Remnant's Revolution

by The Ruler's Haven

At the height of the 5th Holy Grail War Shirou confronts the contaminated Grail and Angra Mainyu, ready to destroy the vile abomination. Victory, however, became a pyrrhic one as the Grail had subjected both Shirou and itself to the Second True Magic. Forcibly pulled into a world where he once again has to raise his swords, will he save the world or will not even a Remnant remain?

2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2.

The wound didn't hurt surprisingly. Pyrrha didn't think that was normal, in fact she was pretty sure that being shot in the shoulder was supposed to be rather painful. But it wasn't. There was a feeling there but it wasn't pain it was… something else.

Everything was dull, like she was underwater and trying to listen to the sounds above. All of it was faded, dull and gray. She knew she was falling but she couldn't quite muster up the dedication to care.

'I wonder if this is how Ren feels towards Nora's antics?' She thought errantly. 'Then again, I'm pretty sure that's for all of us. We certainly don't react to her like we did at the beginning of Beacon.' The thought made her giggle a bit. 'Team JNPR, the chaos conquerors. If you need a team to keep a cool head you need Team JNPR. "This is a very volatile situation!" They would say. "Are you sure you're up to it?" Then we would just stare back at them with the thousand mile stare usually on Ren and say "Chaos? You don't even know the meaning of Chaos. You had to deal with volatile situations with hundreds of lives at stake. We had to deal with Nora." And then we would skydive out of a bullhead for no reason with random explosions in the background. It would be just like a Spruce Willis movie.' She closed her eyes. 'Yeah that'd be fun to do with the rest of the team… wait.'

The world rushed back into definition. The color of crimson red replaced the dull gray as she fell, screams of pure rage emanating from above her washed away the quiet of the moment, the smell of acrid smoke followed the dissipating sense of nothingness.

"Oh SHIT!" Pyrrha yelled. She normally didn't cuss but she was falling to her death, she was pretty sure she had some leeway. Her aura was too depleted to tank the fall, her foot was useless, there was debris plummeting after her, her left shoulder wasn't cooperating a damn after being shot there as well, and she didn't have aura to tank the fall!

Desperately she reached out with her Semblance. While it was true that Semblances were fueled by aura, it was still possible to use it when one didn't have aura if the huntsman in question had practiced with it enough and their will was strong. And she had definitely practiced quite a bit with her Semblance over the years, the precise control that she displayed when shifting her opponent's position ever so slightly was an example of that. Also, there was never quite a strong will like the will to not die.

She reached out with her Semblance to all the metallic objects within the vicinity and felt them hum slightly to her on a metaphysical level. She reached out to the closest one and it responded.

The armor that she always wore tried to pull her up slightly to break her fall but not so much that the sudden resistance would break her spine. She looked down and saw the ground approaching her at alarming speeds and urged her armor to resist the effects of gravity even more.

It felt like she was bench pressing a house after running a couple of marathons while she was simultaneously swimming. It was exhausting and took every ounce of her self control to not break her control over her Semblance. So this was trying to control a Semblance without any aura; it was so, so exhausting.

Realizing that simply using her Semblance on her armor wasn't going to prevent her death, she desperately latched out to any other metal surrounding her. In doing so her concentration slipped and caused her to fall even faster with the resistance against gravity the armour was putting up falling away like a small fort under siege. Gradually but it fell anyways.

There were half-melted gears surrounding her along with her faithful shield which was far farther up. Almost instinctively Pyrrha called her shield back to her, Akoúo̱ responding to its master's call by expertly swooping between the large shards of rocks and the half melted gears. Pyrrha caught it with her non-injured arm, wincing in pain at the thrum it sent up to her injured arm.

Suddenly the thrums of beautiful music reached her ears. Who the hell would be playing music here? Maybe that Flynt guy from the tournament but there was no way he could reproduce such beauty in his music, beautiful enough to steal her breath away and nearly distract her from the fact that the ground was less than seventy meters away.

Suddenly she realized that her ears weren't hearing any music at all. It was similar but completely different to the hum that she could feel from the metal surrounding her when she activated her Semblance. But what type of metal could make such a beautiful sound, a sound that no human would ever be able to reproduce?

Whatever. It didn't matter currently. What did matter was the plan that shot through her mind. It definitely wasn't going to work though, it was insane!

"Well," She whispered softly. "It's a good thing that it's insane. Otherwise, this probably won't work." An insane solution for an insane situation with insane circumstances.

With but a thought, Pyrrha shifted her direction and was pulled towards whatever metal was singing. She pulled herself far harder than what she needed though, apparently dragging herself to the singing metal was far easier than what was needed to pull herself to other metals. Usually she would have to make sure that the metal she was trying to fly to wouldn't fly to her, but there wasn't any reaction from the singing metal. While she flew though, she reversed herself to face the sky and threw Akoúo̱ upwards and watched as it soared past a couple of gears. Thanks to the twirl she put on her shield though, it reversed its direction and fell to the gears. She let go of her hold on the singing metal to try and reduce her speed, and while it decreased a bit it didn't by all that much.

She grimaced. 'This is going to be far closer than I hoped it would be,' She thought as she latched onto Akoúo̱ once more with her Semblance and increased the speed that it fell. With a gesture of her hand, Akoúo̱ twisted its position so that it would fall flat on its face and rammed into the center of one of the gears, simultaneously increasing the fall speed of the gear and reducing the speed of Akoúo̱ itself. She once again latched onto the shield with her Semblance and dragged it towards her. She was panting and sweating immensely now and knew she wouldn't be able to use her Semblance much more on her shield and definitely not on the bigger metallic objects.

She once again ignored the extreme amounts of pain emanating from her wounded arm and caught the shield with her non-injured arm. With the gear's speed increasing and falling towards her, she shifted her body in the air into a ball before placing her shield under her non-injured leg and jumping off of it. As Akoúo̱ fell towards the ground- ten meters only now!- she grabbed the gear with her right arm and tried pulling herself on top of it, succeeding once she used her right knee as extra support. She rolled on top of the gear and clamped her hands onto the grooves of the gear to hold onto the object. Knowing that if she landed like this she would only be crushed from debris above her, she once again shifted her Semblance onto the singing metal and pulled. Just like what she hoped for, the singing metal somehow withstood her entire Semblance similar to last time and instead dragged her along for the ride with the gear beneath her, pulling her away from the debris that was to crush her.

Two meters! Pyrrha held on with all her might and used her Semblance for the final time to drag Akoúo̱ back beneath the gear in hope for the tiniest bit of extra defense between her and the ground that just might save her life. The moment where Akoúo̱ and the gear met the ground there was a horrific screeching sound of metal on metal and she was flung off the gear into the air, despite her clamping her hands on the grooves of it. Both her leg and shoulder screamed, no, her entire body wailed in pain at the rough treatment which only got worse when she hit the ground.

She screamed in pain as she was driven into the ground. Every part of her body felt like it was on fire. Her everything burned.

Once she stopped wailing though, she started laughing. Pain was good. Pain was great! It meant that she was alive. Broken, yes, but alive! She started howling in laughter, even though that only made her body rack in more convulsing racks of pain, which only lead to her laughing even harder. She couldn't believe she actually got out of that alive!

She slightly opened her eyes to see that the debris that was going to crush her was littered with arrows. So Cinder had tried to kill her even from the tower and couldn't make it through the debris that Pyrrha thought was going to kill her. Why couldn't she just make her arrows phase through the debris like how they phased through her shield?

Most Semblances come with limitations. Did Cinder need to have eye contact with the person she's attacking with the arrow when it phases? Maybe she needs to know the density or the volume of the thing that her weapons were phasing through. Though how would she know the volume of her shield? Then again, she did say that she was from Mistral, no matter how dubious that information is, and to get into Beacon she would no doubt need some actual papers, signed by a high ranking official in Mistral's academy: Haven. If Cinder had such a high contact, she could easily have gotten info on her shield.

Then again, Jaune was able to get into Beacon using forged papers…

No matter though. That wasn't necessary to know right now. Right now she needed to get away from Cinder or else she would be kille-?!

A faint and low growl was heard near her. A lone Beowulf emerged from the bushes. It wasn't even an Alpha, just a normal Beowulf. Normally Pyrrha could easily go through dozens of them.

Normally she wasn't hit by arrows in multiple places, disarmed, out of aura, unable to move efficiently, and with no Semblance any more at her disposal.

She smiled bitterly. So this is how she would die? After fighting Cinder, fighting a woman with the powers of a Maiden, escaping from a dragon, going through the most dangerous experience in her life with that fall, she was going to get killed by the weakest of all Grimm?

That's bullshit.

Tears stung her eyes.

That's bullshit! What the hell was she doing this for then?! She just escaped from a Grimm Dragon and she was going to die to a god damn Beowulf?!

