No update next week as it's my week off (starting 15th, back 22nd)

Cover Art: GWBrex

Chapter 59

The waiting was the worst part.

It didn't feel right to say that when the battle had yet to start and he was sure the bloodshed would make it much worse, but the defenders didn't know exactly when the attack would begin, and so they had to be in position much earlier. That was one of the few benefits an aggressor had according to Ozma; the freedom to choose when the push began. It wouldn't avail the church's forces much since this was far removed from a siege situation. The defenders were the one with the island filled with wild fruit and vegetables, as well as their own farms and pastures, and the attackers laying siege to them only had the stores they'd brought with them and whatever they could fish from the ocean. Were this a true siege in a castle, their situations would have been reversed.

Faunus moved about shouting orders and talking loudly to one another to ward away the tension; all the preparation work that could be done had been, so it was more a sense of keeping morale. That was at an all-time low despite the determination. It was one thing to be ready to fight to defend your lives and home, and another entirely to believe you had a chance against such an overwhelming force.

They were outnumbered in terms of ships, outnumbered in terms of weapons, and outnumbered in terms of aura users as well – which was Menagerie's one claim to fame right now. The only thing they had going for them was the battlefield.

"A good battlefield can turn the tides." said Ozma.

"I hope you're right. Are you ready to take control?"

"When the time comes. It will be temporary, however. I will expend much of myself to do this and you will need to last the rest of the battle without me. I pray you good fortune, Jaune. I do not want to pass to a new host so soon."

He didn't want to die either so they could agree on that one. Jaune gripped the edge of the wooden parapet atop the fortified ark anchored in the bay and stared out into the mist. Even if they didn't have all day, the church was choosing to wait until late evening to begin their attack. They might as well have the cover of darkness to make aiming the mangonels more difficult. Already, a few of the ships had snuffed out their torches, not quite making themselves invisible, but at least making themselves less of a beacon.

A faunus came by and set down a barrel, then moved on to collect another. It sat by the barrel of arrows and sloshed with flammable oil. Each arrow had its shaft wrapped in cloth, which would make it drastically harder to fire, but dipping it in the oil between each shot and then lighting them with one of the many torches along the wall of the parapet would see them doing more to inconvenience the ships.

"Why is she here?" asked Ruby, sliding up to his side. "I thought she wasn't prepared to fight."

He followed her gaze to see the red hair of Pyrrha as she strung a bow and stared out over the ocean. "I thought the same," he admitted, "but maybe it's easier to say you'll stand aside and do nothing then it is to actually do it."

"That hasn't stopped Coco."

It hadn't, but then he didn't expect it to. Pyrrha was a surprise, and it was hard to say if she was a welcome one or not. Another huntress on their side would be a big boon, but the faunus were watching her warily. They didn't quite trust her yet, and he wasn't sure he did either. "There's not much we can do about it now. I don't think she'd be here if she wanted to cause trouble, though. It would have been easier to cause it back on Menagerie."

"I hope you're right." Ruby held her own bow, not entirely comfortable with it yet, but that was okay. Every pair of hands was an arrow in the air that might strike a ship. That was all they needed. A bell began to toll from one of the lead ships of their navy, and others passed the message on by ringing their own. Ruby swallowed and clutched an arrow tight. "L-Looks like they're moving. It's starting. You said you'd make sure the lead ships sank, didn't you?"

"Ozma did. Are you sure you want to stay here? I'll be a big target for them."

Ruby stuck out her lower lip and said, "Then someone has to watch your back."

In the gloom, three four ships had begun the approach. They didn't come three abreast like they'd thought but two by two, giving themselves a little more room by which to avoid being swept to their doom by the harsh currents. Not enough to manoeuvre and dodge around in, but enough that they could recover if they were knocked off course. Everyone was silent, frightened, and he realised that Sienna's request for aid dealing with the first of the ships wasn't just to clog the strait, but to harden everyone's resolve. To give them hope.

Ozma's voice whispered into his mind. "Now. Give me control."

His body sagged and then caught itself on the parapet. His lungs drew in air. Ozma stood tall and closed their eyes, tilting his head back. Waiting. What was his plan? A great fire? Ice on the water? To summon a grand storm and barrage the ships with lightning?

