I've gotten a LOT of people upset about the tone shift in Chapter 28 –which, fair, you guys didn't get the tag warnings the archiveofourown readers did and that's entirely on me– but just to clarify, while this IS still a fix-it fic and things WILL get better, it's also a fix-it broken first, so things will, briefly, get worse. This chapter is worse.
Basically, this whole 28-30 stretch is the rock-bottom/nadir/darkest hour, and then we reverse direction in the next chapter and immediately start fixing shit for real. Sorry about the previous lack of warning, but now you DO know and can engage/not engage with my fic accordingly.
For notes on the actual chapter and anyone who may find the statement a bit jarring, Blake's aside to Team CRDL is an acid little callback to something they said in Byron Nightshade's fic No Silence At All, which is more or less fully in the continuity of this fic –just off-screen, as it were.
Also, Adam's such a dickweasel, but it's oddly fun to write him. Hopefully I did a good job at his characterization of "powerful and charismatic terrorist leader" during the beginning of its descent into "emotionally unstable nutjob not to be trusted with safety scissors." The balance of Adam's character (like pretty much everything in the White Fang plot line) is one of the few things I think CRWBY genuinely just… did not do a really good job on. He works fantastic as Yang and Blake's antagonist, but… doesn't really meld with his other roles. Still, he's dead now, so who cares. Rest in pieces, asshole.
Blake's legs flexed as she jumped out of the swooping Bullhead, hitting the ground a few meters below and rolling to reduce impact. Other trainees hit the tarmac all around her, most of them with weapons held at the ready, and were soon rushing off to join the fray echoing in the school ahead. They didn't even wait for the Bullhead to soar off, sending the air screaming all around Blake and the others as they hesitated, looking at each other.
"We'll try to meet you guys here if something goes wrong," Yang said as she cocked Ember Celica, glancing towards Team JNPR, who looked eager to be off. "Yeah?"
"Yes," Pyrrha said, giving them all a little nod. There was something in her eyes –something heavy with significance– but Blake was pulling at her metaphorical harness, eager to be off, to find Adam. She barely graced that nod with a glance of her own before she was dashing towards the nearest shouts, Yang falling into step behind her. Penny followed them, but there was an absent gleam in her eye that meant she was probably listening to radio chatter or the Scroll network.
Well, all to the good. They might have military earpieces, but Penny's systems were far more advanced, and any forward warning or information she could give them would be welcome.
It looked like the combined White Fang and Grimm forces had hit Beacon from the cliffs overlooking the Emerald Forest –there were turrets there to deal with flying Grimm, sure, but the cliffs themselves were presumed to be enough to guard the school from that direction, and it thus went largely ignored. Said cliffs were also on the opposite side of Beacon from Amity, meaning that any reinforcement the defenders got would have to go the long way around.
It also gave both the military and Beacon's population a lot more time and space to dig in and defend themselves, though, and Blake's lips tightened as she recognized Adam's bold, reckless hand in this strategy. Swarming up from the cliffs gave the White Fang the advantage of surprise –a fine morale boost for jittery, inexperienced troops– but it also meant, when or if the defenders finally got off the back foot, it would be exceedingly difficult –and perhaps impossible– to retreat.
Going back down the cliffs would leave them sitting ducks, and whoever was in the rear was almost certain to be captured or killed. Given that alternative, the White Fang would fight like demons even when it became clear the tide of battle was turning against them, unaware of how they had been deliberately pushed into this desperate choice. Whether they won or lost –or, more likely, were wiped out by such an insane strategy– the tales of their "brave sacrifice" would undoubtedly later be turned into heroic propaganda to bolster the White Fang's cause.
Yes, this had Adam's fingerprints all over it. She gritted her teeth.
Blake would have liked to say that Adam had never been the kind of person willing to sacrifice his own men, but, well, that would be a lie. Even after Sienna had just recently taken over, both of them knew that there were some missions where you had to cut your losses and accept that not everyone would be coming back.
They shouldered that burden with pride or regret –but as commanders (sub-commanders, in Blake's case), they shouldered it all the same. Sometimes you had to sacrifice some of your people to get the job done.
But there was a vast difference between that and this, with Adam driving the rest of Vale's remaining White Fang forces into the fire for no other reason than to do as much damage against Beacon as possible. He was throwing people who trusted him –near-civilian rookies who desperately needed the command of an experienced combatant to survive a confrontation with Hunters and the Atlas military– into shark-filled waters and telling them to swim, safe and secure and confident in the knowledge that no matter how this ended, he would benefit.
If, against all odds, they won, he would be lauded as a military genius, an inspiring figurehead who charged into battle alongside his men to strike a blow against some of the most powerful institutions on Remnant. He would gain prestige, great prestige, among the White Fang, and perhaps even enough traction to knock Sienna from her throne without assassinating her. As humanity lashed out against the Faunus for such a cruel and needless attack, too, the ranks of the White Fang would swell, and he would have access to yet more followers who idolized him.
If they failed, then Adam could eliminate the members of a White Fang faction that Blake knew he thought was soft, and fire others' hearts by grossly misinterpreting their example. He could claim to be held back from his victory by their cowardice, prevented from striking a crucial blow against Atlas by their ineptitude, and even blame them for getting involved with Cinder and being drawn in to attack Beacon in the first place. And he could still, as the backlash hit and soured human-Faunus relations, draw yet more unsuspecting recruits into his dangerously seductive line of thought…
No.
Not if Blake had anything to say about it.
This close to the docks, it was easy to find a military depot, comprised of a half-squad of Atlesian soldiers and several Beacon teams who had taken shelter in one of the maintenance hangers. The soldiers looked up as the three of them approached, but Penny, at least, was familiar to them, and they relaxed back down again.
"Situation report?" Penny asked, and the man who seemed to be captain scowled.
"Comms went dead ten minutes ago, so we're relying on the Scroll network to get messages up and down the line," he said, tapping his own earpiece. Indeed, Blake's had been spitting out intermittent fuzzes of static for some time now. "We've got a pretty decent storage unit here, so we're holding this position for Hunters to resupply their Dust or drop off prisoners. There's a relay of ships taking 'em out of the combat zone, at least, though I'm not sure where they're going."
Blake glanced over her fellow students. They had looked up when she and Yang and Penny entered, but had almost immediately gone back to filling their spent canisters or bullet clips or what-have-you with a variety of refined Dust from the nearby crates. She recognized most of them, but only distantly.
"Not sure it matters," she replied, looking back. Her eyes narrowed a little. "What's the situation on the ground looking like?"
He glanced at her, and Blake's ears tilted backwards as his eyes rose to the top of her head. Credit to his professionalism, his gaze snapped back down almost immediately, and answered her without deceit.
"We've got confirmed visual on the White Fang and many of their leaders, including Adam Taurus," he said, and her hands clenched. "Thanks to the Hunters your headmaster called in, they've mostly been pinned back away from Amity's side of Beacon. There's a lot of Grimm, though, and that's making things difficult for everyone."
Blake could well imagine. Fighting an enemy until you broke their Aura was one thing –doing so when surrounded by Grimm who would quite happily devour said helpless victim was another. As much as her moral side hated to admit it, taking prisoners was already much harder than simply killing your foe, and under these circumstances, that already-difficult problem was compounded by being unable to safely leave prisoners anywhere.
"Where do you need us?" Penny said.
The Atlas captain nodded and gestured to a makeshift map of Beacon tacked to the wall. Despite it being a beautifully technical drawing of the school grounds and their infrastructure, she said makeshift due to the hastily-drawn sharpie that sectioned it off into quadrants.
"Section Six is looking dicey –it's where this lot came from, and people were barely holding on when they left."
It was near the center of the school grounds, close to the cafeteria, and Blake narrowed her eyes.
"Okay then," Yang said, speaking for her, and nodded to the captain. Her eyes found Blake as they turned away, and she gestured towards the Dust. "You need anything before we go?"
Blake shook her head. She was already stocked with everything she could carry, and she doubted Yang or Penny were any different.
