Happy Valentine's Day! Big thanks to nat, lava, and ethan.
At SMC headquarters, President Jacques Schnee was holding a meeting in his office with James Ironwood and Hazel Rainart.
Hazel was a burly 8 foot tall man in a green suit, whiles James was a handsome black-haired man in a blue suit whose right half of his body was all prosthetic, though only his prosthetic right hand was visible at the moment.
"How are the preparations going, Hazel?" Jacques asked.
"Quite smoothly. I've assigned the Turks to this," Hazel answered.
"Jacques, are we really going through with this, just to destroy a group with only a few members?" James asked.
"What's the matter, James? Do you want out?" Jacques said.
"No, but as head of the Urban Development Department, I've been involved in the building and running of this city, and I'm not too keen on the idea of us deliberately causing major destruction to it, particularly when we could end up causing the loss of innocent lives. Not to mention the Mayor, your own daughter, is against this too."
"Weiss was always too defiant for her own good anyway. It's why I took away her status of heiress and gave her the figurehead role of Mayor instead."
"I'll be honest, I'm not keen on this plan either, James. I'd rather not cause the loss of innocent life. But orders are orders, and something has to be done about AVALANCHE. If it's any consolation, I did order the Turks to tell the civilians to evacuate," Hazel said, before walking off.
"You look tired, James. Why not take a few days off, hm?" Jacques suggested, and James looked at him, before walking off. "We'll destroy Sector 7 and say that AVALANCHE did it. Then we'll send in the rescue operation courtesy of the Schnee Mako Company… Hahaha, it's perfect.."
Blake, Yang, and Sun landed in the sewers beneath Sector 6. After dusting herself off, Blake approached Yang to see how she was doing.
"You alright, Yang?" Blake asked.
"Not really," Yang admitted.
"What about you, Sun?"
"Yeah, I mean the worst is over, right?" Sun said with a shrug. Suddenly, there was a growling noise. "Or maybe not…"
A giant horned monster appeared before them.
"It's Aps, one of Shay's pet monsters," Yang yelled, charging forward to throw a punch at it, however she hadn't noticed Sun charging forward at the same time, so she accidentally hit him with the punch instead of Aps. "Oops, sorry Sun."
"Guys, don't just charge in blindly, we need some coordination here!" Blake called out, but her cries fell on deaf ears.
Sun jumped on Yang's shoulders, using her as a footstool, to get a blow onto Aps's head.
"Hey Sun could you maybe not?!" Yang yelled at him. Suddenly, she found herself getting licked by Aps. "Eugh!"
Blake charged forward to attack Aps, but it knocked her and Sun over with its tail. Blake, and Sun got back up and charged at it along with Yang, only for the three of them to bump into each other. Suddenly, the sewer water started rising, and Aps flooded the area with a giant tsunami of sewer water, harming itself and especially harming its three adversaries.
Blake got up and sputtered a bit, before barking at her allies. "All right, that's it. We need to start using some strategy here, so you two are gonna follow my orders, got it?!"
"Got it," Yang and Sun said, nodding and ducking under Aps's tail as it swung at them.
"First, Sun, I need you to group-cast Cure on us," Blake ordered, dodging out of the way of Aps's tongue.
"You got it!" Sun complied, casting Cure on the group.
"Now, I'm gonna use Libra to try and find out this thing's weakness," Blake said, casting the materia. "Okay, it looks like its weak to fire. Yang, I need you to flame up your fists with the Fire materia and start punching, while Sun, as the most magically adept one here I'm gonna need you to keep casting Fire on it. I'll be slashing with my sword. And try to avoid friendly fire this time."
"Got it," Yang and Sun nodded, and Yang began punching the beast with her fiery fists of fury, dodging its tail and tongue whenever it swung at her, while Sun kept burning it with a steady stream of Fire from afar.
Blake ran in close and unleashed three powerful chops and slashes with her sword, momentarily stunning the beast. "Its paralyzed, now's our chance to finish it off!"
Sun increased the stream of fire, while Yang activated her semblance and gave Aps a great big fiery punch, before Blake ran in and stabbed it, at last killing the beast.
"Sis… Dad… The people of the slums…" Yang lamented as she panted, weary from the battle.
"Never give up, never surrender," Sun said with determination. "It can't be that easy to destroy the pillar, right?"
"You're right, we can do this. Let's go save Sector 7!" Yang said, Sun's determination having rubbed off on her.
