Apologies for this chapter being a week late. Work got stupid busy last week and I didn't get the chance to start writing until far too late.
Beta-ed by xenosaiyan and MasterPrince713
Raven had lived a life defined by contrast.
She'd grown up with her father and the tribe elders either training (beating) her to the bone from sunrise to sunset, only to go to Beacon and have the familial love she'd had with Qrow expanded upon into the blooming bond of Team STRQ. Then she'd despaired that she'd have to return, only for her team to pull her back and her and Tai to truly fall in love. Finally, when she'd been the happiest she'd ever been when Yang was born, she'd been consumed by fear for her child that had begun her downward spiral into the Bandit Queen of the Wilds.
She should have known better than to think the cycle was over. The euphoria that had filled her when she'd accepted that Summer was alive, that she hadn't led her best friend to her death all those years ago… she should have known something would follow to contrast that joy and hope with utter despair.
As she gazed around the group's destitute faces in the aftermath of Summer explaining the planned coups, the stratagem to turn Ozpin's circle into the foundation for the subversion of each kingdom's council, she knew she'd found it.
"You…" Qrow murmured, his face like a stone slowly cracking under weight it was never made to bear. "You think we should take over the world?"
"Never!" Penny's swords hovered at her sides, only Yang's presence keeping her from aiming them as emerald lasers built within the spinning blades. "Do you really think we'd ever let you do what you did to Atlas to the other kingdoms?"
Yang made to step into the path of her friend's weapons, but Summer held out a hand to stop her. "The only alternatives are to conquer them or let the Umbral Spirit King exterminate us all."
"And that makes it a good option?" Carla shrieked incredulously.
"No. But it's the least bad one available to us," Summer morosely said. "It is the action of a monster. But only a monster can save the world."
"Only a monster…" Taiyang repeated, his head low, his bangs covering his eyes in the darkness. "Ha… ha… haha… hahahahahaha!"
Summer, Yang, Qrow, even Penny and Carla who could only have known the blond huntsman for a few months at most, turned to Tai with confusion and worry painted all over their faces.
Raven on the other hand took a fearful step back, bracing for the storm that had been aimed at her not long ago. Once more, contrast reared its head, as a welcoming hearth could blaze more fiercely than anyone imagined when it was provoked out of control.
"Ha! Ha! Are you serious?!" Tai roared, his blue eyes revealed to be a furious tear-filled sea. "All these years and you come back with that crap? Are you actually serious?"
Summer flinched as if she'd been cut in half. She glanced away in shame. "Being a huntress did nothing. Trying to be a hero did nothing. If there's any path that has the slightest chance of making a world where our daughters can live-"
"The Fall nearly killed them both! Even if you didn't plan it too, your failsafe nearly blew Weiss and Gray up!" Tai shouted, another mirthless laugh breaking through his lips. "You're acting like everything will just slide into place if we all just follow the plan but it won't! It never does! If it did, you never would have killed anyone!"
"Dad, please!" Yang intervened. "You're hurt. I was too, but what other option is there? Do nothing? Shouldn't we take action? Even if we can't completely control the consequences, isn't that better than letting everyone die? Isn't that what huntsmen do?"
"Whether I'm 'hurt' or not does not matter here!" Tai's gaze softened minutely as his gaze found his daughter, but the strength in his eyes did not waver. "Huntsmen don't get to pick who lives and who dies, Yang."
"Which is exactly why I'm not trying to be a huntsman," Summer replied, morose yet pleading. "Tai, I don't expect you to forgive me."
"I don't."
"I don't expect the world to forgive me either. I will face justice for what I've done. But if the things I need to do aren't done, then there won't be a world to punish me for my crimes. What I do is evil, I have no illusions about that, but it must be done."
"Why?!" Tai demanded, his voice seemingly boosted by some distant explosion.
Summer stepped back, her head glancing towards the area the blast had sounded from, right behind Raven's shoulder. "I… told you why- what was that-"
"You tried everything you could to get back to us until time itself refused to let you!" Tai screamed. "I can understand that, I can understand that you couldn't do anything about what the rest of us suffered. I can accept that, no matter how much it hurt, but this?! You've convinced yourself that because you can't control the outcome, you have to kill to get that control, but you can't control it anymore when you do, Summer! You're not a huntress, you're not some grand monster, you're just a murderer. A murderer and a coward."
"Dad!" Yang yelled, Summer shrinking back from her husband as if she'd been stabbed in the gut.
Raven paid no attention to the young woman's protests, her mind latching around Tai's last few words. 'A murderer and a coward' were apt descriptors for her after all. And she certainly hadn't had Summer's good intentions to even begin to explain her actions. The actions of a person her loved ones would likely never forgive.
When she had seen Summer, when her best friend had revealed that she'd known of every horrible sin Raven had committed and forgave her anyway, she had felt the pull of hope, as bright and warm as the inspiration Erza had filled her with in the Vault of the Spring Maiden. If she just reached out and accepted her, she might be able to have everything back. Yang, Qrow, Tai, they might never forgive her, but Summer had in a heartbeat. With all the love the others bore her, perhaps her leader would even be able to convince them to forgive her in time.
And all she'd have to do was join her. Join her and just keep on killing like she had for the last decade, only for a good cause. Just keep killing and she could have back everything she'd thrown away.
She would have taken the offer at Beacon. Hell, she would have taken the offer just a few days ago. Both huntress and coward would have run to their idol without a second thought. Even now, in the depths of her despair, she wanted to. She wanted to so badly. To just trust everything to her leader, give her absolute faith and absolute power and just trust her.
Summer and Erza, they both made Raven want to be a huntress again. But if the Gate of the Maiden was right about one thing, it was that a huntress was not what was needed. And if the Titania was right about one thing, it was that the past was gone.
Raven could only try to take the actions of the woman she wanted to be, she could not run to who she was.
"Dammit!" she cried, tears dripping down her face, her eyes lit with the crimson light of her maiden powers. "Dammit it all to hell!"
The entire group turned towards her, confusion flush over all their cheeks, Yang once more dropping into a combat stance.
"Rae?" Summer piped up, concern overriding any pain she'd felt from before. "What's wrong-"
A searing eruption of white light cut off the Eclipse Etherious's words. Raven barely had time to throw up her aura before the entire castle behind her exploded, rubble and boulders crashing into the western tower.
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It was nothing but sheer luck. Or perhaps it was fate. Those who were in control of fate were their enemies after all.