They plunged back out into the war-torn evening along with several other Beacon students as they finished reloading, and Blake caught Yang's eye, tilting her head back. They slowed, letting the others move ahead, until the trio of them could duck behind a garden statue and speak.
"You do not plan to go to that section, do you?" Penny asked, her eyes alight with nervous concern. Blake shook her head.
"No," she said. "We need to find Adam. I need to end this."
Penny's mouth twisted even more unhappily.
"While cutting off the head of the snake is a viable strategy, in the real world, killing the BBE doesn't instantly end the war…" she began to explain, but Yang shook her head.
"That's not what she meant," she told Penny solemnly. Penny blinked, but… seemed willing to accept that.
"Very well then," she said. "I will go reinforce the others in Section Six. Unless one of us sends a message otherwise, we'll meet Team JNPR back at the Bullhead docks?"
"Yup," Yang said as Blake simply nodded, grateful beyond words that Penny was not going to argue this.
"Let me know if you see Adam before we do," she said, and Penny set her jaw, looking determined.
"I will," she promised, and they all nodded, before breaking off again in different directions. Blake watched as Penny curved along the outside of the courtyard, her swords already whirling at the ready, and felt unspeakably relieved at the simple sight, knowing that Penny was still here, and not torn to pieces on Amity.
"So," Yang said, barely breathing heavily as she followed after Blake and they ducked through an archway, losing visual on Penny. "Not that I don't mind punching his bastard lights out, but what is the plan here?"
Blake ran her tongue for her lips for a moment, thinking.
"Adam would be on the front lines, wherever the fighting is heaviest," she replied, feeling confident in that. For everything else that he was, he was no coward: taking the fight to the enemy was practically Adam's entire creed. "We should start by finding that and taking out as many White Fang as possible."
"Gotcha," Yang nodded, and glancing up at the buildings as they passed, wove her fingers together and offered her cupped hands.
Blake leaped for her as they skidded to a brief halt, sinking her foot and then her bodyweight into the platform Yang provided. She jumped at the same moment Yang shoved upwards, launching herself high into the air.
At the apex of her ascent, Blake hurled Gambol Shroud on its ribbon, stabbing into the brick wall some distance ahead and above herself and using the resulting swing to launch herself even higher. Another overhand toss and hook into the very lip of the building, and Blake was able to clamber onto the roof, already shading her light-sensitive eyes from all the bursts of gunfire as she turned her head from side to side, searching for wherever the once-beloved uniforms of the White Fang were clustered the thickest.
It was, thankfully, not closest to the cafeteria, since she wasn't entirely certain she would bring her A-game if confronted by such a visceral, searing memory on all sides.
With a hop and a swoop she was back down at ground level, reeling Gambol Shroud back in.
"I didn't see him over there, but most of the White Fang are clustered by the gardens, and it looks like that's where the defense has congregated too," she said. Yang nodded, and then gave a shrug that was far more flippant than her actual attitude.
"And eh, we may as well start somewhere, right?" she said. "He'll probably be looking for us –you– anyway, so once you start catching the White Fang's attention, that shouldn't take too long."
Blake nodded, trying to ignore the chill trailing like a sword down her spine. It would be fine.
"I think we should-" she began, before there was a chime from their Scrolls.
They pulled them out, only to see a general message from Ozpin on the school app, summarizing most of the situation and encouraging them to do what they thought best in this scenario.
Blake shook her head, putting her Scroll back on her belt.
"If we see him before he sees us, we should try to catch him off-guard," she said, continuing from her earlier point. "I'll go in first and try to distract him: you can circle around to ambush if he… whenever you feel you should."
Yang tilted her head slightly, looking at her. Then she reached out and touched Blake on the arm.
"You wanna give him a chance to back down, don't you?"
Blake winced, looking away. Despite all her bravado, despite knowing just what Adam would do if left unchecked… Yang knew her all too well.
"I don't think he will… but… what kind of person would I be if I didn't at least give him the chance?" she asked miserably, her ears drooping downwards.
She and Adam were done. Completely, utterly, and totally done, any feelings between them obliterated; after what he had done to her, after what he'd done to Yang, there was no going back. But Blake owed it to herself, and to the person she had once thought she loved, to at least give him a choice –even if she was all but certain he would spit that choice back in her face with no remorse.
Yang's smile was as warm and all-encompassing as the sun, and she bumped her knuckles against Blake's arm in a friendly, gentle nudge before pulling away.
"Don't worry. We'll sort this out," she said, and it was just –it was so impossible not to believe her, when she smiled like that, when she stood like that; dangers up ahead and dangers crowding in behind, with Yang perfectly poised between and ready to greet them both with open arms.
Blake smiled back, and then they took off again, running for the gardens and the battlefield therein. Her earpiece fizzled and popped in her ear, but Blake twitched the feeling aside –especially when nothing else happened.
They had barely reached the edge of the battlefield –and were certainly nowhere near enough to participate– when a distant, white-hot flash of light burst in the sky up above the Emerald Forest. Startled cries rang out from the combatants as many paused and glanced up: even the Grimm seething through and around the ranks of the White Fang all stiffened, raising their heads. Some of the larger, more sentient ones cringed back.
Blake and Yang exchanged knowing looks, somewhat smugly. It seemed like Ruby was using her silver eyes to clear the sky from any flying enemies.
When nothing came of that distant flash, though, everyone more or less shrugged to themselves and turned their attention back to the fight. The Grimm recovered first, and Beacon's line fumbled as a host of students only belatedly got their guard up. Some of them didn't get it up in time, and Yang snapped her gauntlets out behind her, blasting a furrow in the dirt as she hurled towards a Beowolf with its jaws locked around a fellow first-year's arm.
Gambol Shroud twanged at the same time as Blake caught a Deathstalker's stinger mid-lunge, pulling it away from the student it had been aiming for as the sharp, glowing bulb drove explosively down into the dirt and Russel Thrush belatedly jerked back in shock, swinging around. Blake pulled herself in with a jerk, flying past him as she unsheathed Gambol Shroud's cleaver and spun to gain more momentum.
She lashed out at the apex of both her swing and her spin, and the Aura-enhanced metal sheared through the Grimm's carapace with a snap, perfectly cleaving the stinger from the tail and severely hampering the Deathstalker's ability to attack.
She flipped to land on its bony faceplate, driving the tip of her cleaver into it at the same moment as she yanked the rest of Gambol Shroud to follow. Her kusarigama-pistol whirled into her hand, already shifted, and aiming downwards, Blake stabbed into the crack her cleaver had made between those furiously-gleaming jewel-like eyes, sliding the tip of her katana deep into its brain matter.
The Deathstalker slumped, already going to ash, and Blake sniffed contemptuously as she stepped off of it, moving past a stunned and pale-faced Team CRDL.
"Do you remember what they call the Beacon student who graduates last in their class?" she asked them, not even looking back as she jerked Gambol Shroud out of the disintegrating skull with a twitch of her ribbon and caught it a moment later. "Grimm bait."
They didn't say anything –or at least, they didn't gather their wits in time to reply before she spotted the next student in danger and rushed off.
Most of the Atlesian soldiers on the ground here were reinforcing the students rather than taking the charge themselves –not to say that they were flinging the trainees into the mouths of the Grimm, but rather backing the Hunter cadets up with squads of gunmen, or having one older lieutenant (or some other form of superior) direct the students who were aimless, letting both very different combative groups integrate as seamlessly as may be in this scenario.
The Atlesians also seemed to be in charge of rounding up the defeated White Fang and herding them back to the docks, which made a certain amount of sense. There were more soldiers than students, and this way they could be confident everything was done to procedure and allow the Hunters do what they did best: hit the problem with copious amounts of Dust-laced weaponry until it went away.
Blake mused on that as she caught the strike of a White Fang grunt –truly desperate now, as he hit at her with the butt of his gun– and whipped her foot around, pulling his ankles out from under him as he hit the ground. A swift kick knocked the gun away, and then Blake was hastily stepping forward to block the unified attacks of another Faunus with a gun and an owl Faunus with a machete. She twisted, lashing out with both component parts of Gambol Shroud as her cleaver sliced through the gun's mechanism and her katana slapped the machete aside.
