Summer visibly flinched a little.
"Using my daughter's face to torment me is low, Demon." and for the first time, her voice held emotion, said emotion being anger mixed with pain.
Yang frowned. This wasn't going as she wanted.
"I am Yang," she noted with a hint of irritation, "and I'm here to save you."
Summer's face looked as emotionless as ever, and she said nothing in response.
"A decade in here was really hard on her", Yang noted to herself, nonverbally, with no small amount of worry.
"You don't trust me." Yang said observationally, hoping that it would prompt her to respond.
"I don't." Summer confirmed. "Everyone here is either dead or is a Demon. And you wouldn't be walking around free if you were dead. The Demonic eyes are a sign too."
"If I was a Demon, I wouldn't have freed you, right?" Yang said in what she hoped was a persuasive tone. "And I wouldn't restore your strength either, right?"
"I don't feel like my strength was restored-" and as Yang was about to remedy that, she continued, "-but I wouldn't put it past Demons to give me strength, only to take it away again, all to torment me."
Yang pulled out her sword, and pointed it at Summer, who didn't react, same given up expression on her face, and it hurt Yang so much to see her like that, like always. Her sword glowed with Holy Light, and Yang's heart fluttered when she finally saw happiness on Summer's face again, and with a pleased expression, Summer released a surprised moan.
"Demons couldn't do that, could they?" Yang said hopping that Summer didn't notice Yang's pained wince. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Cinder's group take a few steps forward, clearly longing to experience this again, but recomposed themselves, and did not interrupt Yang's reunion.
Yang had the sword stop its powers' flow, and with a disappointed sigh, Summer turned to regard Yang with a suspicious look.
"Who are you?"
"Yang de Ultimus, or Yang Xiao Long if we're using my birth name." Yang said honestly, with a tear in her eye, and moved forward as if to hug her, but seeing Summer's still suspicious glare, she stopped short.
"I don't believe you." Summer admitted. Though it hurt Yang, she supposed that her eerily green glowing eyes, and her dead complexion would make anyone wary, and Summer has been in hell for a decade. None of these things made Yang look like the friendly sort. "Though, I guess you mean me no harm." Summer paused. "Unless this is yet another trick to torture me." with a suspicious tone, she finished. "Why are you here?"
"Come on, Mom, let's get out of here. I'll rescue you!" Yang said in response.
"What's even the point?" Summer said, sounding given up. "I spent nearly a decade here, and aside from the physical torture, I spent the entirety of the time witnessing how pointless my life was. I gave my all, and all I see now, is victory after victory by Salem. And with the fall of Atlas...it's all over."
Yang didn't bother pointing out that Atlas was retaken, Summer wouldn't believe her, and instead addressed a more important point.
"Life here, it's hell, right?" Yang asked, ignoring how foolish that question sounded. After incredulous look from Summer -which Yang took as victory, for any emotion was better than her being given up-, Yang continued. "Would you say you've been a good person when you were alive?"
"Clearly not." Summer said, and Yang could swear she heard bitterness in her voice.
"Ending up here aside, I mean." Yang clarified.
"I think so." Summer said a bit uncertainly. "I tried to be a good wife, a good mother, donated to charities, helped to fight Grimm and Salem..."
"So, for the sake of argument, lets assume good people end up here too, okay?" Yang didn't feel like she had the time to debate the particulars of how the Abyss worked.
Summer gave a brief nod, and Yang continued.
"If would then follow," Yang said, unconsciously slipping back into her Overlord-like speech patterns for confidence, "that your other daughter, Ruby, would also end up here, correct? Whether she is good or evil, she is destined to suffer for eternity here. Therefor-"
"Stop the sales pitch," Summer said annoyed, "if you're bringing my family into this, then hurry on with your point."
Yang smiled. Summer hadn't given up on her family it seems.
"Of course." Yang agreed. "Qrow is as loyal to Ozpin as you. He is, therefore, as likely to disappear as you. And Tai won't stop her from following in the footsteps of people she admires, all Huntsmen. Raven, as you know, abandoned the family," it'd hurt her argument to mention that she returned, "and that leaves me. You don't believe I am who I claim to be, fine. That leaves a nearly 16 year-old Yang."
"You're saying there's no one to protect her." Summer said with a realization.
"No one who would quite understand the dangers she faces as you do." Yang agreed with a nod. "You may have given up on everything else, I don't blame you, but have you given up on her too?" Yang extended her hand to Summer. "I can set you free. I can return to you the life you lost."
"This is a trick." Summer said, but there was lack of conviction in her words.