"You could do all that well enough without me," said Ozma, in his voice. Ruby glanced over, knowing it wasn't her friend. She was cautious, afraid for him. Ozma didn't comment on it. "And as you could do all that, those on board those ships likely could as well. They will be layered with shields, with many Chosen ready to counteract whatever I try. Ice would be splintered before it reached the ships, fire would strike obstacles or water raised in its path, and a storm can be diverted given quick enough reactions. No. We will be showing them the difference between true magic, and the bastardised version Salem allows them to be taught so as to keep them from growing too strong."

Green light flickered about their feet like fire, and power rolled up his body, spinning around his stomach and chest so hot and bright that his body began to glow and faunus nearby shied back, afraid. Pyrrha, Ruby and Ren stared at him, however, sensing the turn of his magic and finding themselves enraptured by it. Jaune was too. This was different. This was new. This was raw in a way everything else wasn't.

"Behold!" cried Ozma, raising a hand. Green light splashed out in a circular glyph – decoration? Needless flair? Somehow, Jaune didn't think it was. Air rushed in toward it, sucked out the atmosphere, and there was a strange point before it that felt like negative light. Not dark, but a hole sucking in all light.

And then it burst.

A beam of solid green light more than a metre in diameter punched out from the glyph and shot toward the lead ship faster than a crossbow's bolt. It hit something that shattered like thin wood, puncturing through whatever defences the numerous Chosen had layered up with contemptuous ease. The prow of the ship exploded with wood flying everywhere, and yet the attack didn't stop. It cut through the ship and out the other end, then pierced deep into the water behind it.

Beads of sweat dripped down Jaune's face, but Ozma slowly pulled his arm to the side, moving the beam of green light like some two-hundred metre spear. Though his arm moved slow, the end of the beam moved slower still, cutting through the ship with a sluggishness not unlike like a knife through a wheel of cheese. It came out the side of it, then slowly and inexorably closed on the other ship whom, despite their best efforts, couldn't hope to navigate out its path. Bright lights – magic of their own - flew out and into it as the Chosen did whatever they could to try and stop it, but this was no simple fireball or launched bolt of ice or lightning. This was something more. The magic went through it, or was swallowed by it, and then the beam touched the second ship and ate away at it.

There was no hope for them. Bodies jumped off the ship into the water and the vessel keeled and tipped toward its ruined side, where a vast portion of its hull simply no longer existed. Its tall mast smashed down onto the deck of a third as it listed, and while that didn't sink it, the masts tangled and the third ship was forced still as its crew raced to deal with the problem. The fourth didn't stop, however, not to help nor to pick the people out the water. Its sails flared and someone must have been feeding it wind magic because it came at unreasonable speed.

"I am spent," said Ozma, shrinking back. Jaune swore as he was thrust back into control. "I am sorry. That is all I can do."

"Fire the mangonel!" roared Jaune. "Loose! Now!"

Rocks arched up and into the air with a mechanical whoosh. They sailed up and arched down, and they splashed about the ship casting up great spouts of water. Jaune gritted his teeth at the misses, then cheered as one rock, a single piece of rubble, hit the mast and snapped it in two like a dry twig. Menagerie's ships closed in to rain flaming arrows down on it, but they didn't go unanswered. Fire splashed out from the ship at their own. The Chosen were ready to take as great a toll as they could manage.

It was perhaps a shock to them then that a clumsy ball of molten flame lurched out from Menagerie's ship to strike their own deck. They'd seen him cast from the ark standing imposingly in the bay so they hadn't expected an attack from this angle. Adam or Blake, he wasn't sure which, had caught them off guard and sent their crew scrambling. The church wasn't used to facing magic. The experience clearly wasn't a welcome one.

"There are more coming!" roared a faunus. "Load the mangonel – hurry! Don't just stand and watch, damn it!"

The fleet was sliding into the strait, three abreast now as they'd predicted. Their plan to force an opening with huntress-laden ships had failed, and now they had to bring their full might to push against Menagerie's and overwhelm them the old-fashioned way. Wood creaked as the mangonels opened fire again, casting more rocks down into the exit of the strait. They struck nothing but sent powerful waves out to bother the ships and threaten to push them into the dangerous zones. Flaming ballistae bolts lunged out from Menagerie's ships further in, while arrow fire was saved for now, too distant to be of use.

