As team SOLR mourned for Orville, Jaune and Pyrrha stood in silence, unsure what to say. Pyrrha wanted to cry, but she couldn't.
[cue music- Linkin Park- The Catalyst]
Is it possible that monster stole my tears? she silently asked.
"If only we had been here sooner..." Surya stated.
Atum turned to Pyrrha, not crying but still visibly saddened. "Was... was Orville like this when you got here?"
"I believe so. Sadly, I have no idea what really happened. I was too busy focusing on fighting Tyrian and my inner demons to save Ruby, and I had forgotten about the people he had hurt."
Surya looked at Orville's Trojan Alliance badge, still pinned to his shirt. He took off the badge and clinched his fist, letting the tears fall. Somber silence and Surya's sobbing washed over all of them.
After ten minutes, help had arrived. Nora and Ren were led to a stationary ambulance to be treated by professionals for any injures. With the Grimm gone, a small crowd had gathered, and the backup officers, exhausted from the fight, didn't bother shooing them away.
Ruby soon arrived back at the scene of the crime. "Alright, I escorted the remaining living civilians to the shelter and finished off the last of the Grimm." She noticed Surya sobbing. "What happened?"
"Long story short, Orville was killed by Tyrian." Pyrrha stated.
Atum turned to Ruby. "Didn't you see the fight between Ren, Nora, Orville and Tyrian?"
"He threw another smoke bomb and hid me away in the janitor's closet in an abandoned dance studio."
"So you have no idea how he did this?"
She nodded forlornly. "Sadly I don't."
"Alright guys, move aside, I need to inspect the body." a female voice ordered.
The heroes got up and stood aside as the detective started her examination.
"What about Ren and Nora? Will they be alright?"
"Don't worry guys. We're fine." a familiar male voice said. The heroes turned to find Ren and Nora standing there. "Well, mostly."
Ren was shown standing before his teammates and allies. He was uninjured, but weary. He gave them a faint smile. Nora was shown with a bandage around her right arm and a blue blanket draped around her.
"Ren, Nora, you're alive!" Ruby tackled Nora to the ground. "I'm so glad you're o... Oh my gosh what happened to you?!"
As she said this, everyone turned to Nora and gasped, her blanket now loose, revealing Nora's tattered clothes.
"My clothes were ripped after Orville was knocked out." The girls got up and Nora wrapped the blanket around her once again. "Fortunately he didn't do anything defiling, but he hurt Orville." She looked at them with fearful, pleading eyes. "Please tell me he's okay."
"I'm afraid not he's not okay. For this has been his last day." Apollo stated.
Ren was visibly saddened. Nora however, appeared to be horrified. "He's... dead?"
"I'm afraid so." Surya confirmed, his eyes shown to be red and puffy.
The Valkyrie felt her blood turn cold. "No, this can't be... Because if it's true... He... died trying to save me." she spoke in between sobs.
Jaune turned to Nora. "He took the blow for you?"
She said nothing as she broke down into a sob. Ren threw his arms around her and she sobbed into his chest. As he gently stroked her hair, a green-eyed, brown-haired faunus with cat ears, who appeared to be the mayor of the village, approached the heroes. He was shown wearing a business suit with a brown neck tie.
"So these are the heroes responsible for saving our village..."
The police officer looked up at him. "Mayor Lemongrass. I didn't expect you to be here."
"I wanted to see the aftermath of the attack and thank those responsible for saving us." Mayor Lemongrass looked at team SOLR. "I know them." Then at Ruby. "I know her." Then at team JNPR. "I know him, her, and him," He gestured to Jaune, Nora and Ren respectively. "but..." He looked at Pyrrha. "Who are you? You look a lot like Pyrrha, but..." He faltered. "No that's... that's impossible. She died at Beacon during its fall."
The no-longer masked heroine chose her words carefully. "Are you a member of the Trojan Alliance?"
"No, but I can't guarantee that there aren't any members of that lunacy group within this village."
Pyrrha looked at her gloved hands, her allies, the police officers, then at the crowd watching her.
