Humans were arrogant. Decades only made it worse. The dragon Kilgharrah remembered the auras of the five who once forced it into the mountain. Now, as it brought destruction to their homes from the skies, only one of those five deigned to stand against it. More powerful? Perhaps. But the lone human's slashes and gunshots were only scratches and pinpricks to its scaly surface. Its attacker had just latched onto the spines along its back when the sky itself tried to claim it. It remembered this scent: Dust. More Dust than it even believed humans held. Kilgharrah thrashed and whipped itself further from the source of what it was sure was a weapon of desperation.
What else could it be? After all, it was ripping the very shelters and dens below it apart. Stone and human-tainted metal soared up, torn away to be swallowed up by the concentration of Dust the humans had detonated in the skies.
Pain lanced through Kilgharrah's form: the human on its back had started hacking away. Panic. Hate. Anger. Negativity spilled away from the human in waves, feeding into the dragon. Yet, its attention was yanked to the epicenter in the sky. There was something deep within it. Like a star in the infinite black only it could see. A calling. A beacon.
Its thoughts and feelings were fading, shaved down to the core desires all Grimm shared: evolve and destroy. Kilgharrah could not understand what laid within that beacon, but it pulled the dragon forward, as certain as gravity.
Spiraling Down
The sky was being torn asunder and the ground was shifting beneath her feet, but Weiss was used to changing gravity. She had no time to focus on anything other than the array of beams and blades raining down upon her: the aerial dreadnought tilting was just another way to build momentum while she skated along her glyphs. Penny glanced at where Amity once was, giving Weiss the perfect time to dart forward and assail her with a wave of stabs. Each was avoided by a dodge, precise enough to leave millimeters between her and Myrtenaster. As long Weiss could keep up the pressure, however, Penny couldn't focus on her new, floating arsenal. Penny would still be a threat without her aura, but Weiss knew Penny didn't stand a chance to detain her while she had it.
Her simulacrum of Torchwick wrapped its grappling hook around Penny's arm from behind and yanked her back just enough for Weiss to get a solid stab to her chest. Penny's surprise and flinch of pain lasted long enough for Weiss to pull her arm back. Then, as if to prove her previous thoughts correct, Penny swung her arm, snapped the chain as if it were twine, and slapped Weiss' next strike aside hard enough to nearly send her rapier flying from her hands. Weiss leaned away from a snap jab from Penny fast enough for her to feel the wind cut against her cheek, but before Penny could follow up, she was pelted by ice rockets from the simulacrum.
A pulse of gravity from Amity's grave tugged Weiss back, and struck her with an idea. As Penny whipped around to point and fire a blade straight through Icewick's chest, banishing him into mist on the spot, Weiss froze Penny's legs to the ground. A flick of her rapier brought the ice up to wrap around Penny's other hand. Before her target could get free, Weiss had already turned the drum of her rapier to Gravity Dust and surrounded Penny in glyphs pulling every which way. Her aura flickered in protest, but Weiss held steady.
Penny was a girl of steel and wire, but her soul was the same as any other. Her aura was the same. And a single hit with enough force could crack even the strongest auras on someone who couldn't guard themselves. Weiss spun the drum and brought her hand across her rapier, leaving every inscribed sigil on it glowing red. She could see her own strained aura pulling free, hovering about her form as little more than a loose shroud of white trying to feed so many effects at once.
It was her only shot. Weiss flew forward. Penny's eyes widened. Flickering, wireframe blades hastily formed themselves in front of Penny in a frantic defense, like the needles of a hedgehog. So weak and scattered, it'd be easy to take the hit and go through them.
But Weiss didn't have the aura. Even blades that fragile would be all too real against bare flesh and fabric. Myrtenaster stopped an inch away from Penny's chest. Penny's blades stopped a millimeter away from Weiss' own.
Weiss pulled the trigger of Myrtenaster, and a spear of flame sent Penny through melting ice and faltering glyphs alike until she was rolling across the airship's deck. But Penny could still get up to one knee. That fire wasn't equal to an empowered hit. The world was shifting and swaying, not from rocking engines or the singularity replacing Amity, but from exhaustion.
She needed another plan. She needed one fast.
