No Such Thing as Destiny
Chapter Six
All Fall Down
Yang lived to fight. Her whole life was one long series of fights with commercial breaks that she tried to skip over. She didn't let herself get distracted by things like how her little sister was in trouble at the top of the tower, had stumbled onto some sort of evil conspiracy, and was probably from the future. She let those things give her focus.
"I think I'm going to do as my friend Nora has so often suggested," she snarled, her eyes blazing red, "and break—your—legs!"
Mercury responded by kicking her in the face and doing a backflip. That was getting annoying. The guy had reach with those long legs of his. Her style was more solid, his more fluid. Liquid metal, like his name. Fine. She wasn't here to show off, and she'd happily splatter the silly dancing man all over the walls.
She shot at his feet, blowing up the stairs he was standing on. He hopped out of the way and fired his boot guns at her, hitting her in the chest and sending him into another backflip. Same trick. Not that he had a whole lot of other options in the cramped stairwell.
She shot herself at him, but he jumped over her, did a handstand, and, once more, shot her.
"Are you fighting me?" she demanded, "or just trying to stall me?"
He shrugged. "Honestly I'm just letting you wear yourself out, Blondie. There's no point trying to hide my plan when you're too stupid to improvise."
Yang's plan, as usual, was to hit her opponent really hard, and if that didn't work, hit him harder. She didn't need delicate precision, she just needed to care more. Sometimes people told her that she cared too much, but that was bullcrap. She could never care too much. And Mercury …
"You don't care at all," she said. "About anything."
He shrugged again. "I try to keep things professional, not personal. What does it matter to me if some little girl gets herself killed for putting her nose where it doesn't belong? Besides, you don't even know the brat's up there; you're just paranoid that she might be in trouble, so here you are, getting your butt professionally kicked."
"No," Yang said. "I know my sister. I know exactly where she is." She saw a flash of something white a few levels below her. "I know my team. I know exactly what they're doing, so I know exactly where I need to be. How about you, Merc?"
That insufferable smirk never left his lips, but for a moment, it left his eyes. "I know my job, Blondie. That's all I need."
Ice crystallized around his feet, sticking him to the floor, and from below the Ice Queen herself graced them with her presence. "Oh, just shut up and kiss, already," Weiss said.
Yang didn't kiss him, but she punched him—and shot him—right in the kisser, which was way more fun in her book. The ice shattered and he crashed into the wall, where Weiss froze him before he could react. Yang jumped down and hit him with a flurry of punches, pounding him again and again until the wall broke down behind him, sending him out into the night where he belonged.
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"Penny, no!"
Cinder turned, expecting the one-armed girl to reveal an explosive under her dress—which would actually be a pretty fun turn of events—but instead saw her thrice-cursed swords floating in the air again. Lovely. If Penny tried to shoot her with that laser canon again, then she was using Ruby as a human shield.
Instead, the swords formed a circle, spun, and fired a hole straight down into the floor.
Huh. Well, okay then.
The ring of swords moved slightly and fired again, making the room shake. No, it wasn't the room shaking. It was the whole building.
Oh. No. No, no, no.
She left Ruby—the girl was easy enough to handle and Cinder still had questions—and charged the swords, her own scimitars snapping into her hands. Energy began to form at the center of the ring, green and pulsating with the promise of destruction, and Cinder cut through them using her scimitars like a pair of scissors.
She disrupted the laser blast, and the swords, as thin as razors, shattered like glass. And then they exploded.
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Yang looked out the hole she made in the wall. "Seriously? All that climbing and we're only, what, twenty stories up? That Mercury jerk's going to live!" Of course, that shouldn't have surprised her. Any Huntsman worth his salt should survive being dropped out of the sky, let alone a skyscraper.
Weiss sighed dramatically. "If only he had some sort of student I.D. that he had to register with Beacon when he came here."
Yang rolled her eyes. "Nothing kills the thrill of a fight like bureaucracy, Weiss."
"What were you two fighting over anyway?"
Yang shrugged. "He attacked me, I fought back. He started monologuing, but I wasn't paying attention. I got the impression that he's part of some evil conspiracy that Ruby ran into at the top, but I was kind of focused on punching him in the face."
