Beta-ed by xenosaiyan and MasterPrince713
Raven's eyes shot open, a giant gasp of air filling her lungs as she skittered back against a metal wall. She frantically searched her new surroundings with her gaze, her hands desperately seeking Stalwart Stem.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Tai called out to her, kneeling before her and stilling her flailing wrists. "It's alright. Rae, it's alright. You're safe."
"Tai?" the Spring Maiden mumbled, her thundering heartbeat simmering down in her ex-lover's reassuring presence. "Where are we? What's going on?"
"We're still in the Grimmlands," the blond huntsman answered. He glanced behind him. "As for what's going on, we're trying to fix that."
Raven followed his gaze and took stock of the situation. Qrow and Yang were nowhere to be seen, but Nora had somehow joined their group. They were on the castle's landing platform, stuffed inside some kind of customized black airship, far more high-tech than she was used to seeing in the Mistral countryside. Penny stood before the main console, her finger bent back to insert a flashdrive into the machine as her other hand danced over the starter system.
"This security is… vexingly complex," the android growled. "Dr. Watts's work."
"Can you beat it?" Carla inquired.
"It will be my genuine pleasure," Penny grinned, feral and eager.
"Good," the white Exceed turned to Nora. "Do you think you can pull off the signal? I know it's big, but we'll need to let the others know where we are—"
"Subtle's never been my style," Nora declared, nervously cracking her knuckles. "I'll handle it."
Raven looked to Tai. "What's going on? Where're Yang and Qrow?"
Tai frowned. "Yang is… Pyrrha's getting her. Qrow's heading out to act as an anchor for your semblance."
"That explains why he feels so far away. Though I question the wisdom of hinging the entire plan on my portals when I was unconscious until…" Raven's voice trailed off, her eyes widening. "Summer! Did she… which… did she join us or… or…"
BOOM!
Raven and Tai's heads shot up towards the upper reaches of the western tower, their steep angle at the spire's base allowing them only a glimpse of an obsidian spray to the north. Only for a cacophony of explosions to ring out again from within the peak. A cacophony that would not have sounded if their team leader still lived.
Despite everything that had happened, everything she'd learned, the Spring Maiden couldn't stop the tears that trickled down her trembling face.
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Blake had been concerned when the Golden Spirit Wail had launched out of the western tower and forced her to stall her approach in order to dodge. That worry had only been increased when a giant spectral spear eerily similar to the Umbral Spirit King's polearm from Jinn's visions had erupted from the obsidian wall. When she arrived, she found, to her horror, that her fear had been justified.
A hall coated in melting black God Slayer ice, stone walls almost completely shattered, and a bloody, beaten Ruby kneeling before half of her mother's dead body.
But this was not the Ruby that Blake was used to seeing, and it wasn't just because of the Winter Maiden's power surging off of her. There was no Crescent Rose in her hands, no Waxing Petal, nor any other of her beloved weapons. Her Reaper's Rose Armor lay wilted and broken over her body, her signature hood deprived of its long scarlet cloak. There was no light in her silver eyes, no defiant spark of hope. Even when her teammate approached, the Spirit Slayer could only keep staring at Summer's corpse, as if she was as dead as her mother.
"Ruby?" Blake asked tentatively, approaching her leader cautiously as if she was a horse about to spook. "What happened?"
"She's dead," Ruby murmured. "I kept my promise… and she died because of me. Because I tried to be a huntress."
Blake gulped. She knelt beside her friend and placed a gentle hand she hoped was comforting on Ruby's bare shoulder. "Ruby… I don't understand what you're talking about exactly, but I doubt this is your fault. We need to regroup. There's God Slayer Ice here, so do you know where Weiss is—"
"Yang's gonna kill her."
The cat faunus's heart froze in her chest. "What?"
Ruby raised her arm without looking, numbly pointing towards a jagged hole of melted obsidian in the floor. "Weiss killed mom. Yang's gonna kill her. I can't stop her. I can't fix this. She's gone. She can't help me convince Salem. There's no Neo-Hell's Core."
"Wishful thinking on that," Blake muttered, shooting to her feet. "Come on, Ruby! We have to stop Yang before she does something she'll—"
"Wishful thinking?"
For the first time since Blake had arrived, Ruby's eyes moved from her mother's corpse, staring up at her teammate with the barest embers of hope in her gaze.
"You… you flew over the wreckage. You saw…" Ruby's eyes widened. "Did Neo-Hell's Core survive?! We've been assuming because the central tower collapsed, but if it survived… mom might be… and Yang won't… and she can stop Salem—"
"Ruby!" Blake shouted.
