Brain was a bit less cooperative this week, but it's done. Got some other writing done as well, but I wasn't as productive as I would've liked.

To Jajo Camello, thanks for the grammar nitpicks. One disadvantage of doing this from a phone is the autocorrect tends to be a bit wonky and it's harder to type things correctly. This chapter should be better, but being informed of any mistakes is always appreciated.

Here's hoping I'm a little more productive this week.

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Crash Landing

Cardin felt strangely alone, wedged in between Ren and Jaune in the cramped Bullhead space. Clover sat near the front, talking with the pilot, while Weiss, Ruby, and Nora had the other half. As they flew, Cardin kept half-expecting a witty quip from Russell, or second thoughts from Sky. Even Dove's sullen silence would have been welcome when surrounded by the people he had done his best to make miserable just a few months ago.

From the vantage point of the Bullhead, they could just make out the city walls. Grimm poured through breaches in the metal fortifications, but pockets of Huntsmen fought on, thinning the numbers that made it inside. The Nevermore swooped down at them, but thick parapets atop the walls shielded the Huntsmen from their feathers, and the Atlesian flagship targeted any swarms threatening to overwhelm them.

"What happens after this?" Weiss asked. "There's so much damage, so many dead. I can't imagine the cost of rebuilding all this."

"Keep your focus on the current objective," Clover told them. "There won't be a Vale to rebuild if that Wyvern takes down the Defender."

As they approached the roiling mass of Nevermores overhead, a couple broke off from the flock.

Cardin tapped Ren on the shoulder. "Do it."

Ren closed his eyes. The color of the ship and everyone in it seemed to fade away, leaving it all with a gray, washed-out look. The Grimm that had peeled away balked, then rejoined the flock.

As they rose, the birds parted, leaving just enough space for the Bullhead. For a moment, they were lost in a rippling tide of black, broken only by the occasional gleaming beak or beady red eye. Light filtered in from overhead, casting a brilliant, colorful sheen on the feathers, like an oil slick, bathing the grayed-out ship in a panoply of colors.

Then they were through. Blue sky stretched around them, and beyond the roiling disc of flying Grimm lay a landscape of roads and empty plains untouched by the incursion. Overhead, the Defender fought on, unloading an endless barrage of Dust rounds and laser beams as Nevermore labored towards it. As each Nevermore fell and vanished, another took its place.

Off in the distance but steadily flying closer, the Wyvern crested the waves of Grimm, battering them aside with its powerful wings.

"Found the bastard." Clover looked back at Ruby and said, "Are you ready?"

There was panic in her silver eyes, but she nodded without hesitation.

"Good. How much longer will we be invisible?"

"I can hold it," Ren grunted through gritted teeth. "Just make it quick."

The Bullhead swerved, heading straight for the monstrous Grimm. Color flashed around them as Ren struggled to keep up the concealment, but the Wyvern gave no sign that it had noticed them.

Once they were within thirty feet of the Wyvern, Clover opened the door facing it. "Whatever you need to do, do it fast."

"Right." Ruby went up to the door and squinted at the Grimm. She made frustrated grunting noises, but not a flicker of light left her eyes. Everyone around her watched, hands clenched, praying for a miracle.

"I'm sorry," Ruby shouted, "I don't know what to do!"

Clover sighed and fell back on his seat. "Great. We put all our money on a desperate gamble, and now we're flat broke." He looked over the other students. "Any bright ideas?"

Nora raised her hand. "Ooh, I have one!" Before anyone could think to stop her, Nora leapt out the open door. With Magnhild's grenades, she blasted herself onto the Wyvern's back.

Without Ren's Semblance to mask her presence, the Grimm knew full well she was there. It tried flips, rolls, and sharp dives, but Nora clung on like a tick. The Wyvern's flapping wings came dangerously close to the Bullhead, buffeting it with strong winds and scraping paint off one spot, until the pilot gunned the Bullhead away from them.

When the Grimm righted itself, Nora lifted her hammer and shouted something unintelligible into the wind. She struck the Grimm in the eyes, over and over, with a manic grin on her face, as if she was playing whack-a-mole. The Wyvern roared and swiped one of its paws across its neck. A sharp talon caught Nora's shirt, dragging her off its back and flinging her into the swarm of Nevermore. The flock went onto a frenzy where she had fallen in, but a crack of lightning broke it apart.

