Chapter-50

Qrow, Ironwood, Ozpin

Tukson looked out at the empty streets of Vale.

Only moments ago, they'd received a broadcast from Headmaster Ozpin that Beacon Academy had fallen…

I never imagined something like Beacon Academy could ever fall to the grimm. Tukson thought. The scene with amity arena was already concerning, but the news of the Fall, and the news that the grimm were coming for Vale…

This all feels like the apocalypse in an action movie. Tukson thought. The grimm were intent on putting an end to the King of Vale this night.

He was about to close his shop and leave with other people in his neighborhood for the shelters. He was scared, and hoped that the huntsman's association would be able to defend the city and not have it fall to the grimm.

Tukson just had one last customer in his bookshop.

"You're telling me no one else has infiltrated the city?" Tukson asked as Adam Taurus nodded, sitting and reading a book on the sofa.

"No. I told Banesaw to make sure no white fang agent comes to Vale…"

"...Why is that?"

"Well, I was a gullible fool, that's why." Adam replied.

"..."

"Our 'allies' had come with immense resources and power that I knew would be instrumental in bringing down this kingdom's government, but in the end, we were nothing but pawns to them."

"...You're no longer on their side."

"Well, that remains to be seen. The only reason I'm even here is so that I could talk to that witch Cinder Fall and clarify where we stand. That is, if the grimm don't bring down Vale tonight."

Tukson scowled. "And you are that cruel as to not help? Even if you hate humans, you do understand that the grimm don't care about race!"

"Of course I do. But the problem is, I will be leading them into a slaughter. Many of our soldiers are young and bright-eyed. They have a firm belief in our cause, and certainly are not ready for the grueling experience of fighting the grimm to protect a city that shuns them. Now, keep quiet, Tukson." Adam spoke as he got up.

"I need to go make a call."


The Battle of Vale began with the booming sound of Vale's dust mortars and the dust cannons of Ironwood's warship firing upon the grimm.

The ground underneath Qrow's feet trembled as explosions lit up the darkness, showing the mass of grimm growling and howling as they scrambled towards the walls.

Qrow racked his brains back to Port's grimm studies class in his fourth year that explained the tactics of grimm hordes sieging different kingdoms.

First the mass of beowolves will act to keep unending pressure and also allow the more specialized grimm to climb up their bodies to get into the wall. Qrow thought as the black mass surged forward, but the unrelenting bombardment of the dust cannons continued to push them back.

Huntsmen came out of small flaps within Vale's wall and cut down any beowolves that got too close for the cannons to do their work, assisted by soldiers firing their weapons from within the wall.

Many huntsmen let out cries of anger as they killed any grimm that got close to the wall, their rage over Beacon's fall all being directed at the grimm.

Soon, however, the Goliaths came up, as the fire dust exploded against their armor, which cracked slightly, but the Goliaths kept pushing on.

In the sky, Nevermores and Danus clashed with Atlesian fighters and Valeian airships, with Huntsmen coming out to clear out grimm that landed on the airships while other huntsmen jumped out of bullheads to kill the grimm before hopping onto others.

Within the battle taking place within the sky, Qrow could notice the distant signs of Schnee Glyphs forming along with white projections of the grimm helping the huntsmen bring down Danus. He could see Winter riding a manticore with a bunch of nevermores as she brought down Danus.

But some of them manage to lob Grimm ether onto the top of the wall.

"Here we go." Qrow muttered, raising his blade as the grimm came out.

He rushed towards some beowolves rising out of the grimm puddles and cut them down, before some Atlesian soldiers came up and froze the puddle with ice dust and shattered it.

That was the common strategy followed by the huntsmen and soldiers on the wall - kill the grimm that came out of the grimm pools, and then freeze those pools before shattering them.

However, even then, many grimm were able to come out relatively quickly.

Qrow spotted a grimm heading towards him. They were humanoids with four arms that ended as white bony spikes, along with the same spikes erupting from their heads. Instead of feet, the grimm had razor sharp bone blades that allowed them to slide across the ground much faster than regular grimm.