A third ship had wheeled in to assist with the last of the Chosen vessels, while the one still floundering in the strait's exit had come under sustained fire from six more. The two wreckages were still sinking, it taking a lot more time than seemed reasonable. Maybe that was normal for ships that size. He wasn't sure. Either way, they'd make for obstacles for the others to work their way around.

Jaune and Ruby waited for the ships to get much closer, close enough to the exit of the strait to be in reasonable range. Ren waited too, but without sight, focusing on their magic and trusting their actions to dictate when he should begin. He trembled with nervous energy, but also with a little excitement that had worried Nora and Jaune both. This, for him, was vengeance, and Jaune had the sinking feeling Ren wanted to do more than just defend Menagerie. He wanted to see these people die for what they'd done to his family.

The ships finally began to spread out as they exited the strait and entered the bay proper; the ones on the left and right fanned out to make room for those behind, and Menagerie's ships responded by closing in. They were letting them in this far because it meant those behind had to bunch up and slow down as traffic became worse. Hull scraped against hull and sails were furled.

"Ready!" shouted Jaune. He brought his arm back and focused the heat within his palm, encasing it in roaring fire. Not imaginative, not new, and certainly not controlled. That was the point. He let it rage chaotically until it was a great ball of whipping flame. Ruby and Ren did the same on either side of him. Jaune waited for the next shot of the mangonels, not because it would make life any worse for the church, but because they were zeroed in and he wanted to use them to gauge his own path. The rocks arched up. "Now!"

Jaune whipped his arm in an overhead throw and Ruby and Ren followed him, hurling three great balls of fire up into the air. It was an arching shot – it had to be at so great a distance – and that meant they had to guess how high and how hard to cast it. Their shots sailed apart, Ren's going further and Ruby's being closer to his, and his own doing its best to mimic the arc of the falling rocks.

Ironically, it was Ren's that found the best target, the fireball splashing down on shields erected by the Chosen over a crowded amount of ships. Just because they had dispersed the fireball didn't mean it was dealt with, however. Fire rained down in small pockets that they had to scramble to put out. Jaune and Ruby's fireballs landed in front of them, sizzling into the water and casting up great gouts of steam and waves that pushed them back.

"You're dead on target, Ren!" yelled Ruby, for the blind man's sake. "Jaune, we need to go a bit harder!"

"Fire as you will!"

The faunus cheered as fire rained up and down like boulders from a trebuchet, finding their right targets and exploding among the ships. Most were shielded, and their magic wasn't as powerful as Ozma's so those shields held. Against the rocks, however, they could do little and soon the mangonel's crews had adjusted their arching angle to hit the crowded armada right down the middle, bracketing ships and smashing through their decks.

It wasn't all plain sailing, however. Though they set many to sinking, the others simply bulled through, damaging their own hulls to drive the sinking ships aside. They weren't even stopping for the survivors in the water! Soon, more ships made it out the strait and engaged with Menagerie's, at which point arrow fire flashed between them like glowing orange bolts, each one lit with oil and striking wood, flesh, or water.

The church's ships shot back, but they also aimed themselves directly at Menagerie's ships and tried to run them down. The smaller, nimbler vessels were quick to get out the way of a ramming or boarding action, either of which would be fatal, but that let the church's large galleons start to gain more ground. The fighting became dispersed, disorganised, and in that chaos the larger force would surely win.

"Ozma? We need more help!"

"I cannot. Were I to cast that again your body would shut down – you would not survive it."

Damn it. The ark was a formidable fortress and a good point to fire from, but the naval battle was drawing closer to them now. Close enough that their own crew had started to nock arrows doused with oil into bows. They stepped up and touched those arrows to the torches to light them, drew back, and then loosed.

Bells began to toll among Menagerie's forces. The signal to draw back to the ark. Not a retreat, he reminded himself, despite that it felt like it to give up the strait. They'd done a terrible amount of damage and sunk maybe twenty ships and clogged the strait up so those reinforcing had to do so slowly. It didn't feel like enough. The church had well over a hundred, maybe even two.

"Ren, you should keep fire up where you are," said Ruby. "You're still hitting ships stuck in the strait." The man nodded, his black hair flying about and his teeth shining in the firelight. "Jaune," shouted Ruby. "They're getting close. Do we focus the ones here or keep trying to hold the rest back?"

"Fire on the closest," he ordered. The only way they'd be able to keep this up was if Sienna's navy kept the enemy back, so protecting them was more important. "We'll have a better shot getting through and doing real damage this close."