The silver-eyed girl shot up and grabbed the cat faunus by her collar. "Did Hell's Core survive?!"
"I… I don't know," Blake confessed, reeling back from her friend's terrifying fervor, her face frighteningly similar to Erza or her mother. "They were mountains of rubble, literal mountains, it could have been buried and we'd never know. The only thing that wasn't covered in it was this giant dome of wool—"
"Wool? Wool? Wool!" Ruby exclaimed, a manic gleam in her silver eyes. "Jaune was ascending! If the spirit he was being fused with was Aries, then he totally could have thrown that dome up. And he would have been in…"
A desperate, manic smile split the young woman's pale face. "Keep Yang from killing Weiss until I get back."
"Wait, what?!" Blake stammered, her leader already rushing past her to the hole she'd entered through. "Ruby, where are you going?"
"To get mom," she replied, as if that was obvious. "She'll stop Yang and Cinder. She'll help talk Salem around. I can still fix this. I can still fix this."
Her eyes lit up with the Winter Maiden's fire and she leapt over the side, jets of flame bursting from her heels as she shakily flew away.
"Wait, Ruby!" Blake shouted, reaching out her hand to the departing wizard. "What are you doing—"
Her shout was interrupted as a thunderous explosion sounded up from below, its scorching heat wafting up from the hole Yang and Weiss had supposedly gone down. She had a bad feeling about whatever Ruby was planning, and she didn't want to leave her friend alone when she was quite clearly crumbling, but she also very well couldn't leave her partner to roast their final teammate alive.
She conjured a pair of Griffon legs over her own and dashed down the hole of obsidian, faintly concerned with why Ruby had mentioned needing someone to stop Yang and Cinder. She wasn't entirely confident about her ability to keep her partner at bay, but if the Gate of the Archer was helping her? She wouldn't stand a chance.
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At Haven, Pyrrha had been consumed by fear and pain and jumped at the chance to fight Cinder without realizing that she didn't stand a chance.
Now, she was well aware that she was dramatically outgunned and wanted to be anywhere but falling several stories grappling with all four of the Gate of the Archer's armored appendages.
Cinder snarled, flailing over Pyrrha, spinning around and throwing the redheaded huntress down into the open air. She immediately whipped towards the wall and smashed her bone claws into the obsidian, emerald sparks flaring over her body as she made to climb back up the western tower.
Pyrrha threw out her arms, her semblance flaring over the metal plates of her mesh armor and allowing her to float in midair. She couldn't let Cinder get back up the tower. If she did, the spent Weiss and Ruby would be in the crossfire. She had to buy a bit of time for Yang to get her teammates to safety. Then, the Fire Devil Slayer would come back, and they could face the Gate of the Archer together, just like Ren had said… before he was absorbed…
Buy time. She just needed to buy Yang time. Then they could run for the hills together.
Pyrrha expanded Styx and Cerberus, the latter's three swords coated in her polarity and shot like rockets at the tower wall. Already strained from the Crash Magic blast, playing host to a menagerie of insane battles, and Cinder's own strikes to gain handholds in the stone, the obsidian crumbled when the blades struck, the Eclipse Etherious floundering in midair.
"Jiu Leixing!" Pyrrha called, summoning nine golden swords and firing them at her black-haired foe. Cinder twisted in midair, taking half the lightning blades on her bone claws, but the others sailed past and blasted the wall above to smithereens. Rubble and dust rained down on both fighters, forcing out them towards the northern courtyard, unable to grab anything to climb back up.
Of course, one thing that had changed since Haven was that Cinder had lost the power to fly. While Pyrrha had not.
"Meteor!" she shouted, streaking outside the rim of the falling rubble. If she could get a definitive high ground, she could rain down Heavenly Body Spells with impunity. That could buy her the time for Yang to arrive. She just needed to buy time—
SNAG! A bone arm slashed out of the smog, a long skeletal whip swinging upward and lashing around Pyrrha's right ankle, the same ankle that she'd crippled back on Beacon Tower. The redheaded wizard squealed as she was suddenly yanked down, barely able to remain airborne
But as she glanced downward, she saw the whip retracting, Cinder rising from the smoke. If she closed the gap any further, she'd be able to use Pyrrha as a steppingstone to get back on the tower.
Pyrrha could not allow that. With a deep breath, she released her semblance and her magic, sending herself and Cinder plummeting to the ground.
The two warriors crashed into the northern courtyard, their auras crackling from the force of the impact. Yet, in a testament to both of their endurance and skill, both huntress and Eclipse Etherious had scrambled back to their feet before there was time for a ten count, Pyrrha barring her enemy's path to the western tower.
