As promised, Here's the new chapter. Granted it's a bit short. Enjoy!
Back in the fairgrounds, it was chaos. Civilians were running away from the attacking Grimm horde while Atlesian Knight-200s were firing at the Grimm as fast as possible. Vendors were hiding behind their booths in hope that they would be safe while others tried to run for it.
"I don't believe this..." gasped Weiss. She and Blake were planning to have a nice dinner when this happened. Blake didn't respond as she felt her Scroll vibrate. She quickly picked it up to see Yang was calling her. She quickly responded, asking if she was okay. Yang confirmed she was fine as she was running in the hallways of the dorms with Zwei. Taiyang had already gone to help fight the Grimm. Yang had tried to catch up, but Taiyang was just too fast.
"Is Ruby with you? She's not answering her Scroll," asked Yang anxiously.
"No, she isn't," replied Blake. At this, Yang stopped in her tracks with a worried expression upon her face. As if sensing her turmoil, Blake continued,"Yang, I'm sure she's fine. She's our leader. She can take care of herself."
Yang could only close her eyes and curl her fists tightly before acknowledging in reply. She took a quick look out the window from her position and saw Grimm incoming, along with White Fang members.
"I'm headed to the docks near the courtyard. The White Fang are releasing Grimm into the school!" shouted Yang.
Blake shouted in alarm, "The White Fang is here!?"
Yang was about to reply when she almost crashed into a Grimm. She quickly punched it away and killed it before telling Blake that she had to go. She hung up on them.
"Blake, what are we going to do?" asked Weiss in worry. She knew the White Fang meant a lot to Blake.
Blake looked down for a second before opening her eyes. The White Fang were no longer the same. They were now just a bunch of criminals that had just threatened her friends and home.
"We're going to the docks, and we're doing our job," said Blake seriously. She went through her Scroll and quickly called upon her rocket locker, which landed behind her. It opened up to reveal her weapon, Gambol Shroud. Weiss nodded in agreement before summoning hers.
Back at the Colosseum, NPR could only look down in shock.
"Haha. The stain of the Arc family is gone!"
They looked back to see Vlad laughing. Ren was in no mood for this.
"Nora. I give you full permission to break his legs and anything else you think needs to be broken."
"You got it," replied Nora. She was not smiling. A few seconds later, a scream could be heard. Vlad's legs were now broken, thanks to Nora and the liberal use her hammer. Aurelian gasped in shock at what had happened to his father and he looked to Pyrrha, only for her fist to slam directly into his face, knocking him out rather quickly. Boyd shouted at them, but they knew that he was in no condition to fight anymore. So Pyrrha bent some iron poles around them, tying them up before dragging them on the ground. They needed to meet up with the others.
In the arena, an announcement stating that the safety barriers failing could be heard. Penny was looking up, ready to fight, even in her damaged state.
"Penny!"
She turned around to the source of the voice to see Ruby had landed next to her, grabbing one of her own swords as a weapon.
"Thank Oum you're ok!" cried Ruby until she looked at Penny's lack of arms, "Well, kinda ok. Least you're still talking."
"Thank you for your concern, Ruby," smiled Penny, "But I'm still combat ready! Even if I'm not operating at 100%."
The Nevermore from above suddenly flew up for a bit before flying directly down, piercing through the barrier, shattering it. It landed in front of Penny and Ruby, sending them flying back. Penny quickly used her projectile mode as jetpacks to stabilize herself before rushing to see if Ruby was all right. They both looked up to see the Nevermore lunge at them. Penny immediately fired beams at it, and Ruby lunged at the Nevermore, stabbing it into its chest. She twisted it to do more damage before jumping back, leaving the sword in the Nevermore. She grabbed another one that was lying about.
The Nevermore rose up flying, circling around the arena before flying back down, straight towards Ruby and Penny. Before they could do anything, the Nevermore was pinned down by a barrage of rocket lockers, stopping right in front of them before screeching in pain and passing out. The lockers opened, revealing weapons. SSSN, DSCO, CFVY, ABRN, NDGO, and FNKI had all summoned their weapons to help out.