Either way, streams of white light sawed through the room, eviscerating all in their path. No, they unmade all that was in their path. Solid stone reinforced with magic throughout the ages reduced to nothing more than molecules, those molecules then being stripped down into atoms, with perhaps only a lack of intent preventing those atoms being ripped apart themselves. Everyone sane shouted in alarm as a primordial storm ripped apart everything around them. Crash Magic was amongst the most dangerous of all sorcery for a reason.
Ruby on the other hand had never wanted to laugh harder in her life. A sudden lack of control over their own fate as everyone at the table were discussing ripping away the control of every single other human on Remnant? The irony was disgusting.
Gravity carried her away from her last way to safety, the abyssal black rocks following close behind intent on crushing her. It was black, black, black. Everything around her was black. She could feel herself drowning in it, unable to breathe properly as her mind stewed on the conversation, no, ultimatum set onto them in the conversation. She had to fix things! She had to fix everything!
And then suddenly, a flash of white.
Ruby blinked, and then blinked again. White? In this place, in the Grimmlands, in someplace as devoid of hope as Remnant?
She craned her neck and desperately searched as she fell through the air, unable to see what the white thing that had flashed by her was?
There! It was covered again by the black debris, but she knew she saw something.
Another flash of white, but this time she moved. Crescent Rose jumped out of her pocket dimension, and Ruby activated her Semblance as she fired off a bullet behind her. Then another, and another, the recoil pushing her faster and faster towards the white flash as she desperately searched for what she had momentarily seen.
There it was! She recognized it this time. The white color she had seen in this hell of black was the pages of a book, Sitara's book, the one that had sent her back in time. The cursed device had somehow been fortunate enough not to get sliced in half when the table had been cut out from under it and now tumbled downward along with the rest of the central tower.
Ruby cocked Crescent Rose again and fired, the recoil driving her towards what had caused this horrendous mess in the first place. She reached out and grabbed it, the pages coarse to her fingers, and soared away with her semblance, barely dodging a boulder that was a second away from splattering her across the sky.
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Oscar hadn't been prepared for the floor of the conference room to be suddenly blasted out from under everyone, titanic arcs of white energy slicing the castle into a thousand separate pieces. He'd been even less prepared for Ozma to suddenly switch back control to him as he and Wendy began to plummet through the air, everyone else scattered from his sight.
"What the hell just happened?!" he screamed as the air roared past his ears.
"I don't know!" Ozma shouted. "That was Crash Magic!"
"What?! Ren's not powerful enough to do something like this!"
"It doesn't matter! Oscar, you have to use Flashback! Now!"
Oscar's eyes flickered across his freefall, obsidian boulders and dark purple crystals falling all around. Wendy, who he'd been standing with when the Crash Magic hit, twisted through the air, bursts of wind shooting out from her limbs and battering incoming rubble away from them. With no one else in sight, he needed to take advantage of the opening she'd given him to reverse the damage.
He didn't hesitate, immediately flooding his body with Time Magic. He wasn't skilled enough to use Flashback if things progressed more than a few seconds away from the point he was setting things back to, and the drain of the possession wouldn't allow Ozpin to cast it over such a massive area. He had to act and he would!
"Flashb—"
"OZPIN!"
"Oh, not good."
Oscar didn't need the old man's terror to know that his own pants-wetting panic was justified. The enormous fireball suddenly shrieking towards him handled that.
He twisted around and snatched The Long Memory from his belt. His ethernano shifted into the cane and conjured the Shield of Memory, the emerald barrier flashing to life just in time for the flames to crash against it. Even with the blow having been blocked though, the sheer force of the attack still sent the farmboy tumbling backwards.
Only for his enemy to come charging right after him.
"OZPIN!" Hazel roared. The Eclipse Etherious soared through the rain of rubble on a raging tornado of black wind, his bulging arms of muscle casually shattering any boulders that dared to try to bar his path. "YOU LYING BASTARD!"
The sheer killing intent, the raw fury,in the Gate's voice terrified Oscar more than almost anything he'd ever encountered, throwing his arms in front of him even within the Shield of Memory's radius. In the blink of an eye, his great fear had stampeded right in front of him, ready to strike.
Fortunately, in the next blink of an eye, Wendy, her hair blazing pink with Dragonforce, had soared in and landed a typhoon-powered kick straight to Hazel's jaw.
"Sky Dragon's Claw!"
The wind erupted off her foot at the incantation, blasting the Eclipse Etherious into the plummeting rubble. Wendy pirouetted through the momentum of her attack, but her brief moment of focusing on the enemy allowed a small boulder to sneak down and bash into her shoulder. The Sky Dragon Slayer cried out as she flailed in freefall, more rubble swiftly plummeting towards her.
Gritting his teeth, Oscar dropped his shield and dove through the air, the wind howling all around him. He reached out to grab Wendy's arm and yanked her close. Once they were near enough, he thrust out The Long Memory and reestablished the protective barrier, the falling obsidian bouncing off the verdant energy.
"You good?" Oscar asked Wendy, the Dragon Slayer recollecting herself.
"I'm goo—ground!"
"Huh?"
"Ground, Oscar!"
The farmboy's eyes widened. He'd been so terrified of the rubble raining from above and Hazel rushing in from the side that he'd completely missed the seemingly obvious fact that the ground was swiftly approaching below.
"Aw crud," Oscar murmured. 'I really hope you weren't lying when you said this thing was impenetrable.'
The Shield of Memory crashed into the ground, a cloud of rubble and dust erupting up from the crater of impact. Just as a storm of rubble crashed down after them.
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"Are you two alright?"
Loke flinched. "I'm good. Lucy?"
Lucy gulped, managing to give both the Lion Spirit and Salem a nod. "I'll be fine. Been a while since I had one of my good old-fashioned fear shivers."
Though in her defense, a Gildarts-sized storm of Crash Magic bursting out of the floor with no warning while everyone was focused on Ruby seemingly having a panic attack was certainly something to be concerned about. Hell, Salem herself had been literally sliced in half by one of the blasts. Fortunately, her immortality meant that she had still been able to summon up small tornados and portals of grabbing Grimm arms to toss others to the side instead of plummeting into the sudden open chasm.
Unfortunately, the fact that she'd been cut in half at the time meant that her attempts to help had been scattershot at best. Only Lucy and Loke had been caught and ferried to safety, everyone else sent falling into the depths.