"You would. Though I think you may be right about the conspiracy. As soon as we finished evacuating the injured, I got a text from Blake. She overheard some teachers talking, and she got the impression that whatever's going on is more in their league than ours, but they're not coming to help because … reasons."
"If they can't handle it, then we probably can't either," Yang said.
"Probably," Weiss agreed.
"Are you going to advise me to do the smart thing and walk away?"
She rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't waste my breath."
Yang grinned. Then the building shook. The blast didn't come from an explosion above them – it resonated through the entire structure. Yang stumbled and grabbed onto the railing. "The heck was that?" A second explosion, even closer than the first, shook it again. "The heck was that?"
Then the skyscraper began to shift. The stairs up became more horizontal, the stairs down became a vertical drop, and the hole in the wall began to face the sky.
The whole thing was falling over.
Yang's eyes grew wide as she struggled to find a way to properly describe the situation at hand.
"Well, crap."
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Ruby felt the building sway, like someone trying on stilts or high-heeled shoes for the first time. Penny had fired twice before Cinder stopped her, and if she knew how to demolish a building …
The Communications Tower stopped swaying and began to fall.
Cinder stood up, starting to look worn. She had been hit by Penny's laser's twice and just had Penny's swords blown up in her face, and she was beginning to look tired. Ruby didn't know what it was going to take to stop that woman, but she guessed that dropping a building on her was a good place to start.
Ruby picked up her scythe and looked Cinder in the eye. Then Cinder turned to Penny and raised her bow.
"No!"
She activated her Semblance and flashed to the other side of the room to intercept and deflect Cinder's arrow. Cinder's exploding arrow. That exploded.
Ruby crashed into a desk and felt what was left of her Aura disappear entirely. It was like being naked, only worse. The next hit would cut.
The desk began to slide, and Ruby scrambled over it to avoid being crushed. She hurried to Penny's side, who was still lying on the floor and was starting to roll, and steadied herself with her scythe.
"Penny! Are you alright?"
Penny blinked twice as her eyes began to focus. "I am in superb pain," she said distantly. "My self-destruct sequence seems to have been interrupted."
Ruby glanced at Cinder, who was on the falling side of the room and was avoiding tables. "Your self-destruct sequence is working just fine." She'd need to have a talk with her later about when she should and not use that term, but first she needed to focus on keeping her alive.
She grabbed a shard of metal from Penny's broken swords, but dropped it when it burned her hand. She used her hood as an oven mitt, grabbed the shard, and, with a silent apology, used Crescent Rose to hammer the piece of metal into the floor.
"Hang onto this," she said. "I'll handle Cinder."
"You'll handle me?" Cinder said from the other side of the room. She stood upon a pile of furniture where the floor met the wall. "I don't suppose you'd agree to a cease-fire until we stop having a building falling on us?"
"Not on your life!" With her Aura depleted, she had no defense, so she'd have to put everything into offense.
"So eager to die?"
"This isn't about me!" Ruby snarled. "This is about Penny! About Pyrrha! Beacon! And this is about you!" She charged and aimed her gun midrun. A bow appeared in Cinder's hands, and as one they shot each other.
Ruby veered out of the way of Cinder's arrow, but Ruby's own shot struck true. It didn't hit Cinder—a single high-caliber Dust round wouldn't do much to someone who could tank Penny's laser cannon, but it hit the window behind Cinder and shattered it.
Next she raise the blade of her scythe and moved in for melee. Cinder didn't have time to switch to scimitars, so she blocked with her bow, deflecting Ruby's strike. Ruby followed through with her swing until Crescent Rose was aimed directly behind her.
Then she fired, using the recoil to send her crashing into Cinder and both of them out the open window.
They fell.
For one surreal moment, they were no longer fighting each other, they were merely falling. For that moment, there was nothing but the wind and weightlessness as they left the lumbering tower behind them and flew toward the stars. No, the stars were behind them, those were the city lights that—
A blade slashed across Ruby's back, cutting through her hood and drawing blood. Ruby screamed and pulled herself away, twisting in midair in time to see Cinder switching her scimitars out for her bow. Apparently she wasn't too fond of the idea of them dying together. To be honest, Ruby wasn't too thrilled with that idea either.