Once clean, the hallways of the AAS Endurance were tarnished yet further by a wave of ice from Torchwick's outstretched hand. A click of Ozpin's cane against the ground, and it shattered to pieces. Ozpin believed he had a handle on Torchwick's Semblance: Dust absorption, plain and simple. The vials and dull dust were all that remained of who knows how much energy he had absorbed, but it didn't last forever. He was getting weaker.
Ozpin sprung forward, his cane a blur as he stabbed at Torchwick countless times. The first few caught him and sent sparks of orange aura coursing across his form, then his body flickered gold, and he was fast enough to keep up, but only just. Torchwick could hold him to a standstill with that amplified speed of his, but it would only be a matter of time before he'd either make a misstep or run out of stored Dust. However, that was time Ozpin did not have: the effects were lessened deep within the aerial dreadnought, but Ozpin could feel the unmistakable pull of Gravity Dust, even the brief pulse of Electric Dust that preceded it. Whatever Salem was planning, whether that be the total destruction of Beacon or to cover for retrieving the Fall Maiden powers, it was minutes—seconds, even—away from its full completion.
There was a spiteful part of him deep within, that desired nothing more to shatter Torchwick's defense and leave the criminal vermin begging for mercy. But it was one he couldn't feed. And so, he parried Torchwick's futile attempt to counterattack him, motioned with his free hand, and sent Torchwick crashing to the ground with an emerald pulse of magic.
Ozpin watched as Torchwick pushed himself up to his knees, shaking. The golden glow of Electric Dust still surrounded him, but he did not move.
"Consider this mercy, Roman Torchwick: I will not guarantee your freedom, but I think we can both agree you stand no chance of winning this bout. Leave Beacon. Leave Vale. And unless you plan to be used and tossed aside, leave Salem." Ozpin waited for any sign of agreement.
Torchwick, however, said nothing.
There was a flicker of hope, however small, that the fool would get himself out of this mess. He would not wish affiliation with Salem upon even his enemies: nothing good existed down that path. Ozpin sighed, brought his hand around his cane's trigger and pulled. A little magic, a quick teleport to one of the two half-Maidens, and he'd be another step to stopping this.
In a flash of gold, Torchwick dove forward and grabbed for his cane faster than Ozpin could pull it away. Ozpin paid him no mind. His teleportation spell took only a second. But then he felt the pull within his cane. His concentration faltered. Blood running cold, he looked down. Emerald-green energy—no, his magic—was trailing away from him into Torchwick.
"Don't!" Ozpin shouted and pulled back, but Torchwick refused to let go. Flames spurted from between his fingers, and a red aura coursed across his arm: Fire Dust to strengthen him. Torchwick was putting everything he had into such a simple task. But it was a suicidal one! Pure magic was not meant for the new humanity. Without his guidance, it'd annihilate Torchwick's aura. Tear him to pieces. Ravage his body in an instant!
Yet Torchwick looked up to meet Ozpin's horrified gaze with a wicked grin on his face. No pain. No concern. A trick? His Semblance? Something Salem had done?
In a panic, Ozpin forced his teleportation spell to complete, and the inside of the airship was awash in light.
Intense light forced Weiss to shield her eyes. She waited for the pain to hit, but only felt the harsh wind. Peeking over, she was both surprised and thankful to see Headmaster Ozpin in front of her, keeping a wary eye on Penny. Those new swords of hers levitated above, points aimed for Ozpin like a scorpion's raised tail. But she didn't attack.
"Are you here to retrieve Weiss Schnee?" Penny asked, expression stoic, yet tone wary.
Ozpin took a moment to catch his breath, then raised his cane, holding it aloft in a way all too similar to how Weiss held her rapier. "I see. It is as I feared: you have Amber's power, after all." He tilted his head back to Weiss, but didn't take his eyes off of Penny. "Recuperate for now. I'll handle this."
His hand was trembling. Weiss said nothing of it. "Please don't hurt her."
It was that, however, that seemed to draw Penny's ire. She sneered and clenched her fists. "Take Weiss Schnee and retreat. Fighting you is not yet part of my mission."
"I am afraid that will not be possible, Miss Polendina. However, you still have the option to stop all of this."
"And be apprehended? Shut down?" Penny shot back, eyes glowing brighter.