Lucy looked over the side, cringing at the enormous canyon. The entire center section of the castle, three giant towers, had been blown to bits, a mountain of rubble piled deep in the pit. The Celestial Spirit Wizard and her companions stood at the top of the eastern tower, battered but still mostly intact, gazing across at the western tower, which had taken a heavier hit but still somehow remained standing.
"Do you think Yang made it to the western landing pad in time?" she asked fretfully. "And everyone who fell, are they—"
"They're alright," Loke assured her. "All the power gathered in that room? It'll take more than a fall to kill them."
"Indeed. Though what caused the fall may be of greater concern," Salem noted, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Do you know what that might have been?"
Lucy whipped around, her hands dipping to her keys in full recognition of how wrong this could go. "We don't."
"This wasn't us," Loke declared, falling into a combat stance.
"We all know that blast was Crash Magic. I've learned many sorceries over the eons, but that is not one of them. Nor is it one among my allies' arsenal," Salem reasoned. "However, if I recall correctly from End's reports, Mr. Lie Ren does possess such talent."
"Ren can't do something like this!" Lucy argued. "Gildarts would have to push himself to do something like this. Ren's origin isn't nearly big enough to power an attack this size."
Salem's brow furrowed in thought. "You raise a good point. Unless one is a Silver-Eyed Warrior, an origin born of this era would need to be augmented by the book in order to do something like this."
Lucy raised an eyebrow. Blake had mentioned that she and Sun had theorized that passing through the book's time travel enhanced a Remnant-born person's origin to Earthland levels. It seemed they were correct.
Salem leaned over the side of the ledge. "Whatever did this, the attack came from below, likely Neo-Hell's Core. Meaning… urgh, that girl. Can she not do one simple task?"
She reached within her robe and grasped something from the folds of her gown. Lucy yelped as the Grimm woman flicked out her wrist, tossing three items to the blonde.
The three golden items.
"These are…" she muttered, holding Aquarius, Pisces, and Libra's keys in her palms. "Why would you give these to me?"
Salem strode away from the edge of the canyon and towards the halls of the eastern tower. "They would want to be with you. Besides, you can still make use of the contracts you made with the others to form your Star Dresses, even if you can't summon them. Perhaps you will be able to find a use for these three as well."
Loke's eyes narrowed. "Still, right now seems a strange time to hand them over."
"One way or another, there is danger below," Salem replied. "In case we are separated, I'd prefer that you had every advantage to protect yourselves."
Lucy managed a small smile. "Thank you."
"No need. I would do no less for any friend," Salem said. "Now then, shall we?"
Lucy shared a look with Loke and the two followed after The Queen.
Maybe Salem was lying and she really was behind the Crash Magic blast. Maybe it really was something else, something no one had predicted. But until they could find out what it was, everyone remaining in the castle was in grave danger. And not just from whatever had caused the explosion.
After all, without undeniable answers, people would believe what they wanted to believe. What they had to believe.
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The first thing Weiss did when the Crash Magic cut through the tower was leap through the air to safety in the far west side, the Seer Grimm floating beside her until they were both safe and secure on the bank of the new chasm in the center.
The second thing she did was slice the Seer in two.
She'd known it would happen. She'd known they would betray them, that Ruby's hopes for an alliance would ultimately be in vain. Dr. Watts had probably already finished a backup Hell's Core! The moment her friends had shown that they wouldn't be pawns in the negotiations, Salem probably set off some sort of bomb to kill them all. Her immortality would keep her safe and any of the Gates that didn't survive the blast could just be revived in Atlas! While Fairy Tail was returned to dust once more.
Ha! That's what she thought! Salem should have known that Fairy Tail wasn't that easy to kill! There was no way in hell her friends hadn't survived the fall. The fight was on!
And Weiss knew exactly who she would deal with.
She'd never allowed her senses to lose track of Su-Esper Rosenflos's mystical signature, the Winter Maiden's power making it easy to narrow down her location. The Ice God Slayer had been slightly confused when her nemesis had left the conference room, but the arrival of a new maiden signature on the far side of the western tower had explained that. She must have been sent to pull the same act she'd used on Ruby and Yang on Raven, get the former Team STRQ member to drop her guard just because her leader had come back from the dead.
But she'd only returned a monster. A monster that Weiss had every intention of sending back to hell.
She drew out Myrtenaster and thrust her rapier into the ground, her summoning glyph flaring white before her, a brief reprieve of light in the midst of hell. Only to turn as dark as her surroundings a moment later as her magic filled it, a familiar deep voice rumbling through her mind.
"Open the Gate."
"No," Weiss snarled. "Kindly piss off."
She wouldn't be anyone's pawn or victim ever again. And that included the Umbral Spirit King. Ozpin had already assured her that whatever boosting he gave her semblance would never be powerful enough to bring him into the world in his entirety, no matter how strong the link between them was. And she had no intention of pushing the door open any further than she had during her training.
"Ice God Armor Gigas."
Her faithful Grimm rose up from her glyph, from the Umbral Spirit World, the emblem coating the ghostly knight in her black ice as it emerged. From there, she moved the glyph beneath her, encasing her body in her newly divine suit.
Now it was time to hunt a devil.
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Being one of the few wizards present who could actually fly, the sudden destruction of the floor had troubled Blake far less than her comrades. On the other hand, the destruction of the ceiling and imminent rain of rubble was just as deadly to her as anyone else.
She'd bobbed and weaved through the scarce cracks in the storm, her Griffon wings forced to endure hails of obsidian as she dodged errant flashes of Crash Magic roaring up from below. Her shadow clones could save her if she got unlucky with a boulder, but she was unsure if her semblance would work on the special properties of the legendarily destructive sorcery.
A slice of the blinding white energy flashed in front of her, the Take-Over Wizard barely stopping herself before she flew right into it. Unfortunately, a shadow fell over her new position, her amber eyes flickering up to find a solid sheet of the castle roof plunging towards her. Too close for her to fly away in time, and the sloping of the rock would leave her with nowhere to flee even if she used her semblance. Just down, and by the time she'd move, gravity would have already caused the stone to catch up with her.
At least, if gravity hadn't suddenly caused the roof fragment to freeze in midair.
"If you could move a little faster!" Sienna shouted, outstretching her arm as she ducked through the debris shower atop a small boulder with a black gravity vortex below it. "I haven't exactly had much time to practice this!"
