Roman Torchwick stood atop the roof of the mall, his hair gently rustling in the cool breeze. The man took a cigarette out of his tactical vest alongside a lighter and seized the small stick between his lips. He lit the cigarette and took a long drag before blowing out a steady stream of smoke, only to watch it dissipate into the cold nighttime air. The sound of the roof access door opening behind him didn't particularly surprise the man, though he didn't bother to turn around and check who it was.

"…oh," Sage Ayana said, caught off guard. "Didn't know you were up here…"

"I may be an asshole, but I'm not about to smoke indoors," Roman replied as he took another drag. "Especially not in such a small space as a totally deserted mall."

Sage let out an amused snort as he walked up to join the man near the edge of the roof. He folded his arms atop the chest-high concrete barricade, letting his eyes wander out over the vacant parking lot. Not a single vehicle was in sight, including their own- the group had pulled it into the mall proper to conceal the evidence of their presence from anyone, or anything that might have been watching the complex.

"…it's creepy, isn't it?"

"Which part?" Roman asked as he drew another cigarette and held it out to Sage.

"Everything being so… empty," the younger man answered as he waved the offer away. "A place like this should be teeming with life. A beacon to mindless consumerism and obnoxious, loud crowds with no common sense or decency. I used to hate the mall. The rest of SSSN would drag me here every so often, and they'd be having the time of their lives while I was silently cursing the entire trip. Even hating crowds, though… I'd take that over this any day. Everything's just so… lifeless."

"It's a nice little taste of what'll happen to Remnant if we fuck this up," Roman reminded as he looked beyond the parking lot. Far out over the landscape, the sky had taken on a darker tone than the deep blue and purple of a natural night. Tinges of red were pocked amid the near total darkness, and plumes of thick smoke were visible in the distance. "It's hell. The supposed 'land of darkness' from fairy tales, spreading all the way here, to our home…"

"Looks that way," Sage agreed. "Who would look at this and think that it's the way the world should be?"

"People with nothing to lose," Roman considered as he took another puff. "People that hit rock bottom so hard they can't stand to see anyone else living a fulfilling life. The kind of asshole who thinks the world begins and ends with them, and if they can't have what they want, then no one else should, either."

There was an uncomfortable pause as a cool wind washed over the pair, causing Sage to shiver.

"…was that you, when you were on Salem's side?"

Roman couldn't help but let out a laugh that sounded more like a bark than anything human. Sage recoiled as the older man clapped a hand down upon his shoulder, but he didn't resist the contact.

"No, no, that's not where I fell," Roman began. "But there's a whole different lesson to be learned from my mistakes, kid. I was greedy and lazy, not a psychopath like Salem or Cinder. I let the prospect of easy lien and the lure of fame blind me to what was really going on. By the time I realized what I'd gotten myself and Neo sucked into, it was too late to pull out. Got to the point where there was nothing left to do but embrace the chaos, because I thought Cinder had already won."

"So… what changed?" Sage dared to ask. "You seem like a new man."

"Well, Cinder's dead, for one," Roman joked. "And other than that… I got a second chance. I'm a dead man walking, pulled out of the fire by a huntress who really didn't have to save me after the shit I pulled. There's a lot of good people out there fighting back against the tide. I figure they could use one more, given the odds."

"We certainly could," Sage agreed. "Unfortunately, I know of one person who chose the other side, and fits my previous description entirely too well…"

"Hold that thought," Roman advised as he pulled his scroll out of his vest. "Call from Ren. Hello?"

Though Sage couldn't quite hear what his comrade in arms was saying on the other side of the line, the immediate shift in Roman's stance worried him. The older man stood straight up as though he had been shocked to attention, and his cigarette tumbled from between his fingers and over the side of the roof. Within seconds, the tiny light had disappeared into the darkness.

"What the hell do you mean the other crew is gone?"

Sun and Scarlet stared each other down as Cinnamon walked out into the hall to stand beside the faunus. The woman raised her crossbow to aim at Scarlet's forehead without hesitation, and Sun whirled his nunchaku to rest beneath his armpits as he sank into a fighting stance.

"…keep the grimm occupied," Cinnamon ordered. "Leave the kid to me."

"What!?" Sun asked, giving his ally a quick look of disbelief. "But…"

"What's more important? Your personal grudge, or finishing this quickly and evacuating as many as we can?" Cinnamon asked. "I've got no chance against that thing, especially in such tight quarters."

Scarlet smirked in response as he cracked his neck and drew his weapons. The boy held a cutlass in his right hand as he aimed a pistol at Sun with his left, looking confident.

"I think you'll find that this won't quite be the walk in the park you're anticipating," Scarlet taunted. "I have complete control over this grimm- it's essentially an extension of me. Nowhere to run, and no room to dodge. What will you do now?"

"Something better than what you've done," Sun snapped. "What the hell is wrong with you!? Do you even know what Salem wants?"

"This isn't about her," Scarlet insisted. "The whole system is broken, and you're too blind to see it. You think you're defending something worth saving? Everything in Atlas is nothing but a c-"

Before Scarlet could finish his sentence, Cinnamon grabbed the tip of Sun's swishing tail and he felt a sudden, painful pull deep within his chest. Faster than anyone could react, Sun's semblance engaged, and a ghostly golden image flew forward from his body. The summoned monkey grabbed Scarlet's wrist and wrenched the pistol up toward the ceiling as it fired, before landing a strike to the redhead's throat. As Scarlet was sent reeling with a flickering aura, Cinnamon released her grip and fired a bolt for the rogue hunter's shoulder. The shot successfully embedded a bolt within Scarlet's flesh before Cinnamon rushed forward to dodge a swipe from the giant grimm and engage the boy in close quarters combat.