He raced with her to the port side of the ship and gripped the parapet, nudging faunus archers aside. An arrow whizzed up and past his ear from a ship not thirty metres out. Insanely close in naval terms. Someone on the deck shouted and pointed at him, and soon more arrows were coming his way.

Before, he'd had to arch fire up and down and hope to hit the target but that wasn't the case now. Jaune laughed and held both hands in the air, summoning six fireballs and launching them down as quickly as the arrows the others fired. They raced in at different angles and at different targets; two were cut out the air by magical retaliation from the black-armoured Chosen he could see on the decks, but this wasn't a lead vessel filled with them. He could count two, so there were probably no more than three at most. Even the church couldn't crew an entire fleet with nothing but Chosen, not without leaving all four kingdoms defenceless against the Grimm.

Not that they were, but then Salem couldn't admit that. Could she? She had to accept, or at least pretend, that the Chosen were necessary back home. The two on the deck couldn't possibly defend the whole ship and four fireballs punched home. Two pierced the deck and went under, one struck wood and splashed out burning it but not igniting. The fourth, Jaune took hold of, grasping and moulding and forcing to grow and grow as he fed more aura into it. Grinning, he slashed both his hands out to the side, causing the fire to burst left and right and cling to any bit of wood it found. The mast sundered, crew were sent sailing up and off the ship, and all the arrow fire that had been coming their way stopped. The vessel burned bright and hot, listing away as its captain gave up on trying to control it.

Jaune turned in time to see Ruby trading magic with a huntress down below – and doing a surprisingly good job of it. The Chosen had obviously focused on martial pursuits over magical, and couldn't keep up with the sheer hail of Ruby's fire. It didn't help that she had to dodge arrows from faunus chipping in to help. Trusting her to it, Jaune turned to see how the rest of the battle was going. The answer was: mixed.

Though many galleons blazed in the bay drifting about lazily, there were many smaller vessels similarly abandoned, on fire, or sinking. He couldn't be everywhere and there were too many Chosen not to make their own mark on the battlefield. All it took was one getting onto a Menagerie ship and they could clear half or all the crew in melee. Jaune saw one case of a galleon having connected itself with grappling hooks and ropes to a smaller vessel. It had already pulled it close and the faunus crew had either been forced to abandon the ship or had been dispatched. Jaune watched in fury as soldiers and Chosen on the boarded vessel raised their weapons and roared out in victory. The desk was coated with blood.

Snarling, he avenged them all with a gout of flame so hot and so powerful that it scoured across the deck of both vessels, killing everyone and turning them both into ghost ships. He could only pray Sienna, Adam or Blake hadn't been on them. Nor Taiyang.

A loud clunk of wood sounded far below them, followed by a groan and a shout of "The ark is being boarded!"

Cursing, he sprinted to the side the cry came from to see it was mostly accurate. The ark was too big for them to moor against and jump over, but the crew were throwing up ropes to try and let them climb. Faunus brought bows to target, but the surprise came when Pyrrha vaulted the parapet down onto the ship. Was she defecting? Was this her returning to the church? Jaune gripped the edge and looked down and realised it was not. Pyrrha weaved among the crew lashing out with her sword. She intentionally went for pommel strikes and non-lethal takedowns, sparing everyone she could. As long as she held the line, he didn't much mind, though having even more prisoners wasn't going to be a good thing.

Not that it could be helped. There were already thousands of people in the water and some would wash up on shore or grip onto debris and be rescued. Assuming we win. This could still go either way.

The blare of a horn followed by two more drew his eyes to a dark shape cutting through the water. The other ark, hidden behind their own, inexorably made its way forward with two faunus blowing into horns on the front. The dull, loud sound echoed out over the battle and drew all eyes, defender and attacker alike, to the ship. It was a dark mountain cutting through the water and slowly making its way toward the strait.

Another blare of the horns told Jaune what they were waiting for. His part. Striding to the side of his own shop closest to it, Jaune threw a small ball of fire into the air to tell them he was ready. The signal. They blew the horns once more, shrilly this time, and then went silent. The many powerful sails on the ark came down and it was tugged forward in the cold wind. He watched it go, watching with pride as huge warships in their own right had to scramble out the way or be ripped in half. The church did their best to stop it with flaming arrows of their own that thunked into the wood and caught with alarming speed.

Suspicious speed.