Blake didn't waste her chance, flying out from under the floating rooftop and making her way to Sienna's side. The two former White Fang members weaved through the rubble rain together, the tiger faunus lashing out with her Cerberus Whip to shatter rocks that might have struck the Fairy Tail Wizard, while the black-haired girl in turn summoned a pair of Griffon talons over her feet to protect her ally of convenience. Together, the pair was able to make their way to the lower floors of the eastern tower without being crushed to death.
"I only just noticed," Sienna panted, both women regaining their breath on their broken perch. "Why aren't you using Gambol Shroud?"
"I lost it at Beacon," Blake frowned. "Adam was going to kill Yang, and I took Grimm form for the first time. I didn't know what I was doing though and things went wrong."
"Yes, Salem mentioned she tried to speak to you through the link when that happened. I knew Yang lost her arm then, but I did not realize you'd lost your weapon."
Blake's eyes narrowed on her surrogate aunt. "That's it? You didn't realize I'd lost my weapon?"
Sienna raised an eyebrow. "Is there anything more I can say? I'm sorry you and your friends had to go through that, but I had no part in it. I have no more fondness for Cinder and her screw-ups than you do."
"What about Adam?"
"Do I really need to explain that matter?" Sienna replied, grinding her teeth. "He tried to assassinate me. All our years together, all I taught and trained him, and he betrayed me for his mad dreams for power."
"Yet, you want to conquer the world," Blake accused. "How is that any different?"
"Ha! You're not a child anymore, Blake. Please try to keep from asking questions you already know the answers to," Sienna chuckled. "Adam wanted to turn humanity into slaves. With Salem, we shall save them. And the faunus' place in the new regime will ensure we can stamp out any humans who would attempt to abuse our people."
Blake scoffed. "You mean a dictatorship."
"A benevolent dictatorship," Sienna confirmed. "Better than a democracy ruled by the rich and the hateful. And better by far than the nothing that awaits us all if we fail against the Umbral Spirit King."
"Do you really think people will just welcome your glorious army into their homes?" Blake challenged. "Whether Atlas takes control by subterfuge or conquest, they will resist."
"Of course they'll resist. We've been resisting humanity for decades and we actually had good cause," Sienna refuted. She strode away from the edge of the chasm and began to move into the darkness of the hallways. "No matter what, there will be those who fear the dawn of a new era. But with the connections we've built, and the unprecedented espionage capabilities of Summer and Emerald's abilities, those fools will not be able to do lasting damage to our cause, even if they use the same guerilla warfare tactics as the White Fang. As mankind's evolution progresses, the populace's fear of becoming Eclipse Etherious will fade and any resistance will lose their leg to stand on."
Blake followed after her old mentor. "And those who keep fighting anyway?"
Sienna shrugged. "If they choose war, they will get war. And they will lose. After all, if we're all united, what force in this world, other than the Grimm, can stand against us?"
None. Blake had seen Tyrian obliterate half the Menagerie Guard almost offhandedly. With the rest of the Gates and the Atlas Military united under Salem's flag, the other kingdoms wouldn't stand a chance even if they all allied together, which there was hardly a guarantee of in the first place. Other than the Grimm, the only force on Remnant that might have stood a chance against Salem's legions was Fairy Tail and they'd need the backing of at least one kingdom just for the sake of equaling Atlas's numbers.
If Fairy Tail joined with Salem however, the conquest of the planet would be inevitable. Underground resistances or freedom fighters aside, no conventional army could stand against the raw destructive capability of the wizards. The kingdoms would fall to their benevolent tyranny.
Blake wasn't sure she'd ever thought of something so horrifying.
If they couldn't convince Salem to alter her strategy, they had to escape. A fight in the enemy stronghold would be suicide. They needed to regroup, and that meant figuring out what had caused the Crash Magic blast down below.
She eyed Sienna as they walked side-by-side, fully aware that the both of them could see perfectly in the dark of the castle's depths.
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Good news: The Shield of Memory really was indestructible. Oscar and Wendy had both survived the crash and the mountain of debris that piled on them after.
Bad news: They were now buried under a mountain of debris.
Workable news: With the knowledge of the greatest Time Wizard and Enchanter of all time at their disposal, they didn't need to stay that way.
"Flashback," Oscar whispered, the heaviest nearby bits of rubble rising back into the air, Wendy carefully manipulating the winds so that the rocks that lost their supports crumbled away from the pair instead of just piling on top of their shield dome.
It took a while, but eventually the two young wizards stood at the bottom of a valley of broken obsidian, flanked on either side by towering tons of rubble and the east and west towers of the castle. But, they could see the dark red sky above them, so it was at least an improvement.
"Finally," Oscar gasped, thrilled to be able to take a deep gulp of air. "I was worried we'd run out of air before we made it through."
"That would have been a problem. I eat that stuff," Wendy joked. The levity only lasted a moment before concern washed over her face at the sight of their surroundings. "What could have done this?"
"No idea. And Oz doesn't either," Oscar said. "He really doesn't. I can tell when he's-"
"It's alright," Wendy quickly assured him. "I believe you. And him."
"Oh," Oscar remarked, a bit surprised and very touched. "Thanks."
After Hazel had come in very clearly believing Ozpin was somehow responsible for the sudden destruction of the castle, the young wizard had felt himself on the backfoot again, having to both defend that he was not Ozma and that in this case, the old man wasn't working some secret agenda, again. It was a nice reminder that even if the former member of Oz's circle didn't believe him, his other allies wouldn't instantly turn on him at the first hint of trouble.
Wendy's eyes narrowed at a far-off mountain of rubble, so tall that its peak was visible even above the lip of the valley they were in. "Wool?"
"Huh?" Oscar looked more intently at the towering hill, amazed to discover that there were indeed masses of pink wool poking out between the cracks of the debris. "How is that even possible?"
"Aries. Her wool is far more durable than regular wool. If a Gate's reserves were enhancing her abilities, it might be able to hold up any rubble that landed on it," Wendy explained, her brow furrowing. "But we haven't encountered the Eclipse Etherious merged with Aries."
"Maybe it was Jaune? Cinder might have finished his Ascension ahead of schedule," Oscar suggested. "Maybe he was fighting whatever launched the Crash Magic? Hell, maybe Cinder somehow got it?"
Wendy shook her head. "I don't think so. I can't say Cinder wouldn't betray us, but I don't think she's capable of something like this. At least not with Crash Magic."