Bladeswipe, an inland species of grimm.

Qrow ducked as the bladeswipe swung their arm towards Qrow's neck, before bringing up Harbinger behind him as the same bladeswipe lashed out with all four of its arms, stabbing at the speed of a machine gun at Qrow's back, as it slid around him before swinging its bladed leg at Qrow's waist.

Qrow blocked the leg and jumped back as the bladeswipe's neck elongated and it swung its spiked head like a flailing mace.

Qrow shifted harbinger to gun form and shot, nailing the bladeswipe in the head and knocking off some of its spikes, but not enough to blow away its head.

The bladeswipe let out a shriek and rushed towards Qrow, before jumping up and elongating its neck again.

Qrow dodged as the bladeswipe slammed its head against the ground before attempting to stab it.

However, the bladeswipe's arms darted back and Qrow was forced back as the bladeswipe pulled its head from the ground.

Nearby Atlesian soldiers came up and shot at the bladeswipe, but its arms moved at blurring speeds and deflected all the bullets before moving quickly and skewering the soldiers with its arms.

Qrow shot once more with harbinger, but this time, the bladeswipe dashed to the side, wiping the corpses of the soldiers off its arms and dashing to once more impale Qrow with its arms.

The Bladeswipe swung its arms towards Qrow's limbs, as Qrow blocked its blows with harbinger. But dealing against four arms was hard, and Qrow received a few slashes to his aura.


Back on the wall, the Goliaths finally reached the wall, as imps jumped from their backs and climbed into the flaps on the walls. Although the huntsmen cut them down, many of the imps manage to tear soldiers into pieces.

The huntsmen on the ground engaged with beowolves and orthruses, while Deathstalkers came up and started breathing poison into the hollow portions.

"MASKS!" A huntsman screamed inside as the huntsmen put on gas masks to avoid the poisonous breath seeping into the sections. One of the soldiers shattered a crystal of wind dust and blew the poison out, before a group of huntsmen came out for a brief moment and quickly put down the deathstalker.

"Goliaths incoming!" The huntsmen spoke as they went to retreat back into the wall, only for a goliath's trunk to wrap around one of the huntsmen's waist.

"Help!" He yelled as a huntress came up and stabbed her dust blade into the goliath's trunk before discharging electricity and forcing it to let the huntsman go. The two then slipped back into the wall.

With that, the goliaths finally found themselves up against the wall and smashed their heads against it.


The goliaths slamming their heads against Vale's wall sent tremors that made Qrow stumble and trip, falling down to the ground as the bladeswipe came forward and attempted to split his skull open with a kick from its leg.

Qrow blocked the kick with Harbinger, and countered with a kick of his own, getting the bladeswipe off him before firing at it

For some reason, he started remembering Port's lecture to Tai when he got smacked in the face by a bladeswipe's spiked head.

"Taiyang, a bladeswipe has much faster reaction speeds than us and is practically built for engaging in melee combat. Unless you have a speed semblance like Summer, I suggest sticking to ranged weapons."

I can't catch this bastard off-guard now. But reaction doesn't matter if it can't take the measures to avoid my attacks. Qrow thought as the plan formed in his head.

Qrow avoided a slash from a beowolf and shot it dead with Harbinger, before jumping onto a beowolf's back as the bladeswipe stabbed its arms into the beowolf.

Qrow jumped off and smirked as the bladeswipe started quickly hacking the beowolf's corpse into pieces, exposing the .

He pointed Harbinger once again and shot. This time, the bullets hit the exposed portion of the blade swipe and blew its head off.

The bladeswipe let out one last shriek before dissolving.

However, Qrow didn't have the time to savor his victory as a bunch of orthruses and beowolves came up.

"INCOMING!" He heard a huntsman yell as Qrow looked up to see an Atlesian fighter tumbling down towards the wall, having knocked out of the sky by a gravity surge by a Danu.