"Wow, even Nora's hammer wasn't enough?" Ren said. "I guess we'll need something bigger."

Weiss tried summoning, but the glyph winked out before anything appeared. Jaune gave Ren some more Aura, buying them another minute in the air. Ruby brought out Crescent rose and lined up a shot out the window. Clover put a hand on her shoulder. "Please don't tell me you think you can make that."

Ruby grimaced. "I don't, but I have to try."

"I can't stop the Grimm from noticing a gunshot," Ren pointed out. "If you miss, it'll know where we are."

"Then I'll just have to make the first shot count."

Clover nodded and tapped the charm on his coat. "Worth a try. Who knows? We might get lucky."

The atmosphere in the Bullhead grew tense as Ruby stared down the scope at the Wyvern. Everyone waited with bated breaths and sweat dripped past Ruby's eyes. A loud crack broke the silence. Fire blossomed in the Wyvern's right eye. It screamed as black notes drifted away from the ruin of the right side of its face.

Before anyone could celebrate, the Wyvern shook itself, and the dust cleared away, leaving a jagged, scorched eye socket. The remaining eye fixed itself on the Bullhead, and with a roar, the Wyvern rushed towards them. Ruby fires twice more, but both bullets glanced off its tough hide.

Ren let go of his Semblance and slouched over. Jaune reached for him, but Cardin grabbed his wrist and told him to save it for later. Fleeing the Wyvern, the Bullhead rose nose-first into the air, making Cardin's stomach lurch.

"Well, at least the Wyvern isn't going after the Defender," Ren remarked once he had gotten his breath. "Anyone else have an idea?"

Cardin wondered if he could use his Semblance to force the Wyvern to land, but it was all too likely he'd be eaten before he found out. That line of thought, however, gave him a different idea. His first impulse was to dismiss it, to suggest anything other than offering up his life, but in the end, Cardin reasoned that he'd likely wind up dead either way.

"What if we rammed it with the ship?"

Clover shook his head. "A Grimm that size? We wouldn't even break one of its wings."

"And what if I made the whole ship ten times heavier?"

That made Clover pause. "I'm not sure it would be enough. We'd only have one shot at it, and if it fails, we're out of options."

"But Cardin," Weiss asked. "Wouldn't you have to be on the ship while we're crashing it?"

"Jaune can top off my Aura first."

"Is that even going to be enough?"

"Unless anyone has any better ideas, it'll have to do."

Weiss frowned. "Well, if I had some Aura, I could use my glyphs to speed up the ship and keep it on course."

"What about the rest of us?" Jaune asked. "Are we gonna jump out?"

"Preferably before we hit the ground." Clover glanced down through the open door. "It's now or never."

Jaune grabbed Cardin's wrist. Warmth rushed up his arm, and the fatigue burning his muscles faded away. Weiss relaxed as she got her dose of Aura, but her worried frown remained.

At Clover's signal, the pilot turned the Bullhead. Cardin's stomach flipped, and blood rushed to his head from the sudden centripetal force. Once the ship righted itself, Cardin gripped the sides of his seat and pushed everything he had into it. His arms felt as though they were going to split apart down to the bone, from all the power rushing through them. It made no noticeable difference, but when black glyphs encircled the falling craft, he felt himself yanked down by his seatbelt.

They hit the Wyvern without warning. Metal crunched and the ship trembled, but they kept falling, using the Wyvern's body as a battering ram to break through the cloud of Nevermore. Once they broke through, the rooftops of buildings approached at an alarming rate.

Clover flung his fishing pole out the door and swung out with Weiss in one arm, while Ruby vanished in a flash of petals. Once they were gone, Ren dove out the door. Jaune looked back for a second, with a look of regret, before he followed his teammate. With a pop and a harsh hissing sound, the pilot hit the eject, condemning the aircraft to its fate.