"Can't let you have all the fun," grinned Sun.
"This is going to be a fun party!" shouted Neon. They were all standing next to their lockers, some right on top of the Nevermore. The Nevermore started to move, telling them all that it wasn't dead yet. They really should've known as it didn't dissolve yet. Octavia and Dew quickly ran to the Nevermore's head and stabbed its eyes out. Arslan used her rope dart to swing down and grab Yatsuhashi up into the air. Sage channeled his strength as he also leaped up into the air.
Sun decided it was time to show off his new abilities. He climbed up the Nevermore's back before sliding on its beak into the air. He summoned two clones while in the air. His teammates were wary, as when using his Semblance, it drained quite a bit of Sun's reserves. However, what happened next shocked them. One of the clones grabbed the other one by his feet. Sun swung his staff downwards. The first clone had been on Sun's staff and was shot towards the Nevermore. The second clone transformed into a giant hammer for the first one to use. The clone swung the hammer down onto the Nevermore's boned face and exploded, forcing the Nevermore's head to crash into the ground. Dandy quickly followed up with another bash with his disco ball, causing the head to cave in further. Arslan had just reached the peak height of her swing and let Yatsuhashi go. Both he and Sage were falling down right at the Nevermore's neck, their broadswords ready. With a roar from both of them, they decapitated the Nevermore.
As the Nevermore dissolved into ashes, Sun was confronted by his teammates.
"Since when could your clones do that?" interrogated Neptune.
"And you don't seem as tired as before," added Scarlet.
"What changed?" asked Sage.
"My Semblance... for a lack of a better word... evolved," grinned Sun, reminding himself to thank Jaune, "I'll explain later, right now we need to get outta here."
They all nodded and was about to leave when more flying Grimms came out, flying around them.
"Griffons," gasped Velvet. The group immediately prepared to defend themselves.
Ruby looked at them before asking Sun for his Scroll. Not questioning it, he used his tail to grab his Scroll and flicked it to Ruby. She caught it and summoned her locker to grab Crescent Rose. However, before she could get it, a Griffon landed on top of her locker. The Griffon screeched at her when a gunshot rang off, and a bullet hit the Griffon on the head. It flew away immediately.
Ruby looked to the source of the sound to see Port carrying his weapon, the muzzle smoking as Oobleck accompanied him.
"Students! I think it would be best for you to leave," said Port in a serious tone. It was very rare to hear him like this.
Ruby tried to argue, but Oobleck stopped her.
"Miss Rose! This day will surely go down in Remnant's history. I'd prefer it if my students could live to tell about it," said Oobleck firmly but gently. It was obvious what the man was saying. He wanted the younger generation to live, and to learn from this. Meanwhile, he had his pride as a professional Huntsman to help others. It would be a blow to his pride as a huntsman and a teacher if he let younger, less-trained people to fight for him. Especially his students.
Ruby nodded at Oobleck's words before grabbing her weapon out.
"Let's go!" commanded Ruby, twirling her scythe. The others nodded and quickly left. Velvet took a quick photo of Ruby's weapon before leaving.
With the students clear of the arena, Port and Oobleck stood back-to-back with their weapons ready as Griffons circled around them.
"One final match, Barty! Place your bets!" laughed Port maniacally.
"May the best man with a Ph.D. win," grinned Oobleck.
"Hoho, I'll take that... HEY! That means you only!" shouted Port.
"Exactly," smirked Oobleck. He was getting his petty revenge now.
Civilians and students continued to flee towards a secure air dock. Some of the students were too scared to even consider fighting. The Atlesian Knights, along with any Huntsmen and Huntresses available, were dealing with any Grimm and Mutant Grimm. Suddenly, more White Fang Bullheads pulled up, deploying even more Grimm. Ironwood was watching the crowd as his personal Atlesian Knights escort was dealing with the extra Grimm. Suddenly, they were brutally ripped apart by an Alpha Beowolf.