"Shit!' Qrow spoke jumping to the ground as the fighter crashed right beside him, scraping onto the top of the wall.

A huntress rushed to the plane, ripping off its cockpit window and quickly getting the pilot inside to safety.

At this moment, a bunch of new grimm arrive. These ones were also floating in the air, with their heads at the bottom of their body, shaped like a funnel with rows of sharp teeth. Fiery veins glowed across their body as their right arms were nothing but grimm bone shaped like gun barrels which were glowing.

Shooters.

Oh gods damn it, I was hoping these guys would come later. Qrow thought as the shooters' heads drilled into the ground below, consuming the concrete into their bodies before raising their right arms.

"Shields!" An Atlesian soldier yelled as the soldier put down a long white bar that projected a hard-light shield, as the shooters began firing pieces of molten concrete like bullets that hit the hard-light shields.

I could still remember the class' reaction when Port mentioned these nightmares. Qrow thought. Who could imagine that the grimm would somehow manage to make up their own versions of guns?

Gods, I hate Thane's adaptation principle. Qrow thought as the shooters' heads continued drilling the ground to supply themselves with an almost endless supply of ammunition.

The soldiers attempted to throw grenades at them, but the shooters shot the grenades out of the air.

Shooters were a pain to deal with because their onslaught was nonstop due to their heads constantly drilling the ground for ammunition. A single one would have been dealt with, but the amount of bullets being fired would cut down huntsmen should they try to get close.

A blur went past Qrow, as he noticed Achilles charge the shooters.

The shooters' bullets bounced off Achilles' body as he blazed past them, cutting them down with his spear.

Man, I wish aura was as good at protection as Achilles' trick. Qrow thought as Achilles cackled while slaughtering the shooters.

Some of the remaining shooters then went towards each other and merged, their bodies merging into a much larger grimm with multiple heads drilling into the ground and numerous rifle-like arms as well as a structure shaped like a single huge cannon mounted on the top.

A Belenos shooter.

The Belenos Shooter began drilling multiple spots into the ground as his large cannon started glowing with flames.

Oh no way we're letting this thing charge up! Qrow thought.

"Achilles, kill that thing before its cannon vaporizes us!" He called out in alarm as Achilles immediately jumped up.

The Belenos shooter's numerous arms fired a storm of bullets at Achilles, all bouncing off his body. Before the Belenos shooter could fire its cannon, Achilles slammed his spear against the cannon with enough force to shatter it, before running back as the Belenos shooter exploded.

"Man, I don't think our regular soldiers back in greece could have dealt with this sort of stuff." Achilles spoke as he came back up beside Qrow.

"Well, you said they don't have aura?"

"Nope."

"Then they would have stood no chance against the grimm, unless people like you helped out."

"True, true."

"By the way, how's Jimmy doing?"


On Ironwood's warship, Atlesian huntsmen were fighting against grimm brought upon their ship by the Danus.

Among them, Ironwood stood, shooting down beowolves and ursa alike with his pistol.

"Winter, status on the interior?" He asked Winter, who had an aerial view on her Manticore.

"Some of the Danus were able to sling in a few shots, but the Beacon fourth years cleared them out."

"The Wall?"

"From what I can see, things are also pretty fine. Although, we need to do something about the Goliaths."

"Any progress?" Ironwood spoke as he stopped to reload his pistol, allowing a beowolf to lunge at him.

Ironwood dodged the slash and pointed his pistol at the beowolf's lower jaw and unload a single round into it.

"No, but…Wait, there's something wrong."

"What?"

"I see Imps climbing onto the Goliath's backs. They're carrying fire dust crystals."

Back at the wall, Imps clambered onto the goliaths holding fire dust crystals. Once the imps reached the backs, they stabbed the crystals into the goliaths.

The Goliaths trumpeted as their tusks glowed hot with flames before they slammed their heads once more.

This time, it cause an explosion, causing the outer layer of one of the wall's sections to collapse.