Tears dropped down her face, Pyrrha unable to stop them. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking fair!

Pyrrha let out a roar, an inhumane, primal roar of defiance at the Beowulf. She wasn't going to die here! It seemed her body agreed with her from the absolute rush of adrenaline flowing through her veins.

The Beowulf looked stunned for a moment before growling loudly and lunging at her.

Whatever it expected from the prey in front of it, the Beowulf sure didn't expect Pyrrha to lunge at the Beowulf herself. With her injured arm she battered away its paw even as its claws drew blood from her left arm as her right arm jumped out and caught the Beowulf by the throat, causing it to bite its tongue and snarl at her with those fangs less than two inches away from her face. She forced it into the ground while it's paws raked at her belly, causing scratches to litter her body though thankfully the claws weren't quite long enough to claw out her inner organs and deal a lethal blow. It must be quite young if its claws weren't even long enough for that.

The knowledge just infuriated her even more as she moved her shoulder closer to her mouth and ripped the arrow right out of the wounded area. Blood spewed out and dyed the grass in it's hues but she didn't care as the adrenaline rush she was experiencing dulled the pain. She shifted the arrow between her teeth with her tongue and drove the sharp end into the Beowulf's snout. It let out a painful cry and redoubled its efforts to kill her with its paws and immense strength. Thankfully, due to the position she held the Beowulf in, it couldn't use that immense strength to its full power and just settled for drawing a somewhat large amount of blood from her thighs and arms.

She ripped out the arrow once again and let the blood from the Beowulf blind its owner as the fluids dripped down into its eyes. The fangs gnashed and kept trying to go for her throat but she wouldn't let it. It's tongue flickered out and Pyrrha saw its weakness. With primal force, she pierced the tongue with the arrow and caused the Beowulf to choke. Dragging her left arm across the body, Pyrrha grabbed the end of the arrow and twisted it deeper into the Beowulf, causing the young Grimm to choke even more. It was about to try and snap the arrow with it's fangs but couldn't when Pyrrha used her hand to viciously backhand the Beowulf. The Grimm couldn't even let out a sound as Pyrrha constantly punched it. Even when her fingers cracked and her bones would groan, she kept punching it. The Beowulf choked for a few more seconds before giving a tiny sigh and melting and evaporating into black dots.

She continued to punch the ground a couple times before she was sure that the Beowulf was completely dead. It was dead. She let out a broken laugh and let her tears finally fall faster. That was terrifying, so so so terrifying. But she was safe now, she was safe now.

Suddenly her instincts flared up and she tossed herself to the right. This allowed the second nearby Beowulf to miss its lethal attack, only scoring a rather deep scratch on her already heavily damaged left arm. She gasped in pain when the pain in her body magnified exponentially, the previous adrenaline rush starting to fade away.

How? How was there another Beowulf? While she did have some negative emotions before, right now her only emotion was relief that she had survived. How did the Beowulf find her?

Running the fight against the first Beowulf through her mind, she paled once she came to a realization. That cry that the first Beowulf let loose when she stabbed its snout. It wasn't just a cry of pain but also a cry for help! A cry that this Beowulf apparently heard.

The Beowulf jumped on top of her and snarled at her. She gazed at those hideous red eyes and realized that what was reflected back was not Pyrrha Nikos but a corpse. She could only see death reflected in those eyes.

The Beowulf raised its paw, ready for the killing blow. Pyrrha shouted in its face even while tears leaked from her eyes. She went through so much only to die here? Of course she would. It was the world's irony at work once again.

Throughout her entire youth she was never able to gain a single friend or have a family member who didn't want to use her in someway. She always had to fight against the crowd, the overwhelming crowd all by herself. She always stood up for herself and always won by herself. Even when against superior numbers she always had won, even against the strongest.

Now the weak monster in front of her was about to kill her. All because another one of them had cried for help. Even these monsters were able to have friends and family members that would help them and be furious in their place while she didn't have any of that. No family members that gave a damn about her past her fighting ability. No friends that could ever want to be with her just because she was Pyrrha and not Pyrrha Nikos. All she could attract was cold and unfeeling metal, and even that failed her in the end.

The Beowulf's paw rushed at her, ready to deal the final blow.

No comrades existed for Pyrrha Nikos. She lived her life completely isolated and alone. Now she was going to die, completely isolated and alone. That more than anything broke Pyrrha, making her let loose loud sobs right before the paw came to crush her head like a grape.

And it patted her gently? No, it wasn't quite gentle but it was a far cry from the devastating impact that was expected, that should have killed her.

Pyrrha slowly opened her eyes. All she could see was red. For a second she hysterically thought it was her own blood before she realized what it actually was.

A rose. A scarlet cape and beautiful roses that laid around her, scattered around like the wind had whisked them here for her. The Beowulf's paw was nowhere to be seen. All that was there was the back of a shaking and absolutely furious girl that held a scythe within her hands. It gleamed like the scythe of a Grim Reaper but rather than inject Pyrrha with the coldness of fear it only brought a sense of safety.

Crescent Rose was held within soft hands, hands that Pyrrha knew could do great harm but could never quite believe it as the owner was just a small girl that was socially awkward and lovable. Like a fairy, the girl brought happiness with her constantly joyful expression everywhere she went.

There was none of that now. This wasn't the back of the little fifteen year old girl named Ruby Rose, who lit up everybody's world with her childlike innocence and way to add positivity to all events.

This was the back of a titan who should only belong in the legends of old. This was the back that brought hope to all who sees it. The back of the Huntress Ruby Rose.

With a single deft swipe, Ruby severed the body of the Beowulf in front of her with nearly casual ease. The bisected top half of the body flew off due to the power in the strike before dissipating into black sparks in the middle of the air, the lower body following the top half into obliteration.

Ruby turned to face Pyrrha and her face split into a warm grin for her, filled with delight at the sight of her friend alive. "Pyrrha! Thank God I found you, I was so worried! We all were!"

Pyrrha's eyes watered once again. She was worried! Ruby was worried for her! She flung herself onto the fifteen year old and started sobbing in relief while the young Huntress's composure cracked into a panicking fifteen year old, not quite sure what to do with a crying… anything really.

How could she be so stupid? No comrades? She had many now. All of Team JNPR and Team RWBY were her friends, no, her family now. In comparison to her previous zero, these seven were enough to keep her going, to keep having a good reason to live and come back home. They all cared about her and loved her, just like she did them, which put them multiple levels above her own family. She wasn't Pyrrha Nikos, the Invincible Girl, to them but just Pyrrha. She felt so relieved and happy when she realized that even though she knew that she should have realized that eons ago. Had Beacon really been only a year? That couldn't be possible. She had lived for seventeen years, and the year at Beacon felt like so much… more. More gentle. More kind. More fun. Just… more.

Ruby gently laid her hands on Pyrrha's back and whispered to her. "It's okay Pyrrha. You're safe now." Ruby softly draped her cape onto Pyrrha and finally observed the wounds that littered the invincible girl's frame. There were hundreds of scratches that could be seen, a heavily bleeding shoulder which looked like it had a sharp object literally yanked out in the most dangerous way possible, purple bruises that was starting blossom on Pyrrha's fair skin, a leg that looked like it had been shot, and numerous other injuries.

Ruby gently lifted up Pyrrha, wincing at the small shriek of pain the girl let loose. It must be even worse than it looked, somehow, if Pyrrha allowed any show of weakness at all.

"Don't worry Pyrrha." She whispered softly to the girl in her arms. "You'll be all healed up soon. I promise. Just… sleep for now. It'll all be okay."

As if she was waiting for those words, Pyrrha slumped down and lolled her head onto Ruby's shoulder. She fell asleep nearly immediately, her body shutting down to keep whatever stamina it still had after the multiple trying endeavors of simply trying to survive.

Pyrrha's last words before she passed out and went into blissful sleep was "Watch out...Cinder...maiden...dangerous...Ozpin...killed."

Ruby looked down in empathy at the tired girl and, for the first time in her life, she felt a spark of hatred, hatred towards the one who hurt Pyrrha.

Cinder. That's what her name is, or at least Ruby thought that was what Pyrrha was trying to say. It was the same name as one of the students that came to Beacon from Mistral, along with the student having the same voice as the one that rang out from the large screen that lorded over the stadium which held the Vytal Tournament. Ruby wanted to hunt the woman down and make her pay for hurting Pyrrha but she wasn't stupid. Pyrrha was insanely strong and if Cinder could actually beat her along with…

Ruby snapped out of her rage and flinched back in shock when she finally processed Pyrrha's words and stared down at the sleeping girl. Cinder killed Headmaster Ozpin?! What?! How was that possible?!