"My name..." She breathed in to calm herself and continued after a moment of silence. "is Pyrrha Nikos. Daughter of Phoenix and Merle Nikos, both of which are now deceased. Elder sister to Ash Nikos. Status unknown to me. Four time Mistral Regional Tournament Champion. Top of the graduating class of 78 AGW at Sanctum Academy. Former student of Beacon Academy. Member of team JNPR. Ally and friend to what was once team RWBY. One of the finalists in the 40th Vytal Festival Tournament, and..." She faltered. "the unwilling catalyst who unintentionally destroyed Penny Polendina, thus unwittingly starting the Fall of Beacon."
A woman looked at her with sincerity. "You... didn't mean to hurt her?"
"No. I never did. I had no idea that Penny was an android, and I never meant any harm. Believe it or not, I was tricked by a mirage maker. Yang Xiao Long also tricked by that same semblance."
A man looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "But if you were innocent all this time, then... why did you hide yourself?"
"So many people believed that I was guilty, I felt that I had no choice but to hide myself." She picked up the fragments of her mask. "To this end, I created the identity of Rouge Gorlois to protect myself, but eventually I lost my mind in the woman I pretended to be. And as the Scarlatti Trojan Alliance found me and interrogated me, they caused me to realize..." She dropped the fragments of her mask. "that I couldn't hide anymore. I was fortunate enough that I was able to tell them of my innocence before anyone got killed or permanently injured."
"What about him?" A second man gestured to Orville. "He doesn't look very alive."
"Alas, Orville was killed in midst of the battle to save this village. He did not die at my hands, but at the hands of a man who betrayed the alliance- Tyrian. He had used their anger against me, and Orville's semblance for his own personal gain." She retrieved her cloak and draped it over herself, leaving her hood up. "I managed to defeat the man responsible and foil his plans, but by the time I had arrived, it was too late for him. And I didn't refute any rumors of my death because I had believed it would be better if they thought I was dead." She saw that roughly half the members of the crowd had Trojan Alliance pins on the left side of their shirt. "I don't want to fight anymore of them, but I will if I must."
Jaune noticed and got out Crocea Mors in a defensive stance, ready to protect Pyrrha. He looked at the audience ruefully. "Is this the way it must be?"
There was a moment of silence before the woman from earlier answered, "No... it... isn't."
[music is at the line, "Lift me up... Let me go..."]
A teenage girl handed Pyrrha her pin of the Trojan Alliance emblem. "Here, take it. I renounce myself from the Trojan Alliance. I was blinded by anger, too blind to see that Pyrrha was, and still is, a hero. No hero should have to hide themselves from the world."
Other members in the crowd began to take off their badges and handed them to Pyrrha and her friends.
"We're going to need something for these badges." Jaune pointed out.
"Does anyone have like a bucket or a basket?" Pyrrha asked them. A little girl handed her an empty bucket and she dumped the collected badges before taking it. "Thank you."
Surya took off his badge, and so did Apollo and Atum. The team leader got out Orville's badge he had retrieved earlier and team SOLR handed their badges to Jaune, who in turn put them in the bucket. After a minute or two, everyone who was once part of the alliance had given up their membership.
The girl who was first to turn in her badge got on her knees and bowed to her. Many of the civilians, both former Trojan Alliance members and ordinary people, followed her lead, including the mayor.
Even the remaining members of team SOLR, who were way above their skill level, bowed their heads in acknowledgement.
Pyrrha looked at the crowd in shock, dropping the bucket.
"We don't deserve your help." the woman sadly stated. "Not after the way we had condemned your name and wrongly accused you."
As Ruby started cleaning up the badges, Pyrrha felt her eyes water.
Jaune turned to the unmasked heroine. "Are you alright?"
"I'm alright." She sniffed and tears fell from her eyes.. "These are tears of joy. I never thought I'd see the day..." Another sniff. "The day where Trojan Alliance members see the light. Where the light of truth shines down, and I no longer have to hide in the darkness."
