated layer. She panted, holding Omen out before her, red blade hazy with heat.
Watts looked at her pityingly. "Enough of this charade, Branwen," he said. "You must see by now that you can't win. Your Aura is broken, whereas you haven't even landed more than a glancing blow on either of us. Give it up. We don't need to deprive your tribe of their chief."
I should take him up on it, that cool part of Raven thought. Dying uselessly here isn't going to do anyone any good. Not Summer, not the tribe, not Taiyang or Qrow. I'll just be throwing my life away for nothing if I stay.
She looked Watts in the eye, and suddenly rage boiled through her blood like molten steel. Coward, she thought, feeling the loathing rise up in her, remembering seeing that same look of pity on Summer's face. Coward! "But not today," she whispered.
"Hm?" Watts asked.
She glared at him. "I am not going to be a coward today," she hissed, shifting into an aggressive berserker's guard—a stance she'd learned from Taiyang, long ago. "Not today."
"I commend you!" said Tyrian brightly. "Face death with a smile on your face! I'm sure I'll join you sooner than later!" He charged, even as Tyrian sent another bullet Raven's way.
She deflected the bullet, already knowing that Tyrian's tail would hit her before she could bring her blade around. It didn't. Instead he staggered to a stop, blinking. He looked down. She followed his gaze.
Summer was holding herself up on one arm, blood running in streams down it and pooling beneath her. Her teeth were gritted, red with the stuff. One of her legs was oddly angled away from her body, the other seemed mostly limp. Her free hand held Pinprick, and the blade was extended at an angle.
Tyrian's charge had impaled him upon it, driving it right through his Aura. The remnants of it were breaking around him even as he looked down at Summer.
"Oh," he said, as if he had just been given mildly surprising news from a distant Kingdom. He coughed, staining his front with blood.
Summer tugged Pinprick from his gut. He took one staggering step back, then folded like a bad hand.
Watts made a displeased clicking sound with his teeth. "Well," he said. "That… rather changes things."
Raven's eyes snapped back to him. "Well," she said. "You must see you can't win."
He gave her a tight-lipped smile. "Unfortunately for you, I don't see that quite yet," he said. "You are both still out of Aura, after all. And I don't believe Mrs. Rose has much by way of firearms." He leveled his gun at Raven. "Given that letting you both escape at this juncture would mean certain death at the hand of Her Most Merciful Grace," he spat the honorific with a sarcastic edge, "I think I shall take my chances."
"You're right." Summer's voice was rough with pain and seemed oddly breathless, as if she couldn't get enough air to form the words.
"Hm?" Watts glanced at her.
"I've never been much for guns," said Summer. "Never needed them." And she disappeared in a burst of white rose petals.
"What—" Watts had just enough time to blink, to begin his exclamation, before he was thrown forward by a blast of Gravity Dust from Pinprick being stabbed into his back.
Raven caught him as he sailed towards her. He folded around Omen like a flag around a pole. She felt the moment his Aura shattered. A moment later, so did Omen, setting him screaming aflame. He fell writhing to the ground beside her.
Raven ignored him, running instead towards Summer, who had fallen forward, Pinprick extended. She carefully took her one-time team leader into her arms, turning her over. Summer's eyes moved here and there, unfocused.
"Damn it," she mumbled, even as a drop of blood welled up from beneath her left eyelid. The silver of her irises seemed to be sparking like an exposed wire.
"You overused your eyes," Raven said. "Close them—let them rest."
"Might be too late for that," muttered Summer, but let her eyes slide shut anyway. "Raven—"
"If you're about to try to give me some fucking last words…"
Summer choked out a laugh. "Nah, I've survived worse than this," she said. Then her face fell. "Just in case, though, you need to know that Lionheart's a traitor. It's the only explanation I can come up with for how that bomb got there."
"Tell Ozpin yourself," said Raven flatly.
"Gladly," said Summer. "Only—I'm blind. Hopefully just for right now, but still."
"Obviously I'm not just going to fucking leave you here," said Raven flatly. "Where the hell is Qrow?"
"Left him in a bar," said Summer.
"You left my alcoholic brother in a bar?"
"I figured…" Summer coughed wetly. A trickle of blood dripped from her lips. "I figured he'd had a rough enough day that I could wait until tomorrow to try and break him of the habit."
