VERDICT DAY: 0800 HOURS
For just one day, the weight of the entire world rested on the shoulders of a not-quite-eighteen year-old boy.
Everyone Jaune Arc had ever known, had ever met, all of his family, his friends, his sweet silly girlfriend, all of the people at Beacon, all of them, were counting on him to save their lives, and so many more as well. Everyone he had ever even heard of in passing, who still lived, every stranger in every city, every farmer in every village, people whose names he didn't know and would never know, every infant child who had yet to be born, or even conceived, ever, from that moment until the last moment of humanity, all of them - each and every last one - had their fate cradled in the hands of Jaune Arc.
He would find himself, or he would find himself lacking, and all of Remnant held its breath as it waited for the verdict.
Jaune handled all of that unimaginable pressure about as well as one could expect from a teenage boy who, half a year prior, had been merely a listless youth loitering in a video arcade. Which is to say, he landed the White Glint at the special gantry atop the Bulwark, shook hands and nodded at the multitudinous pilots and technicians who had come to see the spectacle of his Armored Core following his grand speech on departing from Vale, quickly made his way to a lavatory in one of the hastily-erected barracks, and proceeded to vomit his guts out.
He panted heavily over the noxious mess he'd made in the toilet.
It felt like he could barely breathe. He unzipped the front of his flightsuit, hoping that would relieve the crushing pressure that felt like it was inside his chest, but to no avail.
From the first night he'd taken his father's old Armored Core out in his stead, he'd felt vaguely like a fraud, flying wildly by the seat of his pants to make up for his half-assed training as he played the part of a real Beacon pilot. But this was the part where the gig was supposed to be up, that they'd all share a laugh and then the real hero, someone brave and smart and capable would show up and take over.
Right?
A hero wouldn't puke themselves and cry because they were scared out of their mind, right? What were they going to do if they were just left with him to try to carry the day?
How could he do this?
Something fell out of the opened front of Jaune's flightsuit, glittering in the light as it started to fall. With a pilot's reflexes, Jaune quickly snatched it out of the air, before it could fall into the horrific mess of vomit in the toilet bowl.
It was a necklace, one that he'd had made with the generous salary he received for his work at Beacon. It was a polished red ruby, cut into the shape of a stylized heart, and inset in silver. Jaune had planned to give it to Ruby for her birthday after he returned home, to fasten it around her pretty neck for her, and to see her silver eyes sparkle at him with joy and affection. He wanted to join her to see the world, as she traveled it working her miracles in metal, to be there with her as the world saw just how amazing she truly was. He wanted to take that final step into adulthood with her, and give himself, body and soul, to the woman he loved.
But to do that, he'd have to go home. To see the world with her, there had to be a world to see. And most of all, there had to be a Ruby Rose to come home to.
One of the texts Captain Xiao Long had him study was a treatise penned by the Atlesian General, James Ironwood. In it, the general had described, among other things, the nature of terrain. He had taken care to emphasize that, while applicable to actual, physical terrain, it was more critical to consider it on a psychological level. One of the most important states Ironwood had described was "desperate ground."
Desperate ground was a situation where retreat was not an option, where an individual, squad, an entire army, found that the only chance they had of survival was to break through the enemy. It was on desperate ground, Ironwood had written, that a force would find themselves fighting like never before, like they'd never dreamed they could.
The Midnight Titan had put them on desperate ground.
Jaune wanted to live. He wanted to live and make a future, to see Ruby and his family and his homeland safe and prosperous and thriving. Running wasn't an option - it would only chase him down. The only way for him to see that future was to take the fight to the enemy and kill it before it killed him.
His breathing slowed to a more regular pace. His grip tightened around the necklace. He could feel where he had had the words "Trust Love" engraved deeply into the back of the silver in which the ruby heart rested.
As if a switch had been flipped, the overwhelming weight that had been crushing him, the weight of all of those people who were counting on him, abruptly felt like it was at his back, pushing him forward, granting him an unstoppable inertia.
Remnant needed a hero; in the absence of one, he would have to do, and Jaune would give it his best shot.
He stood, flushing the toilet and sending the mess away. He pocketed Ruby's necklace before zipping his flightsuit once more, then strode over to the bathroom sink. The water washed away the drying tears and he made sure to rinse his mouth out thoroughly - like hell was he riding to war with the taste of vomit in his mouth.
His hands and face washed off, his mouth rinsed, Jaune left the lavatory looking calm and composed. He nodded to Cardin Winchester, who had taken it upon himself to guard the door for his XO.
"Had to send some folks away," explained the big sergeant. "Let the man shit in peace,' I said. Some people just got no decency, I tell ya."
Jaune chuckled. "Well, when they write the history books, leave this part out, yeah? 'And lo, didst the forces of Beacon, upon reaching the Bulwark, really really need to use the toilet.'" A joke, to assure the man that all was well, and that the boy on whom all their hopes rested hadn't just been a total wreck in the lavatory.
"Heh. Maybe next time your girl will get a vision of an AC pilot's chair with a built-in toilet, eh?"
"I don't know if divine visions take plumbing into account, but I'll pass it on."
The pair stopped as they looked up at the White Glint, which had just been fitted with its special addition.
The Vanguard Overboost Pack wasn't a divinely-inspired Answer, instead being one hundred percent Ruby being Ruby. It was an array of four enormous rocket engines, each nearly as long as the White Glint was tall, surrounding a fifth which was twice the diameter of the others, all of which were fused to a frame mounted onto the back of the Armored Core.
The plan was simple, and insane. Jaune would launch himself at the enemy, as fast as he possibly could. According to Ruby, that meant speeds of Mach Two. Once reaching the Midnight Titan, he would seek and destroy the long-range artillery emplacements, to enable the air corps to bring in reinforcements. After that, his objective would be to wreak as much havoc as he possibly could, to degrade and destroy as much of the Titan's weaponry as possible, and hold out until the Titan entered the pass. At that point, the rest of the Armored Cores would jump it and, hopefully, kill it.
Desperate ground.
"You're not allowed to complain about being called 'Madlad' anymore," declared Cardin.
[/]
Within the depths of the Midnight Titan, Emerald was wracked with indecision.
Thanks to her, Vale knew that the Titan was coming, and moreover, would have a pretty good idea what it could do. Cinder's plan was simple; she was going to march down towards Vale, use a Grimm pool about a hundred miles to the west of the city to instantly create an army to screen them, and then proceed to stomp Vale flat. Mercury, Tyrian, and Emerald herself were mostly there as part of a defensive screen against Qrow Branwen, whom Cinder had told them was a skilled and dangerous adversary who might strike at them in unexpected ways.
Emerald had needed a moment to process the irony there.
At any rate, she knew that Vale would do something to try and stop Cinder, she just didn't know what. What she did know was that their attack would be her best opportunity to beat feet and get the hell out of this crazy shitshow.
Her problem was Mercury.
Getting away on her own would be a tall order as it was; bringing Mercury with her would be almost impossible. Especially since he didn't actually want to go. He was looking forward to the slaughter, with a grin on his lips and that unholy gleam in his eyes at the prospect of seeing entire civilizations laid waste before him.
If she wanted to try and take him with her, Emerald would have to drug or otherwise sedate him. Given some of the impossible things she'd seen him do, she wasn't sure that he could be drugged or sedated, a devastating uncertainty to any planned escape attempt.