"I trust you remember our last physical encounter," Cinder snarled.
"Painfully," Pyrrha murmured under her breath.
If fear let her know where she was weak, it was screaming at her to run. She vividly recalled her last clash with the Gate of the Archer and without the range to assail her with impunity, the Enhancement Curse would overwhelm her in a hand-to-hand battle. Even if the fight was at a distance, Cinder's speed would only give her time for maybe one spell before she used her speed to force the fight to close quarters. The smart thing to do would be to step aside, or run, something to avoid repeating the mistakes that had happened in Neo-Hell's Core, that had led to Jaune and Ren…
Pyrrha let out a long breath and fell into a combat stance. Fear let her know where she was weak, but like any medicine, it was a harmful drug in abundance, as she'd viscerally learned back at Haven. She knew how difficult this battle would be, but she also knew that it must be fought. She was mistaken that Cinder was out to harm her partner back in Hell's Core, but she was certainly out to kill Weiss now. She could not let that happen.
One shot. If Yang didn't show up, if she could catch her enemy off-guard, at best she'd get one shot at Cinder, and she didn't have Grand Chariot prepared. No other spell in her arsenal had a chance of bringing down the Gate in her Eclipse Etherious Form. No spell except…
… she hadn't mastered it. Her mother hadn't even wanted her to learn it. And if she got it wrong, the black hole it could create would be just as much a threat to her as her opponent. But if she had to fight alone…
No. Yang was the most loyal person she knew. She cut off her arm to be able to come to her friends' side. She'd come and they'd take Cinder together.
"Get the hell out of my way, Nikos!" the Eclipse Etherious roared, closing to Pyrrha in the blink of an eye, her fists surging forward with a coating of emerald electricity.
Pyrrha raised her shields, her swords flying in to her aid.
Where the hell was Yang?!
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I'll kill you.
How many times had Weiss thought those words since that fateful day at Amity Coliseum? How many times had she fallen asleep whispering them under her breath, the image of Esper Rosenflos in her mind? How many times had it been the only thing keeping her from crumbling into despair in her darkest hours?
How ironic that she had actually succeeded in her quest for justice, only to hear those same words shot back at her by one of her dearest friends.
Weiss frantically threw up wall after wall of black ice, only for Yang to smash through the barriers with barely any pause, her blazing crimson eyes always locking back onto the former heiress. Her teammate's demonic black arm tore through the obsidian walls like wet paper, constantly clawing and screeching for the God Slayer's face.
Under normal circumstances, Weiss could trade even with Yang, as their many guildhall brawls had proved. But at current, she was spent. Her aura was gone, she was casting spells from whatever magic she could scrape together from the air, and her muscles could barely raise Myrtenaster to defend herself. Meanwhile, the Devil Slayer was fresh and furious.
But even that wasn't what terrified her most, nor were the scorching pink flames surging from nearly every inch of her body. No, she'd seen Yang angry before, seen her bursting with fury and fire as she roared after the object of her ire. But now, despite her red eyes, the blonde was focused, precise, and unyielding. Which meant she was probably more livid than ever before.
"Yang," she called. "Yang, please listen to me—"
A demonic claw slammed right next to her, the God Slayer barely dodging in the space of a fraction of a second, the stone wall behind her exploding from the impact. But the putrid black talons immediately swiped across Weiss's face, pink flames ignited within the wretched palm.
"Gah!" Weiss shrieked, thrown across the hall and tumbling through the dirt and dust, the visceral rolling putting out the flames in her hair before too much of the platinum locks could be burned away.
Meanwhile, her left eye, which had once been scarred by her father so long ago, now rolled across the dark floor, torn from her face entirely as drifted into the shadows.
"Aaaaaaahhhhh!" Weiss screamed, helpless and on her knees, tears gushing from her sole remaining eye as she clutched at the bloody space where its fellow had once been.
Towering before her, Yang rushed in without hesitation to deal the final blow, her demonic tattoos spasming around her face as her new right arm fell like a hammer of flames. If she'd been able to think through the pain and exhaustion, Weiss might have thought that she was about to die. She was about to die at the hands of one of her dearest friends. She had her justice, but the price…
How foolish she'd been to think she didn't have more to lose.
The heat closed on her skin, ready to sear her to ash… only for a pair of warm, protective arms to wrap around her waist from behind.
She watched the inferno incinerate the shadow clones of herself and Blake as she felt the cat faunus whip her around, stowing her protectively behind her as the black-haired huntress span to face her raging partner.
"Get the hell out of my way, Blake," Yang snarled, cold yet feral.