Alone in the Bullhead, Cardin felt fear like a metal noose around his neck, suffocating and cold. He stared out the window, wondering if the blurred facade of a building would be the last thing he saw. Wind whistled through the open side door, and he stared out at the blurred scenery. He felt tempted to jump before they hit the ground, but without the extra mass, the Bullhead wouldn't properly crush the Wyvern.

The crash happened too quickly for him to process. In an instant, the floor rushed towards him, his seatbelt snapped, and the ceiling slammed into his head. Even with Aura protecting him, the blow knocked him out cold.

Cardin came to a couple minutes later. The back of his head felt as though someone was still pounding on it with a hammer, and a sharp, stinging pain shot from his right shoulder. The scrap of the Bullhead had him buried in a shallow grave. For a few, tense heartbeats, Cardin lay still in the wreckage, listening for any sign that the Wyvern still lived, dreading the upheaval of scrap as it shrugged off the Bullhead's wreckage. Nothing happened.

As Cardin shoved his way out of the rubble, it occurred to him that only one of his arms was working. It wasn't until he sat up that he saw why. His right arm was gone. The stump just past the shoulder had scabbed over, the last of his Aura spent to keep him from bleeding out. After a bit of digging, he found his missing arm, still clutching the armrest of his seat, with a section of the Bullhead roof impaled into the concrete next to it. It felt cold to the touch, but it took all of Cardin's left-handed strength to pry its fingers free.

Off to the side, pinned underneath one of the Bullhead's wings, the Grimm Wyvern slowly dissolved. Only it's head and neck remained, and it glared at him. It hissed as Cardin walked up to it. Cardin watched it for a moment, like a rodent squirming in a trap, and stomped down on its eye. His foot fell straight through, and the head fell apart in a black fog.

Still holding his arm, Cardin looked around for the other students. All he heard was the background noise of snarling, barking Grimm, punctuated by distant booms and cracks of Atlesian weaponry. Looking up, he saw the Defender through a gap in the flock, glittering in the sunlight like a diamond.

The crash had torn down the wall of a nearby parking ramp. With nowhere else to go, Cardin wound his way up the ramp, glancing past the abandoned cars out over the city streets. Beowolves prowled around the fallen craft, and an Ursa sniffed the wreckage.

At the top, he spotted Jaune fighting off two Creep in an alley. Cardin almost leapt off the edge of the roof before he remembered he was out of Aura. Instead, he took the elevator down and reached Jaune just as he finished off the last of them.

"Cardin, good, you made it-" Jaune broke off with a gasp when he saw the stump at Cardin's shoulder, and his eyes widened when he saw the arm in Cardin's left hand. He ran to Cardin's side and firmly sat him down on a fallen trash can. "Stick your arm back in place. I don't know if it will work, but I can at least try."

Cardin shoved him away. "How much Aura do you have left?"

Jaune checked and grimaced. "Eleven percent. It'll be enough."

"Save it. I'll live. Some else might not."

"You sure?"

Cardin glared at him and stood up. "Any idea where the others are?"

"Ren saw Nora and ran after her. I couldn't keep up. I thought I saw Ruby and Weiss on top of a building on the way down." He pointed further into the city. "It was that big boxy one over there."

Cardin started walking, and after a moment of hesitation, Jaune followed. Grimm filled the streets, but their attention was diverted towards the large mass of negativity radiating from the shelters at Vale's heart. A few accosted Jaune, and he fought them back with his borrowed sword, but none so much as glanced at Cardin.

"Try to stay calm," Cardin told Jaune after he sliced the head off another Beowolf. "They're distracted. They won't notice you if you don't notice them."

"A little hard not to notice when they're literally everywhere." Jaune grunted as a Creep clawed at his shield. Cardin walked up behind it and smacked it on the back of the head with his severed arm. It didn't do any damage, but it distracted the Grimm long enough for Jaune to stab it through the chest.

"You realize you still have your mace, right?"

Cardin looked down at his waist. His mace was tucked into its holder by his belt. "It would be a bit heavy for my left arm."

"So, you're going to use your other arm as a weapon?"

Cardin shrugged, a gesture that felt off-balance from the missing arm. "Not much else I can do."