If Cinder was powerful enough to beat not only Pyrrha but also the Headmaster of all people, who was one of the most powerful Huntsmen in not only Vale, but the entirety of Remnant… there was no chance that Ruby could beat her.

Silver eyes flickered as uncertainty waged a war within Ruby. If Cinder had to defeat both Pyrrha and the Headmaster, there was no way she wasn't at the very least exhausted. But that wasn't a certainty either. She could have sneak attacked the Headmaster somehow and crippled him before killing him.

There were too many unknown variables. She couldn't truly form a good plan that would make everyone leave alive, hundreds of uncertainties were there and that annoyed her.

While she wouldn't have a problem going to face Cinder herself, that would leave Pyrrha behind and most likely die. Ruby grit her teeth and gently lifted Pyrrha before activating her Semblance.

Pyrrha once stated that her Semblance was, in fact, just 'speed'. This was incorrect, though it was an easily forgiven mistake seeing as that was she mainly used it for in Beacon. Her actual Semblance was 'turning into rose petals' which she usually uses to increase her speed; mostly used to circle around the opponents, disorient them, and use vicious attacks with her scythe which only dealt more damage with the increase in acceleration. Everyone in her family knew this part of her Semblance.

However that wasn't the only trick to her Semblance. Another simple but useful trick is that not only her, but whatever she held also turned into rose petals along with her. Her aura coats the objects she was holding with itself and transforms it into rose petals along with her. Nobody but Uncle Qrow and herself knew that, not even Yang or their father Tai. Uncle Qrow knew it when he noticed that whatever she held turned into rose petals along with her when she was playing tag with him one day and was trying to hit him with a stick.

Pyrrha dissolved into rose petals along with Ruby herself as she sped to blinding speeds and basically flew across the land. Before anything, she had to get Pyrrha to safet-?!

Hate rage envy revenge murder irrationality torture sins Evil World AnGRA MaINYU

Ruby stumbled as her Semblance failed her for a second while the vile, alien thoughts slammed into her head. She crashed into the rocky ground while thousands of rose petals were tossed up into the air. Most of them clumped together and reformed into Pyrrha while a few just remained and floated.

Pyrrha, still unconscious, neared the ground before Ruby got up and lunged to catch her. She barely made it in time, her body scraping against the rocks and would have been badly scratched up if not for her aura protecting her from all damage.

"I got you Pyrrha." Ruby panted before worriedly glancing all around her. "What was that?" Thoughts she knew for a fact that not originated from her had appeared in her head and caused her Semblance to somehow fail which shouldn't be possible.

She had a bad feeling about this.

A crimson midnight lightning bolt that decided to abandon normality suddenly arced up from the ground towards the sky which somehow suddenly formed a massive storm. The Grimm Dragon opening its jaws and letting loose a roar which could be heard all over Vale. The jet of white hot plasma in addition to the overall feeling of death and fear she was feeling only confirmed her feeling.

"Oh come on! That's just not fair!"

---

Ten minutes previously:

The portal ripped apart reality and deposited the Being of Steel and the Contaminated Artifact into the new world of Remnant.

Shirou blinked groggily before trying to stand up. Oh dear Root, Zelretch, and everything in between that was not fun.

The world swerved and tilted by about ninety degrees and Shirou puked on the ground. Or, he was at least trying to but since there was nothing in his stomach by now he just constantly made retching noises.

He recognized that magic. It was the same feeling that he got from one of the swords in his- Archer's- his Reality Marble. That magic he was exposed to… he felt a similar aura, not quite as dark or corrupted but similar anyways, from the Jeweled Sword of Zelretch.

Zelretch's Second True Magic was based on the Operation of Parallel Worlds which, obviously, dealt with parallel worlds, space, and portals, though it also delved quite a bit with the Fifth True Magic which was dealing with the powers of time. Considering he was pretty sure he just had flown straight into a portal that would mean-?!

Shirou's eyes bugged out as his mind jumped between the series of information given, reviewed it a couple of times, and finally looked at the image the connect dots had portrayed. He was in another world. It was the only realistic observation and conclusion.

Heh. Hehehehe. Realistic. What a joke. As if the word could even belong here. Just using the word 'realistic' anywhere these past couple of weeks was a bad joke. Using it after being exposed to a True Magic? That would be enough to set the entirety of the Clock Tower laughing like mad hyenas. Hell, it would probably be bad enough to even make the Queen of the Clocktower Lorelei Barthomeloi do a quick eye roll in public.

His breath quickened and he started hyperventilating.

No. He couldn't afford to start losing it here now. Take a deep breath. Hold. Let out. Deep breath. Hold for an extra two seconds. Let it out. Compartmentalize all emotions, they were unneeded and not useful at the current moment.

First assess the situation. The Second True Magic didn't just delve into portals to other planets but also to other specific places on the same world. He could just as easily be on his world but just at a different location.

Shirou looked upwards. The moon was shattered, its crystal shards glittering like divine gems that looked over all beings living under the night sky. Usually it would be beautiful to any onlooker, but right now Shirou just felt like that even the heavens were mocking him.

He didn't normally curse but, and usually not in English either at that but since that had more curse words than Japanese and he was panicking... "Fuck!" He was definitely not on the same world.

Deep breath. Hold. Let go. Deep breath. Hold for an extra two seconds. Let it all out. Compartmentalize.

All right. All right, he was on a different world. He was okay with this. He was okay with this. He was okay- he wasn't okay with this.

No. No, focus. Focus on the important things. First of all, what happened to the Grail? More importantly, what happened to Excalibur?

His golden, sunset eyes searched the place he stood, only noticing now that the entire place was absolutely covered in debris. In the cold and dark night, the slight glow of Excalibur was easy to locate and he staggered over to the majestic blade.

Excalibur's glow only increased once Shirou grazed it with his hand and Shirou picked it up with his uninjured right hand instead of his completely metallized left hand.

He quirked an eyebrow at this. Wasn't he, like, a walking corpse not even a couple minutes ago? What happened and why wasn't he turning into steel completely due to Archer's arm overloading Avalon? It wasn't that Archer's arm just all of a sudden stopped working, he could feel his legs already turning into steel slightly and he could tell that he was dying from the inside out, along with his back left knee, one of the places that was actually not completely steel before, which was completely enveloped by Unlimited Blade Works.

It didn't make sense. Things not yet transformed into steel while what was steel was now not?

The only event that happened between him being nearly steel and now this is… the portal.

Son of a bitch! It always came back to the Root damned portal!

Alright, time to run through the very basic knowledge of Kaleidoscope that he knew. Or better yet…

He brought the Jeweled Blade of Zelretch to the front of his mind. Even though he couldn't call it out into the world without Illya assisting him, he could still at least scan the blade's history within his Reality Marble.

Most of the history of the blade was gibberish for no one could truly understand the Kaleidoscope except Zelretch himself. However Shirou was able to gleam just the tiniest bits of information from the blade that he could understand.

Portals, echoes, refractions, eradication, removal of space, warping, rifts, Spacetime twisting, something about a Presence of some kind, hundreds of abilities ran through the mind of Shirou. The Second True Magic was truly a diverse subject and was filled with hundreds of abilities and uses with only a few he was able to understand. However Shirou didn't care about that, he only cared about one of those abilities. He narrowed down his search to portals and saw the information about it which he could make sense of.

Portals, used to open a metaphysical doorway to other worlds, dangers of using it improperly, and something about a… Dimensional Gap and a large red Dragon along with a loli named Ophis? No, not needed. Even if it was needed he was in no way touching that mess.

Used to make spaces between space time and force through to usually blocked off worlds, using this improperly will result in a backlash against all within the portal through the action of multiple consequences such as death, bisection, time blowbacks, and many more along with… ah.

Shirou groaned. Of course, that was why. In hindsight he was actually really lucky with managing to avoid the worst of the blowbacks for once in his life. This one, while painful, wouldn't inconvenience him all that much and what would inconvenience him he was lucky enough to have it reduced. The other one though...

Portals were complex pieces of an already extremely complex Magic. Portals were used to slip through and blend with the dimensional energies of the interconnecting multiverse to 'step' from one world to the next.

However forcing a portal to open even when it was done incorrectly? That was far more dangerous if quite a bit more simple. Forcing open a portal directly causes an imbalance in the time space continuum, and while this is corrected nearly immediately it does cause multiple blowbacks onto all those within the portal. One of them being…

'Artificial molding and restructuring of time space within a specific quadrant of a physical and/or spiritual contained spectrum along with experiencing temporal pulsing and echoes before reverting to original temporal slate, all the while being separated from the key determined consciousness of the specified World depending on direction of temporal shifting for an unspecified period of time.' Shirou thought to himself while grimacing quite a bit.

Shit. Shit shit shit. That wasn't good at all. Not in the least.