Then there was the very real possibility that, even if she could sedate him, stuff his ass into the cockpit of her stolen Armored Core, and make her getaway, after she reached safety, he could very well drag her back. After all, the mysterious "Queen" behind the horrid abomination in which she rode wasn't exactly riding shotgun up in the head with Cinder. She must have a base, a lair or something, somewhere no one had ever found, and if Mercury dragged her there, she would never be able to escape. If Mercury were to be awake enough for psychological treatment, he would be awake enough to overpower anyone who tried to restrain him.
Finally, there was Qrow Branwen to reckon with.
The Valean spy had made his offer to her, and only her. Nowhere in there was any mention of amnesty, let alone recruitment, for Mercury, and from what Merc had said about his little excursion to Beacon, it was likely that the Valeans would kill him on sight.
It was a little chilling, the sheer contrast between the man she'd met in the woods and the hardened killer that Mercury had excitedly spoken of upon his return. When she'd met him, she'd found him to be observant and cunning, but also sentimental and, honestly, a bit soft. Mercury, apparently, praised him as one of the most lethal men alive, and coming from Mercury, who had killed more people than some plagues, that frightened her.
Maybe he'd just wanted to fuck her? Most men did. If not, Emerald was at a loss to explain why the old man was so nice to her.
At any rate, Emerald had a way out of this situation - but it was a lifeboat built for one. Mercury had tipped over the edge and was descending into raving madness, and all she could do was to decide if she would let him drag her down with him, or cut him loose.
She had decided, and it broke her heart.
Did it count as betrayal if he had betrayed her first?
[/]
VERDICT DAY: 0900 HOURS
The sound of a buzzer let Jaune know that it was time. The Midnight Titan had tripped one of the proximity sensors that had been airdropped into the area, and at the current rate, it would be within the range of the Vanguard Overboost Pack within five minutes.
Ascending to the top of the Bulwark, he was surprised to see the assorted Armored Core pilots from around the world, more than a hundred in total, standing at attention along the path that led to the White Glint's launcher.
"Huh?"
"Beacon, present arms!"
At Lance-Captain Xiao Long's order, the pilots of Beacon saluted Jaune as he strode towards his AC.
"Atlas, present arms!"
Winter Schnee was crisp and collected as she gave the order for the Ace Operatives under her command.
"Rangers, salute!"
Jaune didn't know the commander of the Mechrangers who had trekked from Vacuo to back them up, but he nodded to them all the same as he passed by. As he began the climb to his cockpit, he heard the officers give their respective troops the commands that would see them to their own ACs, ready to jump into action as soon as the Titan's air defenses were neutralized.
Situated within the cockpit of his AC, Jaune ran his fingers over the controls, savoring the sensation before firing up his generator. The gantry around White Glint retracted, even as the kinetic launch mechanism linked up to the bottom of the AC's feet.
"White Glint, you are cleared for takeoff. Godspeed, Lieutenant."
"Copy that, control."
Silver flames began to build up in the myriad rockets around White Glint. Jaune summoned his Aura, wrapping it around himself like a blanket. The kinetic launcher yanked the AC into the air, and as White Glint oriented itself horizontally for the flight, the rockets of the Vanguard Overboost Pack roared into life.
All of them.
Great gouts of silver flame, thirty meters long, erupted from the rocket boosters. A great boom shook the skies as White Glint was near-instantly propelled through the sound barrier, long contrails of smoke trailing behind. A heartbeat later, and that boom was echoed as the Armored Core accelerated to Mach 2.
Within the cockpit, Jaune grit his teeth against the sudden, brutal acceleration, holding steady as his viewscreens showed the terrain of the Greystone Pass whipping around him in a grey and brown blur.
[/]
"What the hell is that?!"
Emerald peered at the figure on the screen, a small white spark that was coming at them - fast.
"It looks like an AC that someone strapped a bunch of rockets to and shot at us," she reported.
Cinder glared at her balefully before turning back to the screen. "Really? They tied rockets to a single AC and sent it at the Midnight Titan? Why even bother?" She sneered. "Fine. I'll swat this gnat out of the sky, and we can move on to the real task at hand."
The hateful woman dismissed her subordinate, then sealed the hatch to her AC. She didn't control the Titan by any sort of conventional means, no dials, joysticks, or buttons slaved the Grimm to her will. Instead, the palms of her hands split open, and glistening black tubes of Grimmflesh wriggled out from them, latching onto throbbing growths that pulsated on the dashboard of her converted techno-organic machine.
Midnight gave her power, and with it, Cinder would lash back. She would hurt the world, grind it under her heel and revel in its screams, just because she could.
The Titan shrieked in agony as its lower jaw ripped apart, grotesque tatters of Grimm flesh hanging from the bones. From deep within its body, a scarlet light grew brighter, moving up the creature's throat. Lightning crackled along the beam as the Midnight Titan fired a tremendous blast of plasma into the sky.
[/]
In the cockpit of the White Glint, Jaune fired off lateral boosters, sideslipping the beam of plasma with mere meters to spare. As the lethal energy had finished bypassing him, he returned to his course, aiming straight at the Titan.
Soon, he was in range of the main battle cannon, an emplacement lifted from an Atlas battlecruiser. A shell longer than his AC was tall roared past him as he dodged that too, and then the sky was filled with death.
Cannon shells, mortars, rockets, and surface-to-air missiles all streaked towards him. Faster than conscious thought, Jaune worked the controls in an almost trancelike state, reacting on pure reflex. The White Glint had been forged for him; the course of his life had forged him for the White Glint, man and machine acting with a harmony that went beyond the merely physical. A thousand-thousand grisly deaths detonated around him, his progress traceable by the explosions left in his wake, like swiping claws left to harm only air. The White Glint escaped harm by scant inches, over and over again, and always, always, returned to point unerringly at the enemy, like a dagger aimed at a heart, roaring in with unstoppable inevitability.
[/]
Within the cockpit of her own Armored Core, which was suspended and ready to deploy from one of the carrier choppers, Pyrrha Nikos tried very hard not to hyperventilate at what the video feed was showing her on her viewscreens. She couldn't count the number of times she had been sure, absolutely positive, that one of the many, many lethal and terrible things thrown at her brother had finally hit him, only to then see him slip through with the narrowest of possible margins.
She was going to kill him. She was going to go find him, and keep him safe, and drag him back, and then absolutely kill him for putting her through this. She thought about throwing him to Ruby to let her kill him too, but then she remembered that Ruby had been the one to strap his ass to honest-to-gods rockets, and decided that she was going to kill her too.
Pyrrha was going to kill them both, then throw them into a vault or something so that they would remain alive and safe, and not give her a stroke every time they took out an Armored Core for a mission.
Of course, killing her brother to keep him from dying was a contradiction in terms, but as Pyrrha struggled to keep from panicking, it made perfect sense to her.
[/]
With Cinder snarling in frustration like an animal growing increasingly-rabid, Emerald felt it was time to put her plan into motion.
"We should get to our ACs, in case he manages to actually land," she said.
Tyrian nodded in agreement, and the three hurriedly made their way to the hangar.
"I'll hang back at first," announced Emerald. "You two engage, and I'll hit him in the back with these scramble rockets."
"It's a good plan," agreed Mercury. "Having my Emmy at my back saved my life before."
"Very well, we'll give you your shot. Just know that the Queen does not tolerate failure," warned Tyrian.
"We've got Emmy, we'll be fine," Mercury waved off the scorpion Faunus's concerns, his trust in Emerald absolute and unbreakable.