She did not care that she couldn't see Yang in this breathless, whirling melee. She knew her partner was okay –knew it from the familiar whumps and bangs of exploding Dust shells, if nothing else. And while these White Fang were already a cut above the ones from Mountain Glenn, Adam was not here.
They had time to help with this.
Blake cut her way slowly but surely through the swarm of Grimm and White Fang, doing her best to disarm or drain the Auras of the former and leave them behind, for the lesser-skilled students and soldiers to pull behind their defensive line and then bind or further disable. Plenty of people were running back and forth from their rear, either herding prisoners or charging back to one of the supply caches to load up on more ammunition.
The soldiers were working with more coordination, though, and Blake's sharp eyes caught more than one military maneuver she knew. They hadn't been bothering with those before, and hopefully, she reached up to tap her earpiece with one hand as she somersaulted over a collapsing Ursa, yanking Gambol Shroud's bloody blade from its yawning mouth with the other.
"-requested reinforcements to the Beacon Tower," General Ironwood said on the main Atlesian military channel, apparently midflow. "Set up a perimeter before entering: no one goes in or out without my express verbal permission. Specialist Schnee?"
"Civilian evacuations from Amity are confirmed complete," Winter's voice replied crisply. "I repeat: all civilians have been confirmed evacuated from Amity. Ground evacuations were at 70% during last confirmed report. Hunters of Vale are doing their best to finalize evacuation and guard Vale and its airspace under the command of Glynda Goodwitch."
"Grimm Threat Level remains at 7," Ironwood said. "Our airships are confirmed to hold aerial superiority: the main battleship has been compromised, but was returned to friendly hands at last communication. Caution is advised upon approaching, however, as not all escaped prisoners may have fled."
Blake hissed through her teeth at that remark as she slid through a pair of charging Beowolves and cracked the back of Gambol Shroud against the back of a ram Faunus's skull. Cinder was probably on the loose, then, and not dead –unfortunately.
"Approximately 20% of Beacon Academy is currently under White Fang control," the general continued, "-with a further 10% contested and another 15% overrun by Grimm. Currently 55% of the area is in friendly hands. Be advised that the known serial killer Tyrian Callows was sighted on Amity Colosseum and may be present."
Blake flipped over a Creep, slashing Gambol Shroud's cleaver into its neck to break its spine, before her arm snapped out, slamming a King Taiju's blackened head off-target as behind her, several of her fellow students grabbed their injured teammate and dragged them behind the lines.
She lost track of Ironwood's voice for a little bit in the dancing cat-and-mouse that followed as she dodged the Grimm's strikes, eventually letting the two-headed snake grab a mouthful of one of her clones –loaded with Burn Dust– before springing off another's hands as the first Grimm's head exploded and the second lunged just in time to take her stab to the throat.
When she tuned back in again, there was a rapid chatter going on between Ironwood and his subordinates; organizing the current routes, drop-offs, and supply caches for injured students and captured White Fang; redirecting Specialists to either track the more formidable members of the White Fang by their last known location or spread out across the school in a dragnet; instructions for updating the graduated Hunters on-site –which included Ruby's uncle and most of Beacon's faculty– if certain key players, such as Watts of Tyrian, appeared.
It was nothing she could particularly contribute to, but Blake kept half an ear out as she spotted Yang through the thinning crowd of enemies –of human enemies, at least, since the Grimm were as thick as ever– in case she heard anything of immediate importance. The fact that the comms were back up to begin with indicated that Ruby or Neo had done something –probably Neo, given Ruby's skill level with coding.
Mechanic she was, programmer she was not.
Knowing that she'd have to retreat if her Aura levels dipped past 75% –she refused to challenge Adam on anything less– Blake also kept half an eye on her Scroll between the moments of frantic carnage, doing her best to simultaneously stay between both the White Fang and the Grimm and the White Fang and her fellow students. It was a ticklish business, and one not made any easier by the fact that she half-knew some of these people, and they her.
She fought her way to Yang's side, eventually, and together they plunged into the unseeing, all-seeing trance of a pair of graduated Huntresses facing down a swarm, slogging their way through the brutal, unchanging waves of Grimm on nothing but trust and pure, muscle-bound reflex born from years of combat. Each opening was targeted, each gap in bone plating found by a blade or a fist, and nothing could challenge or hardly even touch them as they tore back and forth across the battlefield, moving with the flow of fighting and letting it take them where they needed to be.
It was grueling, for all that. Even when they had yet to truly start chipping down her Aura, Blake's longer hair was plastered to her arms and shoulders with sweat, and her arms were beginning to ache. It seemed like every Grimm she fought had hardly vanished into smoke before three, five, a dozen more were roaring and clawing through the ashen mist, claws and teeth hungry for battle. She had fought Grimm hordes before, faced bigger ones than this: but there were still so many.
She heard one of the soldiers shout and leaped backwards instinctively, following Yang, as the ground nearby was torn up with a barrage of gunfire. As they moved back towards the line, Blake realized that this area had been more or less cleared of Faunus combatants –living ones, at least– and the Atlesians were free to blast the remaining Grimm with a hail of bullets, uncaring about killing any bystanders.
"Damn good show," one of the soldiers muttered, pulling out a water bottle from a holster on his belt and offering it to her. Blake recognized the wrapping as one of the water bottles from the cafeteria vending machines, incongruously enough, but it felt icy cold and blessedly relieving as she twisted it open with a wrench of her hand, swallowing more than half before dumping the remaining quarter over her head and hair. "You two fourth-years?"
"First years," Yang said, panting a little as she finished gulping down her own water, shared by another man. There was a slight, incredulous ripple from the various soldiers standing nearby.
"The hell you are."
Blake shared a tired grin with her partner at this response.
"Eh, something-something great potential, something-something had incredible teachers, something-something mad skills," Yang laughed, before upending her water bottle and splashing her face. "Hoo, boy, I needed that. How're we doing? Any sign of the ringleaders?"
"Negative."
"How long have we been out here?" Blake asked, tilting her head towards Yang to indicate which we she meant, and he shrugged.
"Less than an hour, more than twenty minutes," he replied. "Not like I was keeping exact count. You two good to keep going in Section Eight?"
"I know I'm good to keep growing," Yang said, pointing dual finger-guns at him with a grin and a wink. "As in, growing in skills? Eyyyy."
Everyone within earshot winced, grimaced, or both. Blake, long since inured to Yang's antics, simply held a hand over her eyes, shaking her head slowly.
"She's damaged in the head," she said loudly. "Ignore her."
She watched with despair through her fingers as Yang gave her a slow, atrocious wink, grinning wickedly.
"Well now, looks like you're a head of me."
"Can you please just go kill more Grimm now?" one of the soldiers begged.
"Mm?" Yang elbowed her. "Hey Blake, looks like they're searching for a claws to get rid of us."
There was chorus of groans, and Yang laughed, before turning to run for the direction indicated with Blake jogging off after her, offering a series of apologetic expressions to the soldiers they left behind as she did. Yang was a wonderful person. Really. Once you got used to her.
"Did you have to do that?" Blake sighed as they moved across the scarred practice fields of Beacon.
"Hey, laughing and joking with soldiers is a good thing. Humor boosts morale, and positive emotions don't attract Grimm."
"Your puns don't create positive emotions," Blake said, with great feeling. Yang cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Are you saying my puns aren't funny?"
"Has anyone said they are?" Blake asked, morbidly curious as well as meaning it for a diss.
Yang coughed.
"How's your Aura?" she asked, dodging the question.
"82%. You?"
"Still holding strong. 89%."
Blake nodded, factoring that in. Yang might take more hits as a hand-to-hand fighter, but she had adjusted the efficiency of her Aura use accordingly: Blake had too, as she learned and grew and evolved, but generating clones took a fair bit more than simply absorbing or deflecting a hit.
"We could try finding Qrow," Yang suggested as they looped around a half-shattered fountain. "If he's not busy, we can ask him to scout for Adam."