Blake's golden eyes skittered over Weiss's scarred face and the Devil Slayer's rancid appendage, pink flames searing around her blonde man. The Take-Over Wizard dropped into a combat stance. "You know I can't do that."
No. Run away. Leave her. Leave her to the price to be paid. Don't die for her. Don't die for her and her justice.
A Purple Flare hand on Yang's left wrist curled into a fist. Grimm claws covered spread over Blake's arms. Weiss's friends were going to kill each other over her.
Always more to lose.
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"Again, you have my deepest apologies, Mr. Arc," Salem bemoaned. "I never intended for you to lose so much."
The bruised mess of yellow skin, pink hair, and glowing crimson eyes staggered to his feet amidst the mess of rubble north of the ruins of Neo-Hell's Core. Jaune's boil skittered around his flesh, his limp arm reaching out towards Salem.
The Queen sighed, allowing the boy's hand to grasp at her forearm, feeling his curse attempt to suck in her soul. "Each of the curses of Tartaros were developed by Zeref in hopes of overwhelming his curse of immortality. And until End, each of those curses were failures. You can no more rip my soul from my body than Seram's mud could destroy it."
"Priceless…" Jaune mumbled, glaring at the Queen. "Not! Pricel—"
"Meteor Metria," Salem cut in, not in the mood to be blown apart by Crash Magic again.
The Metria-class of spell had been utilized by many schools of magic, from Aqua Metria which could traverse dimensions to her own invention of Urano Metria. Meteor Metria was her most standard spell of that arsenal, a scaled-down version of the grander spell. Instead of transporting in all eighty-eight heavenly bodies for a single brutal onslaught, she could instead create portals to shoot them into this plane one at a time, putting firepower downrange much more quickly.
Half a dozen swirling portals spawned around Jaune. Only instead of unleashing clawing Grimm arms that the Eclipse Etherious would easily absorb, each gate shot out a volley of multicolored meteors bathed in shining golden light.
Jaune curled his arms over his face, his aura instinctively flaring to life to protect him. Let it never be said that Ozma's invention was useless, as while Mard Geer had been torn to pieces while she'd first awakened from his experiments, the scion of Aries and Franmalth was only sent soaring back towards Neo-Hell's Core. Smoking and screaming, but very much alive.
"Be careful!" Lucy called, her and Leo leaping back from the battered huntsman. "Don't kill him!"
"Don't worry. I think he's finally getting tuckered out," Salem reassured her. She raised her hand, elemental power gathering in her palm. "This should help him cool off."
Thousands upon thousands of years of life. It'd be quite embarrassing if Ozma's maidens could do more impressive elemental spells than she could.
A typhoon of ice and snow, more a concentrated beam of pure cold really, slammed into Jaune. Instantly, the newborn Eclipse Etherious was encased in a block of ice, his face in shock within.
Lucy's eyes widened. "How did you—"
Glowing white lines broke out all over the ice's surface and interrupted the Celestial Spirit Wizard, both her and Loke leaping back from the emerging Eclipse Etherious. Salem, on the other hand, calmly approached Jaune as he burst out of the frozen prison.
Only to immediately collapse unconscious into The Queen's arms. Combined with the beating she'd dealt the young man prior, the freezing exhausted the last of his energy, far more safely than another few Meteor Metria would have.
"See?" Salem said. "Nothing to worry about."
"Right," Lucy replied, glancing between The Queen and her beaten opponent. "How did you do that? Why didn't he absorb your magic?"
Salem smirked. "I may not have enjoyed how I became part Etherious, but I very much am. With my own curse and all."
"Curse?"
"The Transitive Curse. A simple thing really," Salem remarked, conjuring two tiny balls of light around her fingers. "There is a difference between these two spells. What do you think it is?"
Lucy cocked an eyebrow, confounded, but Leo narrowed his gaze, already knowing the answer. "One is magic. The other is a curse."
"What?!" Lucy exclaimed. "But they're the same spell?"
"That's what my Transitive Curse can do. Magic equals curse, and curse equals magic," Salem explained. "I can cast any magic as a curse, and any curse as magic. It's useful in a world so scarce with ethernano."
"And for casting curses against an opponent that can absorb magic," Lucy quickly surmised. "That explains why you were able to give Acnologia so much… trouble…"
Salem was about to ask what was wrong with her friend when her eyes widened as she found the sight that was. On Lucy's keyring, Virgo's golden rod had shrunk, glowing golden shavings fluttering off until it was reduced to half its full length.
"That's never happened before," Lucy nervously muttered. "Is that bad?"
"Very," Leo confirmed, his face pale and horrified. "Very, very bad."