Ironwood narrowed his eyes as he began to pick up speed, running towards the Alpha Beowolf, with the Grimm doing the same. With a roar, Ironwood pulled out his revolver, the Tin Shot, with his left hand before sliding under the Alpha Beowolf's swipe, shooting it twice. He turned around, grabbing the ground with his right hand to stop himself from moving. The Alpha Beowolf roared in anger before charging at Ironwood, who was shooting at it a few more times before it got close. It raised its claw to swipe down, only for Ironwood to duck under it while spinning. As Ironwood got back up, he raised his right arm up, predicting the Alpha Beowolf would strike from that side. He completely stopped the Alpha Beowolf's arm. The Alpha Beowolf could only look in confusion at this when Ironwood shot its feet, taking the ground from beneath it. But Ironwood wasn't done there. Using what seemed like brute strength, he swung the Beowolf like a ragdoll into the ground before lifting it up, pointing his revolver at the Grimm's armored head. With a bang, his bullet went right through and killed it.
As he just finished it off, he saw a group of students coming over to him, recognizing Ruby in the lead.
"What's going on!?" asked Ruby.
Ironwood could only grimace before replying, "Grimm are crawling all over the city. The White Fang's invaded Beacon, and to make matters worse, some... vagabond has seized one of my ships. Until we regain command, the skies are out of our control. So I'm..." he paused for a second to take out another Grimm that was trying to sneak up on them, "...going to take it back." He looked to see Penny was standing next to Ruby, and sighed in relief. Penny was all right. He quickly told Penny to stick with the group for now.
"Everyone!"
They all looked to see NPR running towards them, dragging the Arc family. Ironwood raised his eyebrow at this.
"Pyrrha! Why did you run off like that? And where's Jaune?" asked Ruby.
At this, Pyrrha stopped and looked down before giving into her emotions, sinking down to her knees, crying. Nora looked away sadly, and Ren could only curl his hands into tight balls. So tight that he started to bleed.
There was a brief silence, Sun's mouth hung open in shock and Velvet covered her own.
"No… it can't be… not him…" Ruby said quietly, not wanting to believe that the boy she loved was gone.
"No... Please no...," gasped Dew in horror.
"Jaune…" Dandys whose giant Afro was suddenly deflated covered his face as he looked down. Whether it had to do with his semblance or not was a mystery, but every time he's depressed or sad, his afro instantly deflates, same could be said for the opposite effect when he's happy, the fro is back.
"Yes! That disgrace is dead at last!" Laughed Boyd, causing all of them to either gasp or eyes widened in shock. "It wasn't easy but we finally did it!"
Vlad glared at his younger son as he didn't want it to be known that they had outright killed him. Ironwood walked towards them, a furious glare on his face. "Is this true?"
Vlad didn't answer at first, but when he saw Ruby, Pyrrha, Dew, Sun, and all of the others point their weapons at them with one trying to literally run over and most likely kill Boyd only to be held back by his teammate, he came clean.
"Very well, yes. It's true, the boy's dead! And I couldn't be more pleased about it." Vlad confessed.
"You... You murderer!" shouted Dew in tears.
"Bah, aside from you pathetic children nobody will care. That's a stain gone for good. Plus, I did the world a favor. No need for him to exist," cackled Vlad, clearly losing it, "You won't be able to convict me of anything either! Just a few well place Lien in the right hands and Jaune Ryu-Long is one of the key members who caused this invasion. He should thank me. He'll go down as an infamous person in history, rather than be erased from it."
"Not if I can help it," growled Ironwood, who took out his pistol, jabbing it directly at Vlad's forehead. "The only one with no need to exist is you, Arc. I should kill you right now…" He pulled the gun away and sighed, "But we have more important matters to attend to."
"How? What happened?" asked Nebula.
"Those three ambushed Jaune while I was busy with my fight. They wanted to kill him with no witnesses," sniffed Pyrrha.