Blake shook her head.
"Crows aren't night animals," she said, gesturing at the darkened horizon. The sun had well and truly set by now, and humans like Yang were probably at least partially relying on the muzzle flashes and Dust flares to see where they were going. "He wouldn't be able to see much of anything."
Yang clicked her tongue against her teeth and nodded in disappointed assent.
Any further ideas were cut short by the ring of a Scroll, and Blake pulled hers out, eyes widening as she saw the caller ID.
"Jaune?" she asked with surprise –and yes, a tinge of worry– as she lifted her Scroll, thumbing the Accept Call.
"Is Ruby with you? Or Weiss?" he asked, and worry became an icicle lodged in her chest. "We can't get into contact with them, and the last anyone knew, they were on Ironwood's airship."
"They're not with us," Blake said, watching Yang grow stiffer and stiffer by the moment. "You don't think…?"
She let the sentence fall away awkwardly, because in all honesty, Blake didn't think Neo had anything to do with it. While her grudge with Ruby and exactly how much she had forgiven her for causing Torchwick's death were up in the air, she definitely needed the lifeline the rest of them were offering, particularly when Salem's cohort were leaving her and Torchwick high and dry.
Besides, even if she was tempted to stick a knife in Ruby's back while Ruby was distracted or something on the airship, Neo knew that she would be the very first suspect that the rest of them came after.
So while Neo disposing of Ruby just after they had rescued Torchwick was possible, Blake didn't think it very likely.
But if so, why had they gone radio silent?
Blake calculated swiftly, and then firmed her jaw.
"We're heading back to the ships," she said, and Yang sent her a startled, unspeakably grateful look. "They might be chasing down a lead or in the middle of fighting someone, but they should've sent a message if that was the case. Should we try to meet you at the docks?"
"Maybe not. We just killed Cinder, so we're halfway around the school," Jaune answered, sending a little thrill of shocked pleasure through her. Yang grinned and lightly punched her shoulder.
"Nice job, guys," she said, and Jaune hummed.
"…Pyrrha did what she did before, only she managed to pull it off this time," he added after a moment, which seemed like a non sequitur until Blake parsed through the context of Pyrrha matched with Cinder and before, and the way Jaune didn't seem to be sure if he should sound triumphant or despairing.
Her eyebrows rose slowly, but she didn't say anything, since she couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't seem insensitive or ruin their attempts to not mention the word "Maiden" on an unprotected channel.
"Right," Blake said after a moment. "Well. I suppose we'll deal with that later?"
"Yeah. We'll try to head on back to the docks –some of the soldiers we helped out mentioned a supply depot?– and catch you guys on your way back, maybe. Unless something else happens."
"Unless something else happens," Blake agreed, with the absent jadedness of someone who had lived through the Destruction of Atlas. "See you then."
"Bye."
"Bye."
"Are you sure about this?" Yang asked as they turned in the direction of the docks, and Blake's mouth twisted. Truthfully, she was finding all of these delays and detours more than a bit frustrating –but she choked that negativity down as any Huntress would, and took a deep breath.
"My teammates' lives are always going to be more important," Blake said, and meant it. "Besides…"
Besides, with the tide of battle slowly but surely turning in favor of the defenders, she could easily see Adam taking a cadre of determined followers –or going alone– to the airship docks to either disable the docks themselves or destroy the ships, thus preventing any retreat. Yes, even for the White Fang: he would force them to fight to the bitter end even if it killed them, without a speck of remorse or a second of hesitation, all to better serve his narrative.
They hadn't seen him yet despite destroying a respectable chunk of the White Fang's forces here at Beacon, and to Blake, that smacked of a plan in the works.
And, to be frank, there were a limited number of plans that Cinder seemed to trust Adam to enact. Most of them seemed to be combative in nature, and so Cinder may very well have entrusted him with the mission to limit comings and goings from the school and break the spine of civilian evacuation.
They might find him on their way to the docks.
They might very well find him yet.
Her hand clenched on the handle of Gambol Shroud, and she sheathed it with an effort, pulling close to the shadows as the two of them ran back towards the airship docks at the edge of Beacon.
Yang's eyes were ahead, all ahead, worry fueling the determined fire that glinted in her gaze as they dodged rushing soldiers and slew the occasional Grimm. As the battle spiraled in to its tipping point, everyone was clumping up in key areas, leaving the school feeling oddly deserted despite the attack, with the two of them running along paths and through courtyards empty of anything but the stray smoldering brushfire or torn-up ground.
And then.
And then.
Red.
Just like it had covered the landscape of Forever Fall, just like it had been a spreading stain on that waterfall bridge in Argus. Blake seized Yang's arm without thinking and pulled her behind a curving exterior balcony as they both skidded to a halt, Blake's eyes filled with red.
Her breath shook, and Yang, wonderful partner that she was, just stood for a moment and let Blake ground herself with that vice grip, neither questioning nor pushing despite how Blake could feel her leaning in the direction of the docks beyond, muscles tense with the urge to go find and help her sister.
"Right," Blake whispered after a few seconds, and nodded sharply to herself. "Well, he's alone."
"Cocky prick," Yang muttered under her breath. She then tilted her head. "You still wanna do the original plan –you distracting, me ambushing?"
Blake swallowed several times, finally wrestling her emotions down. She let the calm of a Huntress drop over her again like a comforting blanket as her shoulders straightened and she pulled her head up: the sheer unexpectedness of seeing him so suddenly had managed to burst open several of her restraints on her emotional state.
"Yeah," she said, and squeezed Yang's arm one last time before letting go. "Give me thirty seconds before you start moving, or he might notice you."
"Knock him dead, partner. And hurry up, if you can."
The corner of Blake's mouth twitched upwards as she stepped out from their makeshift hiding place, but even ironic smiles quickly faded as she moved out into the open, dread clenching in the pit of her stomach.
"Adam!" she shouted, and he paused mid-step.
Now that she'd pulled away from the outer wall of the school courtyard, the two of them were alone –quite alone– in a wide, grassy space that terminated at the cliffs overlooking the edge of the school. In happier times, students sometimes had picnics or studied out here, and even now, the view of the surrounding land and the edge of the Emerald Forest were breathtaking.
Blake had little eyes for it, though, all her focus on Adam as he slowly turned around.
"I've been looking for you… but it seems you've come back to me on your own, my love," he said, almost softly.
Blake's skin crawled so hard at those words, she wanted to rip it right off: dig her fingers through skin and past muscle until she could peel it all away like a heavy duvet and leave only pure bare bones that had never seen the glimpse of Adam.
"No," she said. "I've come to put a stop to this."
Adam scoff-laughed.
"You?" he said. "You're going to stop me? I taught you everything you know."
The only thing you taught me to do is how to recognize a monster when I see one, Blake thought, but didn't say.
"I'm here to stop this," she said instead, gesturing with one hand at the faint screams, Grimm roars, and gunfire echoing from Beacon. "Not you. But if you're the enemy leader, then I'm going to stop you –by whatever means I have to."
He scoffed again, but she thought she detected a hint of genuine irritation there.
"So it's only after you've abandoned our cause that by whatever means possible suddenly becomes an acceptable method to you?" Adam asked, his mouth curling in a sneer beneath the white bone of his mask. "You're just like your parents. Running away when things get difficult, and then crying into your hands about how you couldn't protect a cause that we're still fighting and dying for!"
"Oh really?" Blake's lips peeled back, even as she reached for Gambol Shroud. "And what cause is that, exactly? The White Fang was originally formed to protect Faunus: not for revenge!"
"Organizations change over time. You used to believe in that," he answered dismissively, and then his mouth pulled downwards. "You used to believe in me."
The withered vines still left lingering in her chest twisted, tightening, but the thorns catching at her heart only had a ghost of the sting they used to.
"I believed in the person I thought you were," Blake replied steadily, lifting her chin. "But people change, too. Don't they, Adam?"