Cinder pulled an arrow back, and Ruby remembered she could fly. Oh, right. She fired a shot to break her momentum, activated her Semblance, and in a rush of rose petals returned to the top floor of the falling tower.
"Alright, Penny," she said to her friend, who was still hanging from a shard of metal impaled into the floor. "I'm here to officially cancel your self-destruct sequence!" She wouldn't be able to carry Penny with her Semblance; she was too heavy. Could Penny use her scythe as a mid-air pogo stick, or would they run into the same problem?
"Just as soon as I figure out how."
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Yang climbed out of the hole in the wall, and felt a sense of vertigo and nausea as the building slowly fell behind her. Above her, the side of the tower became less a vertical climb and more an incline.
"I have an idea," Yang said to Weiss. "Speed glyphs, now. Send me up the wall."
"Yang, there's no way you'll get there in time."
"I don't care! I will pull her from the wreckage if I have to, but I won't leave her behind!"
Weiss shook her head, but she didn't argue. She flourished her sword, and a line of white snowflake designs appeared up the wall.
Yang raced up it as fast as she could. She had never been much of a sprinter; that had always been Ruby's shtick. But it wasn't a matter of what she was good at, it was a matter of what she needed to be, and right now, Yang Xiao Long needed to be fast.
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Pyrrha Nikos could not fly. She could polarize a piece of metal—even her own armor—and have it carry her, but that obvious a use of her Semblance was discouraged in the arena.
She hated the arena. There was no risk in a regulated match, and the only challenge Pyrrha had ever had was self imposed, to see how lightly she could use her Semblance and still win.
But with lives at risk—not just rankings and reputation, but her friends—she disregarded her artificial limitations, and flew.
She held onto her shield as it carried her down town, racing against the falling building, passing it. She landed in the commercial district seconds before it hit the ground, and did something she swore she would never do.
She took Nora's advice.
"So let me get this straight," her teammate had said. "You can control metal. Like, everything as metal in it somewhere, so you can control pretty much everything, right? And you only use your Semblance to nudge things?"
"It's subtle," Pyrrha had replied.
"It's stupid! Slightly redirecting someone's attack isn't going to impress anyone! No, you gotta pick up the arena, and chuck it at them!"
Pyrrha had laughed, assuming—hoping—that Nora had been joking. "Oh, I couldn't do that!"
"Can't? Or won't?"
She stretched out her arms towards the tower, activated her Semblance, and for the first time in her life found out how much she could use instead of how little.
Something dropped from the sky that could have been a meteorite or a fallen angel, smashing a crater into the concrete and sending out a shockwave of flame. For a moment their eyes met—burning embers behind her mask—but they both had more important things to deal with. The woman in black fled into the night, and Pyrrha defied possibility.
The skyscraper fell. Slow. Slower.. The mental strain she felt was incredible … but not unbearable. She pushed the building to the side so it only crushed an empty street, and it landed far more gently than a structure that size had any right too.
She fell to her knees, not in exhaustion—well, not entirely, at least—but in ecstasy. If she had dedicated her training to raw force instead of precision, she might have been able to lift the tower instead of just setting it down.
"We're alive!" she heard someone from inside the wreckage squeal in delight.
Ruby!
Most of the windows had shattered on impact, and Ruby, in her formal dress and signature hood—with another girl Pyrrha didn't recognize—climbed out of one. "Take that, self-destruct sequence!" Ruby said. "Also, that phrase is really misleading, Penny. From now on, you can only say that you're going to self destruct if you're going to literally explode, not just try some crazy risky gambit that will only probably kill you, okay?"
The other girl nodded. "Is that what you say whenever you explode?"
"Well, no, but I've never exploded before. I mean, actually, I have, but only once, and that was on accident. It was horrible, I almost ended up with the nickname 'Craterface.' I'll have to tell you about it sometime never. But more importantly, we're alive! I don't know what happened, but right now, my working theory is that the CCT has built in industrial strength jetpacks to limit collateral damage in case of sabotage or natural disasters."
