The Grimm kept coming.
A seething, roiling mass of black. Black fur, black scales, black feathers. Flecks of white, painted red, peeked out through the blackness. Claws and talons broke on stone. Pincers and stingers stabbed into the stone one at a time, ever so slowly cutting into the wall.
From atop the walls, bullets rained down. Men cried out for ammo, for reinforcements, and for help from on high. No one had seen an attack of this scale before; Grimm were never so organised. But the men, though not Huntsmen, were warriors in their own right, and fought to protect their home. With quivering knees, trembling hands, and fear in their eyes, they fought.
And Ruby watched it all.
She stood on the roof of one of the towers, flicking her gaze between the attackers and the defenders. Coco was pacing the wall below, issuing orders and directing the attack. Every now and then, when the men's fire lapsed, she would draw her own weapon and wreak havoc below. It gave them enough time to reload, collect themselves, and resume fire.
Ruby stood on the roof, the wind blowing her hair, and flinging her jacket back. It took everything she had to maintain her composure—to keep a straight face—with the scene of horror on the ground below her, but she gave it her all. In all honesty, she wasn't entirely sure what to do. There was no way she could jump down and attack the flood below them—she'd be torn apart in seconds—and when she'd drawn Crescent Rose to fire at them, Coco had stopped her.
"Save it for later," the Huntress had said. "We don't know what might happen; you might need it."
As loath as Ruby was to let the guards fight alone, she had ceded the point. So atop the tower she stood, hoping that the image of her looking down at the monsters, unfazed, would be at least a little inspiration to the men. She'd caught a few glances her way from men who looked like they were about to drop their weapons and flee; after meeting their gaze and nodding, they'd stiffened their shoulders, nodded, and returned to the fight.
Huntsmen and Huntresses are symbols of peace in the world.
It was a line she'd heard from Ozpin many times, but had never really grasped until now. They were guardians of peace, of that there was no doubt. They fought to keep the kingdoms, and the people outside them, safe from the Grimm and any other threats that arose. But there times, like this, where fighting wouldn't help. So Ruby stood as a symbol, to inspire the men below her.
At least that's what she kept telling herself.
In reality, she felt hopeless, useless, and embarrassed, knowing that so many men were fighting for Vale, while she stood above them doing nothing. The few men she'd seen looking at her had made her feel a little better, but she still wished there was more she could do to help.
"Ruby!"
She turned at the sound of her name and saw Coco standing below, looking up at her. Eager to help, Ruby leapt from the roof of the tower, fell about three metres, and landed next to Coco.
"We need to do something about all this," Coco began in a rush, casting a brief glance back at her men. "We can't just keep firing madly down at them; they just keep coming. There's no telling how many there are still."
Ruby nodded.
Coco took off her sunglasses and wiped sweat from her eyes. "Okay," she continued with a sigh. "Here's the plan: I need you to get to Beacon. Get an airship here. If you can, bring Yatsuhashi and Velvet—Fox too if he's around. We need some heavy hitters, and some even heavier weaponry."
"Yang and Nora too?" Ruby asked.
Coco nodded. "If you can. Airship comes first though. Don't spend time looking for them if you can't find them. Grab whoever you can along the way and get that airship here. We'll need to get some heavy machine guns in, and missiles, so make sure you get—"
"Ma'am!" a guard called out to the Huntresses, running from the far tower. He came to a stop next to Coco and took a moment to take a few gasping breaths.
"What is it?" Coco asked. "We're in a bit of a rush here, in case you hadn't noticed."
"Ma'am," the man gasped. "Message from the north-western section of the wall: there's another attack coming, Ma'am."
Coco swore under her breath and kicked the ground. "How big?"
"As big as this one, Ma'am, if not bigger. They're probably attacking now."
"Damn it... We'll need more air support then. Have they reported in to Beacon?"
The guard shook his head. "No, Ma'am. They can't get through either. It doesn't sound like they're communications have been cut off, just that no one's on the other end to answer."
"Great," Coco muttered.
Ruby frowned. They'd tried to get through to Beacon on the radio multiple times now, asking for reinforcements and air support, but hadn't been able to get through. Coco had dismissed it as interference; she'd been more concerned with running the battle here to worry any more. But the idea that there was no one to take the call…
Ruby looked towards Beacon. The spires were visible even from here, but they were too far away to see if anything was amiss there. Was Beacon under attack too? If so, they were all in deep trouble.
"Okay, Ruby," Coco snapped. Ruby flinched and snapped to attention. "Slight change of plan. You need to get to Beacon as fast as you can, and tell them about all the attacks. We'll need at least two airships, and as many Huntsmen and Huntresses as they can spare. Two of us might be able to do much here, but if we can get twenty or so at each attack point, we should be able to clear things up. Got all that?"