In layman's terms that would basically be saying "Hey, I'm just going to grab this specific part of your body and just make it go forward in time while grabbing this part and reversing time on it. After this, you're probably going to feel literal soul shattering pain like nothing you've ever felt before at random points of time. After that, when you'll wish you were dead, I'll make sure you aren't so you can go through that torture all over again. You good with that? No? Well too bad."

The body part time warping would be like having the arm of a five year old while simultaneously having the hand of a ninety year old man. He wouldn't be able to use it all since none of his bones were able to support it all the while having arthritis with the pain nerves of a five year old. Torturous pain would be a laughable understatement. He was lucky enough to avoid that by his body only going through a shift in time by about ten minutes, whether it was forward or backwards. Thankfully it was mostly backwards which allowed at least some of the metal to reverse while the body parts that were sent forward in time wasn't even steel anymore but it would be more apt to describe it as being completely made of blades, his left arm being an excellent example seeing as how it had been enveloped by blades. However the other backlash of the portal he was able to see within his body was far worse.

Experiencing temporal pulsing and echoes? That's horrifying. It was the same type of reactions his father Kiritsugu would go through when activating his family's magic crest except only magnified exponentially. The pain would easily surpass the previously stated consequence along with hindering him quite a bit. In fact one of the temporal pulse was… starting… now-

"Hahrrrgggghhh!" Shirou yelled out in pain in spite of clamping his teeth down hard enough on his lip to draw a good amount of blood.

He could feel his heartbeat speeding up. It started hammering against his chest, the compulsion of time forcing it to accelerate its speed to lethal levels. 97 Beats per Minute. 112 BPM. 226 BPM. 347 BPM. Shirou's heart kept on increasing the speed of itself under compulsion from one of the laws of the universe, time itself. The pain kept slowly increasing until his heart burned with the fury of a thousand suns.

Soon enough the heart couldn't keep up with its own pace and exploded inside of his own chest. For a minute he was thankful that it did, and then realized something. His heart had just exploded. How was he still alive? And why did the unending pain not stop?!

Time was why, he belatedly realized. While Time did speed up his heart beat, it also simultaneously slowed down the reactions of his nervous system. That was why the pain only slowly increased until it got to an amount of agony he couldn't outright ignore with his frankly massive amount of pain resistance.

It was also why he wasn't straight up dead yet. His nervous system hadn't sended his brain signals that he was dead. But then why was the pain still increasing? Are the pain nerves not under the same influence of Time as the rest of his nerves somehow?

Argh, he wasn't a doctor he didn't know stuff about the body! And even if he was filled to the brim with medical knowledge he couldn't do anything actually with it since he was the one actually having the… whatever this was!

He couldn't breathe. Everything, every part of his body was on fire. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't stop the pain, he couldn't do anything!

Blood vessels imploded within his body due to the high pressure of the blood circulating throughout his body, the blood vessels unable to support the high blood speed. Fractures developed throughout his entire skeletal system, his brain's soft flesh ripped apart as his own blood assaulted it. And he could somehow feel everything that was happening. He tried to let out a scream but couldn't as his lungs filled up with his own crimson life fluid.

And finally, mercifully, thankfully Shirou Emiya finally died.

Then Time itself reversed. Causality was erased and so events that had happened never have and never will. Shirou's body, which had fallen over, was slowly pulled back loosely like he was a puppet dancing to the tune of a novice marionette. His heart started slowly being pulled back together, all the vital parts of it being dragged back like a ball on a string and being haphazardly stitched together until it reverted back to normal.

Shirou gasped for breath as he stumbled and slumped onto a rock for support, dry heaving onto the ground, only able to do that action with Time reverting him back to his 'original temporal slate' which was basically how his body was before that torture. That was… that was hell.

No. No, that was a joke. Hell? Comparing that slight pain to the events of the fire ten years ago which had forged him into the blade he was today? By the Root, Shirou felt like he should actually apologize to Angra Mainyu for that idiotic comparison.

Before that though, he had a mission. He had to finish this quick, before he went through that again. The pain might be nothing special to him but it was still pretty distracting.

That reminded him of something far more important. Where was the Grail? He should be able to feel the corruption that was emanating from the eldritch horror but he didn't feel anything.

He started panicking. Oh God, did the portal take the Grail someplace else? Some other world or, god forbid, the portal kept the Grail on his own world? Within Fuyuki?

No, no that wasn't possible. His left arm had attached a blade and dug into the Grail which brought him to this world in the first place. He remembered the impact the Grail had when it collided with the building he was standing among the remains of. Had it left him and somehow transported back to his homeworld? No, it shouldn't have the Prana left to do that. Forcing the portal open should have taken nearly all of the prana the Grail gathered from the Fifth Holy Grail War. The Fourth Holy Grail War had all of the collected Prana used to jumpstart the Fifth Holy Grail into starting fifty years before it should have.

'But,' said an incessant nagging voice in the back of his head that he termed Archer, 'what happened to the Prana collected during the First, Second, and Third Holy Grail War?'

The night seemed far colder all of a sudden.

'The Prana was dissipated… right?' Thought Shirou worryingly. The truth of the matter was that he didn't have as much information on the Grail he should have had. Rin helped there but even she didn't know everything about the Grail and he never asked Illya, which seems like a huge oversight now on his part. Well, to be specific, though she talked about the Grail quite a bit, he didn't think he asked her about the Prana collected from the previous wars. Or if he did, he couldn't completely remember since some of his memories were still gone.

Wait, he was getting ahead of himself. First all, see if the Grail wasn't there and if it wasn't, then start panicking.

He clutched Excalibur in his right hand tightly in anxiety while Excalibur in return glowed warmly to respond to him, as if trying to ensure him that everything would be okay. It relaxed him a bit and made him smile warmly towards the blade. After whispering a quick "Thank you Saber," Shirou limped into the opening between all the shattered debris that he suddenly realized was from the tower they crashed into. It was a miracle that even through the debris they were able to land a bit of distance away.

Well a miracle or basic physics really, seeing as the Grail and he flew out the portal they were close to… well he didn't know but he knew it was really really fast.

He clambered into the opening and scouted out the outside. There was smoke and fires and crushed pieced of rock that were blocking his vision but by slightly reinforcing his eyesight he was able to gaze past the obstructions.

There! Only a couple dozen meters away, the corrupted Grail laid on its side in a large trench and was vulnerable. Shirou scrunched his eyebrows together. Was it just him or did the Grail look smaller now? And… was something on the surface of the Grail? He saw some movement that looked like it was writhing in pain on the Grail. The sphere of darkness that was over the size of Berserker exponentially reduced in size, looking like the size of a standard bowling ball and it also looked like it was… splitting?

All of a sudden the Grail split apart violently, almost as if the hand of God had wrenched the two components apart in a disgusted manner.

A sense of terror swept the area. Sweat started pouring down Shirou's face which had twisted into an aghast expression. A slight ripple appeared over the Grail like a small pebble dropped into the center of a calm lake. The rippling reversed so instead of spreading outwards and seemed to absorb the lines back into itself by gathering inwards and upwards, forming something. Corruption infected the now small bubble and turned it into a blackish crimson orb rather than the semi-transparent bubble it was before. A small fracture shined its way into existence on the orb before spreading quickly over the surface. It broke in two and dropped the contents back into the Grail, the liquid seemingly merging with the Grail.

Then it released a black and a crimson lightning bolt that ascended to the heavens and cut through the sky, lighting up the town in a malevolent glow and forming thunder clouds which started to storm. Thunderstorms were common enough but this was no simple thing. Within a second or two the clouds began to stretch all across Beacon and started quickly covering the distance between the place he was in and the city beyond it, spreading across kilometers in an instant and revealing to the world a primordial force of nature that couldn't be driven off, that couldn't halted, that couldn't be stopped.

However what goes up must come down eventually. Dozens of the same crimson black lightning bolts came streaking down from the heavens, hitting and igniting the ground and towers with the unstable electric charges, coating anything and everything with malice from All The World's Evils. All who even remotely had a sense of self-preservation had their instincts light up in fury, screaming for everyone to flee and hide. Even those who had fallen unconscious had woken up screaming while Grimm were whipped into a frenzy never seen before on Remnant.

---

Blood. Blood was everywhere. It was hot and sticky and dropped innocently from her even though it belies a far more malevolent truth.

She was gasping. Was she hyperventilating? She didn't know, all she knew was that her chest was on fire. She grabbed her chest, trying to slow down the pain on her left side. Or at least she tried to. She tried wave her hand but it didn't respond to her commands. She tried to glare at it but only to falter in shock when she saw it. Not her hand. Just a stump, hanging limp from her right side. Sweat poured down her face.

"Hah, hah, ugh." She felt nauseous. Was her arm gone? No that wasn't possible. It couldn't have happened. She dropped to her knees, getting mud on her shirt and pants.