Ruby, who had finished cleaning up the spilled badges, looked at all the badges in the bucket. "What are we going to do with these badges?"
"I'm sure we can think of a good use for them." Jaune told her. "I'm just surprised they forgave her so easily."
"Well we did help save the village..." Ren pointed out.
Pyrrha turned to Jaune. "And um... speaking of forgiveness..."
He gave her a warm, sincere smile. "I already have."
The former 'cold-hearted huntress' felt her heart pound. "Really? You forgive me? Just like that?"
"Just kiss me, you crazy woman!"
She happily obliged and threw her arms around him, tears of joy falling as she deepened the kiss.
"It's about time!" Nora told them.
They broke away and turned to their friends, smiling for them and then smiled at each other. Jaune held his girlfriend in his arms and they silently gave each other comfort.
A week had passed since the Battle for Aletheia. Although the village had been saved from complete destruction and Ruby from the hands of Tyrian, not everything came up roses. What was once the Scarlatti Trojan Alliance had lost over half of its members due to death, disappearance, or in Tyrian's case, treachery. A third of the city had been destroyed, many were displaced, and a few hundred residents were injured. Nearly a hundred residents were dead.
Still, life went on, and the Mayor of Aletheia was not going to let this unfortunate occurrence bring the city down. He encouraged citizens who still had homes to let homeless refugees take them in, organized a new food bank and other services to help those in the shelters and asked for volunteer crews to help with reconstruction. He also issued a mandatory verdict that everyone who was a member of the Trojan Alliance to either give up their badge and renounce their association or move out within a week. Ninety percent of the Trojan Alliance members gave up their badges. Roughly six percent of those members (which were mostly people living alone) had moved out, and the remaining four percent that refused to renounce the membership or leave, were swiftly arrested and taken in for further questioning.
To reward teams JNPR-Ruby and SOLR, they were given free hotel rooms at the village's only five star hotel for as long as they needed or wanted them. And with Nora injured and everyone in low spirits, a week-long rest was much needed.
On the seventh day, Nora and Ren were shown in their hotel room, with an already dressed Ren gently nudging Nora awake.
"Ugh... Do I have to get up?"
"Yes you do. Also you still have one more dose of medicine to take."
Nora groaned loudly.
The Valkyrie got out of bed, shown wearing her pajamas from Beacon. Nora took a pill and drank some water and went in the restroom for a quick shower and change of clothes. Ten minutes later, she was wearing a white sleeveless turtleneck top similar to her old one, though the heart cut-out on the top had a diagonal cut through it, symbolizing a pierced heart. On her left arm was a shorter, detached white sleeve. Over the shirt, she wore a open cropped, short-sleeved navy blue bomber leather jacket with a damaged print of her emblem visible on the back and pink stripes along the sleeves alongside pink buckled cuffs and a red lining on the collar. She wore a pleated pink skirt with two wide belt loops for matching belt, with the skirt having a white layered tulle. Her gloves were the same, but she now donned knee-high pink socks just visible above her white calf-length boots with pink laces and black low heels, soles and toes.
Her bandage was gone, the cut having closed up and mostly faded. Soon enough, it would be gone.
Man, she looks cute. Ren thought. Dare I say hot even. Wait, why am I saying that?
Nora raised an eyebrow. "Are you alright?"
"Oh, it's nothing." Ren responded. "Come on, the others are waiting on us."
As they left their room and met up with Ruby, they saw she was wearing a new outfit.
Her new design sported a white high-neck low-cut blouse with brown studded wristbands on the arms. Her outfit retained the use of a black skirt with red tulle underneath, but her waist cincher had been replaced with an overbust corset with red strip holding it in place. A black belt bordered in red held the magnetic clip for Crescent Rose and its ammunition. She also had brown straps on her blouse that allow her to wear a small brown backpack.
Instead of her full black stockings she wore thigh-high stockings reaching a few inches below the hem of her skirt, decorated by an image of a long-stemmed rose. Her red-soled black boots contained four straps and buckles. Her ripped cloak had a singular clip on the right shoulder in the shape of her emblem. Her hair was now seen to be slightly longer that had red tips while still being mostly black.