"They're causing more damage now!"

Ironwood's eyes widened as he called the control room.

"Take the ship towards the goliaths! Fire once you get a clean shot!"

At that moment, Ironwood noticed a bunch of Shooters come up and fire off their bullets.

Ironwood immediately put up a hard-light shield as the bullets crashed against them, while the huntsmen were pushed back by a number of bladeswipes.

Ironwood then noticed a bunch of nevermore drop grimm from the sky. These grimm were extremely tall and slender, with their heads opening up like a flower lined with sharp teeth in a gaping mouth, and a single eye on their chests. Their arms and legs were heavily armored.

"Tyrants." Ironwood muttered as the Tyrants created their own energy shields to block attacks by the huntsmen, before their claws glowed purple as they lifted chunks of metal with telekinesis and threw them at the huntsmen.

Ironwood attempted to shoot at the Tyrants, but his bullets bounced off the energy shields before one of the Tyrants turned to him as its mouth glowed.

"Oh…" Ironwood spoke as the Tyrant fired off a beam of energy from its mouth straight at Ironwood, and exploding.

"General Ironwood!" One of the huntsmen exclaimed before Ironwood emerged from the smoke, most of his upper clothing charred as he ripped them off.

"Hm…I paid so much lien for that." Ironwood muttered in disappointment before smirking.

"But well, at least that means I can actually try a bit harder. It's been some time since I did this." He spoke before firing up his semblance.

Metal spread from arms, quickly covering his entire body while Ironwood's body as his eyes started glowing red.

Ironwood clenched his fist before punching it against the ground, sending a minor shockwave.

"Come on." Ironwood spoke as he ran forward towards the Tyrants.

The shooters shot bullets at him, but Ironwood's body bounced off those bullets, as he pulled out his pistol and began shooting down the shooters.

"Woah, he's using his semblance!" A huntsman exclaimed as Ironwood slid under a beowolf and blew its head off with his pistol.

An ursa came up behind him and swung its paw, but Ironwood simply raised his arm and blocked the blow without budging.

Ironwood then grabbed the ursa's arm and pulled it towards him, grabbing its skull and throwing it to the ground.

As bullets bounced off his body, Ironwood stepped on the ursa and with one tugging motion, ripped its head off.

Ironwood continued moving forward, shooting before simply pulverizing grimm with his fists alone.

Ironwood batted away and dodged chunks of metal that the Tyrants threw at him, before one of them fired another beam.

This time, Ironwood raised his arm and blocked the beam, his arm glowing hot but holding on as soon the Tyrant ran out of energy.

Ironwood then pulled out his black revolver and fired its gravity dust round, using it to propel himself into the air. Ironwood then put back his revolver and brought back his fist.

The Tyrant immediately put up an energy shield.

"HRAAAH!" Ironwood bellowed as he brought his fist down, punching straight through the Tyrant's shield and through its eye. The Tyrant tumbled down and Ironwood unloaded a few rounds to finish it off.

A bladeswipe came up and struck at Ironwood with his arms, Ironwood simply looking at it before swinging his fists.

The bladeswipe dodged all of Ironwood's strikes and responded with stabbing, before Ironwood grabbed its leg and broke off the bone.

The bladeswipe fell down and attempted to hit Ironwood with its head, but bounced off harmlessly as Ironwood picked it up and sliced its head off with its bladed leg.

Ironwood continued decimating the Tyrants as the fight swung back to the favour of the huntsmen, while Winter came up to bring down the Danus from the skies.

Winter then landed right next to Ironwood.

"Sir." She spoke as Ironwood turned back to normal.

"News?"

"I received communication from my ship, they can see Vale."

"That's good. Another warship should be good for us." Ironwood spoke as they fought the grimm.

"You seem…chipper, sir." Winter observed.

Ironwood snorted. "I got to use my semblance after a long time…although I forgot to bring Stanum…"

His semblance, which basically turned his body into extremely durable metal, was something he hadn't used for much time. Of course, part of the reason for that was that his emotions became heavily muted in that state and he would almost become an emotionless machine.