"Apparently, even after that speech and alarm, Vlad wanted to kill Jaune still, stating that he didn't care about others," scowled Ren. He had taken the time to interrogate Boyd. When Boyd refused to answer, he had Nora hold Boyd over the edge, threatening to drop him. When he said that they were bluffing, Nora dropped him. It was only because of Pyrrha that Boyd was alive, as she suddenly jerked him back onto the ground with her Semblance. After that, Boyd confessed to everything, hence why he was being so upfront about their crimes.
"When we got to him," said Nora sadly, "Jaune had just defeated them all. Vlad's sword was broken in half. We were about to reunite when it happened."
"It?" asked Neptune.
"More White Fang attacked, aiming for Jaune specifically. Adam Taurus, the leader of the Vale branch of the White Fang, shot three of the Mutant Creepers that had snuck up on Jaune. They exploded before Jaune could do anything, and he fell out of the Colosseum. We saw his Aura around his body dissipate," finished Ren, "The only good thing was Pyrrha ripped the ship apart with her Semblance before sending it hurtling towards the ground.
They all stood there silently, trying grasp the concept that one of their fellow Huntsmen-in-training was dead. All because of the selfish whim of a man.
Upon hearing the situation, Ironwood's anger flared once more as he grasped Vlad by his collar, looking him dead in the eye.
"I won't let you dishonor Jaune's death. I'll be sure to have you rank, your license, everything stripped from you," growled Ironwood, "I'd shoot you right here and now, but I don't have time for this."
Ironwood turned to his ship, stopping before addressing to the students, "You have two choices. Defend your Kingdom and your school... or save yourselves. No one will fault you if you leave."
He climbed up to his personal ship, intending to seize back his battleship.
The students looked at each other, before nodding. They would fight. They all quickly got on a ship that would take them to Beacon. They dragged the Arc family along with them. They all debated on just abandoning them, but they were Huntsmen and Huntresses. It was their job to protect humanity. Even scum like them.
As they were flying down, Pyrrha was with Dew and Ruby, slightly crying for Jaune.
"What are we going to tell the others?" asked Pyrrha.
"We'll have to tell them later," sniffed Ruby, "They won't be able to focus if they learn Jaune may be dead."
"I'm surprised any of us can focus," remarked Dew, "He was our boyfriend. Our future husband… we loved him… and he's… gone"
"I don't know," murmured Pyrrha, "I feel like he is somehow alive. That he would find a way to survive. But for now, I fight to make those who caused this incident to pay."
Sun was sitting next to Gwen. Both of them looked at each other before clasping hands. They would fight and survive through this. Jaune would want that. Ren, Nora, and Octavia were in the same boat.
Everyone looked ready to do what they had been trained for and fight.
Meanwhile, Roman Torchwick was fidgeting around the controls of the airship with glee, pressing random buttons. Neo then gave Torchwick a special black Scroll, who giggled.
"Oh-ho-ho! Now this one, this one's gonna be fun!"
The Scroll's screen had the same background with the black queen piece. The program inside it had a special virus in it. It quickly spread inside the ship, hijacking all the main commands. As it was the only flying Battle Airship, it had complete control over all the robotic soldiers except for Penny.
A Squadron of Knights were shooting down Grimm, with Glynda and Qrow backing them up. Suddenly, they stopped, their visors and LEDs turning crimson. The robotic soldiers suddenly turned around and aimed their weapons at Qrow and Glynda before firing, surprising them.
All over Vale, the Atlesian Knights all turned rogue, all with the same crimson color, and firing at all humans and Faunus alike.
In Ironwood's ship, he was quickly flying towards Blue Two when he noticed the robotic soldiers all suddenly turned around and pointed their weapons at him. Before he could do anything, they fired, destroying the ship. The ship came crashing down to Vale.
Ruby gasped as she saw Ironwood's ship go down, as did the rest of them. Ruby slowly started to walk then run towards the exit. She was stopped by Ren.
"Let me go! I need to do this," said Ruby.