Behind them, Emerald kept her face carefully-straight.
[/]
When his FCS finally lit up with missile locks, Jaune sent off his first strike at the Midnight Titan, a spread multi-missile that launched from the White Glint at hypersonic speeds. The missile opened up to release seven smaller warheads, which then targeted various gun emplacements and missile launchers along the length of the Titan.
Distantly, Jaune noted that there weren't any point defense lasers on the Titan - whoever made it probably didn't think an enemy could get close enough that it would need them. So unopposed, his missiles scored hits, raising a line of fireballs as ammunition magazines went up in flames.
A blatting alert notified him that the Vanguard Overboost had finally expended the last of its fuel. Jaune triggered the explosive release, allowing the White Glint to shed the now-useless booster rocket packs. Without the massive rockets hurtling him forwards, he began to slow considerably, dropping from the lofty realms of the unthinkably fast and merely into the speed of the fastest Armored Core ever made.
Jaune kept moving as he closed into range with the enemy. The Titan filled his entire viewscreens at that point, the hulking fusion of human engineering and unnatural Grimm biology towering into the sky.
That close to it, he could see numerous growths, like tumors or pustules, bulging from the hide of the Grimm, throbbing and pulsating from the inside. As he locked targets and launched another salvo of missiles, from both launchers that time, the blisters on top of the Grimm's back began to burst open, revealing the dripping, congealing forms of lesser Grimm that responded to the threat to the Titan.
It was with some resignation that Jaune resolved to try to ignore them as best as he could, in order to keep on-target. The other Armored Cores would be able to take these Grimm on, when they arrived, but that could only happen if they could reach the Titan without being blown out of the sky. He lashed out with the Variable Power Laser Rifle in White Glint's right hand, each beam of searing white light blasting apart more weapons as he roared along the lengths of the Titan, doggedly fighting his way towards the enormous cannon that loomed in the distance.
His progress was slowed as more and more blisters burst open on his path, physically obscuring some of the weapon emplacements with their bulk. Like a hunting hawk, White Glint dove towards the Titan's surface before its boost array folded in on itself for close combat. Hovering just over the surface of the Grimm, the White Glint skated towards a herd of Daedroth Grimm that were still bursting forth from their blister pods. The Grimm stood as a nightmare fusion of crocodile and man, with powerful, reinforced talons at the end of long claws, and jaws full of armor-piercing, puncturing teeth.
Its arms outstretched, the Armored Core spun like a dancer in its slide. From its right arm, incandescent death burst Daedroth apart on impact, while its left hurled lead at unprecedented velocity, sending slugs the size of sedans ripping into the freshly-congealed Grimm. Abruptly, the Glint ended its spin and boost-dashed forwards, punching the Motorcobra completely through the torso of a Daedroth to fire upon the anti-air emplacement behind it.
His target destroyed, Jaune ignited the plasma edge on the Motorcobra before sending the White Glint into a vertical leap. The Daedroth was split in half from the chest up by the Climhazzard maneuver, while the White Glint rotated, acquiring FCS missile locks on the other weapon emplacements that had surrounded the anti-aircraft gun. At the apex of its leap, the bone talons of Daedroth reaching up towards the legs of the divine machine, a third missile salvo erupted from the White Glint, the smokey contrails of the spread missiles streaking downwards like the talons of a raptor.
Then, the booster array unfolded, silver wings of flame ignited once more, and the White Glint was off.
[/]
Mercury Black practically salivated as he set his stolen Armored Core in pursuit of the enemy AC. That machine had slipped past everything Cinder could throw at it, and was laying absolute waste to all of their shit, clearly making towards the big fuckoff gun.
He didn't know where it came from, who made it, or who was flying the damn thing, but Mercury knew that he wanted it. He wanted it so badly he could taste it. He would catch up to it, Tyrian and Emmy would help him pin it down, and then he would kill the pilot and take his machine for himself.
So intent was he on his goal that he never saw it coming when Emerald unloaded her electromagnetic rockets into his back.
His viewscreen flickered, the generator disrupted, and his Fire Control System shut down entirely. Drawing off of the emergency batteries, Talaria's viewscreen showed Emerald's Armored Core, Fevered, turn its scramble rockets on Tyrian's AC as well, before boosting towards the edge of the Titan.
"I'm sorry, Mercury," Emerald said, her voice crackling over his radio. "Goodbye."
With that, Fevered activated its Phantom Stealth system and disappeared.
Mercury's heart stopped in his chest for a long moment.
"Emmy?"
He was greeted by silence.
"Emmy?!"
She was gone. She was gone!
"Emmy! Emerald! Emerald!" he screamed and raved into the radio before another voice spoke to him.
"She's gone, Mercury," Cinder told him, her voice dripping with faux-concern. "That Armored Core? The one that flew? It took her. It took her away from you, Mercury, and the only way to get her back is to kill it!"
Mercury howled in grief and fury as he reignited his generator and triggered his Overboost, irrespective of the fact that the enemy AC was now far beyond its range.
"Emmy! Emmy! Give her back! Emerald!"
[/]
Jaune tuned out the raving crazy people on the radio as he finally reached his main objective. He swore, the next time Cardin, or anyone, called him crazy, he'd point them at the mission recording and those radio transmissions. It's not like normal, well-adjusted people would be crewing a cybernetically-altered giant Grimm monster, after all.
From the sound of it, one of Qrow's spies had infiltrated the defenses, and picked literally the best possible time to make her move, and some guy was taking the breakup pretty hard.
Finally, Jaune locked onto the main artillery piece on the Midnight Titan. According to Ruby's uncle Qrow, there was a panel leading from the gun to the main ammunition depot. Blowing it up would not only disable the gun, but it would wreck most of the artificial parts grafted onto the Grimm. It probably wouldn't kill it outright, but it would make it possible for the others to do so.
He hovered directly over the panel and began charging the Variable Power Laser Rifle. The panel was well-armored, and it would take a powerful hit to crack it open. The rifle quivered with restrained power, a torrent of energy locked away as the fusion generator piled it on. Finally, a resounding crack and a white flash rent the air as the armor was seared away, sloughing off in melted ruin and leaving the opening clear.
Then the White Glint rocked as it was struck by a Griffon Grimm, the creature trying to knock him away. A veritable horde of Grimm began bursting from the blister pods around the cannon, seeking to protect it with their unliving bodies, re-armoring the vulnerability with a mass of congealed Grimmflesh.
Jaune swore. He needed to get that second shot! He needed it! With the Bulwark nearly in range of the Titan's gun, he needed to destroy the cannon, in the very depths of his soul.
And the White Glint responded to that need.
Each person's Semblance was unique to them, and them alone. While Jaune didn't know it, his Semblance amplified Aura, both that of someone else's as well as his own. Everything that Aura did, it did to a greater degree when under his Semblance. Aura healing became a nigh-miraculous panacea. An Aura shield became an almost impenetrable bulwark. And Aura regeneration became near-instantaneous, allowing Jaune to continue bolstering his Aura with more than was required to actually activate his Semblance. He could form a self-reinforcing feedback loop of Aura and Semblance, with his only limitations being his physical and mental stamina.
It was why it had to be him in the cockpit of the White Glint. Not Lie Ren, nor Pyrrha Nikos, nor even Qrow Branwen. Him. Jaune Arc. Because while any of those individuals, worthy though they may have been, could have used their Aura to bring an AC to the Titan, only he could trigger the White Glint's strongest weapon, there, then, in that one critical moment where it was needed the most.
