I have a business speech/awards ceremony I have to host and speak at on the 30th September, so that whole week will be no fanfiction as I have to prep, plan and perform, then deal with clients after, break down the show and transport all the equipment back afterwards.
That'll mean no updates on 27th Sept – 3rd October inclusive, just to forewarn you all.
Cover Art: Z-ComiX
Chapter 104
"You want to destroy the Kingdoms!?"
"No. Only the Collegiums."
"It's the same thing!" Ruby accused. The Nevermore squawked angrily as her wild magic surged up. She had to wrestle it back down again. "What about all the innocent people? What about all the people in Menagerie?"
"Regrettable." Merlot said, and the worst part was that he sounded upset about it. "If I could, I'd do this without harming a one of them, but the White makes that impossible. They hide behind innocents, placing them in harm's way as little more than a buffer."
That sounded all too much like what they'd done to the slums, but Ruby wasn't having it. "Isn't that just an excuse on your part? You're not even trying to not hurt them."
"Oh, but I am. I have. I am the foremost expert on Grimm in the Collegium if you recall. My research and advice is fed directly to Lady Goodwitch, and believe me, there is no one on Remnant who knows more about the Grimm than I. Do you know what things I have told her?"
"Not the truth." Ruby said.
"Obviously not this truth, no, but I've given her accurate information for the most part. I have told her that the Grimm will ignore normal people when presented with a magic-using target. I told her that we could quite easily spare the people the Grimm's wrath if the Arcanists left the city and took the fight to the Grimm in person."
"You would. That would get everyone slaughtered."
"It would likely result in the death of the Arcanists, true. It would mean the survival of the regular people, however. Is that not something worth working toward?"
"Of course it is…"
"I'm glad you think so," Merlot said. "Do you know Glynda's reaction? Or shall I say the White's? The plan was rejected. Worse than that, I was threatened to silence over my findings. Why?" He laughed. "Because if the truth got out that the Grimm were only interested in the Arcanists, it might affect public opinion of the Collegium."
That couldn't be the reason. It was true, but so self-serving and cold a decision that she couldn't ascribe it even to Glynda. The woman was stern, but not this kind of evil. And yet she sacrificed the slums in their entirety to stop the first assault. No hesitation. Just a massacre.
"I tried it in Menagerie as well." Merlot said. "I had a life there as well. I was an Azure-Black Arcanist there – living by a different name of course."
"Wait, you know more than two Arcana?"
Merlot smiled proudly. "Of course. In Vale, I am merely Azure. In Menagerie I am Azure-Black; in Atlas I am Azure-Crimson; Azure-Emerald in Vacuo; Azure-Amber in Mistral."
He'd found a way around the limiting system that choked out Maria Calavera and so many others. Merlot was an Arcanist of each and every Kingdom, and the fact he was Azure in all of them made it clear how. "You're travelling with the Azure Archives. You found out they were connected before anyone else did!"
"Correct. You really do impress me, Ruby. Not only for your intelligence but your thirst for knowledge. To say nothing of how hard you've had to work to conceal your true nature." He snorted. "Not that I would have ever revealed you. Yes, I travelled by the Archives. When I am absent from each Collegium, they merely assume I am stuck down there researching something or other. I use the Grimm to transport me swiftly from one Archive to another, all without anyone realising."
That's how he was in Menagerie when it fell. That was how he found out so much forbidden knowledge. It wasn't lost on her that he'd never joined the White either. He must have been afraid they'd find out somehow.
"You said you tried it in Menagerie… What did you mean?"
"I tried to save the lives of those not involved in my conflict." he explained. "Menagerie was a coastal city you see, and I made a note to not send any Grimm to attack from the ocean. Oh, I had them there, but I never used them. One of my earliest suggestions as the foremost Grimm expert in Menagerie was that we evacuate the non-magical citizens via ship and send them to another city as refugees. Well, my advice was to have them wait on the ocean until the battle was over, but they would have been refugees once Menagerie fell. Either way, they would have been spared the Grimm."