It was hard to read expressions behind the masks –that was one of the many reasons that they wore them– but Blake had had practice in understanding masked faces for nearly as long as she could remember. She watched his jaw tense slightly, his hand inching closer to Wilt's handle for a moment. He was angry.
Good.
Blake wasn't reacting as she was supposed to, wasn't letting his well-placed barbs make her lose confidence or nudge her into a more vulnerable position, and the longer she kept his mind on trying to pick her apart, the more time Yang would have to get into position and select a strategy. It was hardly a difficult task to keep Adam focused on her –it was rather like trying to make sure sheep stuck together in a flock– but keeping his attention focused on her to the exclusion of all else was another matter entirely.
Both Adam's personality and his sword style favored a combative approach that focused on discerning weak points and finding the precise moment where a rapid, perfectly-executed strike would make everything fall apart, and because of that, his eyes were always on the move, constantly hunting for weaknesses to exploit. It would take a lot of emotional investment to distract him from monitoring his surroundings, especially in a setting like this –which was exactly why Blake, and not Yang, was the distraction.
"You have two choices, here," she continued, keeping herself as firm and unwavering as a statue as she stared into the eyes she knew were beneath his mask. "You can surrender –give up this insanity– and stop voluntarily, or I'm going to make you stop."
Her ears lay back, and she pulled Gambol Shroud loose, though she swung it down by her side rather than angling it for an immediate attack.
"And if I have to kill you to do it, then that's what I'll do."
Adam gripped Wilt by reflex when she drew, his stance shifting as he instinctively adjusted his weight –but when she didn't immediately leap for his throat, he relaxed again, his grip loosening. Then he laughed.
"I don't know where this new brave side of you came from, Blake," he finally said with another mocking sneer. "But I know it won't last. How much of this is just promises you're making yourself in order to brush away your guilt? You were just as complicit in this-" He waved a hand at all around them. "-as I was. You set your brothers and sisters on this path, you told them to pick up weapons, and you left us all behind when you decided you were too good for it!"
"That's not true!" Blake snapped. "I'm not like you. I'm choosing mercy. I'm choosing to be better! I'm choosing to give you a chance, and if you were at all smart, you'd take it!"
"So you say," he replied. "Tell me, Blake, how much of this is because you do feel responsible for what the White Fang are doing here? Do you want to make yourself feel better by forcing me to run the way that you do?"
Blake's frustrations exploded out of her in a teeth-clenched hiss, and she only barely held herself back from leaping at him as she struggled to reassert control over her emotions.
Come on Yang, where are you?
"Not everything is about you, Adam," Blake ground out after a few moments, her hand clenched so hard on Gambol Shroud that the tough grip dug painfully into her palm. "And if you think destroying Beacon is going to help your cause at all, you've gone mad. Was this whole attack even your idea to begin with?!"
Adam huffed.
"I'm willing to lose a few battles if it means winning the war," he said, and keen to every bit of body language she could use, Blake watched his shoulders shift a fraction in what would have been a dismissive shrug if not for the fraught situation and the hand he still kept ready on Wilt. "Forcing change is always bloody, and if we want a new world, a better world, then we'll have to destroy the old one. Whatever it takes."
Bitter disgust twisted through her.
"And what about your brothers and sisters in Vale?" Blake spat. "What about the Faunus trusting you to lead them to that better world?"
"We are a force for revolution," Adam said, and she was so terribly glad not to see his eyes and the unhinged, fiery zeal that no doubt filled them now. "If they're willing to kill for it, then they should be willing to die for it, too. By destroying Beacon, we'll light the fires of change all across Remnant. Faunus everywhere will see that the humans have only stayed in power for so long because they kept us too afraid to fight back. They'll see that we're too powerful to stop when we finally decide to take what is ours. If that means pruning a few complacent branches along the way, then that's what we'll do."
A faint smirk flickered across his face, and he unsheathed Wilt and lifted Blush in the same moment, aiming the business end of the gun directly at her in a whirlwind movement of his wrist.
"You've changed, Blake. I'll have my work cut out for me figuring out how to punish you for your betrayal," Adam said. "Well –if you survive, anyway."
Blake opened her mouth to respond –only for a blur of dark movement to shoot past her on her right, faster than she could blink. Reflexes on their highest trigger, Adam lowered Blush and lashed out in the fraction of a moment he had before it reached him, slicing apart the –boulder?– in a shower of rocky chunks and a burst of red light.
A moment later, though –when the gleam of his Semblance was already fading– Yang was planting her foot among the rubble and swinging her arm back, and her follow-up punch to his ribs slipped under Adam's guard and sent him flying backwards –so far, in fact, that he had to dig Wilt into the ground to prevent himself from getting knocked off the cliff.
Yang flung her next two matched shots against the ground at her own feet, sending her shooting back to land and slide to a halt beside Blake just as Adam pulled Wilt from the ground and swung a slice of red light at where she had been.
"Sorry 'bout that," Yang said, ejecting the spent shells with a quick pump of her arm. "I had to find a big enough hunk'a rock to throw, and then wait for him to aim at you so he'd have two extra targets to pick from."
Adam sneered as he rose slowly to his feet.
To be honest, Blake was rather impressed with Yang –by throwing that large chunk of masonry at his face before running for him, Yang had both distracted him and –rather than charging it with shots fired in his direction– forced Adam to expend a fraction of his Semblance by slicing the boulder apart in order to keep it from doing any damage. And then she'd hit him moments later, further burning through another fraction of his Aura.
Blake tucked this information away for future use and refocused on Adam as Wilt clicked back into its sheath.
"Go find some Grimm, human," he snapped. "This isn't your fight."
"Mmmm, yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that one. I've got a bone to pick with you," Yang said. She tilted her head, as though realizing something, and glanced towards Blake. "Actually, that reminds me of something. Blake, you know trivia n' stuff. How many bones are in a person's right arm?"
Blake blinked.
"Uh… thirty in all," she said after a moment of nonplussed recall. "Three in the arm itself, 27 in the wrist and hand."
Yang's knuckles popped as she flexed the fingers of both hands, limbering up her fists.
"In that case," she said, and her smile was very toothy as she looked back towards Adam, "-I've got twenty-nine bones to pick with you, bastard."
"And who are you supposed to be?" he asked, visibly unimpressed as one hand fell to the hilt of his sword.
"Your replacement," Yang told him, her grin widening. She sunk down into a ready stance, watching him stiffen as her words sunk in. "Actually, no, that's not quite right."
Yang pumped her arms once to cock Ember Celica, and her grin was nothing short of vicious as she looked across at Adam.
"I'm her upgrade."
There was a moment of utter stillness… and then the three of them exploded into movement.
Blake had no more words –or time– to waste on Adam, and she streaked towards him, silent as a shadow, with Gambol Shroud at the ready. She and Yang split to either side, forcing him to engage on two fronts, and Blake was morbidly curious to see which one of them he went for first. Herself, his supposed love? Or Yang, who had implicitly taken Blake's affections away from him?
He went for Yang first. Typical –although Yang did have longer range with her gauntlets, and Dust shells could charge his Semblance more than blocking a katana.
Yang, however, was smart enough to know that that was exactly what he wanted, and held her fire, not attempting to drive him back with shotgun blasts and instead waiting until he was inexcusably far into her range –or would be under any other circumstances– before she ducked under the viper's slash of Wilt like a boxer and punched up towards the inside of his arm. Aiming for the face or chest would give him too much time to dodge, and it was where everyone expected to be hit.
Adam, however, was a past master of catching strikes before they connected –with his Semblance, he had to be– and jerked aside at the last second, so that her uppercut merely grazed his arm instead of numbing it.
However, that half-step back and to the side put him in range of Blake's leg as she swung it in a reverse back-kick, driving as much of her weight and force into it as her Aura cracked against his and he was shoved forward into Yang –who sank her fist into his ribs on her way past as she rolled out of the way to avoid getting tangled up with him.
Cough though he did when she struck his diaphragm, Adam had been trained in a brutal school, and even when he was tumbling forward, he was quick to twist and rise up onto his knees.
