AUTHOR'S NOTES: Nice long chapter this time. Finally getting to the Nuckelavee fight, which I put off as long as I could-I wasn't sure how I was going to write it. But I think it turned out all right. I did lift a line from Firefly, but I doubt anyone will mind...

Kuroyuri Airfield (Zonalnoye)

Sakhalin, Eastern Russia Dead Zone

7 June 2001

Qrow Branwen woke with a start. His head felt like one of the worst hangovers he'd ever had. His vision swam for a moment, and then focused blearily on the woman bending over him. "Hey there, Short Stack. Long time…" Then he realized it was not Summer Rose, but her daughter. "Oh, hey, Ruby…"

Ruby dabbed at his brow with a hankerchief. "Hey there, Uncle Qrow. How're you feeling?"

"Horrible. My head feels like someone set off a nuke in it, and my stomach feels like I've been shot."

"It's because you have been shot, kinda." She ran a hand over his abdomen. Qrow sucked in his breath. "Does that hurt?"

"Hell yes!" he gasped.

"Ren patched you up, best he could, but thinks you've got internal bleeding."

"Great." Qrow lay back on the stretcher. "Aspirin?"

"Yeah, hold on." Ruby fished around in her survival vest and found the tiny packet of aspirin, then grabbed her last baby bottle of water. Before leaving Alaska, each pilot had filled two baby bottles with ice, knowing their body heat would melt it to water. Gently, she lifted her uncle's head, gave him the pills, then the water. She wondered if she was doing the right thing by giving him water. Knew I should've paid more attention in first aid class when I was a Girl Scout…

Qrow gratefully gulped down the water and laid back. He winced when the water hit his shrunken stomach, but gritted his way through it. "Hey, Ruby," he said. He grabbed her hand. "You guys call for help?"

"Ren and Nora left ten minutes ago. It shouldn't be too much longer."

"Listen, in case I don't make it—"

Ruby waved that off. "Don't say that!"

Qrow ignored her. "If I don't make it…you need to ask Pyrrha about the Maidens, okay?" His grip tightened. "Oz told us not to tell anyone, and so did that little pipsqueak Arashikaze, but you need to know. All of you." He nodded at her. "You're a good kid, Ruby." He groaned as a bolt of pain went through him. "Love ya...kiddo...you know...just in..." His voice trailed off as he lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Ruby held his hand, then checked his pulse. It was faster than normal, but still strong. She got up, watched him for a minute, then walked to where Pyrrha stood at the front of the hangar. Ruby didn't know why these Maidens were so important to Qrow, but if he thought it was important enough for a deathbed confession—no, Ruby thought, don't think like that. Uncle Qrow is too mean to die.

"Pyrrha?" Ruby asked. Pyrrha seemed not to notice her; instead her head was cocked to one side, like she was trying to listen to something, her baby bottle of water unnoticed in her hands. "Pyrrha?"

"Shh." The other woman held up her hand. Ruby listened, but could hear nothing. Then Pyrrha carefully set down her bottle onto the cracked concrete of the tarmac and began watching it. Ruby stared at her for a moment, wondering if Pyrrha had lost her mind, then noticed the ripples in the water. "I think, maybe…it's coming from the south."

Ruby walked out a little further and looked in that direction. It was dark, but there was a full moon rising.

Far in the distance, a flock of birds rose startled in the air.

And then they heard it: a distant thump, almost like artillery or a train coming to a stop. Then another thump, and another. It was rhythmic. Pyrrha joined her. "Something big is moving," she said.

"Yeah. Like someone walking?" Ruby shrugged and pointed. "It's south, all right. Still a ways off."

Over Aniva Bay, Southwest of Kuroyuri

Sakhalin, Eastern Russia Dead Zone

Ren tried to settle into the ejection seat and concentrate on flying. It was not easy. He felt like he was abandoning his friends back at Kuroyuri. He reassured himself that it should be all right: Qrow was a tough man, and the town of Kuroyuri was uninhabited, a city of the dead. He'd made sure of that, flying over it on the way out to see if there was any hint of squatters, anyone, living there. There wasn't. He knew Nora had checked too. He'd throttled back, trying to find his old house, but the ruins were overgrown and blasted. It was just as well.