"Well well well. Look at the filthy human we have here, scrounging in the dirt like a pestilence spreading rat. Ironic, after your species judged us to be the rats hidden beneath the trash, simple animals that could be abused at a simple whim. Animals whose whimpers couldn't melt the frozen and unfeeling hearts of those who called themselves humans." A voice piped up behind which made her freeze up in horror and fear. No, no it couldn't be him. Not again, not after what had happened. Not after that tor-

"No more." The voice hardened after its previous amusement, cutting off her thoughts. "You might have been able to get away with kicking some little animals around who couldn't or wouldn't stand up for themselves but you bared your teeth with arrogance against a bull, so confident that just because you bruised, beaten, and battered a couple of animals before that even the mightiest wouldn't dare to raise their weapons against you." He slowly drew out his sword, that cursed and damned and tainted sword, and flicked the edge against her cheek, drawing just the slightest of traces of blood while she sat frozen. Her eyes slowly traced the edge of the blade that rested so close against her that with a minimal amount of movement it could cause her pulse to forever still.

"I will erase the filthy and hypocritical existence known as humanity away from this beautiful planet. No matter how long it will take, no matter how many of you try to survive and escape like the cockroaches you are, I will find you. I will hunt you down, drag you outside of your hiding place kicking and screaming, and force you to watch as your loved ones go up in the flames of my hatred, our hatred, before suffering the same fate yourselves. For the faunus, Justice will be served." The voice seemed to echo all around her making her scream as it just wouldn't stop.

"Never again will we be forced to cower and hide. Never again will we be subjected to prejudice, torture, and never again will we be killed at the simple whims of someone stronger. No, this time we will rule as what we truly are: the stronger ones, the superior beings, the Kings of Remnant! And the humans will be exactly as they should be: extinct."

With a single deft stroke the blade carved its way through her other arm but even before she could scream, the blade retreated and, like a vicious viper, struck with celerity and stabbed through her chest.

She tried to scream but could only cough up blood. The burning world around her turned dim as she flopped over weakly. Her last sight was the vindictive face of a man whose eyes were covered by a mask, making him look like a Grimm.

She gasped and spluttered as she woke up from her nightmare, sweat pouring down her face like small waterfalls.

"Yang? Yang! How the hell-" A voice yelled out aloud. Blond hair filled her entire vision and she could see a tail that was waving around worriedly. "Are you okay? Don't answer that, retarded question I know. Here, drink some water." A cold and clear glass was raised up to her mouth, thankful for the sweet relief of the drink. She didn't know how much she needed the water until she had it.

She whimpered a bit when it ran out until Sun quickly refilled it and held it up to her mouth again. She quickly sucked it down and breathed in relief as her thirst was abated only to feel hot shame running through her when she realized she was being babied.

Sun either didn't notice or didn't care. "Blake was able to cart both of you guys out of the main part of Beacon and ran into another team called BRNZ. They're old acquaintances of mine from Vacuo, or at least May Zedong is. They brought you here before they ran back out to kill some of the Grimm. I was able to stop both of you guys from bleeding out using the supplies from the evacuation station and the escape point. Good thing we left then, right now the sky is swarming with Grimm and Beacon has…" Here Sun's voice radically decreased in volume, as if he himself couldn't believe what he was about to say. "Fallen. Beacon has fallen."

He seemed to try and shake off his previous anxiety before speaking again. "Granted, it's not exactly stellar here but we're surrounded by a couple of huntsmen and huntresses in training. We should be safe." He said in a somewhat clinical fashion, a far cry from the roguish and lackadaisical man he had shown in Beacon.

She was somewhat surprised. After all, Sun was known to be a pretty chill and a guy contented with having fun along with a not-so-secret crush on Blake. This was another facet of him entirely, one that she'd never seen before. Hell, she didn't even know he knew that much medical knowledge. Obviously he knew some since knowing first aid was a basic requirement in the prep schools like Signal, but to patch the large stab wound Blake had and help some other injured people that she saw around was far more than what was taught there.

But for Beacon to have fallen to the Grimm, for one of the main four schools to train Huntsmen to have fallen...

No matter. That wasn't important right now, what was important was… "How's Blake? And where's Ruby and Weiss?"

"I already told you how Blake was." He said while he started to patch someone else who had a dislocated shoulder. "Bite down on this." He stated while forcing a small plate into someone's mouth. "Ready?" The huntsman in training in question grimly nodded. He couldn't be older than Ruby from his looks. "Alright. On three. One!" He shoved the dislocated shoulder back into the socket correctly while the Huntsman's eyes bugged out for a second and letting out a small whimper of pain.

Sun nodded approvingly. "Don't worry, I set it back properly. Your aura should help douse the pain along with protecting your teeth from the plate. Good thing too, we don't actually have all that much supplies. Just get some gauze tape and bandages along with some disinfectant and a couple other things. You were lucky. I had to stab someone in the chest with a pen covered with a good amount of ammonia earlier to help get rid of the bubbles in their lung, and let me tell you it was a complete bitch to get through the guy's aura. Make sure you don't get hurt like that, got it?" After taking some sadistic reassurance in the guy's fearful nod he turned back to Yang.

"As I said, Blake's fine. She's resting in a bed with a good amount of gauze over her stab wound. Thank god it went out cleanly and you guys were brought here quickly. I wouldn't have had the materials to do a blood transfusion here if you guys bled out anymore." He gave a weak grin. "I admit, this isn't nearly the situation nor the circumstances behind everything I thought of when Blake would be basically naked and resting in a bed after a long night with me." Yang attempted to perform a weak laugh but it came out as a strangled cough and a hysterical choking noise.

It must have sounded even worse than she thought if the worried face Sun was making while he rushed over to her was any indication. He gently forced her back down into the bed. She didn't even realize that she had started to get up.

He frowned. "Hey don't get up. You should be resting. Don't worry, Neptune is one of the guys outside and he'll makes sure that no Grimm gets in here."

She weakly battered his arm aside. Or more of he allowed her to shove his arm off, with how weak she was. "Sun, where's Ruby and Weiss?" She asked quietly.

He winced before trying to lie to her. "They're around, at the front and helping the guard to be on the lookout."

Crimson eyes stared back at him. "Then why aren't they here? Both Ruby and Weiss would have stayed here and refused to move from this spot. Especially if there are people to help protect the injured. I know that and you know that."

Sun winced again. Shit, when had he become so bad at lying? He swore he was good at it when he was younger. "Ah…"

A sigh escaped Yang as bright crimson faded back to lilac. She couldn't really be mad at Sun, she knew better than anyone that Ruby would be busy trying to save people in the invasion. She was a hero.

"And she'll die, just like one. Just like mom." A voice whispered at the back of her mind. She scowled and tried to lift herself up from the bed again but Sun's hands pressed down on her and forced her to stay still.

"You can't move." He snarled at her, seeming a lot more like a lion than the monkey faunus he truly is. "I gave my word to your sister and Weiss that I'd make sure to take care of you guys. Listen, all of us evacuated from Beacon. The situation is far worse than you think it is. Thousands have died in this attack and hundreds are still dying right now. I've done my best to patch up people but even in the safe zone we don't have that many medical supplies." He gestured around the hall that they both were in. "These beds that a couple of people are lying in along with you and Blake? I had to raid houses and shove corpses off of them just to get them." He choked back a sob. "There was this one kid. His entire body was torn up and a good eighty percent of his blood was on the walls. He couldn't have been more than ten Yang! I couldn't give him a proper burial or do anything for him! Worse even! I had to disrespect his dead body and shove it off the door it was blocking to steal these beds! All because this stupid, ridiculous, fucking invasion is going on and I couldn't focus on respecting the dead since I had to look at the bigger picture and focus on the living! From that house, I stole a couple of beds and mattresses, I stole food, I ransacked the entire house while ignoring the blood that I was stepping on that came out from the boy's corpse, and and and-!" Sun buried his face in his hands and took in a strangled gasp.

Yang felt sickened. Did Sun really have to do that? No, it couldn't be true. There was no way reality could be so sickening. It had to be impossible, for everything to be this bad.

"I have to save my sister." Yang said automatically. "As long as she is alive it doesn't matter if I am." I will never leave family behind. Not like that person did.

Sun looked up from his hands, eyes bloodshot and tear trails apparent. Some expression Yang couldn't exactly decipher warred across his face before he gave up with a relenting sigh. "When I was young at Vacuo, I grew up at an orphanage, though that would be a generous term since it was just a run down building less than a full story tall with a hole in the wall for a door along with no plumbing or running water. I couldn't remember my parents other than a couple of images like a yellow tail similar to mine." He started saying. "All of us at the orphanage were poor sons of bitches abandoned by our parents, or maybe some of us had our parents killed, we didn't know and didn't really care. We would be lucky if we could get a meal a day so we didn't even have time to.. So to live, we all banded together, unified in the face of common cause: survival.'