Blake ducked under the ensuing wide-area slash from Wilt and ran for him, Gambol Shroud slamming into his blade with a brief red glow as he shoved himself to his feet with one foot just in the nick of time. Sparks screamed as he caught her weight, sinking onto his back foot, and they snarled at each other past the angled barrier of their swords.
This wasn't going how it was supposed to go for him, Blake knew. She was supposed to be less experienced than this, less confident; more susceptible to his insinuating, weakening whispers.
Tough shit.
Combining her return here with her time in Atlas, Blake had been free of him for almost a year by now, and that was discounting all the time she'd spent working on herself after Sun had helped her start putting the pieces back together in Menagerie. She wasn't the same seventeen-year-old girl who had been so easily manipulated in the shattered, burning remnants of Beacon's cafeteria back then, tricked into confronting an enemy who –at the time– far outclassed her rather than running for safety.
Yang feinted a rush at his side and then punched a round towards the grass to send herself up over the slash of his sword as he twisted out of his bodylock with Blake, landing on his opposite side. Blake lunged for him just as he brought Wilt around, and let a clone catch the blow as it sliced through her neck. The clone vanished in a blur of lost Aura as she jumped back and to the side, out of range, and his knee buckled as Yang's quick flurry of shots hit his leg.
Adam hissed, but then he was caught up in another series of rapid, slashing attacks from Blake before he could punish Yang for the attack. They danced together for a few moments, hacking and counterstriking, before Blush flipped around in his other hand and a round of buckshot tore through the clone Blake hastily put up.
Yang crashed through the gap in his attention with all her usual subtlety. Her fists flew as she pounded out a series of scientific blows against Adam's guard, doing her best to avoid getting her shots caught on his sword –and his Semblance. Some made it through, some didn't, and Blake had to roll to one side to dodge a blast from Blush as he freed one hand from the melee to fire in her direction.
Using scabbard and sword both, Adam still met them measure for measure. Any Grimm rumbling across the field were torn apart by a mere afterthought as the three combatants surged back and forth across the open ground, fighting with all their skill. Even Adam didn't speak, his teeth gnashed in a silent snarl of hatred and effort as he realized, from the sheer force of her strikes, that Blake truly meant to kill him.
She and Yang were Huntresses –young ones, but Huntresses still. A furious pace that would have broken and killed a normal first-year within moments was mere heavy combat to them –for Adam was a Huntsman too; or at least, he was trained to the level of one. Blake and Yang may outnumber him, but he seemed to be fresher than they were, and Blake knew that unless his emotions were truly overwhelming him, they only fueled his manic energy.
This was why people were willing to follow him in the first place. Adam's energy was volcanic, his drive indomitable, and watching him tear through SDC robots and Grimm like they were mere training dummies was an inspiration like no other. This was a leader who knew what he was doing, and you could trust him to take the fight straight to the enemy and bring as many of them down as he could.
In the darker factions of the White Fang –those who wanted vengeance more than equality– his skills were even more impressive, because most of those Faunus had actually seen combat and knew what they were looking at. Many of them had even seen enough to have their Aura unlocked.
Whether the rank and file were reassured by his talents or encouraged by his viciousness, Adam was still ranked as highly as he was for a reason. There were few in the White Fang who could match his sheer skill with a blade.
Of course, whether Adam would admit it or not, people like Sienna –those who used violence in moderation, who planned and considered the fallout of every action– were the real backbone of the White Fang. They held the whole cumbersome machine of a worldwide volunteer organization together by compromise and balance, and they would recognize that moving in Adam's decidedly more aggressive direction was all but putting the gun to their own heads.
Those who had remained with Adam after the attack on Beacon were either rats who hadn't gotten off a sinking ship in time, or zealots who were just as willing to burn for mindless vengeance as he was.
Adam's Semblance howled as a red slash carved through the night a mere inch above Yang's head, but she kept driving him back with a relentless flurry of punches, tanking what she had to on her own Aura as her hair began to simmer with heat. Blake took a running start and jumped over the next slice, going low as her free hand hit the ground and then she launched herself up into a flip.
She clasped both hands on Gambol Shroud's hilt when she came down again, driving it against Wilt with all her momentum, weight, and the added force from her flip. Metal shrieked as Adam's arms flexed and his knees bent, holding her back as the impact from her Aura-boosted strike boomed around them, sending scattered blades of grass flying before Blake pushed off and away, landing on both feet.
Yang crashed into him a moment later, tangling Adam up and preventing him from using any of the boost his Semblance may have gained by forcing him into the closest range she could. Blake snapped off a couple of shots from Gambol Shroud's pistol, knowing her own aim and trusting in her partner: equally matched they may be, but she and Yang were chewing through Adam's Aura steadily, and if they could just push him over the edge with a few taunts, victory would be theirs.
But Blake didn't have the time or the air for words, sweat running down her back and gleaming slickly enough on her skin she feared for her grip on Gambol Shroud. Her face was so flushed she could feel how hot it was, and her lungs ached with each breath.
But she didn't stop. Couldn't stop. This was what she should have done all those years ago, if she'd had the skill for it, and she would not falter now that she did. Blake brought Gambol Shroud around in a reverse grip, and lunged.
It was a bit facetious to call the conclusion of any battle inevitable –accidents happened, guns jammed, feet slipped– but with two Huntresses to one Huntsman, with Blake and Yang fighting with the perfect unity partners could achieve only after years of shared battle, with them knowing Adam's Semblance and style perfectly but him only knowing Blake's…
…well, the conclusion was only something a little bit less than inevitable.
They didn't share the kill, this time –or at least, not the killing blow. It was Yang who broke his Aura, ducking under the blow from his scabbard to seize his wrist, twist it up and around as she moved past him, and then blast a rapid series of strikes against his abdomen.
Once, twice, three times: his Aura flickered red with each one, until it broke at the last and he wrenched out of her hold with the strength that came from sheer desperation.
The shock as Blake's katana hit his heart was a little –only a little– less jarring than it had been, back on that bridge in Argus. He coughed over her shoulder as it punched through his back, and Blake felt something hot and wet trickle down her spine.
There was a silent pause as everything slowed back down again.
"You… aren't fixing anything…" Adam rasped after a few moments, the words an ugly choking sound, filled with blood as he struggled to speak. "Nothing for the Faunus. Nothing for us."
Blake's lips peeled back in a snarl.
"I'm getting rid of a poison," she hissed in return, and shoved Gambol Shroud deeper, twisting.
Adam choked again, a drowning sound like a bubble being popped, and his body shuddered.
Then it went limp.
She took a step back the moment his dead weight began to collapse on her, wrenching Gambol Shroud out of its macabre sheath. Adam's body fell without fanfare, and Blake took another step back, struggling to breathe deeply.
Yes, she had wanted –had needed– to kill him. But that didn't make killing any easier, and as Blake pulled one hand down her face, composing herself, the fingers pressed against her mouth were shaking.
"Oh, what a marvelous, marvelous show!"
Blake and Yang both stiffened at the familiar voice, and Blake whipped around, Gambol Shroud coming up at the ready as she saw the blur of a humanoid figure come to a stop before her-
Her body jerked to a stop with a thud that made her ears pop, and then she knew nothing more.
"Truly exquisite!" Tyrian fucking Callows rhapsodized, spreading his arms as though gesturing on a stage before a crowd.
His tail curled, flicking Blake off the stinger at the end, and Yang felt her whole body hitch as her partner hit the ground on her back. Yang's breath stuttered in her chest as she saw the wound that barbed stinger had left.
Blood. There's so much blood-
Blake's fingers juddered, a few spasms running through her collapsed figure as the last flickers of her Aura ran away, and Yang would really really really like that to mean something that contradicted the gushing hole in Blake's chest and the way her eyes were wide open and not moving not focusing not seeing not alive-
"Surprised to see me?" Tyrian continued almost amicably, bringing his tail back around behind his back as his purple eyes faded back to yellow. "I know, I could have interrupted sooner, but to disrupt a personal vendetta, well… such things simply aren't done."
Yang's chest heaved. Her eyes were fixed on Blake's figure as that spasmodic twitching finally slowed to a halt, like a clockwork figure running down.