That was a radical understatement. The Key of the Maiden was bound to the position on the Zodiac. If it had been so reduced, then that meant that Virgo… and Summer…
Salem whipped her head up, the blaring beacon of a maiden closing quickly through the sky. And that person was a familiar Silver-Eyed Warrior lacking a familiar red hood.
Her mind immediately went to the worst-case scenario, Seram Madness's eagerly pushing forward such negative thoughts. She took several deep breaths, forcing her well of willpower to smash down the swell of darkness. There were other explanations for Ruby possessing a maiden's power. Perhaps Summer had given it to her through her Scarab or removed Raven's powers, or perhaps the Spring Maiden had even died and passed on her mystical burden to her best friend's daughter.
Just because Virgo's key had… didn't mean that Summer…
"Salem?" Lucy tentatively asked. "What is it?"
The Queen did not respond, tensing her fingers in an attempt to keep them from closing into fists.
With Jaune's limp body still in her grip, she marched back into Neo-Hell's Core.
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Weiss Schnee killed Teacher.
She had killed Teacher.
Teacher was dead.
Her mother was dead.
To say Cinder was not in the mood to deal with Pyrrha Nikos was a decided understatement.
"Enhance! 125%!"
Verdant electricity flew over Cinder's body, amplifying her muscles further than the Eclipse Etherious ever had before. Her four arms flew out in a rapid beatdown of jabs and slashes, pushing Nikos further and further back towards the tower.
The redhead's body glowed black and gold as she desperately tried to use her semblance and magic to keep up with Cinder's onslaught, but she was simply outmatched. She could only block half the Gate's blows and even those carried so much raw strength that the young huntress still buckled under the strain. Her shield was caved in by a thrust from the archer's bone claws, the gun barrels bent ways that made them clearly inoperable. One by one, her floating swords were struck with such force that they were sent flying off into the distance. Pyrrha didn't have the time to retrieve them as her skill was utterly overwhelmed by her foe's savage onslaught.
Before long, yet far too long for Cinder, the Gate of the Archer rammed one of her bone claws into the former champion's shoulder, her aura seemingly nowhere to be seen. Pyrrha wailed in pain as the limb split her armor and practically ran her flesh through, but Cinder merely seized the opportunity to lift the other woman up and toss her over her shoulder.
Nikos collapsed into the dirt, out of the way. Cinder whipped out her hand and shot emerald sparks into the prone girl, all five of her senses instantly robbed from her.
The Gate of the Archer whirled back to the western tower taking several deep breaths as her muscles pulsed with her curse's aftereffects. She hadn't found the limits of her Eclipse Etherious Form yet, but she suspected them have been closer than she'd have wished.
No matter, she had no intention of wasting time pointlessly torturing Pyrrha like at Haven and she would not risk Salem's ire by breaking her orders and killing the girl. She could lie in the dirt without her senses while Cinder went avenged Summer by ripping Weiss Schnee's head off.
At least, that was the thought. Until one of the redhead's scattered blades thrust in the from the side. Cinder easily took the stab on her aura and batted the weapon aside but was more surprised by the black sheen coating the sword.
"Polarity?" she gasped, spinning back towards her adversary. "Impossible!"
Pyrrha was upright. She was upright, standing tall! Her mesh armor plates were coated in the dark shine of her semblance while her eyes stared straight at Cinder, both things that should have been impossible without aura—
Unless… that madwoman! She dropped her aura shielding intentionally to get Cinder to lower her guard! She waited for a nonlethal strike! Even crippled, she'd still be able to use her armor and polarity to force the limbs in place for her spell!
With her hands back-to-back over her head, a golden magic circle flashed over Pyrrha's fingertips. But though the mystical energy she'd wield before remained, there was now something else mixed in. Something sickly and dark that made Cinder's stomach churn as the shadows of the Grimmlands twisted and bent towards the redheaded wizard, that very same gravitational force holding the Gate in place.
Darkness gathered, a vortex of death and infinite darkness condensing into a sizable orb in the huntress's hands. Even still, the black star flickered, the magic within crackling as something within failed to stabilize.
"What the hell?" Cinder murmured. Where had Nikos been hiding something this powerful?!
"Altairis!"
Pyrrha brought down her hands and the ball of pure annihilation surged across the black plain. The ground tore up from under the crackling sphere of death, sheared into caverns as it was sucked up into oblivion.
Cinder flooded her curse through her veins, boosting her muscles to fight against the pull of the attack, to leap out of the way. If things remained how they were when Nikos fired the orb, she probably would have.
But they didn't.