The fact they were all dead told of how that had gone. "They refused?"
"Of course. I thought it cost at first and suggested they retreat into the Archives instead. Again, I would have had the Grimm ignore them. That too was rejected. I believe their argument was that it would cause undue panic, but I think we both know that is nonsense."
Grimm attacking a city was the definition of panic. Menagerie would have already been gripped by it. "Why do you think it is?" Ruby asked. She had her own ideas but was curious to hear his. They would be biased against the Collegium obviously, and she was afraid he'd try and win her over if she spoke first.
"Personally, I believe it to be a combination of arrogance and cruelty. I don't doubt some small part of them genuinely believed in their superiority, enough to feel Menagerie could not fall. That same excuse cannot hold for Vale now that they know a Collegium has. I don't believe it the only reason, though. I think they made the conscious decision to keep the people there, to give the Grimm a target rich environment and ensure more time for the Arcanists to fight back."
That was what she'd been afraid of.
"There would be some fear involved as well," he went on. "Ask yourself what people would think if they knew that the Grimm only wanted the Arcanists. The regular folk would start to ask just why their lives should be in danger, our rulers would step in, the Arcanists would be asked to leave. Even if they then fought off the Grimm it wouldn't change the fact that the Collegium's influence on the city would be curtailed. The White cannot accept that. Not when they've spent so many decades building their support base."
"Are you saying they'd rather the city fall than them lose a little power?"
"Yes. Are you surprised? The White Arcanist we read of in the Archives poisoned himself and his friends, all to prevent the knowledge of a Wildmage helping refugees escape Menagerie."
Adam. Ruby clenched her hands into fists.
"The White does not falter, Ruby. They see the world as bigger than themselves. Menagerie has fallen. I am here now, making the same suggestions I did in Menagerie to prevent this tragedy, and the Collegium is making the same mistakes. They refuse to listen. I fear that the city will suffer the same fate."
"Why fear if you're the one killing it?" Ruby snapped.
"Because I don't want Vale to fall. I was born and grew up here. All I want is for the Collegium to take responsibility for its actions, to stop focusing so much on maintaining some archaic law and start doing what it's supposed to."
"And that is?"
"Helping magic users. All magic users," he stressed. "Regardless of their birth, their wealth, their opinions and the magic they want to study. Honestly, the Collegium could fight off my invasion easily if they opened up the Sanctum and granted the Wildmages inside freedom for service. All they have to do is break out of the silly rut they're in and this would cease to be a problem."
They wouldn't.
"They won't." Merlot echoed her thoughts. "Of course they won't. After all, the White won't falter, even as they watch the streets run red with blood and see everyone to their deaths. They'll cling to power with their dying breaths, making up their little excuses for why it is all in the greater good."
Ruby could see it easily. It would be that only the White Arcana had the wisdom and the experience necessary to lead the people, and that Vale was very much doomed without them. They already had their hands in the Collegium, the noble families and the monarchy. What was left? She wouldn't be surprised if a little digging didn't show the main positions in the city funded or loyal to them. Anyone who disagreed went to the Sanctum, if they didn't have their memories removed entirely.
"Won't you help me, Ruby?" Merlot smiled and offered her his hand. "With your power, we may be able to forcefully relocate the innocents out of Vale. Save them from the threat, both the Grimm and the threat of how far the White will go to slow the Grimm down. My ultimate goals aren't so evil. A world where people like you can live freely, a world where the poorest of children can learn to harness their magic. A world without their stifling, self-serving and overbearing control."
Ruby stared at his hand.
"Think about it. Think of all the good that could be done."
/-/
Qrow's heart had frozen into a lump of ice.
Ruby wasn't there.
The little pocket of Shadow Arcana magic remained, but Ruby wasn't in it. She was nowhere to be seen. Qrow stepped back, reached out and gripped Glynda's arm before she could order the attack. "Ruby is missing!"