He looked for her. Nora was below and to the right. It had taken longer than they'd hoped to fuel Nora's A-10 by hand, but at least they were in the air. They should be getting close to the edge of the radio dead zone; once clear of that, they could start radioing Chitose and get a medevac into the air. And a tanker, though that would take longer. If it wasn't for the fact that the water below held such horrible memories, and the urgency of their mission, Ren would've been enjoying the flight. The moon was bright, casting enough light to still see the shoreline of Sakhalin just below his right wing and even the forest beyond it. A moonlight flight with my girl, he chuckled to himself. How romantic.

He pressed the radio button. "Nora, Ren. Radio check."

"Roger, Ren. Five by."

"We never get the easy jobs, do we?" It was breaking radio silence rules, but suddenly Ren didn't care. He needed to talk, to keep the memories at bay.

"Easy's no fun anyway," Nora answered with a laugh. "You okay?"

"I'm tactical. You?"

"I got you here, don't I?"

Then he saw it. It was out of the corner of one eye, a strange indentation in the shoreline; the moonlight had caught it just right. He checked his fuel: there was enough for a quick circle. It was probably nothing, but it raised his hackles all the same. Of course, coming back here was making him jump at shadows for certain.

He waggled his wings for Nora's attention, then began a gentle turn to the right. A quick glance saw Nora's A-10 turning to follow; luckily the gray A-10 was fairly easy to see against the dark water, and she'd switched on her lights. If there were Grimm around, they would detect them anyway. Ren made a quick scan of his instruments, one look around the sky, and then looked down.

It was a footprint, a large one, about eight feet across, but not remotely human. Instead, it looked like a cloven hoof, but with hard edges instead of the smooth ones of nature. Ren felt the bile in his throat. There was another footprint in the forest, and a path of broken trees heading north. He flew on a moment longer. And another footprint. More broken trees.

"Nora, twelve o'clock low!"

Nora had already seen them, and her reaction was one of utter terror—suddenly the terrified little girl watching Kuroyuri burn around her, as a steel monster searched for prey like some horrifying kaiju come to life. For a moment she couldn't speak. Shaking, she touched the radio button. "Tally-ho, Ren." She shook her head, as if that could make the sight in front of her go away. "I see them."

"It's headed north, towards…" Ren's voice trailed off. He didn't need to finish. Ren felt his hands grip stick and throttle hard enough that under his gloves, his knuckles turned white. "We have to go back."

"But Chitose—"

"We're going back!"

"Ren, no!" Nora yelled. "I'm going back. You get up as high as you can and start broadcasting! As soon as Chitose acknowledges, then you follow me!"

"Nora, they're going to die!"

"Qrow's going to die if we don't get that medevac! Now shut the fuck up and clear the channel!" Ren saw the A-10 peel away and head north as fast as it could. He slammed a hand on the side of the cockpit, let out a string of vile Chinese curses, and climbed into the night sky, heading south. "Reaper Three, transmitting in the blind to any station. Request immediate assistance. I have wounded personnel and am engaged with ground GRIMM." He reached forward and switched on his transponder, turning it to 7700. If the radar controllers on Hokkaido could pick him up, his radar blip would be bright and huge, letting the entire world know he was an aircraft in distress. Ren repeated his message.

There was no answer.

Kuroyuri Airfield

Now the ground was beginning to shake. "What the hell is it?" Ruby yelled, as she and Pyrrha began to back into the hangar. "They have elephants on this—" Her eyes widened. "Oh fuck! Goliaths!"

"It can't be!" Pyrrha exclaimed. "It doesn't sound like a large number! Just one!"

"Ruby!" They turned at Qrow's voice. He was trying to sit up on the stretcher. "Get in the air! Don't get caught on the ground!"

"Like hell—"

"Goddammit, Ruby! Leave me! Just go!" Qrow gripped his middle in agony. "Go!" Ruby stood rooted to the spot, shaking her head helplessly, so Qrow turned pained eyes on Pyrrha. "Take my bird and get the hell out of here, Nikos! Slap some sense into her!" He pointed at his niece.

Pyrrha grabbed Ruby. "He's right! We can't get caught on the ground!" She shook her friend. "A Goliath isn't going to bother with a single person!" That was a lie: if GRIMM had infrared "sight," like it was thought that they did, a Goliath would see Qrow, and probably blast the hangar to pieces. But Pyrrha, who felt nauseated at the thought of leaving anyone behind, knew they would all die if she and Ruby didn't get into the air.