Distracted by the conversation, Jaune stopped feeling worried, and the Grimm turned their attention elsewhere. They walked on, taking back alleys to avoid getting trampled by the Goliaths stomping through the main streets.

Jaune asked, "What next, after this?"

"Find Cinder and kill her, if we can. She has the Fall Maiden's powers, I think so we'll need backup."

"After that?"

"No idea. Looked like there were a couple dozen Huntsmen left at the walls, so they should be able to set up a perimeter, work their way inward and exterminate all the Grimm. There's also Ironwood's forces."

Jaune shook his head. "I mean, what are you going to do, once it's all?"

Cardin was still feeling light-headed, but the prospect of a future, his future, reeled him back into clarity. Their footsteps echoed down the empty alleys as he thought it over. "I kind of rule Vale now. The other Dukes are dead, and I don't think anyone will challenge me for leadership over a half-dead country." With a frown, he added, "There's lineages to worry about, but it'll take weeks to sort out who inherits what, and by then, I could change the laws."

"So, what? You'll be king of Vale?"

Cardin laughed at that. "I suppose I would be. Funny. That has been more or less the goal of every noble house for the last five centuries, and I got it by default."

Jaune watched him as they walked. "What will you do? As king, I mean?"

"Rebuild. It'll take years, even with help from Atlas and Mistral, to patch up all the damage. We'll have to borrow Huntsmen from them as well, or maybe hope Atlas has some spare Knights and Paladins to sell."

He let himself get dragged further into the line of thought, pointedly distracting himself from the Grimm. "Food might be an issue. If the settlements aren't reinforced quickly, they'll be overrun. The industries run by the Dukes will need new management." He smiled and added, "I might scoop up a few for myself. It would be nice to stroll through a Cirilian iron mine and take down their banners."

Silence crept into the space between them, and Cardin felt awkward as he ran out of things to say. "What about you? Still planning to be a field medic?"

Jaune gave a hollow laugh. "After all this? After losing Pyrrha? Honestly, I just want to go home."

Cardin thought of his ancestral home, burned to the ground by the White Fang, its reconstruction put on hold by the Grimm attack. "I don't blame you. The moment I find a bed, I think I'm going to sleep a week."

"No, I mean, I don't know if I can do this anymore."

Cardin stopped and looked at Jaune. His eyes were red, and tears spilled down his cheeks. Jaune wiped them away with the back of his sleeve. "Dad was right. There's no glory in being a Huntsman, no saving the day and being appreciated by everyone. It's just watching people die around you. Pyrrha, Russell, who knows how many others from Beacon, and all those other Huntsmen at the concert hall."

Cardin thought about putting a hand on his shoulder but kept his distance. "They all would've died anyways. Is it any better if you never knew them?"

"Well, I mean…" Jaune sighed. "What can I even do? I tried everything I could, even with my Semblance, it's supposed to heal people, but I couldn't save any of them. All those Huntsmen, Pyrrha too, my Semblance couldn't do anything." Jaune was rambling, losing coherence with each word, and the Grimm were glancing at him. "She just… grew cold in my hands. She started shaking, and, and she…"

Cardin tensed, watching the Grimm warily as more and more heads turned, but the refugee shelters still had the greater pull. He had to make sure it stayed that way.

"Truth is," Cardin said, "I'm the reason Russell's dead."

For a moment, he thought Jaune hadn't heard him. His head slowly rose, and he looked at him with haunted eyes. "How?"

Cardin told him the whole story, from leaving Junior's to running into Clover. As Jaune listened, the Grimm shuffled away, returning to their mass exodus through the streets. Once he was done, Jaune put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry."

"For what? I made Russell sacrifice himself so I could live."

"You didn't have any other choice, did you?" Jaune kicked a piece of rubble down the alley and watched it tumble down a gutter drain. "The bomb would've gone off anyways, and all of you would've been dead."

"I could've thrown it out a window, or–"

"Did you have time to throw it out a window?"

"Well, I don't think so."

"Then there." Jaune kicked another chunk of pavement, this time pelting the foreleg of a Beowolf. It turned to snarl at him and kept walking. Jaune had his hand on his sword, crouched into a fighting stance and tense, but he eased up when he saw the Grimm move on. "Guess you were right about the Grimm. Do you think the shelter will hold up?"