"Oh my, my. Upset that I interrupted her final display of victory? Or perhaps…"
Tyrian's eyes flicked down to the body at his feet, and his toothy grin widened as he looked up at Yang again, as though sharing a joke.
"…the cat got your tongue?"
Oh fuck to the hell no.
Yang launched herself at him with an ear-piercing roar from her Dust and her voice combined, swinging her arm out and back. It was not entirely without thought –she knew, she remembered how this kind of reflex had lost her her arm before, and she snapped one wrist down to fire a shot at the ground and send her spinning over the slice of his wrist blades as they lashed out at where she would have landed.
She hit the ground on his other side and dug her heels into the grass, launching off again within the second as she blasted a round into his tail when it moved to block his core, missing with the second as he twisted out of the way like an eel. Yang didn't care, piling on the heat as she drove him back and back and away from her partner's body, hitting for his ribs and his face and his damn tail and arms –whatever she could hit, so long as it caused him pain and ate away at his Aura.
Tyrian laughed.
"Wonderful! Fantastic!" he cried ecstatically, his back bending at a spine-cracking angle as he ducked beneath one strike and wove through the next. He spiraled out of her way as Yang chased after him, not thinking, not letting herself think, focusing only on the fight and how best to survive it and punish him. Her entire world centered on making him hurt, on killing him, and she couldn't do that if she let other thoughts intrude, if she lost her head.
She'd learned that much from getting her arm cut off.
Yang roared as she slammed another load of Dust into him, ducking under the jab of his tail and then punching another volley towards the prehensile limb as it flicked away. That gave her enough space to engage her sticky capsules on one arm, but then she had to block a swing of his wrist blades as the steel grated along her gauntlet.
Yang boosted her speed with another shot as she slid on one leg, gravity low, beneath his ensuing kick, before rolling to her feet and then pummeling his back and side.
The capsules flared as she jumped back, beeping and turning red, and he stiffened.
The fiery explosion wasn't as big as it usually was when she engaged both gauntlets, but it was certainly appreciable. The only sour note came when Tyrian staggered out of the cloud of embers and smoke, now bereft of the leather coat he must had wriggled out of at the very last second. He was smoking and his Aura was quite obviously affected, but he wasn't a bloody smear on the ground, which had been the goal.
"Most marvelous," he said, and though the words were as enthusiastic as before, the way he glared at her with a snarl as he said them was anything but. His tail twitched, arching up in what was probably an unconscious threat display. "How have you learned so well, I wonder? Has the old fool in his tower started training his next generation of guardians early?"
He shook his head without looking away from her, clicking his tongue.
"That's not fair, you know, not fair at all; it's against the rules."
"Who gives a shit about rules?" Yang rasped, knowing her eyes were redder than blood just from how much heat her hair was radiating against her face and neck. "I'm gonna kill you!"
She fired both gauntlets and shot forward with Dust-enhanced speed, slamming her fist into his guard as he crossed both arms in front of his face. Yang drove her knee up, deflecting his stinger as he struck out at her and she caught his tail a few segments down. She reared back with her other fist, planting a round straight in his face.
Tyrian staggered back and to the side with a thin hiss, and Yang was on him in seconds. She hadn't ever fought him before, but Ruby had mentioned his style was all over the place and his flexibility was insane, which was rapidly proving true.
Yang could match him for stamina, though, and as for hand-to-hand combat… well. He might have an extra limb, poison, and a Semblance that let him pierce through Aura; but she was a powerhouse, a melee fighter who had dared to even attack his bullshit goddess and burst Salem's torso open like a rotten grape.
Not that Tyrian knew that, but still.
Yang had also spent years trying to fight smarter than she had at Beacon, to control her emotions and not let them control her. She used blasts from her gauntlets to boost her slides as she zipped from one side of him to the other, to change direction and dodge midair when he swung, to tangle him up for a few seconds to give her time to rush or retreat.
Her heart was cracked and broken and crumbling, but she ignored it even as waves of aching pain radiated out through the core of her being. Yang was in control, she was in control, and she wasn't going to let him goad her into letting her emotions control her head and make her charge in. That was what he wanted. If she made a stupid mistake and simply blitzed him, blind with the urge for revenge, then he was clever and strong enough that he might get away.
Yang would not, could not, let him get away.
She couldn't.
It was inexcusable.
Maybe he knew that, or maybe he was just frustrated that she hadn't quickly lost control and died w-without her partner –don't think about it, don't, you're still in control– but Tyrian broke and ran after a few minutes of their brutal, rapid slugfest, dashing away along the edge of the schools.
Yang instinctively ran after him about six steps… before she forced herself into a reluctant halt, taking deep breaths. From everything she'd heard and knew, Tyrian never ran until he was well and truly outmatched, and they'd been pretty close to even. Was this a trap?
Did she care if it was?
Yang's breathing evened out as she slowly lowered her clenched fists, tracking him with her eyes.
No. She didn't care.
Fuck it.
She snapped her arms back to send herself flying with a shotgun blast of Dust, tucking and rolling to bleed her momentum into her run when she landed a few dozen meters closer to that dark retreating figure, and followed him. If this was a trap, she was confident that she could handle it –and if she couldn't, it wasn't like she'd be around to care afterwards.
Her eyes were streaming, Yang realized as she ran, and her face was wet. When she half-stumbled on a hidden rock, it jolted a sob out of her chest –but she forced those emotions away, forced those thoughts away, and kept running. Her head was empty. Her mind was empty. She was not fucking thinking of anything: anything besides the fact that Tyrian had done something unforgivable and she had to make him pay for it in blood. No thoughts. No thoughts. Just instinct.
She was a Huntress. She knew what she had to do to keep herself together.
He was fast, especially when he probably knew she was following him. There weren't any Grimm, especially when they were getting closer to the airship docks and the theoretical temporary supply base set up there. This far out, there should be soldiers and Hunters –or Hunter trainees– clustered around for a guard, but Yang saw plenty of bodies slumped in the margin of the fields or sprawled gracelessly in what would have been an ideal location for a checkpoint.
He must have come from this direction, then.
But this information did not tell her if he'd laid a trap or how to kill him, and it was thus irrelevant. Yang therefore cast that thought from her mind with the rest and poured on the speed, pushing her stretched, sore legs to go faster, to catch up with this bastard as soon as possible.
She still didn't make it until they were within distant sight of the docks, and then only because he had to swerve into the entry courtyard or go off the edge of the cliff. Yang followed him out into the center of it as grass turned to pavement under her feet, and cocked her gauntlets to launch a series of shots at his legs.
Only a few actually hit before he turned his buckling knees into an impromptu roll and cascaded head over heels to eventually end up facing her, his boots skidding back a little as he swept his legs out in a ready stance.
"A fine show, and a fine chase into the bargain!" he cackled, a little more hysterically than he had before. His yellow eyes gleamed as he splayed his arms, the curved pincher-like blades shining as he did so. "You are wasted on that old charlatan in his tower!"
Noise. Noise. Meaningless noise. He needed to die.
A growl grated its way up out of Yang's heaving chest as she raised both arms in a ready stance, her body instinctively starting up a boxer's sway.
"Really and truly, you could put your talents to a far better use. There is a goddess that walks Remnant, little girl, and She would be well-served by you."
"Your goddess is a sack of shit!" Yang spat at him, hatred fueling her voice until it rose to an incandescent roar. Tyrian went rigid, and the yellow of his eyes bled into a purple so bright it almost glowed. "A spiteful, bitter-"
He slammed into her like a runaway train a second later.
Even when she was ready for it, Yang struggled to keep up with the tearing frenzy of blades that followed. She could catch them on her Aura, easily, but with his Semblance, that might turn fatal –or at least mutilating– quickly.
So she was forced to dodge and catch his blades on her gauntlets like a trainee who couldn't handle long-term Aura control, and that approach had her giving ground as he drove her back in a whirlwind of clashing wrist blades and jabbing, unpredictable stabs of his tail.