Most ships were treated to make them resistant to fire in some way, it being a ship's worst enemy. That didn't mean immune, which was why both sides were prioritising the use of it here, but it meant a few small flames would burn rather than spread. These arrows spread. They spread very fast – too fast. Soon, the entire side and front of the thing's hull was burning bright yellow. It was at that point that the church understood and all fire stopped. Instead, ships tried to sail their way in front, sacrificing themselves to try and sink or slow it.

As if he'd let them. Jaune expended as much of his aura as he needed to in order to keep them away. He summoned pillaring walls of water to push them back, powerful winds to blow their masts and sails down, and fire to give them other things to focus on. As the flaming ark turned itself toward the strait and locked its rudder, he saw a smaller ship, little more than a row boat, detach from the side and splash down into the water. Faunus were in it, and one blared his horn shrilly and quickly, several sharp blasts.

"I hear you," said Jaune. "Ruby! Now! Light her up!"

The two of them hurled fire at the ark lumbering toward the strait. It was too big a target for them to miss, and the oiled-up deck covered with straw, flammables and more caught immediately. Some fire had already been left by its crew; torches thrown in the hold stuffed high with oiled-up straw. Even so, he and Ruby coated it with more, ignoring the deck and the hull and then the insides as the fire spread. The ship turned into a vast fireball far larger and hotter than any he or Ruby could produce. The ship's skeleton was visible through the towering wall of fire, the light from which seemed to blot out all vision. It cast great yellow patterns across the water, and the whole battle came to a standstill as ships drifted on the water watching in hope or horror.

The fleet, half of which was still trapped in the mess that had become the exit point of the strait, was some seventy or so ships. They were crowded hull to hull and helpless as the ark bore down on them. At the last, they opened up, arrows and spells and siege weaponry of their own – anything they could manage that might bring the monstrosity down. The ark was on its last legs anyway, and they desperately tried to tip it over the edge and sink it. Chosen summoned great winds to try and blow it off course as well, but it was hopeless. The thing had too much mass and its rudder and wheel had been locked into place. All the wind did was fan the flames and build them brighter, hotter, and taller.

And then it crashed into them. Through them. Onto them. The sheer weight and power of the ark, designed to house thousands of passengers, smashed into the fleet without much speed but with a whole lot of mass. As its own hull splintered and cracked, flaming straw soaked with oil spilled out like the guts of a wounded beast, splashing over the decks of other ships and spreading the fire further still.

Eventually, it came to a stop somewhere in the middle of the fleet, its momentum finally arrested as it was locked in place. That didn't save them. In the very act of burning down it disgorged more of its flammable cargo, and soon the fire was spread outwards, a sheet of flame that expanded across the smaller ships while the huge candle in the middle continued to burn.

"DRIVE THEM INTO THE FLAMES!" screamed Sienna, audible from her flagship below. The last signal, the beating of drums, told the defenders of Menagerie that this was the moment. Their every plan was expended, their every trick used, and this was the moment of all-out attack where victory or defeat would be decided.

But it already had been.

As Menagerie's vessels circled and rained fire down on scattered and demoralised galleons, the fleet in the strait burned, and those at the back were pushed away by the chaos into the rapids and whirlpools, sucked into a maelstrom from which they would not return. Faunus began to cheer, but he had to put a stop to that.

"Cheer when it's over!" he shouted. "Sienna is counting on us! Mangonels, fire! Archers, keep it up! Ren, more fire! Ruby-"

"On it!" shouted Ruby. "For Menagerie!"

The cry was taken up. "For Menagerie!" howled the defenders.

Come morning, the flames still burned and ships drifted in the water, bereft of their crew and slowly sinking. In the distance, at the exit of the strait, a graveyard of wooden ships clogged the only way in and out of Menagerie. The last ark stood in the centre of it all, unbowed and unbroken, a fortress that the enemy had crashed helplessly against.

It's a 4-day weekend here for Easter and I've been writing most days of it, but you know I've had no headaches, no interrupted sleep and noticeably less stress. I think by the end of this year I'll be putting thought into quitting my full-time job and committing more to writing, because it's really starting to look like it's that job which is causing my stress.

Which isn't unreasonable since I've been running it through like 3 financial crisis and a pandemic, and now a cost-of-living crisis. It's been nothing but stress for the last few years lol.

Next Chapter: 23rd April (Two weeks)

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