Weiss banked into a turn on her borrowed snowmobile, skirting around the edge of the city of Rust. A makeshift wall around the side facing the tundra was being hastily constructed by volunteers, and she had elected to patrol the gap to pick off errant grimm before their evacuation site became a point of focus for Salem's forces. The effort was going incredibly well, and Weiss was quite satisfied with her ability to take potshots at aerial avian grimm while driving. The human-sized monsters had arrived in small numbers, triangular in shape with webbed membranous wings, long toothy beaks, and trailing tails. Only one was giving her trouble, though the din of the first round of evacuation ships taking off contributed to her difficulty focusing on the target.

Eventually, Weiss slowed to a stop and put both hands on her magnum, closing one eye to aim at the flittering beast with its webbed wings high above. The grimm was rapidly approaching one of the rising ships and needed to be taken down cleanly and immediately. Weiss took a deep breath, tracking the flier with her gun as she prepared herself to fire.

"Stay!"

The aerial antagonist seemed to almost freeze in place, its wings barely moving at all as it struggled to open its mouth. Weiss squeezed the trigger on her gun, punching a massive hole through the grimm's neck. Seconds later, the temporal distortion around it wore off and the grimm began to plummet toward the ground, burning up in the atmosphere and reducing to ash as it spiraled.

"Thank you," Weiss said as she lowered her weapon and gave her beau a smile. "I see we've managed to get some people in the air."

"First round's all taken care of," Marrow acknowledged from atop his own requisitioned vehicle. "How's the wall coming? I've been trying to talk to you over comms for the past ten minutes, and I got worried when you didn't answer. That's why I came to check on you while we wait for the second wave of ships…"

Weiss blinked in surprise as she took off her earpiece and inspected it, though she wasn't quite sure what to look for.

"I… haven't heard anything since we got to Rust. From you or anyone else, come to think of it…"

Marrow pressed two fingers to his earpiece, his tail immediately ceasing its perpetual swishing as he stared at Weiss.

"Testing, testing…"

Weiss grimaced as she held the device back up to the side of her head.

"…nothing. Are you hearing anything through yours?"

Marrow moved his head to the side as if dodging an invisible projectile before wrenching off his own headset and dropping it into his lap.

"Lots of static, nothing else. If Salem's found a way to disable our communications, that's… we're in big, big trouble."

"We're doing fine," Weiss reminded. "But I agree- not being able to contact the other groups is less than ideal. I hope everyone's alright…"

"Looks like we won't know until we get topside," Marrow considered. "For now, let's just clean out the rest of the grimm overhead and focus on getting that wall up and reinforced. We can get another round of ships out, maybe two if the other groups manage to hold the line. Still, I don't like this. Something feels… off."

Weiss shifted on her snowmobile, a flurry of scenarios playing out in her head. Very few of them brought her any sort of comfort.

"Once we get the wall patched over and stable, should we… head back into Mantle? The volunteer corps can likely hold this area down without the two of us, and the last we heard, some of our friends were in dire straits. Perhaps we should make certain that they're alright?"

"…and if they leave before we get there?" Marrow asked. "Weiss, we can't put ourselves in danger. I know how badly you want to go after them to make sure they're okay, and I do, too, but… we need to keep each other in check. Breathe. Focus on the task at hand. This is just… it's the way of war."

Weiss did as Marrow asked and took several deep breaths as more ships appeared high overhead and began a vertical descent.

"You're right," she admitted. "I know you're right. This is all almost over, and then… I hope we get some sort of recovery period. Even just an hour to recoup…"

"I hope so, too," Marrow agreed. "But I doubt it…"

Emerald ran as fast as she could, thundering down the hall and hooking a quick right only to run into a burning barrier of collapsed debris. The ceiling had caved in not far from the exit door, and more rubble was streaming down from above by the second. Emerald took a few steps backward before another rift opened in the ceiling just above where she had been standing. A burning couch dropped down to the floor with a resounding crash, kicking up dust and embers in its wake. Needing no more warning, the former thief turned and began to sprint back in the direction of the corner she had just rounded, only to continue running straight instead. There was another right turn at the end of the hall, but someone came around it before she could reach the bend.

Scarlet David stalked into the hallway, dragging his cutlass through the tacky wallpaper and leaving a peeled rift as he went. Even from a distance, Emerald could see that the blade was covered in blood in haphazard streaks. The young man had his pistol drawn and aimed skyward as he walked, his gait and expression conveying extreme confidence. His eyes seemed to light up as he caught sight of Emerald, and the two stopped moving with a gap of about ten feet between them. Emerald raised her guns in her former ally's direction as Scarlet raked his blade forward, scraping it from the wall with a flourish before aiming the tip toward Emerald's throat.

"Well, well, well," Scarlet began, the high-tech collar secured around his neck blinking with a bright green light. "One of the turncoats finally shows her face again. Here to save Robyn Hill? My pet and I won't make it easy for you."