Ruby blinked and nodded. Pyrrha gave her another quick shake to be sure, then dashed towards Qrow's F-117, snatching up her helmet off the wing of the F-22 on the way. She spared a quick pat on the Raptor's wing as she went past; she'd known Crocea Mors II for such a short time, but it was unflyable. As damaged as the Nighthawk was, it was at least in theory flightworthy.

Ruby started towards Qrow, but Qrow grabbed his pistol from his survival vest beside the stretcher, and pointed it at her. Ruby swore, turned around, and ran towards Crescent Rose, tossing her helmet into the cockpit, chinning herself on the canopy sill and pulling herself in. There was no time to run through a preflight; she simply switched on the engine, let the gyros stabilize for a moment, then began to taxi. Pyrrha had the canopy down on the F-117 and was already moving as well. Neither aircraft was at its best, but they got both onto the runway. Pyrrha let Ruby have the lead, so Ruby hit the afterburner and took off. She looked at the fuel gauge and wished she hadn't. She would be lucky if she had ten minutes in the air.

Ruby had to make a longer turn than usual after takeoff due to the damaged rudder, but as she did so, she looked to the left. She stared in shock and resisted the sudden urge to urinate.

There was no question it was a GRIMM. Normally the drones were painted a black color with white and red recognition stripes; no one was quite sure if the black was paint or the natural color of composites. This one only had patches of paint: the rest of it was a dull, bare and battered metal silver, like an old saucepan. It was the GRIMM's appearance that was so horrifying: it was four-legged, like a Goliath, but the legs rose in the air and then curved down to its feet, like a spider. In the middle was a squat body, like a carapace, topped with a blocky turret adorned with two secondary turrets and two forward cannon. It was easily twice the size of a Goliath. As Ruby looked closer, she could see it was deeply scored and blackened in places with hits and scars. Then the turret swung in her direction. "What the fuck is that?" Ruby shouted over the open channel.

Pyrrha coaxed the Nighthawk in the air, but wasn't sure how long she was going to stay there. Through her helmet, she could hear the wind whistling through holes in the fuselage, and she doubted the ejection seat would work; there were holes through that, as well. One engine was out, and though the other one worked fine, it was creating an asymmetrical thrust issue that required her to keep one foot hard down on the rudder pedals. She'd heard the F-117 wasn't easy to fly to begin with, though at least the cockpit was familiar enough: it had been based on the A-7 Corsair II, and she'd flown Greek versions of the A-7 a few times. The gun was nearly empty, but she had three Sidewinders left. Still, it was all she could do to keep the Nighthawk in the air, and she wasn't going to be able to fight well, if at all.

Then she spotted the GRIMM as well. She turned towards it, fighting the dead engine. The HUD was intact, but didn't have an air-to-ground mode; Pyrrha still opened the internal weapons bay. To her surprise, the Sidewinders began to growl: the GRIMM was giving off enough heat to guide. She didn't have time to question: Pyrrha fired one, to see if it would guide. The missile hit the GRIMM in the front of the carapace. The machine seemed to rear back, as if in pain, and the turret turned away from Ruby to lock onto Pyrrha. The Nighthawk's Radar Warning Receiver shrilled for her attention as it locked on.

Pyrrha pulled the stick into a break as hard as she dared, but the F-117 wallowed and nearly stalled. She knew with certainty that she would never break the lock, and while she didn't see any missile launchers on the GRIMM, the quartet of guns on the turret would be more than adequate to do the job. She sighed. There were no options left, and Pyrrha pushed the throttle forward, redlining the remaining engine. "Sorry, Qrow," she said, and smiled. "I love you, Jaune."

She aimed the F-117 directly at the GRIMM.

Ruby curved around, trying to get the turn tighter so that she could engage the GRIMM. The AMRAAM could guide on a ground target, but her Sidewinders might work best, and she still had the gun—though Ruby wasn't sure if the gun would even irritate something that size. Then she saw Pyrrha charging at the GRIMM. "Pyrrha, no!"

"Pyr, break off! Nora's in south to north!"

