Ruby had grown tired from running and constantly using her Semblance to escape those creatures. No matter where she went, they seemed to know where she was and how to cut off her intended path. They rose out of the very ground around her, in front of her, and even beneath her whenever she stopped to catch her breath. And that strange vortex in the ever darkening sky seemed to be getting bigger. Or...was it getting closer? She couldn't tell anymore. She was so confused, so worried for her teammates and friends.

But in that moment, she felt something else. The very foundations of the city began to shake as if an earthquake was raking through all of Vale. Yet, it was worse than that. For a moment later, she beheld an entire section of the city break off like a piece of tree bark, and rise up from the ground, rising up into the twisting sky. Ruby realized with horror that it wasn't simply levitating...it was being sucked into that vortex! Worse still, other sections of the city were suffering the same fate!

But it wasn't just the city. For the moment she turned around, Ruby saw that the earth outside Vale was being torn up in a similar manner and drawn into the strange surging mass. It wasn't just Vale...It was like...all of Remnant was being torn apart by this inexplicable anomaly and the creatures it brought with it! Desperation flooded Ruby's mind as she mustered more strength to try and run. She had to find her friends before...before...She couldn't think of it. She just needed to find them.

Jaune and Pyrrha were running out the tower but stopped shortly after getting off the stairs to catch their breath. "Okay. I think I have Glynda's number. Agh, where is it?" the blond haired young man said as he pulled out his scroll and desperately clicked through it. His redheaded female companion turned with grimace to the booming noises resounding within the tower. "Pyrrha? What was all of that?" Jaune asked. Ozpin refused to tell him anything, but clearly Pyrrha knew something about what happened. He needed to know.

"I..."

As Pyrrha hesitated to explain, both youths felt the ground suddenly shake beneath their feet. The sound of gravel, glass, concrete, and metal cracking and breaking caught their attention as they looked Vale was starting to crumble and some of the buildings flew apart before rising into the vortex in the sky. "Hold on... what is this?"

The moment Jaune looked up, he almost wished he hadn't. For up in the sky was...a surging, twisting, dark void that seemed to be growing bigger and bigger by the minute. "Uh... can the Grimm do stuff like this?" Jaune asked, feeling more afraid than ever as the city grew more and more sundered by the moment.

Neither of them had time to dwell on that as one of the shadowy creatures quietly crept up to them, its glowing eyes set on Jaune. Pyrrha noticed the danger and took out her javelin, Miló, shifting into rifle mode. She quickly took aim and fired at its bulbous head. Jaune jumped back and saw where Pyrrha shot but saw, to her great shock, there wasn't even a bullet hole.

"That's... impossible. I know I had a clean shot. Right in the forehead. How can it-?"

Pyrrha's eyes shifted back up, seeing they were getting surrounded by the sheer number of these things. When one came too close, Jaune swung at it, but the creature didn't get so much as a scratch on it. "Nothing is working?! What kind of Grimm are these?!" Jaune was forced to go on the defensive as one of the creatures pounced upon his shield. He barely managed to wrench it free as another grabbed ahold of it, causing him to back up side to side with Pyrrha. The two of them desperately looked between their new foes, stunned and uncertain of what to do. Worse still, as the buildings and landscape around them continued to break apart and rise up into that vortex, they found it difficult to retain their footing.

The creatures didn't seem concerned in the slightest though. In fact, they seemed to...look up expectantly at it as they sensed the destruction around them. Jaune and Pyrrha had no idea what to make of it, and it scared them even more. What was happening to their home? To their world?

As if that wasn't bad enough, the creatures found their way to the rest of team JNPR. Ren and Nora had only just begun resting off their exhaustion from their previous battles, and now they were bearing witness to the same scene of destruction and devastation as everyone else. Worse still, at the mercy of the same new threat that joined Atlas, the White Fang, and the Grimm. "Uhhh, Ren? Can Grimm do things like this? I don't remember Grimm being able to just phase through weapons. Then again, I'm willing to bet there are lots of Grimm we've never seen before, and maybe these are some of them, but something tells me these may not be Grimm. I dunno why, it's just a feeling I-" "Nora! Focus!" Ren yelled out as he tried to keep calm against this new foe. As one of the creatures lunged at him, Ren took a breath and ducked under it. "We can't fight them. We need to get out of here if we-" His plan was cut off as yet another tremor, harder than the previous one rocked the city. And in that moment, the creatures suddenly stopped attacking them and looked up at the vortex in an almost expectant manner.

Right as the tremor went off and the city broke further apart, Ren and Nora were tossed into the air. Instead of falling again from gravity they kept slowly rising and moved out of control. In their aerial tumbling, they saw each other and tried desperately reaching for one another but never came close before being engulfed in the darkened sky.

Jaune and Pyrrha were in a similar situation of floating upwards. The latter aimed her open hand to the former and focused. Whatever metal Juane had on him was affected by Pyrrha's semblance to pull him forward, Jaune reaching for her as they drew closer. Before either of them could grab hold, they were taken in by the massive sphere that consumed everything.