They soon met up with Jaune and Pyrrha, the latter wearing a new outfit. She was shown wearing a red t-shirt with a phoenix design over her stomach and armor completely covering her chest, neckline and shoulders. The sleeves had a gold lining around them. She wore brown tights with her red sash wrapped around to make a mini skirt. She wore knee high wedged boots with golden armor on the upper legs and red bracers on each of her arms, her gloves now gone. Her pink colored and ribboned headband was still present and her hair was now braided into a waist length braid. Her bangs were brushed aside, rendering her forehead visible.
"Well, what you think?" Pyrrha thought.
"I like it." Ruby complimented.
Nora gave her two thumbs up. "Very nice."
Ren looked at her hands. "You're not wearing gloves?"
"Well there's no reason for me to. Everyone knows of my semblance, even if I don't show it off. I can be more honest with the world now. But I still have them and the cloak, just in case of emergencies." Pyrrha turned to Nora. "Also, thanks again for teaching me those braiding maneuvers."
Nora smiled. "You're welcome. Now come on, we got places to be and pancakes to eat!"
The spartan warrior faintly chuckled as they went forward.
Sometime after breakfast, the heroic quintet went to the hospital where all the injured members of what was once the Scarlatti Alliance were in recovery. When they arrived to the staff gang's room, they saw the victims of Nora's rage with one or both of their legs hung up and elevated through large thick chords. The female archer was also there, with her left arm in a sling.
Team JNPR-Ruby got a closer look at her. She had light brown skin, brown hair knotted into a messy bun, and blue eyes with hints of green. She wore a blue one-strap crop top over her right shoulder and a matching pair of shorts. She wore blue sneakers with white socks and appeared to have bandages around her left leg.
They also noticed that each of Orville's living teammates were there and had one of his items; Surya was shown wearing Orville's golden amber locket around his neck, Apollo was wearing his cloak with the hood down, and Atum had Orville's sword collapsed and hanging on his back.
Surya noticed their presence. "Oh, hey guys."
"Hey..." Nora hesitantly spoke.
A man with both his legs hung up glared at them and pointed at Nora. "You have a lot of nerve coming here after what you did."
"First you break his legs," the second guy started, pointing to the first guy. He pointed to a woman with the right leg broken, "her right leg," Then to a woman with one leg broken, "her left leg," He gestured to himself, "my right leg," and finally ended with the pre-teen who had both of her legs fractured. "and her legs! And now you have the audacity to rub it in our faces!"
Nora felt so guilty as she rubbed her left elbow and looked at the people she had injured. "I know words can't make up for my actions, but I'm sorry. I'm really, truly and sincerely sorry. I don't expect you to forgive me, nor can I ask for it."
"Maybe next time you'll think twice before you start breaking legs!" the first woman stated. "It's not just bad enough that you hurt four adults- you also hurt a child!"
"And a very unfortunate one at that!" the second one added, pointing to the girl. "That girl is a poor orphan who's never had a home!"
Nora looked at the girl and felt her heart silently cry. "She's... an orphan?" The young recruit nodded sadly. "Now I feel really bad..." Tears came to her eyes. "Because... I'm an orphan too."
The camera focused on the girl. "You... are?" Nora nodded sadly as tears were shown falling down her face. "How did you survive?"
"Two reasons; One, cause I'm a tough girl who always fights. And second," She gestured to Ren. "he saved my life several times."
The girl looked at the lotus warrior in amazement. "Is that true?"
"It is, but she also saved my skin numerous times." Ren responded. "We've looked after each other for many years, and oftentimes we only had each other."
Nora started sobbing uncontrollably, the guilt beginning to crush her. "I'm horrible! I'm a monster!"
"You're not a monster." She looked up at the female archer. "You did made some bad decisions. I think all of us have."
"We've all made mistakes. This just happens to be a very big one." Surya told her. "Joining the Scarlatti Alliance was probably the biggest mistake we made."