Oscar frowned, but he couldn't exactly argue that. Trying to formulate a theory based on suspicions wouldn't do them any good without some sort of evidence or context.
"Should we head towards the lab?" he asked. "I mean, either we find Jaune or we find out what happened, so unless we look for the others-"
"Eclipse Etherious Form!"
The hairs on the back of Oscar's neck stood on end, a pit of terror dropping into his stomach as he watched Wendy's eyes widen with dread. The deafening shout had barely passed their eardrums before the pink coloration of her Dragonforce flashed her hair into a wild mane of power. The farmboy copied his ally's trepidation and raised The Long Memory for a fight.
Their opponent did not keep them waiting. Only a moment passed before the side of the valley, tons upon tons of rock, was vaporized in a maelstrom of flame and lightning. Emerging from the new aisle, the ground shuddering with his every step, was Hazel.
Oscar had thought the hulking man had been enormous before, but his released state put even his previous stature to shame. He must have been at least nine feet tall and had so much muscle that even that great height seemed insufficient to truly contain his power. He'd gained two arms above his usual yellow-furred appendages, which had moved down to his lower chest. His new limbs were spotted black and white like a cow, but even more pulsing with bulk and strength than the rest of his body. His beard had taken on the same demonic gold of the rest of his fur and a pair of horns had sprouted from his forehead. The ensemble was completed with a dark nose ring that billowed as his nostrils spewed literal steam.
Despite the fact that Wendy had kicked him away before and was currently radiating far more magic power than her ally, Hazel's furious eyes immediately latched onto the time wizard. "OZPIN! I won't let you destroy this world's only chance for survival!"
"He does realize you'll just reincarnate, right?" Oscar queried, unable to keep the trembling from his voice.
"I don't usually reincarnate as fast as I did with you. Your exceptional origin size enabled me to reveal myself to you months before I would normally be able to," Ozpin explained. "The cycle usually buys Salem a year of unopposed action. A year he intends to use to put her conquest plan into motion."
"Also, I'll be dead," Oscar pointed out.
"Yes. You will be dead."
"You're not dying!" Wendy yelled. "Ile Armor! Ile Vernier! Ile-"
"SINK!"
Hazel may have been livid, but his curse flowed off precise and powerful, a cannonshot instead of a tsunami. The ground beneath Wendy suddenly morphed into quicksand, swallowing the Sky Dragon Slayer up to her nose. The Maiden of the Sky's eyes widened in panic, the ground solidifying in the blink of an eye, trapping her without leverage or air to breath.
"Wendy!" Oscar yelled, throwing out his hand. "Flashb-"
"Oscar, look out!"
Huh!?
The farm boy whipped back towards his enemy, but Ozpin's warning had come too late. In the second Oscar had been distracted by his friend's peril, Hazel had already rocketed towards him on a black tornado. His gigantic spotted fist crashed into the boy's chest before the idea of summoning the Shield of Memory could even cross his mind.
If Wendy hadn't cast the Armor Enchantment on him, Oscar was sure he would have died then and there. As it was, he just coughed up blood mixed with spittle and was launched a solid two feet into the wall of rubble. His aura held, barely, but his body still felt like he'd been run over by a freight train even with its cushioning.
"Oscar! Oscar!" Ozpin called. "Are you alright?!"
Alright? He was buried under a mountain of debris in complete darkness, Wendy was buried alive with no way to breathe, and the constant earthquakes he was hearing clearly meant Hazel, who'd done both of the aforementioned burings without breaking a sweat, wasn't done with him. It was just like when he'd faced down Cinder at Haven, except this time, he couldn't count on anyone else to intervene.
Except there was one other difference to that time, the despair filling his gut. Back then, he'd been terrified, desperately trying to keep up with the monster that had killed Ozpin. Now, this Gate wanted to kill him because he supposedly was Ozpin.
Ozpin, Ozma, Oz, OZ, Oz, Oz, OZ! Everything was always about fucking Oz!
"I'm sorry, Oscar. I never meant-"
'This isn't your fault!' Oscar roared in his mind.
Everything was always about Oz, everything was always trying to kill him because they called him Oz, but that wasn't the old man's fault anymore than it'd been on Patch. It was everyone else who decided that he was nothing more than The Great and Powerful's puppet! Everyone but Wendy and Erza and Ruby and Loke and those who recognized that he was himself! Why was it so goddamned impossible for everyone else to accept this stupidly simple fact?!
Because he had Oz's magic. He had Oz's muscle memory. He had Oz's cane.
… and he had been chosen because he could use them. Curse or blessing, he'd been granted those abilities because his origin was big enough to make those things actually worth a damn. And right now, Hazel was threatening to end his life and hurt his friend. That wasn't going to happen!
Something new bloomed in Oscar, born in the rich soil of his beaten soul. Something burning hot, yet wicked cold, a line of rope that could easily become his noose if he let it.
Rage. Rage born of helplessness as a final gambit to end that same despair.
"Oscar, I know what you're thinking, but that spell is far too dangerous! Don't do it!"
He paid no heed to Ozpin's warnings. He'd seen the memory of the sorcery he needed, he knew the risk. But even if it might kill him, Hazel definitely would. And as emerald energy crackled over his limbs to light his rubble tomb, he knew he'd at least go down swinging.
He would go down swinging.
"Arc of Time: Double Accel!"
The moment Hazel brushed away the top layer of rubble, Oscar shot out like a bullet, streaking past the Eclipse Etherious as a blur of brown and green. Wendy's Ile Vernier Enchantment had already given him a large speed boost, and now that he'd doubled that total in turn? He easily slipped under his enemy's guard and delivered a rapid barrage of cane thrusts to the Gate's face, darting back and away when the towering brute tried to swoop in and crush him.
"That won't work, Oscar!" Ozpin warned. "Hazel's semblance allows him to feel no pain. You can't distract him with light blows."
And he hadn't figured out The Long Memory enough to effectively use its kinetic energy store as anything other than one all-or-nothing blast. Which would at minimum vaporize Wendy and him as well as Hazel given how close they were, if not everyone else in the castle. Not an option.
He didn't have the strength to overwhelm Hazel's famously resilient aura, especially if he busted out his dust to boost his regeneration rate. He could already feel his heart screaming over the pressure of the spell he'd forced on it. The Arc of Time wasn't meant to be used on a living being and his organs would tear themselves apart if he kept it up for much longer. Without that speed, he'd just be a fly for his foe to swat.