In the world that was, before the colossal Grimm, warriors could channel their Aura into whatever weapons came to hand. Whether it was a finely-crafted heirloom blade or a simple baguette, their weapons became more than mere tools, but extensions, expressions, of their very souls.
With each moment spent in its cockpit, Jaune had been calling upon his Aura to endure, unknowingly channeling it into his Armored Core. The White Glint, built at the behest of a god and at the hand of a Seer who loved him, channeled that spiritual energy with flawless efficiency, not only storing it, but amplifying it, becoming another transistor in the circuit of Jaune's Aura and Semblance.
Aura was not only a shield, but a weapon as well.
A cover slid up over White Glint's optical sensors, shielding it. Vents opened all over the body of the Armored Core; its legs and arms, the core itself, all of the sliding open with smooth, effortless efficiency. Jaune could feel the Glint integrated into him, part of his very being, and he called upon his Semblance to feed the reaction taking place within his Armored Core, stoking it, feeding it, calling on it to grow and grow.
The Griffon that had been harrying him faltered, caught up in the warping effect of that much concentrated, amplified Aura, floating listlessly as, beneath it, other Grimm began rising from the surface of the Titan.
And then, the Aura burst forth in one great explosion.
Searing golden light erupted from the White Glint, and for a moment, a second sun hovered over the surface of the Midnight Titan. Grimm burst apart, the cannon crumpled like a cheap can, and a series of explosions cascaded along the length of the Titan as a chain reaction of exploding munitions blasted much of the grafted construction clean off its hide. A great, gaping wound was scorched along the back of the colossal dragon, revealing jagged, cracked bones dripping with ichorous Grimm flesh.
Tyrian and Mercury, who had been racing to catch up, were both thrown aside by the explosion's shockwave, their Armored Cores hurtled through the air like toys batted aside by a careless child.
The Titan actually fell, collapsing onto the ground with a tremendous, earthshaking crash.
Within the cockpit of the White Glint, Jaune Arc, exhausted and with his Aura completely drained from the exertion, fell unconscious from the strain. The gleaming white AC fell from the sky, swallowed up in the enormous cloud of debris kicked up by the Titan's fall.
[/]
VERDICT DAY: 0930 HOURS
At the Bulwark, the assembled AC pilots had watched with stunned disbelief at the spectacle that they had just seen. Taiyang Xiao Long was the first to break the silence.
"That's our cue, people! Move out!"
The carrier helicopters took off, more than a hundred Armored Cores moving to finish the fight.
The general comms channel crackled as one of the Rangers from Vacuo spoke up.
"Fuck me, he did it. Pay up, Nep."
Taiyang winced at the sound of the voice of yet another kid who sounded far too young for this sort of thing. He really hoped Arc was okay; he didn't know what he would say to Ruby if he didn't pull through.
"Cut the chatter, Wukong," the Senior Ranger chided his subordinate.
"Oops. Sorry, boss."
"That means stop talking, kid." The Senior Ranger sighed. "Right. Rangers, when we hit dirt, our job is to secure the tail as on on-ramp. Means we kill the Grimm and try to pin the sumbitch down."
"The last images from White Glint suggest that the Titan fell onto its side," Winter Schnee spoke up. "Atlas Expeditionary Force, our objective is to fight our way to the side hangar entrance and do as much internal damage to the enemy as we can."
"Wolf Lance is going for the throat," announced Lance-Captain Sterling.
"Bear Lance will focus on those Grimm eggs along the forelegs."
"Shark Lance will take the back legs."
"Eagle Lance will secure the LZ for recovery and resupply, and we'll be our flying column, to reinforce as needed."
"Phoenix Lance has got the wings!"
"And Dragon Lance will screen the Atlesians' flank until the Rangers kill the tail. At that point, we'll move on to assist Phoenix in taking out the wings," finished Taiyang. "Nikos."
"Sir?"
"You have a special mission. The location of White Glint's last transmission was on the far side of the Titan from our LZ. Your objective is to locate, protect, and retrieve both Jaune Arc and the White Glint. Keep them from falling into enemy hands. Understood?"
"Yes, Captain."
It was nice when there was a militarily-plausible reason to send someone off to do what they were always going to do anyway. With Arc missing, there was zero chance that Nikos would be able to focus on the sort of formation fighting that the rest of the Lance was going to have to do, and as he'd once told the boy, it was usually more efficient to send Summer, and now Nikos after her, off to do their own thing. Speaking of which…
"Rose, do what you always do." Which was to say, find the biggest, scariest thing on the field and kill it dead.
"Roger that."
With their order of battle sorted, the forces of humanity were ready when the carrier choppers released them onto the landing zone. By then, the dust from the Titan's impact had largely settled, though a grey haze still hung in the air. The Titan itself, even when prone, towered into the sky, and as they watched, streams of writhing black pustules began to cascade towards the ground, budding off of their host.
"Nikos, on me," Summer ordered. The pair split off, boost-sliding just over the ground as they raced towards the Titan's tail. The rest of Dragon Lance approached the center, alongside the Atlesian Ace Operatives. They came to a halt, though, as they saw the sheer number of Grimm that had burst free. Armadons, Lupus, Zillas, nictating chitinous insectoid Grimm that had no name, half-formed abominations that had burst too soon, their forms indistinguishable, all of them stood in their way, a thousand-thousand grotesques on the battlefield.
"Valkyrie, take point."
The other Armored Cores of Dragon Lance shifted to the sides, making way for Nora's enormous, tank-treaded AC, Magnhild.
"You guys from Atlas better hang back a sec," Taiyang advised. "Now, Valkyrie, remember all those talks we had, where I used words like 'restraint,' 'appropriate,' and 'conservation of munitions?'"
"Sure thing, Cap'n!"
"For just right now, let's pretend that I never said any of that. You have permission to cut loose."
"Alpha strike?" Nora asked hopefully.
"Alpha strike."
Nora beamed. "Alpha strike!" Her grin took on a predatory aspect as her HUD began lighting up with missile locks, so many that they started to overlap. She began cackling with ecstatic glee as she pushed all the buttons!
There were missiles. A great many missiles. There were mini-missiles and multi-missiles, streak missiles and spread missiles, and even one great, big missile that lagged behind the others, its flight trajectory actually dipping from the weight of so much explosive material lovingly packed into its shell, only to then detonate with such force that it created a miniature mushroom cloud in its wake.
As the Grimmsmoke rose in such quantities as to turn the sky an ashen grey, Nora slumped back in her seat. "Aw, yeah. That was better than sex."
"Well, that's our opening," Specialist Schnee noted wryly. "Ace Ops on me."
Even as Winter's Moonlight AC began its boost-slide towards the Titan, more pods began to fall from the hide of the Titan.
"Oh, that's bullshit!" complained Nora. "When I blow you up, you stay blowed up!"
"Dragon Lance, after them," Taiyang ordered.
"Warning: Slipgator has been destroyed."
"Warning: Antiquity has been destroyed."
Taiyang grimaced as his computer alerted him of the loss of two Beacon Armored Cores, especially old Barty. Looking around, he saw a flight of Terrorsaurs diving in from the direction of the Titan's neck. Terrorsaurs were like the reptilian equivalent of bats, but with long, deadly-powerful beaks. Worse, like the Zillas, they were able to breathe plasma, making them lethal threats at range.