Pyrrha smiled. If Ruby ever designed a building, Pyrrha would bet it would end up with rockets, and they would serve a perfectly practical purpose. "I'm glad to see you're alright, Ruby," she said.
"Pyrrha!" Ruby ran up and hugged her. Pyrrha hugged her in return … and felt something warm and damp on her back.
"What's this?" she asked. "Is this blood? Ruby, are you alright?"
"I'm fine!" she said, backing away. "Really, I'm only bleeding a little bit. Penny's in way worse shape than I am. Pyrrha, this is Penny. Penny, Pyrrha. She can control magnets. You two must never fight each other."
"Understood," Penny said. Ruby's friend—she was short, with red hair and freckles—nodded distantly. She was also missing a limb.
"My goodness, you lost an arm!" Pyrrha said.
Penny nodded again. "Fortunately, I have gone into shock, diminishing the pain as well as most of my mental capacities by … an uncalculated amount."
She wasn't bleeding. In fact, her stump ended in metal and wires, a robotic prosthetic. Those were becoming more common these days, and Ruby bringing up Pyrrha's Semblance and warning them not to fight made more sense.
"What were you doing up there?" Pyrrha asked. "You literally brought down a building."
"But more importantly," Ruby said, "we brought down a supervillain."
"A supervillain."
Ruby nodded. "Yeah, Cinder, she's like the evilest person I've ever met, ended up destroying Beacon in the future, but this time, we caught her in the tower, and we kicked her butt!"
Future … when they had fought Roman Torchwick in a stolen Atlesian Paladin, Ruby had mentioned time travel. Well, if the girl didn't have at least a few eccentricities, she wouldn't fit in … but she had managed to make Jaune believe her, and Jaune barely believed in anything.
"Really. And you captured her?"
"Ha! No, you can't really capture someone like that, but you can knock her out a window. You can't spell 'defenestration' without … some synonym for awesome."
"I see," Pyrrha said slowly. "And Cinder … you said she destroyed Beacon?"
"Yeah, it was horrible. She teamed up with the White Fang, brought Grimm into the city, turned the robot army against us, and … well, that doesn't matter anymore."
Ruby was grinning, convinced that she had won, but Pyrrha knew better. The Communications Tower was a symbol of connection and civilization for Vale. Regardless of whether Ruby had averted some improvable disaster, by destroying the CCT she had ruined the Vytal Tournament. The people in charge wouldn't accept the allegations of a supposed time traveler, and they would need someone to blame.
"When you fought Cinder, was she wearing a mask?"
"Yeah, and all black." She stopped. "Wait, did you see something?"
Pyrrha turned away. Assuming that woman ran in a straight direction, she might be able to pick up her trail. "You should go back to the others. Find a paramedic for yourself, and at least an engineer for your friend. I'll handle this."
When it came to fighting Grimm, Pyrrha was merely above average, but she had spent her whole life fighting people. It was time to make use of that.
"Pyrrha, you can't!" Ruby said. "Cinder kills you in the future!"
She stopped.
"I saw it," Ruby continued. "We were evacuating the city, but nearly everyone was too hurt or exhausted to keep fighting. Jaune called, and he was frantic, asking us to save you, and I got there just in time to watch Cinder put an arrow in you. Pyrrha, please, do not go after her!"
Is that how I go? The knowledge of her death should have frightened her, but instead she found herself as calm as a summer's morning. If Ruby was right and that woman would be responsible for destroying Beacon, then win or lose, Pyrrha would have fought her to the end. That was simply who she was. And if letting Cinder go free put the entire city at risk, then there was only one choice.
She turned and smiled. "You know, I think you really are from the future. Tell me, Ruby, do you believe in destiny?"
Her eyes grew wide. "No!" she said, shaking her head. "No, no, no!"
Pyrrha smiled again. "Then I have nothing to worry about."
She turned and ran into the night. She was a Huntress. It was time for her to go hunting, and she had always been best at fighting humans. If there was such a thing as destiny, then this was hers.