Raven gritted her teeth. Part of her wanted to take issue with that. The rest of her had to admit that she hadn't exactly been a good influence on her brother, the past twelve years. "Let's get you to him," she said, instead of anything else. "And then… well, I guess we can't trust the Haven medical wing."
"Do you have a link to Yang?" Summer asked. "Can you…"
"Fine," Raven grumbled. "I'll take you to fucking Beacon. Never say I don't do anything for you."
Geralt wished he had the magic to cast Quen, but he was still running on empty. "Jaune!" he shouted. "Take your team and get back to the ship!"
"What?" Jaune exclaimed, glancing at Geralt before going back to staring fearfully up at Fenrisulfr. "But Professor—"
"I'm not telling you to run!" Geralt growled, taking a forceful Bear-school guard. "The bullhead is armed! Get the pilot to bring it around to pick us up!"
"Oh!" Jaune brightened. "Right! Yes! That!"
Geralt passed Pyrrha over to him. He flushed slightly as he tried to find a way to carry her while still holding both parts of Crocea Mors and without touching her chest, legs, hips, or really any part of her body. "Move," ordered Geralt.
Jaune nodded. "Ren, Nora, let's go!" They turned and ran towards the trees.
Several Grimm broke from the pack to chase after them, but Regis let out an unearthly shriek and they turned back to face him, snarling.
Fenrisulfr's paws thudded against the ground with a sound like rolling thunder. It stepped towards them, red eyes glaring, crossing a dozen feet with each step.
"You go high," said Geralt. "I'll go low."
Regis nodded, flaring his leathery wings.
Geralt felt his reserves of magic tick over a critical point. He cast Quen and charged, Regis screaming his fury behind him.
Fenrisulfr leapt to action, but Geralt had fought more than a few creatures nearly as big as it was—although, perhaps, none bigger. He rolled out of the way of the Titan's jaws, then brought his steel sword down hard on its paw. It sank into the black fur slicing it open to expose the blank red expanse of Grimmflesh.
Then, to Geralt's surprise, the exposed flesh began to sizzle as the most recent experimental Grimm oil sank into it.
Fenrisulfr screeched, its paw flailing at him, but Geralt dove beneath it, then swung again, this time into the ankle. Even with a working oil, he could tell he was doing only minimal damage to something so large.
A wail echoed from above as Regis attacked, taking Fenrisulfr's attention away from Geralt. None to soon, as a swarm of Ursae and Beowolves converged on him. He shifted his sword into a one-handed grip, palming Vesemir and firing a Dust round into a Grimm in the center of the horde. The bullet embedded itself in its mask, then exploded in a blast of flame, sending half a dozen Grimm flying. Geralt jumped as the front of the black tide reached him, planting his boot into the mask of an Ursa before leaping backward, flipping as he went, scything his sword through the Grimm below before landing in a roll. He came up already firing Vesemir—first a conventional round, just in case he accidentally struck something close enough that the blast would hit him, then with another explosive bullet.
There was a sound like stone on stone as Fenrisulfr's jaws snapped shut, somewhere above Geralt. Regis was pulling the Titan's focus, but even he couldn't kill this thing alone. Geralt spun, blade extended to slash at the Grimm surrounding him, then took aim and fired a Dust round into Fenrisulfr's belly. The explosion burned away a patch of black fur, and he heard the massive Grimm let out a pained sound.
Then it dropped, tucking its legs under its body. Geralt's eyes widened as he tried to dive away. A claw caught him in the back, shattering his Quen barrier, but his reckless escape managed to get him out of the way of the falling Titan. It fell upon two dozen of its lesser brethren, crushing them, then tried to roll onto Geralt.
Regis sailed down, picked him up by the shoulders in his talons, and pulled him out of harm's way. Then, just as they were ascending, a thunderous retort echoed out and a heavy ball struck Fenrisulfr in the side. Geralt looked up and saw the Bullhead hovering in the sky, its main gun extended below the body of the ship, trained on the Titan.
"Regis!" Geralt shouted over the baying of Grimm, the wind whistling around the vampire's wings, the Bullhead's engines. "Get me onto its head!"
Regis made a sound that Geralt assumed was an affirmative, bringing Geralt up and back towards the Grimm. Fenrisulfr was picking itself up, glaring at the Bullhead. It got to its feet just as Regis raised Geralt above its head. Its hind legs tensed for a leap into the air—a leap which, Geralt was sure, would bring it in range to snap its jaws around the airship.