Of course, if there was one thing he'd learned working on a farm and shoveling tons of manure every day, it was that flies were exceptionally annoying creatures. Even when you were used to them, even when you knew you wouldn't hit them, you couldn't help trying to crush them.
"Come on, you stupid rage monster!" Oscar taunted. "Is that all you've got?"
"ZAP!"
A volley of thunderbolts rained down upon the young boy, bombarding the ground as he dashed away, rubble vaporizing to dust and solid stone splintering with crevices.
Oscar smirked. Perfect.
"If that's the best you can aim, I actually believe you've been trying to kill Ozpin," he mocked. "After all, you've been killing everyone else!"
"Aaarrragggghhhhhh!"
Hazel's roar probably caused an avalanche of debris somewhere, but in the immediate area, it was simply Oscar's signal to drop back right next to Wendy, the Sky Dragon Slayer's eyes drooping as her lack of oxygen started to get to her.
The Gate of the Bull raised all four of his arms, a pitch-black storm cloud gathering above him. He thrust down his limbs and the tempest answered his command, four thick lances of lightning, each triple the size of the last salvo, rained down upon his enemy.
Oscar twirled the Long Memory in his grip and stabbed the cane below, the dome of the Shield of Memory flaring to life around him and Wendy. The thunderbolt crashed down around them, half of the electric attacks bouncing off the emerald barrier while the other half slammed into the ground, large cracks forming across the dark rock as a cloud of smog was thrown up
The smoke lasted only a moment however, Hazel charging through on another tornado, his arms peeled back for another blow.
Oscar readied himself to maintain the shield, only for his muscle to suddenly freeze up and contract. The young boy wretched as he coughed up another clot of blood, The Long Memory slipping from his spasming fingers as he fell to his knees.
Ozpin's concern for his use of the Double Accel spell had not been without cause. The Arc of Time's bill had come due, and as Hazel's titanic fists closed on his face, Oscar knew he wouldn't be able to pay it.
Fortunately, he would not need to.
"Sky Dragon Roar!"
Hazel's eyes widened as a huge cyclone erupted up from beneath him, catching the Eclipse Etherious square in his chest and blasting him a dozen yards back into the side of the valley.
Oscar grinned as Wendy wriggled her arms out of the now cracked ground. He learned from when Cinder had outmaneuvered him at Haven that the ground beneath the dome of the Shield of Memory could still be affected by attacks that landed outside of it. By goading Hazel, he'd gotten the furious Gate to crack open Wendy's prison, allowing her to both breathe and make use of the new wiggle room to get the leverage she needed to escape entirely.
The Sky Dragon Slayer pulled herself out of the rock, taking in a massive breath before crawling over to Oscar's keeled-over form. She pushed her palms onto his chest and lit them up with the turquoise glow of healing magic.
"That was stupidly reckless," she chastised him.
Oscar chuckled, relieved that his friend's sorcery was making chest feel like it had only been hit by one train instead of completely torn apart. "Worked, didn't it?"
Wendy managed a small smile. "It did. And thank you. But that's not going to keep him down."
The canyon wall immediately exploded to confirm her theory. Hazel's roar sounded through the valley as his towering shadow rose in the smog.
"No. No, it will not," Oscar concurred. "Run and live?"
Wendy nodded. "I like that plan."
"As do I."
The Sky Dragon Slayer lugged Oscar into her arms and leaped off with all the speed her Dragonforce could muster. Fire and lightning fell all around them, the thunderous stampede of the Gate of the Bull chasing them through the castle ruins.
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Cinder had officially lost control of this situation. She did not like losing control of situations.
But no, Nikos and her gang just had to charge into the laboratory and blow everything right to hell! She had no idea where those arcs of white magic had come from, but she knew that the castle proceeding to fall on top of them was not her fault! She had been doing her job like she'd been told! Hell, Emerald and Mercury had even tried to tell the idiots that their precious leader was fine, but had they listened? Of course not!
Cinder had had to drag her allies out of Neo-Hell's Core before it'd been destroyed. When the castle had begun to crumble all around them, she'd made to summon up a great typhoon to blow away the debris before it could destroy her party.
Only to remember too late that the Fall Maiden's power was no longer hers. Panic rose within her in that moment, terror as real as the boulder that was hurtling towards her face. Neo-Hell's Core was gone. Watts hadn't reported that the backup was complete. If she died, she'd be dead, forever, consigned to whatever laid past the void. The mighty Cinder Fall, killed by a rock.
She was going to die. She was going to die.
For a second, golden light began to tinge her vision, her Spirit Slayer Magic readying to fire. She caught herself before it could activate by instinct, only to spend another crucial moment torn in two, torn between her need to live and her vow to never unleash the power that had let the Tremaines take everything from her!
"Eclipse Etherious Form! Dark Deluge!"
Cinder's golden gaze widened, its glow vanishing as a torrent of black water smashed through her, past her body, and bashed aside the boulder that would have crushed her.
Where her fear had paralyzed her, others had acted.
Mercury had taken on his scaled, four-armed form, his limbs manipulating the black lake above them in a rushing whirlpool. The initial pulse had knocked away the opening volleys of debris, but once the dome had settled above them, rubble began to plummet straight through the water, gravity easily overpowering the liquid's defense.
That was when Emerald made her move, a crimson glow blazing around her eyes with the Fall Maiden's power. She thrust out her arms, the limitless depths of her magic unleashed in full, the Dark Deluge dome frozen solid into a thick protective shield surrounding the trio for dozens of yards in every direction.
For several seconds, the obliterated areas of the castle hailed down upon the outside of the dome, thunderclaps echoing with each strike. Each time, Cinder wondered if this would be the one, if this one would shatter their defense and kill them all.
But none ever did. The dome held. And soon enough, the thunderclaps ceased.
"Well, now that that's settled," Mercury said. "Anyone want to explain what the hell just happened?"
"The entire castle just came down on our heads, genius," Emerald scolded him.
"I know that!" he replied. "But why?"
"We were with you the entire time. How would we know anything you don't?"
"I don't know! Maybe you two got some sort of special briefing I didn't from Salem or End or-"
"Teacher," Cinder whispered, horror sneaking into her voice.
Teacher was supposed to have been in the conference room in the central tower. If she'd been there when those waves of magic hit…
Cinder immediately reached out with her senses, breathing a sigh of relief when she felt the Winter Maiden's signature radiate out from the western tower, seemingly unharmed. Though, given there was another maiden signature closeby, it seemed she was in the presence of Raven Branwen.