Even Yang and Blake's reunion after her close call with Adam was cut short as they were now struggling to not get pulled up into the surging void above them. Yang was desperately holding a piece of pavement while trying to keep Blake from getting sucked in. "Grab hold of something!" Yang shouted over the whirring sound of the air being drawn into the terror above them. "There's nothing to grab onto!" Blake cried out as she desperately groped her free hand along the air. Thinking quickly, Blake switched her weapon to kusarigama mode and threw it toward a ruined building, hoping that it would proved some level of holding the end of the thick rope. But the blade was impacted by a piece of rubble being sucked upward, with the force jostling Blake as the blade of her weapon suddenly flew upward and jostled her out of Yang's faltering grasp.

"Blake!"

"Yang!"

As her faunus friend cried out her name, Yang felt her own grip faltering, until eventually she could hold on no longer. Both girls were pulled up into the void along with the ruins of their home. Their hands desperately reaching out for one another until they were both consumed by the ever expanding darkness.

By now, Ruby had grown too exhausted to use her Semblance, or even run anymore. She cried out with shock as a more powerful tremor and violent gust of wind threw her off her feet and onto her stomach. As she looked up, she gasped as she found herself looking over the edge of a rended piece of pavement. It was then she beheld an even more horrifying sight. Her assumption was right. All of Vale. All of Remnant. Every single bit of the world she fought to protect had been torn asunder. "No...Why? Why is this happening!?" she cried out hopelessly. Everything she fought for. Everything she suffered for. Everything that so many died for. Gone in one fell swoop.

"This world has been connected..."

Ruby gasped at the sudden, smooth, low voice that rang out beside her. Turning to look over her shoulder, struggling to keep hold of the debris, she saw a vaguely humanoid figure in a long, brown, hooded robe with what looked to be a pair of belts set around the figure's body in an X shape. She couldn't see their face, nor did she recognize the voice as they kept speaking in that deep, smooth, masculine tone. "Tied to the darkness. Soon to be completely eclipsed." Who was this man? Where did he even come from? "A world, wholly unique in its expression of light and dark. Yet tied to the same fate as all others." Ruby's eyes shifted with shock, then anger at the implication of the figure's cryptic words. "Did...you cause this!?" The figure seemed to care little about her accusation as he continued. "It was inevitable. You could not save this city. Nor can you save this world. This was its fate." Ruby couldn't make sense of his words, but she refused to let him do as he pleased as she defiantly yelled, "No! You're wrong! I won't let that happen!" Brandishing Crescent Rose, Ruby lunged at the hooded man, only for her blade to stop on some sort of barrier. She barely had time to register the shock as she was struck by some unseen force and sent reeling off the edge. Ruby was too weak to even scream as she was pulled into the void that consumed her home, a final message ringing in her ears. "Even with the truth before you, you cling to that misguided innocence. Pointless...One who knows nothing can understand...nothing."

There was nothing but the color black as deep as ink. No sounds were made. Even her own voice. The sensation of her throat making noise could barely even be heard given all Ruby felt was an uncomfortable coldness. Only her thoughts gave her any perception now.

'No... this isn't really the end, is it? This isn't anything like in the stories I read as a kid. I...I wanted to be a Huntress... so people could live happily ever after. Why? Why did things turn out this way? I don't want it to end. I want to keep going. I have to save everyone! I can't give up! I WON'T!'

"Who...Who are you?"

Ruby gasped at the sound of another person. Her silver eyes seemed to shimmer for a moment as she frantically looked around for any sign of whoever spoke. Her voice barely became audible as she tried telling them where she was. It was a boys voice, that much Ruby could tell. But her focus was drawn away as the dark strands of...whatever this was continued to envelop her, as if the darkness itself was trying to consume her. Ruby's eyes went from merely shimmering to shining as her eyes began to emit a pure white light. She could make something out. SomeONE. But she could barely tell

The light from her eyes became more powerful each moment. Through the strange light, she could faintly perceive a form moving toward her. Not one of those creatures, but a boy. The one who called out to her, she was certain of it The boy's eyes widened as he too saw her in the shroud of blackness that enveloped everything, including themselves. Just as their fingers were mere inches away from one another, dark tendrils wrapped around her arm, pulling her away from him.

Ruby felt the pressure of this...darkness crushing her. Consuming her. Stricken by her fear again, screamed out, desperate for help. A larger silver light erupted from her eyes, nearly blinding the boy as he reached out to her. Despite the immense light that suddenly struck his vision, he was still trying to reach for her. More still...the darkness seemed to be hampered, or even driven back by the sudden flash of those lights emitting from her eyes. It was just enough for shift just free enough from his own bonds and reach with everything he could muster. His right hand drifted ever closer to her and eventually...he grasped ahold of hers. Her hand instinctively grasped his in return as suddenly, a smaller light shone forth from their hands and suddenly replaced the dark abyss with a radiant light.

And as the light consumed their vision...nothingness followed.