"Blake, Ren, anti-air," Taiyang ordered. Their precise and rapid-firing weapons were the best counter to Terrorsaurs, which, for all the danger they posed, were relatively fragile. "Valkyrie, to the rear. Check your fire and watch for friendlies. Cardin, with me. Let's back 'em up!"
Lance-Captain Xiao Long knew his enemy, and he knew his pilots. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of each, and as the battle heated up, he could only hope that that would make the difference.
[/]
"We've got a reading on an unknown Armored Core! Its pilot claims to work for Qrow Branwen, and her name is Emerald Sustrai."
"Let her in, she's one of mine." Qrow tried not to sound too smug at how things had gone down. It turns out, a little kindness really could go a long way after all.
He had done a lot of things in the name of protecting Remnant from Salem, ranging from the shady and legally-dubious to things that he could never, ever tell his nieces. So it was nice when things worked out a lot less awfully for once.
Now, if only his unusual run of good luck could extend to Tai and Summer coming home, that would be just perfect.
[/]
Argo and the Shooting Star raced over the rocky terrain, rapidly approaching the site where the Mechrangers of Vacuo had been set to try and neutralize the Titan's tail. They were expecting a battle. What they found was a massacre.
As they approached, they saw a Mammoth Goliath bash an Armored Core to the ground with its enormous tusks, before rearing up and crushing the core under its front feet, no doubt killing the pilot instantly. The Mammoth Goliath's trunk roared in triumph and challenge before turning its hateful red gaze on another Armored Core. That one, a yellow unit on hover legs, was specced for close-range combat, its arms furiously working a carousel mechanism on its back to switch and reload a set of four shotguns in a sort of alternating juggling action. Unfortunately, its shells didn't seem able to penetrate the thick fur and hide of the Mammoth Goliath, and the pilot was rapidly backing away. In the meantime, a second AC attempted to take potshots at it with a laser rifle and a pair of laser cannons on its back, but it didn't seem to be having much more luck than its partner.
"Pyrrha, mortars on my mark," ordered Summer Rose. "Three, two, one, mark!"
In perfect unison, the mortar units on Argo and Shooting Star opened, each AC launching six vertical missiles in rapid succession. The volley of a dozen mortars crashed into the Mammoth Goliath's head and back, stunning it and giving the Vacuoan Ranger room to retreat.
"Friendlies, clear back," ordered Summer Rose. She was sure there was some diplomatic agreement somewhere that specified who would take orders from whom in each situation - Taiyang would know - but in practical effect, no one fucked with Summer Rose.
Side-by-side, Summer and Pyrrha rushed the colossal Grimm. An ordinary Goliath was bad enough, but this specimen not only stood half-again as tall as their ACs, but outweighed them combined, several times over.
The Mammoth Goliath, seeing the pair approaching, set itself to countercharge. As one, Pyrrha broke right while Summer went left, circle-strafing around the massive Grimm. It rocked to the left and then to the right as two balls of searing hot plasma exploded against its hide, flash-evaporating Grimmflesh into smoke from its bones.
Pained and infuriated, it attempted to snatch up Argo with its trunk, only for half of its trunk to go flying away as Shooting Star used a silver plasma blade to cut it off. Then Pyrrha was in its face. Argo activated its Mirror plasma shield, forcing it into the seared stump of the Mammoth's trunk. Unable to reach the painful nuisance with its tusks, the Goliath stomped forwards, only to strain against Argo as Pyrrha activated her Overboost, her Armored Core's servos groaning under the tremendous forces they were subjected to. Her rear-mounted chain gun unfolded and began blasting into the Goliath at point-blank range.
Frustrated and angered beyond belief, the Mammoth reared up onto its hind legs, looking to crush the interloper underfoot, but that was the exact opening Shooting Star had been waiting for. Flying in over Argo, the black-and-white AC bodily smashed into the Mammoth Goliath's torso, knocking it onto its back.
Its vulnerable underbelly finally exposed, a second burst of cherry blossom pink plasma blasted the enormous Grimm apart, its strewn limbs dissipating into Grimmsmoke.
"Holy shit," one of the Vacuoans said over the radio. The pilot sounded young, too young, Summer thought with a pang.
"Language, young man," Summer corrected out of sheer Mom-reflex.
"Oops, uh, sorry, ma'am. Thanks for saving our bacon."
Summer sighed. "Report. I'm guessing your mission didn't go as planned?"
"No, ma'am."
"Dude, I think you're supposed to tell, like, name and rank," the other AC pilot spoke up, this one sounding just as adorably young as the first. Someday, they were going to push the Grimm back enough that they wouldn't have to keep throwing children at the Grimm. That thought reminded her that Jaune was still missing.
"Pyrrha, continue on your primary objective. Bring him home, Pyrrha. And yourself as well."
"Yes, ma'am. Good hunting."
Argo turned and boost-dashed away, circling to the far side of the still-prone Grimm Titan.
"Now, boys, you were saying?"
"Oh, right," the first boy spoke up. "Junior Ranger Sun Wukong and Junior Ranger Neptune Vasillias, reporting, uh, ma'am. It's, uh, not good, ma'am. We showed up here, and we were doin' all right against the normal Goliaths, but then that big one showed up, and, well, you saw the end of it, I suppose."
"Right." Summer sighed. "Here's what you're going to do, boys. You're going to sit tight, and open the general comms channel. Then you're going to tell Lance-Captain Xiao Long exactly what happened here. Once you've done that, you're going to listen to everything he has to say. Do that, and things will be all right, okay?"
"Oh, uh, yes ma'am."
"Good boys." Summer smiled. "Now, I'm going to go scale the tail and shoot the giant murder monster in the face until it dies. You boys stay safe, now!"
The two young pilots, who had been staring death in the face just mere moments before, found themselves at a loss as the mysterious woman with the Karasawa plasma rifle proceeded to deftly boost-hop her way up the whipping tail of the dragon and then speed her way along the back of the Titan.
"Dude, I think I'm in love," said Neptune, his tone reverent.
[/]
Taiyang sighed as he heard the report from the two Vacuoan rookies, apparently the only survivors of their squad. "Specialist -"
"I heard," Winter cut him off. "Go on, Captain. We'll be able to look after ourselves."
"Right. Good hunting."
"Oh, you have no idea, Captain."
"All right, Dragon Lance, form up. We're headed for the tail."
The Captain and his Sun Dragon took point, with Winchester on his wing, their combined ordinance sending the Grimm scattering before them like autumn leaves. Having brawled their way down the length of the Titan, Dragon Lance saw the two Rangers holding the area at the base of the tail against all comers. A blue mid-weight generalist was sniping Griffons out of the air with laser weapons while its partner rapid-fire shotgunned Lupus in the face until they died.
A few seconds' worth of overwhelming annihilation later, and the two surviving ACs from Vacuo were once again devoid of Grimm.
"All right, boys, come with us. We're going to climb the tail and bust up the wings."
"Can this thing really fly?" asked Neptune.
"No idea, but I'd like to take that from a 'possibly' into a 'very definitely not,'" Taiyang answered. He led the Lance into boost-hopping up the tail - more than a little awkwardly for his heavyweight AC - but before Valkyrie and Winchester could begin to make their attempt, the Titan moved, whatever control scheme ran the thing finally succeeding in putting its feet back under itself again. Standing upright, its tail lifted hundreds of meters into the air, leaving Valkyrie and Winchester far below on the ground.
