Weiss, Blake and Neo found their way to the first power station quickly. Thankfully it seemed things were well in order. They were stopped at the gate by the guards. "What are three armed young ladies such as yourself doing here?" He asked.
"We're huntresses with Beacon," Weiss flashed her school ID card.
"Students," The man pointed out.
"Near the end of our fourth year, on a task for professor Ozpin himself," Weiss informed the man, "We believe one of the power stations is going to be attacked tonight."
"We're fully prepared for any kind of attack, I assure you," The man told her.
You think that now… Neo thought.
"We even have a few huntsmen on call if things look bad," The man continued.
"What if you have no time to call them?" Blake asked.
The man narrowed his eyes at the trio. "What, uh… what exactly do you think is coming after us?"
"Just call your huntsmen. Now. Better safe than sorry," Weiss told him, "And do everything you can to prepare for one of the sister stations going dark."
"Alright… I don't think it's that necessary, but I'm sure they'll appreciate a night's pay," The guard relented before pulling out his scroll. The girls could tell their confidence in their words made the guards uneasy.
"Although," A nearby guard cut in, "It'll take a few hours to get the stations prepared. And a few more if we want to do it properly. We need to contact the other stations."
"Already on it," The first said, "I called the stations first. Number three responded, told me an aging hunter told them a similar story to the one the girls gave." Despite the news, the man still looked uneasy. "Station two hasn't responded."
"Guys," Blake looked up from her scroll that currently displayed a message from Ozpin, "We need to get to station two. Quickly."
"We can give you a vehicle," One of the guards offered quickly.
Weiss nodded. "Thank you. And call your huntsmen."
Ozpin felt he had reached power station two with sufficient haste. The scene he met with contradicted this assumption. The gates and outer walls were stained with blood and viscera. This creature had the power of Reaper, and the viciousness of a Grimm. There wasn't time to call any huntsmen here. The headmaster sent a massage to the others before stepping over the bloodstains and into the facility.
It seemed the creature was content with slaughtering everyone before doing what it was here to do. If there was any chance anyone was still alive, there was no time to waste. Ozpin hurried through the silent halls, hoping to find someone that was still alive. He had no such luck. The facility was empty, save for one dark figure. In the console room for the generators, stood a familiar being. Familiar, but not at all herself.
"Stop!" Ozpin commanded.
The being laughed off his request. "It's too late to stop, old man."
"What are you doing?" Ozpin asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Korruption responded, "So much useful information in this head. It makes this so easy. Such as this!" The creature manipulated a few more buttons on the console with a dark smile. "Too much Dust in any system is dangerous…"
"You cannot overload the generators," Ozpin informed her, "There are-" Ozpin's eyes scanned the generators at that moment and noticed one of them was damaged. A black scythe stuck out from between the tears. "…safeties…"
Alarms bathed the room in flashing red light.
"Then it's a good thing I already smashed one a little bit," Korruption giggled.
Flashes of green energy broke up the red monochrome, and Korruption was struck across the face by Ozpin's cane. The man immediately got to work trying to stabilize the Dust flow. A flash of steel distracted him, and he dodged backward to avoid Brutal Thorn. But the deadly scythe wasn't aimed at him, and the blade found it's intended mark, burying itself in the control panels.
"Oh my god…"
Blake's words and Neo's face perfectly exemplified the horror all three girls felt at seeing the devastation in front of them. Weiss drove them from station one to station two as quickly as possible.
"Where's Ozpin?" Weiss wondered aloud.
"He must have already gone inside," Blake answered.
Neo strode ahead of them, right into the building. She didn't notice whether they followed her lead or not, and she didn't care. Neo only wanted one thing right now.
Braving the blood-soaked halls, the girls arrived in the generator area just in time to see Korruption pull Brutal Thorn out of a control console.