Glynda pulled her arm away. "That is a matter for later, Lord Branwen."
"No! Ruby is missing now. If she's been found-"
"Then she is dead or captured. Neither changes our plan of attack." Glynda raised her right arm high. Behind her, the hundred Arcanists and fifty Huntsmen readied themselves.
"You could kill her!" Qrow almost screamed.
"Miss Rose is an Arcanist of the White. She knows the value of self-sacrifice and the importance of our victory. To save all the people of Vale, any White Arcanist should give their lives a hundredfold." Glynda's green eyes bored into Qrow's. "Even that of a child." Her arm swept down. "Attack!"
It all happened so quickly. Qrow's scream was drowned out by the sudden whoosh of fireballs arching up and over the trees. The Arcanists in the camp felt the spells immediately but had little time to react with the sentries dead. Shields were hastily thrown up above them, causing the fire to splash left and right, sometimes harmlessly, sometimes onto other people, tents or sleeping Arcanists.
And then the Huntsmen unleashed their crossbows. The whistling hail came horizontally as opposed to the arching shots of the Arcanists. Magical protections that had been angled upward were left open, and men and women fell with gurgling cries, some knocked clean off their feet as the heavy arbalest bolts struck them centre mass. Tents were shredded, people screamed, and Grimm howled in the forests nearby.
"No prisoners!" Glynda roared over it all. "Huntsmen charge! Arcanists, fire for effect. Kill them all!"
The leather and cloth armoured killing machines that were the huntsmen rushed in. Arbalests were dropped behind and swords drawn, the stone-faced men and women showing no sign of self-preservation as they charged in swinging left and right. Hands and arms were lopped off as spells fizzled and splashed harmlessly against them. Silver streaked through robed figures, cutting them down with ease.
Their own Arcanists fired on them all the while. There was no thought given to avoiding friendly fire. It didn't exist where huntsmen were concerned. Vale Arcanists flung fire, lightning and bolts of light at the backs of their own people, knowing any inaccurate fire would not harm their allies. Even if it could have, Qrow knew it wouldn't matter. Huntsmen weren't seen as human. They could barely act human at the best of times.
The battle was a one-sided massacre. So strange to imagine after weeks of hard battle against seemingly endless Grimm, and yet these people had been orchestrating things from the back. They had never been attacked before now, never found, and they were but flesh and blood.
Finally, the first Grimm crested the trees, drawn to the magic or summoned by Merlot. A mighty Beowolf snarled and slashed its way through two Arcanists who died screaming. Twenty more turned on them, blasting the area with spellfire until nothing remained. It was but the first of the Grimm, however. More came, and soon the battle had swung back the other way, the White and Crimson forces pushed slowly back as the Huntsmen ran rampant in the camp.
"Arcanists focus the Grimm!" Glynda barked. "Huntsmen, continue in the camp! Find Merlot! Qrow! Don't you- damn it! Forget him!" she screamed. "Target the Grimm!"
Qrow was already sprinting into the camp. Ruby was here, she had to be, and he'd be damned if he watched her be cut down by their own forces. The Huntsmen eyed him with their blank, empty gazes, but Qrow had worn his White robes for this, and they knew better than to attack. He pushed between two, vaulted a dying Rogue Arcanist and ducked under a shard of ice sent hurtling his way. Rising, he struck the offending man with an uppercut that knocked them flat off their feet.
"Ruby!" he yelled. "Ruby!"
Nothing. Nothing but screams, clashing metal, explosions and bestial roars. Qrow screamed again, louder, until his voice was hoarse. Huntsmen strode by, swords swinging, blood flowing. One of them was stabbed by a braver rogue who had lunged with a knife. The Huntsmen fell with a wet sound, never once realising her death, never once giving word to regret. The Arcanist who had killed her was stabbed through the back by another, and that man paid no attention to his fallen comrade, moving on to another tent and cutting through it, killing someone hurriedly roused from their sleep.
"Ruby!" he screamed again.