Yang quirked her eyebrow. Where was Sun going with this? Yang opened her mouth to say something but the monkey Faunus cut her off with a glare.

Sun continued to speak though. "The older kids knew their way around the gallows and the shady people and criminals. They taught us how to pickpocket people, the criminals to avoid, the places which would toss out their leftover food so we could go dumpster diving to get a decent meal, all the while being sneaky so the owners wouldn't grab a belt and start giving us a couple of lashes like they sometimes did if we got caught. One day, a friend of mine who went by Liq was shot in the shoulder by some random guy who caught him trying to steal some lien for the rest of us. I found him lying in the middle of the road, nearly half covered by Vacuo's sand."

"We took him to a back alley doctor who sometimes took pity on us and gave us food a couple times. The Doctor was able to fix him up pretty quick and warned us not to get hurt again and that Liq just needed rest since the bullet went clean through. That's when I got on my knees and prostrated myself before him and begged for him to teach me some of his medical know-how because I didn't want my friend to be hurt and for me feeling absolutely useless again. I still don't know what convinced him to agree and teach me to today, but all that mattered at the time was that he was going to teach me. And so I learned, day after day, week after week, month after month, until over four years passed. Illnesses, bullet wounds, dehydration symptoms, blood transfers, cures, unconventional ways of helping, and more. He was a mysterious bastard too, never even told me his name, though apparently he was really good with technology also since he once mentioned he came from Atlas and was a scientist there. Even had a logo that appeared whenever he logged onto the computer, the letter V." He continued to narrate his life story to Yang, not being able to stop himself once he got going.

"Soon though, the small town that we lived in underwent a Grimm attack because some fool started a fire in a drunk rage which burned a couple of the houses and everybody started panicking which drew the Grimm in hordes." Sun's fist clenched in rage. "Thankfully a couple of the people had training, but not enough to fully repel the Grimm and a couple were able to sneak into the town. The Doctor held some off and killed a few but one of the Grimm was a Scuttler, a Grimm able to burrow into Vacuo's sand and travel underground nearly as fast as Nevermore could fly, so it snuck past him while he was carving up the other monsters. It found us as we were panicking. It killed a couple of us and left severe injuries on a couple other before the Doctor came and killed it. I was somewhat injured but the Doctor unlocked my aura so I was stable.

"Even though I nearly died, I tried to heal everybody even when the Doctor said it was useless. But I was only one person and there were so many injured that even if I saved one of the guys, two or three others would have died by then."

His expression showed a twisted type of despair, the type of despair that could only appear when your brothers and sisters died and you could something to help but didn't, along with his bright blue eyes looking far more like dark pits. "Ten of us died that day. All because the Doctor and I weren't enough to help everybody, him helping me even though he told me it was useless, the old hypocrite."

"I remember hating myself to the bottom of my heart. I remembered thinking that if I was just better I could have saved the guys. But mostly… mostly I remembered that if there were more of me I could have saved everybody." Sun gazed at Yang's face with the expression of utmost seriousness. "That was how I unlocked my Semblance."

Yang's face color, which was a previous pale, descended rapidly into such a pure white that one would think that she was a Schnee. Semblance. Sun actually described how he got his Semblance. To her. That- That was insane! Describing the situation of how one got their Semblance was the greatest honor that the one listening could receive as it described a portion of themselves, baring their privacy and their most vulnerable point of their lives to the one listening since it only unlocked while the person was going under insane amounts of stress. If a Huntsman could either tell someone that they didn't know the circumstances over them gaining their Semblance or running around Atlas in the complete nude the policemen would be called in complaints of someone streaking all over the city. Then if the situation was explained the said policemen would actually let them go, so sacrosanct the secret is.

"Do you see now Yang? I swore to Ruby and Weiss that I'll take care of both you and Blake. I couldn't protect my brothers and sisters on that day but I'll be damned if I let you guys go out there and kill yourselves out of a misplaced sense of justice!" Sun roared in her face while she flinched back. Apparently he saw the flinch as shame washed across his face and he backed off quickly. Even so he continued speaking, albeit much softer than previously. "I won't let my friends die again. Never again. Not when I have the power to save them."

Yang swallowed deeply and actually considered listening to Sun's advice. 'Ah, so you would leave Ruby behind? Just like that woman left you behind?' The voice at the back of her head said while returning with a vengeance. 'Understandable. After all, like mother like daughter. It was foolish to expect anything more out of you.'

No. No, she would never be like that woman who left her family behind. She steeled herself before looking Sun dead in the eye and saying "I can't ever claim to understand what you went through Sun. I accept that but," she jerked her head towards the outside before continuing, "I never want to either. Right now, my sister is out there and fighting. I'll be damned if I allow her to get hurt if there's even the slightest of chances that I could help her. I don't care if I die as long as Ruby stays alive and unhurt." Yang saw Sun's eyes widen before looking at her in sympathy before steeling himself.

"All right Yang, I'll let you go out there but only on one condition. Raise your right hand." Yang quirked an eyebrow at him before trying to give a small grin and failing miserably. It was a weird condition but all right, why not. "Alright doc, you got it."

She tried to raise her right hand and failed. Badly. What? She couldn't tell before but she couldn't feel her right hand. There was literally nothing. No pain, no feeling. No way for her hand to signal to her brain that something was wrong. She tried to look at her right hand but only saw the grey mattress of the bed she laid on. Her gaze traveled upwards and her heart stopped when she saw what was there. Or, to be exact, what wasn't there. Her right arm was gone and all that was left was a stump wrapped in gauze.

That's not possible. How was her right hand not there, it shouldn't be possibl-?!

A scarlet flash, radiating bloodlust, struck her and carved through skin and bone to get the crimson fluid running through her body.

"-ang! Yang!" Her shoulders were shaking as she realized Sun was calling her name. She cut across his cry with a choked voice asking a simple yet terrible question. "How?"

Sun hesitated a bit before answering. "Your arm… it got cut off during a fight with the White Fang leader Adam… the same one who impaled Blake. I was able to stem the blood flow and numb the pain with a mixture of the numbing effect of the dogwood found outside combined with a pinch of lightning and ice dust that was given to me by a couple of huntsmen when I asked."

Her eyes teared up before she blinked it away. Her right arm loss was devastating but something far more important to her in danger right now. Her tone, dead and even as if trying to numb all her overwhelming emotions, was chilling. "I'm going to find Ruby."

Sun's head, which had turned away, whipped back to her in such speed and in a fashion that would have been hilarious in any other circumstance. "Yang you can't!" He cried out. "Your entire fighting style is based completely off your arm strength, stance and balance. All of that is screwed up with the loss of an arm. You won't have a good enough balance to deal precise and strong blows, which screws up your stance which you use for adding extra momentum to your attacks for more force!" He argued. "You're more likely to be die out there than the kids from Signal! Your entire fighting style is flushed down a drain and you don't even have that much aura left since most of it was destroyed during your fight or used up when trying to heal you! You have at most 15% of aura left, with it far more likely to be less!"

"Even so," She said stubbornly, "I can't leave Ruby out there."

"And besides," another voice piped up, "she won't be alone." Blake limped out of a pillar that she used to hid herself from them. She didn't dare look at Sun's betrayed eyes.

"You?!" Sun spat out. "Blake be reasonable here. You might not be as bad as Yang but the difference is next to none, like the difference between putting a five year old and a three year old out in front of an Ursa." Blake flinched back. He noticed this and drove on, using that as a weak point to underscore his argument, no matter how manipulative that might have been. "The only difference is that instead of Yang dying, it'd be the both of you. You don't even have any aura left after it was spent trying to heal you! One, maybe two, percent at max and you weren't exactly known for having a stellar amount anyways, a bit above average at best."

"All the same," amber eyes gazed directly into blue, "Team RWBY sticks together."

"Yeah I got that! And guess what! There is no more Team RWBY if you guys die out there!"

"We won't!"

"Yeah! Just like you won't get fatally injured by facing someone far above your level! Oh wait, my bad, that already happened when you charged against Adam-fucking-Taurus! By the way, can you please explain that stunning amount of logic?!" Low blow, he knew, but it got the point across at least.

Blake winced before steeling herself and saying, "I'm going. Yang will follow anyways, the both of us know this." Team RWBY was her family, the reinforcements that she had when facing the White Fang, the haven that she had when her past seemed like it was about to catch up to her and consume her. She stared at Yang's stump of an arm and felt conflicted. For Team RWBY to have been attacked… it felt like a violation of her very soul. Her safe place had been invaded. Her eyes glowed in hate as her aura sparked around her.