The Grimm girl saw them arrive and tried to calculate her chances. She likely couldn't win a fight against all four of them. The quickest exit was behind the newcomers from WBRN. There was a passage past the generators behind Korruption, but she had no idea where they lead and could only hope it was an exit. Despite the uncertainty of the hall behind her, Korruption decided it didn't mean there wasn't an exit that way either. Not thrilled about a four-on-one fight, Korruption turned and bolted, leaving black petals in her wake.
Neo immediately took off after the creature, and Blake was ready to follow suit. The faunus only made it a few feet before looking back and seeing Weiss staring around the room. "C'mon, she's getting away!"
"She's overcharging the broken generator, isn't she?" Weiss asked Ozpin.
"Yes," The headmaster answered.
"If that blows, it'll destroy the other generators as well," Weiss deduced, "Forget force fields failing, the chain reaction could destroy this entire section of Vale's walls!"
"And without that console," Ozpin pointed to the panel Korruption smashed, "We cannot re-regulate the flow."
"What can we do?" Blake offered, seeing the severity of the situation.
"A quick patch of the generator?" Weiss suggested, "Some kind of bypass, maybe?"
"I'll handle this part," Ozpin stated confidently. "Your team mate has already engaged the target by now. You need to go back her up."
"Can you do it by yourself?" Blake asked, worried.
Ozpin gave a sly and comforting smile. "I promise you both, we shall all meet again. Go get Reaper back."
His confidence was infectious, and Blake found herself responding with a "Yes, sir."
"Weiss, wait," Ozpin held up the heiress as the faunus turned toward the far hallway. "When you see Qrow, tell him your team is ready."
"Ready for what?" Weiss asked uneasily, "And why won't you tell him?"
"I have a feeling you'll see him before you see me again," Ozpin told her sincerely.
Weiss frowned at the implication. "Are we really going to see you again?"
"I promised, didn't I?" The sly smile returned, and Weiss dared to quickly smile back. Then she ran to catch up with her team.
Ozpin's smile failed the second Weiss was out of sight. He approached the generator with no real idea what he was going to do. A bypass… maybe… He set his cane down and began to work on the device, manipulating various wires and switches.
Korruption cursed herself. She couldn't find an exit. Each dead end aggravated her further. One more wall met the Grimm infected woman. She turned back to try another pathway, but someone stood at the end of the hall. Neo blocked Korruption's path, umbrella at the ready.
"Move out of the way, little girl," Korruption warned.
Neo narrowed her eyes at her opponent.
Pain throbbed the side of Korruption's stolen head. A reminder from Reaper about their deal. "Can you really fight me?"
Korruption had to dodge Neo's answer, the bladed whip striking off the wall behind her. The mute pulled the whip back, and Korruption had to roll under it to dodge low. The Grimm planned to spring to her feet with her fist ready and aimed for Neo's face. A sharp flash migraine threw Korruption's aim off course. Her fist sailed past Neo's head and struck the floor with enough force to crack it. "Damn it, Reaper!"
Reaper? Neo arched an eyebrow.
Korruption looked up to the small girl. "She's still alive in here, you know. Still aware. Think you've got the guts to kill me? If it kills her?"
Neo hesitated. If there was any truth to that, then there may be a way to save Reaper. Though to save Reaper would mean to spare the parasite, at least for now. On the other hand, if there wasn't a way to save Reaper, then she might as well be dead already.
That's if this thing is even telling the truth, Neo realized. It might just want me to drop my guard. The small girl slowly lifted her blade and drove it at Korruption's head. Korruption threw herself on the ground, the sword barely scraping her cheek.
"You're going to kill Reaper!" Korruption shouted, "And you won't even kill me in the process!"
Neo hesitated, but she didn't drop her stance.
Korruption was running out of options. She had no idea where the nearest exit was, surrounded by huntresses while running against the clock. I have no choice, she realized, drawing Brutal Thorn. Even if Reaper was going to give her a hard time, she had to fight her way out of this situation.