Ozpin only pursed his lips, and that moment was confirmation enough for Penny to growl and raise her arms up. All along the dreadnought's deck, turrets loaded with Dust cannons sprung up and swiveled to aim at Ozpin, fully under Penny's control.
Had Penny been holding back against her the entire time? Weiss grit her teeth. Penny—the real Penny—was in there somewhere, she knew it! If she just had the time to get her to listen! She could understand why she couldn't get through to Blake, but this was Penny! Her best friend! And here she was, forced to step back and watch. Tears burned at Weiss' eyes, but when the cannons blazed to life and both Ozpin and Penny became little more than flashes and rays of green light, she was forced to back off. Recuperate. Gather her strength. Find something she could do. Someone she could help.
It was at least a chance to look for any sign of her team: Adam and Yang were left to fight Cinder alone, but maybe Ruby was able to find her way back. What instead drew her attention was the source of so much destruction: the singularity that had dragged all of Amity within it. What was once little more than a pinprick had unwound into a growing abyss, but at least the gravity had lessened. Stranger yet, the gargantuan Grimm dragon was approaching it. Orbiting it. But it was just the result of a bomb, wasn't it? Weiss knew enough about Dust and its combinations: something like that was created by a massive amount of Electric and Gravity Dust, nothing more. Electric Dust layered to compress the power of Gravity Dust into a singularity, rather than combine for a magnetic effect.
Right?
Cold crept up Weiss' spine, untouched by the heat radiating off of lances of Dust, plasma and aura firing all around. Not a single one came close to touching her.
Every punch from Yang sent shockwaves rolling over the flames consuming the deck. Every Semblance-empowered shot from her gauntlets was a bomb that tore jagged lines across the steel. And yet, Cinder slipped around each one like they were in slow motion. Worse, Cinder was learning: she spun around a wild uppercut from Yang, but without sparing a glance Adam's way, slashed out at him with a molten blade. An inferno lashed out and drove Adam off before he could come in to support. She ducked under another wild punch and turned her blades into a shield of black glass. With a roar of rage, Yang blasted it to dust in a single punch, but Cinder was already jumping away.
Yang aimed her gauntlets back, ready to fire and chase, when orange symbols and sigils she couldn't understand flashed beneath her feet. The remnants of glass gathered together into a molten, shining orb above her. Yang prepared to leap away, only to gasp and sink down to her ankles in the deck: what was once steel instead felt like quicksand.
Adam burst through the raging fires beside her, aura flickering from the heat, but it was too late: Cinder slammed down the orb into Yang like a cannonball, and the explosion finally caused the deck to buckle. The two were cast into the dreadnought's depths with only the heat and flame as company. The power had failed, and so only the remnants of Cinder's attack lit the room as the two pushed themselves up to their feet and rushed deeper inside. Doors refused to open, but a slash from Adam and a strike from Yang was enough to fix that problem.
It was the remnants of Yang's Semblance that lit the way for them now, assisted only by weak, crimson emergency lights. Behind them, another explosion echoed through the halls: Cinder approaching again. Yang pried open a last door and let it slam shut behind them. Immediately, the wind buffeted them: the two were inside a hangar. Well over a hundred drones hung from racks, lowered to the ground in preparation of being dispatched, but never activated. It at least gave something to take cover behind once Cinder arrived.
The flames evaporated from Yang's hair, and she lowered her head. Both of them practically collapsed against the wall on opposite sides of the door, panting: it felt like the only time the two had gotten genuine rest in eternity. But it was a false feeling. They knew they had, perhaps, a minute. Maybe less. It was better than nothing.
"Alright," Adam began, "I hope you have a plan, because I'm out of ideas."
"Well, let's see." Yang counted on her fingers: "We're separated from the team, Cinder's getting tougher, my Semblance is dry, no contact with Vale, and, let's be real, no chance of getting off this airship," Yang rattled off.
The world around them shook, and the already-dim lights flickered.
"Which is falling apart," Adam helpfully added.
Yang scoffed and scanned around their surroundings. She could see a Bullhead through the thankfully-offline robotic legion, however: "We'd probably be more vulnerable in that thing."
Through the steel walls, they could hear a rush of concentrated fire. Cinder must've gotten tired waiting for them.
"No choice, then." Adam pushed himself off of the wall. He looked to Yang. "We defeat Cinder." Left unspoken was how likely that was to be a suicide mission, at this point.