The Titan's shift threw Ren's StormFlower to the side, its left leg colliding with the smoldering remains of a gun emplacement before the AC teetered over the edge. Staying calm, the pilot was able to trigger his boosters to bring his Armored Core to a soft landing on the ground below, but the indicator on his HUD showed damage to his left leg.
"Ren, Winchester, Valkyrie, are you okay?"
"My AC has taken some damage," Ren reported. "Actuators in the left leg, possibly a frame warp."
"I'm okay, but there's no way in hell we're making it up that thing with the tail off the ground," added Winchester.
Taiyang swore under his breath. Bit by bit, his Lance was being separated from one another. First Jaune, then Pyrrha, and now these three. At this point, all he was left with was Blake and two kids from Vacuo he picked up along the way. Alas, there wasn't anything he could do about it for the time being; accomplishing the mission came first. "All right. Winchester, take Ren and Valkyrie back to the LZ for repair and resupply. Ren, if they can't field repair that leg, you're to report to Lance-Captain Alabaster and assist Eagle Lance in guarding the LZ."
"Roger that, Captain." Winchester took point. "Come on, guys, let's get patched up."
"All right, you three, form up on me," ordered Taiyang. "Let's go fuck shit up."
[/]
VERDICT DAY: 1015 HOURS
The White Glint knelt on the dusty ground.
Within, Jaune Arc slowly returned to consciousness. The first thing he noted were the alarms buzzing at him. The second thing he noticed was that it was hot as hell, and he was drenched in sweat. And finally, his viewscreens were all dark, still having been shielded from the…whatever it was he'd done to take out the cannon.
Jaune felt as physically exhausted as if he'd run a marathon hauling White Glint on his back. He was drained, on a profound, spiritual level. He felt like he could fall into a bed and sleep for a week. He was also thirsty, really, really thirsty.
Fortunately, he had remembered Cardin Winchester's advice, and pulled out a sealed packet of electrolyte sports drink from one of the many pockets of his flight suit. Taking a moment to be grateful that it hadn't burst from the crazy acceleration he'd done that day, he opened the packet and greedily drank down the entire thing in three long gulps.
It didn't matter if it was as chalky as it had ever been; in that moment, it tasted to Jaune like the nectar of the gods.
Once he could take stock of his surroundings without his vision swimming, Jaune checked the status of his AC. Ah, it had overheated - understandable, considering. Between what that maneuver had done to his AC and what it had done to him, it wasn't exactly the sort of party trick he'd pull out at company picnics.
Putting his hands back around the White Glint's joysticks, the cover over his optic sensors retracted, and his viewscreen lit up.
Well, it looked like the Titan hadn't moved, so that was good news.
"Where is she!"
Well, shit.
The crazy raving man from the radio had apparently found him, and was coming in fast.
So, this was it, huh? Do a god's bidding and die immediately afterwards, thrown aside once he'd served his purpose, like a used tissue? If that were the case, he was going to have some words with said deity once he kicked it.
"You're going to give her back to me, you hear me!"
"The Queen will be most interested in this prize we've found." The second AC, the one with the quad-legs and grenade launcher on the back, boost-slid up to join the first.
Yep. Words with the god. Unkind words, even.
"Get away from him!"
He'd recognize that voice anywhere. "Pyrrha!"
"Stay down, Jaune," his sister ordered him. "I won't let them touch you."
"Oh?" The man in the quad AC cackled in amusement at her bold declaration. "And how are you going to stop us? There's two of us, and only one of you!"
In retort, a solid-state rifle shell struck the Faunus's AC, shearing away some of the armor on its core.
"The odds are gettin' better."
"Dad?!"
Jaune could scarcely believe his eyes as he saw the same Crocea Mors upgraded version that Ruby had made for him boost-sliding over the rocks.
"Dad? What the hell are you doing here?"
"Oh, it's Gil Arc!" The man in the quad AC seemed genuinely pleased at that. "At last, a real fight."
"Emmy," the madman in the bipedal AC ground out. "Give her. Now!"
It all happened at once.
Pyrrha snapped off a shot with her Karasawa, hoping to catch the raver off-guard. He side-slipped it, then activated his Overboost, rushing directly at Jaune. Pyrrha intercepted him with her Mirror shield, punishing him with a withering salvo from her chain gun.
In the meantime, Gil Arc began boost-hopping in a circle strafe over Tyrian Callows, relying on his old standby of gradually inflicting escalating damage with conventional ballistic weapons.
"Always so conventional," taunted Tyrian. "Why don't you come a little closer? I dare you."
At that, Gil did begin to boost-dash towards him, igniting his golden plasma blade, but as it swung, he abruptly reversed course, adjusting his boosters to accelerate backwards as fast as he could. The resulting jolt made him throw his plasma blade in an arc in front of him, scoring deeply across Tyrian's core and leaving a deep, blackened gouge.
"I taught them all everything they know about how to pilot an Armored Core," he responded to the tangible shock emanating from his opponent in waves. He sounded smug. "That doesn't mean I taught them everything I know."
Tyrian snarled as he activated an Overboost, seeking to close the distance himself.
Talaria used its straight-line speed to try and tempt Pyrrha into firing her Karasawa and missing, burning it out. Pyrrha, remembering her training with Jaune and how he would try to do the same, resisted the temptation, instead lashing out with her mortars and chain gun, and using her plasma shield to check Mercury when he tried to deploy his plasma blade.
Mercury backed away in frustration at his inability to get to the mech that had taken his Emerald, that had taken her away from him! Abruptly, he changed tactics, turning on a dime and raking his plasma blade across the back of the Crocea Mors' legs as he blitzed past him.
The searing silver blade took out both of the leg boosters on the AC, dramatically limiting Gil's mobility and letting Tyrian finally catch him. A cross of the twin violet plasma blades that made up his AC's arms, and the bottom half of the faux Crocea Mors fell away.
"What do you have to say now, Mister Legend?"
"This."
A last-ditch trick for enemies in-close, Gil and Bugs had long ago figured out how to rig missile launchers to detonate their entire payloads in one go. With nothing left to lose, Gil flipped that switch, and the new, multi-missile payload of a modern missile launcher went off directly in the face of Tyrian's AC.
[/]
A competent pilot, or commander, could have made best use of the resources at hand, to salvage the situation for the Midnight Titan. With the power at its disposal, the careful application of its abilities could have seen it through even this monumental effort against it.
But Cinder Fall was not a competent pilot, nor commander. She was a raging sadist with a tenuous, and fraying, grasp of reality, an overwhelming thirst for power at all costs, and at that moment, a soul-deep dread of what Salem would do to her if she managed to somehow lose this battle and see the Titan defeated before it ever even caught a glimpse of Vale.
She panicked, and the Titan responded to that panic.
It was not as effective a response as it could have been. But with power such as the Midnight Titan had at its disposal, even a botched effort could be devastating indeed.
[/]
"What the hell is that?!"
"Ace Ops, retreat!"
"What?! But Clover -"
"No arguing! Run or die, fool!"
[/]
It began with a flash of red.
Spurred on by the surge of fear and panic from the human mind so excruciatingly grafted to it, the Midnight Titan summoned up a beam of plasma and fired it directly at its own feet.
Wolf Lance died immediately, in their totality, a dozen Armored Cores and the brave men and women who piloted them, obliterated, rendered into the past tense in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
A third of Bear Lance perished in the spillover from the plasma, as they tried to contend with the scores of Grimm that had dropped from the Titan's hide.