Neo spun, releasing the whip and arcing it right at Korruption. The dark girl cursed, bringing up her scythe to deflect the blow. Neo rushed, and Korruption was primed to counter. She was going to swing Brutal Thorn right at her gut. As she swung, another shot of pain rocked through her skull, and her swing fell. Instead of striking Neo, the small girl was able to jump off the blade and twist in the air, swinging her whip around to hit the Grimm girl a few more times.
Lay off, Reaper! Do you want to die!?
I'll die before I let you kill her.
"Do you want me to possess her!?" Korruption shouted. She had to quickly dodge another attack from Neo. "Fuck!"
Neo was relentless with her whip, spinning it this way and that. Korruption only barely managed to keep up, being attacked on two fronts. Reaper was slowing her down somehow, she was sure of it. She somehow managed to bring the blade of Brutal Thorn down on Neo's whip. The point buried into the floor and the umbrella was ripped from Neo's hand. The small girl turned that forward jerk from the disarm into a roll she used to build momentum, running at her opponent.
Korruption swung, and again missed because of Reaper. Neo leapt and grappled Korruption, swinging around her until she built enough leverage to throw the dark girl into the ground. A quick bit of gymnastics saw Neo back on her feet while Korruption was still groaning on the ground.
Getting increasingly pissed, Korruption summoned her corrupted fire and balled it over her fist. She could almost feel Reaper smirk inside her. The fire started spinning out of control long before Korruption could use it in a punch. The flame exploded and knocked her off balance. Neo jumped and twisted, bringing her foot down on the dark woman's jaw and sending her back to the ground.
"Fine…" Korruption slowly got to her feet again, "Maybe I can't fight you… but if you don't let me go, you'll only be killing your precious whatever-the-fuck-you-are-to-each-other. And I'll just float away…"
"You seem to say that a lot."
Weiss and Blake had finally arrived, grouping behind Neo. "It makes me wonder how true that is," Weiss continued. The three girls from WBRN took up their combat poses, and the slight pressure from the Grimm girl's head felt like a threat from her unwilling host. Korruption raised her weapon to fire. The first shot was blocked by Neo's umbrella, and the second shot shattered the group.
Behind Korruption, Weiss formed a glyph on the ground. Before the creature could turn around, Blake left a Burn clone in the middle of the arcane symbol. Korruption's eyes tracked it just in time to see another glyph launch the fiery aspect her way. It exploded off her, knocking her off balance and lowering her guard. That's when Neo jumped, the small girl attaching herself to Korruption once again.
Neo twisted and swung her way around the girl's body, until she was perched around Korruption's neck and head. The small acrobat brought her weapon up, aiming the point directly where the massive black splotch was on her opponents temple. She stopped, her shaking hand starting to throw off her aim. She couldn't do it. She couldn't deliver a killing blow on Reaper…
Neo's hesitation gave Korruption purchase on the collar of her jacket. The Grimm woman threw the ex-criminal off, and she rolled along the ground to her team mates' feet.
Ozpin's attempts to patch the generator proved fruitless. As yet another wire sparked in his face, he felt his anxiety rise. One look at the generator was all it took for Ozpin to know his task was a long shot. He still gave it his all, but as he watched a hose he reconnected bust off it's housing again, he knew this was it. He always hated this part… hopefully the girls were far enough away.
"That's. IT!" Korruption shouted as Neo found her feet again. The splotch seemed to pulse, the dark veins stretching farther across her skin. What part of Reaper that was still conscious could feel the squeeze. The Grimm was doing everything it could to subdue her host. "No more interruptions, no more close calls for me. I. WILL. KILL YOU ALL!"
She didn't get the opportunity to follow through. An explosion that could likely be heard on the other side of Vale deafened them. Time seemed to slow down as their ears rung. Though they couldn't hear, the vibrations of the other generators being set off in a chain were clear and obvious. The force of the explosion began to crumble the walls around them before the heat and the fire could rush through the halls to meet the girls.
