The numbers, for once, were not in my favor. I was stable at 50% of my aura left, and the eight teenager warriors in front of me knew how to handle themselves. I had personally trained and advanced four of them, five if you count technicalities like Pyrrha. I awakened five of them to the possibilities of their Focal Point, giving them powers that rivaled or surpassed their instructors.
As for Jaune, his gear more than made up for his lack of a Focal Point, and his swordsmanship had gone from sloppy to perfected simplicity. Nora and Ren were likely the weakest links, but Ren was the embodiment of discipline. Nora held a massive amount of strength in her deceptively small frame, allotting her extreme maneuverability with her greathammer.
With all of that in account, I took the only advantage I had by making the first attack. My legs tensed like bridge cables and I sailed towards Yang with blinding speed, intent on putting her down before should could activate Berserker. My sword had nearly met her stomach before a flash of red suddenly smashed the blade into the concrete, slamming me and it into a rough stop. I had just enough time to realize that Ruby had pinned my weapon before 8.5 magnum buckshot filled my cheek, sending me back to square one at the base of the tower.
With that, my advantage was gone. They opened fire. Hunting rifles, machine guns, grenades, buckshot, and antimaterial rounds. I had the full inventory of a prestigious armory filling my flesh. The shielding I had set up as my defense did fine to deflect smaller caliber guns like Ren's, and dulled the blast of Nora's grenades, but I was still taking damage quite fast.
My bones were toughened along with the rest of me, but I could feel Ruby's impact rounds slowly sanding away my breastbone. I had to move. So I ignored defense, trusting my enhanced muscle fibers to more than make up for those that would go missing in just a moment. I crouched, dodging another anti-material round, and rushed sideways. Strength did mean speed, and I attempted to flank them by myself, furrowing my brow and focusing to summon an automatic shotgun of my own.
I pelted them with buckshot, forcing them to raise their defenses and herded them closer to each other. Because I was circling them, they were unable to raise a defensive wall while the rest returned fire. And because my summoned ammunition had no metal, Pyrrha could do nothing to stop them. In the middle of my run I was put slightly off course by my sword ripping free from my back. I had anticipated Pyrrha attempting to ground me and had put rips across the lashing so that it would pull free instead of grinding me to a halt.
After the group had congested enough for my liking, I leapt above them and lobbed a black fireball into the center. None of them were fully prepared, and were forced to tank the blast with their aura. I hit the ground moving, switching from the shotgun to more fireballs as my source of offense. They barked orders to each other, changing positions while the smoke cleared. I readied another and launched it at them again. Another direct hit.
Good, a table turn. I kept the pressure, building another charge and sending it towards center mass again. Jaune propelled himself from the smoke and, using his shield, smashed it into the ground. Of all of them, Jaune seemed the most unharmed by my last attacks. His armor didn't even have any scorch marks.
So I threw another at him, and lost what little momentum I had as Jaune parried it with his shield, using aura to encompass and recompress the blast, and directed it back at my feet. Roughly, I combat rolled, and kept moving. Fire was too slow then. Lightning would only worsen some of my problems with Nora in the mix. I had to destabilize them and move into closer combat.
I jumped towards them again, a high-caliber bullet grazing my shoulder as I prepared a quake rune in both of my hands, and thrust them into the ground. Cement cracked and rebar groaned as the impact created a localized earthquake, throwing two to the ground and stunning all but Jaune. I rushed him with a summoned warpick, aware that nearly any blade on the planet would simply glance off.
Jaune was unprepared for my speed as I slipped around his shield and swung the pick into his chest with all my strength. His armor bent and buckled, and my pick shattered, leaving a dent the size of my palm in his chest. Not indestructible, but only just. I rebounded, swinging the hammer around and swept the boy's legs out from under him, and poured lightning into a rune I thrust into his chest.
Next to nothing happened, as the lightning arced all around him and into the concrete, melting the ground in spots. His armor acted as a faraday cage as well. Thinking quickly, I grabbed his ankle and threw him as hard as I could. He was the most durable threat, and hopefully I could remove him from the equation for a few seconds at least.