"Qrow!"
There! Her voice! He didn't dare to feel relief. Instead, he raced in the direction of it, shouting to make her shout back so he could track her. The voice brought him to a larger tent being quickly circled by Huntsmen. Several had already entered, and he heard a frantic, feminine scream from within.
"NO!"
Qrow burst into a scene that made so little sense.
Ruby was there – alive and standing beside Merlot, the two of them backed into a corner. Before them stood, of all things, a Huntsman with his back to them, his sword raised and stained with blood. Before said Huntsmen were three more, slowly approaching as if to slay him, and on the floor a fourth, his chest carved open from a sword.
It took Qrow far too long to process what had happened, at which point the three Huntsmen engaged again. Their target was clear; they were trying to kill Merlot and Ruby. The other, blonde of hair and not quite as blank-faced as the rest, stepped into their path, crossed swords with one and pushed him away, then twisted and sliced down the back of a female Huntsmen who tried to slip by. The sword cut clean through cloth. Huntsmen didn't wear armour, it only slowed them down when their main foes were Arcanists who so rarely knew how to use a weapon. The sword struck the woman down in one, leaving her bleeding and twitching on the floor.
"Back!" the huntsmen roared. "Ally!"
The remaining two Huntsmen did not back up. They brought their swords up and advanced, intent on cutting down the treacherous element in their midst and then killing the two Arcanists.
"Cease!" Qrow ordered. "In the name of the White Arcana, you will cease!"
All three froze. The two who had approached looked back, eyes empty, faces slack. Not annoyed, not upset, not happy. Just neutral. "Our commands were to kill all."
"Lady Goodwitch's orders have changed. The leader is to be taken alive. This one," he pointed at Ruby, "is not even a Rogue Arcanist. She is a loyal Arcanist of the White!"
The Huntsmen did not apologise for their mistake. He doubted they felt guilt at all, and that wasn't entirely their fault. They raised their weapons, but this time into a guard position, stepping back from their beleaguered `ally` who lowered his, panting for breath. Ruby rushed up to him, whispered his name and clung to his back. They knew one another? He wasn't sure why he was surprised.
"Merlot." Qrow said.
"Lord Branwen." he returned. "Quite the unfortunate situation you've caught me in."
"That's one way of putting it. The White Arcana are here. Goodwitch is here. You better have a good explanation for all this, or I doubt she will be happy."
Far from showing fear, the man only chuckled. "Oh, I doubt anything I say will change her mind. I've already committed the gravest offence an Arcanist can."
Judging from the amused look he wore, Qrow doubted that offence was killing people or working to destroy the Collegium. Then again, he knew better than to think it was as well. Merlot had crossed the White. That was his crime, and for that there could be only one punishment.
/-/
It all happened so fast.
They'd been talking one moment; Merlot made the offer; then there were screams. Before Ruby could even fathom what she was supposed to do, the tent they were in was stormed. Ruby barely had the time to shout that she wasn't with them before someone tried to kill her.
And died for it.
If Jaune hadn't been there, she would have died. She knew it. Her wildmagic meant nothing against the Huntsmen, who might themselves also have been some long-lost relic of the Mage Wars. Maybe they, too, were made by Salem to fight Ozma's Conduits. It would make sense. Just another tool the Collegiums had taken for their own use.
Jaune had moved so quickly, cutting down one and then herding Ruby away. Merlot too, though she doubted that had been his goal. He'd tried to argue with the others, but they hadn't said so much as a word. For a moment, Ruby had thought they'd all die.
If not for Qrow…
Ruby followed closely at his side, stepping out into the remnants of a warzone. The dead lay everywhere, cut down without mercy, their blood seeping into the grass. Some were half-dressed, clearly only just waking up and not once given the choice of surrender. Maybe they didn't deserve it for what they'd done, but she couldn't help but wonder if this wasn't as much an effort to silence them as it was to protect the city.
If everyone here knew the truth of Menagerie's fall as Merlot did, the news could spread. The White couldn't have that.