The three of them made their way through the sewers, before emerging from a manhole in Sector 7's Train Graveyard. The three took a moment to dust themselves off.
"Eugh, I am so gonna need a shower when things have calmed down a bit," Yang said.
"Sun, I got you mixed up in all of this," Blake said solemnly.
"No way am I going home when Sector 7 is in danger!" Sun said, knowing what Blake was asking of him.
"Come on, let's get to the pillar, before it's too late!" Yang said, and the three of them rushed through the train graveyard and Sector 7 until they eventually reached the pillar, where a crowd had gathered outside it. "We made it! The pillars still standing!"
"I hear gunfire," Blake said, looking up to see Tai and Jaune at the top of the tower fighting some SMC Sky Troopers. Suddenly, Jaune was knocked off of the tower, and he plummeted to the bottom, landing near Blake and co. Blake immediately rushed over to him. "Jaune! Are you all right?"
"I should be… Pyrrha says I have a lot of aura," Jaune said, coughing a bit. He was alive, but clearly in no shape to continue fighting. "Tai's up top… You gotta help him… Thanks for caring about me, though…"
"Sun, look after Jaune, I'm going up!"
"Sun, can you do my a favor?" Yang asked. "My baby sister Ruby is at my bar, 7th Heaven…"
"Don't worry, I'll get her somewhere safe!" Sun assured her.
Yang turned to the crowd around the pillar. "Everyone, get out of Sector 7, it's too dangerous to stay here!"
As the crowd dispersed, she and Blake began to make their way up the pillar.
"Y'know, Sun's a pretty cool dude, I like him," Yang remarked to Blake. "I think once this is over, I'll ask him to join AVALANCHE."
Yang and Blake then ended up bumping into a wounded Ren and Nora.
"Ren and I… Are too hurt to go on…" Nora panted.
"Don't worry… About us…" Ren panted. "Go help Tai…"
Blake and Yang gave them concerned looks, but continued on to the top of the pillar, meeting up with Tai.
"Blake! Yang! You're all right! They're attacking from the helicopter!" Tai said, pointing to a helicopter flying overhead and firing at it. Merc promptly jumped down from the helicopter, and walked over to the control panel.
"You're too late. Once I push this button…" Merc said smugly, pushing a button on the control panel. "That's it, mission accomplished."
"We've gotta disarm it!" Yang yelled, rushing towards the control panel, only to have Merc kick her away with one of his powerful prosthetic legs.
"Ah ah ah. I'm afraid I can't let you do that," Merc said, stepping forward and pulling out his electro-mag rod. Tai started firing at him, but Merc then cast a Pyramid spell on Tai, trapping him in the pyramid. "Try and break it if you can."
Blake ran over to try and destroy it with her sword, but Merc, predicting this, jabbed at her with his electro-mag rod, shocking and stunning her, leaving her temporarily paralyzed.
"Blake!" Yang cried out.
"Looks like it's just you and me, Blondie," Merc said with a smug grin on his face.
Yang threw a punch just as Merc was sending out a kick, causing her fist to connect with his foot and launch them both back a bit. Merc then went for a running jump kick but Yang duck out of the way and punched him in the back. Yang then unleashed a flurry of punches that Merc blocked with his rod. Merc tried to jab her with it but she ducked under him and hit him with a jab just as he hit her with a kick, sending them both backwards, using backflips to stabilize themselves.
Yang used the Fire materia in her gauntlets to shoot blasts of fire at Merc as he charged at her, but he blocked them with his rod, before jumping into a downwards axe kick that Yang brought her arms up to block. Yang then went for a roundhouse, but he jumped over it and hit her with a kick in retaliation.
Yang charged forward and again had a series of punches blocked by Merc's rod. Merc kicked her in the back of the knee then hit her again in the chin as he did a flip backwards. He went for another kick at Yang but she backflipped out of the way. Merc let out another series of kicks that Yang blocked with her forearms, before he danced back and went for a roundhouse, only for Yang to block it and hit him with an uppercut followed by a jab.
Merc flips back into action immediately, hitting her with a flurry of kicks, before sending her backwards with an electrified jab from his electro-mag rod. Unlike Blake, she didn't get paralyzed, but she did have to stop to catch her breath. Meanwhile, Blake's paralysis finally ended, and she slashed the pyramid imprisoning Tai, freeing him.