It would have been nice if he had brought his axe Stanum along.

"...Well, sir, I think you'll get to use it sooner or later." Winter spoke.

In the midst of all this, Ironwood had to wonder…

What was Ozpin's trump card?


"Ozpin, why are we here?" Tristan spoke as he and Ozpin entered the Royal Palace grounds.

"I did say I have my reasons. Now, wait here." Ozpin spoke before continuing to rush towards the Palace.

He let out a soft smile as he passed by Julius Arc's statue before going in. The Palace had been emptied out, since it wasn't as important to defend as other parts of the city, so no one but him would be at the palace.

He went into the throne room, where Amber was lying in her pod, as a part of his little plot.

Ozpin could have used his magic to help out at the front lines, but he would then be forced to use spells that were restricted in area in order to avoid collateral damage.

Hence, he would help out a different way.

Ozpin felt a wave of nostalgia as he looked at the Throne of Vale, one that he'd enchanted to never rot no matter what happens.

It may not be as impressive as the Diamond Throne of Dhghemon, but it still holds some sentimental value to me. Ozpin thought as he sat down.

Back when he ruled as the God-King of Dhghemon, Ozpin had worked heavily on constructing magical defenses for his capital against the grimm. That capital eventually became the site for the Kingdom of Vale, but Ozma's old magical defenses still remained.

For centuries, Ozma had strengthened those defenses in his numerous incarnations, and the result was an extensive magical circuit that could be used for a number of purposes, many of which would prove instrumental in vale's defense.

The circuit needed activation, and of course, Ozpin had inscribed the activation spell upon the tip of his cane.

Ozpin held Long memory in reverse grip, focussing his mana core to transfer mana onto the spell in order to activate the magical circuit.

Ozpin let out a soft exhale as his eyes and silver hair glowed green, flowing as if it was on water as Ozpin stabbed Long memory's tip onto the point.

Immediately, green circuit lines suddenly lit up all across Vale before disappearing.

There, the circuit's activated all the ley lines. Now, I can cast my spells on a much greater range. Ozpin thought before chanting.

Outside, Tristan suddenly heard ground rumbling as an astral hand came out of the ground, soon many, many glowing green knights in archaic armor and double eagle feather plumes coming out from their helmets clambered out of the ground along with spectral horses.

Each of the knights had the symbol of Dhghemon emblazoned across their chests.

"What is…?" Tristan spoke before the knights bowed down to him.

"These are the wraiths of the Perkwunos knights who died serving Dhghemon, now summoned back as familiars to protect its former capital that is now the Kingdom of Vale. I have placed them under your command, lead them into battle against the grimm."

"Well…I certainly wasn't expecting this." Tristan spoke in surprise as a spectral horse came up. Tristan got onto the horse, with the knights doing the same as well.

"TO THE GREAT WALL!" Tristan yelled as the knights raised their blades and followed Tristan as he led them to the wall.


Qrow and the other huntsmen suddenly heard the low rumbling of hooves behind them.

"Huh? Who's using horses at this…time…" Qrow trailed off as his eyes nearly came out of their sockets.

Tristan was on some sort of green ghost horse leading an absolute army of knights who were on horseback as well. All across Vale, the glowing ghost knights began joining up to form a massive army heading straight for the wall.

"What in Hades' name are those?" Achilles spoke in confusion as Tristan turned into spirit form, with him and the ghosts passing through the wall and into the grimm.

Looking at the green glow, everything suddenly clicked into place.

"Oh, Oz, you magnificent man." Qrow spoke with an excited grin.

"I don't get it…where did all these wraiths come from…?"

"That's Oz's trump card. He actually called in a bunch of dead people to help us out!" Qrow spoke as the army of Perkwunos knights crashed into the grimm.