"I won't let another person die on my watch," said Ren solemnly. He would make it his mission to make sure that all of Jaune's mates made it through this disaster alive, to honor Jaune's memory if nothing else.
"We need someone on that ship!" exclaimed Ruby.
"I'll come with you," chirped Penny, "I have extensive knowledge of the ship's blueprints, and I can help fight."
"Please, Ren," begged Ruby, "We need to get someone on that ship to stop this. Me and Penny can do this."
Ren could only stare for a bit before stepping aside.
"Thanks. I'll make sure to come back alive," promised Ruby. With that, she and Penny jumped off the ship, back onto the Colosseum. They quickly ran to where all the lockers where both of them grabbing one. Ruby hooked her weapon onto the locker while Penny stabbed a few swords into the locker to lock herself in. They both nodded to each other, and Ruby punched in a code. They both immediately took to the skies. As the rocket locker went near the stolen airship, they both jumped onto the ship. The rocket locker fell onto another part of the ship with a thump.
Roman had been busy having fun when he heard the thump, along with Neo.
"Ugh... go see what that is," groaned Torchwick, gesturing to Neo. She nodded and quickly left the bridge.
Back at Beacon, the rogue Knights continued to fire at people, but they were being destroyed by a flurry of slashes. Weiss was taking down knights with Myrtenaster along with her Glyphs, speeding and gliding through them while cutting them down. She used one as a bumper to jump back to the courtyard, where White Fang members were charging in.
Blake gave no mercy, fighting her... ex-brothers and sisters of the White Fang. She would no longer recognize them as such, and fought to protect the citizens. Weiss suddenly appeared and fired, helping Blake blast half of them away. As they stood back to back, they noticed a group of human Atlas soldiers trying to shoot down a rogue Atlesian Paladin. The virus had infected them too.
Weiss and Blake were about to help when they noticed a Bullhead crashing down. An Alpha Beowolf jumped off the ship, crashing down to the ground before chasing after innocent civilians. Weiss and Blake exchanged looks and nodded.
"Be safe," warned Weiss.
Blake nodded and ran off, chasing after the Grimm. She stopped right outside the cafeteria, looking around to find the Grimm. It leaped onto the walls, climbing up. Blake was about to give chase when she heard a yell of pain from inside the cafeteria. She looked inside and gasped, her face drawn in horror. For inside the burning interior of the cafeteria, was a person she never thought she would see again. The person had just thrown an Atlas soldier to the ground before stabbing him right in the heart.
"No... Adam?" gasped Blake.
Adam turned around, looking straight at her, "Hello, my darling."
Across Beacon Academy, various students were fighting the Grimm. All teams that had been fighting in the Vytal Tournament were now fighting to help others to live. It was a fight for their lives. However, they couldn't do anything as more and more people continued to die, either from the rogue Knights or Grimm. And Cinder was broadcasting this to the whole world.
"Beautiful," she murmured before wondering where Mercury and Emerald was. They were supposed to be here already, broadcasting this for her.
A few seconds later, she heard footsteps and turned her head to see her faithful pieces coming before frowning. The two of them looked like they had just gone through a fight for their lives. That, or they had been busy with... something inappropriate.
"What took you two so long?" demanded Cinder.
"Not... our... fault," gasped Mercury, "Crazy Faunus leader almost got us killed."
"Explain," demanded Cinder.
"Adam Taurus decided to stick around the Colosseum a bit longer instead of dropping us off, as planned," explained Emerald, "Apparently, he had a hit for the boy toy you wanted. Jaune Ryu-Long."
"And?" asked Cinder impatiently.
"..." Emerald remained silent.
"Adam basically killed him," remarked Mercury, when it was clear Emerald, didn't want to say anything, "Blew up his aura with those mutant creepers before it launched him out of the Colosseum. Last I looked, he was unconscious without any Aura when falling."