The A-10 roared in , skimming the tops of the airfield's hangars, and the nose of the Warthog disappeared as Nora opened fire. The heavy, depleted uranium slugs tore into the side of the GRIMM, which now shifted towards the new threat. Pyrrha hesitated for half a second, between life and death, then made her choice. She climbed: it would have been just as suicidal had the GRIMM not been distracted. Nora flew past, close enough that Pyrrha knew a collision had been more luck than design.

Ruby kept her turn, and dropped flares, hoping the GRIMM would spot those. "Nora, sure glad to see you!" she yelled.

"Ruby, Nora! We spotted the tracks of the Nuckelavee! Ren's calling for help, but I came back!"

"That's what it's called?" Ruby asked, but there was no time for Nora to go into detail. "How do we kill it?"

"Yeah, good question!" Nora called back, circling, looking for an opening. "This is the same one that destroyed Kuroyuri!"

No way, Ruby thought. That thing would have to be nearly twenty years old…but wait, it's all scarred up. Maybe it's just been hanging out on Sakhalin, powered down? Waiting for someone to show up for all this time? What the hell powers these damn things?

Maybe it killed my mother too. The thought came unbidden to Ruby. She wondered if somewhere around here, there was another, crashed F-16, and the bones of Summer Rose.

Pyrrha dipped the wing of the F-117, shoving her thoughts of Jaune into the back of her mind. She had been less than twenty seconds from dying, but once more she'd been brought back from the brink. "Reaper Flight, Pyrrha," she radioed. "It's old and already damaged. I don't think it's radar is working well, if at all. If we attack it from the cardinal points of the compass, it won't know which side to engage."

"Roger that," Ruby replied. "Nora, come in from the east; I'll come in from the west."

"Ren here. I'll take it from the south."

"Ren? Ruby here, what about—"

"Chitose is sending help, ETA three zero minutes. Ren is in south to north." The J-10 came in from the bay, Ren dropping to treetop height. Both Ruby and Nora dropped flares, again as a distraction.

The Nuckelavee had three targets, and while its computer was old and not functioning at high capacity, it still retained enough processing power to realize which of the three targets was the biggest threat. It shifted around with surprising speed and opened fire with all four of its turrets, sending twenty and forty millimeter shells towards Ren. Ruby expected Ren to break off, to give her and Nora a shot at it.

He kept boring in. Both AMRAAMs fell from the wing and spiraled in towards the Nuckelavee; one hit, one flew past to bisect the old ruin of the control tower, which fell onto one of the hangars. Ruby quickly checked, but luckily the GRIMM was on the opposite side of the field from where Qrow was, though that could change quickly. And Ren was still coming on. "Ren, break off!" she screamed. God, first Pyrrha and now Ren! Why is my flight suicidal? "Break off, that's an order!"

Ren was actually not suicidal; far from it. He was, however, enraged. He had heard Nora's conversation with Ruby, and saw the old damage on the GRIMM. There was no question who this was: Ren realized the Nuckelavee was no longer an it, but a he, a living creature that had murdered his parents and his town. And now he had to die. Ren saw red, a red tunnel that led to the Nuckelavee, and nothing else, and he was going to kill the bastard before the GRIMM could kill anyone else he loved. He felt something hit the J-10, and didn't care.

"REN!"

Nora's voice, and the explosions that staggered the Nuckelavee, shook him out of his rage. He pulled the stick back into his gut and climbed hard, as Nora shot past in front and below him; she had salvoed all four of her Sidewinders into the Nuckelavee. It had done the GRIMM real damage, but now the turret turned to follow. The A-10 shuddered from hits across the aircraft, and white vapor began to stream from one wing.

"Nora, Ruby, onboard check!"

"I'm okay—armor held—both engines are good—ah, shit," Nora said. "Losing fuel. Not too bad—I think I got about ten minutes."

Ruby completed a second circle around the field; apparently, she was just outside what the Nuckelavee thought was a threat. She saw Ren outlined against the moon just for a moment, and saw that he was getting ready for another pass. "Ren, Ruby, hold your ass!" she yelled. "Reaper Flight, quit trying to kill yourselves! Let's unfuck this cluster, shall we?" She smiled despite herself; it sounded like something Uncle Qrow would say. "Reaper, check in."

"Two." Pyrrha was still orbiting in the F-117, invisible in the darkness.