When I spun, I felt the air from Nora's hammer pass me by and I returned, swinging my own into her chest and knocking her into the ground. I changed the form of the hammer into a two-headed axe, and swung at the next available target. Ren was always backing Nora up, and had the least defense of the entire group. He attempted to dodge my attack, yet was too slow. I dug past his aura and deep into his collarbone, destroying the function of his left arm. Heat soared at my back and I dropped to all fours as Yang, wanting to tackle me, instead thrust her thousand degree body into Ren.
Ren's aura was all but depleted, and in the brief contact I heard the singe of flesh. I advanced in the wake of their mistake, bringing my axe down into Yang's spine. Her aura was stout in her Berserker form, and completely nullified my first swing. I could not take a second as Ruby's scythe hooked around my neck and nearly slit my throat as she fired, intending to decapitate me as she had the Nevermore in the entrance exam.
I survived the attempt, a thin line being cut in my throat that thankfully left my jugulars intact. Ruby racked another round, but in the pause I forced myself backwards and out from under the edge of her scythe, and she careened away. Ruby was sure to return in another few seconds, and I needed to thin the herd if I wanted a chance at victory. Ren was still picking himself up, and as the currently weakest fighter, I capitalized on him.
A black spear conjured into my free hand and I threw, placing a force rune on the back to accelerate it beyond what anyone but Ruby could stop. My calculations were correct, and the spear hit true, thrusting through Ren's heart before anyone had a chance to help. A short silence fell onto our battlefield as the first life was taken, and then my enemy resurged against me with renewed anger.
Nora was the first, narrowly missing me with an explosive swing that demolished the concrete between us. In the time it took to bring her hammer back up I summoned two more knives and slashed at her. The first clashed against her aura and the second shattered it, leaving a thin line of blood on her cheek.
"I'm out. Switch!" Nora yelled. Yang took her place before I could finish my work, forcing me backwards with volleys of buckshot while I attempted to keep a defensive ward up. The pellets from her gauntlets were red hot and splattered against the shield in my hand while she advanced. Precious seconds melting away like her lead, but I held my retreating position.
A few moments later I heard that precarious *click*, and Yang was out of ammo. I closed the distance as quickly as possible, dodging shots from Pyrrha as I did so. Yang clashed with me, one hand grabbing the head of my axe and the other drilling me with punches. I felt a rib crack under her force and pirouetted around her, using another axe and swinging for the back of her leg. Her defensive aura was all but depleted after my first swing at her back, and this one bit flesh and severed tendons with a scream of pain.
Yang fell, and Ruby returned to fill the space between me and her. The younger sister attacked viciously, her velocity combined with the heft of Crescent Rose shattering my hastily summoned weapons and shields. She left no opening other than to retreat. I did not retreat, picking out the least damaging swing in her pattern of attack.
The downward swing, like splitting wood, appeared and I rushed forwards with a shield raised. I couldn't block it without stabilizing the molecules of the shield, but the shattering of it left enough resistance to deflect the blow into something less mortal. A line of fire cut down my back and I tackled Ruby to the ground, and started beating her.
I had no weapons, and no time to summon them either, but my body was stronger than her aura. Two strikes and it flashed. A third and it shattered, drawing blood as her lip slashed against her teeth. The fourth busted her jaw and sufficiently stunned her. I raised a hastily summoned knife with the intent to bring it down, and yet my arm didn't move from its apex.
"Jaune, NOW!" Blake's voice, Blake's ribbon. Jaune's shining armor approaching me at a very concerning speed. Ruby's legs locked over mine to prevent my escape. Jaune's blade ran me through the chest, and the rapid extension of aura split my chest cavity open. My blood poured down onto Ruby as I struggled for breath.
"Jaune, throw him." Pyrrha's voice, so stone cold. I couldn't turn my head to look at her. I couldn't even move. Major portions of my spine had been broken and I was all but paralyzed. Jaune followed the order, hoisting me up by the edge of Crocea Mors. I was tossed into the center of the courtyard, more blood spilling out along with the peeking edges of my organs. This was a deep pain.
Pyrrha walked towards me. I could tell it was her through my blurring vision by the red of her hair and the copper shades of her armor. I tried my best to smile, but I don't really know if it worked.