Her presence would give some explanation for how Nikos and her compatriots had somehow appeared in the bowels of the castle without being seen. Though it did raise the question of whether she'd sent the Ice Devil Slayer and his huntsmen groupies to destroy Neo-Hell's Core on purpose. In theory, Teacher was the Spring Maiden's former team leader, but if she hadn't known before and wasn't impressed enough by the reunion to call her scheme off…
What was she even thinking? This was Teacher she was talking about! She may have been a maiden, but she wasn't a maiden in need of defending. If Raven Branwen took a swing at her, the other woman would be put down even faster than when Cinder had done so herself in the Haven Vault.
… granted, if recent events had shown her anything, it was that anything could happen. Things were at play that she simply didn't know about. Better safe than sorry.
"Well?"
"Huh?" Cinder said, looking up to find Emerald and Mercury staring at her. "Why are two just standing there? Teacher's in the western tower, we need to reinforce her!"
Emerald cocked an eyebrow. "Oh. So, she didn't tell you anything we didn't know?"
"If she did, it's no business of yours," Cinder brushed off. "Now make us a door, so we can go back her up."
Emerald winced, but she nodded, her eyes glowing once more with The Fall Maiden's power. Only for Mercury to throw his hand in front of her and startle her magic away.
"Yeah, how about 'no'?" the shark man growled. "You're not the boss of us anymore, remember?"
"What?" Cinder shot back. "I know that. Why are you bringing this up now?"
Emerald put a hand on her partner's scaled arm. "Mercury, this isn't important right now-"
"Yes, yes it is. Because she seems to be incapable of treating us as anything but flunkies," The Gate of the Twin Fish defiantly spoke. "Newsflash, princess! We just saved your life!"
"And I pulled you both out of the laboratory in the first place," Cinder waved off, trying to keep her cool but a bit irritated that her efforts to 'be better' were being utterly ignored. "What do you want? A medal?"
"No, but it'd be nice to not get orders barked at us once in a while."
"I seem to recall you didn't take too kindly when I tried to actually talk to you. We're just 'manipulators' after all. All three of us."
Emerald's face fell. "I'm not a-"
"Ugh! We're wasting time!" Cinder yelled. "Teacher could be fighting for her life this very moment for all we know!"
Mercury snorted. "Oh yeah. You're worried that the woman who toppled Atlas is in trouble. Totally not trying to hide under mommy's skirt before Salem finds out about Arc and blames you for it. No, broken little Ella actually cares about her precious meal ticket."
"I do!" Cinder roared, unable to keep all her fury back as she desperately tried to keep from attacking Mercury as she had in the training hall. "You think the breadcrumbs you've learned about my past are anywhere even approaching the whole story? Do you think the broken mess your father turned you into even approaches what I was when Teacher found me? I was shattered! I was weak! I was nothing and Teacher… and Summer loved me anyway. She had no reason to, she could have just used me as a tool like anyone else would have, but she did and through it she helped me become more than I could have ever imagined, become Cinder Fall. So yes, I care about her, no strings or caveats or manipulations. I care about her because she is the only person in this world since I was ten who has ever truly cared about me!"
Maybe it was the subtle glow of her semblance burning her fingers in her clenched palms, maybe it was the tears in her eyes, but Mercury actually had the sense to look somewhat ashamed and step back.
Only for Emerald to step forward, her scarlet eyes harder than Cinder could ever remember seeing them.
"What about me?" she demanded. "Do you truly believe I don't care for you?"
Cinder scoffed. "Emerald, we really don't have time for this-"
"Unless you're planning on melting all that ice yourself, we do," the thief shouted back. "Do you really think I don't care for you?"
"Oh, for the love of…" Cinder groaned. "You don't! You're too smart for that, Emerald. You know it, I know, all of bloody Remnant knows it! You wanted protection and to feel valued. I needed your semblance. So I recruited you and we both got what we were after, but Mercury is right. We're manipulators, we all had to be to survive what we went through as kids. And that is what we know, not the sappy sentimentality that Team RWBY and Fairy Tail were indoctrinated into! No matter how much I want to 'be better', none of us know how to be friends because none of us know how to care. And we're not kids anymore, so it's far too late to learn! So stop talking about meaningless hypothetical loyalty and help me do our fucking job!"
She had expected that to be enough to cut this tangent off. Emerald had always been the obedient one between her and Mercury, never getting lippy with Cinder even after her ascension.
But Emerald didn't back down. No, her hardened eyes remained, even as tears slipped down her cheeks. And then, after several moments of silence, she bit out a dry, mirthless chuckle. Cinder and Mercury both took a step back when the broken sound reached their ears.
"Um, Em?" Mercury tentatively inquired. "You alright?"
The Gate of Twins didn't move her gaze from Cinder. "I saved you. At Beacon, remember? When Wendy swatted you out of the sky and left you bleeding out in a crater, I saved you. I didn't need to, I'd been here before, I could get the power you'd promised me on my own. But I saved you."
She pointed back to Mercury. "I begged this moron to go looking for you when you disappeared in Mistral." Her eyes flared with the maiden's light. "I would have given you this power back in a heartbeat, whether through a Scarab or the void, if Salem had allowed it. I have told you dozens of times that I care about you and shown it even more than that."
Cinder's mouth opened and closed, yet no words came forth from her lips. What was going on? She'd always acknowledged that Emerald was a potential threat, but since when had she ever been capable of robbing her of speech like this?
"You… you say there were signs?" she finally managed. "I… I would have seen them."
"You should have. I used to think you were the smartest woman in the world. I thought there was nothing you didn't see." Emerald rolled her eyes and laughed again, this time firmly at Cinder. "But you are so blind it's almost hilarious. It's definitely pathetic. Aside from your precious Teacher, everyone's either strong and a threat or weak and not worth a second thought. You can't see when someone doesn't fit your paranoid little worldview."
"And you can?" Cinder gulped out, a final, feeble challenge.
Emerald pointed back at Mercury. "I can. I care about this moron for gods know what reason. Even more unbelievably, he actually cares about me back."