"Three." Ren was off to Ruby's right now.

"Four." Nora was coming around to the left.

"Reapers, here's the drill." Ruby tried to sound more confident than she felt. "Ren, you and I will go for its legs, try to cut them out from under it. Nora, you take care of the turret. Pyr, you finish it off with Sidewinders. Sound like a plan?"

"Roger that," Pyrrha replied.

"Roger," Ren said tightly. Ruby wondered if he was angry about not being the one assigned to kill the GRIMM, but that was for later—if there was one.

"We can do this!" Nora said, ebuillent as ever. Ruby wasn't sure if she ever wanted to hear Nora get scared.

"Roger, Reapers. Okay—I'm going in as bait. Ren, stand by." Ruby engaged the afterburner, almost wanting to cry at what the fuel gauge read, and flew across the airfield, nearly at supersonic speed. She fired her last AMRAAM at the Nuckelavee and missed, but she certainly got its attention. She watched in a moment of idle wonder as the shells from its cannons seemed to come straight at her, then curve behind in red and green tracers. Every fifth shell, her brain informed her, remembering something her dad had once said, it's the other four you can't see. "Ren, hit him!"

Ren dived on the Nuckelavee and fired two Sidewinders. One failed to guide, but the other hit. The turrets that had been trying to guide on Ruby now turned towards him. "Now, Nora!" He jinked as hard as he could, waiting for the shell that would end his life.

Nora had deduced that the safest place to attack the GRIMM was from directly above. She climbed as fast as the Warthog would allow, then looped over the top and dived. Just as she had against the Death Stalker so many weeks ago, Nora pulled the trigger and held it. The titanic blast from the Avenger gatling cannon threw her forward into her straps; the gun turned twenty revolutions and stopped as it hit the end of the ammunition belt. The damage was done, as the shells lanced into the top of the turret. Nora expected an explosion, but there was none, though flame burst from the holes she had made.

Now she fought against the ground, hauling back on the stick with both hands. The A-10's airframe shuddered and she thought she heard something audibly snap. The ground rushed up at her, and blackness appeared at the edges of her vision; she thought she could hear Ren screaming her name as she had his, but finally the nose came up. She felt Magnhild shudder like a car going over a bumpy road, but then the shudders stopped and she clawed her way back into the sky.

Ruby held her breath as she saw Nora almost disappear into the trees, but once the A-10 was clear, she turned her attention back to the Nuckelavee. It was still standing. "Pyr—"

"On it." Pyrrha had been in a slow descent, the best she could do without stalling. It was a flat trajectory that she approached the GRIMM on, which normally would be asking to be shot down, but the Nuckelavee was staggering like it was drunk, smoke and flames rising from the holed turret. She dropped and fired the last two Sidewinders, then pulled away. Both hit, but when the smoke cleared, the Nuckelavee was still standing, the turret swiveling to follow Pyrrha, a ridiculously easy shot.

None came.

Ren saw the turret pointing almost helplessly at its latest tormentor, and knew either the Nuckelavee's targeting system was destroyed or it had finally run out of ammunition. Ruby was once more in a wide circle, Nora was still trying to gain altitude, and Pyrrha was beginning her own slow turnaround. It was up to him, which seemed almost poetic.

Ren came in at cruising speed, ready to break away as the turret slewed towards him. Nothing happened. For my mother. For my father. For all those you've killed. For me, you son of a bitch. He held down the trigger as well. The J-10's heavy cannon sliced through the Nuckelavee. All of them expected a huge explosion, but instead the GRIMM simply seemed to sag, then fell over onto its side with a huge billow of dust and dirt. Once again, they waited for the explosion: no GRIMM had ever not self-destructed if it wasn't blown apart.

Nothing happened.

Ruby leaned against Crescent Rose's landing gear, exhausted. The moon was high now, shining down on the two C-130s of the Japanese Air Self Defense Force, parked on Kuroyuri's overgrown tarmac. A third C-130 climbed away into the night, turboprops shaking the ground, carrying Qrow Branwen to the hospital at Chitose. She'd seen him aboard as the medics put in an IV and sliced off his flight suit. He'd been conscious, and waved his flask at her as they loaded him into the C-130. She'd wanted to go with him, but someone was going to have to fly Crescent Rose to Japan. The other transports carried fuel bladders, and once they were done refueling Ren's J-10 and Nora's A-10, they'd fuel up the F-16. Of course, they had to fix the A-10 first: a hole the size of a human head had been punched through the left wing. Ren's J-10 had taken superficial damage. Japanese technicians swarmed over both aircraft, doing temporary repairs as the fueling crew connected hoses to the bladders.