"Your pet?" Emerald asked as she narrowed her eyes. "What, Watts gave you a grimm, just like he did for the White Fang? You did hear the way he talked about the faunus, right? That makes you no better than them in his eyes..."

"On the contrary," Scarlet countered with a flip of his hair. "I was the example used to convince those base animals that the collars are safe. I was given a new, experimental grimm- one of a kind, currently, and Watts put no explosives in my collar."

"You sure about that?" Emerald asked. "You trust him? After walking out on Sun, who seems to actually be a decent guy? You had it all handed to you, Scarlet. You were just too stupid and impatient to see it."

"Just keep talking," Scarlet threatened. "The Hound is on its way, and when it arrives, you won't be so sure of yourself."

"Scared to face me alone?" Emerald asked, taking an aggressive step forward only to watch Scarlet step back. "Where's your bravado now?"

"It's not a matter of confidence- it's a matter of intelligence," Scarlet tried. "I don't fight without having every advantage. That's why I joined the winning side."

"You didn't seem so sure when you first signed on," Emerald accused, continuing her advance. "You looked so scared when you arrived at Salem's palace… almost like you were desperate."

"You don't know anything about me!" Scarlet roared, pointing his firearm toward Emerald and firing a warning shot at her feet. "You think you have some sort of moral high ground, now, or that you're the only one who turned to Salem as a last resort!?"

"I think you're still desperate and leaning into unhinged territory to try to justify your own selfish bullshit mindset," Emerald pressed. "I don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to morality, but I do know that I made the right choice leaving Salem behind. Look around you, Scarlet. Look at what you're doing!"

"I know exactly what I'm doing!" Scarlet yelled. "Mantle will fall, and Atlas soon after! I'm contributing to the greatest revolution in the history of Remnant! Nothing is gained without cutting the legs out from under the competition and exploiting every weakness in sight. Playing by the rules, trying to be a huntsman… that provided a weakness that so many others took advantage of, but no more! When this is all over, I'll b-"

The explosion was sudden and violent, enough so that Emerald stumbled backward as shrapnel flew from Scarlet's neck. With a quick flash of aura, the man fell backward, reeling as he dropped his weapons to the floor with a clatter. Scarlet hit the ground hard on his back, and then, there were no further sounds bar the flames growing behind Emerald. She kept her guns trained on the man as she slowly approached, and what she saw was enough to rattle her nerves despite all she had seen in her time working under Salem.

Scarlet's eyes were welled with blood and his throat was torn open by the sudden explosion of his collar. Where his lower jaw should have been was instead a warped portrait of bone and gore, his tongue lolling unnaturally down the base of his neck as he continued to bleed out onto the floor beneath himself. Though his death had been a quick one and there was nothing left in his eyes, Emerald could tell from the terrified agony in his expression that it had been intensely painful. The fact that she felt nothing other than disgust alarmed her, and she quickly looked off to the side as she stepped around the corpse. Only a single thought echoed in her brain as she tried to steel herself and walk forward, doing her best to block out the sight from manifesting in her mind.

Had she not gone with Cinnamon, whatever just triggered Scarlet's death would have claimed her, too.

A low, guttural roar coming from around the corner was Emerald's only warning moments before another figure emerged into the hallway from the same direction Scarlet had appeared. A hulking grimm unlike any Emerald had ever seen lumbered into view, sniffing at the air. "Hound" was indeed an apt description, though the grimm was far larger and more muscular than even the largest domestic dog. Its spiked shoulders scraped along the walls as it began to stalk toward Emerald, its eyes seemingly staring right through her as she kept her Semblance engaged to hide from the beast. Emerald held her breath and crouched low, ducking beneath the giant grimm's forelegs and slipping under and around its chest to pass by. She turned and watched with morbid curiosity as the Hound approached Scarlet's corpse and began to sniff at it. For a moment, Emerald wondered if there was actually some sort of bond between the two beyond the collars. That notion was dashed the moment the beast opened its mouth and tore into Scarlet's chest with a paw pressing down over his face.

Emerald clapped a hand over her mouth as she turned away from the scene, but the crunching sounds intermixed with growls painted more than enough of a picture as to what was going on behind her. With a full-body shiver, she began to run for the exit of the building, pressing her fingers to her earpiece as she went.

"Scarlet David… he's dead. I'm in pursuit of Robyn, heading for her tavern. I'll… I'll keep you all updated…"

Emerald flinched as a torrent of static came through her earpiece, and she tore the device off as she continued to run. Upon giving the piece of tech a cursory examination, it became very clear that it was no longer working. A red light blinked on the side of the device before it went totally dead, and Emerald stuffed it into her pocket.

"Alone again," Emerald muttered. "Figures…"

Author's Note:

And so, Scarlet goes out like the absolute bitch he is. A shitty, unsatisfying death for the shittiest, pettiest man on Remnant.

-RD