Sun took a moment to recover from the sudden and unexpected expenditure of his aura, watching as the bladed arms of Cinnamon's crossbow snapped forward to clash against Scarlet's cutlass. The massive canine grimm turned to follow the woman's movements, and so Sun flipped his weapons forward and fired a barrage of bullets for the beast's back. The grimm turned again with a snarl, barely managing the feat within the confines of the hallway and effectively blocking Sun from reaching the other combatants.

"Hey, ugly!" Sun called. "Eyes on me!"

The massive hound let out a rumbling growl as it finally managed to face Sun entirely. As its muscular arms brushed up against the walls, it pulled back its lips to reveal a row of razor-sharp teeth. With a quick motion, the beast raked its claws through the nearby wall, tearing straight through the plaster and collapsing part of the hallway. Sun responded by backpedaling as he fired off more shots, the bullets pinging off the grimm's bone-plated skull and shoulders as it advanced.

"You alright over there!?" Sun called as gunshots rang from the opposite side of the hall. "I don't know if I can even really damage this thing!"

"You won't need to!" Cinnamon called back as she drove a fist into Scarlet's gut, knocking him backward. "Focus on yourself and distracting it! I'm fine!"

Scarlet clenched his teeth and slashed his saber out for Cinnamon, forcing her to duck as he leapt backward.

"You're the better fighter, but this isn't a one-on-one," Scarlet hissed. "That grimm is mine to control, courtesy of Dr. Watts! All you've done is isolate yourself between us!"

Sun dodged backward as the grimm swept out for him with its claw before shifting to turn around once again. Plates and spikes of bone erupted from its upper body, digging into the ceiling and walls and causing a rain of plaster to come fluttering down into the hallway.

"Uh, Cinnamon!" Sun called as the grimm began to stalk away from him. "Incoming! Not good!"

Cinnamon looked over her shoulder to see the approaching threat, giving Scarlet just enough time to score a diagonal slash across her arm, ripping open the sleeve and causing her aura to flicker. The faunus retaliated by charging forward and embedding one of her spines into the boy's side. Scarlet let out a howl of pain as he was envenomed, and Cinnamon kicked him backward as she left the spike impaled within his abdomen. With a burst of aura, she triggered Scarlet's semblance, sending him flying upward and into the ceiling with enough force to knock the wind out of him and cause him to drop his weapons.

"Get back here!" Sun yelled as he snapped his weapons together at the center and cast one of the frontal segments forward. The high-tension wire between the pieces whined as it shot forward, and as the tip of the segmented staff reached the grimm, Sun engaged the hooked blades around the gun barrel to dig into the flesh of the grimm's back. "Gotcha!"

The beast let out a howl of pain as black ash began to seep from the wound. Its frame continued to expand as more and more twisted bone grew rapidly from its shoulders and back. It was only then, as its flesh began to tear open and bulge that Sun noticed a collar around its neck, partially hidden within the grimm's shaggy black fur.

"Hey, we might be able to stop this thing if we can break its collar!"

"If I can even hit the damned thing with all that armor!" Cinnamon called back.

Cinnamon was quick to scoop up Scarlet's pistol and empty as much ammunition as she could into the grimm's face and chest while it tried to swipe at her. Sun barely managed to slow the beast down as he tried desperately to reel in the top section of his staff to no avail. Within seconds, the faunus found himself being dragged through the hall as more fragments of the ceiling continued to rain down. Sun dug his heels into the carpet as best he could, and eventually settled for extending the blade from the side of the staff nearest to himself and digging it into the wall. The leverage was just enough to stop the hound from moving forward any farther, and the beast roared as it struggled desperately to lunge.

"Cinnamon, get out of here!" Sun yelled. "I've got a bad feeling about this!"

Scarlet's gun clicked as the woman ran out of ammo, and she tossed the firearm into the beast's face as she looked for an exit. Upon turning around, Cinnamon found that somewhere in the confusion, Scarlet had gotten to his feet and backed his way to the window at the end of the hall.

"How expendable are you and your allies?" Scarlet asked as he hopped up onto the windowsill and bashed through the glass with the hilt of his saber. "I've been told we have hundreds more grimm like this, just waiting to be sent into battle. I can easily lose one to get rid of you two."

Sun disengaged the hooks upon his weapon and snapped the rest of the staff back to himself as Scarlet raised two fingers and touched them to the side of his collar. Cinnamon dived into the stairwell as Scarlet leapt backward out the window. There was a slow, steady beeping that began to accelerate as the grimm hound turned its head to face Sun once again. The beast's collar was flashing a dangerous red, its lights pulsating faster and faster by the second. Sun barely managed to call forth a pair of doppelgangers to stand between himself and the grimm as it exploded in a fiery blast, sending him flying backward and down the hall. He barely registered that the floor beneath him was gone and the walls around him were engulfed in flames before the back of his head impacted a wall and everything went black.

Author's Note:

And then Sun fucking died and the story ended. See you for my next project, Yellow Snow, in which Yang becomes a pro snowboarder. Can she outrace her pesky faunus rival, Neon Katt? Find out next week!

-RD