Ruby nodded.
"Then go!"
All that remained in her place was rose petals, drifting slowly to the floor.
Men cried out and leapt out of the way as Ruby burst out the other side of tower she'd been standing on and sprinted along the wall. She leapt to the parapets that ran along the wall and began running along them, in order to avoid the guards. The guards called out to her as she passed, shouting encouragement. Ruby grinned and picked up her pace.
Before she made it to the next tower, she heard a noise that stopped her dead in her tracks. Teetering atop the parapet—she very nearly fell off the wall, but just managed to regain her balance—Ruby looked back towards Coco's section of the wall—where the attack was fiercest.
The sound came again, like a line of bugles playing a dirge. On the ground below the wall, the trees began to shake. The Grimm near the wall began to pull back, as if directed by an unseen commander. They snarled, and they roared, but they retreated to the tree line. The sound of snapping trees joined the piper's call and, as the last Beowolf stepped into the forest, a tree was pushed to the ground, tumbling into the no-man's land between the wall and the forest.
A massive foot pulverised the trunk of the tree, and the bugle played again. Ruby's blood ran cold at the sight.
A Goliath smashed through the tree line and stepped into the open, braying its call and glaring up at the top of the wall. Ruby looked further back into the forest—directly behind the Goliath—and saw more black backs, and the tops of armoured heads, poking over the trees.
Two more Goliaths joined the first, trumpeting their anger at the human defenders. A chorus of roars and snarls joined in, though the monsters themselves remained hidden from view.
"We're dead," a voice stammered to Ruby's side. A guard was sitting against the wall, knees drawn up against his chest, hands over his ears, and weapon discarded at his side.
Unable to find the words to reassure him, Ruby said nothing. She wanted to reassure them, wanted to make them feel that it was just another monster. But three Goliaths? And more on the way? The guard—who was just beginning to sob quietly—was right to be afraid.
Just when Ruby thought it couldn't get any worse, she heard a high-pitched cry from above. A shadow passed overhead, and Ruby sighed. She wasn't going to get to Beacon. There was no way she could leave now. Goliaths below; Nevermore above. The guards couldn't handle this.
Her decision made, Ruby wasted no more time.
In a blur of red, she drew Crescent Rose and deployed it to its rifle form. She pressed the stock to her shoulder and peered through the scope, looking up at the sky. The Nevermore had flown over the wall and was banking into a wide turn over the city. Screams echoed up from the streets below it.
Ruby gritted her teeth and leapt from the parapet. She pushed a guard aside, knelt down and rested her rifle in between the crenulations that overlooked the city. She took a breath, trying to slow her heartrate, and peered through the scope once more.
The Nevermore had banked almost ninety degrees; it's wings were pointed almost directly up and down. She grinned. The monster couldn't have presented a better target. Taking in half a breath and holding it, Ruby focused on one of the joints where wing met torso.
The cries of the guards, the screams of the citizens and the roars and trumpeting of the monsters still filled her ears, but they slowly faded away as she eyed her target. The sound faded until she heard nothing but her own heart beating. As that slowed down, Ruby sucked in another breath, filling her lungs this time, and fired.
A puff of feathers and a spray of red fell. A moment later, Ruby heard the shrill cry of the Nevermore and grinned. The soldiers murmured around her, but she paid them no heed. The bird was beginning to turn towards them; it was coming back towards the wall.
Ruby took a breath and fired another round.
Another spray of red, this time on the underside of the same wing. The beast cried out again, and flapped its wings as it completed its turn. It was angry now: someone had hurt it, and it wanted revenge. But it was limping—as well as birds can limp in the sky. Its right wing—the one Ruby hat shot twice now—wasn't flapping as hard as its left, so it was much slower than it was before. If it flapped too hard with only one good wing, it was liable to flip over.
Someone patted her on the shoulder. She ignored it. No time. The Nevermore was approaching, and Ruby's sight was trained on its head. She tossed up the choice between aiming for an eye, and focussing on the beak—hoping to get a shot down its throat the next time it cried out. Unwilling to depend on the beast opening its mouth, she chose the eye.
Her crosshairs swung and stabilised, hovering over the monster's right eye. It was a difficult shot; a Nevermore was like most other birds: the eyes were on either side of its head. But it was possible. She should know; she'd done it before.
The wall beneath her feet trembled, throwing off her aim.
The sound of worried cries reached her ears, and someone grabbed her shoulder.
"Ma'am! We need to go! Now!"
Ruby blinked and took her eyes off the Nevermore, taking in her surroundings. Every single guard atop the wall—except for the one talking to her—had their backs to her and was firing down on the outside of the wall. The din was almost deafening.