"This is for everything." Pyrrha raised a single hand towards me and I dimly felt my hair stand on end. Her pale green eyes lit up as pressure began to build. It was in the air, in my body, and even in the ground. The very molecules around me began to quake as Pyrrha grit her teeth. I couldn't move, couldn't regenerate in time to get away.
I smelled ozone again. Sweet and pungent, like a fresh lightning strike in the forest. A scream ripped from her throat and the air itself was lit ablaze. It was more than heat, more than fire. I was being disintegrated. The meager defense I had put up was shredded like wet paper. I slightly cursed the durability of my body as I was able to feel every stage of immolation.
First my skin boiled and turned to ash. A cloud of steam around me as my muscles dried and my blood vaporized. My organs shrank as they were dehydrated, and then burned as well. It stopped hurting after that, as my nerves were destroyed, but I was dimly aware of my bones cracking under the heat as the air inside of them expanded.
Then I was blind and deaf, and nothing happened after that. It took me some minutes to realize the feeling. My vessel was destroyed, and I was floating in the inky darkness of the veil. I had lost. The odds were too terribly stacked against me after my self imposed limits. I had trained them all too well. I had even killed one of them.
Ren. Lie Ren. I focused on his name, and slowly the veil shifted, weaving me an invisible form, imperceptible to those still alive, and I found him in the courtyard. He was kneeling over his body, but looking at something else. His eyes were glued to Nora. He wasn't crying yet, and maybe he wouldn't. Some souls didn't.
"Lie Ren." I called, approaching with hollow footsteps. He was almost confused when he looked at me. I had made this body a long time ago. An ashen cloak, a sliver scythe, no features visible under the shadows that my cloak produced. My hands and feet were visible, and nothing but bones were seen.
"Lie Ren." I called to him again, and his eyes focused on me. The familiar pattern of emotions flooded across his face. Confusion, anger, sadness, anger again, desperation, sadness again, and then calm.
"I'm dead." It wasn't a question. Almost all of the souls I collected knew they had died. Death offers a very palpable sense of clarity.
"Yes, you are." I extended the handle of my scythe downwards to pick him up. Ren refused, pushing off his knees and standing.
"What's next for me then?" Ren asked. And it was my job to have answers.
"You had family at some point, blood or otherwise. Why don't we go and find them." I offered my hand to him. Ren smiled thinly and took it.
"I think that would be nice. But what about them?" Ren looked back at his friends, some of them he considered family. They always look back.
"I think they'll live, for a while at least. And if not, I'll be there for them as well." And I began walking.
- Epilogue
RWBY and the remains of JNPR grieved the loss of Lie Ren, Nora especially. But it was undeniable that this was their best case scenario. In truth, they had all expected a much greater loss of life. I was happy to make them wrong.
The dragon awakened from Mt Glenn, but not long after I personally lulled it back to sleep. Anonymously, I tipped Ironwood the location of the bomb, and it was disarmed before being taken into Atlas custody. Cinder attempted to fulfill her plan, but Pyrrha inevitably stopped her. Cinder's mockery of a maiden's power was no match for Pyrrha's destructive ability, and she was burned away.
Even with all of that, the loss in lives was gargantuan. I counted 1,276 souls wandering the streets. So I did exactly what I promised to do all those years ago. I made sure that every soul had someone to walk with. Too many people had died alone, lost or struggling between the veil and the material, in my absence. I went to work.
After all, I was Death. And sometimes Death doesn't have to mean destruction. I remember now that when I named myself Death, I had thought of the calm embrace of a frozen lake. Unforgiving, yet so very peaceful.
The End. I hope you all enjoyed this story. Death's character ended up going in a different direction that I thought he would, but I cannot say I'm disappointed about it. As always I love to get reviews, but mostly I'd like to hear how I did with this chapter's combat. To date it is the largest scale combat that I've done, and I would like to hear how I've performed.
As I've said, this isn't the end of my writing career. It may be the end of my fanfictions for a while as I work on other things. Whenever I feel like I've made enough progress, I'll be sure to post a link to my work somewhere on my profile. Till then, Powder Keg out.