"Maybe." Yang said with a shrug. "Maybe you're a trick for me, maybe I'm a trick for you. Or maybe, it's worth believing one last time?"
Summer clasped Yang's hand.
"Fine. But I won't believe you're Yang until we leave and I get Tai to confirm it. I'll just believe that we have common interests for now."
It hurt Yang, but she nodded. She could bear with the pain, she could do a lot for her family.
The ground trembled around them, a massive chasm opening and swallowing the entirety of the drive-in theatre whole. Yang stabbed her sword on the falling car, and grabbed Summer with another. She climbed on top of the falling car, and from it -after withdrawing her sword- jumped to the wall of the chasm and stabbed it. She climbed the rest of the way up by using her necromantic powers to make little footholds in the wall. That may have cut her life shorter a little, but if was well worth it. She reached the top, and saw Cinder's group standing in front of her.
"Look at that, our ticket to freedom managed to not die." Mercury said with fake pleasant voice. Yang thought back on what happened, and shuddered slightly. She would have fully died, and probably spent her entire dead life in the bottom of the chasm with Summer. Getting so far, and then being reminded for eternity of her failure seemed like plenty of cruel punishment. She should count her blessings that she only lost her helmet.
"Lovely to see you too, Mercury." Yang answered with annoyed sarcasm, and then heard 'You!' from Summer still in her arms, and turned to look at her, while releasing her grip on Summer.
"YOU!" she repeated outraged. "You're Salem's servants!"
"Oh." was Yang's reaction. One of the things the screen showed was Cinder's groups' destruction of Atlas, and from what she recalled of Summer's reaction, that wasn't the first time she saw it.
"We switched sides, actually." Cinder pointed out, seemingly not bothered by the accusation. "We serve the madam here, don't we?". In response to that Emerald clarified that she served Cinder instead, and Mercury shrugged saying. "I guess we threw in our lot with the blondie".
"They are with me." Yang insisted.
"And I'm supposed to ignore all that they have done?" Summer asked outraged.
Yang looked her straight in the eyes.
"What you are supposed to do is suck it up, and focus coming back to life for your daughter. You can resolve your issues with them when you are alive." Yang said in her authoritative Emperor tone.
The issue clearly wasn't over, but Summer seemed to have taken her words to heart and decided to prioritize meeting Ruby again, over pressing the issue.
The ground resumed trembling, and streams of lightning began falling, whilst bolts of fire rained, from the burning sky, and seemingly from nowhere, endless waves of wraiths began pouring in.
"Let's go!" Yang commanded, and began running from the approaching horde, and Cinder's group with Summer followed. "We clearly stayed far too long, and caused too much disturbance!"
They ran and ran, and kept dodging the streams of lightning and bolts of fire, and navigated through the ever shifting terrain, and other obstacles the Abyss threw at them. Yang trusted that this all was still a test, and let the Abyss point her where she needed to go. Once again, they rose upon yet another mountain, and her senses saw something terrible indeed.
"Oh no..." Yang said with panicked desperation. Ignoring the curious glances from the others, Yang rushed on forwards, and at the bottom of the mountain, after they have all passed, she pressed her hand on the ground and poured a significant amount of her necromantic energies, making a small ravine.
"That will stop them for a while." Yang said, and kept pressing onwards. "We'll need all the time we can get for this."
"What's got you so worried, blondie?" Mercury asked, and despite it all, he realized that if his ticket out of here is nervous, so should he be.
Yang looked around, and spotted a few skeletons of long dead creatures.
"Grab something there as a weapon. I might need help here. Or, at least, help in keeping the horde at bay if this goes for long enough." she said not answering Mercury's question.
She could feel the presence approaching her, and soon saw the imposing figure with her own eyes. She heard the gasps from around her, but ignored them.
"Well, well," the figure said with a laugh, "it's not often a man gets to meet his killer for the second time."
"Hello, Theodore." Yang said politely, hiding her nervousness. "We're just passing by if you don't mind."
"Killer?" Summer asked confused, and the man's attention turned to her, his expression turning to honest regret.
"You're here too, Summer? I hoped that someone like you wouldn't end up here. The almost year I've been here, was a horrible affair." he turned to look at Yang, and his expression turned jolly. "I had wondered why I was let go to wonder freely for about an hour now. Even my weapons were returned."
The weapons worried her. She could sense incredible amounts of Evil Energy from them. "But perhaps...?" she thought and smiled before answering him again.
"Symbolic, don't you think?" she replied instead. "How about we finish this another time? We don't want to ruin this momentous occasion."
"You're trying to wiggle out of this." Mercury stated as a fact. "Why?"
"My question wasn't answered yet." Summer added.
Yang decided to answer them both at the same time.