"Speaking which, how many members of your group are left?" Ren asked.
"Let's see..." Atum began, looking at a clipboard with papers on it. "We began with thirty members, and gained twenty on the way, so there fifty total who were present to fight you. In the end we have thirteen dead, including Orville. Twenty-two members who have gone missing and are presumed dead unless they show up. And needless to say, we have the one who betrayed us who's now in jail. We got eight members who survived, but with significant injures. Most of them thanks to Nora..." Nora hung her head in shame as Atum continued, "Of the remaining six, three members got minor injures, and us other three members of team SOLR survived and were not injured all. So that's fourteen remaining survivors."
"Also, all of the veterans are dead or missing, and the two police officers died in front of our eyes. So us three are really the only fighters left."
"Aside from Nora breaking legs, who else got heavily injured?" Jaune asked.
"We got an elderly man who was clawed by a Grimm, and was left with intensive scarring on his face. He may even lost sight in one eye... One poor middle aged man got his arm chewed off by an Ursa while trying to save citizens of the village." He then gestured to the female archer. "And finally, the last victim was Cyrene, who as you can see, got her arm broken."
"Ouch." He winced in sympathy. "All of those sound painful."
"Indeed it does." Surya grimaced. "But it all pales in comparison to the loss of our teammate."
Everyone stood in a moment of silence for Orville. For team SOLR, their teammate and long time friend was gone. There was no happy ending for them.
"What you are gonna do?" Nora somberly asked.
"What we were always told to do during our time at Haven; carry on no matter what." Atum answered.
"The Scarlatti Trojan Alliance is no more, but we are still responsible for the safety and well-being of the remaining members." Surya stated. "We can't just leave them here. Also, we can't go back to Aquarian. Not with our original objective unfulfilled due to Pyrrha actually being innocent."
"Maybe you should." the valkyrie told him. "Last I looked, the city's still under dictatorship. Scarlatti has got to go."
"You know what we could do-" Atum looked his teammates. "we could leave one of the not-horribly-injured members in charge if we needed to really go anywhere. We create a wax mold of Pyrrha's head and present it to Scarlatti. We get the 50,000 Lien, and the Trojan Alliance stops its hunt for Pyrrha, protecting her and her friends throughout Sanus and possibly the rest of the world."
Apollo and Cyrene both nodded in disapproval, with the former stating, "I'm afraid it's not a good idea, Ra. If we tried to deceive her, would Garnet Scarlatti believe what she saw?"
"I'd say Apollo's right here, Atum. If Scarlatti realizes the mold is a fake, no doubt we'd be on her naughty list and have to fight her bodyguards. Not only do they outnumber us, they also have a lot more experience than we do. We're fresh out of the academy and we'd probably lose! Then it's literally off with our heads!"
Team JNPR, Ruby, Cyrene and the other victims winced at the idea.
The 'sun king' shrugged. "Eh, it was worth a shot."
Surya stated, "If we had Orville with us then maybe, but just us three? No way." Atum and Apollo sighed sadly. He looked at team JNPR-Ruby nervously, scratching his head as he asked, "I know that you hardly knew him, and that we tried to kill you before learning the truth about Pyrrha's innocence, but... would you be willing to come to the memorial service this afternoon?"
"Of course." Jaune answered. "And besides, we're friends...ish. Allies if nothing else."
"Thank you. It would mean a lot to us, especially since we have so many that are dead, or went missing and most likely died in the chaos."
"No problem." Ruby shrugged with a nervous smile. "And who knows? Maybe some of the missing members will show up."
None of the missing members showed up. Although they were saddened, it wasn't a surprise to anyone. The memorial service was held later that day. The funeral payed respects to all of the fallen and the presumed dead. The remaining members of what was once the Scarlatti Alliance and JNPR-Ruby were the first to arrive, with those unable to walk in wheelchairs. Many residents of Aletheia, including Mayor Lemongrass, were also in attendance.