She turned to see Ren and Nora, huddled close next to the hangar, sharing a blanket and two warm cups of tea. When they'd landed, the first thing she had done once both of them were out of the cockpit was to slap Ren, hard enough that it echoed across the airfield. The second thing she'd done was to draw him down into a kiss. Neither spoke now; they seemed just content to have each other's company.

Pyrrha walked across the runway towards Ruby, carrying a thermos and two blankets. She looked like Ruby felt, and sat down next to her. There would be no flying Qrow's F-117 back to Chitose: Pyrrha had barely been able to land it. The next morning, a USAF C-5 was due to land at Kuroyuri, and both the Nighthawk and Pyrrha's F-22 would be loaded inside for the trip back to Yokota, the nearest American base.

She dropped down next to Ruby. "The commander of the task force wants you to come talk to him again. He's very excited to have captured a somewhat intact GRIMM." She opened the top of the thermos, pulled off the cup, and poured Ruby coffee. Apparently not everyone in the JASDF liked tea. "I told him you needed some coffee in you first or you would collapse."

Ruby smiled. She'd met the Japanese task force commander when the C-130s had landed. For someone who had believed that all Japanese were about her not-considerable height, Colonel Hajime Nakamura was almost seven feet tall and spoke English with a Texas accent. "Thanks, Pyrrha." She took a drink. "I'm supposed to yell at you."

"Oh?" Pyrrha drank straight from the thermos.

"Yeah. Nora yelled at Ren for almost kamikazing the Nuckelavee. You were going to do it too."

Pyrrha looked into the thermos. "I couldn't pull up without running right into its guns. I was going to die either way."

"Do you want to die, Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha said nothing. Do I? she asked herself. Every day she ached for Jaune, which she knew had deepened to an obsession. But then she remembered what she and the rest of what had been Juniper Flight had discussed on the roof of the hospital. Jaune would never forgive her if she threw her life away. "No, Ruby. I don't," she said truthfully. "I just didn't see any other option."

"Yeah, well, don't do it again." She lightly punched Pyrrha's shoulder. "I'll kick your ass."

Pyrrha let out an uncharacteristic giggle, which sounded strange coming from her. "Are you going to kiss me next?"

Ruby laughed. It felt good to laugh. "Don't tempt me. Watching Ren and Nora get all lovey-dovey makes me realized I haven't had anything between my legs that wasn't powered by batteries."

Pyrrha made a face. "I really never needed to hear that, Ruby."

Ruby slowly got to her feet, careful to not bang her head onto the nose of the F-16 or spill her coffee. "Yeah, well…I'm tired. No telling what comes out of this mouth after I haven't slept in 24 hours." She picked up the thermos and topped off her cup. "Guess I'll go see what Colonel Nakamura wants." Ruby mussed Pyrrha's already frazzled hair and began trudging across the runway.

Two-thirds of the way across, her foot nudged a notebook. She bent and picked it up; the last thing anyone needed was to FOD an engine—foreign object damage like a notebook would tear apart an engine. Reaper Flight was damaged enough. Curious, she opened it up, and saw that it was the tower log. Oh, how about that, Ruby thought, and looked up. The collapsed tower was in a direct line of sight to where she was; it had probably been blown free when the tower fell over. She drained the coffee in one gulp and stuffed the cup into a flight suit pocket, then began leafing through the log as she walked towards the C-130s, reading by moonlight. Most of the notations were from 20 years ago, and boring. There were some hasty scrawls from when Kuroyuri was evacuated, then nothing. She yawned and turned the page—and almost dropped the log.

Airfield deserted. Heavy damage to village, but hangars and fueling system intact. Contacted JASDF on 150.6. Will proceed to next objective. Awfully quiet here; sure did sleep good. Happy birthday to my little Ruby. Miss you, Yang, and Tai.

-Maj. S. Rose, USAF 1030Z 10/31/84