A lucky strike from her had his head snapping back as a Dust round burst directly in his eye socket, but then Yang flinched and cursed as she felt an icy sting rake over her side at the same time. Risking a glance down as he stumbled back, his tail dropping, she saw a tear in the fabric over her stomach, her coat of Aura rippling away from the thin cut beneath as though in consternation. Fuck, he'd gotten her.
Whatever. That was fine. Uncle Qrow had lasted hours before the poison really started getting to him, according to Ruby. She could last hours, too –all she really needed were the next five minutes. She could deal with the rest of that later.
Yang threw herself into a furious counterattack, meeting him measure for measure as she forced herself to channel all of her energy into this, into surviving just another moment and picking apart his style so that she could end it.
His eyes flicked up over her shoulder, and he hissed, a snarl twisting his face. Yang half-glanced back to check who was coming –and then her eyes widened as a short scream burst out of her, feeling something just as icy cold as his stinger rip through the back of her ankle in a molten flash of pain.
Her leg collapsed under her, hamstrung, and Tyrian cackled as the shift in weight and balance pulled Yang to the ground on her side with an agonized cry.
"Really, now, the oldest trick in the book?" he asked her giddily as silence fell, shaking a finger on the hand that was still saturated with her blood. "Perhaps you are not suited to serve our goddess, in the end. Her Grace needs tools who aren't so… easily led by their emotions."
Yang was unable to help clutching at the bloody mess with one hand, but her other was still free, and she fired at him with a yell. Tyrian swayed to one side, avoiding the shot.
"Hotheaded," he commented, and thrust both bladed vambraces at her chest as he fired his own weapons into her, pelting Yang without mercy as her Aura flickered under the assault. He didn't stop when it broke, and she screamed again as Dust rounds slammed deep into her body.
He did stop then, and Yang choked wetly, feeling blood bubble up her throat in a sickening hot tide, as a foot slammed into her stomach.
"So many fascinating irregularities," Tyrian hissed, leaning over his bent knee as he leered down at her. "First-years fighting like seasoned graduates, and a strange little team named RWBY slips into the Vytal Festival at the very last moment. I wonder what Her Grace would think?"
Yang hacked, struggling to breathe for a moment, and then spat at him. Even if it was mostly blood, the intent still carried, and his sneer twisted deeper.
"Children these days," he said a moment later, shaking his head as though in solemn disapproval as he straightened back up –although he kept his foot planted on her abdomen. "Where are your manners? Your pleas? Your terror?"
"Where's… your fucking… ego?" Yang coughed, her eyes blazing up at him even when her Aura had run out completely. "Pathetic… creep…"
"Hmm?" Tyrian scratched his cheek idly, and the blood dripping from the weapon on his wrist only made his grin even more unsettling as he smirked down at her. "Pathetic, you say? That's quite interesting to hear…"
He took his foot away, rather unexpectedly, twisting his head this way and that as though looking for someone. Or something?
He seemed to find it a moment later, and his bloodthirsty grin widened. Whatever he saw was out of her line of vision, but Yang still felt a tingle of fear run down her spine as he turned his head to look at her again.
"This is a bit shoddy," Tyrian said, his fingers digging brutally into her scalp as he reached down and lifted her up by the hair. "I do apologize for any crudeness, but we all must work with what we have, even if it's on short notice."
Yang's mouth gaped in a soundless cry of pain as her entire bodyweight dragged at the roots of her hair, but then she coughed out another blood-spattered breath as his tail lanced into her –over, and over, and over again. It was a frenzy of stabs, each one bearing poison as his eyes burned purple, and Yang felt her extremities rapidly turning numb.
He half-dropped, half-kicked her into the nearby low garden wall, and Yang twitched in vain as she tried to force her tattered body to move. Too much, too fast –fuck, she'd bled so much and he'd hit her so many times her blood was probably half scorpion venom at this point, and her muscles were stiff and unresponsive.
"Hmm, hmm." Tyrian regarded her for a scant moment, tapping one finger against his lips. "It'll have to do, I suppose. Do enjoy my show, young Huntress. I hope it won't be as pathetic as yours."
With a wicked grin and a wink at those last words, he turned away, slipping through the darkness. Now marginally more upright, even if most of that was just the inability to move from the low wall she was propped against, Yang followed his line of movement with her eyes and-
No.
Oh gods, no.
Team JNPR were running out into the courtyard, Jaune at the head of their little phalanx and Pyrrha in the rear, guarding Ren –whose trousers seemed partially torn away by a Grimm's claw– and Nora –who was missing her weapon and more than lightly singed– between them.
Fuck. Fuck. How did Tyrian even know that they were friends of hers? The Scroll call, maybe? They'd been guarding their words, but they couldn't hide everything, and Watts was probably off doing something if he hadn't re-hacked into the Atlas comms. Come to think of it, that was probably why Tyrian had been looping around the area in the first place: he wanted to kill the people who had killed a Maiden.
Yang tried to scream, to warn them, but she couldn't. She couldn't even croak, and then it all was happening way too fast.
Jaune was first –he took the long, poisonous barb of the stinger through his throat as it shimmered with Tyrian's Semblance, spraying purple-tinted blood out and back onto his teammates' faces.
Nora was quick enough to avoid the next flick of that bloodied stinger, but not quick enough to avoid the hand buried in her chest as two barrels of buckshot were emptied into her heart, and more blood sprayed into the fire-lashed night.
Yang hadn't really heard Ren scream at all before –but she had never, ever heard him scream like this. It didn't help him, didn't save him, Tyrian was too fast and Ren was favoring one leg even as he swung at the man with magenta eyes full of an incandescent fury-
Yang couldn't watch.
She had to watch.
She had to watch as Ren was cut in fucking two.
Pyrrha was last, of course she was last, a perverse mockery of the way that things had turned out last time, the future time, (the real time? gods, how Yang wished that this wasn't real), her green eyes wide and her stance firm, even as her face was streaked with tears and the blood of her team. She held her weapons like a champion, even when her heart was so clearly breaking, even when she shook with weakness and injury and an Aura depleted dangerously down into the red.
Emerald fire also bloomed and flickered around Pyrrha's eyes as a wind began to whistle through the shattered rubble, and Yang opened a mouth that was sticky with blood and poison and sweat as she tried to scream a warning, a plea, Tyrian was the last person to show that you had Maiden powers to, he was devoted to Salem body and soul and if he saw what he considered Salem's property in the hands of another-
She couldn't make a sound.
Pyrrha lasted a few seconds longer than the rest of her team, twisting and bending like a viper as she vainly sought to bury her weapons in Tyrian's flesh, aided by the gusts of wind that helped her balance and the crackles of lightning that danced along her spear –but in the end, she was distracted, she was exhausted, and she was injured. However indomitable Pyrrha was, however talented in the art of combat, the odds were stacked against her from the start.
Yang watched as Tyrian leaped upon Pyrrha and, ignoring the arcs of electricity that juddered over his body, buried the blades of his weapons into her chest, over and over and over again. It was a contest of wills as Pyrrha's Aura quickly flickered and broke –the Maiden power didn't rely on Aura, and if she could just throw enough at him, she could kill or paralyze Tyrian before he killed her.
It didn't work.
Pyrrha might have been more than mortal in power right now, but she was inexperienced with it –and Tyrian was more than mortal in mind. He didn't care that the lightning delivered by the spear biting into his side was frying his skin and charring his muscles as his own Aura finally gave out: he would spend his last breath killing Pyrrha for the sake of his unholy goddess.
He started to cackle wildly as his blades ran red and Pyrrha's hand began to fall limp, and Yang was screaming inside her deadened throat as she watched the last flickers of electricity crackle away and Pyrrha's gloved arm fall limply to the ground.
Smoking lightly from the remnants of Pyrrha's final attack, Tyrian stood over the bodies of Team JNPR and cackled to the sky, spreading out his reddened hands and arching his tail as four Hunters on the ground bled and bled and bled.
This nightmare vision blurred with tears –or maybe just more poison– in Yang's wavering vision, and she was almost glad when it finally slipped away.