A bit more than halfway to its target, the crackles of the enormous sphere shattered, and a ravenous black void erupted from its depths.
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Ruby had seen the ruins from the air. How could she not have, half the dome was blown off? Blake must've only missed it because she'd passed it when it was whole, and by that point, she was close enough for the chaos of the western tower to take up all her attention.
Still Ruby had gone in for a closer look, praying that she was missing something, praying that her mother wasn't dead. Because if she was… then there was no hope left.
Of course, then she landed and beheld broken remnants of her last hope, a pit of pink ice and wrecked machinery.
"No," Ruby whimpered, her head falling into her hands. "No, no, no, no, no…"
"Ruby?"
The silver-eyed girl whirled around at the familiar, soft voice. "Wendy?"
The Sky Dragon Slayer climbed out from under a tile at the center of the laboratory, picking herself up and staring in horror at Ruby's bloody form. "What happened to you?"
"I have a similar query," Salem spoke, her voice booming as she marched into the ruins, dragging a demonic figure at her side, Lucy and Loke right behind her. However, when the trio caught sight of Ruby's broken body, all of them, even The Queen, recoiled in shock.
Ruby, on the other hand, found her eyes drawn to the pink-haired, yellow-skinned boy in Salem's grip. And found the last embers of her hope crumbling as she recognized him.
"You haven't failed anyone, not Team RWBY and not Fairy Tail. In fact, Salem or no Salem, something tells me you're going to be the thing that brings us all back together."
"I'm a leader. I'm not allowed to fail."
"Thanks, but I'm a team leader too, remember? You can't fail me."
"But I did, Jaune. I failed you," Ruby muttered, tears leaking down her face. "I kept my promise, but I failed you. I failed mom, I failed Yang, I failed Weiss, I failed Erza, I failed everyone—"
"Ruby!" Wendy shouted. "You didn't fail Jaune. His mind is… scrambled, but that doesn't mean we can't help him. Just calm down and let me take a look at your wounds—"
"My wounds? My wounds!?" Ruby barked, a frayed laugh escaping her throat. "What the hell do my wounds matter?! I'm already dead! Dead, dead, dead, dead as a doornail! We all are! Just like mom!"
"Just like…" Salem's face darkened. "Ruby. What happened to Summer—"
"She's dead! Didn't you hear me?!" Ruby yelled. "Weiss killed her. I tried to save them both! I tried to be a huntress! And I failed! And without her, I can't convince you not to lie to every last one of the kingdoms and conquer the world! I can't convince you that there's a better way!"
"That's because there isn't a better way!" Salem roared, black veins of Seram's Madness spreading over her cheeks. "You are my dearest friend, but I will tolerate no more of this! The Umbral Spirit King is coming, and I will not let this world burn—"
"What do you think is going to happen?!" Ruby screamed, her voice hoarse and her eyes bloodshot. "Even if it works, even if you trick and force everyone in the world to become an Eclipse Etherious and kill the Umbral Spirit King and destroy the Grimm, and then reveal the truth to everyone, what do you think is going to happen!? When they see that with enough power, laws and morals become suggestions, and you've handed just everyone on Remnant the power of a Gate?! Of End and Acnologia!?"
"That's not going to happen!" Salem declared. "I swear—"
"What does it matter what you swear?! 'Once the war is won, they can do with the world as they want.' That's what you said!" Ruby challenged. "You'll be dead by End or off in retirement, but you can't swear anything about the world. You've hammered in that people are shit unless you force them to get in line, so what's going to stop them destroying everything themselves when you're gone!?"
"So now you want me to rule the world?" Salem snarled, her eyes narrowed. "Or do you want to? All must hail Ruby Rose, all-knowing hero huntress and divine arbiter of right and wrong in the universe!"
"It doesn't matter what I want!"
Somehow, that shout, from her lips caked in blood, sweat, and tears, was the final straw for Ruby. She plummeted to her knees, her silver eyes numbly staring from Lucy to Salem. The purest embodiment of the ideals of Fairy Tail that she had come to cherish so deeply, and the horrifying monstrosity that she had sent her friend down the path to becoming by preaching them to her. Even if no one hated her, even if no one blamed her, Ruby knew where the blame for all this horror laid.
"It doesn't matter what I want," she croaked out. "You've shown me that there are two paths before me. Extinction to the Umbral Spirit King, or the betrayal of everything I've ever believed in that will probably also end in extinction. Either way, Remnant is going to die."
"That doesn't mean we can give up, Ruby," Wendy said, taking a tentative step towards her friend. "We have to keep fighting."