In its blind panic, the Titan swung its head, its long, serpentine neck causing it to carve wide swaths out of the mountains surrounding the Greystone Pass. With a downward, lolling swing, the beam scythed down across the staging ground.
[/]
Beacon's support staff never considered themselves heroes. Glory was for the jockeys who went out in their Armored Cores; they were just ordinary men and women who had a job that simply needed to be done.
Technicians, mechanics, cargo pilots, all of them had flown into a combat zone in order to keep Beacon's ACs fighting. Flying in munitions, carrying out field repairs, enacting reloads, all of these and more the support staff did with muted efficiency.
They had neither warning nor defense when the light of red death fell upon them.
Scores died in an instant, their bodies flash-evaporating from the unspeakable temperatures that overtook them.
Cardin Winchester never saw it coming, facing away from it as his AC was. All of the Executioner's armor plating may as well have been tissue paper in the face of it.
Ren did see it coming, but with StormFlower's leg damaged as it was there was no way that he would be able to avoid it.
He sighed, deeply, accepting his end. He wondered if he'd done enough with the time that he had that his parents would be proud of him.
Then, instead of a red glow, his viewscreens were filled with grey and pink.
"Nora?!"
Then the light became too intense and his viewscreens went dark, his optics burned out by the luminescence around them.
Ren took a breath. Then another.
Armored Core pilots were trained to remain within their ACs whenever in an active combat zone. This not only served to protect them, as the cores were the most heavily-armored component of the mech, but it also simplified search and rescue operations.
Ren didn't care. He tore open the hatch to his Armored Core and crawled out. The air was still, and heavy with ozone, the only sound the distant noise of fighting carried by the wind. He leapt from his Armored Core, uncaring who saw as he used his Aura to cushion his fall. As soon as his boots touched dirt, he staggered forwards into a run. He need to see…he needed…
The front half of Nora's Armored Core was gone.
Only the slightest bit of her torso's armor plating, the heaviest available, had survived the merest brush of the Midnight Titan's breath.
Nora was gone.
Ren couldn't breathe. His knees hit the dirt as he stared, unblinking, his mind unable to comprehend what his eyes were showing him.
Nora was gone. And Ren's world was gone with her.
[/]
Taiyang could only listen in mute horror as his AC's computer listed the dead. It had been going for almost a minute, as he stared at the site where he'd sent half his Lance to go die.
"Warning: Absolution has been destroyed."
"Warning: The Suspicious Chicken has been destroyed."
"Warning: Ivory Keys has been destroyed."
"Warning: Stardust has been destroyed."
"Warning: Tempest has been destroyed"
"Warning: Moondancer has been destroyed."
"Warning: Fulcrum has been destroyed."
"Warning: Gianduja has been destroyed."
"Warning: Sharp Retribution has been destroyed."
"Warning: Executioner has been destroyed."
"Warning: Magnhild has been destroyed."
The last two broke Taiyang's heart. Two years prior, a fresh-faced batch of kids, straight out of pilot school, entered Beacon, eager and excited to start long careers protecting people from the Grimm. And those kids had walked right into a meat grinder.
Winchester, especially, had trusted him to lead him through the absolute hell of war. He had once overhead another Beacon recruit ask the boy how he'd survived when no one else had. Cardin had answered that he recognized that his Captain was smarter than him, more experienced then him, and that he survived by dint of 'doing what Captain said when he said it.' And Taiyang had sent him to die. An entire graduating class of Vale's pilot school was dead on his watch.
Poor Nora had never had anyone except Ren…the thought faltered as he realized that his radio had fallen silent after listing Magnhild's destruction. That meant that Ren, and possibly Velvet as well, were still alive, if their Cores were intact enough to keep broadcasting.
Well. He'd pick them up on the way out.
"Prepare to withdraw. Our part in this battle is over."
"Captain?" Blake asked, the last of his Lance under his actual command.
"We're leaving, Belladonna."
"We can't!"
"Our munitions are spent, our position is untenable, and I'm not…" Taiyang swallowed against the lump in his throat. "We accomplished our objective here." They had successfully cracked apart the bones at the base of the wings, a success that seemed paltry in the face of their losses.
"The Titan still lives," argued Belladonna. "Our objective isn't finished yet."
"Tai," Summer's voice sounded over the radio. "There is one more thing you can do."
"I know," sighed the Lance-Captain. "I'll lead these ones to the Bulwark, then come back for Pyrrha and Arc. I promise."
"No, it's not that. Tai, I…I think I can end this. But to do it, you're going to need to keep the Grimm off of me."
"Summer, I can't…I can't lead any more kids to their deaths," he croaked.
A silence fell after his announcement.
"Then follow."
"Belladonna?"
"With deepest respect, Captain, we are not children. Cardin told me…we all knew what was at stake when we set out on this mission. The Titan dies or we do. There is no in-between. Therefore, in light of the Captain's emotionally-compromised state, I, the Crown Princess of the Kingdom of Menagerie, am assuming command of this…unit," she declared. "I will go fight at Summer Rose's side, to give her the cover she needs. Rangers of Vacuo, are you with me?"
"All right!" Sun Wukong, who had been crushing on the gorgeous Faunus princess more than a little since her big announcement hit all the CCNet shows, was eager to agree.
"Let's get it done," his friend agreed, albeit in a far more reserved fashion.
"Well, Lance-Captain, if you wish to preserve our lives, I'm afraid the only way to do so is to accompany us and fight like hell."
With that, the Crown Princess of Menagerie began her long boost-slide journey towards the Titan's head.
Taiyang gave one last look at the smoldering remains of the staging ground, taking a moment to appreciate that he'd kept Yang out of this battle. If she had died too, he would have shut down completely. With a deep sigh, he turned the Sun Dragon towards the Titan's head, and followed.
[/]
Summer sighed as her radar confirmed the arrival of her reinforcements. Her Taiyang was such a good man. That same sensitive soul that made him so well-suited to protect and cultivate young pilots also made each loss suffered that much more devastating to him. He couldn't turn it off, and while it had paid great dividends in building up Beacon's roster with their rookies surviving, in situations like this, one needed to find their inner cutthroat bitch, to get the job done.
Of course, "cutthroat bitch" was Blake Belladonna to a tee, which is part of why Summer liked her. She would go far as a Queen one day.
But that day was not today, and today, they needed to win.
She could feel it, something that had been building inside of her for her entire life, waiting to be set free. And now, with her husband and the young pilots taking on the Grimm for her, she had the space to do so.
Summer popped the hatch to her AC, climbing out to stand upon the core. She stared out at the writhing, snakelike neck of the Midnight Titan, which had just caused so much grief to so many.
She remembered the first time she had lifted a toddler Yang in her arms, the baby girl staring up at her with beautiful big violet eyes full of love and trust and adoration, and spoke her first word: "Mama."
She remembered her little Ruby, only eight years old, zooming around Beacon's hangar the day she was first allowed to work on a real Armored Core part.
She remembered holding Pyrrha in her arms the day she met her father, feeling her hot tears and vowing to do for the young woman what her birth mother no longer could.
She remembered the days of love and laughter spent with Tai, Qrow's sardonic humor, and even the biting edge of Raven, and in her heart, she forgave her pseudo-sister and wished she would just come home.
Summer Rose was filled with love, and light, and hope, and in that hope, a power came forth from her. A silver, celestial light erupted from her eyes, washing over the Grimm dragon.
It shouldn't have worked. It hadn't for others of her kind before. But she didn't need to turn the entire Titan to stone.