Yang stared at him for a moment then, with a solemn frown, nodded. There was nowhere left to run. No failure that ended in anything but their deaths. Not unless her mother came to save them again, but she made it clear that she only got one. So Yang put on a grin and kicked off the wall, ready to go out with a bang.
As a molten blade pierced through the door, Adam hoped that this invasion was the end of Cinder's plan: they were on their last legs.
A flicker of red caught Weiss' eye amidst the chaos, falling away from the Grimm dragon: Qrow leaping off, only to seemingly vanish in the floating debris. The next moment, the massive Grimm dove directly into the gravity well. In an instant, it was torn to shreds, turned to nothing more than black blood and strips of red that were swallowed up.
Then, the gravity well exploded in size, becoming an hole in the sky nearly reaching the size Amity once was. The inexorable force of gravity stopped pulling at Weiss, but only affected the weather more: wind threatened to tear her right off of the airship's deck, and clouds once just turning in towards it were dragged in to swirl above—yet never touch—the dark core, as if it were the eye of a storm. A sickly purple seeped out into the clouds. A deep sense of wrongness clutched at Weiss' core, made only worse as, while the debris caught in the singularity's pull came crashing back down to earth, the swarms of Grimm in the sky were dragged in ever faster.
And Weiss could just tell that it wasn't for any reason that'd be good for them.
"What is that?" she whispered in horror.
Roman Torchwick had been lying down for a while. He assumed he was teleported atop the bridge of another one of Atlas' dreadnoughts, but he didn't bother checking. Sea-green lightning shot through the sky, leaping from cloud to cloud until it escaped into the gargantuan hole in the night. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Nevermores were diving down into the abyss in some ritualistic suicide. Slowly, Roman lifted a hand to the sky and watched emerald energy that most certainly wasn't Dust spark and warp before returning to the same orange color as his own aura. He didn't feel anything anymore, even looking at fifteen different shades of impossible. The realization left him chuckling.
He heard a loud crash beside him, then footsteps on steel. Heavy and tired, but determined in their steady approach. He turned his head to look at his new visitor.
"What's so funny?" Ruby asked through a sneer.
Now, Roman could only laugh at the absurdity. He let his arm fall back to the metal beneath him. "I guess my plan for Penny hasn't worked out as well as I wanted."
"You did this to Penny?"
Ignoring Ruby's question and horrified expression, Roman forced the embers of fear and exhaustion down.
Torchwick finally got to his feet. "Well, this whole thing's been fun, Little Red, but I think it's time for me to bail." He swiped at an eye and patted himself down for his cigar case, knowing full well it was empty. "Go ahead: save the day, sacrifice yourself doing something stupid, but I'm out of here. I've got a pal I need to break free." He turned to walk away. Now, there was bound to be a way inside from up here somewhere...
A single shot bounced off the ground in front of him. Torchwick pulled up short. He lowered his head and sighed.
"Oh, for fu—what? What do you want?" He turned back. "Find somebody else—" And froze.
Ruby was glaring him down with a gaze that could slaughter a man, tears falling and glinting in the silver light glowing in her eyes. Her weapon, compacted down into its rifle form, was aimed directly at him.
Torchwick tried keeping his cool. He coughed out a short laugh. "I'm leaving, kid. No longer taking part. Exiting stage left. Vamoosing."
"No." Ruby's grip only tightened on her sniper rifle, and with a swing, she deployed it out to its full size as a scythe. Its blade carried a bright, red glow, trailing off into rose petals. She lowered her head.
"I'm done letting monsters get away."
With a fiery flash, the hangar door was blasted deep into the room, bulldozing through a few inactive drones in the way. Cinder sauntered inside, holding a flame out to light the way with her right arm. Her left arm clenched and trembled, barely kept under control. Hunger and hatred blended together into a horrid mix that demanded to be set free. Yes, the final stages of her plan had finally come to pass. Once these annoyances were finally put to the torch, it would be an easy matter ridding herself of Ozpin.
Simple reassurances kept Cinder's wrath neatly restrained as she turned her head and scanned the room. She could hear them before she tore the door down, and she doubted that with their aura levels they'd risk a long fall. No other doors had been opened. And so she found her gaze settling on the dozens of drones, all set up in neat rows. She scoffed.