"Even to the bitter end, in the face of the coldest night, Fairy Tail fights," Salem added. "Even if we must do so as monsters."
"You're wrong. Because there is a third option. I can finally be a huntress. I can die like every other huntress in history. If Remnant's doomed either way…" Ruby's gaze shifted to Wendy, looking upon her first Fairy Tail guildmate, her first Fairy Tail friend, with all the love and devotion in her utterly spent soul. "I made you a promise, just like you made me once. You kept it, and so will I. You'll see the guildhall again."
Wendy tilted her head in confusion. "Ruby, what are you talking about—"
The Scarlet Reaper cut off her friend with a flash of Requip. The book that started it all, the book titled for the fairies of the shattered moon, materialized on her lap.
Immediately, every other person in the room reeled back in horror, the lines of Seram's Madness even banished from Salem's face out of sheer shock.
"Ruby," Lucy said softly. "Whatever you're thinking of doing… don't."
"I haven't known what's right since I came back here. No matter what I do, things just keep getting worse," Ruby ranted, her fingers gripping the tome's cover, the ancient device feeling like an anchor around her neck. "This is the only chance. I have to take it."
"You'll erase the timeline!" Salem warned, terrified. "Everyone you've ever known, everyone you've loved will never have existed—"
"Mom is dead! Jaune's lost his mind! Yang is going to kill Weiss, and I can't stop it!" Ruby's head looked back up to Wendy. "I need to save who I can, however small that number is."
"By sacrificing yourself? By rewriting the world? The world where we met, where we became friends?" Wendy shot back, her warm brown eyes misting and pleading. "You don't die for your friends, Ruby. You live for them. It isn't easy, and sometimes the choices are beyond what anyone should ever have to make, but Fairy Tail has always sought to live. If you do this, you are betraying everything the guild stands for."
The words weren't anything she hadn't run through in her own head when she'd first had the idea back on Patch. But being spoken aloud, spoken by Wendy, they gave Ruby just a hint of pause, the tiniest pinprick of light amidst the all-consuming darkness of her despair.
Salem took note of her hesitation and shot forward in a blur of black movement, her hand an inch from Ruby in the blink of an eye, desperate to rip the book from her grasp before she unmade the world. If it was anyone else, her speed meant she would have succeeded without a doubt.
But the flight from the western tower had given Ruby's aura enough time to recover just a fraction, just enough to fire off a single burst of her semblance. She burst into rose petals and flowed through The Queen's grasp, shooting upward and rematerializing high in the air. She saw Wendy's hair light with Dragonforce, Loke already leaping to intercept her.
They wouldn't make it. The book was already thrown open and her eyes were glowing silver.
"A world without fairies. A sky with no stars. An eternal adventure, eternally scarred," Ruby read off, the shine of her eyes flaring into the pages. "No more. I'm going to fix this."
Black smoke flowed out from the book and surged over her body. In the blink of an eye, the Scarlet Reaper was sucked into time itself.
RWBYRWBYRWBYRWBYFTFTFTFT
"What if Gray's in danger? What if they've been attacked? What if Lucy's finally decided to take a pass at him?! So far away, on another continent, she might start to seem appetizing to him!"
Mira smiled sweetly at Juvia's worries, passing her panicking friend another drink. "Don't worry. Natsu's there. Lucy won't even notice Gray."
It was a normal day at the Fairy Tail guildhall, rampant feasting, drinking, and a few scattered bar brawls flaring up all around. Though the Strongest Team's absence for their hundred-year quest was keenly felt, there was plenty of other merriment to go around. Mira's siblings were entertaining young Asuka by transforming their body parts into those of animals, the Thunder Legion were teasing Evergreen for failing to hide her furtive glances at Elfman (they were dating now, she didn't have to be so embarrassed), and Gajeel and Pantherlily were fervently arguing about what wallpaper they should get for the baby's nursery while Levy struggled to get a word in edgewise.
Mira breathed in a content sigh as she just basked in her family's happiness. Over a year since the war with Alvarez and she still felt blessed that the guild was free to relax and simply enjoy each other to the fullest once again. And with any luck, the familiar hooded figure who'd made their way to the bar would soon be able to do so as well.
Once he actually joined of course.
"Hey, stranger," Mira smirked. "What'll you be having?"
Jellal Fernandez sighed and took a seat next to Juvia at the bar counter. "Thank you, but no thank you. Would it be permissible for me to speak with your master?"
Mira shot him a cheeky smile. "You can try, but he's a bit indisposed at the moment."
The bartender pointed off to the side where Master Makarov was currently laid out in his wheelchair across from a still drinking Cana, who had her hands raised in victory.