Only the neck. Only a part of the neck.
A ring of Grimmflesh just below the base of the dragon's skull turned to stone, and as the head whipped and thrashed in its berserk frenzy, that ring of stone refused to bend or yield. As a result, flesh tore from stone from the stresses of the whipping neck.
The Midnight Titan decapitated itself.
The head and stone ring fell to the floor, hundreds of feet below, with a resounding crash.
Summer wobbled, slightly woozy as her eyes returned to normal, and she felt it prudent to return to her AC's cockpit. Best not to go through all that bother only to tumble to her death, after all.
[/]
Cinder felt an icy hand of dread clench around her heart as she realized that her connection to the Titan had been severed. As the head of the Grimm Dragon began to dissolve into Grimmsmoke, she spurred her AC into flight. She knew of the last-ditch failsafe that Arthur Watts had installed into the Titan's Hidden Fire reactor, and she wanted to be nowhere near it when it went off.
There was no way that she could return to Salem, not after a failure this spectacular. Fortunately, she still had Midnight, so if she could just find somewhere to lay low for a while and build up her own rival network…
Her central viewscreen shifted to an image of Salem herself, the Queen of the Grimm. Her skin was as pale as milk, her veins as black as night, and her eyes as hatefully red and glowing as the Grimm she created.
"Cinder," she said, shaking her head. "Cinder, Cinder, Cinder. If you're watching this, it means that you've either failed in your task, decided to desert me in some misguided attempt to usurp me, or both. You silly, stupid little girl. Did you really think to use my own creations against me?"
Cinder felt a sudden, sharp agony in her hands and forearms as the Grimm implants that had enabled her to control Midnight and the Titan began to devour them, scouring the flesh from her bones. She shrieked as the Grimm skeletonized her forearms, curling back around to peer at her.
"I have no use for someone who has failed so utterly. Well. Not as you are, at least. Fear not, Cinder, as I will put what remains of you to better use."
With that, the Grimm implants lunged for Cinder's eyes. They burst apart in a gout of ocular viscera and gore.
As the monsters bore through her orbital sockets, Cinder screamed and screamed and screamed, with not a single soul to hear her.
[/]
The ground shook as the Midnight Titan collapsed, dead.
"Wait, is it -"
Mercury took advantage of Pyrrha's momentary distraction to Overboost past her, dashing behind the White Glint in an attempt to burn out its cockpit and slaughter its pilot.
"No!"
Inside the cockpit of Argo, Pyrrha's hand shot forth, out of sheer instinct. Much as her brother's had done earlier, Pyrrha's Semblance responded to her moment of sheer need. A black corona surrounded Talaria, halting it in mid-air.
The Armored Core's booster engines shrieked in protest, even as blood began to trickle from Pyrrha's nose at the strain. With one final, almighty shove, Talaria was sent flying away from Jaune, its left arm - and the plasma blade it carried - shorn away under the force of Pyrrha's powers over electromagnetism.
Pyrrha panted heavily, exhausted and drained. As her vision dimmed, she was rewarded with the sight of the White Glint standing once more.
"We need to leave!" Tyrian told his companion. His Armored Core was in even rougher shape, with its right arm gone, a leg missing, and big holes in his Core exposing it to open air.
"Emerald!"
"The Queen! The Queen will know how to save her! Come, we must go to her!"
With one last baleful look, the two renegade Armored Cores turned and boost-slid away as quickly as they could.
"All units, all units, retreat from the Titan. I repeat, retreat from the Titan, and prepare for extraction. The Hidden Fire reactor's going to blow!"
"Oh hell."
Turning, Jaune saw what was left of his father's Armored Core. There wasn't much left, just a head and a left arm mounted to a crumpled Core. With the White Glint's flight capabilities, he could take one, and only one.
Despite everything, Gil Arc was still his father, still the man who raised him…but Jaune's choice wasn't a choice at all. If Gil was a decent man, he'd want his daughter saved over himself. And if he wasn't, that would make the choice even plainer.
Jaune carefully maneuvered the White Glint's forearms under the arms of Argo. His booster array unfolded, and silver wings ignited, taking him and his sister far, far away.
He tried to ignore the bitter feeling of abandoning his father to die.
[/]
Velvet was alive, though her Armored Core wasn't worth salvaging.
The bunnygirl pilot had survived by dint of her oversized plasma shield, which had worked just enough to preserve the structural integrity of her Core's cockpit. She was in shock, though, at the loss of her entire Lance and all of her friends.
Taiyang found Lie Ren still kneeling, unmoving, in front of Nora's destroyed AC. He put a hand on the Mistrali youth's shoulder.
"I'm sorry, son. She's gone. We need to go now, that thing's gonna blow."
Ren looked at him, the very picture of devastation. It was a look Taiyang had seen before, but it always, always hurt him to see it on the face of one so young.
Then Ren looked back to the remains of Magnhild. His intent was clear; he was staying.
Taiyang didn't have the time to argue; any longer and the reactor might go off, or the chopper pilot might lose his nerve and take off, dooming them both.
Ren never saw it coming. A textbook-perfect chop to the neck, a brachial stun that disrupted the flow of blood to the brain, sent Ren crumpling towards the ground. Taiyang caught him as he fell, then pulled him onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry.
Booking it to the chopper as fast as he possibly could, he unceremoniously chucked Ren aboard, then hopped in himself. Two hard thuds on the hull signaled the pilot to take off. As they flew away, Taiyang raised his hand in salute to the wreckage of Magnhild. He hoped that somewhere, somehow, Nora knew that her boy was safe.
The helicopter flew on, beyond the Bulwark, which was itself being evacuated, with no one knowing how big the detonation would be. As they passed the concrete structure, Taiyang heard a voice on the chopper's cockpit radio.
"This is White Glint. I've got Pyrrha."
Taiyang slumped in relief, both at the sound of the voice and the news that it bore. Tears began to well in his eyes.
"Arc. I can't tell you how good it is to hear you."
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Gil didn't begrudge his son's decision.
His life was over anyway. At least it would all be over soon. No more shame, or guilt, or lies. All the strains and pains of life would fade away.
His children were safe. Nothing else mat-
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Remnant's first nuclear detonation was a roughly fifteen kiloton explosion. The intense heat and pressure vaporized everything within a mile radius of the Midnight Titan's body. Not long afterwards, a black rain fell in the Greystone Pass.
Arthur Watts would claim the results a disappointment, and vow to do better with his next device.
[/]
VERDICT DAY: 1300 HOURS
Yang fidgeted as she tried to wait patiently. According to her Uncle Qrow, the battle was over, and they had won, so what was taking so long?
The first thing she realized was just how few Armored Cores were making the return trip. Of roughly a hundred ACs deployed, fewer than thirty returned.
She relaxed as she saw the familiar sights of her parents' ACs - while Uncle Qrow had said they were all right, it wasn't until she could see them all right that she could relax.
Where was Pyrrha?
Reunions were occurring all across Beacon's hangar. She saw Ren without Nora. It felt weird, and horrible, to realize that they would never be "Ren and Nora" again.
Cardin was gone.
Then Jaune's AC flew into the hangar, with Pyrrha's bronze beauty in its arms. Ruby's boyfriend left his AC and went over to Pyrrha's, helping her out and putting her arm over his shoulder to assist her walking.
Pyrrha smiled at her girlfriend, her face caked with dried blood. "Hello, Yang. I made it."
Verdict Day was over, and it had been decided in humanity's favor.
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