Tai shot a volley of bullets at Merc as Blake approached him, until she started to get too close, and her stopped firing so as to avoid accidentally hitting her. Blake started chopping and slashing at Merc, but he blocked each one with his rod, before attempting to jab her with it again, only to hit a shadow clone, while the real Blake popped up behind him and bonked him on the head with her sword, knocking him right in front of Yang, who had now activated her semblance.
Yang unleashed a flurry of punches on Merc's head and upper body, finishing with an uppercut that sent him flying backwards. Mercs checked his watch as he regained his bearings.
"Well would you look at the time," he said, before jumping off the pillar and onto a waiting helicopter.
Tai looked over to the console as Yang ran up to it.
"It's a time bomb!" he yelled.
"Blake, do you know how to stop this thing?" Yang asked.
"That's not a normal time bomb," Blake said.
"That's right," leader of the Turks, Roman Torchwick, gloated as the helicopter flew up into view of the party, with Sun right behind him. "Only a SMC executive can set up or disarm the Emergency Plate Release System."
Roman Torchwick was a roughly 30 year old man with flamboyant red hair, green eyes accentuated with eyeliner, and a bowler hat atop his head. He carried a fashionable cane with him as well.
"You jerks!" Yang screamed at him. "Dad, shoot him down!"
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. You might just end up injuring our special guest here," Torchwick said, motioning to Sun.
"Sun!"
"You know him? Well then you should thank me for letting you see him one last time."
"What're you gonna do with him!?" Blake asked.
"Our orders were to find and catch the last remaining Ancient. It's taken us a long time, but I can finally report this to the President. What happens to him after that is up to my higher ups."
Sun leaned forward a bit. "Don't worry, Yang! She's all right!"
Torchwick smacked Sun with his cane. "Shut up you filthy animal!"
"Sun!" Yang cried out in concern.
"Go!" Sun called back.
"The explosions should be starting right about now. Think you can make it out in time?" Torchwick laughed as the helicopter flew off and the first explosions went off.
"We've gotta get out of here!" Yang yelled frantically.
"We can use this wire to get out!" Tai said, pointing to a cable attached to the platform. He, Yang, and Blake climbed onto the cable and swung out as the plate came crashing down behind them.
The three of them landed in the Sector 6 playground, which was now littered with debris from the destruction of Sector 7. They stood up and looked over to the gate that used to lead to Sector 7.
"RUBY! Jaune! Ren! Nora!" Tai cried out in anguish, slamming his fists into the ground. "Ruby…"
Yang placed a hand on her dad's shoulder. "Dad, I think… I think Ruby is safe."
"Huh?" Tai said, sniffling a little. "What do you mean?"
"In the helicopter, Sun told me 'Don't worry, she's all right'. I think he was talking about Ruby. I'd told him to find Ruby and get her somewhere safe before I went up the pillar."
"Really?" Tai said, feeling a bit relieved.
"But…" Yang trailed off, starting to shed some tears herself.
"Jaune, Ren, Nora…" Blake said with sadness. "The three of them were in the pillar."
"Oh God," Tai cried. "We were comrades in arms. I don't wanna have to think of them as dead."
"The other people of Sector 7 too…" Yang said. "Who knows how many of them even made it out."
"This is so messed up. What kind of monster would kill so many people just to get to us?"
"It almost makes me feel guilty…" Yang said. "Sector 7 was only destroyed because it's where we were."
"It's not our fault, Yang," Tai said. "It's the evil Schnee Mako Company! They're the ones destroying the planet just to obtain power and lines their pockets with gil! The planet's gonna die if we don't do something about them, which is why our fight'll never be over until we're rid of them!"
Yang let out a wistful sigh. "What about you, Blake? What do you think?"
Blake began walking off to Sector 5 without answering.
"Hey, where're you going?!" Tai yelled.
"Oh right, Sun!" Yang said in realization.
"Oh yeah, him. What's his deal?"
"I dunno, but I entrusted Ruby to him."
"Right, Ruby!" Tai said, and he and Yang ran to catch up to Blake. "Take me to Ruby?"
"Are you gonna help Sun?" Yang asked.
"Yeah," Blake answered. "But there's something I wanna know first."
"What is it?"
"It's about the Ancients."
Blake's mind suddenly had a memory of someone saying "In my veins courses the blood of the Ancients. I am one of the rightful heirs to this planet!"
"Adam…?" Blake said, collapsing to one knee.
"Blake, are you alright?" Yang said, kneeling down to catch her.
"I'll be fine. Let's go."
RIP JNR