"Such a clear hiding place." She raised her arm, and a beam of flame sliced the row neatly down the middle, stopping only when it was whipped away by the wind outside the hangar itself. Cinder heard a quiet curse, barely heard over the roar of the fires. A handful of red shotgun shells spilled out, rolling every which way. She laughed. Had she caught the two reloading? How sad. She glanced down at one as it rolled past her and paused.
It hit a pair of discarded ammunition belts beside her, full of explosive shells.
A shot rang out, punched straight into the belt, and detonated it in a blaze that sent Cinder flying back. Flame rippling from her heels, Cinder sent herself leaping above the drones to cut off any follow-up attack. She caught Yang by surprise. The blonde girl's eyes widened, but when Cinder came down with a flaming stomp, she was quick enough to stumble out of the way. Yang jabbed at the air, lobbing slug after slug at Cinder as she marched forward, but each was reduced to dust with a wave of her hand. Only one of Yang's golden gauntlets had ammunition in it. Cinder grinned. She was partially right, it seemed.
Then Yang dove to the ground, and Cinder saw the tell-tale crimson flare of Adam's aura peeking through the wall of drones beside her. She turned her hand towards the source when the hair at the back of her neck stood up. The crackling, sterile scent of ozone struck her nose. Her left arm tensed and pulsed beneath its skin. Cinder trusted her instinct, pulled her arm in, and threw as much aura as she could muster leaning back in that fraction of a second.
It was a smart move: a concentrated, red line raced through the room without resistance. Then, the hangar erupted into sparks and electricity as every rack of drones collapsed in pieces.
Cinder screamed out in fury and pain, grabbing at her left hand: even with how quickly she'd dodged, a finger and a chunk of her hand were cut clean away. Even a thin layer of her skin across her forearm was sliced free. This time, her fiery-orange aura did not stretch out to heal these wounds. It cowered away, edge tinged with black. Agony far greater than just the wound would give wracked her.
It was enough of a distraction for Yang to spring forward and swing her fist into Cinder's stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of her. A strike to her head left spots in her vision. But as her wound began to smoke, Cinder used the pain to feed her hatred. The crimson light returned in the distance. Cinder screamed out her anger, thrust out her arms, and the room threatened to buckle completely from the force of the explosion she summoned.
Ozpin knew what Salem wanted. He caught slivers of it. Glimpses between the clash of blade and cane. That horrid abyss lingering in the skies of his kingdom. It was only now that he truly felt the roiling darkness within the monstrosity. It had solidified: a clean, sharp edge marked the border between it and the cloudy night. Lightning crackled across its surface. Ever more Grimm were being ripped up from the ground below and swallowed from the sky. But what struck fear into him most, even as he twisted and fought between flying blades and crossing streams of bullets, was the line of sea-green light creeping across the middle. Twitching and fluttering like the closed eye of a sleeping man.
Black oil burst from it, pouring down onto Beacon's ruined pavilions in a sickly waterfall.
His already-strained aura wavered, and Penny tore a series of blades across his chest, each following along the other in a single slash. Ozpin cursed himself for not seeing Salem as more of a threat. He'd expected for her to make a move on the Maiden at some point, even a move to eliminate him or his academy... but this? He knew what this was: Salem wanted to poison the well. Kilgharrah was a Grimm large enough to produce the primordial ooze all Grimm were birthed from, but if Salem's forces could create an even larger Grimm with no heed of anything but sheer mass, it could flood Beacon. The corrupted oil would spill into the river feeding all of Vale.
She'd salt the earth. Leave the country a wasteland. Just like she had to her own home, once a proud civilization itself, now lost to time on a blackened continent.
A sharp flurry of stabs from his cane left Penny grabbing at her stomach and the waves of supportive fire halting, but Ozpin felt no victory. No, all he felt was the regretful realization that while he thought he was a step behind Salem, he was never close. There was no way to escape this without sacrifice: at least of his plans, perhaps more.
Ozpin knew what he needed next.
"Ruby, listen!" Torchwick stumbled back from a scythe swing that whipped the hat from his head with the air pressure alone. Her slashes were quick but simple. More important than that, they were heavy. There'd be no arguing or blocking strikes like those. With the power of one million lien's worth of Dust fading, Torchwick was busy trying to get comfortable in his own skin, ducking and dodging back from attacks that left the wind roaring in his ears.
