[!] Bird's Not The Word: Raven returns to the tribe...and considers. She rarely agrees with her brother, but she does respect his opinion...why does he speak so of her daughter's team?
[!] That Team: Once, it was called "Pyrrha's Team," but not anymore. Everyone knows of them. Pyrrha for obvious reasons, but...they're all something. Some remember Nora charging into the front lines of the White Fang. Some remember Ren calling out ambushes moments before they could happen. Some remember Jaune picking them up out of the dirt...but everyone remembers them for something. And when the battle was over, they didn't stop – they just found new tasks. [JNPR has a ripple effect on the student body. They find themselves fighting just a bit harder, working just a bit longer, doing just a bit more, even if they can't explain why...slightly increases the morale of Vale as a whole, without making JNPR noticeably famous. Additionally, reduces the effects of hostile subterfuge in Vale.]
The lab remained eerily silent as they left. The sound of their footsteps in the Grimmsblood echoed through the now-empty halls, and the corpses they passed – this time, they remained unmoving. At the door, just before they entered the snowstorm once again...Blake turned back. Just once.
She stared at the empty hallway, filled with seeping darkness, and she felt...empty. Drained. But she'd never forget this place.
Leave this place, Blake.
She blinked. Obsidian?
Then...it shall be destroyed.
The others paused, looking towards her – except, no, they weren't looking towards her. They were looking towards Obsidian.
"What does that mean, exactly?" Weiss' gaze was intense and sharp...but desperate at the same time.
The function of this place has concluded. There is no need to delay its destruction.
"You intend...to destroy it yourself." Ironwood's face...Blake couldn't quite place the look. She had a feeling he was trying not to show what he was feeling.
Yes.
"Is that...safe?" Ruby toyed with the edge of her cloak. "I mean – won't there be side effects?"
No. Not to destroy this location. Not after all that has occurred here; to target this precisely will not be challenging.
For her part, Blake merely nodded. "How far do we need to go?"
Leave the storm behind.
With that, she stepped out into the snow without a second thought.
"Hey, Blake, wait!" Yang was beside her in a moment, radiating the same soft warmth she had on their approach. The others trailed behind her, quickly catching up into formation. "Look, I'm not going to say I'm not excited to see this place gone either, but...don't run off."
"She's right. The enemy may have left other surprises in store." Winter's voice was professional, but she could hear the rebuke in there nonetheless.
She bowed her head slightly. "...You're right. Sorry. I'm just...still a little messed up after all of that, I guess."
"Understandable," the General allowed. "Still...what exactly is Obsidian planning? How much collateral damage is likely to result?"
Little. The facility and the contaminated ground shall be destroyed. Beyond that, the damage will be minimal.
Ironwood's eyes narrowed at the wording. "The ground? What exactly are you planning?"
It will be destroyed.
"Mother doesn't lie, General." Penny smiled, if faintly. "If she says the collateral will be minimal, you should trust her word."
He pursed his lips...but nodded.
Blake turned forward, and pressed on into the snowstorm.
The moment they cleared the storm, she stopped and turned, staring into the whirling snow with single-minded focus.
Yang stood silently next to her, close enough that their shoulders brushed up against each other. The support was...touching, actually.
Ironwood had begun to pull out a Scroll, only to pause as he watched their team assembling. "You believe it will be visible?"
Blake nodded, but didn't speak. She was focused on something else. A...tingling, electric feeling. It swelled in her chest, then snapped through her body in an instant, leaving the hairs on her arms standing straight up and her back ramrod straight.
Beside her, she could feel Yang stiffen at the same moment, and she heard Weiss' sharp intake of breath.
You respire. Your breath, your power, swirls and congeals. Touched by the Arbiter and your mortals, the lab lights up to your senses like a beacon.
And, like a beacon, it calls to you. You consider, and you measure, and you prepare, heedless of the arcs of white-hot energy that streak and scatter across your shell. You identify the distance between your Arbiter and your target, ensuring that the detonation will not harm her.
Armed with knowledge, you begin to wrap your power carefully around a spine. Mistakes are unacceptable. You will not hurry.
As you twist space around your projectile, you feel a sense of...anticipation?
...Ah. Far above, your Arbiter awaits.
You will not disappoint.
Yang felt a sense of...vertigo, almost. Like she was staring at a drop she can't imagine the bottom of. Before her eyes swirled the same snowstorm from before, but her gut screamed at her that something is coming.
If she didn't know what it was, she'd be terrified. Instead, the only emotion she could describe was...excitement? Anxiety? Even as her skin prickled with gooseflesh, she wanted to see it. She wanted to watch that place burn into nothing.
The smile blossomed on her face before she even realized it. After a moment, she reached one hand over, slipping it into Ruby's. Her sister squeezed her hand, once, but never looked away from the storm.
Yang didn't, either.
Not even when she reached out and grasped Blake's gauntlet.