She looked at the soldier who'd caught her attention, confused.
"The walls, Ma'am. They've almost broken through."
Ruby's blood ran cold. She opened her mouth, took in a breath to scream orders to retreat, and then the wall trembled again, violently, and she slammed into the parapet, knocking her breath away.
Ruby heard a series of thuds and screams; the scent of blood reached her ears. She opened her eyes, squinting in pain as her head throbbed and her vision spun. She saw red on the floor.
She shook her head and her vision cleared a little.
She wished it hadn't.
Men were dying all around her. The Nevermore had passed over the wall, firing its razor sharp feathers down at the top of the wall. Ruby had been protected by the parapet she'd fallen against, but the men who had been firing over the other side of the wall had been left vulnerable.
They screamed as they died, and their comrades—even the lucky, unwounded few—screamed with them.
The Nevermore passed overhead, its shadow covering them for a moment like a blanket placed over a corpse. In a surge of anger, Ruby fired two wild, barely-aimed shots. One missed completely; the other hit it in the flank—where the feathers were thickest. She cursed as it soared overhead, unharmed.
The men screamed and dragged Ruby back to the crisis at hand. She looked around for the man who had caught her attention before—who had tried to warn her about the Goliaths. He must be some kind of officer.
He was lying at her feet.
His blank eyes stared up, past Ruby. Blood ran out of his mouth and mixed with the pool of it that was gathering in the middle of the walkway.
Ruby looked around. There were significantly less men screaming now, but those left alive were doing a good job of making up for their fallen friends. There was one man still firing over the wall.
No, Ruby realised. It was a woman. Her hair was cut short, and she was a petite woman, but she was a woman nonetheless. There were so many men working on the walls that Ruby had just started thinking of them all as men, but there was at least one woman on duty.
And she was the only one still fighting on this section of the wall.
She'd gathered all of the rifles and dropped magazines within her reach and had heaped them up at her side. Paying no heed to the screams and the dying, the woman was still leaning over the parapet, resting her rifle in the crenulation, and was firing into the mass of Grimm at the base of the wall. Ruby had to admire her spirit.
The Huntress glanced to the sky before diving across the walkway. She knelt against the outer parapet and turned to the woman.
"Ma'am," the solder said. She didn't even stop firing for a moment.
"Looks like we're in a bad way," Ruby said, looking up at the sky again.
"Yep." She fired another round and grinned as it hit.
"I hear the wall's in bad shape."
"That it is, Ma'am."
Ruby peeked in between the crenulations, down towards the ground. It took her breath away. 'Bad shape' didn't even begin to cover it. Chunks of stone were lying on the ground, and the Goliaths were smashing out more with their massive tusks. They were only about halfway through the wall, but they were making ground. One dead Goliath lay next to the hole they were digging. One. That was all the defenders had accomplished.
Coco must be out of ammo, Ruby thought with a bitter smile.
"We need to get out of here," Ruby said, ducking back behind the parapet. "We need to get to Beacon."
The woman shook her head. "No can do, Ma'am."
"Why…" Ruby trailed off as the woman nodded towards her own leg.
A huge gash in her calf was spilling blood on the ground. It looked like a Nevermore feather had hit the edge of her leg and simply tore a chunk of flesh away rather than impaling it.
"Not gonna be moving on this leg, Ma'am," the woman said with a grimace. "If you say we need to go, then you'd best be going."
Footsteps approached and Ruby turned. The surviving men—even the wounded—were standing behind her, with fire in their eyes.
"She's right, Ma'am," one of them said. "If the wall goes down, then we'll die defending it. But Vale will need you down there."
Ruby met the eyes of all the soldier before her, tears in her eyes, and shook her head. "To hell with that," she muttered. "Let's just make sure the wall stays up, huh?"
There was no cheer, no adulation for her words. The men looked at her for a moment, and then nodded. They picked up their rifles and took up positions along the wall. Ruby cast her gaze upward, but the Nevermore was nowhere to be seen.
"It took off over the forest," the woman said. "Haven't seen it for a little while. You must have messed it up good, Ma'am."
Ruby smiled and nodded, though she knew it wasn't true. She'd hit it twice in one wing joint; that wouldn't be enough to bring it down. Something was wrong.
She peeked over the parapet just as the Nevermore let out a shrill cry from somewhere within the forest. The Goliaths backed away from the wall and formed an aisle from the forest to the damaged section of the wall.
A moment later, the Nevermore appeared over the forest. Ruby screamed for everyone focus fire on it, and drew Crescent Rose to do the same. Bullets hit the bird like a hailstorm, but it had no effect. Even when it got closer, and more shots hit, it didn't waver. Ruby took a moment to centre herself, took a breath, and sent a shot through the monster's eye.