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Yang had never scaled a falling building before, but as the tower got lower, she didn't even need Weiss' glyphs. Instead of crashing into the ground the building slowed down and settled gently into the street, which was odd, but at this point, what else was new?
It was still the coolest school dance she had ever been to, though. Beacon should let her team plan all the events. Could CFVY put on a show with this much collateral damage? Not likely.
Ruby was fine, of course. Yang found her just outside the tower wearing the dress that Weiss had forced her into and the hood that Weiss hadn't permitted. Her friend, Penny, was lying on the road and didn't look to be in the best of shape, but Ruby was fine.
"Yang!" Ruby said, looking up.
Yang hopped down. "Did you miss me?"
"I need your help! Penny's hurt. I need to get her to General Ironwood, but she's too heavy."
"It's a good thing your friend's too unconscious to hear you say that," Yang said, getting a better look at the red-head. "Yikes! What happened to her arm?"
"She lost it in the fight. Then she went into shock. Then she passed out."
"Huh." It looked like just a mechanical arm, and those could be repaired. "Was this before or after you knocked over a building?"
"She did that one."
"Well, either way, never let anyone tell you that you don't know how to show a girl a good time." She felt around the girl's neck for her pulse—and got nothing. Oh no. "Um, Ruby?"
"It's okay, that's normal."
"I think she's dead."
"No, that's normal. Penny, wake up!" The girl opened her eyes, looked around, and then went back to sleep. "See? I just need to get her to General Ironwood. He'll know what to do."
"If you say so." She lifted Penny off the ground, and found herself straining under the girl's weight. She didn't look any bigger than Ruby, and Yang could practically juggle her, but Penny was something else. "You're right! She is heavy. And can live without a pulse. What's going on?"
"It's a long story."
"Well, you can tell me on the way."
Ruby looked off into the distance. "Actually, there's something I need to take care of first. Just focus on getting Penny to Ironwood. Also, don't trust Emerald or Mercury. Emerald is really tricky and she can make hallucinations with her Semblance. Mercury is just a jerk."
"Yeah, I gathered that," Yang said.
"When you get done, I may need you and the others to come find me. I'll leave you a trail of rose petals to follow."
"Simple enough." Yang hesitated. "What are you planning on doing?"
"The same thing I've been trying to do since I got here."
Yang raised an eyebrow. "Save the future?"
Ruby shook her head. "No. I'm going to save Pyrrha."
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"Cinder! Where are you? What happened?"
"We've been compromised. Is Mercury with you?"
"He's … around. What do you mean, we've been compromised?"
"I mean we've been compromised! I'm working on the details, but for now we're pulling out. Find Mercury, and get to a safehouse. I'll contact you later."
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Cinder was growing to despise robots. She had been thrilled when Ironwood began shipping the units to Beacon en masse; if she could infect them with Arthur's virus she could implicate all of Atlas in Beacon's inevitable fall, but after being swarmed by squadron after squadron of those tin men, she wanted to destroy them more and more and control them less.
Also, she was forced to leave a trail of scrap metal. Not the best way of making an inconspicuous escape, but as soon as she made it beyond the perimeter, she could stop fighting.
Stop fighting. She never thought the night would come when she looked forward to that, especially after she had gained the Maiden's power. But she was only half a Maiden, half of what she was meant to be.
A force crashed into her from behind, knocking her down. She rolled to her feet in time to deflect a flying shield and a flurry of sword strikes. Cinder jumped back and saw her newest assailant.
Pyrrha Nikos. Even without research, the girl was famous. A prodigy among prodigies, an undefeated record as a duelist, and no recorded Semblance. At any other time, Cinder would have loved to fight her, to show her what true power was, but right now, she just wanted to be done.
"Cinder," Pyrrha said. "I've heard terrible things about you."
"And I'm beginning to wonder why I bothered wearing a mask in the first place," she said, taking it off. Her cover was blown anyway. "It seems like everyone I've met to night is dolled up for a ball, and here I am feeling underdressed."
"You should have gone anyway. You might have had more fun at the dance than knocking over buildings."