"The grimm are pretty tough against our weapons, but they are really bad at resisting aura or any spiritual energies closely linked to it. We couldn't have asked for better allies!" Qrow spoke excitedly as the Perkwunos knights began cutting through the grimm as if they were made of paper.

Even when the grimm brought some of the spectral knights down, they would only materialize once again to cut down the grimm. Tristan shot arrows to bring down the grimm while Robin hung from the wall to send thorned vines that served as barricades to the grimm.

Ironwood's warship began firing its cannons from the side, along with Atlesian fighters that launched their missiles. Robin, meanwhile, shot arrows laced with poison to mess up the mana supply that was keeping the goliath's bodies together, along with the Spectral knights heading for the Goliaths' heads.

Soon, a Goliath collapsed as cheers went up from the wall.

Under the combined assault, many more began falling, as huntsmen now started entering onto the field, invigorated at their victory, and killing the grimm. Slowly and slowly, the mass of grimm began falling off the Great Wall.

But despite this, Qrow still did not feel good.

It's going too good. The enemy wouldn't have gone through all that planning for…this. Qrow thought. There had to be something else happening.

Qrow noticed another Atlesian warship, Winter's ship, arrive at that moment.


"Sir, the other warship has arrived!" Ironwood received communication from the command room.

"Excellent, tell them to focus their fire upon the grimm as well.

"Sir, there's a communication coming from them!"

"What is it?"

"They're saying…at…ve…is…comi…" The room's voice started turning garbled as Ironwood frowned in confusion.

"What is…?" Ironwood jumped as he heard a loud crack of thunder, before feeling the cold drops of rain fall onto his shoulders.

"Rain…?" Ironwood spoke looking up to see that storm clouds had gathered. Rain had started coming down in a drizzle. The wind suddenly picked up

"Command room, what's going on?!" Ironwood spoke.

JAMES!

Ironwood again jumped at the loud voice.

"...Ozpin?"

It's here!

"What is?"

The Wyvern! It's come back to life! It's coming towards the main gates!

"It is?" Ironwood spoke before frowning. Ozpin did say Prometheus was going for Mount Glenn, where the wyvern was kept.

"All units…"

James, wait!

"What? What is wrong?"

It's different than what I remember!

"Oz, what are you…"

An ear-splitting roar blasted into Ironwood's ears.


In the city, students jumped in fright and looked towards the direction of the Great Wall.

"What the…?" Cardin spoke in confusion as Team RWBY suddenly turned pale.

Ruby especially felt a headache rack her mind as the same pulses went through her body.

She couldn't even see the source of the roar, yet she somehow knew what it was.

"That's…not possible…" Ruby spoke, her silver eyes flickering for a moment.


As lightning lit up the sky, Qrow spotted a gigantic shape flying towards them.

"...There's our bad luck." Qrow grumbled as the wyvern descended from the clouds, crackling with lightning as rain fell around the battlefield.

The wyvern's body was covered in a sort of spiky ice armor while its eyes sparked with lightning. The nearby rain around it froze into snow as the wyvern's mere presence created thunderstorms and sent the air down to freezing temperatures.

That is definitely not what Thane described it looked like. Qrow thought with a gulp as the wyvern let out another roar before its mouth started glowing as the wyvern pointed its mouth straight at where Qrow and many other huntsmen were standing.

"OH SHIT!" Qrow screamed. "EVERYONE GET OFF THIS SECTION!"

The huntsmen scrambled in terror as the Wyvern blasted a blue bolt of lightning straight towards the wall…

…Only for a green shield to suddenly come up and take the blow.


"Vale's under attack!" A huntsman exclaimed as Sigurd leaned out the side of the bullhead to notice that Vale was under attack. A thunderstorm had formed over the city as huntsmen clashed with Grimm at Vale's great wall.

We were too late. Sigurd thought with a frustrated scowl. But then, his eyes caught another sight.

The Wyvern was back.

"What the…?" One of the huntsmen spoke.

"So that's why Prometheus wanted to find the Wyvern." Odysseus spoke as Richard looked at him.