"After all the taxes that went into them, they better." Cardin stumbled as the street shook. "Those Goliaths might be a problem. We'll have to get Ironwood to deal with them."

Cardin reached into his pocket, only to find broken fragments of his Scroll. "Damn. Broke during the fall."

"I still have mine," Jaune said, handing him his Scroll.

"And would you happen to have Ironwood's number?"

Jaune's face fell. "No." Then he smiled. "I have Ruby's, and she should still be with Clover."

He dialed, but the reception had cut out again. Cardin's stomach sank. "Did they already reclaim the CCT?"

"Maybe it's just a bad signal," Jaune said. "They had a whole team of Specialists over there, they'll be fine. I'll just try again in a minute."

The crack of broken glass broke the relative silence of the streets. More crashes followed, the splintering of doors and smashing of walls. Alarmed by the sudden sound, Cardin and Jaune rushed through the alley. The Grimm had abandoned the trek into the city. They idly roamed from building to building, tearing down the front and sniffing around the floors, searching the upper levels, and overturning everything in their path. A muted rumble in the background suggested the search happened across the city.

"What are they doing?" Jaune asked.

"Cinder must have them looking for something." Cardin grinned uneasily. "That must mean she doesn't have everything she wants yet."

One of the Grimm turned and locked eyes with Cardin. It turned away, and a moment later, it froze. Its gaze snapped back onto him, and it let out a howl. Panic kicked in as the Grimm converged around them. They ran into the alley between two short buildings, but the exit was blocked off by a Goliath. Beowolves swarmed the alley.

Strength surged into him. He looked down in shock at his wrist as Jaune pumped Aura into him.

"Move!" Jaune shouted. "We have to get out of here!"

A quick glance to either side showed only blank brick facades, no windows to crash through or fire escapes to clamber up. At best, a dented dumpster would buy them a few seconds to fend them off from an elevated position, but with the sheer numbers closing in on the alley, they would be quickly overwhelmed.

Cinder still wanted something, and judging by how the Grimm had responded when it made eye contact with him, she thought he'd help her get it. The Grimm might leave him alive for Cinder to interrogate, but Jaune would be useless baggage.

Using the Aura Jaune had given him, Cardin grabbed Jaune by the front of his shirt, and forced him to be nearly weightless. "Find Ruby."

"Wait, what?" Jaune asked. Before he could protest further, Cardin hurled him towards the roof of a nearby building. As light as he was the moment Cardin threw him, Jaune sailed up past the roof. He clung to the side of the building as he passed it and hauled himself onto the roof. Jaune looked down at him as the Grimm closed in.

"Cardin, no!"

The Grimm grabbed him with sinewy, clawed fingers, but they made no attempt to tear into him. They tugged gently, but insistently, until Cardin stumbled towards the alley's exit. A Nevermore flew down, and it grabbed Cardin around the waist, taking care not to pierce him with its talons. The Grimm had taken Cardin's spare arm with them, and the Nevermore held it by the wrist in its beak.

"Where are they taking you?" Jaune shouted as the Nevermore lumbered into the air.

"Beacon, I think," Cardin called as the Nevermore turned in its general direction. "Hurry and get Ruby!"

Cardin watched as Jaune faded into a white speck and disappeared. He contemplated wriggling free from the Nevermore's grasp and trusting the thin scraps of Aura still shielding him to break the fall, but even if he did, he suspected that the avian Grimm would tighten its grip at the first sign of resistance.

Instead, Cardin studied the landscape below him. Now that he was flying below the swarm, forced to look down by the way the Nevermore held him, he could see the extent of the damage caused by the Grimm. Their brief search had torn down walls and even knocked over a few buildings. Some were ablaze, though oddly enough, the Grimm seem to have established a makeshift fire brigade, clearing flammables away from the fires and dumping water from above. He caught sight of a Seer directing a larger group and felt his stomach turn. Though it lacked eyes, he could sense its gaze on him as he passed by.

Watching his city crumble, Cardin wondered if there would be anything left to rule over.