"Only problem was," started Emerald, "Was that the rest of his team was there to witness it. Pyrrha Nikos used her Semblance to hold us still and rip apart the wings. Ren and Nora provided covering fire, so we couldn't shoot back. After that, Pyrrha threw us towards the ground as hard as she could. Only me, Mercury, and Adam managed to escape before the explosion. The rest couldn't even move from all that sudden positive G-force, trapping them into the wall."
"And what was Jaune Ryu-Long doing?" asked Cinder with a frown. She had hoped to convince him to join them. His wings were certainly beautiful, fit for her. She could imagine herself flying in the air with him once she finished draining Amber of her power.
"Apparently, fighting his old man," commented Mercury, "We saw all three of the Arcs down for the count. Apparently, they wanted to kill him and manage to isolate him. He won, but that was when Adam struck."
"Disappointing," sighed Cinder, "We'll have to remind him not to act out of orders. But no matter. Adam has proven his use, and will continue to do so."
She glanced at Mercury and Emerald, and they quickly understood, grabbing their scrolls to broadcast the violence, focusing on the Atlesian Knights. Cinder put her Scroll away and started to walk away, looking to the mountains. The ground started to tremble.
Ozpin was watching the battle from three different video feeds, his teeth grinding in anger. He could see a group of Atlas soldiers, trying to take down a Deathstalker, while another video showed citizens crying for help while Mutant Beowolves were trying to climb up to them. Reese was there, trying to transport as many people as she could to safety.
"Merlot. So you managed to live and join Salem's faction," scowled Ozpin. He grabbed his cane, swinging it, ready for battle when he stopped as he felt the ground shake.
Glynda and Qrow were fighting both Grimm and rogue Knights. Taiyang had managed to find them and join them. They stopped when they felt the ground shake. Glynda looked to the mountain, her face in horror.
At the courtyard, Sage and Scarlet were piggyback riding and Ursa Major, trying to take it down when all three of them stopped to look up to the mountain when they felt the grounds tremor. So did the rest of the students.
The mountain started to shake violently, crumbling and breaking apart. Inside, various black body parts could be seen. Suddenly, the mountain completely broke apart, and a titanic Grimm Dragon flew to the skies, roaring at it had awakened from its slumber. It flew over Mt. Glenn, heading right towards Beacon, towards the tower. As it flew, it exuded black, tar-like substance that dropped to the ground. Upon impact, Grimm spawned forth from it. Ozpin looked at to the window and noticed it. He had no choice now. He quickly went down the stairs, skipping 2 floors each time. Elevators were nice, but not fast enough.
Teams gathered again once more, ready to fight. Weiss had never been so thankful for backup. They quickly divided themselves into new sections, covering as much ground as they could. NPR was ready to go when Pyrrha noticed Ozpin standing at the entrance of the tower. His face looked grim. Pyrrha nodded in understanding before walking off to Ozpin, causing Nora and Ren to be confused.
"Where are you going?" asked Ren, grabbing Pyrrha's hand, "I can't let you just walk off like this. I need to… we need to make sure that you're safe."
"To hopefully turn this around," answered Pyrrha, "You two, continue fighting here. Ozpin will be with me all the way. He'll protect me."
Ren could only sigh as he let go. This was twice, now, that he was letting Jaune's mates go their own way. He could only grit his teeth at this feeling of helplessness. Nora calmly patted his back before prodding him. He nodded and ran off with her to fight as many Grimm as they could, to save as many civilians as possible. They could trust Ozpin. He was one of the strongest Huntsmen, after all.
As Pyrrha went with Ozpin, in the distance, Cinder had her eyes locked on them.
"So that's where she is," smiled Cinder. Soon, her powers would be complete.
Jaune remains nowhere to be seen! Where could he be? Find out soon!
Short, I know. But next chapter will be up Friday for sure, same as before. Felt like ending the chapter here as it would be a perfect.
On a side note, a guest review left an interesting comment. If anyone wants to do a RWBY reaction story on my story, go ahead. I'd be interested to see how it writes out.
On another note, I can't decide whether to name the giant Grimm a dragon or a wyvern. It should be a wyvern, based on the model, but the wiki has it named as a dragon.