The service payed tribute to everyone who were missing and presumed to be dead, those who had been confirmed dead, and finally, Orville himself. As his casket was brought forth to the stage, team JNPR-Ruby joined SLR on the stage as Surya got out his speech.
"Orville Odur. Member of team SOLR, graduate of Haven Academy, and friend to us all." Surya began. He looked to the audience. "I realize that many of you may not be aware of how he met such tragic fate or may have heard rumors about what happened. Allow me to put these rumors to rest.
"When we joined Scarlatti's Trojan Alliance, we had thought nothing of whether or not Pyrrha Nikos was innocent. We thought we were doing the right thing. Throughout our journey, Orville used his semblance, Blazing Trail, to track down Pyrrha to fulfill Scarlatti's wishes. Eventually, we found her, and we had found that she had lost her mind in the alter ego she was pretending to be. As a result of being blamed for crimes that weren't hers, Pyrrha hid herself behind a mask and forged a new identity for herself- named Rouge Gorlois. She even created a backstory and in her insanity, fooled everyone around her, including herself. When we found them, we feared we had the wrong target. However Tyrian, our former friend and once honorary team member, snapped her out of her insanity and shortly thereafter, the fight began.
"With team SOLR-Tyrian going directly at each member, we waged our war against her. Little did we realize that by having the mob take out the heroes, us against team JNPR and Tyrian against Ruby, we had fallen directly into his hands. Shortly after the fight began, he isolated her from the mob and quickly subdued her. Shortly before he abducted her, Pyrrha told us of her innocence, but then we realized Tyrian and Ruby were missing from the battlefield and heard her cry, our worst fears were realized- Tyrian had betrayed us. Soon thereafter, the Grimm began to attack this fair village.
"We all felt guilty for what had happened, especially Orville. He felt so guilt-ridden upon learning that Tyrian had deceived him, deceived all of us, that he was willing to risk everything to make things right. Despite the fact that he had lost a lot of aura tracking Pyrrha down, and later on fighting Nora, he used what little aura he had to find her in hopes of saving her. Alongside Ren and Nora, they went forth to find their friend. They soon found her, but the traitor was not going to give up easily. He covered his tracks and hid her away from his opponents before facing them in combat.
"Ren was the first to fall. Nora bravely fought against him, but the merciless traitor sought to kill her for standing in his way. Although it would cost him his life, Orville threw himself in harm's way, taking a fatal blow as his aura ran out and was poisoned by Tyrian's scorpion stinger. As for the rest of us, we scattered to try and save the village. When we heard of what happened from Ruby, who escaped with Pyrrha's aid, we finished the Grimm and raced as fast as we could to our teammate. But by the time Pyrrha had defeated the villainous traitor, it was too late. He was gone. The unmasked heroine then arrested Tyrian and he was taken away by the authorities.
"As for Orville, we had learned the truth in the aftermath of the war. Orville was not only my closest friend, but he was selfless and always willing to do the right thing, no matter what it cost him. Although it cost him his life, he ultimately helped to save Aletheia. So as we recover from this attack, let us not forget the sacrifices that he and all of the fallen members of what was the Scarlatti Trojan Alliance have made to protect this city and its people. Even if you're not a fighter, I encourage you to do the right thing. I thank you all for coming and may we all continue to remember those who fought for us all."
Applause was heard as Surya went backstage as the crowd dispersed. "Hey, um, Ruby?"
The silver eyed warrior turned to the red gem leader. "Yes?"
"I didn't want to ask you this in front of a live audience, but, do you know why Tyrian was after you in the first place?"
"Well..." She hesitated, trying to think of how to answer. "I'm not entirely sure, but I have a few guesses. But um... I'd like to speak with my teammates about it first."
"I see. We're not going to pressure you, but if you do want to tell us the truth, you can tell us at the reception at the hotel. In the meantime, we have cremation arrangements to finalize."
Surya, Apollo and Atum left to finalize the post-memorial service actions, leaving Ruby alone with her teammates.
"So what happened back there?" Jaune asked.
Ruby breathed in and opened her mouth to speak. "Oh boy... Where do I begin?"