Regis dropped Geralt. He pointed his sword down below him. Fenrisulfr's attention snapped to him just moments too late.
His blade sank up to the hilt in its eye. It shrieked, snapping its head to the side, trying to shake him off, but he held on with grim determination, burying one hand in its fur. The other let go of the sword embedded in its eye, tugging Vesemir back out of his belt. Then in one motion, his Witcher's reflexes allowing him to process all the motions he needed to make in real time, he let go of its fur, grabbed the hilt of his sword, twisted it in Fenrisulfr's eye, and tugged it out even as he kicked off of the Grimm's skull, sailing out into the open air.
Fenrisulfr wailed its agony. Its maw opened wide.
Geralt took aim and fired a penetrating Dust round into the roof of its mouth. The explosion shattered the flesh.
Fenrisulfr let out a pained sound, staggered, and fell. Its chest moved as it exhaled once, and then it fell still.
Geralt hit the ground rolling just as its flesh began to dissolve. He watched as the black fur became black smoke, dissolving into a wisp of vapor rising into the air.
On an instinct, he activated his Semblance. He saw the fading miasma of the Titan's magic. It was dimming, fading away… but it was not disappearing. He watched as the core of it suddenly darted away from the dissolving body, sailing aside… directly into the body of another Beowolf nearby. Had he not already been looking, he would have missed the way the Beowolf suddenly jerked, the way its red eyes suddenly seemed less like the dull eyes of a slavering Grimm and more like the cunning hate of the Titan.
And suddenly, Geralt understood how Fenrisulfr had gotten into that cellar. "Regis!" he shouted, already breaking into a run. "Capture that Grimm!"
Regis dove. The Beowolf—no, the new Fenrisulfr—snapped at him as he descended upon it, but he caught it in his talons by the scruff of its neck, and it tried in vain to reach him hovering above.
The rest of the horde was scattering, now that the Titan's great body was dead. Geralt let out a relieved breath and pulled out his scroll. "Jaune," he said, "tell the pilot to bring the ship down here. We need the Grimm holding cages—we have a live Beowolf in need of transportation."
"At least you both have something that drives you," muttered Yang, staring balefully up at the cracked ceiling of the ruined apartment. In a sudden, frustrated motion, she flipped herself over so she was lying on her stomach, staring into the campfire. She could see Blake and Weiss watching her across the flames. "All my life, I've just kind of… gone with the flow," she said. "And I don't feel ashamed about it—it's who I am. But… until recently, I've wanted to be a Huntress, not because I wanted to be some kind of hero, but because I wanted the adventure. I wanted a life where I would never know what tomorrow would bring, and that'd be a good thing."
"Until recently?" Blake asked softly.
Yang's lips twitched. "Well, then Geralt brought my mom back from the dead," she said. "That kinda… put things in perspective." Her smile fell. "Now… I don't know what I want. I'm still the same person, but the world's turned upside down around me. I still want adventure, but now… in order to get it, to take the life I always used to want, I'd have to walk away from a home I never thought I'd have again. Sure, there was always Dad, but…" She shrugged helplessly. "He and I have always gotten along, but it's been a long time since I felt like I could trust him to be there for me when I needed him to be. Because he wasn't. After Mom died… he just wasn't. But now she's back, and I feel like… if I go wandering, become a nomad like I always planned to after I graduated… will I end up leaving my family without an explanation, like she once did to us?"
She winced. "I don't mean to sound bitter," she added. "I'm not. None of what happened was Mom's fault. Like I said, it put it in perspective. Seeing Mom come back… seeing how happy she was to be back… it makes me see the appeal of having a family to come home to. Or, at least, to want to see the appeal." She sighed. "I'm just… a little bit lost right now."
Silence fell again. It was broken by a sudden sound—a faint hum, emanating from just behind Yang. She spun, leaping to her feet.
There was a circle of red and black light hanging in the air in the ruined apartment. As she watched, stunned, two figures stepped out of it, supporting between them a familiar woman in a white cloak. Yang's heart leapt into her throat as she saw just how injured her mom was.
Then she noticed the other woman. Raven Branwen—for it was unmistakably her—looked around, her mouth set in a grim line.
"This," she said, "is not Beacon Academy."