Still, the heat did come. Blake was the first to react, reaching for Weiss's hand. Specifically, the hand holding Myrtenaster. Weiss had the same idea just after her girlfriend, and four hands manipulated the settings of the rapier. Korruption was turning to face the coming fireball, reaching out her hand as if she could stop it. Neo's hand shot forward as well, instinctively reaching out for her Reaper.
Blue dust spread from Myrtenaster's tip as it speared the ground. The particles rose in front of Neo's eyes, and the air around her arm turned cold. For just a moment, the girls' entire world was a chaos of elements. Rubble, fire and ice danced through the air in a deadly ballet. Then all at once rubble fell into place, and the fireball had reached them. The cold air forming around the girls suddenly turned solid, a wall of sheer ice to keep the flames at bay.
Weiss dared to open her eyes. It had taken all of the ice dust in the chamber, but the ice wall remarkably held. They had survived the middle of an explosion. It was difficult to see through the frozen walls, but the girls could tell the building where they were in had completely collapsed. They stood in a crater left by the explosion of nearly a dozen dust generators. There were a few stacks of high rubble where building supports may have been, but the rest of the structure had been decimated.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Weiss and Blake turned to the source of this sound. Neo was punching the ice, trying to break it, and Weiss could see why. The girl's right arm, almost up to the shoulder, was trapped within the barrier. The walls must have flash-formed with Neo's arm just out of range.
"Watch your head," Weiss addressed Blake before turning to Neo, "Neo! Watch your head!" The heiress yanked her blade out of the ground and the ice barrier began to collapse. The chunks were small enough to not be dangerous, and the wall fell away quickly.
Neo's troubles were not over yet. The small girl's wrist disappeared into one of the larger rubble piles, one that stood where Reaper had been. She grabbed her wrist and pulled, whimpering in pain with each attempt. Blood trickled down the wall from the place where her wrist was trapped between two stones. "Oh no…"
"Weiss, we need to go," Blake called out. With the ice gone, the aftermath of the generators going up was clear to see. The explosions had punched a massive hole into Vale's great wall. A pale blue line of energy trailed across the sky, receding from the damaged power station. "The energy field is failing…"
A screeching sounded through the air. "And the Grimm are coming," Weiss finished. She turned to her struggling team mate, eyeing her arm with apology in her eyes. "I'm sorry Neo…"
Neo looked into her leader's eyes, then back to her trapped wrist. Realization dawned, and the ice-cream themed girl panicked. She shook her head violently. "There's no time, Neo," Weiss told her, aiming Myrtenaster at the spot her wrist disappeared into the rubble. "I'm so sorry."
A black glyph encircled Neo's wrist. The trapped girl continued to shake her head, frightened eyes locked onto the magic circle. It slowly turned red, and Weiss soon swung her rapier away from the rubble. The glyph blasted Neo's arm away from the wall in an arc of blood. The sound of flesh and bone tearing apart and a painful shriek accompanied the small girl's collapse.
It was too much for the small girl. She hadn't gotten any rest since Reaper left Beacon. She was exhausted, and now with her injury she could feel the darkness coming. The last thing she remembered before passing out was another person arriving, though she couldn't make out who they were.
Neo didn't know how long she was out. She finally woke to see herself inside of an apartment somewhere with no idea where or how she got there. As she took in her surroundings, her memory returned to her with force. She looked down at her right hand, confirming that it was, in fact, missing. Her stump was hastily wrapped in towels and tape, and she could feel ice within the bandage on her raw, exposed nerves. A door near her was slightly open, and she could hear voices drifting through it.
"Aura can only do so much for a wound like that," Weiss stated.
"We have to get her actual care," Blake agreed, "She could lose more than just a hand."
"She'll be fine for at least a few days," A new voice spoke up, rough, calming, yet also familiar. "She has to be. We can't exactly stop by the hospital."
Neo managed to find her feet and make it to the door. On the other side was Blake and Neo, talking to Reaper's uncle, Qrow.