"What has happened?"

"From what Aegis' scanners are showing, Prometheus managed to fit the wyvern with Zeus Klironomia." He spoke.

"And with us being on a different world, there is nothing stopping the wyvern from assimilating the Klironomia into its body. It also seems the wyvern has been fitted with huge amounts of ice dust…"

"Not just any ice dust. I can feel the cold of Niflheim within them." Sigurd spoke.

"With all that's done, Prometheus has converted the wyvern into a Calamity."

"How did they even procure this stuff? The Age of Gods ended back on Earth a long time ago."

"A question we'll have to explore later. Ozpin is holding that wyvern back, and I'm pretty sure he has the mana to maintain that shield." Odysseus spoke before they noticed a familiar orange light.

"Prometheus." Sigurd muttered. "What's he…?"

Prometheus floated beside the wyvern as suddenly Sigurd felt the air around him get warm.

"Mana density's skyrocketed, there's huge amounts of energy being emitted by Prometheus!" Odysseus exclaimed as Sigurd's eyes widened.

Prometheus brought both of his hands back, which started glowing with flames.

"Wait, no!"


"Energy levels - 100%." Prometheus spoke.

"Target identified, systems calibrated." Prometheus spoke before he began his chant.

"Apathy is the father of Ignorance…"

"Ignorance is the father of stagnation…"

"Stagnation is the death of civilization…"

"Thus, comes the flame of progress…"

Huntsmen looked up in confusion at the bright light that had suddenly formed beside the wyvern.

"Let the flames of a bright future burn away the stagnant past…"

Prometheus then pointed his hands towards Ozpin's shield.

"...Próodos Katastrofí."


A/N: Oh man, so much to talk about this chapter, so I'll go about it slowly:

1. The Grimm: I love RWBY, but there's a lot of things that I wish the show could have shown. The biggest one is the grimm being a lot more of a terrifying threat. Sure, we got the Nuckelavee and the Apathy, but most of the major villains are human, except for the Hound who tragically died an anticlimactic death.

Now, my depiction of the grimm is also heavily influenced by D.N. Works. In their fanfic 'Grimm Stay Night', they have the grimm invade Fuyuki in the midst of the Holy Grail War, and even write an alternative scenario where the grimm spread so fast that Alaya gets too weak to stop them, thus resulting in the grimm driving humanity to near extinction and bringing about the Age of Grimm on Earth (Which now that I think about it, is a lot similar to Remnant's situation, where humanity is like a prey desperately trying to survive the dominant predators that is the Grimm). In that, he explains on how much of a nightmare the grimm would be on Earth, considering how tough their hide is towards bullets.

From that, I decided to make the grimm much worse of a threat. I had started this story thinking I would have the phantasmals attack Vale, but then I decided that they would remain as special beasts which are insanely hard for huntsmen and servants to beat because of their special abilities, while the main apocalyptic forces who will bring about the fall of the kingdoms would be the grimm.

So, I introduced a number of new grimm in this chapter, whose descriptions are given in the Foot notes.

2. Adam and the White Fang: Now, for my grimm threat to work, I needed the human villains to be designated to a different role. The human villains would destabilise the kingdoms while the grimm would come over to deliver the final blow. That means I could not have the white fang participate in the final battle. Another reason why I excluded the white fang was because of Adam, since I wanted to make him different from his canon counterpart. But don't worry, they'll not be brushed aside in this story.

3. Ironwood's semblance: Also, as you can see, I changed Ironwood's semblance. His original one, mettle, just was boring, because we already had a character whose character arc was defined by their semblance, Qrow, and Ironwood's struggle with his semblance felt less interesting and weighty than Qrow's, because Qrow's semblance is much, much worse than Ironwood's.

Now, I wanted to make Ironwood lean more towards the 'powerhouse' route, because I consider him to be Yang's counterpart in Ozpin's circle. I just imagine Ironwood was a cocky brat in his younger days and eventually matured with his time in the military, but still retained his old strategies of overcoming his opponents through brute strength.