At the same time though, Sun was right. Yang missing an arm would deal huge damage to her abilities in combat. Her sense of balance would be completely off, her aim for Ember Celica's shotgun wouldn't be enough to hit the broadside of a barn, her strikes would be far weaker than normal, and her aura is low.

However, if there is one thing that she believed in fully… it is that Team RWBY was the light of her life, the light of all the team members life. Especially Yang's. During the time at Beacon, Yang witnessed the sister that she had to raise grow up. Ruby emerged from her shell of social awkwardness and gained friends who would die for her.

How could she take the simple act of protecting what was most important to Yang away from her? She couldn't. Blake had always fought for equality for the faunus because it was the dream she believed in, the goal that was important to her. If she stopped Yang from going out there now to fight and try to protect her sister… she'd be lower than scum, a hypocrite of astronomical proportions. She placed all her emotions into her eyes and pleaded with Sun to just step aside.

Sun snarled before suddenly backing off and sighing. "Fine. Do what you want, while I do what I want."

Blake, not expecting the sudden acceptance of Sun, slowly nodded and gathered herself. She limped to Yang while Yang herself tried to push herself up with only her left arm before failing and falling back onto the mattress. She shook her head slowly before trying again and succeeding this time. She got up onto the couch while Blake stood by her and resting on one of the metallic posts that had little specks of crimson on it. Yang smiled at Blake before collapsing onto the bed unconscious with Sun behind her and pressing a needle into her leg, unloading its contents into her bloodstream.

"Sun!" Blake yelled out loud, fearful for a second at what Sun had done to her partner before slumping slightly in relief when Sun shook his head at her.

"It's just a highly effective form of anesthesia, one carefully combined with fire dust to increase the pace at which it flows through the bloodstream." He explained to her. "I only have a couple and I don't want to waste them so you're either going to bed, Blake, or I'm going to make you have a nice long nap. And trust me, this way is far more painful." At this point, Sun actually drew out and deployed his nunchucks Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang and leveraged it against the girl.

Amber eyes flickered between the blue eyes and the crimson nunchaku angrily before she said, "What happened to letting us do what we want?"

"I said that you can do what you want while I do what I want." Sun corrected. "This is what I want. Besides, the fact that the needle sunk that deep that fast means Yang's on an even lower amount of aura than I thought. She'd die far easier than even I expected."

Blake glared at him angrily before slumping slightly. "We wouldn't end up like them." She whispered softly.

Sun glared at her, at his crush, before whispering equally softly, "You don't know that. No one does. If they did they wouldn't go in the first place."

If Blake had slumped over before, her body was on the verge of collapsing now. "Yeah… I guess no one does." Their eyes met once again before Blake started begging him. "Please… save Ruby and Weiss. You were right, it was stupid to think that we could do it as hurt as we are. So please. Please save them. You can do it instead of us. Please."

The monkey faunus gazed at the bowing cat faunus before sighing. "Of course Blake. Ruby is my friend too, along with Weiss… no matter how strict she is." He said, grumbling out that last part even though both of them knew that she heard it with her extremely sharp hearing. She gracefully pretended that she didn't though and collapsed onto Yang's bed.

"Thank you. Thank you so much Sun." Blake managed to say even as she felt her eyelids drooping.

"Meh," He waved the thanks away and said, "no problem."

"Stay safe."

"Of course I will. Shouldn't you know about this by now? I'm Sun Wukong! Nothing can keep me down."

"Liar." Both of them knew it might be the last time they see one another. No, it was highly likely that they would never see another again.

Sun didn't respond to her though. He turned around and attached the two weapons together before mechashifting it into his staff. He turned around and started walking slowly to the edge of the large hall they were in, with them being already relatively close to the outside. He hesitated for a minute before nodding to himself as if in reassurement.

"Blake. I love you." He said out loud while turning to face her again. His resolute eyes stared into Blake's shocked ones. At the start it was all just a simple admiration of her beauty. Then a simple chase after someone who interested him, though mainly for some reason he couldn't truly decipher himself. Maybe it was just the mystery the girl was wrapped in or maybe some other reason, he didn't truly know. Then he truly started to learn more about her. The stubbornness and fierceness beneath that cold exterior. That calculating gaze of hers trying to figure everything out, her dry wit and sarcasm. The respect for the lives of all, no matter if they were faunus or human. That tendency to jump headfirst recklessly rather than with an actual plan, the passion that she had for anything that she truly believed in. That ability to naively believe that peace was possible between the two races. The ability that allowed her to believe that with the right amount of pushing, just the right amount of perseverance, she could truly surpass the boundless depths of hatred and bring the two races together even with all the hate and cruelty she had seen and heard of.

She had her faults, yes, but everybody did. While he hated a few of them, like her endless need for martyring herself and thinking that everything the White Fang did was her fault, others he had adored. He didn't know when Blake had ascended from a pretty girl to one he actually loved but he found that he had no qualms with such a thing. He truly wanted to help her go beyond that past that she chained herself down with and find acceptance. He knew that was a hypocritical thing to say, seeing as he wasn't completely over the tragedy of his own past, but he wanted to help her soar past her old self and to stop looking over her shoulder every minute, every second, just waiting for another tragedy to strike.

Heh, maybe that's why he had initially fallen for her. He saw himself in her.

"Stop holding onto the past Blake." He said firmly to the crimson faced girl. "You're just chaining yourself down. The White Fang isn't your fault. Take it from someone who held regrets for far longer than what is healthy. Take solace in the company you have today while not forgetting the joys of the past. Remember what the White Fang originally stood for. That's the best way to honor its memory, not simply martyring yourself to this twisted, corrupted ideal it has become now. Forgive yourself. I promise you, with such good friends at your side," here he nodded to Yang, "you won't ever find yourself alone. Remember that. Please."

"I-I will Sun." Blake stammered out. "I-I love you too!"

"Hah!" Sun couldn't help but let out a rueful laugh. "Now who's the liar?"

He pushed the door out of his way and closed it gently behind him, feeling Blake's forlorn gaze on him the entire time. Outside of the safe haven, multiple huntsmen, huntresses, huntresses in training, and huntsmen in training were there and were decimating any Grimm that stood near.

He called out to his blue haired friend. "Oi, Neptune!"

Neptune stabbed a Beowulf casually while turning around to greet his best friend and leader. "Hey Sun! Nice weather we're having, huh?"

Sun cracked a small grin. "Can't really tell, all the Nevermore and Griffons are blocking out the sun! Then again, I'm still here so…"

Neptune groaned at the terrible pun. "I wish you never met Team RWBY or JNPR. You picked up on all of their annoying habits."

"Except Weiss right?" Sun teased his friend while wiggling his eyebrows.

"Except Weiss. She doesn't have any." Neptune agreed. His friendly expression turned serious. "What do you need me for Sun? Anything bad happen?"

Sun's expression mirrored Neptunes. "Yeah you could say that. By the way, you know how you used to want to be a bullhead flyer?"

Neptune seemed surprised at the sudden change in topic and his expression turned suspicious, for good reason too. "Yeah, I thought it was super cool at first, why do you ask?

"No reason." Sun's voice was too casual and Neptune had a deepening sense of dread. "Do you remember how to hotwire and fly one?"

"...Why?"

"Do you or do you not?"

Neptune gave a deep sigh, knowing that this won't lead to anywhere good. "I know how to hotwire and fly a bullhead… theoretically. Like, I read it in a book and have no practical experience in actually flying one so whatever you're planning we really shouldn't do it."

Sun gave a deep contemplative stare at Neptune, giving him hope that Sun would actually reconsider what he was pretty sure was a suicidal and retarded plan. Then that hope was crushed, burned, and had its grave pissed on when Sun shrugged and said, "Meh. Good enough."

'I hate my life.' Neptune thought before giving a deep sigh and gave a lazy salute. "Got it leader. Now, where are we heading?" Sun turned his head and nodded to some place. Neptune followed his gaze and his heart stopped.

"We're going to Beacon? That same place with a Grimm Dragon flying around it? The same place where there are most likely hundreds of Grimm swarming the thing now? The same place where fucking crimson lightning is shooting out of? The same place where literally everyone with a pulse is trying to avoid because of that feeling of death? That place?!"

"Oh, don't forget to add on that after that crimson lightning started showing up basically everyone in a coma woke in a cold sweat. Even Yang somehow woke up." Sun added on.

"Sun… you absolute son of a bitch."

"OI! Son of a female monkey. Get your animals right." Sun reflexively blocked the trident that was stabbed at him with his staff and laughed. "Both Sage and Scarlet are helping the injured along with a couple of other doctors so they're all fine."

"Yeah, but we aren't going to be."