"Poor master. He hasn't been able to beat her since he recovered during the war," Mira tutted, before refocusing a wolfish grin on the former leader of Crime Sorciere. "Now then, I believe you're looking for information on a 'White Witch'?"
Jellal raised an eyebrow. "Erza sent a letter that I was coming?"
"That was mentioned, yes," Mira slyly stated. "Though, she also mentioned a certain late-night rendezvous in Hargeon Town."
"Late-night rendezvous?!" Juvia exclaimed, suddenly very interested in the conversation and rushing into Jellal's face. "Did Lucy make a play for Gray—"
"Juvia, darling," Mira said, placing a gentle hand on the water wizard's shoulder while also shooting her a smile that was both angelic, yet undeniably devilish. "I'm sure Gray was only thinking of you, the entire time."
She turned back to Jellal. "Though, I don't suppose Lucy and Natsu spent some quality time together while you were there?"
Fairy Tail's loyal bartender had spent years trying to get her various friends to realize the clear feelings they had for others. She had to make sure her ships sailed!
Jellal stared and shrugged. "I do not know. I don't believe they separated from the rest of the group."
"That's a shame," Mira incorrigibly smirked. "It would have been great if they'd 'separated from the group' like you and Erza did."
"Oooo," Juvia gasped, finally realizing what had gone down.
Jellal Fernandez, the one-time most wanted man in Fiore, blushed as deep a red as his love's hair, coughing awkwardly into his hand as he tried to avoid eye contact with the She-Devil. "That… um… had not been the purpose of seeing her off."
"But you're not sad it happened," Mira grinned. "Truth be told, she didn't sound like she was either—"
The barmaid's teasing was cut off as a strange, yet familiar magic power suddenly skyrocketed within the guildhall. The bombastic ruckus within the hall instantly ceased, everyone's eyes drawn towards the spike behind the bar counter.
Mira followed that path as well, spying a certain lockbox shaking and rumbling from within.
"Mira," Juvia spoke, a note of trepidation and yet hope in her voice. "Isn't that where you stored—"
"Yes," the eldest Straus finished, an excited, jubilant smile blossoming over her face. "They've found a way back!"
"Who's 'they'?" Jellal inquired, already in a wary combat stance. "Back from where?"
The rattling lockbox cut off any answer he might have been given when the sealed door exploded outward, its magic overwhelmed by the sheer power of its contents. The book that Sitara had given the guild just before their war with Tartaros flew out from the safe and hovered in midair, glowing with a sleek black and gold shine.
Just as expected, that mystical coating spread from the pages and formed into a swirling vortex before the tome.
"Weiss!" Juvia cheered, leaping up and clapping with excitement, looking like she'd just been told Gray was coming home early. "She's coming back! Weiss is coming back! With Blake, and Yang, and—"
BOOM! The churning portal spat out a red blur, Mira, Juvia, and Jellal having to duck away as the figure crashed into the bar counter. The book fell to the floor, silent.
Mira whipped back towards the person who'd been deposited out, her eyes widening in horror.
"Ruby!"
The leader of Team RWBY looked like she'd been through a meat grinder, her pale skin coated in blood and her left leg bent at an awkward angle from her crash. Her armor was crumpled, a broken wreck of red metal with her signature cloak torn to shreds. Even still, she was positively bursting with magic power, ethernano impossibly flowing from her in a seemingly limitless flood.
The entire guild looked at her in shock, but Mira, Juvia, and Jellal ran up to her first, being the closest. Jellal immediately began seeing to her leg while Juvia used her magic to staunch the blood flow. Mira came up to her friend's face, trying to keep her fading silver eyes conscious.
"Ruby! Ruby! Look at me, Ruby! Look at me!" she pleaded. "We're gonna get you fixed up, okay? Everything's gonna be alright."
For some reason, that prompted a soft, wistful smile to bleed over Ruby's lips. "I know… Mira… you need to know… The White… Witch…"
The huntress's eyes fell shut, her body utterly exhausted, yet relieved to rest awhile.
Mira shared a fearful glance with the two bluenettes assisting her. While Jellal's head had perked up at the mention of the White Witch, the She-Devil could tell that Juvia's thoughts were just as confounded as her own.
What the hell was going on?
And with that, Ruby has hit rock bottom. Next chapter will see if she can climb back up.
Side note, I really enjoyed writing the contrast between the Grimmlands scenes where everyone is fighting for their lives, and the final scene at the guildhall. I really feel it does a great job reinforcing what Ruby and the others think of when they think of Fairy Tail.
Thank you for Reading! I hope you enjoy what comes next!
Go Forth and Conquer!