"I highly doubt that." She hadn't knocked over any buildings tonight, but she'd be surprised if people didn't blame her for that. "If anything, I've had too much fun. I've even summoned my own personal killjoy. Unless, of course, you're here to play with me instead."
"I'm not here to play, Cinder," Pyrrha said. "I'm here to stop you."
Cinder laughed. "Stop me? You silly girl. You have no idea what I'm capable of."
"I know what you're capable of, and like I said, it's terrible. The only thing I don't know is what I'm capable of."
Pyrrha attacked, thrusting with her spear. Cinder stepped back and felt for the rhythm. One, two, three! She dismissed her blades, grabbed the spear right below the head, and let a lifetime of rage, pain, and hunger flow into it.
The bronze turned to burning gold, warped under her hand, and shattered.
"You said you weren't here to play," Cinder said, her scimitars reforming in her hands. "Forgive me for taking you at your word."
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To her shame, Pyrrha's first instinct was to forfeit. That was simply what one did in a match, and there was no shame in leaving the ring when the fight was clearly over. But this wasn't a duel; this was a death match, and she would fight to whatever end she merited.
She had never fought without her weapon, though. A military force might have standardized armaments, but a Huntress was defined by the weapon she carried, hand crafted to fit her perfectly. Without Miló, what was Pyrrha?
According to her reputation, she was invincible. She held her shield up and backed away before Cinder's attack, losing ground, stumbling over broken robots. She had never needed to bluff in a fight before, but it worked. Cinder never saw the robot's rifles rise into the air until they opened fire.
Cinder screamed as bullets bounced off her Aura, and she flung shards of glass in every direction. Pyrrha ducked behind her shield, but the floating guns broke into pieces, shattered by crystals. Well, that trick was only going to work once anyway. She did a handstand backwards over a parked car and, with a silent apology to its owner, threw it at her opponent.
The car pinned Cinder to a wall, leaving a crater in the brickwork. Cinder brought her hand palm down onto the vehicle, and it exploded, sending parts and shrapnel in ever direction. Only flames remained, and Cinder walked across them unscathed as though the queen of hell.
"Polarity," she said with one eye burning. "That would have been much more useful to know if I were planning on letting you live."
"I see you have pyrokinesis," Pyrrha replied. "It suits you."
Cinder smiled. "Pyrokinesis? I am far greater than anything that can be confined by words. Still, I am content to watch you burn."
She stretched out her hand and the flames at her feet rose and swirled around her, forming a coiled snake above her head. The snake attacked, but Pyrrha sidestepped out of the way—and right onto a patch of asphalt that had begun to glow gold. Not waiting to see what it would do, she jumped off of it right before it exploded and nearly landed on another patch of glowing ground.
She threw her shield under her, held it in place with her mind, and jumped off of it. She magnetically tossed it at Cinder and grabbed onto a street light, ripping the metal pole from the sidewalk. She swung it with two hands and one mind, and sent Cinder flying into a wall just as the woman finished stepping around the shield.
Nora would be proud.
Cinder rose one last time on shaking legs, coughed up a trickle of blood that dripped down her chin, and fell to her knees.
"Give up," Pyrrha said, holding out her pole. "You've lost."
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Cinder was drained of all her Aura, exhausted beyond belief, and every breath she took strained against her fractured ribs. But that was nothing compared to the pain of defeat.
And she was defeated, kneeling before her enemy—no, a pawn of the enemy too proud to face her himself—because she no longer had the strength to stand. If Cinder had her heart ripped from her chest, she could die with a smile on her face if she could die knowing that she had won, but this?
What had she done to end up like this? There must have been a moment when she could have changed the direction she was headed. Maybe if she pulled out of the CCT when she found Ruby Rose and that other girl waiting for her—but no, by then Ruby already knew too much. Maybe if Cinder hadn't tried to infiltrate Beacon as a student from Haven and had come up with another way to find the Fall Maiden.
Or maybe it had started with the Fall Maiden herself. It had seemed so perfect in the beginning. Like a fairy tale. Like destiny. Salem had needed someone of the right age and sex to inherit a Maiden's power, and all Cinder had to do was kill some girl.