"You don't get to hurt so many people and leave like nothing happened!" Ruby screamed. Her next swing buried her scythe completely into the bridge's roof. Before Torchwick had time to so much as raise his cane, Ruby ripped it back out, leaving a ragged scar, then fired herself forward.
Torchwick would block with his cane, but as dented and ravaged as it was, he was happy it could even fire. Meanwhile, he wasn't sure about what that red glow around Ruby's scythe was, but he had a feeling. It felt awfully similar to something he'd seen Neo pull off a couple times. He stifled a nervous laugh: he didn't think the girl had it in her.
Desperate, he threw out his hand and tried to will whatever he pulled from Ozpin's cane out. Ruby's scythe bounced off of a brief, but blindingly bright, orange shield. Ruby made nothing of it, but Torchwick grinned. He knocked her away with a rocket and stepped back, twirling his cane. He ignored the sweat cooling on his brow or his pounding heart. He had a chance!
Left lying against a steel wall, Adam gripped his head and tried to will the incessant ringing in his ears away. The air was hot enough to scorch his throat on the way down, and his vision was made of blotches of gray, black and fiery orange. He managed to get one foot under him. The roar of fire punched through the ringing, and Adam saw Cinder clearly, heading straight for him.
Cinder crashed into him. Metal crumpled behind him like paper, and Adam's world exploded into stars and pain as Cinder dragged him up the wall by his neck, suspending him above her as if he weighed nothing at all. Frantically, he clawed and reached for her arm as his aura cracked and began to falter. It was only then that he realized he didn't know where his weapon was. But as his vision began to fade, Adam's attention fell to the very arm that gripped him, and the shock alone was almost enough to keep him struggling.
She wasn't human. The skin around the wound to her arm wasn't healing but flaking away, revealing nothing more than black, writhing muscle beneath. Thin, dark smoke coiled from her injury. As if it realized the same as Adam had, even her aura was retreating from the darkness. Adam viciously kicked out at Cinder, but she stood strong through the assault. Then, at last, red flashed behind Cinder and, howling out in pain, she dropped Adam and spun to send her assailant away with a wave of flame.
The world much more quickly returned to focus for Adam, and he watched as Yang immediately rolled to her feet and held Wilt out to block another fireball. She chucked Blush at Cinder, and while she leaned out of the way, Adam snatched it from the air by its barrel and slammed it into the side of Cinder's knee. He flipped it around and aimed the barrel directly at her head by the time she hit the ground. He was out of ammo. She didn't know that.
As Yang rushed forward, Cinder's eye lit up in flames. She flashed bright enough for Adam to look away. Yet when he looked back, instead of Cinder there was...
"Wait!" Yang cried out, kneeling and reaching out for him. A second Yang. The confusion was enough to bring him and the Yang running for them pause, and that was all that the false Yang needed to send him sliding away with a beam of fire to the chest. Even if Cinder sounded exactly like Yang, her cackle as she got back up to her feet was more than enough to make the difference clear.
"You've got some nerve," Yang growled out and pointed Wilt at her imposter.
"Personally, I think I fit the blonde look better," Cinder said in Yang's own voice, yet dripping with a subtle malice that didn't befit her. She laughed and brought a hand through her hair, and Yang let out a quiet gasp: even through Cinder's disguise, her arm had not changed. Her hand was halfway between that of a human's and a black, skeletal claw. Black glass quickly swept across Cinder's hands, though, forming facsimiles of Yang's own Ember Celica. As she leaped forward to attack Yang with her own body, Adam was catching his breath. His aura was weak. Dangerously so. Fighting with this little room was only giving Cinder opportunities to pin them down.
His eyes flicked up to the Bullhead. By the grace of the Brothers, he was pushed right to it. Trying to escape would get it shot down. But it would let them get back up to the deck... perhaps not in its intended way, though.
Maybe her mom was onto something with her weapon, Yang thought as she swatted aside a glass javelin with Wilt and swung out to fend her new evil twin off. Staring at her own face pulled into a manic, toothy grin was not helping Yang focus. Even so, she growled and pressed her advantage, her one loaded gauntlet over one hand and Adam's blade in the other. She wasn't as quick as its usual wielder, but considering how she was cleaving through everything near Cinder when she moved, she had a hell of a lot more power. What was important for her though was keeping Cinder at a distance: Yang didn't know if whatever she did to look like her increased her strength too, and she didn't want to find out.