Merlot was marched ahead of the Huntsmen and pushed down onto his knees in the centre of the camp. The Grimm were still howling in the distance, but any immediate threat had been dealt with. Not without loss of life. Ruby could see injured Arcanists in White and Crimson robes, and more bodies beyond, slumped in the grass unmoving.
At the fore, immaculate and untouched, strode Lady Goodwitch herself. Ruby shied back behind Qrow and for the most part went ignored. Her eyes were locked onto Merlot, who looked up at her without fear.
"Lord Merlot." Glynda spat his name. Her attention turned to the sceptre in his hand, and she knelt, wrenching it out his grip and standing to inspect it once more. "All Grimm shall be silent!" she commanded. "You shall stay where you are!"
In an instant, the howling stopped. Ruby was as surprised as any as to how easy it was, but then if the sceptre used some archaic and old magic then Merlot wouldn't have been able to figure it out.
"Interesting." Glynda said. "Stopping the siege should be remarkably easy now. I am… disappointed in you, Lord Merlot. You were a trusted Arcanist of our Collegium. You more than anyone knew the threat the Grimm present, and yet you brought them to our city all the same. The lives you endangered-"
"Let us not play games, Glynda. The slums should have never fallen."
"You attacked Vale. What did you expect?"
"Nothing different." Merlot admitted. "Though I did advise you to evacuate the city. The citizens would have been spared. It was your choice to place them in harm's way, and your choice to sacrifice an entire district."
Ruby's hands balled into fists. Was Merlot doing this for her benefit? Was he making Glynda admit it to prove a point? He was going to die. There was no doubt in her mind Glynda was about to kill him, and here he was mocking the White to their faces.
"You have committed terrible crimes, Lord Merlot. You have killed too many."
"A body count that surpasses your own, Lady Goodwitch? How many were in the lower quarter when you flooded it? How many did you and yours kill?"
"That the citizens could not evacuate was a tragedy."
Lies. Yang and Blake had seen the Arcanists keeping the gate open. They'd seen them seal the other ones to stop the people escaping. Ruby's eyes burned with unshed tears as she stood and watched the one responsible lie and cheat her way out of responsibility. Merlot was guilty too – of course he was! They were both responsible, and yet only one of them was about to face justice for it.
"The White Arcana have deliberated on your crimes." Lady Goodwitch orated. "After much discussion we have come to a conclusion. Lord Merlot, for breaking the core tenets of the Collegium of Magic, we find you guilty. For treason against the Collegium, we find you guilty. For colluding with enemies to damage the Collegium and harm its people, we find you guilty. For the death of every Arcanist who has fallen in the defence of Vale, we find you guilty." She paused and took a breath. "Your sentence is set. Do you have any last words?"
Merlot's head dipped. Only a little. Only enough to break eye contact with Glynda and find it across the clearing with Ruby. His eyes met hers, picking her out even as she shied behind Qrow. He knew. He knew what she was and could expose her right here and now, get his final revenge for her being a part of his defeat. With one word, he could destroy her.
His eyes closed instead, crinkling as he smiled. It was too serene, too gentle, too satisfied, and Ruby found herself stunned by it, unable to look away as he spoke.
"Your fate is one you will have earned by your own hands, Glynda. We all reap that which we sow eventually, and you have sown far, far too much. The current system won't last. My only regret is that I won't be alive to see it fall, nor to see the look on your face as everything comes crashing down."
Lady Glynda Goodwitch of the White Arcana snorted. With a single look, she nodded to the Huntsmen behind Merlot. The man swept his sword up and swung it across. The blade cut cleanly, flipping Merlot's head in a gentle arch. It hit the floor a second before his body did.
Ruby Rose pressed her face, and her tears, into Qrow's back.
Final arc coming. I bet a lot of people thought the story would end with the Grimm stopped, etc, but that's not the crux of this story. Not entirely, anyway.
Next Chapter: 26th September
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