Sun's expression hardened once again, Neptune following his lead. "All right, so this is the situation. Both Ruby and Weiss are at Beacon right now, searching for Pyrrha and Jaune. We are going to go there, find them, hope to God that all of them are at the same place, rescue them, and get the hell out of Dodge. We're going to avoid Grimm as much as we can and we are staying the hell away from the Dragon. We're already having a decently large group so a couple more wouldn't hurt so lets ask around if any actual Huntsmen are there and willing to go." Neptune nodded, his face resolute.

"Oi. Did you say Ruby and the mini Ice Queen are still at Beacon?" A hard, dry, and terrifying voice spoke up from behind. Sun and Neptune turned around to see a man glaring at them, stinking of alcohol which somehow only made him more terrifying.

"Yeah they are. Who are you?" Sun asked, followed by Neptune's own question of "Mini-ice queen?"

"I'm Ruby's uncle. Now, are you sure they are still in that hell hole?" At Sun's nod. His face hardened. "I'm going after them. You keep on protecting the safe haven and searching for survivors."

"Hold up." Sun stepped up to Qrow and nearly quailed under his glare but stood strong. "We're coming too."

"You'll just get in my way."

"We won't. Besides, you need us. I bet you don't know how to start up a Bullhead to get to Beacon like Neptune here does."

"I have my ways kid. I don't need a couple more brats that I'm going to have to protect from the Grimm there. You're right, you won't be dead weight, you'll be worse."

"We're huntsmen too! Besides what if they're injured?! Name one other guy that knows how to perform actual medicine and not just the basics, along with actually knowing how to fight! They could die! Ruby could die!"

That comment halted Qrow in his tracks, who was walking away from the two boys. He clicked his tongue and gave them a glare that could freeze over the flames of Hell. "Well, what the fuck are you doing?! Move! Don't blame me if you get left behind! We need every second we can get!"

Qrow started running as Sun gave a small grin. He slapped Neptune on the arm and started running after Qrow.

Neptune just gave a small sigh before running to catch up with the both of them.

---

He had to. He had to! He had to get back to Beacon. Everybody was there. He had to protect them. He had to protect them all! Even though he was weak… he was weak but he wouldn't give up. His very soul cried out against that idea. He had to. He had to.

And so, Jaune Arc picked himself up and ran through the streets of Vale towards the Bullhead dock, his abandoned Scroll lighting up only a few seconds later by a text from Ruby that she had Pyrrha.

---

Omake: The mightiest of opponents

They neared towards him, dedicated towards consuming his flesh and very soul itself. He turned around and, for the first time in his life, Gilgamesh fled from the battlefield.

These opponents... they were impossible to defeat. All one could do was flee and, for all his might, Gilgamesh was no different. Yellow dots littered across his vision as he fled.

He couldn't believe it either. He, the King of Heroes Gilgamesh, was fleeing from the opponent in front of him. The first time he saw them, he arrogantly thought they were beneath him. He trusted his Gate to destroy the abomination before him, after all it had never failed him before.

It failed him this time. Only when they neared he saw the beings for what they truly were. Poltergeists, or some other form of incorporeal beings. He launched one of his swords, trusting in the Anti-Spiritual weapon to defeat the revolting beings before him.

It didn't even do anything. It didn't kill them, it didn't harm them, it didn't even slow them down. Before he could do anything, they raced towards him and simply touched him. He could feel his soul being wrenched apart and his body withering. Less than a minute later, Gilgamesh was left gasping and choking on the floor. He didn't know how, but he was alive. That should have been impossible. He felt himself dying, his soul scattered onto the spiritual plane like dust into the wind. A time curse possibly? The reversion of causality? He didn't know how but when he saw the bright pink eldritch abomination approaching him he didn't even hesitate. His gate fully opened, the rippling gold covering the dark sky in the brightness of dawn. Not even against Enkidu had he summoned so many portals. There were billions of them. The sky ripped open and weapons that could each destroy mountains with ease rained down like drops of rain. Gilgamesh couldn't even see in front of him, so many weapons had been rained down. He truly believed that the beings were dead and gone. After all, none could surpass his might. That was the second last thing he thought before his second death, the first being a continuous string of curses so violent that sailors would go scarlet in shame.

When Gilgamesh somehow lived again, he didn't even hesitate. He pulled out Ea, confident that this weapon of his could defeat the abominations that had proven to be deadliest match he would ever face. Not even Enkidu had been as powerful as the beings in front of him. He had just enough time to fully charge up Ea before another abomination started to confront him. This one was pure crimson, the perfect coloring of blood. It raced towards him, and Gilgamesh let out a bloodlusting grin.

"Hear me Mongrels!" He called out. "You are truly the most powerful beings I've ever faced. Not even the Gods of Old could begin to compare to your might. However! You have made a fatal error in your calculations! You are versing the King of Heroes! I, Gilgamesh, have never been defeated before and I never will! Bow before my might! Enuma Elish!"

A titanic ray that embodied death came flooding out of him, intent on wiping away the poltergeist in its strength. The flood of power that came bursting out would make Genesis feel ashamed.

The Poltergeist ran straight into the beam and for a moment Gilgamesh felt confident about its return to the grave. Then the crimson hand emerged from the beam that could rip apart planets by whim and at its full might, which it was at now, it could blow away the solar system and douse the Sun. It touched him and once again Gilgamesh decomposed into dust.

It took seven more tries for him to start to flee from the abominations, and fifty more until he found a Noble Phantasm that could affect the beings. It shocked him but apparently by consuming a special fruit, the one who ate the fruits could simply vanquish the ghosts by a simple swing of even the weakest of blades. This shocked him since, unlike anything else in his treasury, there appeared to be multiple of these Noble Phantasms. Yet they weren't weakened at all. Usually he would be insulted and he was, but after dying another twelve times more Gilgamesh just decided to be thankful. After all, apparently the effects of the Noble Phantasm was only temporary. He collected the trophies that littered across the ground he stood upon and tossed them into his Gate while keeping careful watch for the abominations. Once he found it, he would consume the holy fruit and then strike down the beings with vengeance. He nearly died again when he saw the exact same abomination he killed charging at him not even a minute later.

'These beings...' He thought. 'Their rate of regeneration is nigh-impossible.' After dying multiple more times, Gilgamesh finally collected all the trophies and vanquished all the abominations that lied in the realm he was in. He wasn't sure when it had occurred but at sometime, he had entered a completely different realm. Truly the Multiverse was a conniving and dangerous place, one to be feared for sure.

When he killed the final abomination to collect the trophy that laid behind it, Gilgamesh finally stood victorious. Relieved at the victory, he howled in laughter and relief.

"HAH! DO YOU SEE THIS MONGRELS?! DO YOU?! I HAVE SLAYED EVERY LAST ONE OF YOUR KIND AT LONG LAST! HAHAHAHAHA!"

Kirei opened the door in the church, intent on questioning if the King of Heroes had finally seen the glory of his Mapo Tofu, ghost pepper and diablo sauce edition mind you, when he saw Gilgamesh laughing like a crazed hyena over a machine of some kind. He recognized the machine before he slowly walked backwards and shut the door. He broke out into a run before coming to a stop in sudden realization. The King of Heroes had an Anti-World Noble Phantasm at his disposal. There was literally no place for him to run.

Though that begged the question of why Ea had laid abandoned in the corner of his room, along with hordes of other Noble Phantasms.

Kirei quickly gulped down some of his Mapo Tofu, savoring the spice that flowed throughout his entire body, before shaking his head and retreating towards his spartan like bedroom.

After all, if the King of Heroes wanted to laugh after winning something then he would let him.

Though even Kirei couldn't quite believe how ecstatic Gilgamesh had been when the King of Heroes had just beaten the first level of Pac-Man.

"WHAT?! THERE ARE MORE OF YOUR KIND?! FOOL! I WILL VANQUISH ALL THOSE THAT LAY BEFORE ME WITH THE POWER OF THE ALMIGHTY HOLY FRUIT THAT TURN YOU MONGRELS BLUE!"

---

Holy SHIT! Screw having only a bit more, that was nearly double the previous chapter! God damn!

Please review and tell me any complaints, advice, or anything. It helps me a ton!

All right, for those confused about the dragon reference and the Presence reference, they were references to DxD, which I can read fanfics about but not watch it or else I feel like a massive pervert even though the fanfics are just as perverted… for some reason, and the reference to Presence is from Third Fang. He's insane. The most insane author on FF. On the planet. It's amazing.

Thanks for reading this!

Strange wants: For some reason I imagined an AMV of Eren from AOT and Lelouch of Code Geass to the song Moves like Jagger.

With the part where it says Moves like Jagger showing Eren as a pun on Jaeger and "Look into my eyes and I'll own you" showing Lelouch.

Maybe call it Moves like Jaeger

I don't know.

I'll leave now.