"Yang!" Adam called from afar, and she heard the thrusters of the Bullhead start up.
Yang spun around, only for Adam to rush right in front of her in a blur. Without hesitation, Yang threw her momentum and hooked him in the jaw, launching him to her side. Adam flipped back to recover and scowled. A katana of black glass was in 'his' hands.
Yang winked at Cinder. Nice try. She didn't get to voice it, however: Cinder sent slashes of fire out to chase her all the way to the Bullhead, which had already begun to move. Adam wasn't in the pilot's seat, however: he'd leaped onto it. One blast from her gauntlet, and Yang followed, just as the jet soared out of the hangar.
"How'd you figure out that one wasn't me?" Adam asked as Yang tossed Wilt back to him.
Yang shrugged. "I guessed."
Adam stifled a laugh. Beneath them, the Bullhead turned of its own accord, lining up with the deck of the airship, pockmarked with craters and holes, some now erupting in fire like geysers.
"I set a course that should follow the airship," Adam explained. "Hopefully, we can bail to it if this thing starts crashing." He jumped off onto the ruined deck, but any response from either fell short upon seeing the gigantic... thing hovering in the sky. It felt like a Grimm, but neither had seen anything like it before.
A silhouette launched itself from the burning cockpit and landed in a crouch further ahead. Cinder, once more returned to her true form, carefully appraised their stunned expressions. She stood, lips twitching back into a smile. "You have no clue what you're looking at, do you?" A chuckle turned into a vicious laugh. "And here I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, that you had some stupid plan to annoy me further!"
Scowling, Adam and Yang raised their weapons, prepared for a fight. At that, however, Cinder tilted her head to one side, smile growing more plain.
"No." Cinder held out a hand, and her glass bow reformed. "This is the end, I'm afraid. I've got better things to do." She raised her other hand, and the same sickening sensation the two felt when she'd destroyed the cockpit came pouring down. Cinder pulled her fingers back, resistance leaving her bare, inhuman arm, writhing as the flames across the airship—even what little heat was left in the night—channeled itself into a single, blinding arrow. And yet, they couldn't force their legs to move. Nausea pooled in Yang's core: black lightning, visible against the night only from a thin outline of sickly violet, crackled across Cinder's body. That wasn't just aura. But what was it? She'd done things that were surely 'magical', and yet, that felt more like the Grimm than anything else...
The fires across the airship were reduced to little more embers. A chill ran up Yang's spine. She wanted to spring forward, try to interrupt her, do something, but her very soul recoiled at the thought of approaching. The arrow flashed. Too late.
Yang jabbed out a single shot, but Cinder was gone before it was even halfway to her, having leaped into the sky. The sky burned white. Adam managed to force himself to dive to the ground, dragging Yang with him. The arrow sliced by them in a flash, siphoning the very moisture from the air, and its proximity alone leaving a warped, molten path across where they once stood. Yang and Adam rolled across the torn deck, finally able to breathe. Along the side once facing the arrow, their auras flickered, threatening to crack.
In the distance, the arrow glinted like a star, then lit the night with a roaring ball of flame that would've easily swallowed half of the colossal dreadnought if it'd hit them. The blast wave slamming into the airship was the last straw for the machine, and with a last cry of failing steel, it began to tilt downwards.
Adam looked back at the fading explosion, then to Cinder who had, without a word, already begun to form another fiery arrow from further up the falling airship. This one was dull, but Yang knew it'd be just as deadly with their low aura. Yet, as he licked over his now-dry lips, there was a glint in his eye. Yang forced herself to her feet and sighed: she knew that look. That was the same look Ruby got whenever she had a crazy plan. Sure enough, Adam tossed his gun over to her.
"Get your Semblance ready," he said.
The AAS Endurance was moments away from a freefall. The ruined bow aimed directly at the center of Beacon. A near-miss from one of Cinder's arrows would reduce it to a shotgun spray of falling metal. The Bullhead that was supposed to be their way out was struggling to follow them in the distance. But Adam was grinning. Yang couldn't help but share that confidence.