"I mentioned I wasn't at my best before to Cinder and Emerald, and I guess now you know that too, Mercury." she turned to look at Theodore again. "Sorry, but I'm not really doing great currently. Wouldn't be fair to have our rematch right now, would it?"
"You killed him?" Summer asked surprised.
"That she did." Theodore confirmed. "Took advantage of me having relaxed in our fight, and, well, here I am, paying my price for forgetting the Huntsman fundamental lesson, 'Never relax around an enemy, even when you think you've won'." then he continued to Yang. "A warrior must always be ready, lass. You can always rechallenge me later, because I think we're stuck here."
Yang hurriedly racked her brain for any argument to avoid this fight. She was certain she could win at her strongest, but she was very much unsure of her chances right now, especially in this place. Even if they were evenly matched, and she seriously doubted that, eventually the wraiths would arrive, and she'd be done for. "I have, maybe five minutes until that happens, ten tops." she thought, and as she was looking around, her eyes landed on Summer, and an idea struck her.
"Summer!" she said triumphantly, and ignored her looking at her, "She's your friend! Co-conspirator with Ozpin! You don't want her to stay here, do you?"
"I am sure I was released to stop you," he said instead, "and if you can't beat me, I'm not sure you can get out of here. Wherever the exit is, its guardian is probably more powerful than me. I will attempt to negotiate with my jailors for Summer's release, a favor for a favor in stopping you."
"Join me then!" she suggested with far more authority than she felt. "We can leave together, all of us!"
He shook his head.
"You're getting desperate. To me it sounds like you're shooting blanks, seeing if any convince me. I have no reason to believe you know how to leave this place."
She wanted to say anything else, but he rushed, and threw a right hook at her, and her sword rose to counter it on its own accord.
"Fine." Yang said. "You'll regret challenging me."
She shot a ball of necrotic energy at him, necromancy coming naturally to her in this state, and used the precious few seconds she won from him dodging her attack to power up into the same state she fought the Lich in. Her sword glowed radiantly with Holy power, and she rushed to deliver a downwards slash at him. He blocked it, but was blown away by the strike.
"I have maybe 18 minutes before this form kills me. Probably less." she thought to herself, and instead put on a cocky expression on her face, and yelled at him. "No one can stand a chance against us, when we work together! Even Salem's lieutenant ran away when confronted with our might!"
"That's the relic of destruction, isn't it?" Theodore asked instead, unbothered by her taunt. "Then I will fight you both for a rematch, and as the guardian of Vacuo's secrets!"
They worked together, her sword and her, one an extension of the other, the sword feeling light as rain in her hands, as she struck down Theodore's blows. She had a fleeting strength advantage, from the power of her sword, but with each passing minute she felt weaker, slower, the sword's power burning through the Demonic Necromancy keeping her alive. She hissed in irritation, as with every Holy blow that should have shattered his weapons, the Abyss poured in more and more Evil Energy to repair them. She would have to destroy them in one blow, one strong enough to delay the Abyss by even fraction of a second. Not all of his blows were stopped by her offensive-defense, and they were stronger than ever before.
"You're relying heavily on the relic's power." Theodore noted. "I don't see any of the magical tricks you used last time."
Yang didn't answer him, and broadened her senses. Her Minions and allies were holding the horde back, but the fight was taking too long, and the wraiths were about to overwhelm them completely. She needed to end this now, and she needed the swords full power now, like when they first met each other, and like every other time she wanted such power, the sword denied her.
"Fine then, you bastard," Yang said, not caring that others heard her, "I'll prove myself with even more recklessness than when we met."
Theodore said something, but she did not listen, and with a particularly strong attack pushed him back enough to give her a few seconds. She relaxed, and removed the Necromantic Energies she had put in her arm to limit the spread of the sword's Holy Magic. The power mostly had been burning this block, which showed her technique was successful, but residue energy managed to get beyond it to damage her body as well. She allowed the sword's power to flow through the entirety of her body, and with seconds left before its Holy Powers burned her body alive from inside, she pointed her sword at Theodore's gloves, and swung sideways, from one hand to another, from right to left, and demanded the sword's full power again. She felt amusement, and perhaps even a hint of pride, from the sword, and a laser-like beam shot out of the sword, obliterating Theodore's gloves as if they weren't even there.
The destruction of the gloves released a strong explosion of Evil Power, and with a snap she manipulated it into a portal out of the Abyss. The sword swung her hand behind her, towards her allies, and a golden beam captured them. Yang jumped through the portal, and the beam pulled her allies through it as well, and the last thing she felt before she lost consciousness was the portal collapsing behind them.