Maybe if she had struck sooner and finished the job before Qrow Branwen had shown up, then she wouldn't have to care who knew her secrets, she wouldn't have to infiltrate anything.
And she wouldn't have that primal flame within her, yearning, hungering for its other half. She'd be whole.
But that was just a dream. Hope was a zero sum game, and if she wanted anything, she'd have to take it from someone else. Now Pyrrha was going to … she was going to … accept her surrender?
No, giving up wouldn't help her. Autumn was still alive, so Ozpin would simply have Cinder killed to restore the original Fall Maiden … if he knew what Cinder was. She had used her Maiden powers tonight, but not against anyone who would recognize them. Maybe if she feigned weakness she could wait until her captors let their guard down, escape, and start over.
Could she do it? Could she surrender if that was what it took to stay alive?
She fell forward and landed face first in the dirt. She was more exhausted than she had ever been, and it was only her pride that kept her from falling asleep where she lay.
"Hello, Jaune," she heard Pyrrha say. "Yes, I'm fine, I … well, it's a long story. Suffice to say, this isn't how I was hoping this evening would go." She paused. "Yes, I suppose there is still next year. Anyway, I've captured the one who knocked over the CCT—I did say it was a long story, Jaune. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. Right now, I need someone to secure the terrorist." She paused again. "To be honest, I don't think local law enforcement can handle her. Could you Professor Goodwitch or someone I have the perpetrator at … where am I? At Marigold Avenue and Curds Way. Yes, by that old bookstore. Shame it closed."
Wait. Just wait. Keep your head down, don't look anyone in the eye, and you won't get hurt.
But … was that she wanted? Was she so in love with her own life that she would do whatever it took to survive? No. She wanted … she wanted …
I want to be strong.
They said that the strong lived while the weak died, but that was nonsense. Cowards lived. Staying down would keep her alive, not because it was an act of strength, but because it was an act of cowardice.
I want to be feared.
That was another zero sum game. Either you feared them, or you made them fear you. When everyone feared her, she would fear nothing.
I want to be powerful.
Strength was a choice, but power, that was was something greater. Deeper. Destiny. And all she had to do …
All she had to do was kill some girl.
She rose and struck. There was no planning in her attack, no subtlety, just desperation. Pyrrha stretched out her hand on reflex to push away her weapon with her Semblance, but Cinder's scimitar was made of glass, and the blade shattered the girl's Aura and plunged deep into her flesh.
Pyrrha fell backwards, and Cinder fell on top of her, letting her weapon disintegrate into nothing. Pyrrha's eyes grew wide as she felt both her victory and her life stolen from her without warning, while Cinder... Cinder felt exultant. She was so close she could practically taste the fear in Pyrrha's eyes, and she could feel the girl's hot, wet blood seeping into her clothes.
It was the difference between ending a life, and taking one.
She stood up. Cinder still needed to go into hiding, probably leave the city, and replan practically everything, but that didn't matter. She had won. She smiled.
WWW
By the time Ruby had found them, Pyrrha had already won. That surprised her. Hadn't Cinder killed her in the future? But maybe she had just been in better shape back then. This time, Cinder had taken a heavy beating from Ruby and Penny (but mostly Penny) before Pyrrha even showed up, so maybe that was enough to make a difference.
Ruby watched them through the scope of her sniper rifle, worried that if Pyrrha caught her she'd scold her for coming instead of tending to her "injuries." It was just a scratch, really. Sure, it made it hurt to run, but it didn't stop her from running, and …
And in an instant, it all turned upside down. Cinder struck like a snake, and suddenly it was Pyrrha who was on the ground and Cinder who was standing over her, one eye burning. Smiling.
Ruby's hands trembled. No. No, no, no. She had failed. Again. "You have to save Pyrrha!" Even with a two week head start, all she had accomplished was to watch her die again.
"You want to be a hero? Then die like every other Huntsman in history!"
If anyone had died like a hero, it was Pyrrha. But what did that even mean, to die like a hero? You didn't need to be a hero to die; anyone could do it. Even Roman died in the alternate timeline. It didn't make you special. You didn't become a hero by dying. You became a hero by … by fighting to the end.