"You're up," Qrow noted, "Good. We need to move, sooner the better."
'How long was I out?' Neo signed slowly, having to spell each letter with her one hand. Her expression was blank, though not difficult to read.
Weiss sighed, "Three hours."
Neo nodded slowly. 'And Reaper?'
"She was on the other side of that rubble, remember?" Blake told her.
And you didn't go after her? Neo scowled, moving to the window. Her scowl vanished upon seeing the scene outside. From this third-floor window, Neo could see streets flooded with Grimm of all shapes and sizes.
"They all flooded in from the breach the power station left in the wall," Qrow explained. "All the ones who couldn't just fly past the downed energy shields, anyway. The breach is drowning in Grimm, it would have been suicide to stay there any longer than we had to."
"We did look," Blake assured Neo, "but the building was devastated. The search wasn't easy, and we were on a time table."
"We also had to take care of you," Weiss pointed out.
Neo nodded and went back to staring out the window. All these answers where just the answers she was afraid of. She didn't know how to process this new reality. Just yesterday an entire kingdom falling overnight sounded impossible. Now Vale is on the verge of being completely lost, and Reaper wasn't here with her to figure out their next step.
"Beacon has its own defenses, plus it's full of fighters," Qrow spoke up, "We need to get you girls back there."
"What's at Beacon?" Weiss asked.
"Saftey," Qrow answered simply, "And likely an organized rescue effort."
"Oh."
"'Oh'?"
Weiss crossed her arms, "It's just that, Ozpin told me to tell you 'my team is ready'. Search and rescue seems a little… obvious for how cryptic he sounded."
"He said that?" Qrow's thoughts focused on Ozpin's words. He reached for his belt, pulling out the one thing he found in the power stations rubble. An old clockwork cane.
"What's going on?" Blake asked, thoroughly confused.
"I think you girls may have been recruited," Qrow explained.
"For what?" Weiss asked.
"We'll worry about that later. We still need to get to Beacon before all that," Qrow nodded to Neo.
"If we've been recruited, I'd like to know for what now." Weiss insisted.
"It's a lot to explain," Qrow brushed off, "The short version is that the parasite the took Reaper came from somewhere. It came from someone. And that person has ulterior motives that threaten all of Remnant."
"All of Remnant?" Blake cut in, "Are you talking about a war?"
"That's ridiculous," Weiss interrupted, "We would know if Vale had gone to war."
"Not a war between kingdoms," Qrow announced cryptically. "There's more to this world than any of you realize. Secrets, kept hidden because it's safer that way."
"Any war has an enemy," Blake pointed out.
"And ours, is Salem," Qrow answered. The name itself seemed to bring a silence to the room. Neo was even broken from her reverie, feeling the name was somehow familiar.
The silence that allowed the group to hear thuds and growls a few floors down. "I'll explain everything," Qrow promised, "but we need to move. Our time here is up."
As the others gathered their things, Neo's gaze went back out the window. A shadow war, that's Qrow had described. A secret war, one with motives and consequences far beyond a normal skirmish. And team WBRN had apparently been conscripted. But Neo didn't know if she could fight, and not because of her hand.
Reaper had become a large part of her life. Neo didn't even realize how much until the last few days. Reaper being gone left a deep hole, and already she felt close to falling in it. Could she fight a war if she had nothing to fight for?
"Neo, come on," Weiss called out to her from the door.
The first step to any of it was getting out of Vale. Neo wasn't the suicidal type, she was still every bit the survivor she had always been. Hard-wired instinct was the only fuel that pushed her forward, but it was the only one she needed. With a small nod to Weiss's comment, she turned to follow Qrow and her team.
And it was a survivor's world now. Grimm littered streets, alleyways and rooftops across the city. Creepers, Beowolves, Boartusks, Ursa, King Taijitu, Griffins, Nevermore, Goliaths… The horde had come. Vale had fallen. And in the shadows of the world, the ancient war against darkness would begin anew.
This is not the end