It shrieked, and plummeted a few metres, skimming the treetops, but soon righted itself. Ruby could see the blood oozing from the empty eye-socket. She took another breath and readied to fire, but then the Nevermore dropped out of her scope. She pulled back and watched in horror as the monster slammed—at full speed—into the hole the Goliath's had been digging into the wall.
A loud crack filled the air. Afraid of what she'd see, Ruby peered through her scope at the wall, having to lean out from between the parapets to do so. The Nevermore was nowhere to be seen, and it was a moment later that Ruby realised it had smashed through what was left of the wall and was lying, dead, on the streets within.
The Grimm trumpeted in victory, but held their ground. Ruby eyed them in confusion. Why would they not charge? They were in. Why not attack?
Then the wall seemed to buck and lift beneath her feet. Someone cried out; whether in pain or in fear, she couldn't tell.
Then the shockwave hit.
Shattered chunks of stone flew into the air, with people in between. Ruby was pushed up and backwards, along with the soldiers she'd been with. Crescent Rose tumbled from her grasp, and she cried out.
Everything seemed to slow down, and hang in the air. The cries stopped. Everything went silent. And then they fell.
Ruby looked up at the sky, still wondering what had happened, and took a breath. Closing her eyes, she bolstered her aura. She was too afraid to flip over, and see how far the fall was, so she just did what she could to protect herself. Without Crescent Rose, she had no way to slow herself down. All she could do was take the hit.
It hit hard.
The rocks slammed into her back, taking her breath away. Her head hit something hard, and she blacked out for a moment. She could still hear everything, but the whole world turned pitch black for a few seconds. Slowly, her vision cleared, and Ruby finally saw the carnage.
Thee was rubble everywhere. The wall had been reduced to almost nothing underneath their feet. There were corpses littered everywhere, along with twisted, ruined weapons.
Ruby hauled herself to her feet and looked around. Barely a metre away, she saw the female soldier who had inspired the men atop the wall. She was dead. A chunk of rock—slightly larger than the woman's head—had landed on her chest, crushing her ribs in and destroying her vital organs.
Unable to bear it, Ruby tore her eyes away. But everywhere she looked, she only saw more death. Every soldier that had stood atop the wall was lying dead in its ruins.
And the Grimm still hadn't attacked.
Ruby staggered through the wreckage, searching for any survivors—though she knew it was futile. Try as she might, she couldn't even find Coco.
She glanced over the shattered ruins of the wall and out the forest. The Grimm had all retreated once more; they waited on the edge of the tree line.
Why are they doing this? How are they organised? She glanced at the shattered stone around her. And what the hell happened to the wall?
The sound of screeching tires reached her ears, and Ruby turned towards the city. A car had come to a stop at the edge of the pile of rubble, and a tall, blonde figure got out.
After a moment, Ruby recognised the figure. "Jaune!" She waved and approached him at a run. The Huntsman waited for her, surveying the destruction around them. Ruby slowed down as she drew near. Jaune's face looked… blank. She'd expected him to worry, to be digging in the wreckage for survivors, but… nothing.
"Any survivors?" he asked, looking up at her as she stopped next to the car.
She shook her head, dismissing her concerns. There'd be time to worry about it later. "I looked for Coco, but…"
"Coco was here?" he asked. It was apparently a rhetorical question; he swore under his breath before Ruby could answer. "Come on. Get in. We need to get to Beacon."
"I…" Ruby glanced towards the hole in the wall. Why weren't they attacking?
"Ruby." Jaune put a hand on her shoulder. "We need to get reinforcements here. We need as many Huntsmen as we can get to hold the line. We need to go."
Ruby nodded, lost for words, and—at Jaune's gesture—got into the passenger seat of the car. Jaune jumped into the driver's seat, slammed the car into gear and spun it around before driving away from the wall.
"Any idea why they aren't attacking?" Jaune asked as he flew down the streets. There seemed to be no one around. They must have all been evacuated. Thankfully.
Ruby shook her head. "None."
"Damn… Well let's hope it keeps up." He put his foot down, and the car drove even faster.
Ruby glanced into the back seat of the car and furrowed her brow. "Where's Pyrrha?"
Jaune said nothing.
"Jaune. Where's Pyrrha?"
Nothing.
"Jaune!"
"She went ahead!" Jaune cried. "She'll meet us at Beacon. Don't worry about it. Let's just get the job done. We've got work to do."
Ruby eyed for a moment, and then nodded, sitting back in her seat. He was right after all: they did have work to do.
She glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the ruined wall behind them. The wall was at down; Vale was at the mercy of the Grimm. She prayed that whatever was keeping them from attacking continued. The moment they decided to attack—with an army of Grimm that size—Vale would be all but lost.