"Uh, what?" Mercury piped up. "Exaggerating a bit there, Em-"
"You started this conversation because she ordered me to melt the ice," Emerald barked back, succinctly silencing her partner before she turned back to Cinder. "I had no one growing up. He had worse than no one. You had Summer desperately trying to bang this simple lesson through your thick skull, but it clearly didn't take! You've just been trying nonstop to see yourself in the mirror, praying that there's someone in the world as twisted and broken as you."
She threw her arms out to the side, exposing herself completely. "Well take a good long look because I'm not. It's just you. It's always just been you."
Cinder… she didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to do. She'd been trying to be better as her Teacher had instructed her, to learn and adapt. To be strong. She'd thought that had meant taking the high road whenever Mercury had thrown one of his usual barbs, but if Emerald's words were true… then the two orphan rogues she'd recruited for Beacon were already better than her. And they'd gotten there on their own.
At that moment, it came into focus how… how small she was. That she was still just little Ella, flailing about and crying out not to have everything taken from her, powerless and weak. And unlike all the other times when she'd felt those sensations drowning her in despair, she found she could not find the spark of indignant fury needed to rise her way above. Teacher was her lifeline, but Emerald and Mercury had finally tired of her inability to climb up. She would never be able to gain their friendship. She would never be able to do anything. She was broken beyond repair.
She was nothing.
As she lost herself in silent self-loathing, Emerald's relentless facade cracked. She raised her arms in a placating manner and took a fearful step back from her former mistress. Only for the sudden disintegration of her ice to draw all three Gates' attention.
"Uh, is this you?" Mercury asked.
Emerald shook her head. "No. I don't know how to melt it all at once, let alone whatever this is."
The ice structure morphed into a strange clear haze, a few scattered boulders that hadn't bounced off the outer dome plopping into the pit. From there, the formerly frozen liquid streamed through the air, all of it coalescing at a single point around the Eclipse Etherious' height. In fact, it sort of looked like when End had… eaten fire…
Cinder's golden eyes widened. He was here! The one Teacher had warned her about!
He strode in from the shadows, the air around him blurring with frost as he emerged. His entire chest was bare of clothing, ensuring his hard and coiled predator's muscles could be seen without obstruction. A vivid black tattoo soaked his entire right side, creeping up his body and snaking over his eye, his dark hair standing straight up as the strands froze they touched. If Cinder didn't know any better, she would have said that this person was a demon straight out of hell.
But she did know better. Gray Fullbuster was the thing demons feared.
A Devil Slayer like Yang, Teacher had taken great care to ensure that Cinder understood that this man was not the same as her younger foster sister. While Team RWBY were extremely talented, they had still only had their magic for a little over a year. Fullbuster had been an accomplished veteran, one of Fairy Tail's strongest, before he'd gained his Devil Slayer abilities. And once he had them? He defeated a wizard powerful enough to cover an entire city in a blizzard and fought a partially emerged End in single combat, living to tell the tale.
Honestly, Cinder believed that Teacher could have beaten him had they fought all-out at Atlas. But she could very much understand why Summer chose to take the safer route of poisoning him rather than risk one of them killing the other in the all-out brawl that would have resulted. Without her maiden powers, The Gate of the Archer wasn't too keen on trying her luck with him herself.
He'd attacked them in Hell's Core, but maybe that was only because he'd mistaken Arc's ascension for torture. Maybe she could convince him that there was no need for them to fight and avoid-
"Bad move, jackass!" Mercury shouted. The four-armed shark man charged through the mess of boulders and rubble that had spilled in when the ice dome had been devoured, his razor-sharp teeth gnashing against each other as he leapt towards the wizard. "If you get rid of that, I can just resummon it! Dark Deluge!"
The ocean of black water erupted out from Mercury, engulfing him and surging out towards his enemy, ready to submerge the man so he could be devoured by the Eclipse Etherious.
Fullbuster raised his tattooed arm, the air freezing at his fingertips. "Ice Devil's Silver."
Instantly, Mercury's sea froze, the black water turned to solid pink ice, reflecting back the darkness of the castle as if taunting hell for its meek tortures. As if to set an example for what true wrath should be capable of, the Gate of the Twin Fish was still visible within, frozen in his own curse.
Cinder gulped, vaguely noting Emerald's eyes widening as she watched their fellow's decimation. The fact that Mercury was only half demon meant he was probably still alive in there, that he might even survive if they got him out soon enough. But the very idea that a human wizard existed that was capable of stopping an Eclipse Etherious in its tracks like that…
First Erza, now Fullbuster. What monsters Fairy Tail had bred.
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She knew it.
She knew she was a monster! Mom wanted to have faith in her, had offered to forgive her, had extended her hand in friendship, and what had that bitch done?! She'd spat in her face! Somehow, she'd caused that blast and obliterated half the castle, that's why she'd activated her magic when they were in the middle of talking!
Well, that was perfectly fine. If Raven wanted a fight, then Yang would show her a Devil Slayer's teeth.
Amidst the rubble that had spewed from the explosion that had destroyed the castle's central towers and scattered most of the group, the blonde advanced on the Spring Maiden, who even now was reeling on her knees. She'd stood too close to her own trap.
Yang raised her flare arm. It was time for this bitch to leave her family for the last time.
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Ruby's efforts to escape the crumbling debris had paid off. With her semblance and her signature weapon, she'd been able to flee to the upper floors of the western tower with her prize in tow. Now, in a room missing half its walls, she knelt in the dim light of a dark purple dust crystal, the book laid across her thighs.
All she had to do was open it. After that, the power within her eyes would be yanked out on its own, surge into the pages, and let her go back in time. She could go back in time and fix things. She could warn the guild about everything that was going to happen. The White Witch, Salem, everything. They could save them, keep the Strongest Team from being sealed away, and keep Earthland from becoming Remnant. No need for world domination or genocide, none of the problems would ever have happened.
The Strongest Team would see the guild again. She could keep her promise to Wendy.
Nothing bad would have ever happened. Ever.
She reached for the cover.
Another reason for this chapter's lateness. The characters kept demanding more awesome stuff. Seriously, Oscar's rage against Hazel and Emerald's lashing out at Cinder were not in my original plan for this chapter, but as I wrote, both of these characters refused to be relegated to the shorter, simpler, but far less badass plans I had made up for them prior. And since both their demands ending up flowing into this arc's themes better than I ever could have designed, I made like a good little author, shut my cake-hole, and let them kick ass. And though it took longer to put out, I do believe the story as a whole is stronger for it.
Thank you for Reading! I hope you enjoy what comes next!
Go Forth and Conquer!