Within Ruby's chest, her heart hammered. The one that beat whenever she relies on her magic; the one that warned her in Dreams when magic is coming. That spark that was always there, even when it's so quiet she doesn't remember it.
There was something in the air. Like...a pressure, pushing down on her shoulders, but also pushing up against her from below. It reminded her...it reminded her of that moment in a Dream, so long ago now. Of watching Spekkio and Obsidian standing before her. Of watching the air tear itself apart as their magic collided, again and again.
When Yang grabbed her hand, she squeezed it once, but she couldn't look away. Her eyes just...wouldn't budge from the storm. Like they were waiting, too.
But when she reached out blindly to her right, Weiss' hand was there waiting for her already.
Weiss was shaking. She'd never admit that except in the depths of her own mind, but...it remained true. The feeling in the air, pushing down on her like the pressure of the ocean...she'd felt its like once before. When Cinder had advanced upon her, her killing blow broken only by the arrival of Blake.
And of Obsidian. Yet, the feeling now...it dwarfed it. A memory sprang to her mind, suddenly: they had asked Obsidian how much power they'd felt, versus how much Ozpin had felt. Standing here, now, she began to wonder how much Ozpin truly had felt. Because...if he'd felt something like this storm brewing? She understood his hesitance to trust, now.
When Ruby's hand laced into her own, she grasped it before her mind could catch up.
Penny basked. The swirls of her mother's power danced through the air all around them, pulling inward towards that single point concealed by the storm. That place of...of mad pain, where answers had been stolen from the depths of suffering. That place that, once upon a time...had been the site of her birth.
...They had taken all they could from it. There was nothing left except the bad. So, now...Mother would wipe away that evil, and leave behind a blank slate.
Penny found herself smiling again. She was ready. Let Mother show the Grimm the consequences of their actions. And, next time, Mother wouldn't have to be the one to show them.
We will, she thought as Blake's hand slowly slid into hers.
Winter watched as each of the girls linked hands. The looks on their faces...their senses must be telling them something.
For once, she found herself in the position of being the one with no information. Of not truly knowing what was coming. She frowned, turning to look back into the storm, narrowing her eyes in an attempt to understand what they were staring at...
It wasn't until she shivered involuntarily that she realized how small she felt. Like something was breathing down her neck, something that dwarfed her in sheer scope. She fought down the irrational urge to glance behind her as her instincts screamed that there was danger. Interminable, endless danger.
And when the snow suddenly whipped past her, and the moment of silence consumed her world...her breath caught in her chest.
Ironwood stared straight ahead, braced for whatever was to come. Yet, if he was honest with himself...his expectations were low. He understood that Obsidian had done nothing but impress the girls from the very beginning of their relationship. He understood the...intimidating nature of its powers, and the sheer scope of its physical form. He didn't doubt for even a moment that this being was capable of destroying the facility, especially given the – admittedly vague – explanations of its newly strengthened link to the location.
But despite his willingness to accept that...the storm surrounding the facility was the worst he'd seen in years. It was immense. Miles in diameter. He just...didn't expect the damage to be visible, in the end.
And yet...there was something about the way the girls stood, shoulder to shoulder, hands linked. Something about the look upon their faces, as they peered into the swirling storm. He was reminded of the four of them toiling away in the forge, painstakingly crafting a key to a door he hadn't believed existed. He was reminded of them standing in a room full of unborn Grimm, calling out to a creature he was increasingly certain he didn't understand.
He frowned. Perhaps –
His hand whipped to Due Process' grip as the snowstorm exploded past him, buffeting him with icy winds for several seconds –
– and it was over. For a moment, the air was clear, and the snowy plateau was deathly silent. He could see the blotchy, uneven circle of blackened snow that surrounded the facility. And then...
...if he had blinked, he would have missed it.
It didn't detonate unevenly outward like an explosive. Nor was it consumed in flame from within.
In an instant, the tiniest moment, the lab became white. A perfect sphere that blossomed from nothing, consuming the entire lab without regard for its structural strength.
It's...it's like the air...just became energy, his mind reeled.
The white sphere crept ever outward, disturbingly silent. Then, all at once, the sound hit him. Like the air, the world was screaming in pain. Or defiance. A moment later and the hissing drowned out all else, steam exploding outward in an enormous cloud as the snow realized it was being vaporized.
He tensed, instincts screaming at him to do something before the cloud of steam reached them –
– and it dissipated, a few dozen feet from where they stood. The sound...the sudden absence of sound after the cacophony of the lab's destruction was almost painful.
He blinked once. Then again, his mind unwilling to accept what he saw.
Where the lab had once stood on the coast, there was now a perfectly round gap. As the seawater rushed in to fill the hole left behind...even from this distance, he could see the water bubble and boil.
He stared. It looks...just like that time. He remembered a trusted subordinate, testing the function of the Sword of Destruction. He remembered the empty hole in Remnant that was left behind.
...
"It is done."
It wasn't until that voice rippled out from Blake's shadow that he realized how silent it was.