Henceforth, I gave him a new semblance, which turns Ironwood's body into metal, but at the cost of severely muting his emotions, which can often make it hard for him to work with others and be prone to extremely rational decisions that may have negative consequences.

The semblance is a complete allusion to the Tin Man and his search for a heart, and I name-dropped Ironwood's weapon - an axe - which is also an allusion to Tin Man's weapon because Wizard of Oz, baby!

Now, the first of three parts of the Final Battle is over. If I can just muster the will to pull through, I can end the Vale Arc of this story before May begins.

Hope you guys enjoyed and constructive criticism is appreciated!


Foot Notes:

Bladeswipe: A grimm with four arms fitted with sharp spikes, two blade-like legs and a spiked head. In short, this is one spiky boy. It is very quick, using its legs to slide around the ground and outmaneuveur its enemies before skewering them with its arms or cutting them in half with its legs. It can stretch its neck to use its head like a spike mace on a flail.

This grimm was what I had in mind regarding 'Really fast blade-wielders who are super agile and can cut you to swiss cheese' enemies.

It has very quick reaction speeds, and can only be unable to react quick enough to those with speed-based semblances...

...Which means I'm definitely pitting Ruby against one of these in the future.

Shooter: A shooter ia floating grimm whose head, instead of being at the top, is where its legs are. The head drills into the ground to suck up rocks, which are then transferred to the grimm's right arm, which superheats the rocks before firing them like bullets.

This guy came to mind when I thought 'Hey, let's put in Grimm who have guns attached to their arms! That's a cool idea!'

Belenos Shooter: A much more powerful version of the regular Shooter, with a lot more 'gun arms' as well as a sort of artillery cannon on the top of its head that works on the same principle as its 'guns'.

Again, I wanted Achilles to be a badass, so I decided to make up this grimm as well.

Tyrants: Look, I wanted a tall grimm that is annoying to kill, and also a new grimm for Ironwood to show his skills against like I did with Qrow and the Bladeswipe.

I'm going to admit it, this is a shameless rip-off of Doom eternal's Tyrant Demons (Or the Cyberdemon of the old Doom games), because those are my favourite enemies.

Próodos Katastrofí: Alright! Time to talk like the TYPE-MOON wiki!

Próodos Katastrofí is Prometheus' most destructive attack. It is a representation of Prometheus stealing Fire from Hestia's Hearth on Olympus, and gifting it to mankind who were able to harness its power to craft tools that formed the basis of human progress. It was this same flame that resulted in Prometheus' punishment by Zeus.

Próodos Katastrofí is the manifestation of that flame, channeling the power of not only the Titan Prometheus, but also the Goddess Hestia, in the form of a beam of fire.

Due to being a manifestation of that flame, it represents the flame of progress that burns away the past to pave the way for the future as well as the fire of knowledge which dispells the darkness of ignorance and mystery.

Due to its connection to Knowledge, Próodos Katastrofí is an Anti-Mystery attack, in the sense that it destroys all forms of Mystery and hence, Magecraft.

Due to its connection to Progress, Próodos Katastrofí is more effective against older forms of Mystery. The older the Mystery, the less likely it is to withstand Próodos Katastrofí.

Or, in simple terms, Prometheus has the perfect ability against Ozpin's magic.


Response to Reviews:

Zoukuyuujinchou: Glad you enjoyed it.

Protector for All: I know, right? Ozpin got only 30 seconds to show off his Headmaster badassery in 3 volumes. I really wanted to be shown more of Ozpin's status as the leader of the faction against Salem.

Maglad: It's been some time since I saw one of your reviews, bud. Yeah, I know about Achilles' ability, but since he's a servant who'll be more prevalent in Atlas, I won't be putting too many scenes with him. Spotlight is still on servants like Sigurd and Cu.

BraveArmament: Sorry, I'd deleted the latest chapter after I uploaded it a few hours back. Just uploaded it!