And it wasn't the end yet, because Ruby was not finished.
She stilled her hands, calmed her mind, and took a shot.
Every time she had tried this before, Cinder had deflected the bullets with a casual ease, but that was then. Now, everyone was on their last legs, and Cinder took the shot to the head and dropped.
For a moment, she didn't know what to do. She couldn't keep on fighting because the fight was finally over, so she … so she got up and forced herself to check on her friend. She walked, but soon began to run, building momentum, gripping the hope that there was still something she could do.
By the time she reached Pyrrha, she hurt all over, body and soul, and Pyrrha was on her back staring at the shattered moon. "R-ruby?"
"Pyrrha! You're alive!"
"How bad is it?" she whispered.
Ruby examined her. It was hard to tell because Pyrrha was already wearing a blood-red dress, but she saw a gut wound that was leaking like a faucet. That was better than an arrow to the heart, right? You needed a heart to live, but you only needed your guts to eat, so Pyrrha would be fine until breakfast tomorrow morning.
But there was still all the blood to worry about. How much did you need to live? This was exactly the sort of stuff they should have taught her at school. Could she cauterize the wound? One of the cars had caught on fire and exploded, so she could try, but she didn't know the first thing about that sort of thing.
"Hey, Pyrrha? I know you're not feeling well, but I need you to tell me everything you know about first aid."
Pyrrha didn't respond.
"It's okay, if anyone deserves a nap, it's you. I'll figure something out."
A few feet away, what was left of Cinder's face was still smiling, as though mocking her. Ruby tried to piece together a solution with the tools she had on hand, but all she saw was red. Red hair, a red dress, red blood … red like roses.
And then she had it. She propped up Pyrrha into a sitting position, took off the hood that she had worn for nearly her whole life, and wrapped it around Pyrrha's waist like a bandage. After that, she stayed with her until help came.
WWW
Amber breathed in sharply and woke up in a panic. Where was she? What was she doing here?
She had been attacked. Ambushed. A three-person team attacked her on the road, and then one of them had a Grimm crawl out of her hand, and, and …
And then she was captured, stuffed in this, this pod, to be … studied? Well, whatever the case, she wasn't planning to stay to find out. Power pulsed through her, like a raging storm, like life. She focused that power against the metal shell around her, and released.
The pod burst open and she stepped out onto cold marble tiles, finding herself in a dark room. It was huge, with ceilings at least a hundred feet high, and the sparse lights gave the room a sickly, green glow.
There was a man in the room with gray hair and a lean build, facing the opposite direction, ignoring her display of power. "The circumstances are hardly ideal for our meeting," he said. "You find yourself in a strange room, half dressed, far from home. It's only natural that you would regard everything I say with extreme skepticism."
Amber realized she was in her underwear, and as soon as she noticed that, clothes grew over her skin. It wasn't the flashiest of her powers, but it came naturally to her, and it helped her avoid embarrassing first impressions with mad scientists in secret laboratories.
The man turned around, as though he were simply waiting for her to get dressed. He rested both hands on a cane in front of him and looked at her through bespectacled eyes. "But believe me, Amber, when I tell you that you are safer now than you have ever been since you inherited the Maiden's powers. My name is Professor Ozpin, and I'd like to welcome you to Beacon."
WWW
A/n Have you ever read any of those crazy long fanfics that go on for over a hundred chapters that could crush a small dog if they were ever published into a book? Yeah, I can't do that. I toyed with a couple of ideas that could drag this story on for a while longer, but considering how long it takes me to write a single chapter, I decided to do something sane instead. I know, I know, a controversial choice, but it's mine. This is the second to last chapter of Destiny, and the next one is going to be pretty much an epilogue where Ruby wakes up in bed after the fall of Beacon and finds out that she dreamed the whole time travel story because she couldn't cope with the bitter reality of life (I won't). Or where I tie up all the loose ends. One of the two.
As usual, I'd like to give a huge thanks to Magery for proofreading this chapter and giving me some much needed advice on how to handle different parts of it. I wouldn't have gotten this far in the story without him. The same goes to my readers who left reviews to give me feedback on what you thought. Until next time with the final chapter.